Second Playtest-- Full Combat feedback

[Peter Holland]

1) basically nothing positive to say, here are our notes:

1. Melee combat- completely lacklustre it MUST have full rules, including shooting into combat. Lots of skills and weapons for it, but nothing actually fun about it. e.g. boarding on space combat?
2. Melee combat 2- If I have STR 4 and Unarmed 4, I roll 7 dice to attack and 5 dice for damage- this is better than any ranged weapon.
3. High AGI characters- can't hit themselves with shooting, they are invincible. At higher XP they cannot fail to miss either.
4. Basic Defence Calc- makes it almost impossible for non-combatants to actually hit even with aiming etc.
5. Need for a Defence Skill to boost defence rather than AGI.
6. Variation in Movement is very excessive- high AGI characters move insane distances, others are snails who can't keep up, disjoints the flow of combat.
7. Crossfire rules- as written a melee combatant can provide crossfire...
8. No disengaging from combat- perhaps a reduction to movement, or an action to engage or disengage (spend 1 to get out before movement, or 1 action to pin an opponent in an opposed check)
9. Need to be rules for shooting into combat. It is VITAL.
10. There are few ways to improve defence beyond stats- if you are a low AGI character then you can't actually do much about not being hit.
11. How do trips etc. actually work- what on earth is the 'Stat' column about?
12. Ranged combat tricks should be harder- eg. knockdown or disarm with a ranged weapon should be much harder than with melee weapon.
13. Overwatch is very powerful- potentially 6-8 attacks in a round for 2 actions?
14. Pinned down- doesn't work well in melee- you aren't static in a melee fight.
15. These rules feel really unfinished and not kickstarter ready at all.
16. Though the 'need lots of advantages to get hits as a starting character' might be realistic, but it makes combats long and boring. This feels like a tactical miniatures game rather than an RPG.
17. Luck Dice Mechanic- as a countdown works well, exploding dice less so. Pushing Your Luck as a 'countdown' type add to your pool and potentially keep a lot. This would allow for both psionic luck manipulation as well as gambler types who work well with luck.

Positives:

1. Pinned down encouraged movement

 

[Morrus]

Thanks! This is all useful and relevant playtesting feedback that I can use! As a note - much of the melee development is taking place in O.L.D. (which currently has a basic system of combat tricks and, soon, stances) while the modern ranged stuff is developing in N.E.W. Both games will contain both eventually, of course, but if you want to playtest the melee stuff the current O.L.D. document is a good place to start, incomplete though it is.