Artorius: Those who desire old age need not apply

[Elennsar]

Ok, so you've given us an answer here. Based on the way you structured your answer, combat involves these things:

1. An attack roll.
2. A defense roll.
3. A location hit roll.
4. An armor soak roll.
5. A damage roll.
6. Want to spend a Hero point?

1: Yes.
2: Yes.
3: No. (That's taken care of in the attack roll...if you hit, you hit him in the leg or whatever)
4&5 are linked. (there's no seperate "armor save" and "toughness" save.)
6: Yes.

Considering you have a bunch of other defense type rolls coming after this one, I'd assume you want to wallop people more often than 1 in 4 swings. That might be a factor of your armor as well, it makes you less likely to make a defense (parry/dodge) roll.

This is something I'm not sure about, and will be influenced by what combat options you take (I did say that there's a reason to use an all out attack, yes?)

How distinct do you want the location hit roll? Do you just want chest, arms, legs, and head? Do you want to separate out hands and feet? Upper torso and lower torso?

Head, upper torso, arms, lower torso, legs. Hands or feet I am not sure about. Default shot goes to either upper or lower torso (I'm not sure how to handle this).

Do you want a limit to how much damage armor can soak? In the sense that if someone gets a mighty hit in for 10 damage, the armor will soak a max of 5 or 8 or whatever? I'm getting ahead of myself, you apparently want the damage roll to come after the armor determines how much it will soak, correct?

An axe wielded by a person with Strength 5 (and I'm making up numbers) is TN (Test Number) 15 to soak. Roll armor's benefits plus your benefits from being tougher than average (or penalties for being frailer). Success and you soak. Failure by a certain amount - injury, then worse injury, then worse, (details to be hammered out).

With the damage roll, how much damage equals a serious injury?

See above.

In other words, if by some chance we stumble apon the perfect ruleset to represent the game you have envisioned, what would the chances be.

Somewhere between 0.1% and 60%.

I want to hammer out how effective mail is, how effective defenses are, etc.

Details first, big picture later. If the details don't produce the desired picture, we can determine that when we see how they add up.

So when we get to berserkers, how effective berserkers are is relevant. When we're not even usre how effective standard is, or what standard is, answering if a berserker is twice as good isn't very helpful.

[Kaelik]

Might I recommend blatantly stealing Exalted's rolling for regular combat damage system?

Obviously, you would need to change numbers to fit probabilities, and no crazy wonky stuff, but pretty much:

Roll Xdice for hits against static dodge chance.
Add excess hits to damage number, subtract based on armor soak.
Roll remaining number and do damage equal to successes.

I think it may be the same as Shadowrun, not sure.

[Elennsar]

Its a thought, but not particularly appealing.

[Parthenon]

Ok, so you've given us an answer here. Based on the way you structured your answer, combat involves these things:

1. An attack roll.
2. A defense roll.
3. A location hit roll.
4. An armor soak roll.
5. A damage roll.
6. Want to spend a Hero point?

1: Yes.
2: Yes.
3: No. (That's taken care of in the attack roll...if you hit, you hit him in the leg or whatever)
4&5 are linked. (there's no seperate "armor save" and "toughness" save.)
6: Yes.

Wait, does this mean that all attacks are called shots?

---

I'm wondering, how do you want fights to go?

What can you do in each round. Given a equal duel, what are your combat options? Can you trip, grab, disarm, feint, shove....

How much can you do in a turn? Does each turn have a limited number of options, does it have a number of ticks that are taken up by a number of actions that each cost some number of ticks, or only one action per turn?

How long should fights be? Should they be two people smacking each other with big pieces of iron until one is tired enough to surrender? Is it a deadly game where they feint and use misdirection and each hit is possibly lethal? How many hits should a character take and how often should they hit?

Basically, unless we know how you visualise combat happening, we have no idea if the rules can achieve that vision.

---

Could you try something for me please? Could you write up 3 rounds of a duel, saying what each character does. Completely ignoring the statistics, and just making up whether events happen or not.

---

So when we get to berserkers, how effective berserkers are is relevant. When we're not even usre how effective standard is, or what standard is, answering if a berserker is twice as good isn't very helpful.

I want to hammer out how effective mail is, how effective defenses are, etc.

Wait, you are contradicting yourself directly here within 3 paragraphs. Compare the two statements below:

When we're not even usre how effective standard is, or what standard is, answering if a berserker is twice as good isn't very helpful.

When we're not even usre how effective standard is, or what standard is, answering if mail reduces damage by half isn't very helpful.

You can't hammer out how effective mail is, until you work out what you want a normal attack does. And you can't do that until you know how many hits you want a combat to take.

[Elennsar]

Wait, does this mean that all attacks are called shots?

Yes. Unless someone wants to figure out a random hit location table that actually makes sense and works.

Since that someone is "not me", I'm ignoring the possibility - anyone who thinks its worth doing is welcome to develop one.

I'm fine with including it as "official" with due credit and everything, I just don't want to make one.

Basically, unless we know how you visualise combat happening, we have no idea if the rules can achieve that vision.

There are several answers, and I would really rather discuss this rather than pretend that the ones pulled out of my GIH are satisfying.

So if you have any thoughts, I'd be delighted to hear them.

Could you try something for me please? Could you write up 3 rounds of a duel, saying what each character does. Completely ignoring the statistics, and just making up whether events happen or not.

Sure, I'll post it as a second post after this. Naturally, it'd be a fairly simple duel, but I'll try and include as much as possible.

You can't hammer out how effective mail is, until you work out what you want a normal attack does.

As in "DR 8"? No. As in "blocks most hits"? Yes.

You can't hammer out how effective mail is, until you work out what you want a normal attack does. And you can't do that until you know how many hits you want a combat to take.

Depends on the severity of the hit.

Roughly:

1) Light stuff. No biggie. It hurts, you'll probably not -want- to use this hand (or whatever), but its not a problem. Maybe a very modest penalty, but nothing that should slow you down for long.

