Worlds of Design: Combat Methods

Is there an ideal combat method in an FRPG?

Is there an ideal combat method in an FRPG?

worldsofdesigncombat.jpg

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight." Sun Tzu

RPGs in many cases revolve around combat. Yet the player who understands Sun Tzu’s maxim knows that fighting is merely a means to an end, not an end in itself (though, I must admit, that also depends on the experience rules…).

Dependent vs. Independent Combat​

If you’re not familiar with these terms, watch my Independent and Dependent Combat video on YouTube.

Independent Combat​

Independent Combat involves each side resolving their attacks without opposition. This is common in Dungeons & Dragons, where there’s an attack roll against a static number (usually Armor Class). A defense rating and obstacles are built into this challenge, but there is no variable opposed roll to determine if it’s successful.

Speaking of Armor Class, this is another abstraction that affects Independent Combat. In real life, armor is suited for very specific situations, not to be worn at all times—and thus an Independent Combat system has to accommodate for armor, Dexterity, resilience (sometimes referred to as Natural Armor for monsters) and other factors.

There are a lot of reasons why Independent Combat is used in games, but chiefly it’s a streamlined system, if not mechanically sophisticated. It scales well, because the defensive target number is static, and thus when a player attacks multiple opponents, it’s also easier to resolve.

Dependent Combat​

Dependent Combat involves a (sometimes opposed) dice roll to avoid the attack, depending on the skill of the target as well as on the armor. Note that including a target’s armor class or skill level in the resolution of the attack is not in itself Dependent, some action is required of the defender player. As a result, dependent combat is a bit more complex, and takes more time to roll.

In melee skirmishes this is sometimes called a “parry” system, which is how it worked in Palladium’s rules (Rifts being on example). Notably, monsters who have the ability to Parry in Dungeons & Dragons (like the gladiator) only add a boost to Armor Class, thereby keeping the game firmly in the realm of Independent Combat.

In computer video games, Independent/Dependent combat often happens behind the scenes, but it can matter a lot. Does the speed you hit the button or execute a maneuver help you do more damage or hit more often? Or is it a simple roll you can’t see to determine if you hit, based on your character’s skills and abilities?

There are a wide variety of mechanics that can cover the spectrum between one attacker rolling to hit (Independent), and two combatants opposing each other in real time (Dependent). I’ve seen at least one system that resolves where the attack lands on specific body parts in determining whether it actually does damage, and how much. More “realistic” perhaps, but also time-consuming. In the very simple RPG I designed to use with a board game, a successful hit does a set amount of damage, no dice roll for damage required. Less exciting, but quicker and simpler.

Low vs. High Standard Deviation​

Another consideration is whether hitting in combat is fairly predictable or “swingy.” That is, a low standard deviation vs. a high one. Some combat systems are quite realistically lethal (high damage per successful attack), which encourages people to avoid fighting. A high standard deviation in hit probability could amount to the same thing, though lethality has more to do with damage than hit probability.

Low standard deviation in the extreme would be deterministic combat, where there is no uncertainty - but that’s unlikely to be fun in an adventure setting. In my simple game, you don’t know if you’ll hit, but you know how much damage you’ll inflict if you do hit. (And you can build your character to inflict more damage per hit, as well as to have a higher hit probability.)

The higher the standard deviation, the more often characters will be hit in combat, and probably the more often they will die - though that also depends on the amount of damage per successful attack.

To Crit or Not to Crit​

Standard deviations affect combat in subtle and overt ways, including critical hits: can a single attack do (on average) a lot of damage, perhaps killing the target, or only a small amount? This is why the way a game handles (or even allows) critical hits can immensely impact the pace of combat. Critical hit systems may seem more realistic, but we have to ask how much fun they are in actual play. Most of these systems I see inflict extra damage (making the standard deviation of damage higher overall).

The one I devised and used for a while inflicted location damage, for example, “left arm becomes unusable until points inflicted are healed” or even “target cannot walk for a week!” I wanted to set up additional dilemmas for the players to face. I finally set it aside because it was extra work, and the injuries could change the adventure drastically in sometimes undesirable ways.

Role-playing games take many different approaches to combat, and all of them have a feel that creates a level of immersion or abstraction, determined in part by dice rolls, by the players themselves, and the opposition. How often a character can hit, if their attacks are against a static number or by an opposed roll, and the consequences of a hit can all significantly influence how your game works in actual play. If you’ve ever thought about designing your own game, I hope this has helped you find new ways of thinking about it.

Your Turn: Do you prefer Dependent or Independent styles of combat in your role-playing systems?
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio

Thomas Shey

Legend
And of course it ignores the fact that the combat is part of the point in playing the game. Its not just about the resource expenditure; even if you expect to win, how beat up you get doing it--or not--and who shines is a good part of the, well, game.

