I think your understanding of "hits" is misguided when it comes to most ttrpg combat. If you "miss" it doesn't mean you didn't hit your target. It only means you didn't do "damage" (another abstract definition that doesn't always mean drawing blood even). You can swing your sword around as fast as you like, hitting someone 10 times, but if they are unphased by it... you didn't accomplish much. This isn't a "point scoring game" like some modern sword fight club. Touching someone doesn't count as a hit. If you "miss" it's not necessarily a "whiff". Maybe your sword crashes into their armor with a loud clang of metal on metal? Maybe they parried? Maybe they deflected the attack off their armor as your weapon slides harmlessly off their shoulder? Almost all "realistic" combat maneuvers could be used to quickly describe a "miss". Just as they can describe "hits". I explain to my players that dnd terms are a codified language. Not plain English. Hit, miss, damage... all mean something specific to the game, not necessarily the meaning they have known their whole lives. This is likely true for all ttrpgs. Anyway. I think this is a deep misunderstanding of terms and not something that needs fixing/changing.
I actually think what you wrote supports my argument. If you use language like "hit" that doesn't actually mean landing an attack, that is ambiguous and abstract. You even mention that in most games "damage" doesn't even necessarily mean damage. I also address your argument about how a "miss" can be narratively explained in most games. You didn't address my actual contention. How defense is determined in most games is abstract, so much so that there is no mechanical distinction between a sword deflecting off of armor or being parried. "You can swing your sword around as fast as you like, hitting someone 10 times, but if they are unphased by it... you didn't accomplish much. This isn't a "point scoring game" like some modern sword fight club. Touching someone doesn't count as a hit." Hitting someone 10 times is not the same as missing 10 times. If I hit you 10 times in earnest with a weapon, whether you are wearing armor or not, you will wish I missed 10 times. I think perhaps you deeply misunderstood the point of my video. Language in most games can be more intuitive. The rules which determine outcomes can be more intuitive. Yes, I can justify any dice roll and come up with a narrative. But overly abstract, unintuitive rules feel unsatisfying and do not easily facilitate the narration of combat.
In Call of Cthulhu and all other BRP system based games, when the enemy attacks you can either roll for dodge (half DEX), counterattack or do a maneuver (like running away). I think it's one of the most intuitive systems out there. If the enemy passes the combat roll and you dodge and pass the dodge roll, based on the level of success, you can successfully dodge. And also, when dodging the defending side wins the tie and on counterattacking the attacking side wins in the tie. I find this combat system very specific and more intuitive to understand and learn.
You can narrate a miss as a hit that dealt no "real" damage all you want, but the combat that lasts for 2 hours where nobody cant "hit" anyone and does nothing, is still incredibly boring and frustrating. I litterally had such combat once in WHF, where we - 3 pc's fought against 1 weak enemy, and nobody could hit anyone and the fight went for 2 hours straight as the result of that. There are systems that do nothing to prevent that from happening and there are systems that do. Personally, i preffer the latter.
"miss =\= didn't make contact" is definitely not true of all rpgs. There are some that have 1 second rounds and take the simulation of combat much closer, if not exactly, one attack equals one action. I've been developing an RPG that does this. A single attack equals a single action and you roll for degrees of success which determines whether bonuses are added to the damage roll and whether additional effects of the attack occur. On most natural occasions 99% of rolls are hits of some kind, but may be actually evaded, or the damage mitigated by armament despite the hit. So in my system you can get a situation where a physical contact does no damage, but it's not the same as a miss.
Here’s a quick tip that helped me get past all of type of thinking about the “way real combat works” as a lifelong martial artist who also plays a variety of different ttrpgs. There are three main types of TTRPG games and their design. Those types are Games as Narrative, Games as Games, and Games as Simulation. The issue it appears that you have is that your experience is with games that are designed to be games. Meaning that the rules are mechanically designed for abstraction in an attempt at expediency, not just expediency in combat but expediency in learning to play the game and understanding those mechanics. It’s easier for most people who don’t have any experience with real world combat and no interest in real world combat to understand Roll die-> pass or fail -> thing happens ->next turn. This generally what DnD and Warhammer fantasy and most games that got their start as war games fit into. What it sounds like you are more interested in games as simulations, at least when it comes to combat. Where there is more of an emphasis on getting the simulation accurate. Where a combat simulationist focused rpg has the majority of what you are talking about. Games like Mythras, The Riddle of Steel (which was HEMA Society designed and approved), Harnmaster, Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, hell Vampire the Masquerade: Dark Ages handles this subject fairly well, The Dark Eye (my personal favorite in this category), and definitely Hackmaster are fantastic for this type of gameplay. As are so many among others. I think you have a good grasp on what you are looking for but may just be unaware of these other types of games. Remember that the more realistic something in a game is, the more steps there will be to resolving it, just in your stated case what I heard as a game designer: comparative weapon sizes, a roll to hit, a roll to defend, battlefield complications or modifiers, mentality complications or modifiers, armor and damage reduction, armor and weapon comparative modifiers… all of that to resolve one round of combat. People complain about DnD taking too long to resolve a round of combat and all that you do there is roll a d20+modifiers+advantage/disadvantage=if you hit or not, roll damage, next. If you’re going to have all of that stuff in a game know that you are designing for a specific audience that isn’t the average TTRPG player. Not all games are designed for all people, but for all people (especially these days) there is a great game. PS I really liked streets of Peril.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! I am familiar with most of the games you suggested. I even know Jake Norwood, the Riddle of Steel creator, and have fought him in several tournaments. I am actually not that interested in simulation. Something I tried to convey in this video is that I think realistic simulation is usually boring and slow. I think "intuitive" rules bridge the gap between abstract/simple and realistic/complicated. I'm really happy to hear you enjoyed SoP! Look forward to hearing from you again.
@@brokenbladepublishinghey… so I sat down and watched/listened to your video again and realized that while I stand by my advice and suggestions, that they aren’t really relevant to the points you were trying to make so I will just ask that you take what I said as just me vomiting information at you in good faith and that I really did mean well. If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to take another swing at it now that I have a better idea and grasp of what you meant. I’d like to talk to you more directly than a UA-cam comment but this is what I have at the moment. I think what you are proposing isn’t a massive leap of logic or even that hard to implement especially from the ground up. However that said if you wanted to implement this type of “intuitive” system in let’s say a DnD game without doing a ton of work here’s my own shot at implementing it as quickly as possible: Attack rolls normally Active defense instead of AC: dex mod + proficiency mod Armor turns into a damage reduction number depending on armor worn but ascending order of light 1-2, medium 2-5, heavy 4-8, shields are either plus 2 to active defense or +2 to damage reduction (not both) selected by defender at time of defense Hit points at first level are rolled hit die+con mod, At each level only the additional rolled hit die Weapon damage remains the same but dice explode if maximum number on the die is rolled Critical Hits ignore damage reduction And use the lingering injury rules and table in the DMs guide (or make your own if don’t agree with the table presented). You can also simulate battle fatigue by adding a cumulative -1 (-1, -2, etc etc) to all rolls for each time the character takes a successful hit whether damage reduction absorbs it or not. Though this fatigue won’t start accumulating until they have been struck a number of times equal to their level + their con modifier in times struck (regardless of damage taken including none) or maybe by every round spent engaged in battle. Or both? This “fatigue” can be reset by a short rest, and borrowing from Baldur’s Gate 3, limit short rests to two per 24 hour period. Then give the weapons a couple more properties like hammers, maces, morning stars, and flails do double fatigue damage. great swords and great axes always attack a 3 x2 square space in front, behind or to the side of the attacker. Rapiers and Estocs can crit on a 18,19, 20 but will be destroyed if crit during a defense roll against any weapon that is not a finesse weapon. Daggers and knives have no penalty to use during a grapple. Sabers, scimitars, khukris, and other severely curved type weapons cause a bleeding wound ( -1 hp per round until a successful medicine check or other healing is applied) Axes alllow for a trip attempt as a bonus action or they can be used to successfully disable (hooking the shield) a defender’s shield until the start of their next turn Throwing Axes have advantage when thrown but do half damage on an odd numbered roll and regular damage on an even (get hit with the blade or the haft) These are just some ideas that came to mind when I started really listening and thinking about what you were saying. I think these tweaks would bring 5e in line with what you were describing and be easy to implement. From a DMs side of things it’d just be removing the monsters con from each hit die. Turning the armor they are wearing (or have naturally) into damage reduction. And figuring out their defense bonus ( which baring any specific circumstance) would just be the creatures ranged attack bonus. Now this would probably make combat a tad slower because of the extra rolling. But the fatigue and reduced hit points plus the increased damage capabilities would increase the speed of play. The fatigue mechanic alone might encourage either more risk taking or make retreat a more viable option. So I think there’s a good trade. Again I am sorry for not listening as closely as I should’ve the first time, but I hope that this was closer to what you were describing. 😅
A note about the Warhammer RPG: My group House ruled in the reckless attack feature. You get +40% to hir but forego any kind of active defense. If your skill is under 40%, this is your default option. It does a great job of simulating somebody who doesn't know how to defend themselves but is committed to hurting their opponent. It makes swords Masters and murder machines feel epic because they can defeat a crowd of unskilled foes quickly because they rarely miss, but you don't do it against somebody who you can't kill in the first couple swings because they're going to wreck you. It's also great for simulating the ferocity of anything that is dependent on its natural toughness instead of skill to avoid harm. Dragons, orcs, ogres are much more likely to choose it as an option because they'll either kill whatever it is they're swinging at first or they can take the hit they're probably going to get for leaving themselves open.
That’s a good house rule and does simulate the “bestial” man approach to combat. I don’t think it accounts for the swordmaster who can easily harm enemies while still keeping themselves safe, however. In 1e, I don’t think there was even an option for reckless attack!
@@brokenbladepublishing Oh, there isn't, in any version that I know of. I only have my second ed book after The Great Flood of '18 but the thing about being a swordmaster, or any given elf on a bad day, is that once you get skilled enough you can CHOOSE to attack recklessly because 1) you are confident in your initiative bonus and 2) you know when to be reckless. There is a middle stage, around skill 60%, where you are probably good enough that you can attack and defend but how many times have you seen someone, in real life HEMA, lose to impatience and get punished for it? A higher skill level gives you the technique and knowledge to know better.
@@torymiddlebrooks you are correct that even good HEMA fighters can be struck by reckless and aggressive opponents. But there are a handful of fencers, like Rob Childs, who can pretty much land a strike whenever they like and are almost never touched by a weapon. WFRP doesn’t account for those kinds of fighters, what I would consider the true “swordmaster.” A very skilled WFRP character with 70 WS is still missing 30% of the time, and that is before the defender attempts to dodge or parry.
@@brokenbladepublishing A question about where you draw skill levels then. What would you consider the skills of a swordmaster? Is it JUST WS or are other stats like A or I involved? Does Rob have a WS 70? Higher? If you were built for speed and you got lucky in all your randoms and made a 1 in a million Rob, what do his fighting skills look like? WS 80, I 65 A 3? I am genuinely curious because of your background in both HEMA and WHFP.
When we played with the rule we had a dude build full Assassin for that sweet 3 attacks. WS 69 (nice), I 50ish, A 3. If he got the drop on someone he would often attack recklessly, giving +40 on all those attacks, and effectively render any attempt at defense moot, kill his target before they got to slap back and be moving on to the next victim. When he met a Black Orc in heavy plate, he had to fight very differently and he hated it.
I agree wholeheartedly with you about AC feeling inadequate. From a class fantasy point of view, being a big armor man who can take a lot of hits and not go down vs being a dodgy wiggly guy who never gets hit, AC feels bad on both fronts. For my own system I'm wanting to use Armor as damage reduction in some capacity. Making it reduce damage adds extra math, though, so I'm considering maybe having armor have HP of its own, that protects the player's hp until it is reduced and breaks.
Don't be afraid of simple math. Nearly every game involves adding bonus, imposing penalties, and keeping track of resources. While I prefer a system which isn't overly complicated, the current trend to make games simple is getting out of control.
@@brokenbladepublishing In a recent discussion on THAC0, when I said that "...the ability to deduct a single digit number from a two digit number should not be regarded as a tough ask when playing a TTRPG..." I got a month ban from the group for being "Elitist" and "Flaunting Privilege". (And that was literally the most contentious line in my post! So its not like I was also saying "You're all a bunch of f***ing idiots!"or anything.) Its a scary slope...
For the TTRPG designers, don't forget that while realism will likely lead to quick and lethal fights, it can be used to flavor up in all kinds of combat. You can use it to represent a superhuman barbarian fighting on with a dozen arrows in him and an arm missing, a knight so skilled he can't even get hit when fighting mere goblins unless two or more corner him, a mage impatiently waiting for his arms to magically regrow so he can cast fireball, and pretty much anything you imagine. In my opinion it doesn't have to be anywhere, but also can be anywhere no matter how insane and fantastical the rest is.
💯 -- truly enjoyed this video. I've tried hundreds of TTRPG systems with cinematic to ultra-realistic for many decades. Your insights into making combat intuitive are excellent advice.
This is awesome. Somewhere in there, I think you actually addressed the exact combat system I've been working on and told me exactly how it could be improved, by the way.
Gygax explained in 1e that the reason for the combat system (1 minute rounds, 1 attack, even AC and hit points) was an intentional abstraction and simplification of "real" combat, because trying to make a "realistic" system, including parry/dodge, critical hits/misses, etc, would overly complicate the game. Of course, this was the same game that had rules for weapon speed, weapon adjustments vs armor type, and multiple charts to consult, depending on class. My only WHFRP (1e) story was when my thief was hanging upside down above an alley and stabbed his vic thru the skull with his punching dagger. Sadly, the GM moved shortly after we started playing, but it was great fun.
if you go even further back you got chainmail and indivigual combat rules which are actually pretty well considered for 1970-something, with different weapons hitting first by range, but follow up rounds having the shorter weapon hit first. and daggers actually being more effective against full plate if the opponent is downed.
Back in my reinactor days. I was trained in napoleonic bayonet combat, i dreamt up a card based system that encompasses almost all the facets of melee combat you mentioned.
My personal favorite mechanics is from The 7th Sea, 1ed, when you have passive and active defence. There passive defense represents that its difficult to hit someone who keeps proper distance and stance. And active is when you activly trying to dodge or parry blow, this cost action resourse but you can also gain better position or make counter technique as a part of active defence. This reduces number of extra rolls (not every attack causes parry/dodge roll), adds extra layer of tactic, and turn every active defence into a small dramatic event.
Interesting presentation and I am completely with you. Hence I designed in my homebrew TTRPG system that during a combt take (not round) each engaged combatants rolle at the same time once for the offensive and once for the defensive. The difference between offensive and defensive result decides not only if you hit but also how hard you hit. So even an unarmed combatant can land a crippling if not even a deadly blow when he hits the right spot. Best you cover up in some armour to lessen the chance to hit a vulnerable part on your body. In any case you have picked my interest and I will have look into your Renaissance-Fantasy Setting "Streets of Peril". I love Landsknechts despite being Swiss and so Swiss mercenaries are of course ma favorites 😉
The recent Battletech game from harebrained schemes really opened my eyes in this way. I tend to play very aggressively in most tactical games because if I can take down one or two of their units, then action economy starts swinging in my favor and the rest of the fight more or less wins itself. In one particular engagement, however, I found myself out of position, and just got hammered by the opposing force, of more lightly equipped units. They basically wiped me out. Well damn. Restarted the mission, and got to more or less the same position and instead of the aggressive action I'd taken before, I took purely defensive moves. The opponent then wasted their advantageous position to do minimal damage to my units, and on my next turn I was able to demolish them. I learned that in a tactical game, sometimes the strongest move you can make is a purely defensive one. It was eye-opening.
Have you ever played Mythras? It's my favorite RPG by a long shot and it fits... pretty much all of the requirements you're talking about here. It can come across as too complex, but once you've grasped how it works it moves fast, forces you to make interesting choices, and everything that happens "makes sense". No tables needed, generally. Mythras used to be RuneQuest 6e, so if you've ever played RuneQuest it's a less clunky, more tactical version of that. Here's how it works: - Every character has 2 or 3 Action Points to use per "round" (Some tables choose to give everyone 3 AP because having less is sort of huge.) - HP is locational. If a location drop to 0 HP or below, you roll Endurance and the location becomes useless if you fail. (If it's your head, chest or abdomen, you immediately fall unconscious.) If that location's HP drops to negative [whatever the max is], the limb is severely damaged (or severed, just use common sense), or if it's the abdomen, chest or head, immediately fall unconscious and roll Endurance to see if you immediately die. - Weapon damage and location HP is balanced reasonably. For instance a dagger deals 1d4 damage (before a small Strength bonus), on average most people's arms have 5HP or more, while a greatsword deals 1d10 and absolutely might just lop someone's arm off. - Armor is actually damage reduction. Chainmail will give you 6 armor (6 damage ignored) per location, meaning that only an extremely strong character can meaningfully harm you with that 1d4 damage dagger unless someone stabs you right in the face or something. With that out of the way here's how combat actually goes: Choose to attack someone, spending an action point. > Roll against your "combat style" stat, it's a roll under system so if you have 75 in whatever, that's a 75% chance of success. > The recipient of the attack can choose to defend, doing exactly the same thing. > If the defender rolls a success, they have parried the strike. That probably means they prevented any damage, but if the attacker's weapon is much larger than what they defended with it might still hurt (like trying to parry a mace with a dagger). > Any "degree of success" between the two of you (Attacker fails vs. defender succeeds, or a crit vs. a success, or a fumble vs. a fail, or a fail vs. a crit, whatever) means the person rolling better gets a Special Effect for each degree of edition (could get two or even three). Special Effects are varied but here's the point: If you're attacking and you think you're gonna harm them through their armor (and you want them dead), you should just use Bleed or Impale so long as your weapon lets you. Either of those will end the fight immediately unless the opponent, particularly Impale because there isn't even a save against it. Either your opponent is now bleeding out and will die soon without medical attention, or they've got something stuck through them and couldn't move much even if they wanted to (and will die soon without medical attention). On the other hand, if you _don't_ think this attack will harm them or you're not intending to kill them, you've got loads of other options. For instance if the opponent is too heavily armored you could Sunder their armor to impede their movement, or use Trip Opponent followed by Bypass Armor, or use Stun Location with a bashing weapon. If you're the one defending and _you_ get a Special Effect you can't damage the opponent (you just parried them, after all) but you might cause them to Overextend, or damage their weapon, or even pin their weapon or disarm them somehow. Once you've picked one or more Special Effects (and which you should use is actually obvious usually), THEN you roll damage and hit location. Other cool bits include: - Shields function both as a way to parry even very large weapons effectively, and as a way to _passively_ protect part of your body without spending any AP to do it. They're strong as hell, in other words. - It's optional, because it does add a little complexity, but Mythras bothers with weapon range. If someone with a halberd with a reach of Very Long engages someone with a broadsword with a reach of Medium... broadsword dude literally can't hurt halberd dude, unless they get a Special Effect and Close Range. Then halberd dude can still hurt broadsword dude, but halberd dude can't parry any more. - Recovering HP is a damn slow process, serious wounds take weeks to heal, major wounds months. It encourages a game where deadly fights are truly a last-resort option, without falling prey to the "I have 1 HP, guess I just die" problem. - An interesting phenomenon in Mythras brought on by how combat works is that if you want an "assassin" type character who sneaks up and stabs people in the back, you don't want a lithe, slender dude, you actually want a burly guy who's sure to manhandle their enemy so they die quickly and don't scream. (Also the only reason to carry something small is because it's concealable, otherwise you might as well bash their head in with an axe or something.) - Weapons can have traits. The core rulebook intentionally avoids something like an "armor-piercing" trait for the sake of simplicity, but there _is_ a supplement that brings a couple in if you really want to simulate something like a Lucerne, nasty flanged mace or mail breaker. - Mythras _is_ normally a "theater of the mind" game, but the Mythras Companion offers very solid grid rules which make positioning as important as you want it to be.