2) More serious. Penalties start now.

3) Really serious. This, friend, can be a problem.

4) Taking one of these to the head can kill you. Taking one of these to the arm is a good reason to wish ambidexterity was included.

5) Taking one of these to the head will kill you. No questions asked. See the usual "kills on a hit" rules.

Duel in next post. Names unaltered to prosecute the guilty.

[Elennsar]

Miles and a barbarian are fighting.

The barbarian wins initiative.

Barbarian: I attempt to cut his (right) arm off.

He rolls to hit. The amount he beats his TN to hit (which is adjusted based on the difficulty of his attack) is subtracted from Miles's defense roll, or something to that effect.

He hits. Barely. No penalty to our hero.

Miles has a shield. Miles blocks with the shield, which gives him extra defenses (normally you get a number equal to the number of attacks you make..1 or 2.) and is better at blocking things like arrows and such than dodging and useful in melee.

He blocks.

The Barbarian isn't skilled enough to have a second attack. Miles's turn.

Miles feints with his sword, then slams his shield into the barbarian's face.

Roll to feint. If successful, enemy TN to defend is higher.

Miles succeeds on both rolls, but the barbarian ignores the pain of having a shield slammed into his face. Obviously, stupidity and pain tolerance go together. Or maybe he's just really tough.

I'm not sure yet on what a feint costs - let's say one action for now (you get two, an attack is also an action).

The barbarian decides to go for an all out attack. As you might expect, this makes him a much more potent foe offensively, but really sucks when he has to defend if Miles is still standing.

He attacks. And hits. Miles tries to block, but his shield is broken...and possibly his shield arm, too. Yeah, that wasn't too smart.

Miles pulls back, going into a defensive posture (the natural tendancy of all people without a death wish against a guy with an all out attack which hits...no, I don't know how to represent that.)

Both actions spent moving back. If he turns his back and runs, he might make himself a good target (I'm not sure how to represent this).

The barbarian follows, and attempts to shove Miles to the ground. He's still on all out attack posture.

He succeeds. Miles falls.

Miles is screwed.

Miles's player looks to the GM and says "Hey, named characters aren't supposed to die like this."

Available actions not covered include, but are not limited to: Grappling, tripping, attempting to stun an opponent, and others, none of which are coming to mind.

I'm for a reasonably broad list of available combat moves, but one thing has to be emphasised. This is early medieval Western Europe (though the odds are increasingly likely that I will make a "fantasy" setting from this rather than try to represent a history that could have been, look to the history books for a basis.)

[Parthenon]

First of all, thanks for the round by round description. That gives me a much better idea of what your trying to do.


However, with what you've said in the last couple of posts, the PCs seem to have an immunity to death when they're starting, e.g:

Miles's player looks to the GM and says "Hey, named characters aren't supposed to die like this."

and

You get to basically say "Look, this didn't really happen." three times (Maybe two.) early on. You get hit with a fatal blow - it could have happened, but you (whatever, come up with something amusing or interesting or beleivable, as long as it could have happened).

This seems to say that during "chapter 1" and while the PC has Hero Points, they won't die.

Now, this goes directly against what your original intentions were to have a hard campaign with a chance of death.

Also, there is the problem of retconning the combat: retroactive continuity is terrible for immersion and the flow of the game. Then, there is the problem of the situation where you are really badly wounded, and then finished off. When you retcon, do you retcon the killing hit, the disabling one, or the whole combat? If it is just the killing hit, then the next hit will probably kill you anyway, but if it is more than that then it is easy to get confused as to what has and hasn't happened.

Its the problem I have with hero points. If used to reduce death, they either retcon the killing blow or retcon any blow of your choice.
If it is the killing blow then the losing situation isn't changed and unless you can kill all the rest of the enemies in your next turn, you have to keep using up hero points until you either escape or die.
However, if you retcon any blow of yor choice then you use it on the disabling wounds, and so you don't really get hurt until you use up all your hero points, at which point you are very likely to die. In which case hero points are just a different form of hitpoints.


(hmmm... that gives me an idea for an RPG where the PCs are infused with narrativium, and have a pool of hero points that count as hitpoints. The hitpoints can also be used as action points and to automatically succeed at any one action. If you get hit enough or you auto-succeed often enough, you die. Every character has a small amount of narrativium, and your narrativium is directly related to your reputation. You end up going to various villages and pulling poses in the middle of the pub (like Fable) to gain back narrativium. The overarching aim is to become well known enough to ascend to godhood. It would have various metagame abilities based on the fact that it is a game, and actions that reduce immersion also reduce your hero points.)


If you want a semi-realistic campaign with a real chance of death then why not just let PCs die?

[Elennsar]

Dying in chapter 1 means that there isn't a possibility of telling the story of how the heroes overcame the obstacles the lay ahead, or gallantly resisted but were overcome at last.

The comment by Miles's player is me being a smartass (Miles is taken from the name I used to draw up a Pendragon knight for the fun of it), in the same sense the barbarian being unstunned because "stupidity and pain tolerance go together".

Also, hero points -can- save your life. They're meant as a second shot.

I'm not sure how to avoid the retconning issue.

If you want a semi-realistic campaign with a real chance of death then why not just let PCs die?

Because "The Story of How the Heroes Died In the First Skirmish and the Barbarians Took Over." is dreadfully depressing.

The heroes -are- supposed to be able to win - but they're going to have to earn it the hard way.

In D&D terms, chapter 1 is the first couple levels. You may or may not save the kingdom, but you ought to be able to get in a position where we find out...dying in the first session ruins that.

[MartinHarper]

Meh, I'm out. I look forward to seeing the results of Elennsar's emergent approach to game design, if there are any.

To some extent, this is deliberately a hard campaign (If we go easy, normal, hard, expert, doomed). You don't need to be -very- skilled to do well, but you do need to actually have some level of skill.