I'll be really blunt; no RPG where death is on the table is particularly likely to treat combat as anything resembling an even risk (barring possibly ones intended as one-offs) unless they also expect combat to be pretty rare. Even games as gritty and prone to sudden-death as the BRP family don't assume that. The only games I know where you'll sometimes see that is superhero games because they're usually set up so combat is relatively non-lethal, so even a loss isn't "generate a new character" time. As I usually find someone emphasizing that isn't saying anything terribly surprising or useful.
 

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GMMichael

Guide of Modos
Be honest, regardless of how the result is obtained, most combats are variations of Automatic, because most encounters are designed to assume that the PCs win. The Combat Threats section of PF2's Encounter design makes this obvious when the most dangerous encounter type Extreme-threat, is stated to be so dangerous that it might be an even match for the characters. This heavily implies that any lessor encounters are mainly time and/or resource sinks. This also implies that such combats could be vastly sped up by skipping most of the die rolling and just having a few rolls to determine equipment destroyed(player 1 loses plate mail due to rust monster), charges expended(player 2 spends 4 charges from the magic wand), and time spent doing the fight, looting the bodies and fixing damage(party spends 3 hours). The whole encounter might be resolved in 5~10 minutes of player time.
Yeah, I'm not sure that Automatic Hits apply to the doctor's post, because it's almost like saying "let's not use a combat method," when combat methods are the point of the post.

With that being said, a PC win and PC survival can be two different things. A win can just be a successful attack (which ties into the How Often Should PCs Hit thread...), which appears in both combat methods. But your next point - that most combats are time-sinks - seems to overlook a fundamental assumption of D&D battles (and possibly others, like Pathfinder): combat is supposed to be fun. The time-sink is actually the goal!

Which circles back to a slightly restated version of the OP's question, "what's more fun, independent or dependent methods?"

PS Nice ninja, @Thomas Shey
 

aramis erak

Legend
Be honest, regardless of how the result is obtained, most combats are variations of Automatic, because most encounters are designed to assume that the PCs win.
Youve never played with folk like me... I often have used encounters that the only way the PCs survive is to flee.... I won't hesitate to kill off PCs. Well, at least not if the NPC would kill them.
 

Thomas Shey

Legend
Youve never played with folk like me... I often have used encounters that the only way the PCs survive is to flee.... I won't hesitate to kill off PCs. Well, at least not if the NPC would kill them.

I will say that I think that's an uncommon situation, in part because so many games make it so hard to flee. That ends up teaching players its not a valid tactic. As such, unless you only play with people who are used to it being viable, all that will happen is those people die and then think you just did a gotcha.
 

You know, I'm not really sure. I think other factors make combat more fun than just this one, so it's hard to say which I prefer on average. I've never had issues with D&D's "independent" style of combat, but it is more fun to be able to do something about being attacked that isn't just "save up for better armor".

Overall, I think I will go for "dependent", but with a caveat that I really dislike paired attack/defense rolls as taking more time and being annoying. Systems like PENDRAGON and the ONE ROLL ENGINE where all participants make a single combat roll and that determines who gets hit (and maybe how much).

In Pendragon, if two combatants attack each other, each can critically fail, fail, succeed, or critically succeed, and you match the two again each other. That gives 10 different potential outcomes and while it takes a few fights to get used to it, it does work rather nicely. As examples:

You critical, I succeed: You roll extra damage dice for the critical, and my success means I get my shield or parry bonus subtracted from your damage roll, as well as my armor
You succeed, I succeed -- but your success is better than mine: You roll damage as you won that round, but my success means I get my shield or parry bonus subtracted from your damage roll, as well as my armor.
We both critical: We both damage each other normally. This initially annoyed me, but actually works for me now as it means two awesome fighters will just hurt each other a lot, and other factors might determine the fight (how good your armor is, how much constitution you have, can you avoid being knocked down by high damage).

As an aside, if you are a good fighter and strongly inspired by a passion, it's not too hard to get into the realms where every roll is a success, and you critical maybe even half the time. Do not fight Lancelot over the honor of the Queen unless you have a viable heir you are happy to start playing.
 

Retros_x

Adventurer
100% This. I prefer the verisimilitude of active defenses in combat as they IMO better represent the "sword" in Sword & Sorcery.
I don't shee how added randomness feels more like a swordfight. None of these systems feel at all like sword fights, they are abstractations to implement some conflict resolving that goes beyond one ability check to win a fight. They basically overwrite the ability check (spoken in DnD-terms) as resolution mechanic specifically for combat to "zoom-in" and have more decision points.
I prefer the more streamlined static AC (I dont like the term dependent) systems of DnD and other similar systems. IMO the active "defense" don't add much interesting decision points (tactic), but stretch combat length. Also its harder to balance. I also don't like the more "automatic" systems like PbtA that are basically closer to the original resolution mechanic of an ability check, at least not in campaigns that have action at least as a partial genre to it.

