Topic: Thoughts on a new combat resolution system

[VladD]

After doing much research in my spare time on weapons and armor and thinking on an accurate simulation; I came up with the following solution; which I'll describe below. I'd like some opinions on the system, especially if it could be a worthy follow up to the fabled RM combat simulation. Also important for me is whether the resolution is simple enough, accurate enough, am I looking past some obvious flaws...?

basics:
* Weapons have several basic attack types. Wielded by a person with equal skill and equal strength there are a limited number of ways to inflict damage:
1) Thrust: using a pointy object in the direction of the point to penetrate and bludgeon  a body. Concentration of force in the point allows for decent armor penetration, good armor circumvention and it is fast.
2) Pierce: Using a pointy object, on a handle, to increase force and speed to penetrate a body. Good armor penetration, decent armor circumvention and it is slow.
3) Cut: Using a (long) edged object in the direction of the edge to cut a body. Bad armor penetration, good armor circumvention and it is medium fast.
4) Hack using a (long) edged object, either on a handle or as a long blade to bludgeon and cut a body. Medium armor penetration, medium armor circumvention, slow speed.
5) Bludgeon: using an object, either long or on a handle to bludgeon a body. Decent armor penetration, bad armor circumvention and slow speed.

* The same person with fixed skill and strength could increase the damage he does by increasing the weight (and therefor momentum). Even allowing for increased armor penetration, at the sacrifice of Speed and circumvention.

* Combat, being unpredictable and taking advantage of every mistake the enemy makes, is not about looking pretty, but it is getting results that count. Therefor a warrior, is at an advantage if he allows his strikes to be random. If he chooses to do a certain type of damage he is losing certain opportunities, ie gets a penalty to OB, similar to the RMFRP system of secondary and tertiary critical types.

* One roll resolution is preferable over multi-roll resolution.

* Certain types of armor work well agains certain types of weapons, and vice versa.
1) No armor - doesn't work really well, except in not hindering the wearer.
2) Soft leather or padded - works ok against bludgeoning, slight against cuts, badly against others
3) Rigid leather, or coin and ring armor - Works ok against bludgeoning, fair against cuts, slight against hacks and badly against pierce and thrust
4) Scales and lamellar - works well against cuts and bludgeon, ok against hacks, badly against thrusts and pierce.
5) Maille - works well against cuts, ok against pierce and thrust, slight against hacks and badly versus bludgeoning
6) Plate - works well against cuts, and thrust, ok vs Hacks and bludgeon, slight vs pierce.

Armor only works in the areas it is worn and we must suppose that every armor starts with some sort of torso protection. Adding pieces doesn't increase protection, but it makes it harder to circumvent the armor. Armor does decrease speed and maneuverablity, so wearing heavier armor and more armor pieces will decrease one's DB and movement speed. So it is easier to hit on the tables, but less likely to cause serious harm.

Based on these principles one could make a system where the resolution is on the appropriate critical table, as designated by your roll.

sample:

The first table indicates what kind of critical table is rolled on. It indicates what kind of damage a weapon is capable of.
The first letter in the abbr. is either Small, Medium or Large (could also be light, medium and heavy) and
the second part is Bludgeon, Pierce, Cut, Hack or Thrust.
The inclination table indicates what kind of damage the weapon did and how heavy the blow was.
The number is either the second digit of the roll, or the second digit of the result (choose which?, does it matter?, could it be perhaps be the first digit of the roll??? since it increases in severity?) to randomly determine which table is used, based on the weapon's strengths and weaknesses.

Damage inclination
Sword, broad       1 SCu, 2 SHa, 3 STh, 4 SBl, 5,6 MCu, 7,8 MHa, 9 MTh, 0 MBl
Sword, long         1 SCu, 2,3 STh, 4 SBl, 5,6 MCu, 7 MHa, 8 MBl, 9,0 MTh
Sword, 2 handed  1 SHa, 2 MHa, 3 MTh, 4 MBl, 5,6,7 LHa, 8 LTh, 9 LCu, 0 LBL

Then apply the total of the OB on the appropriate table indicated by the above table.
 
The critical tables are laid out like this:

Damage type vs armor type

Result OB | No armor | Soft leather | Rigid leather | Scales   | Maille   | Plate

Beneath the armor type cross indexed with the Result OB there is the damage result: Higher OB results will have more effective strikes and less effective armor, while lower OB will do less damage and would see strikes that glance off armor bits...when that piece is present. When a result that could be deflected by a certain armor piece, but isn't; the table refers to a higher result where the same location is hit.
Depending on the type of damage vs AT the tables should start early for damage type good against the AT, and later for weapons bad against the AT. I'd say on average: works bad vs AT start at 90, works good: start at 50.

For each type of damage there should be at least a small, medium and large version. For completeness there should be also a tiny result table and a huge one, for those dragons and other giant nasties. This means a total of 25, hopefully one or 2 page tables.