Exactly. It's not a campaign for beginners or normal people, because they'll be conclusively defeated and/or die very quickly. Except in chapter one, of course, where the PCs are effectively invulnerable unless they do something deliberately suicidal. Equally, it's not a campaign for experts, because they'll breeze through it without breaking a sweat, and will miss the themes of failure and victory against the odds that you wish to emphasise.

If it was easy (for the characters), it wouldn't merit going down into legend.

Nonsense. Accordingly to legend, the God of Abraham created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. This was easy for him, because he's omnipotent. Things go down in legend because they're good stories.

Aside from that, we have character/player separation. Just because things are easy for the player, doesn't mean they are easy for the character, and vica versa.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Nevertheless, having even a ballpark figure to work with as a basis for rule design works better than a bunch of platitudes about characters and their choices. The approach you've been taking ("No math! This is too complex for math!") is like asking a carpenter to build you a cabinet or a coffee table but instructing him/her not to use hammers, nails, or wood.

The problem is that there are -several figures at work- here. How likely is your opponent to hit you? How likely are you to make your defense roll? How likely is it that he hit something vital? How likely is it that your armor will protect you from his attack (entirely)? How likely is it that if he hit something vital and your armor didn't protect entirely that you'll fail? Do you have a hero point to twist things around so it wasn't as bad as it looks?

Expecting an answer for "how likely you are to die" means I have to come up with at least a rough answer for all of those.

That would be true if you were just throwing together a system and didn't care about the probabilities that resulted. However, if you're starting out with definite ideas about how dangerous your game should be or how much risk of losing the PC group should face, it's important to get these things nailed down as closely as possible at the beginning of the design process.

Though the rough numbers may not immediately give you a Eureka moment about what mechanics you should use, they make a good guidepost for playtesting. Once you've come up with a set of mechanics that you think does what you want it to do, you can test it in a series of single combats and see if you get the win/loss rate you're looking for.

It sounds suspiciously like you're saying, "Don't use math because it gives me results I don't like." Not false results, just results you don't like.

Not intentionally. But it does come up with "we figure that you can't be in any real danger ever.", which is not desired. I would like there to be real danger that can be reduced to near those odds, perhaps, but not start from those odds.

Except that I'm not approaching this like Roy or Kaelik. I'm willing to go along with your idea that the PCs can risk losing, and that this can be made up for by making sure that one loss doesn't lose the campaign. I'm on board with your distinction between losing and dying, so you don't have to worry about me saying, "The odds must always be 99% in the PCs favor."

And BTW, I'm pretty sure the concept of ransoming people was known to both the Romans and to many tribal cultures. Furthermore, since you're not doing a strictly historical campaign, you can easily insert such things.

I can do a lot of things. The question is, why?

I'm glad to see you paid so much attention to my last post. Why? because the kind of odds of victory you're proposing not only make winning all combats unlikely, but infinitesimally unlikely. A custom of ransoming captives is one way to enable PCs to lose a combat, survive, and not be POWs for the rest of their lives.

And the larger point is you need to make sure loss almost never equals TPK in a game with these average probabilities because the odds of winning all combats are so many orders of magnitude under 1% that it would take an incredible combination of tactical genius and luck to even get the odds that high.

Or bringing in something that beats the crap out of what would otherwise be the odds.

The point is that beating the crap out of the odds isn't likely to increase your chances even into single-digit percentages. Your hypothetical master tactician would have to increase the odds something like 10,000 fold to do even that (going conservative because I don't feel like digging up my initial calculations right now; it might be worse). A player who's even that good is going to be so far into the upper tail of the bell curve that he/she isn't bloody likely to appear at your gaming table. Now, I'm not saying you can't design your system around these probabilities. I'm just saying that you need to realize that less than 1% of all groups (at best, if most players of this game are above average tacticians) are ever going to win all 40 or so battles and design the setting accordingly.

---

Now, on to other mechanical issues:

Because "The Story of How the Heroes Died In the First Skirmish and the Barbarians Took Over." is dreadfully depressing.

The heroes -are- supposed to be able to win - but they're going to have to earn it the hard way.

In D&D terms, chapter 1 is the first couple levels. You may or may not save the kingdom, but you ought to be able to get in a position where we find out...dying in the first session ruins that.

So is the idea that we give each PC a large number of hero points at the beginning of the campaign, and then make the rate of hero point acquisition be such that you have fewer on hand by the end?

This could be a pretty good idea. It solves the problem of the game being a newbie trap that alienates inexperienced players.

And now we know, if nothing else, that this system should have rules for shield breakage. Since you want melee to be better than ranged combat in this campaign, you would probably want to set it up so that arrows never break shields but mighty sword/axe swings have a chance to do so.

I'll see if I can go over your round-by-round duel in more detail later.

[Elennsar]

Nonsense. Accordingly to legend, the God of Abraham created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. This was easy for him, because he's omnipotent. Things go down in legend because they're good stories.

"And so Hercules completed his twelve labors within the afternoon, and then went to have dinner with his pub buddies."

No offense.

Aside from that, we have character/player separation. Just because things are easy for the player, doesn't mean they are easy for the character, and vica versa.

If the rules make it ludicriously easy for a character to do something, it is easy for the character. That is a problem.

However, if you're starting out with definite ideas about how dangerous your game should be or how much risk of losing the PC group should face, it's important to get these things nailed down as closely as possible at the beginning of the design process.

Right, but if armor should be good protection (as in, very hard to get hurt through), defense (as in not being hit) isn't as absolutely vital, and so on. So sorting out how big all of these things should be and figuring out how that combines well is something I want to work on.

Except that I'm not approaching this like Roy or Kaelik. I'm willing to go along with your idea that the PCs can risk losing, and that this can be made up for by making sure that one loss doesn't lose the campaign. I'm on board with your distinction between losing and dying, so you don't have to worry about me saying, "The odds must always be 99% in the PCs favor."

