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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bilharzia" data-source="post: 8073329" data-attributes="member: 6970322">I like your list of principles but number (1) is tricky, because for some people combat itself is not fun at all, or they want it resolved as abstractly as possible and that's all that counts, other players will enjoy the detail and the moment to moment action. Anyway, my point being this is going to vary significantly person to person.I'm surprised you have not come across GURPS or any RuneQuest variant in your list. I've very little experience with GURPS but lots of people swear by it, it's certainly too involved for me. As far as detailed combat systems goes RuneQuest 6 or now Mythras is the one I have most experience with. Going through your list2) Characters should have meaningful choices to make in combat.There is quite a lot here. One of the features of Mythras that distinguishes from other BRP games such as earlier RQ editions and BRP games like Call of Cthulhu is Special Effects. These in part tell the 'story' of the combat, so that a fight is generally won by who gains the advantage from the successful use of special effects. Examples of these effects include -Trip Opponent - which if successful will send your opponent prone, once you are prone your skills are halved so this is serious.Choose Location - since the system is location based you can decide to target a vulnerable part of the body if it is lightly or un-armoured, or you might target a limb if you are trying to disable a weapon arm.Bypass Armour - if you are lucky and roll a critical you can use this effect to ignore the armour of wherever you hit. Critical hits can be devastating.Disarm Opponent - you can attempt to catch and fling the opponent's weapon away.There are many more. These are the star of the system but one of its bugbears - there are a lot to choose from and it can lead to analysis paralysis for new players. The best way I have found of handling this is with GM guidance - present a choice of 2 effects to a player when it comes up, gradually they will get the idea and make their own choices. Using NPCs' special effects against players will also teach them the value and tactics available with these effects.Beyond special effects, weapon choices and tactical choices can mean a lot. Shields are the only weapon which can actively parry missile weapons, so although that Dane Axe is lethal and can chop off someone's arm, if you loose an arrow at the Dane Axe wielder, they can't parry it. Their only defence is to attempt to use their evade skill, which will put them prone. Evading is also harder to succeed at than parrying. Shields can also passively block several locations, this means if a location is struck that is protected by a shield it will stop the damage as if the blow was parried.3) The system should make real world sense.Fitting armour to a PCs body, weapons that work as you would expect, shields which protect your body, and more so the larger they are, armour which absorbs damage rather than making you harder to hit(!) all come into play. Feedback from HEMA and other martial arts practitioners suggests that the special effects system evokes the sense of finding and exploiting an opening during an exchange, I don't have any real fighting experience but the system does have a realistic feel in that sense.4) Tied directly to the game's skill resolution mechanic.Combat styles are treated as a professional skill and work like other skills. All skills are based on a d100 percentile system. A range of skills may come into play during combat - Endurance might be tested if you take a serious or major wound, a fail on Endurance may stun you or knock you out. The Brawn skill may be tested if an opponent attempts to trip you and so on.5) Skill matters, but actual combat is highly variable, and the most skilled combatant usually, but doesn't always, win. In Mythras weapon skills are grouped into a collection of weapons that make sense for a learned Combat Style, as an example a Roman legionary might have a "Legionary" style which includes gladius, scutum and pilum. That one Combat Style skill is rolled when those weapons are used. Combat Style covers both attack and parry. A typical exchange is an attack roll from an attacker countered by a parry from the defender.6) Damage matters, as weapons are DANGEROUS. In the real world, a single blow from a dagger can kill you.Mythras is location based for a PC or creature body, each location may have Armour Points if armoured or tough-skinned as a creature, each location also has HP. Hit points are fairly low and never increase. For example a strictly average human has 4HP in their head, a dagger's damage is 1d4+1 without any character damage bonus for strength and size, so a dagger hit of 4 or 5 to the head means a serious wound which could knock you out. A Dane Axe does 2d6+2 damage and with that can take off a limb or head with one hit. Armour protects from damage point-for-point, so the highest plate armour with no enhancement is 8AP, mail is 6AP and so on. Critical hits can bypass armour.Human damage bonus (from the strength and size of the character) ranges from -1d4 if you are exceptionally weak and small to +1d6 if you have 18 in both STR and SIZ, very rare. A more typical damage bonus is +1d2 or for a strong fighter +1d4, this damage bonus is added to your melee damage roll, so that dagger would do 1d4+1d2 for a slightly above average fighter.Although as a whole the combat system is fairly complex, there are ways to pare it down a little. I don't use weapon Reach or the Cycle/Round system for example and I use a slightly faster way of determining attack/parry exchanges. For some people it is indeed still going to be too complex but I appreciate the piecemeal armour/hp system, the differentiated weapons and I enjoy how dramatic combats can be, with a story emerging from the choices, mechanics, chance and circumstance of each melee.There's a free cut-down version "Mythras Imperative" <a href="http://thedesignmechanism.com/downloads.php" target="_blank">Downloads</a> which gives you character creation and the core rules system including combat.</blockquote>

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