What TTRPGs have the best tactical combat rules?

[Bagpuss]

D&D in every edition is for me the gold standard here. The problems for D&D have almost always been what it does when it isn't doing rules for small scale tactical skirmish wargame.

4th Edition, was much better tactically, but that in turn made it a little harder to just use it for theatre of the mind conflicts (although it was certainly possible for small fights).

4th Edition had a lot of features built in that either were ignored or needed to be improvised for other editions. Fighters had considerably more options to push and pull opponents and even allies around the battlefield. A battlefield that itself had lots of features that could be exploited, like barrels that could be knocked over to roll into the enemy, braziers that you could interact with to set opponents on fire, ropes that could be swung on to rapidly move across the battlefield, etc.

Positioning really mattered and teamwork also was a factor, the fighter might drag opponents around so that the wizard could then drop an area effect to get them all. I really miss the fighter options in 5th Ed.

What it suffered from was the number of temporary conditions that you needed to keep track of, that while tactical were a headache.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Classic Car Wars. (Note that the 1st major supplement, Truck Stop, has a subtitle on the rulebook "A Car Wars Role-Playing Supplement")...
So good that most players didn't bother with RP mode.
A rare few of us played it as an RPG.

As one of those few, I agree that it did make for some very fun campaigns (complete with a rotating pool of GMs) for us back in the 80s, but I still feel like it's a stretch to say that Car Wars was originally designed as an RPG, which was one of the OP's parameters here. It got easier and easier to use as one as time went by and they added to the game (and eventually GURPS Autoduel opened it up further), but RP elements were super thin early at the start. Anyone who only played it as a straight board game kind of missed out on a lot of the potential, though, agreed on that.

Never been able to decide if SJG expected the game to be a one-and-done when it first came out, but if so they were quick to recognize they had a hit on their hands and guide it down the RPG-light path that would ensure longer-term engagement (and sales) for the IP. Like you said, Truck Stop (and the Space Gamer articles) nudged hard toward campaign play and more detailed characters and out-of-vehicle activity, so that element was there quite early.

If I could bring myself to define CW as a "deliberate RPG" instead of a board game that morphed into one for some folks, it would have made my list for this thread - but I did put The Fantasy Trip on there, and it started out as two microgame-format boardgames, so maybe I'm wrong about how much RP Steve had always planned for CW.

EDIT: Y'know, it might be worth a thread on "What are your favorite tactical combat games that can also be used as a TTRPG?" or something similar.

 

[Andvari]

I think Basic D&D is purest in this regard, because tactical decisions matter more and there's less rules in the way between planning and execution. AD&D's combat rules are too much of a mess, while post AD&D it feels more like a computer or board game, where it's less about tactics and more about building a character and executing special moves.

But it depends on what is meant by "tactical." For example, when Matt Colville says "tactical experience" I internally translate it to "combat works more like a computer game, where your hotbar defines all your possible moves during a battle, and there's a grid." So the focus is more about what you do in the combat phase itself, rather than the tactical phase, despite the terminology used.

 

[Reynard]

I think Basic D&D is purest in this regard, because tactical decisions matter more and there's less rules in the way between planning and execution.

Note that the subject is the TTRPG with the best tactical rules. I don't think games that have rules voidsreally qualify and Basic D&D is pretty thin on actual tactical rules. I don't really buy that in a tabletop game, the best way to do tactics is to play GM-may-I masquerading as "smart play." That isn't to say this can't be fun, but it doesn't scratch that tactical itch for me.

Someone upthread mentioned GURPS and it's weight of rules, which is sort of the opposite situation. I agree that too dense of a ruleset can drain the fun out of tactical play.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Someone upthread mentioned GURPS and it's weight of rules, which is sort of the opposite situation. I agree that too dense of a ruleset can drain the fun out of tactical play.

Agreed, but GURPS is built to let you decide just how many added "fiddly bits" you want to use. At its base level it's barely more complex than its older cousin The Fantasy Trip. If you turn all the optional complexity dials up to eleven it becomes a nightmare and I'd rather go play Aftermath or Phoenix Command.

The problem is that GURPS is not terrific about communicating just how much any given optional rule/mechanic is going slow down play, and there are synergistic effects to using a lot of them at once.