Fair enough. Still, I would like to start with the pieces and work from there. I mean, if the average hit is not going to kill you, working hard to keep people from being hit (see above as well) often is not nearly as vital.

If nothing else, I want to sort out where "armor and defense" should look as individual things - because if "not getting hit" is ultimately more vital than trusting to your armor (in terms of how we want to do this), then we need to put in those numbers - but whether we want to do this, I don't know.

I'm glad to see you paid so much attention to my last post. Why? because the kind of odds of victory you're proposing not only make winning all combats unlikely, but infinitesimally unlikely. A custom of ransoming captives is one way to enable PCs to lose a combat, survive, and not be POWs for the rest of their lives.

My appologies for sounding ruder than I meant. To address ransom, though...

As stated, you are people your enemies want dead. Or at least incapaciated. Ransom may or may not be worked in, but don't count on it (in setting, that is).

Now, I'm not saying you can't design your system around these probabilities. I'm just saying that you need to realize that less than 1% of all groups (at best, if most players of this game are above average tacticians) are ever going to win all 40 or so battles and design the setting accordingly.

Agreed. Your goal is to win the most important battles and accomplish as much as you can everywhere else. Winning even a large majority, alone, is not enough.

So is the idea that we give each PC a large number of hero points at the beginning of the campaign, and then make the rate of hero point acquisition be such that you have fewer on hand by the end?

This could be a pretty good idea. It solves the problem of the game being a newbie trap that alienates inexperienced players.

That's not what I had in mind, but I like your comment better than what I was thinking by several steps. It emphasises that things get tougher in a very nice way.

And now we know, if nothing else, that this system should have rules for shield breakage. Since you want melee to be better than ranged combat in this campaign, you would probably want to set it up so that arrows never break shields but mighty sword/axe swings have a chance to do so.

Yes. Shattering a shield is not something to count on, but a heated battle -will- see shields broken.

Swords and other weapons, probably not. But shields, yes.

Also, on the duel - don't take it too seriously as "how I want this", it was thrown together, but any comments on the elements are welcome.

[Parthenon]

He rolls to hit. The amount he beats his TN to hit (which is adjusted based on the difficulty of his attack) is subtracted from Miles's defense roll, or something to that effect.

He hits. Barely. No penalty to our hero.

---

Roll to feint. If successful, enemy TN to defend is higher.

So, the attack has to beat the TN and the defence roll? If so, either the attack has to be a lot higher than defence or very few attacks hit.
Wait, the attack roll has a TN and the defence roll has a TN. So... if the attack fails the attack TN it is a miss and if the defence fails the defence TN then it is a hit, but if both succeed then the amount each beats the check by is compared?

Basically, the only reason I can see for having an ATN and a DTN is to have different dice rolls for the attack and defence.

So, say someone is trying to stab the other in the face. This is hard to do, so the ATN is high: 16 or so. However, the DTN is low: about 6 or so. The attacker rolls 3d6+sword skill and gets 14 so misses.
The second attack is against the torso so has a ATN of 13 and a DTN of 8. This time the attack roll is 16. So, the defender tries to beat the 8 with 2d4+defence skill and gets 8. Both succeed, but the attacker's overflow beats the defender's by 3, and so does 3 damage.

---

You said that the damage and armour are linked, from which I infer that there is a damage roll, but there isn't one here. Either the damage is based on the attack and defence rolls, or you've missed out a step or you vary the damage roll based on how well you hit.

I'm not sure yet on what a feint costs - let's say one action for now (you get two, an attack is also an action).

Also, what does a feint do? Does it increase the DTN of your next attack? Does it reduce the ATN of your next attack? Does it give you a bonus to attack?

The barbarian decides to go for an all out attack. As you might expect, this makes him a much more potent foe offensively, but really sucks when he has to defend if Miles is still standing.

...

Miles pulls back, going into a defensive posture (the natural tendancy of all people without a death wish against a guy with an all out attack which hits...no, I don't know how to represent that.)

So, this has round to round bonuses and penalties. So, say, an all out attack has a large penalty to defence, but if hits does more damage and gives a large penalty to attack to the opponent for a round. So, since they are unlikely to hit, they go into a defensive posture.

Both actions spent moving back. If he turns his back and runs, he might make himself a good target (I'm not sure how to represent this).

Attack of opportunity with a smaller ATN and a larger DTN?

The barbarian follows, and attempts to shove Miles to the ground. He's still on all out attack posture.

Wait, all out is a posture now?

---

Basically, the basic resolution mechanic (3d6, xd10, d20) is going to affect how often people hit and how tough people are. So, say, a d20 mechanic means the probabilities against the TNs jump in steps of 5% and large bonuses are needed to easily change how useful tactics are. So, a +2 tactical bonus is nice, but not essential. However, a +2 bonus with 3d6 is much more important, and changing whether you need to roll a 13 or a 15 is a large jump.

You also need to be aware that PCs will often be outnumbered, so you have to make sure that lots of tactically inefficient attacks are unlikely to hit, but your few tactically brilliant attacks are likely to hit. To me that makes the 3d6 better.

So, there are lots of attacks, but unless one has a tactical advantage or are much better, few of them hit.

[Elennsar]

So, the attack has to beat the TN and the defence roll? If so, either the attack has to be a lot higher than defence or very few attacks hit.

Right. Standard "I hit someone" TN is fairly simple...winding up with "I hit someone in the chest on a 3*." is fine.

Wait, the attack roll has a TN and the defence roll has a TN. So... if the attack fails the attack TN it is a miss and if the defence fails the defence TN then it is a hit, but if both succeed then the amount each beats the check by is compared?

Giving numbers here, take the numbers as seriously as necessary to understand this and no more:

I have a TN of 14 to punch you in the face. I get a total of 16.

