RPG Combat Ideas
I’ve been thinking a lot about combat systems for roleplaying games, enough that I’ve decided to start a series of blog posts about it. I think everybody who has run a table-top RPG as game master is secretly working on designing their own game, and I’m no exception. I’ve been working on mine off and on for years. Some of my very early blog readers might remember some of the ideas I posted way back when.
My thoughts on RPG design have changed quite a bit since then. My primary influence in the beginning was MERP (Middle-Earth Roleplaying), also called Rolemaster Lite by some, which is now out of print. MERP and especially Rolemaster have a lot of things I like, namely the detailed critical wound charts and the unique damage possibilities for each weapon and armor combination, but I’ve since run across a number of other games that have drastically changed my opinion of how my ideal game would work.
The Riddle of Steel (TROS) revolutionized my view of how RPG combat can work, with the idea of defenders being able to choose their own defensive maneuvers and actually roll for them at the same time as their attacker. There’s a lot more, though:
- the idea of having a whole pool of dice that you have to ration between attack and defense
- historically-based combat maneuvers each with unique effects
- the idea that initiative simply means you’re currently attacking, and two people could easily attack and kill each other simultaneously if they’re not careful
- no abstract hit points; instead, concrete wounds and pain levels are used
- getting bonuses to your attacks when you’re fighting for something your character believes in
- the idea that if you want your character to be good at combat, you actually can be—you aren’t forced to start out as a level 1 weakling
Unfortunately, The Riddle of Steel is out of print. Fortunately, there are another couple of games based on TROS that use many of the same mechanics. One is Blade of the Iron Throne, which seeks to provide games in the sword and sorcery genre. It’s available as a free PDF download. Another is Song of Steel, a game of historical military drama, which is still in development.
Codex Martialis approaches combat in a very similar manner to The Riddle of Steel, but with significant differences due in part to its reliance on the d20 system framework. Codex Martialis has an increased emphasis on differentiating weapons and their fighting styles, so weapons get bonuses when used at the range they were designed for. Other things I like:
- historically-based “feats” allow you to customize your fighting style based on your chosen weapon
- certain defense rolls grant you automatic counterattacks, making combat much more dynamic
- some rolls results in a “bind,” the meeting of weapon-on-weapon that can trigger special offensive and defensive maneuvers
- armor acts as damage reduction
- hit points are capped
- critical hits don’t require an additional roll to see if they actually happen
- crits can deal even more extra damage when using an attack that your weapon was designed for.
I’ve also run across a few games that I definitely don’t want to emulate, and I’m grateful for those, too. Burning Wheel is an awesome game in many respects. I love its brilliant lifepath character generation, and it relies on dice pools and character motivations much like TROS. But I absolutely loathe the core mechanic of its combat system—you have to choose your actions in groups of three, and once chosen they’re locked in, making it impossible to react to changing circumstances. It adds an interesting level of uncertainty and danger to combat, but it breaks my suspension of disbelief beyond recovery.
I really enjoy the feat system of Pathfinder and the d20 system, because it’s fun to watch your character improve and gain new abilities throughout the game. But some feats are pretty silly (Deafening Criticals, anyone?). I also dislike its turn-based combat resolution. Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 aren’t the only games to feature turn-based combat, but they are the primary ones to have invented a bunch of nonsensical mechanics around it (attacks of opportunity, frozen statue syndrome when it’s not your turn, etc.). There’s more that frustrates me about the d20 system: ridiculously high hit point levels and the strange rationalization that being getting hit by an attack doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve actually been hurt or even struck until the one that reduces you to 0 hit points, the silly idea of having to rememorize spells every day, the outrageous inflation of gold currency . . . the list goes on.
And I have yet to come across a game that makes archery actually interesting, not to mention even remotely realistic.
