Simplifying the Combat Rules

[Roudi]

I'm in the process of developing a free OGL minigame based on the Japanese novel/movie/manga Battle Royale. I'm basing this game on the d20 Modern rules, but the other day I realized something: for this to be a complete, standalone minigame, requiring nothing else to run, I would need to reprint all the basic rules. Explain what ability scores do, lay out the skills & feats, and worst of all, reprint the combat rules.

Great.

So I got to thinking, Battle Royale should be a fast-paced game... faster than a typical d20 Modern game... and if I simplify the rules as much as I can, and remove unneeded ones, I can cut down on the basic rules explainations. So, I'm working on a very simple d20 combat system to help me out.

My first idea is this: I've eliminated hit points and damage, and replaced the "damage roll" part of combat with a severity table. On a successful attack, the victim or GM rolls a d20 and consults the Severity table to see how bad they got hit. Effects would range from "grazed" to "majorly wounded" to "crippled" to "dead". This would remove one level of math from combat (especially in d20 Modern, and double especially with low-level characters, and triple especially when firearms are involved). No rolling damage, subtracting from hitpoints, comparing damage to the MDT, and making a Fort saving throw. The severity table is still a work in progress, and when I get a working version of the mechanics, I'll post them here for feedback.

Does anyone else have any other suggestion how to make combat faster and simpler? I know there are a few different rules-light systems out there. If anyone wants to enlighten me how these systems handle combat, and whether that may help or not, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Peterson]

If you plan on using a "severity table", why not make it a single die roll - not seperate attack roll needed. For example,

Roll 1D20 (plus any modifiers) and get a result.

1 Reload/Weapon Jam

2-6 Miss

7-10 Grazed (-1 to all future die rolls)

11-15 Wounded (-2 to all future die rolls; culmative)

16-19 Crippled (1/2 speed, -4 to all future die rolls; special: If you get this result again, you're dead.)

20+ Dead.


Of course, area attacks now need changing as well. For example,

1 Dud

2-5 Grazed (Reflex save success = Miss)

6-19 Crippled (Reflex save success = Wounded result; Evasion ability turns a success into a total miss).

20+ Dead (Reflex save success = Crippled result; Evasion ability turns a success into a Grazed result).

This mechanic avoids the need for attack rollls, damage rolls, Hit Points, etc. If you want to show that one weapon is more powerful (or less so) than the standard, just have it add an Equipment bonus/penatly to the Severity Roll (for example, a .50 Light Fifty might do 1D20+3 severity, where as a pocket knife may do 1D20-3 severity). Hope this helps.


Peterson

 

[Roudi]

Hmm... I see where you're going with this...

Okay, so we drop the Defense score as well. The severity table will also have a "miss" option. A player's Dex bonus will count as a penalty against the attack roll (so that the attack is more likely to miss or be less severe). In that case, attacking a character with a Dex penalty should make it more likely an attack will be more severe... hmm.

Thanks, Peterson! That was some great advice.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

If you have access to, or know anyone who has access to, Blue Rose RPG by Green Ronin, this sounds a lot like the combat system for that game which is part of what they are calling their True20 game system. I don't have it, so don't take my word for it, but I have been told you do not need any dice except a d20 for anything in the game, including combat. Combat has also been described as having wound levels rather than hit points.

Might be worth checking out... comments make it seem as if Green Ronin plans on using True20 in other systems and, who knows, maybe would even release a True20 OGL.

Edit: I wrote this before I saw Peterson's post. I meant your original post reminded me of Blue Rose.

 

[jezter6]

I tried for weeks to come up with a combat system like M&M (that blue rose is based on), but I just NEVER got it to work based on the number of changes you have to make to the entire system. I don't have blue rose to see how they did it, and I doubt if it would directly compare to base d20 on things.

Removing hit points: Ok, I wanted to do that as well, but what bonus do you give for people with lots of levels in a d10 (or d12 for that matter) class. They should be given a much better survival chance as the d6 classes, otherwise the balance is thrown off and the high HP classes become weaker because they generally lack some of the abilities/skill points/whatever that the lower dice classes get in return for crappy hit dice. I never managed to find a bonus that 'worked' to the point where a d10 or d12 char would get hit even a fair amount of time while making it not super easy to smack down a d6 char.

The whole point I wanted to get thru was the damage roll and subtracting hit points, but then you have to assign weapons a damage number that determines it's lethality level. A rocket launcher should be quite a bit better than a pocketknife, but what about the thousands of degrees of difference between. That will take plenty of refining till you get to the point where all weapons are at (or close) to what they should be. Is a .50 DE better than a .45? Sure, but since there are only so many numbers out there, how do you give them differing bonuses? The only thing I can really think of there is to go to a d100 table of severity to give a reasonable level of difference between the multitude of weapons, but then you just end up with MORE adding (HP class bonus, weapon damage, reflex/dex bonuses, armor bonuses, checking on a d100 table...you basically TRIPLED the amount of work and calculations done where you set out to reduce the time it takes to run combat).

I never found a solution...but good luck to you man. If/when you figure it out, I'm likely to convert to it as well, so long as it actually IS quicker and with less calculations.

 

[Roudi]

Jez... I'm lucky in that this minigame doesn't use or need levels (a game shouldn't last beyond a single session anyway, and since PK is the name of the game, characters shouldn't be persistent). So, levels aren't a consideration I have to make for adjudicating hits. Neither are classes, for that matter.

Thanks to some further brainstorming with Peterson, we've come up with a system that doesn't resemble d20 Modern in the slightest. I'll post details later.

 

[jezter6]

Then it's really not a 'minigame' at least not from the old Polyhedron sense of the word.

Minigames are/were more 'setting with some rules tweaks' that were plugged on top of a setting. You're almost making a compeletly new rules set and calling it a minigame.

Not that that's a bad thing of course.

We still never did the 24hourrpg thing we were thinking about..when we going to hit that up?

 

[Roudi]

Whenerver you can guarantee you'll be online for a bit, my man... hopefully we can use whatever we make for MODERNIZED Issue #3.

I know Polyhedron had minigames that ran off the core rules, but I wanted something standalone. At least now I can take steps to make some non-d20 content for MODERNIZED (as this article is intended for Issue #3). We get so many d20 submissions and comparatively few for other systems, or setting-neutral.