Unless you make your defense roll, I hit. Your defense roll is at -2 (I beat the TN by 2).

If you succeeded, you blocked/dodged/parried/deflected/whatever.

You said that the damage and armour are linked, from which I infer that there is a damage roll, but there isn't one here. Either the damage is based on the attack and defence rolls, or you've missed out a step or you vary the damage roll based on how well you hit.

The TN to soak my punch to your face is 10. Armor+your natural toughness to the extent you have any against TN 10 = success, you're not hurt. Failure, you are (and depending on how much of a margin you failed by, you might be really badly hurt).

Also, what does a feint do? Does it increase the DTN of your next attack? Does it reduce the ATN of your next attack? Does it give you a bonus to attack?

I intended to make this clear in the duel example, let me see if I wrote anything there...

Roll to feint. If successful, enemy TN to defend is higher.

So, this has round to round bonuses and penalties. So, say, an all out attack has a large penalty to defence, but if hits does more damage and gives a large penalty to attack to the opponent for a round. So, since they are unlikely to hit, they go into a defensive posture.

I'm not sure. The thing is, the defense penalty is meaningless if your opponent is going to go defensive (inevitably). So I'd like to make it a risk your opponent will take advantage of you dropping your defenses.

How to implement that, I'm not sure.

Attack of opportunity with a smaller ATN and a larger DTN?

Yeah, I'm weighing whether I like the idea of attacks of opportunity existing in general or just for that specific situation. I know I don't want them the way D&D uses it, but having it as "you made yourself an easy target." might work.

Or maybe just when turning your back on someone.

Wait, all out is a posture now?

Posture, stance, choice...whatever. "He's still using all out attack."

Until you switch out of it (which I do not want to be easy...switching between all out attack and normal and back again should be nonviable), you're all out attacking.

You also need to be aware that PCs will often be outnumbered, so you have to make sure that lots of tactically inefficient attacks are unlikely to hit, but your few tactically brilliant attacks are likely to hit. To me that makes the 3d6 better.

So, there are lots of attacks, but unless one has a tactical advantage or are much better, few of them hit.

Since I prefer 3d6 to d20 anyway, I have no problem with this making it more important.

Thus, the comment earlier in this post of "on a 3"...on the lowest number the resolution mechanic can generate, less specifically.

[violence in the media]

Right. Standard "I hit someone" TN is fairly simple...winding up with "I hit someone in the chest on a 3*." is fine.

You're referring to roll + skill, right? I'm assuming that you intend to NOT have auto-fail, though you will have auto-successes in this case.

Giving numbers here, take the numbers as seriously as necessary to understand this and no more:

I have a TN of 14 to punch you in the face. I get a total of 16.

Unless you make your defense roll, I hit. Your defense roll is at -2 (I beat the TN by 2).

If you succeeded, you blocked/dodged/parried/deflected/whatever.

If you're primarily dealing with humanoid opponents, you could just have your listed attack and defense TN by hit location chart and let people call their shots as you wanted.

The TN to soak my punch to your face is 10. Armor+your natural toughness to the extent you have any against TN 10 = success, you're not hurt. Failure, you are (and depending on how much of a margin you failed by, you might be really badly hurt).

What numbers go into generating the damage TN? Strength + what? Weapon skill? Do you want to have the over-spill from your attack roll do double duty and have the attack be both harder to dodge and harder to shrug off?

I intended to make this clear in the duel example, let me see if I wrote anything there...

Roll to feint. If successful, enemy TN to defend is higher.

For how long? Until your next attack? Until his next turn? Does feinting only apply to you, or can a buddy benefit from your feint? How much higher does his defense TN get? A fixed number or over-spill?

I'm not sure. The thing is, the defense penalty is meaningless if your opponent is going to go defensive (inevitably). So I'd like to make it a risk your opponent will take advantage of you dropping your defenses.

How to implement that, I'm not sure.

Are you trying to penalize people for adopting a defensive stance? Do you want the stances to be viable, and have people adopt different ones for different purposes?

Posture, stance, choice...whatever. "He's still using all out attack."

Until you switch out of it (which I do not want to be easy...switching between all out attack and normal and back again should be nonviable), you're all out attacking.

Why not? You could maybe limit stance changes to once a round or something like that. Maybe make it an interrupt action so that people can react to changing conditions in the fight in a more "real-time" manner.

[Elennsar]

You're referring to roll + skill, right? I'm assuming that you intend to NOT have auto-fail, though you will have auto-successes in this case.

Correct on both.

If you're primarily dealing with humanoid opponents, you could just have your listed attack and defense TN by hit location chart and let people call their shots as you wanted.

That's the intent. Even with things like horses in the picture, a hit location chart is pretty simple. Praise the Emperor for not having funky monsters.

What numbers go into generating the damage TN? Strength + what? Weapon skill? Do you want to have the over-spill from your attack roll do double duty and have the attack be both harder to dodge and harder to shrug off?

Strength+weapon modifier. A punch is 0 (or even negative), a sword is a small bonus, etc.

Base of 10 or something to ensure the TN is actually high enought to matter, naturally.

For how long? Until your next attack? Until his next turn? Does feinting only apply to you, or can a buddy benefit from your feint? How much higher does his defense TN get? A fixed number or over-spill?

"Until after the next attack at him." No, a buddy can't benefit (though depending on how ganging up on someone works, there may be a way to make it work...probably an advantage or something you have to buy to represent this takes a lot of work and practice. By default, no.)

So you feint, attack, and then he's back to normal.

Are you trying to penalize people for adopting a defensive stance? Do you want the stances to be viable, and have people adopt different ones for different purposes?

Not really, no. And yes, I do. But I want to ensure all out attack is relatively impractical (you do it because the situation sucks anyway, or you're a berserker...which are NPC only, since berserkers are only among the barbarians, and more on those later.)...you letting down your guard can be majorly sucky.