IMHO it would keep the crits around, it is more realistic than anything I've seen in terms of completeness and it is easy to add armors (well not real armor types but armor styles) and weapons and able to simulate any ranged or melee combat in a fantasy environment. One roll resolution grants some speed and it does away with the utterly demoralizing situation where you roll high for attack, only to have your crit land a +1 hit.

The disadvantages are: increased look up time for tables, mix-match of armor pieces, especially magical ones, no resolution AGAINST larger creatures (yet).

Hopefully you guys like it, as I'm hung out to dry here.

Game on!

[Marc R]

Some of the speeds might be more varied by weapon specifics. . .like a 1/2" diameter 4' long steel rod would be fast and do bludgeon damage.

[markc]

 I agree that someone can make a system from there and do a great job. It is also a good starting point to look at things and test things out.
 Thanks for the thoughts and ideas.


MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

One gripe:

* Combat, being unpredictable and taking advantage of every mistake the enemy makes, is not about looking pretty, but it is getting results that count. Therefor a warrior, is at an advantage if he allows his strikes to be random. If he chooses to do a certain type of damage he is losing certain opportunities, ie gets a penalty to OB, similar to the RMFRP system of secondary and tertiary critical types.

Unpredictable, yes. Random, no. For two reasons:

1. All those shots require energy, and given roughly equal skill, the guy who gets tired first is the guy who dies. Therefore you don't want to commit more than the minimum possible energy to your least effective line of attack, just because it's the only thing available at this particular instant.

2. No defense is perfect, every motion "closes" part of an opponent's defense and "opens" others. Therefore rather than committing energy to ineffective attacks, it's more productive to commit energy to a line of attack that opens the areas of your opponent's defense you want open, and closes those you don't care about. This attack may be ineffective in terms of hitting and damage, but that's okay because it was effective in terms of setting up your motion and your opponent's to get the opportunity you wanted on the next attack, or the one after that...

[VladD]

Thanks for the support And thank you for the comments. Your considerations are all true.

Some of the speeds might be more varied by weapon specifics. . .like a 1/2" diameter 4' long steel rod would be fast and do bludgeon damage.

I agree but I was looking more in general at the attack type, so if a weapon is more of a pierce or a cut weapon those would get more pronounced on the weapon inclination table, unless a weapon is more of a hack or bludgeon weapon. So adding a sharp point to the iron rod you mentioned, then a thrust attack would be faster than a bludgeon attack with the same rod. Adding a heavy pointy bit on top perpendicular to the rod, would be even slower than a bludgeoning attack without it.
Thus: a foil would be faster than a rapier and a rapier would be faster than an arming sword, etc. A sap would be faster than a club, a club faster than a mace and a mace faster than a great mace. IF that is worked in to the entire system.

Unpredictable, yes. Random, no. For two reasons:

1. All those shots require energy, and given roughly equal skill, the guy who gets tired first is the guy who dies. Therefore you don't want to commit more than the minimum possible energy to your least effective line of attack, just because it's the only thing available at this particular instant.

That is a good one, since that is very true. It is in fact so that fighters would be almost invulnerable, due to their armor, until someone either finally got in a lucky hit, or that his arms would be to tired to block a fatal swing. This is of course only true for those western fully armored knights. In fights between normal soldiers, the opportunities were also quite important...
I need a little think on this. Perhaps something with wounds adding to the exhaustion or some other effect, like penalties to activity also diminishing the percentage of activity per round.

2. No defense is perfect, every motion "closes" part of an opponent's defense and "opens" others. Therefore rather than committing energy to ineffective attacks, it's more productive to commit energy to a line of attack that opens the areas of your opponent's defense you want open, and closes those you don't care about. This attack may be ineffective in terms of hitting and damage, but that's okay because it was effective in terms of setting up your motion and your opponent's to get the opportunity you wanted on the next attack, or the one after that...

I'm with you right there and I've also implemented it. To create the opportunity, one simply needs to reduce his/her OB. I'd suggest that it works somewhat like this:
-10 to make opportunity for a small attack: wielders choice within limits of the weapon.
-20 for a medium attack; wielders choice within limits of the weapon.
-30 for a large attack; wielders choice within limits of the weapon.

So a two handed sword user could choose to make any of those listed in his inclination table: SHa, MHa, MTh, MBl, LHa, LTh, LCu, LBL

This because feinting, or creating opportunities with a zweihander is harder to do than with a dagger. There might even be special rules for two weapon combo fighters, where they would feint with one weapon, they get to choose the attack and damage class they want. i.e. if a rapier/ main gauche fighter confronts an ogre, he might use his main gauche to feint a strike to the knee, the ogre would use his club to try and protect from that, while he thrusts his rapier in the ogre's flank.

