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Thursday, March 11, 2010

[RPG] Musings on Fight Dice and 'Alternate-Alternate Combat Systems'-

'Like minds' and all that... ;)

I went to bed thinking of Brian Penn's surprise that Fight Dice didn't actually do the Fighting.
I woke up thinking that they very well could, and then:

* A Paladin in Citadel's blog
* Carl Nash's Other Blog
* Stuart Robertson's Robertson Games blog


Musing on What Fight Dice Could Actually Do-

What if Fight Dice (or Hit Dice) were instead actually rolled (akin to T&T), but with each die operating solo in comparison to another, opposed die from the opponent?


Let's start simply: 1d6 v. 1d6-

In a simple 'high-roll-wins' contest two 1FD combatants roll off:

OA: 3
OB: 5

Opponent B wins the contest and that die difference inflicts 2 DP (or HP). Ouch.


2FD Fight-

OC: 3, 4
OD: 1, 6

Opponent C wins two DP against opponent D, but D returns the favour.


Mismatch-

2FD v. 3FD:

OE: 2, 5
OF: 3, 3, 2

Opponent F inflicts a total of three (3) DP against E, but E inflicts 2 on F.


Getting Fancy-

If in the above mismatch, what if F's unopposed 2 could be used instead to block E's two DP reprisal?

Thoughts?

7 comments:

  1. This is very similar to what I am working on for the updated Mice in Mech suit rules. I have two different combat systems, one for combat between Mechs and one for combat between characters outside of the Mech suits.

    The Mech combat is a little different: Each mech has a dice pool, and before a combat round assigns how many dice they want to spend on combat and how many they want to spend on defense. As long as a defending mech has as many dice on defense as the attacking mech has assigned to combat, the combat is resolved as a simple opposed d30 roll with damage dealt to the defender equal to the amount the attacker's roll exceeded the defenders. When all defense dice are used up, the attacker simply deals damage equal to the d30 roll. In this system, only the attacker can deal damage (but in a round both mechs will get multiple chances to attack, move and defend). There is more to it than that, but that is the simple version.

    The character vs. character (or NPC) combat is simultaneously resolved as in your example above, but damage is determined by weapon type. Before the roll, each character states if they are modifying the roll by Agility or Power - Agility is added to the roll when determining which participant deals damage, but does not increase the damage dealt by the weapon. Power is not added to the roll when determining which participant deals damage, but it is added to the weapon's damage.

    If you are interested, I could send you the rough draft of what I am working on. Sounds like we may be barking up the same tree!

    You got a Cool and a Helpful from me, always good to read multiple takes on the same problem.

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  2. There's some funky possibilities involving dice aside from yee olde d6?

    Word Verifications: sansysit!

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  3. @Carl: Sounds interesting.
    --Yes, please. kynkrea|at|hotmail|dot|com

    Thanks. :)

    @Blair: Yes, indeed!
    --More like minds... ;D

    => Sansysit!
    <= Ysityerem :D

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  4. LOTR SBG uses fight dice to determine who wins a combat. Whoever rolls higher on their fight dice wins the combat.

    So if I get 3 fight dice and roll a 1,5,5, and you get two fight dice, and roll a 4,6, you win (you rolled a 6, while I rolled a 5)

    They have a separate 'melee combat' skill, so in the event of a tie, the person with the higher 'melee combat' skill wins. So if my skill is 6, and your's is 4, and we both roll a 5 on our fight dice, I win because my melee combat skill is higher.

    I like the LOTR SBG system for intermediate-sized battles, but like any game system, it has its drawbacks.

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  5. I do like the idea.
    The only question I have (late to the game here, I know...) is how do you determine which dice are compared to which in cases of unequal numbers of fight dice? Are they perhaps rolled one at a time by each opponent?

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  6. Ragnorakk, I think that's perhaps the best way to do it, but it makes Combat Rounds a bit, fiddly.

    If, instead, they were all rolled at once, and the highest of each opponent's 'pool' compared to the other's, I think the end result would be similar, but with less variance, thus favouring the higher FD/HD opponent every time through simple statistics.

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