Why not? You could maybe limit stance changes to once a round or something like that. Maybe make it an interrupt action so that people can react to changing conditions in the fight in a more "real-time" manner.

Something like that is fine. But the thing about an all out attack is, going all out, and then suddenly returning to regular or defensive is...missing the point.

So I want it to be a little harder at least there. Depending on how stances work, I might go with "one step per round" (can be done as an interupt as well), so you can't go from all out to regular at once.

[violence in the media]

Why not? You could maybe limit stance changes to once a round or something like that. Maybe make it an interrupt action so that people can react to changing conditions in the fight in a more "real-time" manner.

Something like that is fine. But the thing about an all out attack is, going all out, and then suddenly returning to regular or defensive is...missing the point.

So I want it to be a little harder at least there. Depending on how stances work, I might go with "one step per round" (can be done as an interupt as well), so you can't go from all out to regular at once.

Are you envisioning more than three stances? You're making it sound like the intended progression is: All out-->Offensive-->Neutral-->Defensive-->Super Defensive?

Would you rather stick with three stances and have an All out attack be something akin to a Flurry of Blows action or some such?

[Elennsar]

I am seriously considering it. "super defensive" has to have some reason that someone wouldn't just ignore you and find someone else to fight.

[violence in the media]

5 base stances might be a little too much granularity or complexity for your combat. You could have individual manouvers within each stance that any given fighter may or may not know and that would probably be ok.

Part of what the stances do will be influenced by what actions are available in combat, what fighting styles are being used, and what traits exist in the game system. You also might not want to have the stances directly correllate their bonuses and penalties.

For example:
Offensive stance trades defense for increased volume of attacks. (-2 to defense, +2 additional attacks.)
Neutral stance supports offensive accuracy. (+1 to hit.)
Defensive stance trades attack accuracy for increased defense and damage soaking. (-2 to hit, +1 to defense, +1 to soak.)

Within those stances, you could have abilities like this:
Wild Swing, trades accuracy for power. Only useable in Offensive or Neutral stance. (-2 to hit, +2 to damage.)
Flurry of Strikes, trades power for accuracy and attack volume. Requires a light weapon and stance shift to Offensive. (-2 damage, +1 to hit, +1 additional attack.)
Counter Attack, allows an attack in response to an opponent's. Requires Neutral or Defensive stance and being attacked by an opponent. May perform one counter attack per point of combat skill.
Precision Strike, waits for the perfect opening. Requires Neutral or Defensive stance, trades attacks for accuracy and damage. No counter attacks this turn. (-1 attack, +1 to hit, +1 to damage.)

You can adjust numbers and add abilities, obviously. I've just been throwing these ideas out off-the-cuff. Also, you can see that someone declaring a Flurry of Strikes (total modifiers: -2 damage, -2 defense, +1 to hit, +3 attacks) is probably going to get fucked against someone in Defensive stance with a competent Counter Attack (total modifiers: -2 to hit, +1 defense, +1 soak, up to 5 "free" counter attacks, assuming your 2 attacks everyone gets from earlier). That might be the sort of situation that you want, as it will create situations where the choices you make in combat allow you to prevail over an equal opponent that makes the wrong choice. However, being significantly better than your opponent will minimize these sort of mistakes.

With equipment, you can further modify these things. So a shield could do something like provide +1 Defense and +1 Soak, and successful use of a shield transfers the attack to your shield arm. This allows them a damage roll and has you make a soak roll. Parries might work similarly. The hardest, and best, thing to do would be to avoid the attack entirely with a normal defense roll, which might be penalized by armor.

[Elennsar]

All interesting ideas - I like the idea of special moves that can only be used within a given stance (or maybe both of normal and one of the other two).

Here's my request. If you're interested in this going somewhere (presumably you are), I would like your thoughts on the following (This applies to anyone else reading who is interested):

1) Armor. How useful is mail armor? Are we talking absorbing the stoutest blows, or keeping you alive but not enough to avoid injury entirely as a rule?

2) Defense. Do you usually hit someone after the attack/defense exchange, or does defense block most "hits"?

3) Should there be a parry/block roll and a dodge roll, or just a defense roll?

4) Should armor (remember, the PCs are in the armorclad camp) be hindering in terms of mobility and/or defense rolls, or is it meant to be a big advantage in combat?

5) Should this stay a mostly history based setting, or continue migrating into something with elements of fantasy (nothing exotic as a rule)?

6) Are the barbarians enemies, but not evil as a rule, or are they evil?

Keep in mind for 6 that you're going to have to fight and kill them to some fairly significant extent anyway.

[violence in the media]

All interesting ideas - I like the idea of special moves that can only be used within a given stance (or maybe both of normal and one of the other two).

Here's my request. If you're interested in this going somewhere (presumably you are), I would like your thoughts on the following (This applies to anyone else reading who is interested):

1) Armor. How useful is mail armor? Are we talking absorbing the stoutest blows, or keeping you alive but not enough to avoid injury entirely as a rule?

I'd say that mail armor should be somewhat useful, or even slightly better than not wearing it on no basis other than game considerations. If you want players to be knights and wear their mail as opposed to going sky-clad like the barbarians at the first opportunity, they need to have a reason to do so.

So, if you're taking a gamist bent, then mail needs to strictly better at saving your life than not wearing it. And it needs to save your ass often enough for one PC to be able to take on however many enemies as you intend them to.

That said, I saw a documentary on the History channel a few years ago about weapons and armor of various periods, and I remember a scene where one of the guys rent a suit of mail from the shoulder to the hip with an axe blow. The mail (different suits--they wrecked about a half-dozen, as I recall) didn't fare much better against many of the other weapons. The mail armor was on target dummies, so it was obviously not a perfect simulation of combat, but it still evoked the thought, "why would anyone wear this crap?"

As a rough estimation, assuming you're going historical simulationist, I'd say mail would protect you from getting shanked, would probably save your life a couple of times versus a one-handed weapon, but wouldn't help much on a good hit from a two-handed weapon.

