My new combat variant; seeking others' opinions!

[Galethorn]

Ok, so I've been working on a new combat system for most of the afternoon, and I think I have all of the important basics down, and I'd like some opinions on the following;

1. How much more complicated does it seem than the 'standard' HP/AC system? What about the low massive damage threshold in d20 modern? What about Wounds/Vitality? What about the most recent incarnation of the Grim-n-Gritty system?

2. Does it seem balanced, based on the nature of the setting that I describe later on?

3. Any suggestions to improve it, beyond the simple 'just use system X instead!' that gets thrown around a lot, or the unhelpful 'but the PCs might die!'?

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Ok, so those are my questions, and here's some background....

1. I patched the system together from what I liked best from Grim-n-Gritty and the Injury ('save vs. damage') variant in UA.

2. It's supposed to be for a very dark setting where combat is supposed to be very risky and deadly, and the PCs aren't supposed to be heroes by virtue of killing a lot of 'bad guys' so much as not getting killed by the bad guys.

3. The way armor works isn't listed in the combat document, but here's a brief breakdown: Armor gives a bonus to Resilience (+1 for light, +2 for medium, +3 for heavy). Enhancement bonuses work how you might suspect; +5 heavy armor would give +8 to Res (+3 armor, +5 magic). However, magic items would be relatively rare, making +5 armor about as rare as hen's teeth.

4. This system is not a variant for D&D, but Grim Tales, so it would be the Strong/Fast/Tough/Smart/Dedicated/Charismatic-Heroes using this system, rather than fighters and rogues and clerics. Hence the base defense bonus that's mentioned.

5. I'm already thinking of getting rid of the extra injury charts for Serious and Critical wounds.

6. Yes, I know I didn't include the section on death and dying; I haven't figured it out yet, but it's probably going to involve round-by-round fortitude saves.

And now for an example of the system in use;

Frank the fighter attacks Roger the rogue. Frank has +8 to hit, and Roger has +9 defense. Frank rolls a 17 (for a total of 25), and Roger rolls a 4 (for a total of 13). Frank hits (a critical, in fact), so he rolls damage (2d6+12); he gets 40 damage, total which (divided by 5, rounded up) is +8 to the Resilience DC (making it 23). Roger has +3 resilience (+1 armor, +2 con), and rolls a 6 (total: 9) on his resilience check; that's 14 short of what he needed, meaning that he takes a Serious Wound. Marking off the -4 to his Resilience and -2 to other checks, he cringes as Frank makes his second attack, at +3 to hit.

Frank rolls a 12 on his attack roll (for a total of 15), and Roger rolls an 11 (for a total of 9+11-2=18), and so he dodges the greatsword.

Ugh, it looks a lot more complicated written out that it did when I tested it by hand...hrm...

So, here's the document:
(sorry to anybody without word; the forum wouldn't let me attach an RTF)

 

[Galethorn]

And now for the ideas I had while writing the example combat...

1. Maybe I should go back to the old base-10 defense thing....

2. A level 20 Strong Hero would have a fairly easy time hitting (and therefore killing) a level 20 Fast Hero (+20 BAB and 22 strength vs. +13 base defense and 22 dexterity).

3. I'm pretty sure I want to drop the 'extra' injuries now, and have the 'special' injuries be some kind of....thing you can do if you spend an action point when you get a critical hit.

4. The bleeding mechanic is very, very hard to keep track of.

5. I think I might want to switch to 4 tiers of wounds from 5 (one at 1-5, 6-10, 10-20, and 21+, maybe).

 

[Galethorn]

Ok, after making flowcharts on the bus, I've changed my mind; I'm going to go with UA Injury (save vs. damage) as written, except for the following;

I'm going to keep my 'Resilience' stat in favor of using fortitude (and keep it as Constitution Modifier + Armor Bonus + Size Modifier + Miscellaneous Modifiers), my new system for armor (bonus to not getting wounded as opposed to a bonus to not getting hit), and the opposed defense vs. attack rolls. As well, each hit will give a -2 penalty to further Res checks (instead of -1), and will give a -1 penalty to attack/defense rolls.