Thanks for the suggestion! I haven’t tried Mythras. I don’t mind complicated games, I actually like a little crunch. WFRP had different hit locations as well, though it was sort of annoying to look up where an attack landed each time. I’ll check out Mythras!
personally i think the way D&D abstracted combat makes a lot more sense for weapons like light crossbows, bow & arrow, belearic sling, javelins, repeating firearms, and darts, where you should be expecting to whiff 50-90% of your shots vs personnel I would also add that even though being hit while wearing armor has the potential to do damage, and you as an armored fighter should be attempting to avoid square hits to your person while in armor, you also have greater license to fight ferociously. unarmored fighters may have greater ability to advance and retreat at will, and perhaps greater ability to avoid hits with technical dodges and parries, but without armor you have to be very cautious by comparison, and can be controlled by your opponent''s weapon if you will. That is to say, your sword keeps you safe vs unarmored opponents, because they can't freely attack you without risking life and limb. An armored opponent has the power to threaten you freely and overcome your defenses. If anything i might suggest that within the existing mechanics, we could represent this by giving fighters the option to attack with valour, perhaps incorporating wisdom.
Been in the foam leagues- totally agree that hitting as default is correct. Except when something probably not in your hema experience is prevalent- shields are involved. Also, love silver's work.
@@brokenbladepublishing To the Shield, which will eventually break, and causing some small amount of exhaustion to the welder, you can't keep holding a shield forever with it being hit without it having some effect ...
I am currently designing a TTRPG and you hit on everything I have been working on lol. To me Opportunity attacks make more sense when a monster moves into your melee range rather than leaving it. Also having less HP but dodging, parry and blocking until you finally get struck for half your health has meaning instead 80 HP. Thank you for making this, I’ll definitely check out you stuff.
Im in the undertaking of making my own Homebrew into a full fledged ttrpg. Ive seperated AC into Agility and Armor, Agility is rolled if the defending character decides to dodge as well as the scale for how hard someone is hit when actually struck. and armor is a passive reduction to the dmg they take. (this system works off upgrading dice from d4 to d12) so P1 is attack P2. P2s Ag is 5 and Ar 3. P1 rolls a 3, they still HIT the target but it opens up the attacking player to reprisal letting the defending player attack back IF they take HALF the dmg of the striking weapon, or they can elect to dodge and don't get struck. The Weapon they were struck with is a Greatsword a Dmg 6 weapon P2s Armor is 3 reducing it to 3 dmg and thus rounding up (this is meant to be a lethal system) to 2 dmg out of the total wounds the player has which is 4. but in this case where they take the dmg they now have the ability to even KO or Kill their opponent. This is not getting into how There are Reach, Position, Successive attack bonuses, Armor Penetration and even weapons like Mauls which just Destroy a opponents AR. I hope my system isnt to insane but this is what weve found success with. Also Equipment like armor either prioritizes AG or AR or both to a lesser degree. I have a Amalgamation of ideas from RPGS I liked and just abandoned the parts I didnt and just molded a game out of these pieces into a more lethal game that my table enjoys.
i’ve been playing with the base concept of a character having three elements to balance in a round. 1. what they want to do 2. how likely are they to succeed at those things 3. how reactive they want to be which is essentially 1. what happens on a successful action 2. what is the likelyhood of succeeding at that action 3. how compromised are your defenses while you do thar action and you can subtract some from any one of the three to add something to one of the other two. like: -recklessly attack, lowering your defenses but increasing your likelyhood to succeed. -decreasing your likelyhood to succeed, but on a success also doing something more like tripping your opponent as well as dealing normal damage (or simply dealing more damage) -decreases the damage on a successful hit, but bolstering your defenses (like going for a safer sword cut you are more confident in recovering and defending from)
It's great to hear the perspective of somebody who "walked some way in fighter's boots". My problems are: Long combats, little incentive except to close and "mill", and massive cushions of hitpoints. I believe relative rate of hits is important. This could see opposed rolls - though I accept that could further slow the fight since player and DM are now rolling. I also believe that remaining standing is vital. Just from reading about medieval battles, men knocked prone, or injured were at extreme disadvantage. I don't know whether modern sparring can teach us much about combat with dragons, giant spiders or owlbears.
Opposed rolls in my experience are not any slower. Both rolls occur simultaneously. The player and GM announce the number of successes. If you are rolling small pools of dice, the successes are counted quickly and the arithmetic is very simple.
really valuable informations, not only giving experience and ressources about real life fight, but also give advices on how to implement them. im dessigning a game as a passion project, i thank you for your advices as combat may be where my game break depending on the rules.
My favourite combat is in surprisingly Call of Cthulhu. It was hard in the beginning understanding it because it's so easy and you are not sure if you're making something wrong. But i assure you that i haven't seen anything more intuitive and simple yet and it's fantastic!
Ive always just reworded it. instead of miss. whenever someone does a melee attack. there will be contact but it could be a glancing blow on armor. an attack that gets parried or hits a shield.
I think that is how a lot of us narrate d20 games. Definitely a serviceable solution, though I prefer mechanics where the language and rolls are more clearly defined.
Thank you for this information. Like everybody else I'm writing a role-playing game and what you told me kind of confirms what I was going with for combat. In my game a pack of kobolds can overcome one far more dangerous foe depending on the circumstances and some randomness, but skilled plays the most important role in inflicting and avoiding harm.
I find this video kind of encouraging because a lot of what youre saying agrees with some of the combat design choices ive made in a system i'm designing.
A lot of the problems you identified here are problems I tried to solve with Bastard Sword as well. I also went the way of opposed rolls for combat and separated armour from the skill of the fighter. To keep the combat deadly, I went with a wound system instead of HP; one god hit can kill someone. I said often that if nothing significant happened during a round of combat, you are wasting your time (and losing a few % of HP is not considered as something significant).
I have started working on making my own Mecha Fighting Game as of last October, and I brain stormed the similar conclusion of opposing dice rolls for defense and attack. And also most likley using 3 and 4 sides dice , to make things less random, and better piolts just having slightly better stats then less skilled piolts.
Actually, I am going to use at least 6 sideded dice to allow for various degrees of glancing to direct / critical hits. Piolts ( skill / stats) and allowed Mechs Stats + the 6 sided dice rolls determine hits. ex: a character is attacking, with 19 attack skill + a 6 sided dice roll, against a character with defense/ dodge of 16 + a 6 sided dice roll; if the attacking character goes 1 over the defender its a glancing blow; if they go in this case 25 against 17 it would be a Crit. If attacker score is 1 or more less than the defeneder, it is a miss. ( if equal / 0 for range attack : miss) if both chracters are Meele Attacking each other at the same time and they score 0, its a "Sword Clash" 😎
@@brokenbladepublishing its still very ealry days, but it's a bit different than what's out there currently, to my knowledge. Glad you are interested 😁.
"Inheritors: Ashes of Imidia" captures *almost* all of this without being hard to learn or long to play. Missions typically are quick, brutal, and chancy, but it always feels like combat skill and tactics win the day. Plus everyone takes turns playing the monsters and bosses, which are governed by a simple logic system. But I might be biased because my mentor designed the game, and I'm doing the art for the final release this Spring.
I made an RPG rule system that I think accidently produced double hit situations. Characters actively defend against attack rolls (much like your own rules), but defenders can choose to just eat a shot to try and hit back instead of avoiding a hit. It VERY much benefits armoured fighters.
Man! This really resonates with me 100%. Great synthesis on topics I felt before and have been trying to instill into a game I'm designing, thanks to this video I'll re-consider exploding dice. Definitely gonna check out Streets of Peril.
One system in combat I’ve always found frustrating (on the receiving end of) is grappling. Most systems I’ve played, in a one on one fight, if a character is good at grappling and gets into melee it’s over. In a dark heresy 2e game I had a stormtrooper turn a Korne berserker into a pretzel. the GM just had to watch as I beat his boss encounter to death over 12 turns.
Have you ever checked "The Riddle of Steel" (and its spiritual successors)? It was written by Jake Norwood from the HEMA Alliance and he bascially crafted the combat system in accordance with his personal experience with medieval european martial arts. He addresses many of the issues that you deem important, including the importance and effect of armor and the relative ease of landing hits against the enemy, to the point that the issue is not so much hitting as much as not getting hit (the combat system allows the pressed - non-initiative holding - combatant to give up defence and attack anyway, but the result is usually very very grim for the marginally slower fighter...) It's a very interesting RPG system (not just for the way it depicts combat, but also for the Spiritual Attributes mechanics, which merges together character motivation with a storytelling pacing mechanic and a character advancement system) that was relased at the beginning of the 2000s. It was an independent production and has been OOP for almost two decades now. But sometimes it's still possible to track a physical or digital copy.
Palladium D20 system is my favorite. Pick your type of attack (see Martial Arts skill), Roll to attack, then the defender chooses... They can attack at the same time - or parry - or dodge - and they are allowed another roll to try to "roll" with the attack and take less damage. Is it time consuming? Yes, sort of but it's interactive which is fun and dramatic. Plus if you use the Martial Arts lists and multitude of attack types flavored for each martial art (Ninjas & Superspies TTRPG) makes it more fun.. It's too bad that Palladium and Kevin (owner) are so problematic. NOTE: The whole armor system in Palladium also makes so much more sense then DnD and it's clones.
It's kind of cool that the point you raised about just removing the attack roll was the topic of the latest video MCDM put out. I don't remember the details but I'm pretty sure they settled on a similar solution to yours (an opposed roll).
the MCDM system has various ways for you to use triggered actions (reactions) to reduce damage, and banes and boons (stacking) to decrease or increase damage
Into the Odd is (I believe) the source of the auto-hit inspiration that's been doing the rounds and in that HP is capped fairly low because the actual design intent wasn't simulation, it was simply to keep the combats short.
How i'm doing damage and Armour is that; depending on how much higher the score of the dice roll is, compared to the character's AC, the attacker will do extra damage as detailed on a scale. The "meet it to beat it" score I've nerfed by making it half damage. Exploding dice seems interesting, and I am trying to figure out a way to smoothly integrate Group Initiative to my game.
This put me in mind of the 1e weapon speed/Armour adjustment tables. Now I've gone off on a tangent of trying to see if initiative and attacks per round can be substituted by the values of this table. 🤔
Nice video and the 62 comments were fun to read. Grew up with plastic baseball bat fights, wrestling, mix martial arts, base boxing. RPG, 1980's D&D basic box set, TMNT, AD&D, WEG west end games d6 dice pool system Star Wars, and Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire & werewolf. Then came along WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars. My first two gaming stores from 1998 to 2008 were large enough to have free weights to bench and dead lift for your PC strength score, along with foam larp weapons and plastic baseball bat fights. So we learn over the years most athletic sport injuries were from left shoulder nerve damage from having a shield arm kick, shoved, or just jam. Along with two on one action which even if the guy is still standing, all that kinetic energy is slam through the shoulders, down the back just above the hips. And feeling our ankles compress hard and at the wrong angle down into the ground. In short after a few minutes of getting slap hard with foam weapons, the defender still had to have his back pop back into place with flex all rub in. Interesting it takes about 15 to 30minutes to gain your .. vigor .. back. Along came WotC 3e Star Wars " .. short rest," taking 15minutes to recover temporary Hp called Vitality. Jedi use their Hp to power their force powers. Hp, hip points = dexterity stamina to avoid, roll, or deflect incoming attacks. Once winded .. Critical hits= wound points base off of the PC constitution score. i.) temporary wound point con dmg, coughing raggedly with dry throat gasping for air. Arm or join goes numb from counter deflecting incoming hits. light concussion. Few hours to recover. ii.) Well you need stitches or joins pop back into place, few days to recover. iii.) Yeah you deal with weeks for light breaks and minor nerve dmg and develop a limp. iv.) Months to recover, lose 1d4 constitution points. Now we can do into Death /Fort saves, make save and take temporary con dmg, fail save and take permanent con dmg. Fail both save vs dmg deal then your PC is dead. Roll 1d6 on how your PC chokes on their own blood as they die. 2.) Call shot locations & body defense of concealment, such as peeking around a wall corner. ( Roll to Hit, then what type of dmg 1d6 outcome ?) So we hid behind a corner which each other take shots of throwing a foam axe at your head. Since my last shop group had a large store front with four back rooms and a short bending hallway. We had some fun foam reenactment weapon play in very cramp spaces. So we learn quickly about mental panic exhaustion in close spaces with a jump scare monster thrown in. Now we are all in our mid 40's and 50's. .. play time is over for such athletics. We don't have .. magic .. healing so we just have old timer nerve dmg. b.) As my 13yo cousin who now in his 30's said as a teenager. Heavy crossbows at 10ft point blank range. I don't care how good your helmet or over all your armor is, you are getting punch by Mike Tyson with a screwdriver but moving 3x fast then what Mike can punch at. Your brain and neck is taking Whiplash ! Fort vs DC:10+dmg dealt. Factor in if target also is flank/flat-footed. Add +1d6 per rogue level as required. House rule even a n/PC is multi class barbarian/rogue, they flank their target and cut pull back behind the knee cap. Works as a trip attack, if there is no lower body AC and a roll the passes PC dmg thresh hold then the back of the leg turns into a bloody mess or just is cut off. Example, LotR:F. the ranger Aragon pulls a bluff to redraw away the orc's lower defense and adds flank/ sneak/ back stab to his sword roll. Cutting off the orc's leg by the knee. c.) Armor/AC or Def/ defense rating. Plat armor is roll to touch, then follow up with strength/dexterity to grapple slam the other to the ground for concussion effect or joint limb dmg for being twisted.
I believe historically, combat duration can actually very quite a bit, especially as groups increase. come in for a scuffle for a little bit retreat, scuffle, retreat, etc. And personally I do often find that if combat is too quick too often you dont have time to do something interesting or more then just deal as much damage as fast as possible. I like those sorts of blood pumping quick and deadly scraps too, but I think there is a place for both quick and protracted engagements somehow.
Great discussion. Have you looked at MERP/Rolemaster? Its system makes being outnumbered very important, wearing Armour makes you take more, but individually negligible hits, while critical hits occur more often on the harder to hit unarmored/lightly amored character. Critical hits can be instantly fatal and are often disablimg.
Your thoughts on creating melee combat remind me a lot of the Close Combat rules for the miniature game Infinity. Melee in that game is quick, lethal, and all melee strikes are opposed (meaning that the initiator of the close combat could die from the defender). There are a lot of rules like Martial Arts and Natural Born Warrior that intuitively create rules for a more skilled combatant that is more likely to crit + defend themselves as opposed to a "vicious fighter"
Hear, hear. Well done, sir, and great content on the channel. It's nice to see individuals commenting on the hobby from a place of experience and education rather than mere whimsy. Coming from a similar perspective/ background it's become exhausting being told I "don't understand" by Critters and non-wargamers. Regardless, excellent stuff. If you haven't already, take a peek at Song of Swords RPG by Opaque Industries. Lots of mechanics you'd appreciate, I think. Thanks again and best of luck in all your endeavors.
the ability of armor to TAKE and HOLD ground is a really underutilized dynamic, and tbh at least on a formation fighting level is really the defining element of heavy infantry. a light infantry unit can harass a heavy one, but definitionally must give way and retreat when a heavy infantry formation advances on them outside of extenuating circumstances. The defining element of heavy infantry on a tactical level is its ability to take and hold ground.
Into the Odd was the first game to get rid of attack rolls (that I know of) and it added Armour as damage reduction and made it so that HP represented your ability to dodge and when it ran out you just start taking actual hits to your body and might go down in a single blow.
Pendragon also has opposed dice rolls for combat and armor as damage reduction although it also has the thing where because of the opposed mechanics usually only one person will be struck in a round it also does have rules for armor penetration by weapon type, and the rule that if you're being attacked by more than one person you automatically get hit (generally, the players, who are knights, are expected to not abuse this out of honour lol) the meta for combat in exalted 2e was also a lot like your recommendations, totally by accident seemingly, given it was a combat system for animesque demigods having ridiculously over the top fights, but there was a lot of resource management to avoid your oppenent hitting you with one very square, powerful blow that would probably take you out, or at least cripple you (of course, given the setting, this was of the "preserving my qi so i can duck the inevitable dragon-cutting meteor slash if needed" than fighting in armor while trhing not to get tired, but the feel coukd be made bizarrely similar with a hack of a game system
I set weapons to do set damage and armor as damage reduction it was slightly counter balanced by some penalties like reduced perception stealth and dex also no one is wearing heavy armor a full day that can generate exhaustion
There's a Wounds mechanic in the Grit and Glory homebrew that I like to use to make combat feel deadlier. The other mechanics in that homebrew are a bit complicated, but I found that I use the Wounds a lot
I came up with something similar. Thresholds of success on attacks, Target Number - Attack roll = attack margin of success 0-4 : incidental, 5-9: adequate, 10+ exceptional the target creature also has a danger value, to determine if they hit the player, simply subtract the danger value from the attacks margin of success and apply their result 0-(-)4 : incidental, 5-(-)9: adequate, (-)10 or lower exceptional so if the player needs a 6 to hit the target, they roll a 12 they would do (6-12= 6) adequate damage to the target. If that target had a danger level of 10, the creature would score (6-10= -4) an incidental hit against the character. I also use 2d10 to get more consistent median rests rather than the total swinginess of a d20, since a competent fencer does not have a 1/20 chance of doing something amazing or falling flat on their face, but 1/100 chance for something to go either extremely well or bad seems about right.
@@brokenbladepublishing I also run it all as simultaneous as well, I just tell the players what enemies are generally doing (the troll is charging towards nifehl or whatever) have everyone tell me what they are doing, then resolve it in order of melee, missile, magic, movement (as in just running around etc). I generally don't go super hard into defining a ton of stuff for every possible attack or action, it's just easier to use what makes the most amount of sense. so instead of coming up with extensive rules for reissen with a pollarm, it can just have the 'hooked" trait, and when the player says "I'm going to hit them and try to wrench them down" I'd just look for at least an adequate hit, and still also apply the effects of any attack they are hit with (maybe they are also knocked down). It actually runs pretty fast and usually it's like 2 rounds of hard fighting, and then either running away or the enemy breaks.
Lots of great insights in here. I have toyed with the idea of opposed rolls before but I think the most important aspect of them didn't really sink in until just now. And that is that if you are in a fight with an opposed roll then SOMEONE is going to get hurt every round. There will never be a scenario where everyone just wiffles for multiple turns in a row. So you'll never end up with a slog. Something will happen every round.
So we actually toyed with the very thing you are describing, but that isn't quite how the dice work in Streets of Peril. If the defender wins the opposed roll, they manage to successfully dodge or parry, but they do not strike the attacker. I do think the system you are describing, where combatants make opposed rolls and the winner lands a hit, could be interesting depending on the game and would definitely be quick.