2) Defense. Do you usually hit someone after the attack/defense exchange, or does defense block most "hits"?

Depends on what you want to do. If you don't want people taking massive amounts of damage, then most attacks need to not do any. From a player perspective, I'm going to be more engaged every time I have to make a Defense roll (and then a soak roll, if necessary) than I would be simply ticking of HP. On the other hand, the more rolls you add to combat, the longer it takes. And people will get bored of cleaving through Barbarian Raider #267 at some point, no matter how tense combat is.

3) Should there be a parry/block roll and a dodge roll, or just a defense roll?

I'd say a single defense roll, modified by what you choose to do. Block/parry means you take the attack on your weapon or shield instead of your face, but still provokes a soak/armor save, whatever. Dodge means avoiding the attack entirely, but is probably harder to do.

4) Should armor (remember, the PCs are in the armorclad camp) be hindering in terms of mobility and/or defense rolls, or is it meant to be a big advantage in combat?

See above. I'd reduce mobility/defense, but less than the increase the armor provides to soak rolls.

5) Should this stay a mostly history based setting, or continue migrating into something with elements of fantasy (nothing exotic as a rule)?

If your crew would be happy with a historical setting, then stick with that. I'd recommend expanding the setting to include elements of the fantastical that are thematically appropriate and letting groups use those or not at their choice.

6) Are the barbarians enemies, but not evil as a rule, or are they evil?

Keep black and white morality out of the game, and present reasons for why the two sides are committed to bloodshed. Maybe they have customs and ideals that are abhorrent to the Dux. Maybe the barbarians don't like the Dux stealing their land. Maybe the barbarians were just trying to include the Dux in the friendly game of cattle theft and, like the kid who takes things too far, the Dux overreacted. Whatever.

[Elennsar]

I'd say a single defense roll, modified by what you choose to do. Block/parry means you take the attack on your weapon or shield instead of your face, but still provokes a soak/armor save, whatever. Dodge means avoiding the attack entirely, but is probably harder to do.

Just responding here to clarify for anyone else answering...I meant "should block/parry be a seperate kind of roll than the Dodge roll", not "do you get to dodge, then block or parry if it fails.", which seems to be a "Yes." in your answer.

If your crew would be happy with a historical setting, then stick with that. I'd recommend expanding the setting to include elements of the fantastical that are thematically appropriate and letting groups use those or not at their choice.

I'm writing this as someone who enjoys tinkering with settings, not as a GM, so no crew to write for.

Keep black and white morality out of the game, and present reasons for why the two sides are committed to bloodshed.

What's wrong with black and white morality?

No, seriously. Speaking as someone who is somewhat black and white in their moral worldview (a subject irrelevant to this one), the idea that morality "really" is shades of gray is a disputable concept.

So, what is wrong with having the barbarians be evil savages?

If there was more of a diplomacy element to the game, where it would be relevant whether you could negotiate with the barbarians instead of driving them off by force, that would make sense (and arguing there should be one is an interesting point).

One thing to remember: The barbarians are the ones invading. They may have occupied a given area for quite a while, but to the extent anyone's homeland is at stake, its not theirs.

[violence in the media]

I'd say a single defense roll, modified by what you choose to do. Block/parry means you take the attack on your weapon or shield instead of your face, but still provokes a soak/armor save, whatever. Dodge means avoiding the attack entirely, but is probably harder to do.

Just responding here to clarify for anyone else answering...I meant "should block/parry be a seperate kind of roll than the Dodge roll", not "do you get to dodge, then block or parry if it fails.", which seems to be a "Yes." in your answer.

Sorry, I was unclear in my answer. I meant that when it comes time to make a Defense roll, the player decides, "I want to dodge this attack," or, "I want to block/parry this attack."

If they decide to Dodge, they roll their defense MINUS some number for their armor, MINUS some other number because getting entirely out of the way of an attack is tough to do. If they succeed, cool. If they fail, they get hit in the original target location.

If they instead elect to Block/parry, they roll their defense PLUS some number for their shield or weapon. If they succeed, they take a damage roll on the blocking/parrying arm, which they get to soak with a bonus from their shield or weapon, as well as any armor they are wearing. If they fail, they get hit in the original target location.

So the player has a choice, they can Dodge, which is harder to do, or they can block/parry which is much easier but still carries a risk of injury or getting a shield or weapon broken like you mentioned you wanted.

Is that better?

Keep black and white morality out of the game, and present reasons for why the two sides are committed to bloodshed.

What's wrong with black and white morality?

No, seriously. Speaking as someone who is somewhat black and white in their moral worldview (a subject irrelevant to this one), the idea that morality "really" is shades of gray is a disputable concept.

So, what is wrong with having the barbarians be evil savages?

Because it's intellectually lazy and offensive to anyone that doesn't share your particular definitions of black and white.

If there was more of a diplomacy element to the game, where it would be relevant whether you could negotiate with the barbarians instead of driving them off by force, that would make sense (and arguing there should be one is an interesting point).

Why couldn't there be a diplomatic component to the game? Couldn't you sway villages and tribes into switching allegiances? A nation doesn't have to increase it's population solely through breeding more nationals, after all.

One thing to remember: The barbarians are the ones invading. They may have occupied a given area for quite a while, but to the extent anyone's homeland is at stake, its not theirs.

Huh? Assuming that this is loosely based off of Arthurian legend, wouldn't Arthur's kingdom be patched together from the remnants of the Roman outposts? Aren't his barbaric enemies the Celts or the Picts or something? Weren't they there first, even if Arthur and Co. had been occupying the southern side of the island for a few hundred years after the original inhabitants had been driven north by the Legions?

If so, I can sympathize with them wanting to punt the King of the Britons and his Merry Men off the cliffs of Dover in that case. And I don't know if I'd call them the invaders.

