One of the advantages of running a system that is simple and flexible is that energetic players want to help revise and improve it. The trick is to get those energetic players to think like a GM. This is, needless to say, hard. Still, Scott J. and I have been kicking around ideas today for the combat system. I intend to implement these, or something like them, in the near future. Here is your chance to have input on the implementation.
Combat Options
Characters have the following choices when being attacked during a combat segment.
- Nothing. This costs no initiative penalty. You get what you get.
- Parry. This uses your weapon rank, and costs a -2 initiative penalty. It’s rolled before the attack.
- Dodge. This uses your defense rank, and costs a -1 initiative penalty. It’s rolled before the attack.
- Improved Dodge (Cascade skill). This uses your defense rank, and costs a -1 initiative penalty. It’s rolled before the attack.
- Shield. This uses your Shield rank, and costs a -1 initiative penalty. It’s rolled after the attack.
The following sections describe the options.
Nothing
Suck it up.
Parry
This is a system change. To parry, you are trying to interpose your weapon between yourself and an attacker. You roll your weapon skill (full ranks). For each 10 points of EV, the attacker loses 0k1 from his/her attack dice. If the attacker is reduced to 0 kept dice, the attack fails (but a roll should still be made for fumbling). Note the following modifications to the Parry roll:
- Large weapons such as battle-axes or warhammers are reduced by 3k0 when parrying.
- Very small weapons such as daggers are reduced by 2k0 when parrying.
- Staffs are increased by 2k0 when parrying.
- Non-melee weapons such as crossbows use AGI trait score (keeping all dice) when parrying.
Weapons other than non-melee weapons achieve a bind when they reduce the attacker’s keep dice to 0. The defender may then attack, taking the current initiative as his/her own.
Weapons run the risk of being broken when parrying, particularly when there is a disparity in size.
Parrying reduces the defender’s initiative score by 2.
Rationale: The object of a parry is not to avoid, but rather to deflect, an incoming attack. Good warriors don’t run away – they stand and fight, and hold their own against an enemy. By removing kept dice, the attacker’s effectiveness is reduced. A superior defender may then attack back.
Dodge
Stays the same. To dodge, a character rolls Defense skill. Each 10 points of EV removes 1k0 from the attacker’s roll, while 20 points of EV removes 0k1. Dodging only permits the defender to avoid one attacker in a given segment.
There is presently no way to dodge a missile attack or ranged magic.
Dodging reduces the defender’s initiative score by 1.
Rationale: Dodging is cheaper for initiative, but is no way to avoid getting beaten on by a superior opponent. But then it never was. For -1 initiative, it likely beats doing nothing, but your mileage may vary.
Improved Dodge
This is a new Cascade skill, derived from Defense. For each 3 ranks of Improved Dodge, the defender may avoid one additional attacker; thus, at rank 6, the defender may avoid up to 3 attackers (i.e., 1 for dodging, plus 2 for 6 ranks in the improved skill.) In addition, for each 3 ranks of Improved Dodge, the defender adds 1k0 to the skill roll.
There is presently no way to dodge a missile attack or ranged magic.
Improved Dodge reduces the defender’s initiative score by 1.
Rationale: This is the cascade skill for dodgin’ fools. By increasing the number of opponents you can dodge, and giving a slight bonus to the Defense roll, nimble defenders can stay alive longer.
Shield
This is a new implementation. A shield defense is not intended to avoid the attack, but rather to reduce or avoid damage. Shields have ratings like armor: 2 for small shields, 3 or 4 for larger ones. When shield parrying, the defender rolls his/her Shield skill, adding 1k1 for any rating the shield presently has.
Thus, a defender with Shield rank of 3 and AGI of 3, holding an undamaged small shield, would roll 8k5 (6k3 plus 2k2 for the shield rating.) The attacker rolls the attack as normal, then rolls damage (including any damage from critical hits.) For each 10 points of EV in the defender’s Shield skill roll, s/he may roll 1k1 to reduce the attacker’s damage. Any damage that exceeds this roll is applied to the defender and the shield is reduced by 1 if that amount is nonzero (thus it’s possible that the shield can remain undamaged, but the defender has to take away all of the attacker’s damage.)