For different genres where I don't expect a lot of combat I like those more abstract combat systems - I don't need a specific detailed combat in a campaign where we play journalists uncovering a secret alien conspiracy for example. Here I would be fine with rolling 1-3 times to resolve a combat completely.
 

I prefer the more streamlined static AC (I dont like the term dependent) systems of DnD and other similar systems. IMO the active "defense" don't add much interesting decision points (tactic), but stretch combat length. Also its harder to balance.
How about systems that just have each combatant make a single roll, and the better roll wins? That combines attack and defense rolls into a single roll, which arguably is more realistic and is much faster than D&D-style systems because -- for a one-on-one fight (a) you only need look up 2 numbers rather than 4; (b) you make one comparison, not two (c) usually only one damage resolution is needed (d) you don't need to roll initiative (e) all rolls can be simultaneous.

When I run a PENDRAGON 4 on 4 combat round, it often goes like this:
"I have a success with a 12 on you; fail against you; a success with a 2 on you; and a crib success on you". Each player then rolls their dice and damage simultaneously and we go round the table and narrate the results.

If you want a fast round-based combat system, some version of this method seems about as optimal as I can imagine.
 

Theory of Games

Storied Gamist
I don't shee how added randomness feels more like a swordfight. None of these systems feel at all like sword fights, they are abstractations to implement some conflict resolving that goes beyond one ability check to win a fight.
This is correct: no ttrpg can simulate actual combat. The verisimilitude I'm looking for focuses on genre emulation.
They basically overwrite the ability check (spoken in DnD-terms) as resolution mechanic specifically for combat to "zoom-in" and have more decision points.
I prefer the more streamlined static AC (I dont like the term dependent) systems of DnD and other similar systems. IMO the active "defense" don't add much interesting decision points (tactic), but stretch combat length.
With a system like GURPS, I have defensive choices: dodge, block, or parry and I can improve those abilities to make a character more distinct in combat style. D&D has never offered this level of customization, with Armor Class being a lazy abstraction. D&D feats added a small level of customization, but GURPS has combat maneuvers that outshine D&D's combat feats.
Also its harder to balance.
The only real attempt to balance D&D was with TSR, and they failed. WotC has gone backwards, making D&D as unbalanced as possible. We know this from the many threads across the web of GMs complaining about their failure in creating balanced combat encounters. Finding balance in games that rely on random task resolution is not easy, regardless of system.
I also don't like the more "automatic" systems like PbtA that are basically closer to the original resolution mechanic of an ability check, at least not in campaigns that have action at least as a partial genre to it.
MOST ttrpg campaigns have combat-action, which is expected because that matches the genre (Heroic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Sword Opera, et al). PbtA systems tend to be more cinematic and that works for how genre-focused PbtA is.
For different genres where I don't expect a lot of combat I like those more abstract combat systems - I don't need a specific detailed combat in a campaign where we play journalists uncovering a secret alien conspiracy for example. Here I would be fine with rolling 1-3 times to resolve a combat completely.
Nothing wrong with PbtA or FATE or any other combat-lite system. They just fail to deliver the verisimillitude I get from more complete systems.
 

GMMichael

Guide of Modos
I don't shee how added randomness feels more like a swordfight. None of these systems feel at all like sword fights . . .
What sort of system would feel like a sword fight?

I prefer the more streamlined static AC (I dont like the term dependent) systems of DnD and other similar systems. IMO the active "defense" don't add much interesting decision points (tactic), but stretch combat length. Also its harder to balance. I also don't like the more "automatic" systems like PbtA that are basically closer to the original resolution mechanic of an ability check . . .
Armor Class (static) may be more streamlined (or automatic, which might wander into the style you don't like) but D&D's version - unlimited usage of it - does nothing for simulation. Stamina, strength in numbers, and decision making all take significant blows from an "independent" combat method, which reduce the swordfight-feel for me.
 

aramis erak

Legend
I will say that I think that's an uncommon situation, in part because so many games make it so hard to flee. That ends up teaching players its not a valid tactic. As such, unless you only play with people who are used to it being viable, all that will happen is those people die and then think you just did a gotcha.
It's something I warn new players about. And my old players strongly reinforce.
As the song goes,
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run​
Which resulted in them fleeing wed night, as they easily put down 4 Viper probe droids... but they know if they stay, the newly minted Empire will be there shortly.

I seldom do it as a "gotcha"... the unwinnable fights are well forecast.

My recent Trek game closed with finding a parallel universe where they and their spore drive were not an end to life as they know it...
 

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