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Arthurian legend, so take my assumptions with a grain of salt.

[norms29]

Keep black and white morality out of the game, and present reasons for why the two sides are committed to bloodshed.

What's wrong with black and white morality?

No, seriously. Speaking as someone who is somewhat black and white in their moral worldview (a subject irrelevant to this one), the idea that morality "really" is shades of gray is a disputable concept.

So, what is wrong with having the barbarians be evil savages?

Because it's intellectually lazy and offensive to anyone that doesn't share your particular definitions of black and white.

I have to question that assertion. Firstly because whenever I hear something to the affect of "morality isn't black and white" it's followed by a claim that because theres it's not "black and white" then there is no right&wrong, and it's okay to do anything, and refusing to make any moral judgement is a greatdeal lazier then refusing to second guess yourself after teh fact.

Secondly, for that matter what about the fact that Right and wrong, or good and evil, existing requires that they be easy to identify as such. The quintessetial "Black&White" assertion is that in any given situation there is one (or more) "right" course of action, doesn't imply that it should be immediatly obvious.

One thing to remember: The barbarians are the ones invading. They may have occupied a given area for quite a while, but to the extent anyone's homeland is at stake, its not theirs.

Huh? Assuming that this is loosely based off of Arthurian legend, wouldn't Arthur's kingdom be patched together from the remnants of the Roman outposts? Aren't his barbaric enemies the Celts or the Picts or something? Weren't they there first, even if Arthur and Co. had been occupying the southern side of the island for a few hundred years after the original inhabitants had been driven north by the Legions?

If so, I can sympathize with them wanting to punt the King of the Britons and his Merry Men off the cliffs of Dover in that case. And I don't know if I'd call them the invaders.

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Arthurian legend, so take my assumptions with a grain of salt.

First, the romans never drove anyone north (well, possibly some individuals might have gone that way, but not likely) the preRoman inhabitants of the southern side of the island continued to inhabit it under roman rule. When the roman garrison was withdraw, those same locals (the Britons, the ancestors of modern day Welsh and Cornish) inherited the roman infrastructure, and continued to live in that fashion untill the Picts, from Scotland, noticed the lack of a Roman Garrison and became more aggressive. so no, Arthur's people were there first. And the prevailing Historical interpretation (according to the history channel) is that the Barbaric enemies were actually the Anglo-saxons, who intially came to the island as mercenaries hired to fight the Picts. they set about conquering the Britons when a drought prevented them from paying their bills in timely fashion.

[Elennsar]

So the player has a choice, they can Dodge, which is harder to do, or they can block/parry which is much easier but still carries a risk of injury or getting a shield or weapon broken like you mentioned you wanted.

Is that better?

Yes. Very interesting concept - though I'd note that I don't want weapons breaking (shields, yes, swords, no.)

But that as something to work in is fantastic.

And the prevailing Historical interpretation (according to the history channel) is that the Barbaric enemies were actually the Anglo-saxons, who intially came to the island as mercenaries hired to fight the Picts. they set about conquering the Britons when a drought prevented them from paying their bills in timely fashion.

As an Anglo-Saxon descended English-American, those ancestors of mine (bolded, not in the original quote) are the barbarians (historically and for purposes of looking at who the "barbarian invaders" are).

So yeah, the Saxons-by-any-other-name stink as badly and are invading.

Now, if the idea is that having diplomacy as well as war would make this more interesting and more believable and etc., I can believe that.

"Kill 'em all, God will know they're not His own." is a terrible attitude, whether or not there are groups worth killing.

However, if the Saxons-by-any-other-name are invading (i.e., with armies and such), its a lot easier to justify shoving them back into the sea with all necessary force - what to do with women and children would not even come up.

[violence in the media]

Because it's intellectually lazy and offensive to anyone that doesn't share your particular definitions of black and white.

I have to question that assertion. Firstly because whenever I hear something to the affect of "morality isn't black and white" it's followed by a claim that because theres it's not "black and white" then there is no right&wrong, and it's okay to do anything, and refusing to make any moral judgement is a greatdeal lazier then refusing to second guess yourself after teh fact.

Secondly, for that matter what about the fact that Right and wrong, or good and evil, existing requires that they be easy to identify as such. The quintessetial "Black&White" assertion is that in any given situation there is one (or more) "right" course of action, doesn't imply that it should be immediatly obvious.

I apparently have a serious problem between my brain and my fingers today, as I am not being clear at all. I was largely talking about within the context of a game, as Elennsar made it clear he didn't really want to tangent onto a philosophy discussion.

I wasn't meaning to imply that there is no right and wrong, but rather acknowledge that exact definitions of such things vary from person to person, depend on the circumstances and situations involved, and can shift over time. If the game flatly defines the barbarians as evil and immoral from some objective standpoint, you're just creating potential player conflict where you really don't need to.

If the barbarians are created as any sort of plausible culture, you're going to have a hard time pointing at them collectively and enumerating their sins in such a manner that aren't going to have at least some people saying, "that's not that bad," or, "I could see why they might do that or feel that way."

Unless you just want them to be Chaos Marauders from the frozen north, of course.

First, the romans never drove anyone north (well, possibly some individuals might have gone that way, but not likely) the preRoman inhabitants of the southern side of the island continued to inhabit it under roman rule. When the roman garrison was withdraw, those same locals (the Britons, the ancestors of modern day Welsh and Cornish) inherited the roman infrastructure, and continued to live in that fashion untill the Picts, from Scotland, noticed the lack of a Roman Garrison and became more aggressive. so no, Arthur's people were there first. And the prevailing Historical interpretation (according to the history channel) is that the Barbaric enemies were actually the Anglo-saxons, who intially came to the island as mercenaries hired to fight the Picts. they set about conquering the Britons when a drought prevented them from paying their bills in timely fashion.

I'll take your word on all this. Like I said, my knowledge of this period is generously described as "passing" and more accurately as "minute."