@@brokenbladepublishing (apologies for the long reply) This method can actually work very well, and it is much faster. I've used it on and off in 5e games for some time, and have some experience with a system you may find interesting. It's a relatively obscure system for a game called Artesia: The Known World, which uses a modified Fuzion D10 system. In that, d10s are the only dice, they explode and implode, and it goes to great lengths to simulate combat. It's armour, including the coverage, and the material, mitigate damage, but do not actually make you harder or easier to hit (except through modifying your ability to dodge). The system for resolving attacks is that attackers and defenders roll, and add skills and winners deal the difference in damage. This means the defender's efforts still mitigate damage, even if they don't actually prevent a hit. However, with the exploding, and imploding dice, damage can swiftly become very dangerous, though armour can also mitigate the injuries one sustains. It's a neat system, which takes into account weapon ranges (a dagger is rarely a good weapon to use against someone wielding a polearm, as it is unusable except at extremely close range, however, when you are in extremely close range, the polearm becomes far harder to use and the dagger excels, making weapons fill the niches they are meant to). I myself used a similar system, grafted onto 5e, that a fellow I found online (on a blog I cannot recall) called the Phase system. With this, there is no rolled initiative--except where exact timing would make a tangible difference, or in contests of speed and timing. Instead, you check for surprise, as normal. Then in the planning phase, the DM tells the PC's what they observe at a glance in their environment, giving detail as is appropriate. The PC's all declare their actions, which can include holding an action until something occurs, or using a skill to get a better look at things. The DM determines what actions should be grouped together (These three PC's are going to engage in melee with these four orcs. But this PC is going to shoot at that orc with the magic staff. So there are two groups, and we can resolve their interactions separately.) then resolves the groups in the order that makes the most sense. Actions or movement that occur at the same time, are resolved at the same time. This is great for movement, because you don't get the temporal weirdness of most turn based combat. Where for example: I see the orcs run forward into the middle of the room, and then I decide to throw a fire bomb because now they are all grouped together in the middle of the room, even though they rolled higher on initiative than I, and so I should be reacting slower than them, and all this is meant to be happening at once. In Phase, I will have already declared my action, so while they're moving, so am I (There is a rule I added, where a creature can use its reaction to change its declared action based on new information, essentially: I notice after running half way, that the orcs are probably going to be grouped up, so I stop mid run and take out a bomb to throw at them. They might notice, and also use their reaction to alter their turn, these things play out at the same time.) and when we meet, assuming we have the actions, we attack at the same time, possibly resulting in double hits. More attacks means you are more skilled, and they cannot attack against you at the same rate. This system still uses AC to determine hits, but it could be modified so that mutual attacks are a roll off, and attacks without a counter are versus AC or something. The benefits of this system are that there is no down time. Players are all engaged, they are always on their turn, not waiting. It is chaotic, but that makes the planning phase all the more important, simulating the PC's training and experience, with a fair amount of cross talk between players. But the execution is often chaotic, and it's difficult for players to track what's happening beyond themselves in the moment--much as it is in a real fight. It's also wonderful for things like chases, or positioning. I've had multiple players get annoyed at the time dilation in normal D&D, where they say "I wouldn't be just standing there as the dragon/horseman/whatever runs at me, I'd be moving too." and I'd have to hand wave it, and say that the other creature was so fast they didn't have a chance to react. But with this, they can run, and if they are close enough to an escape, they can actually get there in time, or be caught up wherever that would happen. It feels more accurate and exciting. Turns go by much faster, and are more dynamic. Reactions and holding an action matter a great deal, and things like legendary actions become terrifying and while difficult to track, very effective at displaying the threat the creatures that posses them reflect. The downside is that it requires a great deal of mental load for the DM. I did it with multiple parties of up to 9 players. It was great, but taxing, and I eventually had to abandon it for those games. For smaller games, it still works well, and is very exciting and speedy. It is also very deadly, due to individual players not having as much time to plan for each thing that occurs, and only getting a moment during the planning phase to make adjustments. Apologies for the long post, hope this is of interest. Take care.
i think worlds without number strikes a good balance with armour - it uses traditional AC, but melee weapons deal shock damage even if they 'miss', with heavier weapons dealing more shock
@@brokenbladepublishing definitely going to buy your rulebook and test it. I'm a huge fan of a "landsknecht" theme, low-magic and realistic gritty combat. And I was disappointed with warhammer and dnd systems as well, so thank you for your great efforts!
As a non-HEMA enthusiast, as with basically any conversation with fencers, I’m not sure some of these things make for “good” necessarily, though as long as the rules are quick enough to build a new character (5 minutes and minimal maths, tops), there’s nothing wrong with high lethality games. A couple of things I’ve tried that you might get some mileage from: - if you’re going to use opposed dice rolls, I’d suggest making only the players roll of anything; they roll to defend or dodge and enemies just get static modifiers based on the defence they nominated. - simplified attack zones “I go for the head/legs” can be declared or you can “look for an opening.” Either declare zone a/high/left or zone b/low/right, or rely on the dice. If both match, the defender gets the bonus, otherwise if goes to the attacker. If left to fate, use odds and evens on the dice rolled to see how it goes. If you’re outnumbered, you’re already committed to the zone, so they can always claim the advantage. Highly skilled fencers can take a -1 on their dice roll to quickly switch their defence zone if need be etc. - “openings” rather than horrific injuries. Knocking your opponent down is more fun to a layman than an insta-gib, at least if they understand it works both ways. We allowed them both as a freebie by accepting a penalty as well as in place of a critical in another system. This one definitely speeds things up. - clash and follow: a parry within a specific margin (I like closer to the number, you can go with really successful rolls instead) allows you a free attack, perhaps at a penalty. A fun one in multi-dice games like GURPS can be to roll one fewer dice each time. Perhaps combinable with zone attacks for greater control. I found the title a little misleading. It kind of implied that it was going to be about how to run intuitive combat, not about what your HEMA experience taught you to expect. Interesting musings, though they feel like they amounted to a reasonable showing for classic Runequest, albeit with diminished chances of whiffing.
@@Mulletmanalive sorry you thought the title was misleading. I appreciate the feedback. You can check out my core system for free to get a better idea of how my opinions shaped the game. www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/434943/Perilous-D6?affiliate_id=237127
@@brokenbladepublishing Thank you very much, I shall have a look. Right. Damn nice little system, weirdly seems slightly less brutal than it sounded in your description. I’d question the need for a separate damage roll given how streamlined the rest of it is, but an extra layer to interact with is always welcome when designing additional rules. I especially appreciate that you’ve avoided the Full Thrust exploding dice (double plus another dice). I’ll check out your published setting next time I have a few coins to spare. As is, this would serve nicely for a 13th warrior style game. Did you find a specific way of getting across your experience to a reader quickly? My experience is somewhat coloured by a re-enacter trying to force his assumptions into D&D and looking aghast when we took the book pictures to be an accurate guide, rather than fitting ogres with custom helmets, so I’m curious if there’s a good way of setting expectations fast.
You can’t beat a good active defense system for enjoyable gameplay. WOD , Ars Magica,and palladium books come to mind. I hope you the greatest success in finding your own way in making game play fruitful.
I’m going to reach out. I’ve got a game that combat is brutal, all armor and weapons behave differently and have different usages. You might like it. Listening to this was almost a checklist for me!
I agree with most of your ideas. The issue that I've found in most games is that verisimilitude and gameplay are often at odds with one another. I think it's impossible to have both at 100% as increasing one means dialing back the other.
Fascinating video! Definitely gets the brain juice churning, and as somebody who has mostly played/ran more gamey/strategy-centric TTRPGs, it's an interesting point of view to consider things from. Haven't purchased the system (yet!), so I dunno if your game already addressed this, but on the topic, what are your thoughts on A) Hit locations in regards to combat and B) Critical hits/damage? I vould see it going either for both in regards to "intuitiveness," honestly.
Having played WFRP for years, I can say that I don’t really care for hit locations as they slow gameplay down. If a system does hit locations better, I would be more interested in them. Critical hits are great in all of their variations, though they can slow fights down if you need to consult a chart frequently.
I am a part time HEMA practicioner and have been designing my own basoic RPG system for about 2 years now on and off, and have been play testing it for about a year and a half. A lot of what you mention about opposed rolls and armour rings so true with what i have made based on how i have come to understand combat through HEMA. if you provide me an email i will gladly send you the current WIP of the book for you to have a look at and see what you think :)
You should absolutely do yourself a favor and check out Sword World 2.5. Yes, its japanese in origin and you may be put off by the anime-eque aesthetic of things because, y'know, its from japan so it'll have that but... for one I think its a game you can very much enjoy without being into anime *at all* and secondly... Most if not all that you described is present in Sword World. Its entirely 2d6 based, so its predictable what your roll will be. It uses an opposed check between your accuracy and the enemies evasion to determine if you hit something. Armor is damage reduction. Fights usually only last 2 to 4 rounds. Any damage roll can potentially end your opponent in one blow because crits explode. Basically, you roll damage on the power table (which is used to display a wide range of values with just 2d6, it really doesn't slow down the game). Each weapon/attack has a power value (telling you what row to roll on), as well as a crit rate. When you roll on or over your crit rate, you get to keep the damage you rolled and roll again for more damage. You can crit indefinitely, so it may happen that you hit an enemy once and kill them because you critted like 5 times. In fact, I almost did today in a session. It even has a high importance placed on positioning (at least in its advanced combat rule set). Basically, when you engage in melee, you create a zone of engagement (called a skirmish). People participating in the skirmish are considered to be at the center of it for positioning purposes, because it is assumed that they are moving around a lot within that zone as they are circling each other going in and out while trading blows and so on. Attacking with a ranged attack into the skirmish is hard, because you may hit an ally. Attacking through it becomes very hard because you will inevitably hit someone within the skirmish. You can also block movement and draw someone into a skirmish if they try to move past you within a certain range. So, positioning is important for everyone, because positioning well means the melee fighters can protect the ranged fighters from being drawn into melee themselves (something they will be worse at, naturally). It is also important to position yourself well to not hit allies on accident when you try to fire at range. Its my groups go to fantasy RPG, and it has been for years. It has a small but very dedicated western fan base, and a very well made fan-translation that has by now literally managed to translate about 80% of all the play material released over the now 16 years this edition of the game has been supported (which is, like over 50 books). Its incredible. And even if you don't end up liking the world or the system or whatever, you may still learn something to take away for your own game.
Given many of the points that you make, I think that one of the major benefits of a higher fighting skill should be a reduced likelihood of a double hit, where both combatants simultaneously hit each other. One could imagine a system where a somewhat trained fighter would be less likely to hit his opponent than an untrained fighter, but would be much less likely to be involved in a double hit.
In TTRPG combat is too often focused on reducing HP bars to 0. But a fight has a lot of ways to end. I always ask my players what is their goal in the fight, I deal with fight like I do with any confrontation or obstacle: "What are you trying to achieve? What would be the consequences of a success or a fail ?" You can win a fight with everybody alive and barely hurt. I one exchange or even before that your can break your oppenent's will to fight, you tire them or throw them off until they give up, wrestle them, submit them, convince them between exchanges... A failed check should still make the situation progress no matter what. I hate when DMs (And i've been guilty of it) just say "ah you failed" and nothing happens. It feels terrible for the player.
I agree with you that combat encounters don’t always need to end in death. One side of the fight may decide they are outclassed early and surrender/flee. I don’t agree that a failed roll should always result in progress. Enemies can fail and players should be able to as well. One way to mitigate the disaster of a bad roll is avoid placing too much at stake on a single roll.
@@brokenbladepublishing I'm not saying player shouldn't fail, but the situation should evolve, you can give a tactical advantage to the NPCs or players can lose ground or something important. To me A fail should always mean something, not just "you missed" and it just end up like the player skipped their turn.
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but when you said that a fail should always result in progress, I interpreted that as “failing forward.” Players make decisions and there is always the possibility that their decisions result in failure. I don’t know if failure always has to result in something more detrimental than simply being incapable of achieving a desired result. I’m also a little wary when people complain about players “losing turns.” Players can always attempt actions in their turn other than attacking, like maneuvering on the battlefield or supporting an ally. When you attempt to do something that may result in failure, you should accept that you can fail.
@@brokenbladepublishing Yeah it's something like "failing forward" but not in the sense like it's always positive for the PC. I think of fights in TTRPG less on a tactical level and more on a narrative level, which means whatever the result of the dice, there will be consequences. A character missing an attack is not just a miss, depending on what their intention is, it can mean they won't reach the exit in time or they expose someone else to the danger, start doubting themselves or whatever suits the context...It will change the narrative and force the player to make decision accordingly, not just try again on the next turn which can get boring and extend fights forever if nothing lands.
Fun tv/ movie game. Back in the 1980's they had VHS tape players to create radon movie to the minute Foot Ball games. Roll dice form random effect of the player make and look at the chart timetable. Follow with moving to play of the tape time marker to hear your actions narrated by a real sports enouncer. Then move your football player mini on field yard zone. 2.) Movie fight scenes, from a wide range. " Rocky," slow play his boxing matches, count the number of times hits land. Roll 1d6 any time the boxers hit each other. Number of hits per round and x that to number the rounds the fight lasts. If each boxer does 1d6 with each hit. Calculate the Hd from the mount of Hp rolled. But that is Rocky storytelling, but you can review Mike Tyson matches, then work backwards to see which level Monk or fighter/soldier class he is. 3.) Look at the death of Richar the Lion Heart, a king in armor killed by a lawn dart hit where the only armor weak spot would be. By a half blind cook, who Richar spare cause of the irony. You can't do that in D&D, but you can with D6 exploding die/pool results. Along with d10 vampire which has a one hit system.
I tend towards sci-fi, so more gunplay and less melee so take this as a data point. I've been running one of my systems for 28 years and it lines up with most of your experience except I don't do a straight opposed roll for melee (but I agree that would work very well). What I do want to comment on is armor absorbing damage and high lethality. This I have lots of experience with. One of the things many players get wrong about high lethality is they think it means characters will die frequently. This is not my experience. What it does do, is gets players to plan. Once they learn they can't rely on hit points, they concentrate on defending with speed or armor (usually the two being mutually exclusive). The other thing it actually incentivizes is surrendering when overmatched which leads to fun stories about escaping. So don't let people tell you that all you PCs are going to die. On armor reducing damage, and you may already have this, but you also need some mechanic that either reduces armor's effectiveness or increases damage with skill or a good roll. I have static damage for weapons which is why I reduce armor rating with a good roll. Your exploding dice are a good way to implement something like this. Because my armor is mostly used to protect from guns, I lean heavily into armor also having it's own hit points and quickly failing. That idea could be really interesting for anti armor weapons like maces, hammers and poleaxes. A hit with these weapons could reduce the armor rating, making them valuable against tanky opponents.
What a great video with some insightful ideas, and many that match my own! I am an avid hard fantasy enjoyer, and I have been trying to cook up my own system for a while. Please let me know if you'd be interested in sharing some ideas.
When attacks automatically hit and you just roll damage, it matters what is being damaged. If every hit point, for example, represents physical meat and blood and bones, then it doesn't make sense because a skilled fighter can hit without being hit. On the other hand, in games where characters have loads of hit points, it doesn't make any sense that those are all meat. You don't gain ten lbs of muscle and thicker skin and bones every time you level up, you just get better at not being grievously hurt. In that case, the master swordsman can still harm others without being harmed simply by having significantly more hit points.
I'm ok with hit points being a little abstract. I still think a war of attrition where combatants are just slowly whittling one another down is boring and unintuitive.
@@brokenbladepublishing it certainly can be - that is, as I did last night running D&D, the DM and players have to inject fun and story into the whittling. It isn't there baked in. I prefer a system with dynamic conditions that can be imposed in different ways, only one of which is 'hurt' or 'injured', giving flexible options.
2nd Edition is the best. It has exploding dice, armor does damage reduction (but also some small TN-to-hit bonuses, unfortunately), and tries to optimize for "sword masters" and slug fests to coexist in a harmonious way. The Streets of Peril rulebook layout seemed so L5R-like that I wondered if it was one of your influences.
Someone else also recommended GURPS! I think that game is perhaps too far towards to overly detailed simulation side of TTRPGs for me. I can certainly understand why people like it though.
@@brokenbladepublishing thats the beauty of it, Gurps is fully modular. You can use all of the rules for a overly crunchy simulation, or use only the rules that you need for any given campaingn. But anyways, Not here to proselytize abour gurps. Great content, tho.
You definitely should look into gurps's combat rules. It is very similar to what you described about hema and real life fights, especially on higher levels, although, on lower levels successfully hitting something is a quest. But on higher levels it's another problem: two characters will dance around each other deflecting, parrying and avoiding for 30 minutes of real time and then somebody finally misses their defence roll and they die in one shot (or almost one shot). That scenario is also unsatifying as fuck and frustrating. BUT its still tactical as fuck with immense amount of optional rules about fencing, feints, heavy, multiple, or telegraphic attacks, blocks, parries, evasion and much much more. And on paper you can use them to trap your opponent into enacting a losing strategy, but my players always forget about this and I don't push them into that either.
@@brokenbladepublishing gurps basic yes, kinda abstract (imo most other systems that i know is way more abstract, but thats besides the point). Its way way more specific if you reach for the optional rules in general and "gurps martial arts" in particular. Also, gurps can be as easy or as complex as you want, the amount of optional rules and systems is ungodly and you basically can play almost exactly as you want if you dont like basic ruleset. Unfortunately for uninitiated its very hard to figure all this by yourself, you kinda need a guy who knows all this.
I totally agree with everything you are saying! This is why a d20 is very bad die to be using in combat. A d20 is too dynamic. I once played a high level dwarf barbarian in a recent GenCon tournament that missed almost every time. I've always been very disappointed with D&D combat and the d20. And I've always hated D&D's inflating hit points. Unfortunately, I disagree with expanding d6 dice pools. The d6 (with it's small number range) is just too limiting for RPG games and only makes sense in more quick and simple gaming formats like board games.
Really it depends on how you see hit points. Does combat need 10 to 20-ish successful attacks to deplete HP’s and are each of those 10 to 20-ish successful attacks individual wounds? Narratively, I have a hard time with that unless the mechanics also include additional modifiers when a character has been slashed 10 times. I see hit points more like damage soakers and fatigue counters and once they’re depleted, the last attack deals the singular fatal blow. In this way, two combatants are slowly being shaken inside their armour and getting tired from shield blocking and parrying until one of them outlasts the other. With this narrative mindset, I’m totally fine with automatic successful attacks. But the difference can be split between that and warhammer fantasy RPG if you don’t like auto hits. Simply reduce TN’s to the point that players are 2-1 more likely to succeed. Lots of 9 or 10 TN’s where the player has to roll a 6 or 7 or better with their modifiers. They statistically hit way more often than most TTRPG’s but less than auto hitting systems. The roll turns into a “roll to see if you miss” instead.
I'll address your first example where we narratively interpret that each successful "hit" is not actually a decisive blow, maybe not even a blow at all. What are the mechanics that expand an HP pool for characters who are better at dodging and parrying? If armor is the sole determining factor for an HP pool, then you really are not accounting for characters who employ active defense to keep themselves safe. You would think that if losing HP includes fatigue from parrying or dodging, there would be some way to increase HP to reflect this. From what I have seen, the auto hit games in development don't take this into account. Ultimately, I still feel a system that uses automatic hits is overly abstract and not as easy to narrate as a more intuitive combat ruleset. I may be wrong. One of the new games in production may surprise me. The last suggestion isn't bad. I think the d20 is still swingy. You have just as much likelihood of rolling a 1 as you do a 20.
@@brokenbladepublishing yeah, I don’t know what the MCDM RPG or even Daggerheart are going to be doing to account for active defense users. It’s possible they’re not accounting for those things at all. I just realized I didn’t say this in my original message but I’m currently doing a massive homebrew overhaul of the Fantasy AGE system, starting by making it an automatic hit system and rolling for stunts during the damage roll instead. Because I’m not a fan of a dozen or more blood-drawing or bone-crunching attacks that cause a character to go from fully functional for a bunch of turns to unconscious or dead after finally fully depleting HP, so that’s why I would use armour ratings (and dodge effects from other active defenses) to soak damage. So abilities that would normally allow a total dodge in other systems would instead add further damage soaking/fatigue reduction). Narratively, the character dodged an attack but because they’re proficient with dodging, they’re athletically more efficient with their energy and so suffered less fatigue from the dodging. It’s still a work in progress. You’re right about hp replenishing, I do have an idea about recovering from the fatigue. Because hit points are an indication of fatigue, if you used an action in combat to take a beat and rest, slow your heart rate, slow down from the adrenaline which is keeping you going but also burning you out (rationalize it however you want to), you replenish HP at a rate depending on how much of your turn you spent calming yourself down and what level the character is. I’ve got an amount in mind but it would take more than just a comment to explain it. I was also thinking about a secondary way to track damage. On top of your fatigue based HP, you’ve got say…five wound slots. For every single attack that does 10+ to 25+ HP (depending on your level) your character suffers a wound; they’ve actually been cut, stabbed, pierced, burned or crunched, so you fill in a slot. when you’ve filled in all five slots, you succumb to your wounds and fall unconscious or just die. So even if you’re constantly getting HP replenished, there is a second “losing condition”.