The main problem is that it is hard to make the tables appear unbiased. As with the existing criticals it is easy to see that Puncture is better than Krush and that Krush is better than Slash. And that is how it should be, because a broken or cracked bone is more hampering than a bleeding wound and Puncture does both! It probably means that most people would choose a thrust or pierce result for a -20, if their weapon permits or going for a hacking attack on those maille clad opponents. The main thing would be to go for the largest attack possible on your weapon, dealing in the best way with the armor type of the opponent.
One of the balancing factors of a system based on the real world is that a war mattock may provide the best way of injuring someone, it is a lousy weapon for defending oneself, also it is pretty slow, so any opponents with a good defense will be harder to tackle than one with just a good armor.

I agree that someone can make a system from there and do a great job. It is also a good starting point to look at things and test things out.
 Thanks for the thoughts and ideas.

No problem! I'll work on it some more, given time.

[markc]

 I am not a fan of being able to pick your attack size or for that matter your crit type. IMHO just because you go for a thrust does not mean you will get the appropriate crit for a thrust attack.

MDC


Edit:
 IMHO if you allow for the adjust size etc you have to expand the table to more than 1-100 maybe a 1-1000 table would be more appropriate to simulate this try of system. 1-100 is just to small a range.
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

IMHO just because you go for a thrust does not mean you will get the appropriate crit for a thrust attack.

Good point. If you go for the thrust and he sidesteps it, are you going to pass up the draw cut on the way back out cos it's not the one you wanted?

 

[yammahoper]

When choosing the crit type, if the attack roll misses but would have hit without the attack penalty, a freindly GM could allow the blow to hit at half hits and crit reduced by one (-25 if an A crit).

Or just stick with the miss.

[thirqual]

There is maybe another problem with this mechanism. An attack roll is not a single attack, as in a single lunge/slash/etc for melee weapons, but an abstraction for an exchange of blows. Yes this abstraction is flaky in many situations (ambush or charges for example) and somewhat altered for missile/thrown weapons (where the roll is aiming + a single attack). It could be said that the system assumes that the character will know, better than the player, how to effectively fight, leaving to the player only the option of how much focus is put on defense (parry rules). For 10 seconds (or 6 seconds) rounds, it is necessary.

If you want attack rolls to reflect single lunges/slash/whatever, you would need to switch to much shorter rounds or to allow several attacks and more actions by round. You would also need to give to each weapon a typical speed too (rapier versus war mattock with the abstraction is easy to handle, the old arms law tables take weapon speed and damage into consideration quite nicely).

A alternative way of doing what you suggest is to allow a wider range of choices, through something like 'stances' perhaps ?

[yammahoper]

The old Arms Companion had a stance based combat system.  I tried it out and I remember it worked well enough.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Throwing a blow takes around .3 sec, and with the smaller weapons human reaction time becomes a bigger factor than the inertia of the weapon itself. Given that, any interval representing a "combat round" over half a second is going to end up as approximation. And of course if there is a thief spending 10 seconds picking a lock while all this is going on, he may as well go home and come back tomorrow, after the 20 rounds of combat is over. In other words, pacing issues will make the mechanic unworkable before you'll ever get decent "blow by blow" accuracy, no matter what you do with it.

Hmmm... I may need to look at the "stance" rules. I was just thinking this morning that there's really no way to get away from the importance of footwork, especially in something attempting "blow by bow" resolution. I'm not enough of a fighter to know the full depths, but I've been told by experts that you gain or lose a lot of options according to where you choose to put your feet.

[VladD]

Actually I envisioned this system with a combat round of 10 seconds in mind, hence the weapon inclination table: because a combat is a "game" of opportunities and failures. The thing with choosing the attack resolution table is that it is possible to wait your chances and go for a certain move. The penalty is there to simulate a feint, a missed opportunity some circling and jabs and then a good opportunity for the strike you had in mind.

I'm not really thinking any further, up to now, than that Ï want a single roll resolution system AKIN to RM to perhaps replace the old system. To do that, it needs to be better. That is why I am trying to make it more realistic, but not more complicated. The inclination table is there because it is well possible for a grazing strike, or to simulate the various ways of using a weapon. For example a mace: with its flanged head and several flukes, perhaps a little spike on top, you could either bludgeon, pierce, thrust or cut your foe. It is a combination of skill, luck and perhaps stupidity of the enemy which one is used for the telling blow that round. It should be minded that the weapon cannot do bigger damage than it is itself.

As thinking further on implication: I'm not ready to think on other facets of changing the system: this one is a pretty big change already; however valuable your input on those sides of combat.

[markc]

 IMHO combat style or style abilities would do nicely for footwork as well as helping out with the differences between stats vs skill vs knowledge differences. IE natural physical ability and ability to simply "muscle" or "move" your or your opponents weapon or defense where you want it to be, your skill to maneuver your "weapon" or opponents weapon and your knowledge how to achieve what you want to do.


MDC