Here's the analysis I came up with after weighing all the factors I could think of...


So far, it means I'd be trading two 'things to keep track of' for three (HP/AC vs. Defense, Resilience, and state of injury [but injury is more of something to keep track of under 'GM combat notes' as opposed to something that has to be added up in character creation]). With my changes (opposed rolls, res instead of fort, higher penalties), combat will be much more random, meaning that PCs will be more likely to take serious injury (but seldom die, because of action points), as well as powerful enemies being easier to kill when PCs roll well/use action points.

Basically, as attack, damage, and defense go up by level, Resilience won't without feats, stat increases, and/or talents. This would tend to make one-hit kills more likely at higher levels (more damage vs. the same Res score). At level 10, a strong hero with a highish strength (20) and a greatsword of relatively high quality (non-magical +2) might have a total of +18 or more to hit after feats. A level 10 fast hero with 20 dex and some good feat and talent choices would have a base defense of +14 or so, without a shield, and (if they had 16 con and light armor), +4 Res.

After running some numbers through a randomizer, out of 10,000 opposed rolls, the guy with the sword wins 70% of the time, and the defender wins about 25% of the time, leaving about 5% of the rolls as ties, meaning a ratio of 70-30 or 75-25, depending on who wins the tie. On average, the sword will do 16 damage (2d6+7+2), which would be a DC of 19 (15 + [16/5=3.2, rounded up to 4]). With that +4 Res, he'll fail on anything below a 15. On average, he'll fail by 5, which would be a hit, but not a disabling hit.

So, the prospect of defending against the best attacker at your level, as the best defender without a shield is not so good. On the flipside, the worst attacker (poor BAB, level 10, 10 strength= +5 to hit) will only hit the fast hero ~14% of the time. The worst defender (poor defense, level 10, 10 dex= +7 defense) will be hit be the best attacker ~96% of the time.

Ouch. This tells me that 1. Defense should have a different (better) progression, and 2. Resilience should have some base progression as well; Base fort + con + armor + size + misc might work...it would mean ~+17 Resilience for a level 20 strong or tough (+9 fort, +3 con, +4 armor, +1 feat). Hmmm...


Well, these concerns are the whole reason I posted a thread, so feel free to actually post here, anybody, if you have suggestions, experiences, or anything like that. I'm not stopping you.

 

[Judas]

Just one thing comes to mind when reading your system. It seems to draw a parallel to another type of game you might have heard of. Warhammer. Even Warhammer 40K, or possibly Mordhiem.

While most people don't usually have a problem with playing a long game, as long as they are having fun, one of the biggest drawbacks in the other games I've mentioned, is that you sometimes have to wait what seems like forever, before it becomes your turn.

Granted the systems are totally different, but the reason I mention them is because your new systems seems to add more time to the persons turn to figure out what exactly he achived on his turn. The longer you take focused on an individual, the more bored and restless the rest of the group becomes. You then run the chance of having those restless people turn into distractions for others.

While your initial idea sounds interesting in concept, it may not be what your overall gaming experience was what you wanted it to be. The best thing to do, TRY IT. That way you will know for sure if it's even workable.

 

[Galethorn]

Yeah, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that my initial idea (the variant in the attachment in the first post) is overcomplicated, especially with the aditional injuries, and all the extra rolls...

The system I mentioned earlier today (variant on UA Injury, with pretty much nothing from GnG) adds just one extra roll, and the adding up of penalties (rather than the subtracting of HP). Hopefully, I'll get to try it out with one of my players this week...

In theory, the adding up of penalties could go even more easily if I had a quick-reference sheet that listed the penalties for various numbers of hits, up to ten or fifteen...come to think of it, I'm going to go ahead and make such a chart, just to see how it looks...

<makes chart>

Looks good. In fact, it should probably be part of the character sheet I'm making to go with the setting.