Sounds like an interesting system you are working on! I like the clear distinction between stamina loss and actual physical damage. I’m curious to see how it turns out.
@@brokenbladepublishing could be a complete disaster, but I’ve always been the irritating type of person that needs to fidget with stuff right away to see if I can make it better (for me). It could be too much stuff to keep track of in combat but only dozens of combat encounters worth of play testing will tell.
Defense rolls sound really cool, but I think they would slow down the game, especially at high levels which in some systems the players just do more attacks per turn, even if it's unrealistic since it doesn't differentiate armor from evasion ability, use armor is much simpler. Furthermore, this would only be a difficult system to apply if we took into account magic in high magic settings since if with these mechanics you intend to simulate real-life combat, magic is not something real so you could not simulate it correctly.
I would suggest checking out my basic PD6 rules. Opposed rolls can be resolved very quickly. Having designed creatures for PD6 that are more high fantasy in nature, I am fairly confident that it can accommodate most styles of play.
I agree that there is no perfect game system. The best you can do is find a system that all the people at your table can live with. Even people who respect each other can reasonably disagree on what feels fun.
Having fun should be priority. I think we sometimes get defensive and argumentative on how things should be done “correctly.” I do think there are ways we can improve the way we do things and I hope this video helps inspire people to create house rules or design their own games.
I'd say it's hard to have any kind of approximation of realistic melee combat with lethal weapons without making it dangerous for player characters. So with modern dnd and long history of videogames encouraging players to beat up everyone they see to advance, it looks like modern system with casual appeal won't be able to afford more realistic deadly combat unless they bake in some way to save characters from dying via magic, setting specifities or what have you.
I think that early TTRPGs were arguably more deadly than modern ones, so it isn't too inconceivable to create fairly dangerous games. I've been listening to Runehammer talk about his current OSE game where they are trying to stick to old school rules and it sounds like they are experiencing a lot of character death.
@@brokenbladepublishing I agree with that. It is possible to make more lethal games and there is market for it. DND probably won't do it any time soon, but it can be done for sure.
I mean I feel that hit points represent an ability to continue to dodge and parry which is why removing the hit roll can feel right, but also I don’t necessarily like the idea of spells always succeeding
I think you could use hit points to represent endurance, but in the example of the MCDM RPG, hit points are completely tied to armor. I think you run into a number of problems here: If you tie hit points solely to armor, there is no way to express a character’s ability to evade or parry. If you auto-hit then reduce damage with armor, the rules imply that the character is always being struck.
My issue with guns in fantasy medieval wargames is that to be realistic they need to be slow, inaccurate, and relatively weak, so nobody wants to use them, as most other weapons are more effective, which is why they were not used that much in reality, and the first thing that gets changed is to make them faster, more accurate and do more damage ... moving them out of the period, so that the majority of other weapons and armour in the setting are obsolete, which is what happened in the real world when guns got more effective, they slowly displaced other weapons, and eventually made most armour obsolete
Most of the games we play incorporate a lot of early Renaissance technology, though we often confuse it for medieval. Firearm technology is impossible to describe as a monolith in this time as it is constantly changing and incredibly inconsistent throughout Europe. There is an excellent book called “the Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany” which provides some interesting historical anecdotes on the subject.
I am trying to design the combat in my system the way that daggers and spears do the same damage, but hitting with a spear is more likely. As far as I knew a lot of historical spears had blades not longer than daggers (and of course you could impale an opponent all the way of the wooden staff behind the blade of a spear... but why would you do that in a real fight?) So I throught about a Reach system where every melee weapon has a Reach value between 0, 1 and 4. Unarmed is 0, very short weapons are 1, moderately sized are 2, long are 3 and very long are 4. My system also uses a dicepool mechanic and for ever point of reach difference you can add an additional dice. Damage is calculated by additional success above the Target Number. That way a spear is more likely to succeed and can potentialy more damage. But if your opponent with the dagger can break your guard (aka evades the spear and gets to close to you) or you are fighting in a narrow environment, he can add the dice per difference. I know only having 5 different length is not realistic... but I wanted to implement the idea of weapon length related to hitting propability, without the system becoming a total mess. Can I ask you on your thoughs about this idea? Oh and unarmed attacks are reach 0 because I think that every weapon is a force multiplier.
have you considered a to-hit system that uses D4-D12? Each weapon uses a different hit dice based on range. So a pike would use a D12 to hit, as it's a massive weapon, a shorter glaive would use a D12, all the way down to a D6 for a dagger and D4 for unarmed. There's some 5e playtest concent that uses an idea like this, where it skips accuracy and jumps straight to damage, and the highest number on the dice is concisered a crit, allowing you to roll more damage dice
@@atroecious9357 no i have not, because I use a D6 dicepool... so using different other dice does not work for my system, but it is an interesting idea. I can see that working in dnd or orher d20 systems like Mörk Borg
@lycaonlycos2140 I think what you are proposing is similar to a mechanic in WFRP 4E. I only briefly played that edition and don’t remember it well, but I believe longer weapons had an advantage over shorter ones unless the combatant with the shorter weapon had certain traits. Let me know once you have a write up of the rules and I can look them over.
the problem with most TTRPGs, they are combining two separate types of game (role-playing and tactical war game), and wondering why it's complicated and doesn't feel right. if you are going to role-play, then role-play! 1st - I removed initiative 2nd - I use AC as damage reduction 3rd - removed the 'action economy' as a scene unfolds, the players describe the activity of the character. any appropriate dice rolls are made. as GM, I keep the action moving by stating who acts (characters or npc's). generally, this is done by DEX base values and the activities of the participants. the game maintains a dynamic and engaging environment that isn't interrupted b6 switching between role-play and tactical.
There are definitely a lot of people who share that sentiment. I think that is totally valid and probably benefits from a very abstract ruleset. I personally don't mind the hobby's wargame roots and enjoy leaning into more tactical combat. For those who also enjoy that style of play, this video will be more useful.
@brokenbladepublishing I absolutely enjoy tactical combat games. got a lot of use out of my Warhammer fantasy battles dwarf army. also a big fan of battletech. even games like Leading Edge - Aliens or Warhammer Quest. while most tactical games are better with a story element, it's not really necessary. it's difficult to run a TTRPG without a story or setting.
@@bruced648 TTRPGs don’t really need a story except for the one that unfolds during play. I also don’t believe that a game with tactical combat must be divorced from roleplay.
There are several rule systems that adress the one or other issue. You are right that there is no system that covers all issues well. The Dark Eye has active Defense rolls for dodging or parrying. If an Attack is successful, the opponent rolls on Defense. Sadly, its skill checks, including combat skills, is the clunkiest system ever. The system makes sense, the principles behind it are rational and sound, absolutely, it is the least abstracted and most realistic dice convention for skill checks I have yet encountered....but it only really works for videogaming or virtual tabletops with macro-automated skill checks; for manually rolling dice, it's total rubbish. No system in the world is clunkier. Rolemaster has hit tables where the type of armour (based on weight and encumberance) alters how much damage the same attack roll result causes and at what roll result the attack causes critical damage (hit points are considered pain, scratches and bruises...you can die from a thousand cuts, but more likely, it takes a severe hit to really cause damage) as in, the heavier the armour, the easier it is to cause hitpoint damage, but the harder it is to cause critical damage; Different weapons of same type have additional modifiers to give some purpose to choosing a dagger over a knife and such; with good dice rolls, even a total combat noob can luck out and one-shot an elite veteran monster...but of course, the other way round can go just as easily; Characters have the option to reduce their attack bonus for a round in order to bolster their defense value, indicating deliberate defensive action; 0HP only means KO, death is at -CON Bonus; the more %HP you loose, the greater a penalty you have on all actions, including combat actions (in steps of 25%). And if you really want to use all rules, every combat action costs endurance points and loosing endurance (again in steps of 25%) will also reduce your effective skill, same as HP loss. In Pendragon, both sides roll their weapon skill, the better combat roll succeeds and causes damage, the lesser combat roll does nothing, there is no attack or defense roll as such, assuming that both are performed equally (but to unequal efficiency) inside the turn. A friend from my roleplay club is homebrewing a system called Rampage. In that one, you roll on your weapon skill (not attack nor defense, those are implied) against the weapon skill roll of your opponent (same as in Pendragon); Different weapon types have bonuses or penalties based on long reach, medium reach or short reach melee; Armour types cause damage reduction in hit locations that are covered; A difference in weapon skill check of more than 36 (it is a 4D6 system with exploding dice) causes intant kill; Almost every hit that actually causes damage is likely to cause critical results that carry lasting modifiers; Lesser success margins only cause penalty dice for the looser of the turn or advantages for the winner of the turn; If you can inflict 5 or more penalty dice onto your opponent, they is considered suppressed and you win non-lethally; There are damage severity thresholds indicating max HP loss from single attack or total that a body part can endure before becomming completely unusable.
I don't think fencing would capture the brutality of something like trial by combat. There are no rules. At least one of the parties has resorted to desperate measures to survive. Regardless of skill, combat is going to quickly breakdown to eye-gouging grappling, punching with armored gauntlets, and frantic stabbing with daggers where the bigger, stronger opponent is likely to prevail. You have a better chance to survive if you don't give your opponent room to maneuver and wind up. That makes large, powerful, unskilled fighters really dangerous. If I was designing a system, you'd get about two blows before one or both of the parties threw down their heavy shields and long weapons, closed the distance, and started the ground and pound game. Something like a wild beast or an ogre isn't going to engage in a standoff fight. They're going to charge in with the intent of taking down their opponent and finishing them off.
I liked your insights. I wonder how you deal with elephant-sized monsters who's thick hide easily sheds damage from lighter weapons, and who's massive strikes would likely wreck even the greatest of fighters?
Great question. I definitely was operating under the assumption of humanoid combatants when I created this video. Unlike humans, I think it makes sense that an enormous creature would be able to shrug off a significant amount of damage. In Streets of Peril, I treat thick and scaly hide like armor. A creature like an elephant would possess the "terrible might" trait and roll black dice for damage rolls. Streets of Peril dice mechanics can be found in a video on this channel.
AC is often used to represent evasion as well, otherwise Dexterity modifiers would not affect it. If an attack fails to hit an unarmored combatant, how do you narrate that? I doubt you describe the target shrugging off the blow. My contention is that you use one target number for attack rolls which is abstract in nature and does not necessarily convey how the combatant is avoiding damage. Furthermore, I explain in my video that making armor act as an all-or-nothing defense is illogical. A blow can strike an armored location and deal little damage or possibly be deadly.
@@brokenbladepublishing At the end of the day, it is an abstraction to facilitate a game. The specifics of how you avoided damage when you roll the dice is a matter of imagination.
I get your point, but I consider "hitting" as "hitting the targets actual body to wound." I prefer low hit point games, which means a minor bruise or getting rattled isn't the thing you worry about, it's getting stabbed. If you're fighting someone wearing full plate, unless you're using a bludgeoning weapon specifically to dent their armor, why would you waste your energy and degrade your blade by hammering plates you know will resist your attacks? Isn't the whole point of the rise in prevalence of two-handed straight blades with full plate that you can maneuver them into gaps easier? So if a "hit" is getting *past* the armor to the flesh underneath, then at least versus blades armor does reduce the chance to hit--because the armor isn't your target, the gaps are, which are much smaller than a whole body. So my instinct is to have armor reduce damage or reduce hit chance, depending on the combo of weapon and armor. Gambeson clearly just reduces damage, as well as mail. Plate reduces hit against blades and reduces damage against bludgeoning. And everything only reduces damage against guns. I've seen you suggest just rolling to dodge in replies, and that does make sense, but that's already disconnecting dice from the sense of what your character's doing, which you complained about with AC (and many complain about with HP). Like sometimes a wild, untrained attacker does just miss, especially if they're trying to do a precise attack. And anyway, it makes intuitive sense that when you're doing something--attacking--you roll. Having everyone roll all the time for both attack and defense slows it down though. The reason for all these single roll systems is because modifiers are applied immediately. It's simple and takes almost no time. I'm not a fan of everyone constantly rolling for everything. So the question is, if people are going to roll for one thing, which makes more intuitive sense: attacking, or defending?
I think you accurately explained how AC works. AC in D&D is an amalgamation of various defensive properties and this creates a few problems for me. Firstly, there is no mechanical distinction between a 18AC unarmored fighter and an 18AC armored fighter. Both of these combatants are avoiding damage differently and it is, in my opinion, more interesting when the mechanics make that evident. There is also the issue of how weapons interact with armor. Not every attack against an armored fighter involves striking into a gap; even when you are striking into the gaps of plate, you may still be contacting mail. Percussive strikes against armor are still effective with the appropriate weapons and damage reduction works better for these attacks than damage avoidance. You could have an attack chart for each weapon vs each type of armor (this existed in Chainmail, I believe) but this is cumbersome. I simply don’t agree with the assertion that opposed rolls are slow. I have been playing and testing the PD6 rules now for about 4 years and the speed of dice rolls is comparable to D&D.
@@brokenbladepublishing My issue with doing a lot of opposed dice rolls is that it introduces a lot of extra little things everyone has to do. Now you have to collect enough dice, or figure out which combination of dice to use, and then sift through successes, and then compare those with others' successes, then do exploding dice. I love dice pool systems because of their versatility and the tactile fun of throwing a bunch of dice, but the fiddliness of these sorts of systems is part of what turns me off (as well as the thorniness of determining Difficulty levels as a GM when you're dealing with shifting bell curves). The ability to do simultaneous roles does speed things up, but you've still got all the extra steps. (I'm not a big D&D fan either, so that's not really the bar in my head. D&D can have a lot of complex stacking modifiers, and then successions of rolls for hitting, damage, effects, etc., that also slows D&D down and makes it fiddly.) But my point was more that if you think about combat in terms of injuring the opponent, armor does more than reduce damage. It also changes the nature of your target. With changes to hit, that's what I'm imagining in my head. It would be nice if there was a simple way to distinguish those two impacts of armor on defense.
@@TempvsMortis fair enough. Everyone has their own mechanical preferences. I think that there are a lot cumbersome opposed rolls rulesets, but I don’t think that opposed rolls are inherently slow. I digress. AC is a fine abstraction for conveying how armor works as you describe. I think opposed rolls for defense and armor are far more intuitive narratively. A poor defense roll means you failed to dodge/parry, while a poor armor roll means that the attack slipped past the weak points of the armor. If the armor roll is high, the damage dealt is easily understood as being percussive damage, which is not as effective as a strike which lands on an unarmored target.
If I roll under AC, the GM can interpret that any way. A GM can say the weapon strikes armor / shield, which absorbs the blow. Damage Reduction (DR) in armor is just more math. If you lower AC but add DR, I suspect it's probably statistically the same as just having higher AC and no DR. Your video didn't touch HP, but you did mention that you think a fight ought not to last too long. The solution is less HP. if characters have 10 HP, and HP loss represents a literal wound or injury, then every attack is going to be scary and the players are going to be incentivized to treat combat as a deadly and dangerous thing. If they have 100 HP, and HP loss represents a wearing down of luck, skill, and stamina, they're going to be incentivized to treat combat as a sport. This is especially so when HP recovery is slow rather than instant. Index Card RPG limits everything to a number of hearts. One heart represents 10 HP. Rules as written, PCs get one heart, and it's rare to get two hearts. For critical hits, add a d12 to normal damage. Now all critical hits have the potential to be fatal.
Welcome the channel! "If I roll under AC, the GM can interpret that any way. A GM can say the weapon strikes armor / shield, which absorbs the blow." Agreed. The GM can narrate the result of a dice roll in any number of ways. Even an extremely abstract system can work with a competent GM. However, I think intuitive rules make it easier to narrate dice rolls and are overall more satisfying. I explain in the video why I think a mechanical distinction between evasion and armor assists with this. "Damage Reduction (DR) in armor is just more math. If you lower AC but add DR, I suspect it's probably statistically the same as just having higher AC and no DR." Damage reduction is more math and I suppose it is entirely subjective as to whether or not someone believes its inclusion makes combat more satisfying. Having played d20 games and other systems with DR, I never found simple subtraction to be cumbersome. I personally believe that weapons designed to defeat armor should have some mechanical advantage when interacting with armor and this is very easy to convey when using DR. "Your video didn't touch HP, but you did mention that you think a fight ought not to last too long." If you are using hit points, then yes, I agree that reducing hit point pools can make fights quicker. I also believe that any successful attack should potentially kill or incapacitate, regardless of how you track damage. Please check out my video on how the dice system works for Streets of Peril. I know that opposed dice rolls are intimidating and when I explain the core mechanics to people, they often assume it will run very slowly. I can assure you that SoP combat is smooth, fast, and intuitive. Even if you hate it, let me know what you think!
I'm surprised you take hit points as a given since they're such a weird abstraction. Wounds and Endurance as combat resources make much more sense intuitively and sell the fiction better, but they're hard to implement without overcomplicating things. Also having systems to decide combats without one side having to kill the other is vital imo.
In the example I used with hit points, I was just trying to express my contention with combatants being weird damage sponges. You could use any number of different mechanics/terms and I would have the same problem. I think there are a variety of different metrics which can be used to intuitively convey damage.
D&D isn’t meant to simulate knight-vs-knight combat but rather pulp-hero-vs-monster combat. One-hit kills are bad surprises for PCs. Still, I’d like D&D to tell the story better. Is my hit really a hit or did it bounce off the creature's hide? Etc.
I have no way of proving this, but I would guess that most D&D violence involves humanoid combatants. If the argument is that D&D combat can only account for fantastic encounters with large monsters, that would suggest the rules were designed poorly.
I think your understanding of "hits" is misguided when it comes to most ttrpg combat. If you "miss" it doesn't mean you didn't hit your target. It only means you didn't do "damage" (another abstract definition that doesn't always mean drawing blood even).
You can swing your sword around as fast as you like, hitting someone 10 times, but if they are unphased by it... you didn't accomplish much. This isn't a "point scoring game" like some modern sword fight club. Touching someone doesn't count as a hit.
If you "miss" it's not necessarily a "whiff". Maybe your sword crashes into their armor with a loud clang of metal on metal? Maybe they parried? Maybe they deflected the attack off their armor as your weapon slides harmlessly off their shoulder?
Almost all "realistic" combat maneuvers could be used to quickly describe a "miss". Just as they can describe "hits".
I explain to my players that dnd terms are a codified language. Not plain English. Hit, miss, damage... all mean something specific to the game, not necessarily the meaning they have known their whole lives.
This is likely true for all ttrpgs.
Anyway. I think this is a deep misunderstanding of terms and not something that needs fixing/changing.
I actually think what you wrote supports my argument. If you use language like "hit" that doesn't actually mean landing an attack, that is ambiguous and abstract. You even mention that in most games "damage" doesn't even necessarily mean damage.
I also address your argument about how a "miss" can be narratively explained in most games. You didn't address my actual contention. How defense is determined in most games is abstract, so much so that there is no mechanical distinction between a sword deflecting off of armor or being parried.
"You can swing your sword around as fast as you like, hitting someone 10 times, but if they are unphased by it... you didn't accomplish much. This isn't a "point scoring game" like some modern sword fight club. Touching someone doesn't count as a hit."
Hitting someone 10 times is not the same as missing 10 times. If I hit you 10 times in earnest with a weapon, whether you are wearing armor or not, you will wish I missed 10 times.
I think perhaps you deeply misunderstood the point of my video. Language in most games can be more intuitive. The rules which determine outcomes can be more intuitive. Yes, I can justify any dice roll and come up with a narrative. But overly abstract, unintuitive rules feel unsatisfying and do not easily facilitate the narration of combat.
In Call of Cthulhu and all other BRP system based games, when the enemy attacks you can either roll for dodge (half DEX), counterattack or do a maneuver (like running away). I think it's one of the most intuitive systems out there. If the enemy passes the combat roll and you dodge and pass the dodge roll, based on the level of success, you can successfully dodge. And also, when dodging the defending side wins the tie and on counterattacking the attacking side wins in the tie. I find this combat system very specific and more intuitive to understand and learn.