Of course, my gaming experience isn’t really that extensive. There are games I feel I should probably play. For example, I’ve never played GURPS, but the little I’ve heard about it makes me think I would like some of its mechanics. But I’ve read dozens of game manuals, scouring their combat rules for something that excites or intrigues me, only to be disappointed time and time again with a mundane reliance on hit points, initiative rolls, turn taking, frozen statue syndrome, generic weapons, and so forth.
So I’ve been working on my own combat system that combines all of my favorite mechanics without making it too complicated. I’ll be sharing some of my ideas on the blog in the future.
What are your pet peeves about RPG combat, and what are your must-have mechanics?
I’ll admit I have thought about making my own role playing adventure, but I haven’t put much thought into making my own system! I will have to look into it more to come up with concrete opinions of what must stay and what has to go. Here are a few off the top of my head.
1) From riddle of steel I LOVED that you could pick where you were trying to hit your enemy. In accordance with that, and drawing from merp here, the specific crits! I hate hitting someone with a hammer and chopping something off or causing bleed damage. Just not as realistic for me. I like the decks we use that have different categories, but that is just a good start. There are still things in there that bother me.
2) Critical misses. (also tying in with lvl 1 weaklings, performance reduction with damage, and weapon specialization) NO! I don’t like how each system assumes as a warrior I just found a sword on the side of the road and headed out to seek glory. Why did I bother coming up with a detailed background of strength and glory? I can see fumbles becoming realistic as I’ve taken damage, have lost blood, and naturally would be less physically capable of fighting.
3) Leveling. I can see the appeal of D20 systems and leveling up, I do get excited to see new abilities I can learn in the future, but I don’t like getting…tougher. I don’t see how killing X amount of boars or saving x amount of damsels equals a gain in my life, or necessarily make me harder to hit. I think the life points you start with at the start should stay with you until you die (which means as an adventure progresses you introduce monsters with new stronger abilities, not more hp either. HP should be related to race, and potentially gender, see #4!)
4) GENDER ROLES!!! Make the decision of whether I am a female or male character relevant! We might have to step into some stereotypes here but I think with some work we can find some legitimate differences. (Maybe women can be worse at driving the wagon wink wink) and hand-in-hand with gender, introduce stature as a subcategory of size. JUST to add differences, men can have more hp, but women can be better at diplomacy, or healing, or cooking. Large stature men can wield heavier weapons than small stature men or women. etc….
5) TALENTS. I would like to see differences in classes. If John and I both want to play fighters, I want to contribute different skills to the group. As far as I have seen, variables within classes have been limited. True you can dual-wield or go for ranged, but I want more. We would have to explore weapons specializations and weapon specific talents. Give the large 2H battle axe cleave, but not the dual wielded rapier. Dual wield can attack two different areas causing him to have to split his atk dice and the defender to split his defense dice as well (perhaps kept secret until both decided) etc…
I have a few more ideas, but its quite late and I’m tired. Maybe I can discuss them in person with you sometime if this becomes something you seriously think about doing!
Yep, I’ve thought quite a bit about making my own roleplaying system. Most of my attempts have been along the lines of adapting things I already know (Merp/Rolemaster, John Wick’s “advantage” system) to things like Old West gunplay, the Richard Sharpe novels, or Harry Potter.
For the purposes of medieval-style fantasy games, my criteria would be a lot like Aaron’s, so I’ll follow his points.
1. Detailed critical wounding and the possibility of instant kills are a must. I’ve only played The Riddle of Steel once, but its combat looks awesome. Results that follow logically from the weapon used are also a must. Rolemaster’s critical tables are a good start, but don’t go far enough that way. I really, really hate the D&D system’s (and a few others) reliance on “feats”; it usually just adds complexity in all the wrong places in an attempt to paper over irredeemably weak combat mechanics.
2. The idea of a critical miss is fine with me. Sometimes things do just go randomly wrong. Combat is stressful, and under the influence of fear and adrenalin logic and memory sometimes just fail to operate.