Shield skill may be rolled against incoming missile fire at a penalty of 2k0. The shield is always damaged in this way.
Improvised shields, such as chairs or other objects, are at the discretion of the GM. They may lose all of their defense rating at once, for example.
Shield defense reduces the defender’s initiative score by 1.
Rationale: Shields have to do something, and this treats them more like armor. However, a defender against a vastly superior attacker will eventually run out of shields – and out of hit points.
Let’s Hear It
This is preliminary but is close to what I’d like to roll out. Let me know what you think.
As of, an average guy with a big honkin’ sword gets absolutly wrecked by an average guy with a sword and shield. 0K1 extra damage isn’t enough to offset getting to roll against damage with, seemingly, no less than 8k5, which is (roughly) a 30. 3k3 against a 6k3 attack would then put the shielded in a good position because parrying with a 2-handed weapon requires alot more ranks to counter anywhere near the amount of the shield. Perhaps I’m biased because i am a guy with a big, 2-handed sword, but it seems to me that shields are a little bit over-powered.
well, to be fair, that extra bonus only applies to the first attack. If any damage gets through, the shield loses a cube, making it less effective.
What was envisioned was an average guy backing up, holding his shield in the way, desperately fending off blows until there’s effectively no shield left.
I was play-testing the proposed Parry rules with Wolfram which led to this post. Some comments:
1. It is unclear what is meant by the successful bind/parry allowing the defender to attack and “take the current initiative as his/her own”. What happens when an attacker with an initiative roll of (say) 25 is parried by a defender with initiative roll of 4? If they get to counter-attack, what happens to their native initiative roll? I think it means they get a free counter-attack (more on that below) at this sequence and that is that. Further moves are deferred until their native sequence or the next successful Parry.
2. Regarding a counter-attack – it does not seem fair to allow the person who Parried to get a free attack with no defensive move for the former attacker. It also does not do a good job of modeling what happens in a battle between radically unmatched opponents. If a novice attacks a master, the master will easily parry and then counter-attack. If the master attacks a novice, the attack will most often get through even if it is partially parried; it would be very rare indeed if the novice parried so well as to effectively counter-attack. To model this, I suggest you use the success of the parry to influence the success of the counter-attack. An effective parry reduces the amount of Keep Dice of the attacker. I suggest that if all of the Keep Dice are removed, any remaining effect value of the Parry be applied as N-keep-N attack dice with no other defensive move allowed. For example, if Max attacks Wolfram, his 6k3 attack is met with a 13k9 (gulp!) Parry. The dice table puts that at a nominal 70 EV for the parry, which takes away 0k7 dice from the attack. Poor Max only has 3, so the 4 extras that Wolfram has become the basis for a 4k4 attack.
We tried this out both ways – Max can (slightly) blunt Wolfram’s attack under normal conditions. It would be unlikely that Max could effectively parry and counter-attack a master swordsman, but he’d do well against another novice. Wolfram would be able to hit a novice at will, but would have to work against another master.
Of course, instead of trading blows with a big thug holding a sharp bit of metal, Max would rather stay behind a convenient meat-shield and throw magic at the problem until it stops breathing…
Thanks for your input Max.
>1. It is unclear what is meant by the successful bind/parry allowing the defender to attack and “take the current initiative as his/her own”. What happens when an attacker with an initiative roll of (say) 25 is parried by a defender with initiative roll of 4?
My intention was to do just that. It might be too much, but the idea was to shift momentum radically. The other alternative is to let the defender take the action but not affect his/her original initiative at all, which doesn’t seem right either.
>2. Regarding a counter-attack – it does not seem fair to allow the person who Parried to get a free attack with no defensive move for the former attacker.
I don’t think the former attacker gets a defensive move at all, but perhaps the counterattack should be at some reduced value. If the former attacker was allowed a parry, then we could hit an endless (or endless-seeming) cycle. It would become Runequest® and believe me no one wants that.
>It also does not do a good job of modeling what happens in a battle between radically unmatched opponents. If a novice attacks a master, the master will easily parry and then counter-attack.