You can narrate a miss as a hit that dealt no "real" damage all you want, but the combat that lasts for 2 hours where nobody cant "hit" anyone and does nothing, is still incredibly boring and frustrating. I litterally had such combat once in WHF, where we - 3 pc's fought against 1 weak enemy, and nobody could hit anyone and the fight went for 2 hours straight as the result of that. There are systems that do nothing to prevent that from happening and there are systems that do. Personally, i preffer the latter.
@@DarkBath well said.
"miss =\= didn't make contact" is definitely not true of all rpgs. There are some that have 1 second rounds and take the simulation of combat much closer, if not exactly, one attack equals one action.
I've been developing an RPG that does this. A single attack equals a single action and you roll for degrees of success which determines whether bonuses are added to the damage roll and whether additional effects of the attack occur.
On most natural occasions 99% of rolls are hits of some kind, but may be actually evaded, or the damage mitigated by armament despite the hit. So in my system you can get a situation where a physical contact does no damage, but it's not the same as a miss.
Here’s a quick tip that helped me get past all of type of thinking about the “way real combat works” as a lifelong martial artist who also plays a variety of different ttrpgs. There are three main types of TTRPG games and their design. Those types are Games as Narrative, Games as Games, and Games as Simulation. The issue it appears that you have is that your experience is with games that are designed to be games. Meaning that the rules are mechanically designed for abstraction in an attempt at expediency, not just expediency in combat but expediency in learning to play the game and understanding those mechanics. It’s easier for most people who don’t have any experience with real world combat and no interest in real world combat to understand Roll die-> pass or fail -> thing happens ->next turn. This generally what DnD and Warhammer fantasy and most games that got their start as war games fit into.
What it sounds like you are more interested in games as simulations, at least when it comes to combat. Where there is more of an emphasis on getting the simulation accurate. Where a combat simulationist focused rpg has the majority of what you are talking about. Games like Mythras, The Riddle of Steel (which was HEMA Society designed and approved), Harnmaster, Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, hell Vampire the Masquerade: Dark Ages handles this subject fairly well, The Dark Eye (my personal favorite in this category), and definitely Hackmaster are fantastic for this type of gameplay. As are so many among others.
I think you have a good grasp on what you are looking for but may just be unaware of these other types of games.
Remember that the more realistic something in a game is, the more steps there will be to resolving it, just in your stated case what I heard as a game designer: comparative weapon sizes, a roll to hit, a roll to defend, battlefield complications or modifiers, mentality complications or modifiers, armor and damage reduction, armor and weapon comparative modifiers… all of that to resolve one round of combat. People complain about DnD taking too long to resolve a round of combat and all that you do there is roll a d20+modifiers+advantage/disadvantage=if you hit or not, roll damage, next. If you’re going to have all of that stuff in a game know that you are designing for a specific audience that isn’t the average TTRPG player.
Not all games are designed for all people, but for all people (especially these days) there is a great game.
PS I really liked streets of Peril.
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
I am familiar with most of the games you suggested. I even know Jake Norwood, the Riddle of Steel creator, and have fought him in several tournaments. I am actually not that interested in simulation. Something I tried to convey in this video is that I think realistic simulation is usually boring and slow. I think "intuitive" rules bridge the gap between abstract/simple and realistic/complicated.
I'm really happy to hear you enjoyed SoP! Look forward to hearing from you again.
@@brokenbladepublishinghey… so I sat down and watched/listened to your video again and realized that while I stand by my advice and suggestions, that they aren’t really relevant to the points you were trying to make so I will just ask that you take what I said as just me vomiting information at you in good faith and that I really did mean well.
If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to take another swing at it now that I have a better idea and grasp of what you meant. I’d like to talk to you more directly than a UA-cam comment but this is what I have at the moment.
I think what you are proposing isn’t a massive leap of logic or even that hard to implement especially from the ground up. However that said if you wanted to implement this type of “intuitive” system in let’s say a DnD game without doing a ton of work here’s my own shot at implementing it as quickly as possible:
Attack rolls normally
Active defense instead of AC: dex mod + proficiency mod
Armor turns into a damage reduction number depending on armor worn but ascending order of light 1-2, medium 2-5, heavy 4-8,
shields are either plus 2 to active defense or +2 to damage reduction (not both) selected by defender at time of defense
Hit points at first level are rolled hit die+con mod, At each level only the additional rolled hit die
Weapon damage remains the same but dice explode if maximum number on the die is rolled
Critical Hits ignore damage reduction
And use the lingering injury rules and table in the DMs guide (or make your own if don’t agree with the table presented).
You can also simulate battle fatigue by adding a cumulative -1 (-1, -2, etc etc) to all rolls for each time the character takes a successful hit whether damage reduction absorbs it or not. Though this fatigue won’t start accumulating until they have been struck a number of times equal to their level + their con modifier in times struck (regardless of damage taken including none) or maybe by every round spent engaged in battle. Or both?
This “fatigue” can be reset by a short rest, and borrowing from Baldur’s Gate 3, limit short rests to two per 24 hour period.
Then give the weapons a couple more properties like hammers, maces, morning stars, and flails do double fatigue damage.
great swords and great axes always attack a 3 x2 square space in front, behind or to the side of the attacker.
Rapiers and Estocs can crit on a 18,19, 20 but will be destroyed if crit during a defense roll against any weapon that is not a finesse weapon.
Daggers and knives have no penalty to use during a grapple.
Sabers, scimitars, khukris, and other severely curved type weapons cause a bleeding wound ( -1 hp per round until a successful medicine check or other healing is applied)
Axes alllow for a trip attempt as a bonus action or they can be used to successfully disable (hooking the shield) a defender’s shield until the start of their next turn
Throwing Axes have advantage when thrown but do half damage on an odd numbered roll and regular damage on an even (get hit with the blade or the haft)
These are just some ideas that came to mind when I started really listening and thinking about what you were saying. I think these tweaks would bring 5e in line with what you were describing and be easy to implement.
From a DMs side of things it’d just be removing the monsters con from each hit die. Turning the armor they are wearing (or have naturally) into damage reduction. And figuring out their defense bonus ( which baring any specific circumstance) would just be the creatures ranged attack bonus.
Now this would probably make combat a tad slower because of the extra rolling. But the fatigue and reduced hit points plus the increased damage capabilities would increase the speed of play. The fatigue mechanic alone might encourage either more risk taking or make retreat a more viable option. So I think there’s a good trade.
Again I am sorry for not listening as closely as I should’ve the first time, but I hope that this was closer to what you were describing. 😅
A note about the Warhammer RPG: My group House ruled in the reckless attack feature. You get +40% to hir but forego any kind of active defense. If your skill is under 40%, this is your default option. It does a great job of simulating somebody who doesn't know how to defend themselves but is committed to hurting their opponent. It makes swords Masters and murder machines feel epic because they can defeat a crowd of unskilled foes quickly because they rarely miss, but you don't do it against somebody who you can't kill in the first couple swings because they're going to wreck you. It's also great for simulating the ferocity of anything that is dependent on its natural toughness instead of skill to avoid harm. Dragons, orcs, ogres are much more likely to choose it as an option because they'll either kill whatever it is they're swinging at first or they can take the hit they're probably going to get for leaving themselves open.
That’s a good house rule and does simulate the “bestial” man approach to combat. I don’t think it accounts for the swordmaster who can easily harm enemies while still keeping themselves safe, however. In 1e, I don’t think there was even an option for reckless attack!
@@brokenbladepublishing Oh, there isn't, in any version that I know of. I only have my second ed book after The Great Flood of '18 but the thing about being a swordmaster, or any given elf on a bad day, is that once you get skilled enough you can CHOOSE to attack recklessly because 1) you are confident in your initiative bonus and 2) you know when to be reckless. There is a middle stage, around skill 60%, where you are probably good enough that you can attack and defend but how many times have you seen someone, in real life HEMA, lose to impatience and get punished for it? A higher skill level gives you the technique and knowledge to know better.
@@torymiddlebrooks you are correct that even good HEMA fighters can be struck by reckless and aggressive opponents. But there are a handful of fencers, like Rob Childs, who can pretty much land a strike whenever they like and are almost never touched by a weapon. WFRP doesn’t account for those kinds of fighters, what I would consider the true “swordmaster.” A very skilled WFRP character with 70 WS is still missing 30% of the time, and that is before the defender attempts to dodge or parry.
@@brokenbladepublishing A question about where you draw skill levels then. What would you consider the skills of a swordmaster? Is it JUST WS or are other stats like A or I involved? Does Rob have a WS 70? Higher? If you were built for speed and you got lucky in all your randoms and made a 1 in a million Rob, what do his fighting skills look like? WS 80, I 65 A 3? I am genuinely curious because of your background in both HEMA and WHFP.
When we played with the rule we had a dude build full Assassin for that sweet 3 attacks. WS 69 (nice), I 50ish, A 3. If he got the drop on someone he would often attack recklessly, giving +40 on all those attacks, and effectively render any attempt at defense moot, kill his target before they got to slap back and be moving on to the next victim. When he met a Black Orc in heavy plate, he had to fight very differently and he hated it.
I agree wholeheartedly with you about AC feeling inadequate. From a class fantasy point of view, being a big armor man who can take a lot of hits and not go down vs being a dodgy wiggly guy who never gets hit, AC feels bad on both fronts.
For my own system I'm wanting to use Armor as damage reduction in some capacity. Making it reduce damage adds extra math, though, so I'm considering maybe having armor have HP of its own, that protects the player's hp until it is reduced and breaks.
Don't be afraid of simple math. Nearly every game involves adding bonus, imposing penalties, and keeping track of resources. While I prefer a system which isn't overly complicated, the current trend to make games simple is getting out of control.
@@brokenbladepublishing In a recent discussion on THAC0, when I said that "...the ability to deduct a single digit number from a two digit number should not be regarded as a tough ask when playing a TTRPG..." I got a month ban from the group for being "Elitist" and "Flaunting Privilege". (And that was literally the most contentious line in my post! So its not like I was also saying "You're all a bunch of f***ing idiots!"or anything.)
Its a scary slope...
For the TTRPG designers, don't forget that while realism will likely lead to quick and lethal fights, it can be used to flavor up in all kinds of combat. You can use it to represent a superhuman barbarian fighting on with a dozen arrows in him and an arm missing, a knight so skilled he can't even get hit when fighting mere goblins unless two or more corner him, a mage impatiently waiting for his arms to magically regrow so he can cast fireball, and pretty much anything you imagine.
In my opinion it doesn't have to be anywhere, but also can be anywhere no matter how insane and fantastical the rest is.
💯 -- truly enjoyed this video. I've tried hundreds of TTRPG systems with cinematic to ultra-realistic for many decades. Your insights into making combat intuitive are excellent advice.
This is awesome. Somewhere in there, I think you actually addressed the exact combat system I've been working on and told me exactly how it could be improved, by the way.
Gygax explained in 1e that the reason for the combat system (1 minute rounds, 1 attack, even AC and hit points) was an intentional abstraction and simplification of "real" combat, because trying to make a "realistic" system, including parry/dodge, critical hits/misses, etc, would overly complicate the game. Of course, this was the same game that had rules for weapon speed, weapon adjustments vs armor type, and multiple charts to consult, depending on class. My only WHFRP (1e) story was when my thief was hanging upside down above an alley and stabbed his vic thru the skull with his punching dagger. Sadly, the GM moved shortly after we started playing, but it was great fun.
if you go even further back you got chainmail and indivigual combat rules which are actually pretty well considered for 1970-something, with different weapons hitting first by range, but follow up rounds having the shorter weapon hit first. and daggers actually being more effective against full plate if the opponent is downed.
Back in my reinactor days. I was trained in napoleonic bayonet combat, i dreamt up a card based system that encompasses almost all the facets of melee combat you mentioned.
Could you please share your system?
My personal favorite mechanics is from The 7th Sea, 1ed, when you have passive and active defence. There passive defense represents that its difficult to hit someone who keeps proper distance and stance. And active is when you activly trying to dodge or parry blow, this cost action resourse but you can also gain better position or make counter technique as a part of active defence. This reduces number of extra rolls (not every attack causes parry/dodge roll), adds extra layer of tactic, and turn every active defence into a small dramatic event.
Great advice, even more reason why I love Mythras/Classic Fantasy. Hits all those great points you mention for exciting and fear filled combats
Interesting presentation and I am completely with you. Hence I designed in my homebrew TTRPG system that during a combt take (not round) each engaged combatants rolle at the same time once for the offensive and once for the defensive. The difference between offensive and defensive result decides not only if you hit but also how hard you hit. So even an unarmed combatant can land a crippling if not even a deadly blow when he hits the right spot. Best you cover up in some armour to lessen the chance to hit a vulnerable part on your body.
In any case you have picked my interest and I will have look into your Renaissance-Fantasy Setting "Streets of Peril". I love Landsknechts despite being Swiss and so Swiss mercenaries are of course ma favorites 😉
The recent Battletech game from harebrained schemes really opened my eyes in this way. I tend to play very aggressively in most tactical games because if I can take down one or two of their units, then action economy starts swinging in my favor and the rest of the fight more or less wins itself. In one particular engagement, however, I found myself out of position, and just got hammered by the opposing force, of more lightly equipped units. They basically wiped me out. Well damn. Restarted the mission, and got to more or less the same position and instead of the aggressive action I'd taken before, I took purely defensive moves. The opponent then wasted their advantageous position to do minimal damage to my units, and on my next turn I was able to demolish them.
I learned that in a tactical game, sometimes the strongest move you can make is a purely defensive one. It was eye-opening.
Have you ever played Mythras? It's my favorite RPG by a long shot and it fits... pretty much all of the requirements you're talking about here. It can come across as too complex, but once you've grasped how it works it moves fast, forces you to make interesting choices, and everything that happens "makes sense". No tables needed, generally. Mythras used to be RuneQuest 6e, so if you've ever played RuneQuest it's a less clunky, more tactical version of that. Here's how it works:
- Every character has 2 or 3 Action Points to use per "round" (Some tables choose to give everyone 3 AP because having less is sort of huge.)
- HP is locational. If a location drop to 0 HP or below, you roll Endurance and the location becomes useless if you fail. (If it's your head, chest or abdomen, you immediately fall unconscious.) If that location's HP drops to negative [whatever the max is], the limb is severely damaged (or severed, just use common sense), or if it's the abdomen, chest or head, immediately fall unconscious and roll Endurance to see if you immediately die.
- Weapon damage and location HP is balanced reasonably. For instance a dagger deals 1d4 damage (before a small Strength bonus), on average most people's arms have 5HP or more, while a greatsword deals 1d10 and absolutely might just lop someone's arm off.
- Armor is actually damage reduction. Chainmail will give you 6 armor (6 damage ignored) per location, meaning that only an extremely strong character can meaningfully harm you with that 1d4 damage dagger unless someone stabs you right in the face or something.
With that out of the way here's how combat actually goes:
Choose to attack someone, spending an action point. > Roll against your "combat style" stat, it's a roll under system so if you have 75 in whatever, that's a 75% chance of success. >
The recipient of the attack can choose to defend, doing exactly the same thing. >
If the defender rolls a success, they have parried the strike. That probably means they prevented any damage, but if the attacker's weapon is much larger than what they defended with it might still hurt (like trying to parry a mace with a dagger). >
Any "degree of success" between the two of you (Attacker fails vs. defender succeeds, or a crit vs. a success, or a fumble vs. a fail, or a fail vs. a crit, whatever) means the person rolling better gets a Special Effect for each degree of edition (could get two or even three).
Special Effects are varied but here's the point:
If you're attacking and you think you're gonna harm them through their armor (and you want them dead), you should just use Bleed or Impale so long as your weapon lets you. Either of those will end the fight immediately unless the opponent, particularly Impale because there isn't even a save against it. Either your opponent is now bleeding out and will die soon without medical attention, or they've got something stuck through them and couldn't move much even if they wanted to (and will die soon without medical attention). On the other hand, if you _don't_ think this attack will harm them or you're not intending to kill them, you've got loads of other options. For instance if the opponent is too heavily armored you could Sunder their armor to impede their movement, or use Trip Opponent followed by Bypass Armor, or use Stun Location with a bashing weapon.
If you're the one defending and _you_ get a Special Effect you can't damage the opponent (you just parried them, after all) but you might cause them to Overextend, or damage their weapon, or even pin their weapon or disarm them somehow.
Once you've picked one or more Special Effects (and which you should use is actually obvious usually), THEN you roll damage and hit location.
Other cool bits include:
- Shields function both as a way to parry even very large weapons effectively, and as a way to _passively_ protect part of your body without spending any AP to do it. They're strong as hell, in other words.
- It's optional, because it does add a little complexity, but Mythras bothers with weapon range. If someone with a halberd with a reach of Very Long engages someone with a broadsword with a reach of Medium... broadsword dude literally can't hurt halberd dude, unless they get a Special Effect and Close Range. Then halberd dude can still hurt broadsword dude, but halberd dude can't parry any more.
- Recovering HP is a damn slow process, serious wounds take weeks to heal, major wounds months. It encourages a game where deadly fights are truly a last-resort option, without falling prey to the "I have 1 HP, guess I just die" problem.
- An interesting phenomenon in Mythras brought on by how combat works is that if you want an "assassin" type character who sneaks up and stabs people in the back, you don't want a lithe, slender dude, you actually want a burly guy who's sure to manhandle their enemy so they die quickly and don't scream. (Also the only reason to carry something small is because it's concealable, otherwise you might as well bash their head in with an axe or something.)
- Weapons can have traits. The core rulebook intentionally avoids something like an "armor-piercing" trait for the sake of simplicity, but there _is_ a supplement that brings a couple in if you really want to simulate something like a Lucerne, nasty flanged mace or mail breaker.
- Mythras _is_ normally a "theater of the mind" game, but the Mythras Companion offers very solid grid rules which make positioning as important as you want it to be.
Thanks for the suggestion! I haven’t tried Mythras. I don’t mind complicated games, I actually like a little crunch. WFRP had different hit locations as well, though it was sort of annoying to look up where an attack landed each time. I’ll check out Mythras!
It doesn't sound like Mythras would be for me. I definitely don't like roll under systems.
personally i think the way D&D abstracted combat makes a lot more sense for weapons like light crossbows, bow & arrow, belearic sling, javelins, repeating firearms, and darts, where you should be expecting to whiff 50-90% of your shots vs personnel
I would also add that even though being hit while wearing armor has the potential to do damage, and you as an armored fighter should be attempting to avoid square hits to your person while in armor, you also have greater license to fight ferociously. unarmored fighters may have greater ability to advance and retreat at will, and perhaps greater ability to avoid hits with technical dodges and parries, but without armor you have to be very cautious by comparison, and can be controlled by your opponent''s weapon if you will.
That is to say, your sword keeps you safe vs unarmored opponents, because they can't freely attack you without risking life and limb. An armored opponent has the power to threaten you freely and overcome your defenses. If anything i might suggest that within the existing mechanics, we could represent this by giving fighters the option to attack with valour, perhaps incorporating wisdom.
Been in the foam leagues- totally agree that hitting as default is correct. Except when something probably not in your hema experience is prevalent- shields are involved.
Also, love silver's work.
We use lots of shields! Bucklers, rotellas, even played with dueling shields and the “Hungarian” shields depicted in the Gladiatoria.
@@brokenbladepublishingPeople hit just as often, it's just they hit the shield, it's not zero effort, zero damage when they do
@@davidioanhedges do you believe that hitting a shield should cause damage? If so, what is your justification?
Just for the record, I’m not necessarily disagreeing but I’m curious as to why you would think that.
@@brokenbladepublishing To the Shield, which will eventually break, and causing some small amount of exhaustion to the welder, you can't keep holding a shield forever with it being hit without it having some effect ...