3. Leveling up (or at least increasing/adding skills at logical intervals) is a good thing. It’s a huge psychological reward. Your character should get tougher and more skilled as you go. A big NO to hit point escalation (Merp/Rolemaster are vulnerable to HP abuse, and I’m a known HP exploiter) or increasing fundamental characteristics like native defense with gaining levels. Rolemaster/Merp have a pretty good solution with their agility-based native defense, which doesn’t increase, and their provision for using any or all of your OB to parry. If you have better defense at a higher level, it shouldn’t be due to a mysterious gain in awesomeness, but because you’ve gained specific skills that can be applied in specific defensive situations.
4. YES to gender differences. (Unless the game setting depends on them, I wouldn’t call for gender roles.) Interestingly, it’s been proven that women have higher basic pain tolerance than men–more HP for women? However, men are generally larger, stronger, and have more muscle mass, which should increase the ability to absorb physical punishment. So HP probably shouldn’t have a gender difference, but a stature difference would make a lot of sense. The more mass you have, the more damage you can absorb. Strength and speed absolutely should have a gender difference. The upper limit for women is noticeably lower than men in that regard. However, considering that most fantasy RPGs revolve around physical combat, and female characters wouldn’t be able to match the best male characters in strength and speed, you’d need something to counteract the disadvantage. Maybe women have better native skills in magic?
5. As for talents, I think that a combat system that lets you call your strikes and recognizes the different types of attack, defense, and damage dealt by different weapons would automatically sort things out. The guy with a battle-axe brings a very different kind of game than the guy with a rapier. Dual-wielding is a special pet peeve of mine; if it exists in the game at all, it needs to be rare and require some intense specialization. There’s a good reason why it’s only seen in pulp novels and games, and that’s because in reality it’s a ticket to death. I think it’d be interesting to see differences within character classes based on culture and fighting style–a Greek hoplite type of setup is pretty well adaptable for one-on-one combat, but put them in a phalanx and they’re a whole different category of tough.
Anyway, that’s all for me.
Aaron, I think the urge to create your own RPG system tends to grow the longer you act as GM. It starts out with introducing alternate rules and making house rules to patch bits of the system you or your players don’t like. But there are always things that can’t be patched without a lot of work, and as time goes on you start to get really tired of them. And then you get experience with other games and start wanting to use some of their cool ideas, and the only thing for it is to cobble together the coolest things from various systems. I’ve already been building my system for a few years.
I’m going to post about a lot of the things you guys mentioned, so I won’t get too deeply into in the comments.
Aaron, I agree with you on the critical hit and critical fumble decks we’ve been using. They can be fun sometimes, but the categories are too broad and often provide incongruous results. Not all melee weapons can cause the same result (like your example of chopping off a limb when you’re using a mace). Rolemaster’s critical tables are the next step up because at least you have different tables for each type of damage (slashing, crushing etc.), but again they’re fairly limited because you can’t choose the hit location. I always found it hard to explain how you could hit someone in the back when they have their backs to a wall, for instance. The Riddle of Steel’s damage tables take the final step, providing separate tables for every hit location and every damage type. For some people, that goes too far and takes too long, but I love it.
I think the problem with critical misses is that they are too common in Pathfinder. It’s a permanent 5% chance every time you attack, no matter what. In MERP/Rolemaster it’s dependent on the weapon and is usually a 2% or 3% chance unless you’re using an accident prone weapon like a morning star. I don’t mind critical misses as long as you can make them somewhat realistic.
No additional comment on the ideas of leveling up or hit points, but I do have a follow up question. How do you feel about incremental improvement, where you improve a skill here and a skill there instead of a big level boost all at once? Would that be less satisfying to you?
I disagree with you both on building gender differences into the game! There are in fact some women who are just as big as the biggest men. They are freaks, but they exist. If you want to play a brawny woman, I think you should be allowed to do that. I would hate to tell someone they can’t play a character like Red Sonya, or Brienne from A Song of Ice and Fire, if they really want to. If you’re dead set on making it seem realistic, then you can say that a man and a woman with equal strength scores must be about the same size, and the woman will probably be perceived as unattractive. That will create other interesting story consequences and would only serve to make the game more interesting.