 

[Dustin Cooper]

I feel like Princess Wing has some of the best tactical combat I've run into in a while. It's a Japanese TRPG where you play as Sailor Moon style magical girls equipped with Gundam style weapons, and it uses playing cards. The short version is that each character has four weapon slots, and each lines up to a suit (hearts are the head and torso, diamonds are lower body, spade and club are your hands). To use one of those weapons (which each feel kind of like a D&D 4e power), you spend a card of that suit. There's no equivalent of an attack roll, and instead each attack has an evasion value. A target can choose to spend that many cards from their hand to entirely avoid the attack. This means that the game is constant resource management choices, and there's no such thing as an attack that accomplishes nothing.

What makes the combat system particularly special is comboing. If you have multiple cards of the same value, you can spend all of them on your turn. I.E. if you have a two of diamonds and a two of hearts, you could spend the former to attack with your lower body weapon, then immediately spend the heart to do a follow up attack with your upper body weapon. And some of these weapons are designed to work best with combos. Like the character I played last night has a "Skirt Bit" that increases the evasion cost of any further attacks on your turn by 1. And there are mechanics for players trading cards, so in practice, a lot of combat is the players saying stuff like "OK, this power will let me take a card out of the discard pile, so I could take that 5 of clubs back, then I can trade that to you to give you three 5s, oh, then the other player could trade you their 5, so you could unload with four of a kind next turn!" Like the mechanics encourage everyone to constantly build each other up to do crazy things, which is very on genre for a magical girl game.

And there's a lot of options for character building. Dozens of weapons, powers you can basically spend MP on to enhance things, options to have multiple transformations with different load outs, etc. It's a surprising amount of tactical character building crunch for a game that is otherwise extremely rules light out of combat.

 

[Laurefindel]

I played two sessions of Iron Kingdom, which looked pretty tactical but never had the chance to delve very deep in that aspect of the rpg.

Older, more Vancian editions of D&D were also very tactical (or could be depending on how groups ignore certain rules or not); not so much on melee combat options but about which spells to select, when to cast them, how to deal with attrition of slowly regenerating hp, track arrows and food, carry treasure, weigh in speed/aggression in dungeon or overland vs chances of random encounter, know when to push and when to retreat, etc. So a highly tactical game, but not a tactical-combat game. In that regards, D&D has acquired more tactical-combat options and lost most of its tactical campaign play.

 

[GMMichael]

I'm waiting to hear from someone who's played Dark Souls RPG. If it's anything like the video game, the only way you'll defeat some enemies is with proper use of tactics.

W.O.I.N. probably deserves a mention too. I read about "cover" and "automatic fire" mechanisms at some point. Sounds tactical.

 

[Laurefindel]

The One Ring (especially 1st edition) also deserves a special mention. 2e is IMO better overall but the tactical side has been downplayed a bit. But basically…

Each round, choose one of four combat stances (translating as agressive, neutral, defensive, and ranged combat), each allowing specific combat tasks (i.e. types of action) unique to that stance.

Rearward stance (ranged combat) is only allowed if enough melee combattants make a shield wall or otherwise prevent enemies from surrounding them. Some enemies can leap over the frontline and reach ranged combatants.

Characters gain penalties when exhausted (fatigued). They get fatigued when their hp drop below a certain point, as determined by their encumbrance. The heavier the armor and weapons, the more protection you have and the more damage you deal but the quicker you get fatigued.

Armour is basically a saving throw vs injuries. As such it’s an insurance policy against something that may or may not be needed at the cost of encumbrance.

Overland travel require four different roles to cover. If you have less than four PC, which one you decide to leave empty? Even if four, is will you choose to cover a role with a character that isn’t really good at it, or double-staff a position that the character is good at?

Hope is a powerful resource that fuels special abilities and pretty much guaranties success on a dice roll but regenerates slowly. Characters are at a risk of breaking down and ‘going Boromir’ when their Hope drops below their Shadow rating, so Hope management is important too.

Most of healing and character advancement happens during downtime. You’re allowed one downtime action. Choose it wisely.

 

[Nikosandros]

There are, of course, many different ways to do a "tactical game". My two favorites would probably be D&D 4e and GURPS.