I am currently designing a TTRPG and you hit on everything I have been working on lol. To me Opportunity attacks make more sense when a monster moves into your melee range rather than leaving it. Also having less HP but dodging, parry and blocking until you finally get struck for half your health has meaning instead 80 HP. Thank you for making this, I’ll definitely check out you stuff.
Im in the undertaking of making my own Homebrew into a full fledged ttrpg. Ive seperated AC into Agility and Armor, Agility is rolled if the defending character decides to dodge as well as the scale for how hard someone is hit when actually struck. and armor is a passive reduction to the dmg they take. (this system works off upgrading dice from d4 to d12)
so P1 is attack P2. P2s Ag is 5 and Ar 3. P1 rolls a 3, they still HIT the target but it opens up the attacking player to reprisal letting the defending player attack back IF they take HALF the dmg of the striking weapon, or they can elect to dodge and don't get struck. The Weapon they were struck with is a Greatsword a Dmg 6 weapon P2s Armor is 3 reducing it to 3 dmg and thus rounding up (this is meant to be a lethal system) to 2 dmg out of the total wounds the player has which is 4. but in this case where they take the dmg they now have the ability to even KO or Kill their opponent.
This is not getting into how There are Reach, Position, Successive attack bonuses, Armor Penetration and even weapons like Mauls which just Destroy a opponents AR. I hope my system isnt to insane but this is what weve found success with. Also Equipment like armor either prioritizes AG or AR or both to a lesser degree. I have a Amalgamation of ideas from RPGS I liked and just abandoned the parts I didnt and just molded a game out of these pieces into a more lethal game that my table enjoys.
i’ve been playing with the base concept of a character having three elements to balance in a round.
1. what they want to do
2. how likely are they to succeed at those things
3. how reactive they want to be
which is essentially
1. what happens on a successful action
2. what is the likelyhood of succeeding at that action
3. how compromised are your defenses while you do thar action
and you can subtract some from any one of the three to add something to one of the other two.
like:
-recklessly attack, lowering your defenses but increasing your likelyhood to succeed.
-decreasing your likelyhood to succeed, but on a success also doing something more like tripping your opponent as well as dealing normal damage (or simply dealing more damage)
-decreases the damage on a successful hit, but bolstering your defenses (like going for a safer sword cut you are more confident in recovering and defending from)
It's great to hear the perspective of somebody who "walked some way in fighter's boots".
My problems are: Long combats, little incentive except to close and "mill", and massive cushions of hitpoints.
I believe relative rate of hits is important.
This could see opposed rolls - though I accept that could further slow the fight since player and DM are now rolling.
I also believe that remaining standing is vital.
Just from reading about medieval battles, men knocked prone, or injured were at extreme disadvantage.
I don't know whether modern sparring can teach us much about combat with dragons, giant spiders or owlbears.
Opposed rolls in my experience are not any slower. Both rolls occur simultaneously. The player and GM announce the number of successes. If you are rolling small pools of dice, the successes are counted quickly and the arithmetic is very simple.
really valuable informations, not only giving experience and ressources about real life fight, but also give advices on how to implement them.
im dessigning a game as a passion project, i thank you for your advices as combat may be where my game break depending on the rules.
My favourite combat is in surprisingly Call of Cthulhu. It was hard in the beginning understanding it because it's so easy and you are not sure if you're making something wrong. But i assure you that i haven't seen anything more intuitive and simple yet and it's fantastic!
Ive always just reworded it. instead of miss. whenever someone does a melee attack. there will be contact but it could be a glancing blow on armor. an attack that gets parried or hits a shield.
I think that is how a lot of us narrate d20 games. Definitely a serviceable solution, though I prefer mechanics where the language and rolls are more clearly defined.
Thank you for this information. Like everybody else I'm writing a role-playing game and what you told me kind of confirms what I was going with for combat. In my game a pack of kobolds can overcome one far more dangerous foe depending on the circumstances and some randomness, but skilled plays the most important role in inflicting and avoiding harm.
Glad you enjoyed the video! Let me know when you release your game so I can check it out.
I find this video kind of encouraging because a lot of what youre saying agrees with some of the combat design choices ive made in a system i'm designing.
I'm glad you found it helpful. Good luck on your game!
Good stuff here.
A lot of the problems you identified here are problems I tried to solve with Bastard Sword as well. I also went the way of opposed rolls for combat and separated armour from the skill of the fighter. To keep the combat deadly, I went with a wound system instead of HP; one god hit can kill someone.
I said often that if nothing significant happened during a round of combat, you are wasting your time (and losing a few % of HP is not considered as something significant).
Right on!
I have started working on making my own Mecha Fighting Game as of last October, and I brain stormed the similar conclusion of opposing dice rolls for defense and attack. And also most likley using 3 and 4 sides dice , to make things less random, and better piolts just having slightly better stats then less skilled piolts.
Sounds cool, brother! Let me know when you release it so I can check it out.
Actually, I am going to use at least 6 sideded dice to allow for various degrees of glancing to direct / critical hits. Piolts ( skill / stats) and allowed Mechs Stats + the 6 sided dice rolls determine hits. ex: a character is attacking, with 19 attack skill + a 6 sided dice roll, against a character with defense/ dodge of 16 + a 6 sided dice roll; if the attacking character goes 1 over the defender its a glancing blow; if they go in this case 25 against 17 it would be a Crit. If attacker score is 1 or more less than the defeneder, it is a miss. ( if equal / 0 for range attack : miss) if both chracters are Meele Attacking each other at the same time and they score 0, its a "Sword Clash" 😎
@@brokenbladepublishing its still very ealry days, but it's a bit different than what's out there currently, to my knowledge. Glad you are interested 😁.
"Inheritors: Ashes of Imidia" captures *almost* all of this without being hard to learn or long to play. Missions typically are quick, brutal, and chancy, but it always feels like combat skill and tactics win the day. Plus everyone takes turns playing the monsters and bosses, which are governed by a simple logic system. But I might be biased because my mentor designed the game, and I'm doing the art for the final release this Spring.
I’ll check it out when it releases!
I made an RPG rule system that I think accidently produced double hit situations. Characters actively defend against attack rolls (much like your own rules), but defenders can choose to just eat a shot to try and hit back instead of avoiding a hit. It VERY much benefits armoured fighters.
I really like that!
Man! This really resonates with me 100%. Great synthesis on topics I felt before and have been trying to instill into a game I'm designing, thanks to this video I'll re-consider exploding dice. Definitely gonna check out Streets of Peril.
One system in combat I’ve always found frustrating (on the receiving end of) is grappling. Most systems I’ve played, in a one on one fight, if a character is good at grappling and gets into melee it’s over. In a dark heresy 2e game I had a stormtrooper turn a Korne berserker into a pretzel. the GM just had to watch as I beat his boss encounter to death over 12 turns.
Have you ever checked "The Riddle of Steel" (and its spiritual successors)?
It was written by Jake Norwood from the HEMA Alliance and he bascially crafted the combat system in accordance with his personal experience with medieval european martial arts. He addresses many of the issues that you deem important, including the importance and effect of armor and the relative ease of landing hits against the enemy, to the point that the issue is not so much hitting as much as not getting hit (the combat system allows the pressed - non-initiative holding - combatant to give up defence and attack anyway, but the result is usually very very grim for the marginally slower fighter...)
It's a very interesting RPG system (not just for the way it depicts combat, but also for the Spiritual Attributes mechanics, which merges together character motivation with a storytelling pacing mechanic and a character advancement system) that was relased at the beginning of the 2000s. It was an independent production and has been OOP for almost two decades now. But sometimes it's still possible to track a physical or digital copy.
I know Jake and I have read Riddle of Steel! It is a very interesting game and there are some really unique design choices.
Palladium D20 system is my favorite. Pick your type of attack (see Martial Arts skill), Roll to attack, then the defender chooses... They can attack at the same time - or parry - or dodge - and they are allowed another roll to try to "roll" with the attack and take less damage. Is it time consuming? Yes, sort of but it's interactive which is fun and dramatic. Plus if you use the Martial Arts lists and multitude of attack types flavored for each martial art (Ninjas & Superspies TTRPG) makes it more fun.. It's too bad that Palladium and Kevin (owner) are so problematic. NOTE: The whole armor system in Palladium also makes so much more sense then DnD and it's clones.
It's kind of cool that the point you raised about just removing the attack roll was the topic of the latest video MCDM put out. I don't remember the details but I'm pretty sure they settled on a similar solution to yours (an opposed roll).
Interesting! I will need to investigate.
the MCDM system has various ways for you to use triggered actions (reactions) to reduce damage, and banes and boons (stacking) to decrease or increase damage
Super interesting and relevant to RPG and wargame design. Hope to see more.
Into the Odd is (I believe) the source of the auto-hit inspiration that's been doing the rounds and in that HP is capped fairly low because the actual design intent wasn't simulation, it was simply to keep the combats short.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing.
How i'm doing damage and Armour is that; depending on how much higher the score of the dice roll is, compared to the character's AC, the attacker will do extra damage as detailed on a scale. The "meet it to beat it" score I've nerfed by making it half damage. Exploding dice seems interesting, and I am trying to figure out a way to smoothly integrate Group Initiative to my game.
Good luck with your game!
This put me in mind of the 1e weapon speed/Armour adjustment tables.
Now I've gone off on a tangent of trying to see if initiative and attacks per round can be substituted by the values of this table. 🤔
Men! That just validated all my design choices. Thanks!
Nice video and the 62 comments were fun to read.
Grew up with plastic baseball bat fights, wrestling, mix martial arts, base boxing.
RPG, 1980's D&D basic box set, TMNT, AD&D, WEG west end games d6 dice pool system Star Wars, and Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire & werewolf.
Then came along WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars.
My first two gaming stores from 1998 to 2008 were large enough to have free weights to bench and dead lift for your PC strength score, along with foam larp weapons and plastic baseball bat fights. So we learn over the years most athletic sport injuries were from left shoulder nerve damage from having a shield arm kick, shoved, or just jam. Along with two on one action which even if the guy is still standing, all that kinetic energy is slam through the shoulders, down the back just above the hips. And feeling our ankles compress hard and at the wrong angle down into the ground. In short after a few minutes of getting slap hard with foam weapons, the defender still had to have his back pop back into place with flex all rub in.
Interesting it takes about 15 to 30minutes to gain your .. vigor .. back.
Along came WotC 3e Star Wars " .. short rest," taking 15minutes to recover temporary Hp called Vitality. Jedi use their Hp to power their force powers.
Hp, hip points = dexterity stamina to avoid, roll, or deflect incoming attacks. Once winded ..
Critical hits= wound points base off of the PC constitution score.
i.) temporary wound point con dmg, coughing raggedly with dry throat gasping for air. Arm or join goes numb from counter deflecting incoming hits. light concussion. Few hours to recover.
ii.) Well you need stitches or joins pop back into place, few days to recover.
iii.) Yeah you deal with weeks for light breaks and minor nerve dmg and develop a limp.
iv.) Months to recover, lose 1d4 constitution points.
Now we can do into Death /Fort saves, make save and take temporary con dmg, fail save and take permanent con dmg. Fail both save vs dmg deal then your PC is dead.
Roll 1d6 on how your PC chokes on their own blood as they die.
2.) Call shot locations & body defense of concealment, such as peeking around a wall corner. ( Roll to Hit, then what type of dmg 1d6 outcome ?)
So we hid behind a corner which each other take shots of throwing a foam axe at your head.
Since my last shop group had a large store front with four back rooms and a short bending hallway. We had some fun foam reenactment weapon play in very cramp spaces.
So we learn quickly about mental panic exhaustion in close spaces with a jump scare monster thrown in.
Now we are all in our mid 40's and 50's. .. play time is over for such athletics.
We don't have .. magic .. healing so we just have old timer nerve dmg.
b.) As my 13yo cousin who now in his 30's said as a teenager.
Heavy crossbows at 10ft point blank range. I don't care how good your helmet or over all your armor is, you are getting punch by Mike Tyson with a screwdriver but moving 3x fast then what Mike can punch at. Your brain and neck is taking Whiplash !
Fort vs DC:10+dmg dealt. Factor in if target also is flank/flat-footed. Add +1d6 per rogue level as required.
House rule even a n/PC is multi class barbarian/rogue, they flank their target and cut pull back behind the knee cap. Works as a trip attack, if there is no lower body AC and a roll the passes PC dmg thresh hold then the back of the leg turns into a bloody mess or just is cut off.
Example, LotR:F. the ranger Aragon pulls a bluff to redraw away the orc's lower defense and adds flank/ sneak/ back stab to his sword roll. Cutting off the orc's leg by the knee.
c.) Armor/AC or Def/ defense rating.
Plat armor is roll to touch, then follow up with strength/dexterity to grapple slam the other to the ground for concussion effect or joint limb dmg for being twisted.
I believe historically, combat duration can actually very quite a bit, especially as groups increase. come in for a scuffle for a little bit retreat, scuffle, retreat, etc.
And personally I do often find that if combat is too quick too often you dont have time to do something interesting or more then just deal as much damage as fast as possible. I like those sorts of blood pumping quick and deadly scraps too, but I think there is a place for both quick and protracted engagements somehow.
Great discussion. Have you looked at MERP/Rolemaster? Its system makes being outnumbered very important, wearing Armour makes you take more, but individually negligible hits, while critical hits occur more often on the harder to hit unarmored/lightly amored character. Critical hits can be instantly fatal and are often disablimg.
Familiar with the system but never played it. I will try and take a look. Thanks for the suggestion.
Your thoughts on creating melee combat remind me a lot of the Close Combat rules for the miniature game Infinity. Melee in that game is quick, lethal, and all melee strikes are opposed (meaning that the initiator of the close combat could die from the defender). There are a lot of rules like Martial Arts and Natural Born Warrior that intuitively create rules for a more skilled combatant that is more likely to crit + defend themselves as opposed to a "vicious fighter"
Hear, hear. Well done, sir, and great content on the channel. It's nice to see individuals commenting on the hobby from a place of experience and education rather than mere whimsy.
Coming from a similar perspective/ background it's become exhausting being told I "don't understand" by Critters and non-wargamers.
Regardless, excellent stuff.
If you haven't already, take a peek at Song of Swords RPG by Opaque Industries. Lots of mechanics you'd appreciate, I think.
Thanks again and best of luck in all your endeavors.
Thanks for the kind words! I will check out Song of Swords.
@@brokenbladepublishing , my pleasure and I hope the recommendation is worthwhile for you. Thank you again for the well produced content. 👏🏻
@@brokenbladepublishing , my pleasure and I hope the recommendation is worthwhile for you. Thank you again for the well produced content. 👏🏻
the ability of armor to TAKE and HOLD ground is a really underutilized dynamic, and tbh at least on a formation fighting level is really the defining element of heavy infantry. a light infantry unit can harass a heavy one, but definitionally must give way and retreat when a heavy infantry formation advances on them outside of extenuating circumstances.
The defining element of heavy infantry on a tactical level is its ability to take and hold ground.
Great Video. Gave me a lot to think about.
Thanks! More videos to come.
Into the Odd was the first game to get rid of attack rolls (that I know of) and it added Armour as damage reduction and made it so that HP represented your ability to dodge and when it ran out you just start taking actual hits to your body and might go down in a single blow.
Pendragon also has opposed dice rolls for combat and armor as damage reduction
although it also has the thing where because of the opposed mechanics usually only one person will be struck in a round
it also does have rules for armor penetration by weapon type, and the rule that if you're being attacked by more than one person you automatically get hit (generally, the players, who are knights, are expected to not abuse this out of honour lol)
the meta for combat in exalted 2e was also a lot like your recommendations, totally by accident seemingly, given it was a combat system for animesque demigods having ridiculously over the top fights, but there was a lot of resource management to avoid your oppenent hitting you with one very square, powerful blow that would probably take you out, or at least cripple you (of course, given the setting, this was of the "preserving my qi so i can duck the inevitable dragon-cutting meteor slash if needed" than fighting in armor while trhing not to get tired, but the feel coukd be made bizarrely similar with a hack of a game system
I set weapons to do set damage and armor as damage reduction it was slightly counter balanced by some penalties like reduced perception stealth and dex also no one is wearing heavy armor a full day that can generate exhaustion
There's a Wounds mechanic in the Grit and Glory homebrew that I like to use to make combat feel deadlier. The other mechanics in that homebrew are a bit complicated, but I found that I use the Wounds a lot
dope! thank you for this!!!
I came up with something similar.
Thresholds of success on attacks, Target Number - Attack roll = attack margin of success
0-4 : incidental,
5-9: adequate,
10+ exceptional
the target creature also has a danger value, to determine if they hit the player, simply subtract the danger value from the attacks margin of success and apply their result
0-(-)4 : incidental,
5-(-)9: adequate,
(-)10 or lower exceptional
so if the player needs a 6 to hit the target, they roll a 12 they would do (6-12= 6) adequate damage to the target. If that target had a danger level of 10, the creature would score (6-10= -4) an incidental hit against the character.
I also use 2d10 to get more consistent median rests rather than the total swinginess of a d20, since a competent fencer does not have a 1/20 chance of doing something amazing or falling flat on their face, but 1/100 chance for something to go either extremely well or bad seems about right.
Sounds interesting!
@@brokenbladepublishing I also run it all as simultaneous as well, I just tell the players what enemies are generally doing (the troll is charging towards nifehl or whatever) have everyone tell me what they are doing, then resolve it in order of melee, missile, magic, movement (as in just running around etc). I generally don't go super hard into defining a ton of stuff for every possible attack or action, it's just easier to use what makes the most amount of sense.
so instead of coming up with extensive rules for reissen with a pollarm, it can just have the 'hooked" trait, and when the player says "I'm going to hit them and try to wrench them down" I'd just look for at least an adequate hit, and still also apply the effects of any attack they are hit with (maybe they are also knocked down).
It actually runs pretty fast and usually it's like 2 rounds of hard fighting, and then either running away or the enemy breaks.
Lots of great insights in here. I have toyed with the idea of opposed rolls before but I think the most important aspect of them didn't really sink in until just now. And that is that if you are in a fight with an opposed roll then SOMEONE is going to get hurt every round. There will never be a scenario where everyone just wiffles for multiple turns in a row. So you'll never end up with a slog. Something will happen every round.
So we actually toyed with the very thing you are describing, but that isn't quite how the dice work in Streets of Peril. If the defender wins the opposed roll, they manage to successfully dodge or parry, but they do not strike the attacker. I do think the system you are describing, where combatants make opposed rolls and the winner lands a hit, could be interesting depending on the game and would definitely be quick.
@@brokenbladepublishing (apologies for the long reply) This method can actually work very well, and it is much faster. I've used it on and off in 5e games for some time, and have some experience with a system you may find interesting.
It's a relatively obscure system for a game called Artesia: The Known World, which uses a modified Fuzion D10 system. In that, d10s are the only dice, they explode and implode, and it goes to great lengths to simulate combat. It's armour, including the coverage, and the material, mitigate damage, but do not actually make you harder or easier to hit (except through modifying your ability to dodge). The system for resolving attacks is that attackers and defenders roll, and add skills and winners deal the difference in damage. This means the defender's efforts still mitigate damage, even if they don't actually prevent a hit. However, with the exploding, and imploding dice, damage can swiftly become very dangerous, though armour can also mitigate the injuries one sustains. It's a neat system, which takes into account weapon ranges (a dagger is rarely a good weapon to use against someone wielding a polearm, as it is unusable except at extremely close range, however, when you are in extremely close range, the polearm becomes far harder to use and the dagger excels, making weapons fill the niches they are meant to).
I myself used a similar system, grafted onto 5e, that a fellow I found online (on a blog I cannot recall) called the Phase system. With this, there is no rolled initiative--except where exact timing would make a tangible difference, or in contests of speed and timing. Instead, you check for surprise, as normal. Then in the planning phase, the DM tells the PC's what they observe at a glance in their environment, giving detail as is appropriate. The PC's all declare their actions, which can include holding an action until something occurs, or using a skill to get a better look at things. The DM determines what actions should be grouped together (These three PC's are going to engage in melee with these four orcs. But this PC is going to shoot at that orc with the magic staff. So there are two groups, and we can resolve their interactions separately.) then resolves the groups in the order that makes the most sense.
