GMMichael
Guide of Modos
So, anyway, the Risk one-roll combat somehow becomes the way combat is decided in D&D. Or N.E.W.
If it's used per-duel:
The two sides are compared, getting a d6 for having the better weapon, better armor, higher attack/combat skill, more hit points, and being larger. Attacker's (PC's) dice are capped at 3, defender's dice are capped at 2. If either side has 0 dice after this phase, auto-die. If the defender beats all of the PC's dice, game over. A degrees-of-success system determines the outcome for the PC, with three outcomes: win with all dice, win with some dice, or lose. Note that the PC automatically survives a battle by having 3 dice/advantages.
If it's used per-combat-phase, the same system can be used:
Each party gets a d6 for having the best weapon, best armor, highest combat skill, most pooled hit points, and largest combatant. Maybe N.E.W. would award a d6 for fastest combatant instead. Party leader rolls, TPK indicates an ominous, act 2 shift in the plot.
Some good outcomes from using this system are that PCs stop to think about various combat factors, instead of just whether they're at full hit points. If you role-play up to the deciding point, the die-roll, it can be both interesting and exciting. But it's obvious that lots of factors don't influence the outcome, and the game's writer loses most of the combat chapter to the cutting-room floor (editor's pen?).
As it stands, this might just be how I run my future D&D non-boss combats...