That’s exactly what should happen.
>If the master attacks a novice, the attack will most often get through even if it is partially parried; it would be very rare indeed if the novice parried so well as to effectively counter-attack.
Tha’ts exactly what should happen.
>To model this, I suggest you use the success of the parry to influence the success of the counter-attack. An effective parry reduces the amount of Keep Dice of the attacker.
[suggestion and example snipped]
So a parry that takes away exactly the number of Keep dice the attacker has would give the defender no dice to roll in the counterattack.
I suspect there is a better solution. A very good parry doesn’t necessarily lead to a very good counterattack.
>It would be unlikely that Max could effectively parry and counter-attack a master swordsman, but he’d do well against another novice.
I think that’s what we want, isn’t it? And as for master against master, I think it models that too.
It sounds like the issue isn’t whether this approach is a valid one – it’s (1) whether the counterattack at the attacker’s segment happens right away (and that’s the only initiative benefit), and (2) what value the counterattack should have.
I’d guess that the comment about changing initiative can be dropped. As for the value of the counter – it has to be straightforward. Maybe the counterattack is at half ranks, representing the fact that it’s not a full-on attack but a counterattack. That would be simpler and would not permit or require a further defensive declaration from the former attacker.
My thoughts on the parry system after preliminary play-testing are that I am very leery about binds (counter-attacks) happening automatically at full weapon rank, especially for higher level duels between masters. Under the current revised rules, if two proficient swordsmen (let us say 13k9) duel, and if the defender parries with the minimum effect value needed to take away all his attackers’ keeps and achieve a bind (rolls a 91), the defender would get to bind at 13k9. The original attacker gets no defense against this, and will most likely be obliterated. Even at half ranks (9k5) the bind will probably be lethal. This is less of a problem for novices, who even with a full-rank bind might not score a one-shot kill. However, I think that two equal opponents should be equally matched. Two masters will have to work to exploit even a small opening, and an instant kill like that described above shouldn’t happen unless one duelist really tanks his roll, or botches.
I like Max’s suggestion that the success of a bind be incumbent upon the success of the parry, with a range of possible results:
>An effective parry reduces the amount of Keep Dice of the attacker. I suggest that if all of the Keep Dice are removed, any remaining effect value of the Parry be applied as N-keep-N attack dice with no other defensive move allowed. For example, if Max attacks Wolfram, his 6k3 attack is met with a 13k9 (gulp!) Parry. The dice table puts that at a nominal 70 EV for the parry, which takes away 0k7 dice from the attack. Poor Max only has 3, so the 4 extras that Wolfram has become the basis for a 4k4 attack.
If every 10 points of parry EV takes 0k1 off of the attack, maybe we can extend the scale through to binds, such that every 10 EV points past a complete parry allows the defender a 1k1 to his/her bind, up to the defender’s full weapon rank. For our two 13k9 duelists, this would mean that a parry EV of 72 would take 0k7 off the attack (with 13k2 remaining), a 95 EV would take off 0k9 (defeating the attack but not allowing the defender to bind), and a 127 would allow the defender to bind at 3k3. A miraculous parry of 190 or above shouldn’t allow a bind with more keeps than the original defender has ranks, so the bind would be at 10k9. An innovation like this would balance out duels between well-matched opponents, but would still allow a master to nigh-effortlessly parry and bind a rookie at a very respectable fraction of the master’s power.
Another way to do it would be to allow binds to happen with full attack dice rolled, but with a variable number of keeps dependent upon the success of the parry, as demonstrated above. For example if one of our duelists parries with a 119, he would bind his opponent with 13k2. This would simulate the greater speed and lethality of a masterly duel, with less chance of one master unfairly splurging the other.
I admit that I haven’t yet decided whether I would rather the bind be at 2k2 or 13k2. The way I see it, the issues at stake are game balance and simplicity. Which system would better represent those… well I haven’t completely thought it through. Maybe more play-testing?
here’s the question. how important is it that the bind – the counterattack – be tied to the character’s skill?