Actions or movement that occur at the same time, are resolved at the same time. This is great for movement, because you don't get the temporal weirdness of most turn based combat. Where for example: I see the orcs run forward into the middle of the room, and then I decide to throw a fire bomb because now they are all grouped together in the middle of the room, even though they rolled higher on initiative than I, and so I should be reacting slower than them, and all this is meant to be happening at once. In Phase, I will have already declared my action, so while they're moving, so am I (There is a rule I added, where a creature can use its reaction to change its declared action based on new information, essentially: I notice after running half way, that the orcs are probably going to be grouped up, so I stop mid run and take out a bomb to throw at them. They might notice, and also use their reaction to alter their turn, these things play out at the same time.) and when we meet, assuming we have the actions, we attack at the same time, possibly resulting in double hits. More attacks means you are more skilled, and they cannot attack against you at the same rate. This system still uses AC to determine hits, but it could be modified so that mutual attacks are a roll off, and attacks without a counter are versus AC or something.
The benefits of this system are that there is no down time. Players are all engaged, they are always on their turn, not waiting. It is chaotic, but that makes the planning phase all the more important, simulating the PC's training and experience, with a fair amount of cross talk between players. But the execution is often chaotic, and it's difficult for players to track what's happening beyond themselves in the moment--much as it is in a real fight. It's also wonderful for things like chases, or positioning. I've had multiple players get annoyed at the time dilation in normal D&D, where they say "I wouldn't be just standing there as the dragon/horseman/whatever runs at me, I'd be moving too." and I'd have to hand wave it, and say that the other creature was so fast they didn't have a chance to react. But with this, they can run, and if they are close enough to an escape, they can actually get there in time, or be caught up wherever that would happen. It feels more accurate and exciting. Turns go by much faster, and are more dynamic. Reactions and holding an action matter a great deal, and things like legendary actions become terrifying and while difficult to track, very effective at displaying the threat the creatures that posses them reflect.
The downside is that it requires a great deal of mental load for the DM. I did it with multiple parties of up to 9 players. It was great, but taxing, and I eventually had to abandon it for those games. For smaller games, it still works well, and is very exciting and speedy. It is also very deadly, due to individual players not having as much time to plan for each thing that occurs, and only getting a moment during the planning phase to make adjustments.
Apologies for the long post, hope this is of interest. Take care.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. The Phase system sounds interesting, though perhaps a little too complicated.
@@brokenbladepublishing Phase system? Well damn, that's a bummer. Did a comment get deleted? Desire to know more intensifies!
Maybe a comment was deleted or I replied to the wrong comment!
i think worlds without number strikes a good balance with armour - it uses traditional AC, but melee weapons deal shock damage even if they 'miss', with heavier weapons dealing more shock
I really like the fights in WFRP4. Some room for bad fighters to land a hit but often the better one wins.
I quite liked the fights in Hârnmaster too
man, you're a genius, love rules, love the ideas
Thank you for the kind words!
@@brokenbladepublishing definitely going to buy your rulebook and test it. I'm a huge fan of a "landsknecht" theme, low-magic and realistic gritty combat. And I was disappointed with warhammer and dnd systems as well, so
thank you for your great efforts!
Thank you! I’m confident you will really enjoy the book. Check out the link to my website if you are interested in picking up a physical version.
As a non-HEMA enthusiast, as with basically any conversation with fencers, I’m not sure some of these things make for “good” necessarily, though as long as the rules are quick enough to build a new character (5 minutes and minimal maths, tops), there’s nothing wrong with high lethality games.
A couple of things I’ve tried that you might get some mileage from:
- if you’re going to use opposed dice rolls, I’d suggest making only the players roll of anything; they roll to defend or dodge and enemies just get static modifiers based on the defence they nominated.
- simplified attack zones “I go for the head/legs” can be declared or you can “look for an opening.” Either declare zone a/high/left or zone b/low/right, or rely on the dice. If both match, the defender gets the bonus, otherwise if goes to the attacker. If left to fate, use odds and evens on the dice rolled to see how it goes. If you’re outnumbered, you’re already committed to the zone, so they can always claim the advantage. Highly skilled fencers can take a -1 on their dice roll to quickly switch their defence zone if need be etc.
- “openings” rather than horrific injuries. Knocking your opponent down is more fun to a layman than an insta-gib, at least if they understand it works both ways. We allowed them both as a freebie by accepting a penalty as well as in place of a critical in another system. This one definitely speeds things up.
- clash and follow: a parry within a specific margin (I like closer to the number, you can go with really successful rolls instead) allows you a free attack, perhaps at a penalty. A fun one in multi-dice games like GURPS can be to roll one fewer dice each time. Perhaps combinable with zone attacks for greater control.
I found the title a little misleading. It kind of implied that it was going to be about how to run intuitive combat, not about what your HEMA experience taught you to expect. Interesting musings, though they feel like they amounted to a reasonable showing for classic Runequest, albeit with diminished chances of whiffing.
@@Mulletmanalive sorry you thought the title was misleading. I appreciate the feedback. You can check out my core system for free to get a better idea of how my opinions shaped the game.
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/434943/Perilous-D6?affiliate_id=237127
@@brokenbladepublishing Thank you very much, I shall have a look. Right. Damn nice little system, weirdly seems slightly less brutal than it sounded in your description. I’d question the need for a separate damage roll given how streamlined the rest of it is, but an extra layer to interact with is always welcome when designing additional rules. I especially appreciate that you’ve avoided the Full Thrust exploding dice (double plus another dice).
I’ll check out your published setting next time I have a few coins to spare. As is, this would serve nicely for a 13th warrior style game.
Did you find a specific way of getting across your experience to a reader quickly? My experience is somewhat coloured by a re-enacter trying to force his assumptions into D&D and looking aghast when we took the book pictures to be an accurate guide, rather than fitting ogres with custom helmets, so I’m curious if there’s a good way of setting expectations fast.
You can’t beat a good active defense system for enjoyable gameplay. WOD , Ars Magica,and palladium books come to mind. I hope you the greatest success in finding your own way in making game play fruitful.
I’m going to reach out. I’ve got a game that combat is brutal, all armor and weapons behave differently and have different usages. You might like it. Listening to this was almost a checklist for me!
Sounds good!
And which one is it?
I agree with most of your ideas. The issue that I've found in most games is that verisimilitude and gameplay are often at odds with one another. I think it's impossible to have both at 100% as increasing one means dialing back the other.
There is definitely a balance here that game designers need to navigate. I
Really nice video. I am trying to make my own Game and this really helped
Good luck!
Fascinating video! Definitely gets the brain juice churning, and as somebody who has mostly played/ran more gamey/strategy-centric TTRPGs, it's an interesting point of view to consider things from.
Haven't purchased the system (yet!), so I dunno if your game already addressed this, but on the topic, what are your thoughts on A) Hit locations in regards to combat and B) Critical hits/damage? I vould see it going either for both in regards to "intuitiveness," honestly.
Having played WFRP for years, I can say that I don’t really care for hit locations as they slow gameplay down. If a system does hit locations better, I would be more interested in them. Critical hits are great in all of their variations, though they can slow fights down if you need to consult a chart frequently.
@@brokenbladepublishing Fair enough, thanks for the answers!
I am a part time HEMA practicioner and have been designing my own basoic RPG system for about 2 years now on and off, and have been play testing it for about a year and a half. A lot of what you mention about opposed rolls and armour rings so true with what i have made based on how i have come to understand combat through HEMA. if you provide me an email i will gladly send you the current WIP of the book for you to have a look at and see what you think :)
Right on! Send it to brokenbladepublishing@gmail.com and I will take a look.
I agree with rolling for attack and rolling for defending.
You should absolutely do yourself a favor and check out Sword World 2.5.
Yes, its japanese in origin and you may be put off by the anime-eque aesthetic of things because, y'know, its from japan so it'll have that but...
for one I think its a game you can very much enjoy without being into anime *at all* and secondly... Most if not all that you described is present in Sword World.
Its entirely 2d6 based, so its predictable what your roll will be.
It uses an opposed check between your accuracy and the enemies evasion to determine if you hit something.
Armor is damage reduction.
Fights usually only last 2 to 4 rounds.
Any damage roll can potentially end your opponent in one blow because crits explode. Basically, you roll damage on the power table (which is used to display a wide range of values with just 2d6, it really doesn't slow down the game). Each weapon/attack has a power value (telling you what row to roll on), as well as a crit rate. When you roll on or over your crit rate, you get to keep the damage you rolled and roll again for more damage. You can crit indefinitely, so it may happen that you hit an enemy once and kill them because you critted like 5 times. In fact, I almost did today in a session.
It even has a high importance placed on positioning (at least in its advanced combat rule set). Basically, when you engage in melee, you create a zone of engagement (called a skirmish). People participating in the skirmish are considered to be at the center of it for positioning purposes, because it is assumed that they are moving around a lot within that zone as they are circling each other going in and out while trading blows and so on. Attacking with a ranged attack into the skirmish is hard, because you may hit an ally. Attacking through it becomes very hard because you will inevitably hit someone within the skirmish. You can also block movement and draw someone into a skirmish if they try to move past you within a certain range. So, positioning is important for everyone, because positioning well means the melee fighters can protect the ranged fighters from being drawn into melee themselves (something they will be worse at, naturally). It is also important to position yourself well to not hit allies on accident when you try to fire at range.
Its my groups go to fantasy RPG, and it has been for years. It has a small but very dedicated western fan base, and a very well made fan-translation that has by now literally managed to translate about 80% of all the play material released over the now 16 years this edition of the game has been supported (which is, like over 50 books).
Its incredible. And even if you don't end up liking the world or the system or whatever, you may still learn something to take away for your own game.
You should check The One Ring 2e, it have smart, simile and kinda realistic armor - weapon system.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Given many of the points that you make, I think that one of the major benefits of a higher fighting skill should be a reduced likelihood of a double hit, where both combatants simultaneously hit each other. One could imagine a system where a somewhat trained fighter would be less likely to hit his opponent than an untrained fighter, but would be much less likely to be involved in a double hit.
Check out Perilous D6 or Streets of Peril.
Good luck!! I’ve been trying to do this for a decade and it gets so complicated so quickly. Get ‘er done so I can play it!
Streets of Peril is currently available! You can check it out here:
thebrokenblade.com/streets-of-peril
In TTRPG combat is too often focused on reducing HP bars to 0. But a fight has a lot of ways to end. I always ask my players what is their goal in the fight, I deal with fight like I do with any confrontation or obstacle: "What are you trying to achieve? What would be the consequences of a success or a fail ?"
You can win a fight with everybody alive and barely hurt. I one exchange or even before that your can break your oppenent's will to fight, you tire them or throw them off until they give up, wrestle them, submit them, convince them between exchanges...
A failed check should still make the situation progress no matter what. I hate when DMs (And i've been guilty of it) just say "ah you failed" and nothing happens. It feels terrible for the player.
I agree with you that combat encounters don’t always need to end in death. One side of the fight may decide they are outclassed early and surrender/flee.
I don’t agree that a failed roll should always result in progress. Enemies can fail and players should be able to as well. One way to mitigate the disaster of a bad roll is avoid placing too much at stake on a single roll.
@@brokenbladepublishing I'm not saying player shouldn't fail, but the situation should evolve, you can give a tactical advantage to the NPCs or players can lose ground or something important. To me A fail should always mean something, not just "you missed" and it just end up like the player skipped their turn.
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but when you said that a fail should always result in progress, I interpreted that as “failing forward.” Players make decisions and there is always the possibility that their decisions result in failure. I don’t know if failure always has to result in something more detrimental than simply being incapable of achieving a desired result.
I’m also a little wary when people complain about players “losing turns.” Players can always attempt actions in their turn other than attacking, like maneuvering on the battlefield or supporting an ally. When you attempt to do something that may result in failure, you should accept that you can fail.
@@brokenbladepublishing Yeah it's something like "failing forward" but not in the sense like it's always positive for the PC.
I think of fights in TTRPG less on a tactical level and more on a narrative level, which means whatever the result of the dice, there will be consequences.
A character missing an attack is not just a miss, depending on what their intention is, it can mean they won't reach the exit in time or they expose someone else to the danger, start doubting themselves or whatever suits the context...It will change the narrative and force the player to make decision accordingly, not just try again on the next turn which can get boring and extend fights forever if nothing lands.
Fun tv/ movie game.
Back in the 1980's they had VHS tape players to create radon movie to the minute Foot Ball games.
Roll dice form random effect of the player make and look at the chart timetable. Follow with moving to play of the tape time marker to hear your actions narrated by a real sports enouncer.
Then move your football player mini on field yard zone.
2.) Movie fight scenes, from a wide range.
" Rocky," slow play his boxing matches, count the number of times hits land. Roll 1d6 any time the boxers hit each other.
Number of hits per round and x that to number the rounds the fight lasts.
If each boxer does 1d6 with each hit. Calculate the Hd from the mount of Hp rolled.
But that is Rocky storytelling, but you can review Mike Tyson matches, then work backwards to see which level Monk or fighter/soldier class he is.
3.) Look at the death of Richar the Lion Heart, a king in armor killed by a lawn dart hit where the only armor weak spot would be.
By a half blind cook, who Richar spare cause of the irony. You can't do that in D&D, but you can with D6 exploding die/pool results. Along with d10 vampire which has a one hit system.
I tend towards sci-fi, so more gunplay and less melee so take this as a data point. I've been running one of my systems for 28 years and it lines up with most of your experience except I don't do a straight opposed roll for melee (but I agree that would work very well).
What I do want to comment on is armor absorbing damage and high lethality. This I have lots of experience with.
One of the things many players get wrong about high lethality is they think it means characters will die frequently. This is not my experience. What it does do, is gets players to plan. Once they learn they can't rely on hit points, they concentrate on defending with speed or armor (usually the two being mutually exclusive). The other thing it actually incentivizes is surrendering when overmatched which leads to fun stories about escaping. So don't let people tell you that all you PCs are going to die.
On armor reducing damage, and you may already have this, but you also need some mechanic that either reduces armor's effectiveness or increases damage with skill or a good roll. I have static damage for weapons which is why I reduce armor rating with a good roll. Your exploding dice are a good way to implement something like this.
Because my armor is mostly used to protect from guns, I lean heavily into armor also having it's own hit points and quickly failing. That idea could be really interesting for anti armor weapons like maces, hammers and poleaxes. A hit with these weapons could reduce the armor rating, making them valuable against tanky opponents.
What a great video with some insightful ideas, and many that match my own! I am an avid hard fantasy enjoyer, and I have been trying to cook up my own system for a while. Please let me know if you'd be interested in sharing some ideas.
Thanks! You can always hit me up if you want to bounce ideas off of me.
When attacks automatically hit and you just roll damage, it matters what is being damaged. If every hit point, for example, represents physical meat and blood and bones, then it doesn't make sense because a skilled fighter can hit without being hit. On the other hand, in games where characters have loads of hit points, it doesn't make any sense that those are all meat. You don't gain ten lbs of muscle and thicker skin and bones every time you level up, you just get better at not being grievously hurt. In that case, the master swordsman can still harm others without being harmed simply by having significantly more hit points.
I'm ok with hit points being a little abstract. I still think a war of attrition where combatants are just slowly whittling one another down is boring and unintuitive.
@@brokenbladepublishing it certainly can be - that is, as I did last night running D&D, the DM and players have to inject fun and story into the whittling. It isn't there baked in. I prefer a system with dynamic conditions that can be imposed in different ways, only one of which is 'hurt' or 'injured', giving flexible options.
It would be interesting to know what you think of the Legend of the Five Rings system.
I would have to take a look. I’ve never played it before.
2nd Edition is the best.
It has exploding dice, armor does damage reduction (but also some small TN-to-hit bonuses, unfortunately), and tries to optimize for "sword masters" and slug fests to coexist in a harmonious way.
The Streets of Peril rulebook layout seemed so L5R-like that I wondered if it was one of your influences.
HERO System is very interactive, as is my own Skrye Engine.
Surely, Gurps is the game for you.
After each point you made, i was like "hmm, you can do that in gurps"
Someone else also recommended GURPS! I think that game is perhaps too far towards to overly detailed simulation side of TTRPGs for me. I can certainly understand why people like it though.
@@brokenbladepublishing thats the beauty of it, Gurps is fully modular. You can use all of the rules for a overly crunchy simulation, or use only the rules that you need for any given campaingn.
But anyways, Not here to proselytize abour gurps.
Great content, tho.
You definitely should look into gurps's combat rules. It is very similar to what you described about hema and real life fights, especially on higher levels, although, on lower levels successfully hitting something is a quest. But on higher levels it's another problem: two characters will dance around each other deflecting, parrying and avoiding for 30 minutes of real time and then somebody finally misses their defence roll and they die in one shot (or almost one shot). That scenario is also unsatifying as fuck and frustrating. BUT its still tactical as fuck with immense amount of optional rules about fencing, feints, heavy, multiple, or telegraphic attacks, blocks, parries, evasion and much much more. And on paper you can use them to trap your opponent into enacting a losing strategy, but my players always forget about this and I don't push them into that either.
I always thought GURPS was on the opposite extreme of too a simple and abstract. Not my cup of tea but I can understand why people appreciate it.
@@brokenbladepublishing gurps basic yes, kinda abstract (imo most other systems that i know is way more abstract, but thats besides the point). Its way way more specific if you reach for the optional rules in general and "gurps martial arts" in particular.
Also, gurps can be as easy or as complex as you want, the amount of optional rules and systems is ungodly and you basically can play almost exactly as you want if you dont like basic ruleset. Unfortunately for uninitiated its very hard to figure all this by yourself, you kinda need a guy who knows all this.
I totally agree with everything you are saying! This is why a d20 is very bad die to be using in combat. A d20 is too dynamic. I once played a high level dwarf barbarian in a recent GenCon tournament that missed almost every time. I've always been very disappointed with D&D combat and the d20. And I've always hated D&D's inflating hit points. Unfortunately, I disagree with expanding d6 dice pools. The d6 (with it's small number range) is just too limiting for RPG games and only makes sense in more quick and simple gaming formats like board games.
Really it depends on how you see hit points. Does combat need 10 to 20-ish successful attacks to deplete HP’s and are each of those 10 to 20-ish successful attacks individual wounds? Narratively, I have a hard time with that unless the mechanics also include additional modifiers when a character has been slashed 10 times. I see hit points more like damage soakers and fatigue counters and once they’re depleted, the last attack deals the singular fatal blow. In this way, two combatants are slowly being shaken inside their armour and getting tired from shield blocking and parrying until one of them outlasts the other. With this narrative mindset, I’m totally fine with automatic successful attacks.
But the difference can be split between that and warhammer fantasy RPG if you don’t like auto hits. Simply reduce TN’s to the point that players are 2-1 more likely to succeed. Lots of 9 or 10 TN’s where the player has to roll a 6 or 7 or better with their modifiers. They statistically hit way more often than most TTRPG’s but less than auto hitting systems. The roll turns into a “roll to see if you miss” instead.
I'll address your first example where we narratively interpret that each successful "hit" is not actually a decisive blow, maybe not even a blow at all. What are the mechanics that expand an HP pool for characters who are better at dodging and parrying? If armor is the sole determining factor for an HP pool, then you really are not accounting for characters who employ active defense to keep themselves safe. You would think that if losing HP includes fatigue from parrying or dodging, there would be some way to increase HP to reflect this. From what I have seen, the auto hit games in development don't take this into account.
Ultimately, I still feel a system that uses automatic hits is overly abstract and not as easy to narrate as a more intuitive combat ruleset. I may be wrong. One of the new games in production may surprise me.
The last suggestion isn't bad. I think the d20 is still swingy. You have just as much likelihood of rolling a 1 as you do a 20.
