Truly Original Combat Systems

[Thierry-Advent]

Sorcerer = opposed roll determines who goes when, who wins action, how well action is = all in one roll.

I've read the summary. Very interesting resolution system. He won the Diana Jones award in 2002.

 

[aramis erak]

WEG Star Wars 1e did Initiative = Success Roll... back in 1987.

For me, the most innovative is Burning Wheel... script 3 actions each, then resolve with the opposed actions grid. Mouse Guard is a simplified variation....
It's convoluted... and uses a table. But it works really well for certain kinds of melees.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Ironsworn's battle roll. Roll + stat - on a full success you achieve your objective unconditionally, on a partial success you achieve your goal at significant cost, on a fail you lose your goal and pay a significant cost. The whole conflict is resolved with that one roll.

Wanderhome's Veteran. At any time they can draw their weapon and kill anyone, no roll involved. Afterwards, they are never seen again, and the player must make a new character. No one else can participate in any kind of violence.

Cthulhu Dark. If at any time you try to fight a supernatural creature, it just kills you. If you fight anything else, you resolve it as a normal task roll.

Dusk. Actions are resolved as follows: if the PC spends a resource, they succeed. if the PC doesn't spend a resource, or they've run out, they succeed with a major complication. So in combat you will always hit your foe, but you will always pay a resource or take a consequence.

 

[Deset Gled]

Top Secret from Solarian is different, but probably not "truly original" compared to many of the mechanics here.

You roll three dice. 13 and higher is always a success. The part that changes is what dice you use. Two dice are based on the PC; you have attributes and skills that will give you anywhere from a d4 to a d12. The GM determines the third die (again, d4 to d12) based on difficulty. So a very strong person (I forget the names for the attributes) with some climbing experience scrambling up a wet and difficult wall may roll d12+d8+d4. And 13 is a success.

It's a little different to wrap your head around at first, but flows very easily at a table. No math or changing DCs to track, just discussing tactics with the GM and swapping around dice.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Burning Wheel has a whole rock paper scissor on crqck where you go through rounds of simultaneous exchanges. It's called Fight!.

They happen to have similar but different systems for ranged fights (ships, ranged exchanges, etc) and a social combat system called Duel of Wits.

All three are an interesting read if you're looking to shake your brain muscles and see something a bit different.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Burning Wheel has a whole rock paper scissor on crqck where you go through rounds of simultaneous exchanges. It's called Fight!.

They happen to have similar but different systems for ranged fights (ships, ranged exchanges, etc) and a social combat system called Duel of Wits.

All three are an interesting read if you're looking to shake your brain muscles and see something a bit different.

There are refined versions in Torchbearer and Mouse Guard, too, if the complexity of BW's iteration is unappealing. Personally, I love it, but worth mentioning the iterating. I can't remember if Burning Empires made any changes to Range and Cover, and Miseries and Misfortunes has its own social combat system rather than a straight port of DoW.

 

[Arilyn]

His Majesty the Worm has a very unique card based system. The cards go beyond just replacing dice rolls. It's really cool.

 

[zakael19]

His Majesty the Worm has a very unique card based system. The cards go beyond just replacing dice rolls. It's really cool.

Was wondering if somebody would mention this already! I like how it does wounds on equipment/skills/you that the player can apportion as well.

 

[jian]

Plenty of games do interesting and original things with combat. They're not always a good idea, but it was generally worth trying. Here's a couple of examples.

• Castle Falkenstein already uses normal playing cards instead of dice, which is fun and in-genre (because playing dice is considered gauche in 19th century alternate Europe; gentlefolk play cards). So that already has a fun thing that you discard cards when you're hurt and when your hand is empty, you're out, which is a perfectly sensible way for that to work. It also has a dueling mechanic where you lay out a line of cards on a table and basically push your opponent back and forth across the salle as you duel - if you're pushed to the end of the line you lose, whether you've still got cards in your hand or not. Sadly, in play we found this system rather boring. A version of it works better in Honor & Intrigue.
• Final Stand (was a free pdf, not easy to find these days) is a fighting game RPG. Its mechanic is that you start with a certain number of manoeuvre dice (d6s; Punch, Kick, Grapple, Defend etc.) and roll them at the beginning of every round. Depending on how well you roll, that gives you a certain number of manoeuvre points in each category (e.g. Punch 3, Kick 1, Defend 2). You then have to decide how to spend them, which depends a lot on what your opponent chooses to do (you take turns until you both run out of points). Do you spend all your Punch points on a cool super that might get blocked? Or do you wait to do that until nearer the end of the round, when your opponent doesn't have the points to block?

 

[dbm]

Warhammer Fantasy 3e has a very unique system, to the point where most people refused to get their heads round it and it was a commercial flop.

But the system is great, in my opinion. The first instance of what is now known as the Narrative Dice System, it uses custom dice, including dice for different combat stances (swap out regular dice for conservative dice or reckless dice). And you don’t have to worry about coming up with narrative flourishes all the time for boosts and banes as every ability has a little table of things you can spend them on, printed on a card. All abilities have a cool down, too, and you put tokens on the card when you use it, then track these down before the ability can be used again.

The system is complex but it uses the physical components to mange that complexity. It’s a shame that people saw it as a board game rather than an RPG because of the components. Somewhat ironically new systems like Daggerheart now also use cards and token to track abilities. I genuinely believe WFRP 3e was just about 15 years ahead of its time.