I had the following thought. If the character’s skill affects the ability to bind, then let the attack be based on half the character’s weapon rank (round down) – keeping all dice but not adding the AGI score. So if the hypothetical 13k9 character successfully binds, he will counterattack at 4k4. One more rank, meaning 14k10, and he will counterattack at 5k5. The trait doesn’t come into play – it’s all weapons ability.
It’s not as serious as full ranks, not as complicated as tying it to the success of the bind, and of course it can’t be countered by a defense. The best fighters we have in the game have 12 or so weapon ranks – this knocks them to a 6k6, and only if they bind.
What do you think?
[...] System Updates After extensive debate the revisions relating to parry and dodge have been incorporated onto the combat [...]
You seem to have over-looked one fighter, hotc; one that would, the majority of the time, make Wolfram look like Max. In his case, a succesful bind would lead to a 7k7 attack roll on a helpless target. Granted, most of our fighters get the majority of their damage from their crit’s, a roll that is tied to ranks (or half) means that the true masters will still get very high bind rolls, but parries wouldn’t occur enough on evenly matched targets to make it strictly roll based. It is puzzling as to which way makes the most sense…
hotc, your last thought is good, but as mentioned above, it loses “sense” when applied to a theoretical “master’s duel.” With the limit of 15 ranks in any given skill, 7k7 is in fact the highest possible parry. (exception given to the obscenely powerful npc’s) Is this what you want? A 7k7 yields, on average, a 45(ish). I believe this is a small crit–maybe +10 damage or so. For those standard bastard sword wielders of average strength, this means 6k2+10–roughly 24 damage. This puts the average fighter near the bottom of the second 0 block.
On the other hand: if a bind allowed you roll rank keep every extra die taken away past the last one the attacker rolls, you are most likely left with: half weapon rank [keep] 0-2 dice most of the time which leads to a miss (if the standard 20 to hit rule still applies wide-open targets). Were I to duel a copy of myself, a parry would rarely occur, let alone one that would amount to a hit. 18k15 rolls on average a 90, I believe. A 90 for a parry roll against me leaves me rolling 18k6. I would rarely parry myself in a duel.
I think that the bind/counter-attack should reflect the roll of the parry, though this seems difficult to implement. What seems most practical for me would be, on a succesful bind: half weapon rank [keep] agility. For me, that gives me 7k3 on binds. For someone like Richard, who has a lot of skill and exceptional agility, this would yield a 5k5 roll on binds. 7k7 is too high, but 2k2 is far too low. I think 7k3 and is reasonable, though it is higher than other PC’s bind rolls would be. Wolfram, for example, would roll 4k4 were it like this.
How does this sound?
I meant to add this to the previous comment.
In regards to Wolfram’s thought: the excess dice from a parry would be the roll and keeps of the bind, or just the keeps with weapon rank rolled, the problem is that if two equal swordsmen duel, parries will rarely occur. It is statistically unlikely that a 13k9 roll gets a 95, which would simply take away the attack, let alone be able to make a bind attack.
Without parries in a duel scenario, the victor will be the one who rolls the highest initiative and avoids a 1-shot KO crit attack. A parry in a duel will most likely win it for the “parry-er.”
The fact is that it is hard enough to just barely parry someone of just equal skill, let alone parry by multiples of 10 beyond their keep dice. You have to average ATLEAST 10 per die in order to parry your equal, so a succesful parry should be rewarded enough to turn the tide of the battle.
And shields are still OP IMO.
For the average bastard sword wielder (which I’m not, but most I’ve seen are), a shield roll of 20 takes away all of the keep dice from the attack. Anyone who has a shield on them should be able to make a 20 in their sleep. At the least, the damage dice reduced should work like dodge does to an attack: Every 10 points of EV takes away 1 roll, and every 20 takes away 1 keep. Even at that it only requires a 40 to ablate all damage, which still seems low.
I had another thought…one that I find quite comical.
A sword-master gets his ass handed to him by a quarterstaff-master. Yet no PC fighter uses one…
Maybe I should stop using my 15 ranks in sword and start using the quarterstaff…
…Damn system changes…our GM really must actually be trying to screw the players…