@@brokenbladepublishing yeah, I don’t know what the MCDM RPG or even Daggerheart are going to be doing to account for active defense users. It’s possible they’re not accounting for those things at all. I just realized I didn’t say this in my original message but I’m currently doing a massive homebrew overhaul of the Fantasy AGE system, starting by making it an automatic hit system and rolling for stunts during the damage roll instead. Because I’m not a fan of a dozen or more blood-drawing or bone-crunching attacks that cause a character to go from fully functional for a bunch of turns to unconscious or dead after finally fully depleting HP, so that’s why I would use armour ratings (and dodge effects from other active defenses) to soak damage. So abilities that would normally allow a total dodge in other systems would instead add further damage soaking/fatigue reduction). Narratively, the character dodged an attack but because they’re proficient with dodging, they’re athletically more efficient with their energy and so suffered less fatigue from the dodging. It’s still a work in progress.
You’re right about hp replenishing, I do have an idea about recovering from the fatigue. Because hit points are an indication of fatigue, if you used an action in combat to take a beat and rest, slow your heart rate, slow down from the adrenaline which is keeping you going but also burning you out (rationalize it however you want to), you replenish HP at a rate depending on how much of your turn you spent calming yourself down and what level the character is. I’ve got an amount in mind but it would take more than just a comment to explain it.
I was also thinking about a secondary way to track damage. On top of your fatigue based HP, you’ve got say…five wound slots. For every single attack that does 10+ to 25+ HP (depending on your level) your character suffers a wound; they’ve actually been cut, stabbed, pierced, burned or crunched, so you fill in a slot. when you’ve filled in all five slots, you succumb to your wounds and fall unconscious or just die. So even if you’re constantly getting HP replenished, there is a second “losing condition”.
Sounds like an interesting system you are working on! I like the clear distinction between stamina loss and actual physical damage. I’m curious to see how it turns out.
@@brokenbladepublishing could be a complete disaster, but I’ve always been the irritating type of person that needs to fidget with stuff right away to see if I can make it better (for me). It could be too much stuff to keep track of in combat but only dozens of combat encounters worth of play testing will tell.
Defense rolls sound really cool, but I think they would slow down the game, especially at high levels which in some systems the players just do more attacks per turn, even if it's unrealistic since it doesn't differentiate armor from evasion ability, use armor is much simpler. Furthermore, this would only be a difficult system to apply if we took into account magic in high magic settings since if with these mechanics you intend to simulate real-life combat, magic is not something real so you could not simulate it correctly.
I would suggest checking out my basic PD6 rules. Opposed rolls can be resolved very quickly. Having designed creatures for PD6 that are more high fantasy in nature, I am fairly confident that it can accommodate most styles of play.
I agree that there is no perfect game system. The best you can do is find a system that all the people at your table can live with. Even people who respect each other can reasonably disagree on what feels fun.
Having fun should be priority. I think we sometimes get defensive and argumentative on how things should be done “correctly.” I do think there are ways we can improve the way we do things and I hope this video helps inspire people to create house rules or design their own games.
Good stuff
I'd say it's hard to have any kind of approximation of realistic melee combat with lethal weapons without making it dangerous for player characters. So with modern dnd and long history of videogames encouraging players to beat up everyone they see to advance, it looks like modern system with casual appeal won't be able to afford more realistic deadly combat unless they bake in some way to save characters from dying via magic, setting specifities or what have you.
I think that early TTRPGs were arguably more deadly than modern ones, so it isn't too inconceivable to create fairly dangerous games. I've been listening to Runehammer talk about his current OSE game where they are trying to stick to old school rules and it sounds like they are experiencing a lot of character death.
@@brokenbladepublishing I agree with that. It is possible to make more lethal games and there is market for it. DND probably won't do it any time soon, but it can be done for sure.
I mean I feel that hit points represent an ability to continue to dodge and parry which is why removing the hit roll can feel right, but also I don’t necessarily like the idea of spells always succeeding
I think you could use hit points to represent endurance, but in the example of the MCDM RPG, hit points are completely tied to armor. I think you run into a number of problems here:
If you tie hit points solely to armor, there is no way to express a character’s ability to evade or parry. If you auto-hit then reduce damage with armor, the rules imply that the character is always being struck.
My issue with guns in fantasy medieval wargames is that to be realistic they need to be slow, inaccurate, and relatively weak, so nobody wants to use them, as most other weapons are more effective, which is why they were not used that much in reality, and the first thing that gets changed is to make them faster, more accurate and do more damage ... moving them out of the period, so that the majority of other weapons and armour in the setting are obsolete, which is what happened in the real world when guns got more effective, they slowly displaced other weapons, and eventually made most armour obsolete
Most of the games we play incorporate a lot of early Renaissance technology, though we often confuse it for medieval. Firearm technology is impossible to describe as a monolith in this time as it is constantly changing and incredibly inconsistent throughout Europe. There is an excellent book called “the Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany” which provides some interesting historical anecdotes on the subject.
i started taking HEMA classes in order to make better TTRPGs
still difficult
Hopefully it helps inspire your design process! If nothing else, HEMA is a lot of fun.
I am trying to design the combat in my system the way that daggers and spears do the same damage, but hitting with a spear is more likely. As far as I knew a lot of historical spears had blades not longer than daggers (and of course you could impale an opponent all the way of the wooden staff behind the blade of a spear... but why would you do that in a real fight?) So I throught about a Reach system where every melee weapon has a Reach value between 0, 1 and 4. Unarmed is 0, very short weapons are 1, moderately sized are 2, long are 3 and very long are 4. My system also uses a dicepool mechanic and for ever point of reach difference you can add an additional dice. Damage is calculated by additional success above the Target Number. That way a spear is more likely to succeed and can potentialy more damage. But if your opponent with the dagger can break your guard (aka evades the spear and gets to close to you) or you are fighting in a narrow environment, he can add the dice per difference. I know only having 5 different length is not realistic... but I wanted to implement the idea of weapon length related to hitting propability, without the system becoming a total mess. Can I ask you on your thoughs about this idea? Oh and unarmed attacks are reach 0 because I think that every weapon is a force multiplier.
have you considered a to-hit system that uses D4-D12?
Each weapon uses a different hit dice based on range. So a pike would use a D12 to hit, as it's a massive weapon, a shorter glaive would use a D12, all the way down to a D6 for a dagger and D4 for unarmed.
There's some 5e playtest concent that uses an idea like this, where it skips accuracy and jumps straight to damage, and the highest number on the dice is concisered a crit, allowing you to roll more damage dice
@@atroecious9357 no i have not, because I use a D6 dicepool... so using different other dice does not work for my system, but it is an interesting idea. I can see that working in dnd or orher d20 systems like Mörk Borg
@lycaonlycos2140
I think what you are proposing is similar to a mechanic in WFRP 4E. I only briefly played that edition and don’t remember it well, but I believe longer weapons had an advantage over shorter ones unless the combatant with the shorter weapon had certain traits. Let me know once you have a write up of the rules and I can look them over.
@@brokenbladepublishing Thank you, life is busy, but I will try a prototyp with my friends in a few weeks.
This looks good. Don't forget to penalize the spearman when he is in a confined space, like inside a house or dungeon.
the problem with most TTRPGs, they are combining two separate types of game (role-playing and tactical war game), and wondering why it's complicated and doesn't feel right.
if you are going to role-play, then role-play!
1st - I removed initiative
2nd - I use AC as damage reduction
3rd - removed the 'action economy'
as a scene unfolds, the players describe the activity of the character. any appropriate dice rolls are made. as GM, I keep the action moving by stating who acts (characters or npc's). generally, this is done by DEX base values and the activities of the participants.
the game maintains a dynamic and engaging environment that isn't interrupted b6 switching between role-play and tactical.
There are definitely a lot of people who share that sentiment. I think that is totally valid and probably benefits from a very abstract ruleset.
I personally don't mind the hobby's wargame roots and enjoy leaning into more tactical combat. For those who also enjoy that style of play, this video will be more useful.
@brokenbladepublishing I absolutely enjoy tactical combat games. got a lot of use out of my Warhammer fantasy battles dwarf army. also a big fan of battletech. even games like Leading Edge - Aliens or Warhammer Quest.
while most tactical games are better with a story element, it's not really necessary. it's difficult to run a TTRPG without a story or setting.
@@bruced648 TTRPGs don’t really need a story except for the one that unfolds during play. I also don’t believe that a game with tactical combat must be divorced from roleplay.
There are several rule systems that adress the one or other issue. You are right that there is no system that covers all issues well.
The Dark Eye has active Defense rolls for dodging or parrying. If an Attack is successful, the opponent rolls on Defense. Sadly, its skill checks, including combat skills, is the clunkiest system ever. The system makes sense, the principles behind it are rational and sound, absolutely, it is the least abstracted and most realistic dice convention for skill checks I have yet encountered....but it only really works for videogaming or virtual tabletops with macro-automated skill checks; for manually rolling dice, it's total rubbish. No system in the world is clunkier.
Rolemaster has hit tables where the type of armour (based on weight and encumberance) alters how much damage the same attack roll result causes and at what roll result the attack causes critical damage (hit points are considered pain, scratches and bruises...you can die from a thousand cuts, but more likely, it takes a severe hit to really cause damage) as in, the heavier the armour, the easier it is to cause hitpoint damage, but the harder it is to cause critical damage; Different weapons of same type have additional modifiers to give some purpose to choosing a dagger over a knife and such; with good dice rolls, even a total combat noob can luck out and one-shot an elite veteran monster...but of course, the other way round can go just as easily; Characters have the option to reduce their attack bonus for a round in order to bolster their defense value, indicating deliberate defensive action; 0HP only means KO, death is at -CON Bonus; the more %HP you loose, the greater a penalty you have on all actions, including combat actions (in steps of 25%). And if you really want to use all rules, every combat action costs endurance points and loosing endurance (again in steps of 25%) will also reduce your effective skill, same as HP loss.
In Pendragon, both sides roll their weapon skill, the better combat roll succeeds and causes damage, the lesser combat roll does nothing, there is no attack or defense roll as such, assuming that both are performed equally (but to unequal efficiency) inside the turn.
A friend from my roleplay club is homebrewing a system called Rampage. In that one, you roll on your weapon skill (not attack nor defense, those are implied) against the weapon skill roll of your opponent (same as in Pendragon); Different weapon types have bonuses or penalties based on long reach, medium reach or short reach melee; Armour types cause damage reduction in hit locations that are covered; A difference in weapon skill check of more than 36 (it is a 4D6 system with exploding dice) causes intant kill; Almost every hit that actually causes damage is likely to cause critical results that carry lasting modifiers; Lesser success margins only cause penalty dice for the looser of the turn or advantages for the winner of the turn; If you can inflict 5 or more penalty dice onto your opponent, they is considered suppressed and you win non-lethally; There are damage severity thresholds indicating max HP loss from single attack or total that a body part can endure before becomming completely unusable.
I don't think fencing would capture the brutality of something like trial by combat. There are no rules. At least one of the parties has resorted to desperate measures to survive. Regardless of skill, combat is going to quickly breakdown to eye-gouging grappling, punching with armored gauntlets, and frantic stabbing with daggers where the bigger, stronger opponent is likely to prevail. You have a better chance to survive if you don't give your opponent room to maneuver and wind up. That makes large, powerful, unskilled fighters really dangerous. If I was designing a system, you'd get about two blows before one or both of the parties threw down their heavy shields and long weapons, closed the distance, and started the ground and pound game. Something like a wild beast or an ogre isn't going to engage in a standoff fight. They're going to charge in with the intent of taking down their opponent and finishing them off.
subscribed.
I liked your insights. I wonder how you deal with elephant-sized monsters who's thick hide easily sheds damage from lighter weapons, and who's massive strikes would likely wreck even the greatest of fighters?
Great question. I definitely was operating under the assumption of humanoid combatants when I created this video. Unlike humans, I think it makes sense that an enormous creature would be able to shrug off a significant amount of damage. In Streets of Peril, I treat thick and scaly hide like armor. A creature like an elephant would possess the "terrible might" trait and roll black dice for damage rolls. Streets of Peril dice mechanics can be found in a video on this channel.
It's not "missing" when it has to do with armor class. You're not getting through their armor.
AC is often used to represent evasion as well, otherwise Dexterity modifiers would not affect it. If an attack fails to hit an unarmored combatant, how do you narrate that? I doubt you describe the target shrugging off the blow. My contention is that you use one target number for attack rolls which is abstract in nature and does not necessarily convey how the combatant is avoiding damage. Furthermore, I explain in my video that making armor act as an all-or-nothing defense is illogical. A blow can strike an armored location and deal little damage or possibly be deadly.
@@brokenbladepublishing At the end of the day, it is an abstraction to facilitate a game. The specifics of how you avoided damage when you roll the dice is a matter of imagination.
@@furtivedolus2504 you are correct. Some rules can be less abstract and more intuitive than AC.
I get your point, but I consider "hitting" as "hitting the targets actual body to wound." I prefer low hit point games, which means a minor bruise or getting rattled isn't the thing you worry about, it's getting stabbed.
If you're fighting someone wearing full plate, unless you're using a bludgeoning weapon specifically to dent their armor, why would you waste your energy and degrade your blade by hammering plates you know will resist your attacks? Isn't the whole point of the rise in prevalence of two-handed straight blades with full plate that you can maneuver them into gaps easier? So if a "hit" is getting *past* the armor to the flesh underneath, then at least versus blades armor does reduce the chance to hit--because the armor isn't your target, the gaps are, which are much smaller than a whole body.
So my instinct is to have armor reduce damage or reduce hit chance, depending on the combo of weapon and armor. Gambeson clearly just reduces damage, as well as mail. Plate reduces hit against blades and reduces damage against bludgeoning. And everything only reduces damage against guns.
I've seen you suggest just rolling to dodge in replies, and that does make sense, but that's already disconnecting dice from the sense of what your character's doing, which you complained about with AC (and many complain about with HP). Like sometimes a wild, untrained attacker does just miss, especially if they're trying to do a precise attack. And anyway, it makes intuitive sense that when you're doing something--attacking--you roll.
Having everyone roll all the time for both attack and defense slows it down though. The reason for all these single roll systems is because modifiers are applied immediately. It's simple and takes almost no time. I'm not a fan of everyone constantly rolling for everything. So the question is, if people are going to roll for one thing, which makes more intuitive sense: attacking, or defending?
I think you accurately explained how AC works. AC in D&D is an amalgamation of various defensive properties and this creates a few problems for me. Firstly, there is no mechanical distinction between a 18AC unarmored fighter and an 18AC armored fighter. Both of these combatants are avoiding damage differently and it is, in my opinion, more interesting when the mechanics make that evident. There is also the issue of how weapons interact with armor. Not every attack against an armored fighter involves striking into a gap; even when you are striking into the gaps of plate, you may still be contacting mail. Percussive strikes against armor are still effective with the appropriate weapons and damage reduction works better for these attacks than damage avoidance. You could have an attack chart for each weapon vs each type of armor (this existed in Chainmail, I believe) but this is cumbersome.
I simply don’t agree with the assertion that opposed rolls are slow. I have been playing and testing the PD6 rules now for about 4 years and the speed of dice rolls is comparable to D&D.
@@brokenbladepublishing My issue with doing a lot of opposed dice rolls is that it introduces a lot of extra little things everyone has to do. Now you have to collect enough dice, or figure out which combination of dice to use, and then sift through successes, and then compare those with others' successes, then do exploding dice.
I love dice pool systems because of their versatility and the tactile fun of throwing a bunch of dice, but the fiddliness of these sorts of systems is part of what turns me off (as well as the thorniness of determining Difficulty levels as a GM when you're dealing with shifting bell curves). The ability to do simultaneous roles does speed things up, but you've still got all the extra steps. (I'm not a big D&D fan either, so that's not really the bar in my head. D&D can have a lot of complex stacking modifiers, and then successions of rolls for hitting, damage, effects, etc., that also slows D&D down and makes it fiddly.)
But my point was more that if you think about combat in terms of injuring the opponent, armor does more than reduce damage. It also changes the nature of your target. With changes to hit, that's what I'm imagining in my head. It would be nice if there was a simple way to distinguish those two impacts of armor on defense.
@@TempvsMortis fair enough. Everyone has their own mechanical preferences. I think that there are a lot cumbersome opposed rolls rulesets, but I don’t think that opposed rolls are inherently slow. I digress.
AC is a fine abstraction for conveying how armor works as you describe. I think opposed rolls for defense and armor are far more intuitive narratively. A poor defense roll means you failed to dodge/parry, while a poor armor roll means that the attack slipped past the weak points of the armor. If the armor roll is high, the damage dealt is easily understood as being percussive damage, which is not as effective as a strike which lands on an unarmored target.
If I roll under AC, the GM can interpret that any way. A GM can say the weapon strikes armor / shield, which absorbs the blow.
Damage Reduction (DR) in armor is just more math. If you lower AC but add DR, I suspect it's probably statistically the same as just having higher AC and no DR.
Your video didn't touch HP, but you did mention that you think a fight ought not to last too long. The solution is less HP. if characters have 10 HP, and HP loss represents a literal wound or injury, then every attack is going to be scary and the players are going to be incentivized to treat combat as a deadly and dangerous thing. If they have 100 HP, and HP loss represents a wearing down of luck, skill, and stamina, they're going to be incentivized to treat combat as a sport. This is especially so when HP recovery is slow rather than instant.
Index Card RPG limits everything to a number of hearts. One heart represents 10 HP. Rules as written, PCs get one heart, and it's rare to get two hearts. For critical hits, add a d12 to normal damage. Now all critical hits have the potential to be fatal.
Welcome the channel!
"If I roll under AC, the GM can interpret that any way. A GM can say the weapon strikes armor / shield, which absorbs the blow."
Agreed. The GM can narrate the result of a dice roll in any number of ways. Even an extremely abstract system can work with a competent GM. However, I think intuitive rules make it easier to narrate dice rolls and are overall more satisfying. I explain in the video why I think a mechanical distinction between evasion and armor assists with this.
"Damage Reduction (DR) in armor is just more math. If you lower AC but add DR, I suspect it's probably statistically the same as just having higher AC and no DR."
Damage reduction is more math and I suppose it is entirely subjective as to whether or not someone believes its inclusion makes combat more satisfying. Having played d20 games and other systems with DR, I never found simple subtraction to be cumbersome. I personally believe that weapons designed to defeat armor should have some mechanical advantage when interacting with armor and this is very easy to convey when using DR.
"Your video didn't touch HP, but you did mention that you think a fight ought not to last too long."
If you are using hit points, then yes, I agree that reducing hit point pools can make fights quicker. I also believe that any successful attack should potentially kill or incapacitate, regardless of how you track damage.
Please check out my video on how the dice system works for Streets of Peril. I know that opposed dice rolls are intimidating and when I explain the core mechanics to people, they often assume it will run very slowly. I can assure you that SoP combat is smooth, fast, and intuitive. Even if you hate it, let me know what you think!
@@brokenbladepublishing Heck of a response!
Thoughts on Burning Wheel?
You are just describing the game I am making 😂
Great minds think alike! Check out Streets of Peril, sound like you will enjoy it.
@@brokenbladepublishing already watching it!
I'm surprised you take hit points as a given since they're such a weird abstraction. Wounds and Endurance as combat resources make much more sense intuitively and sell the fiction better, but they're hard to implement without overcomplicating things. Also having systems to decide combats without one side having to kill the other is vital imo.
In the example I used with hit points, I was just trying to express my contention with combatants being weird damage sponges. You could use any number of different mechanics/terms and I would have the same problem. I think there are a variety of different metrics which can be used to intuitively convey damage.
D&D isn’t meant to simulate knight-vs-knight combat but rather pulp-hero-vs-monster combat. One-hit kills are bad surprises for PCs. Still, I’d like D&D to tell the story better. Is my hit really a hit or did it bounce off the creature's hide? Etc.
I have no way of proving this, but I would guess that most D&D violence involves humanoid combatants. If the argument is that D&D combat can only account for fantastic encounters with large monsters, that would suggest the rules were designed poorly.