Ing, I do like feats. Their implementation in the d20 system is flawed, but the idea of gaining specific skills or abilities as you improve does appeal to me. I think it will fit very naturally into the historical basis I want to give combat. Historical fighting styles did rely in specific moves or maneuvers, with some being more advanced and requiring extra training. That’s a perfect match for the idea of feats. Added on top of a solid combat system, I think they will work well.
Keep the comments coming!
I really do like the idea of making your gender a bigger decision than what picture you like best off of google for your class. I agree with Ing that maybe women can be more talented in casting. I also agree with Ben that if someone wants a huge buff woman, their attractiveness and attached traits would suffer. Maybe you could introduce certain classes that are only available to women, or only available to men. I remember in the game crystalis for NES there was a village entirely of women. Maybe something like Zena warrior princess, with unique class benefits. I would really like to see more with stature though.
As for leveling, I think we could approach it differently. You don’t go up levels, thereby removing hp gains. However, based on your success in combat or healing or whatever your class specializes in, you get “practiced points” or something similar. Where it takes so many PP to learn a new feat, or improve and existing feat. So a warrior who spends all his time fighting, can’t level his healing abilities….?? This would need a lot more thought than I put into it, but I hope you get my point. If you want to increase your skill in mounted archery then you NEED to have done some mounted archery in your session to get those points…perhaps based on rounds spent performing that action and/or kills or points healed.
I agree with Ben’s original post that armor should be for damage reduction and NOT a hit/miss contributor. I think I would be more likely to hit a full plate paladin than a leather wearing elf who is bouncing around.
With that, however, I think new rules on hit/miss need to be introduced. Have a percent chance to miss based on the attacker’s skill, the environment, whether his target is moving (sprinting, running, walking, stealth etc…) or in combat (a type of movement on its own). Also different rules for missing with a melee or ranged weapon.
A new thought on critical hits. They could be included in character creation. when they choose their weapon and feats along with that comes a small list of critical hits that they have practiced executing. If you are trained at beheading people (I have a samurai in Jade Reagent adventure whose name literally means “one who beheads after ritual suicide” and he is famous for it) then that is the crit you are more likely to get. That’s just an example, we can’t have people lopping off heads with every critical (Unless they spend each round aiming at the neck during combat..??) Which could then lead to different armor covering different body areas reducing the chance of that crit and/or defensive skills against certain crits…but that is getting complicated.
Maybe I should say that I don’t like fumbles based on any of the games I have played. Or at least the fumbles I have come across. I DO NOT like people dropping their weapons based on a fumble. How about your aim was off so it was easily dodged, you hit the wall, and got that weird vibraty feeling thingy (great english there) and must put all your dice towards defense the next round or be open for a crit…something like that. I’m ok with tripping, that happens. I’m not sure how I feel about hitting yourself though. How would that happen? Unless you were trying to nun-chuck it up with your sword.
Based on the phalanx comment, I think you could try to get more use out of group talents. It would require players to build characters together, but it would be cool to have a group skilled at a phalanx.
Ben, based on your comments about wanting to make it historical. If I remember correctly, “sorcery” in history was really just science. Alchemists with bombs. Would you exclude the types of casters I am used to seeing in fantasy RPG?
I once played an RPG called RuneQuest where you kept track of practice, just like you were suggesting. Every skill had three little boxes next to it, and eery time you successfully used a skill, you would tick off one box. Then when your characters had a chance for a significant rest, you got to make a roll to see if the skill improved. The roll was easier the more boxes you had ticked. I think a system like that could work, but I’m not sure it’s worth the book keeping that’s involved.
It’s actually easier to move around in plate armor than most people realize. Armor was designed to be easy to move in. I saw a video once (unfortunately I don’t have the link handy) that showed a guy dressed in full plate demonstrating his range of movement. He was surprisingly mobile. But when he got into a fight, he got tired really fast simply because of the weight. So I think that someone with a high enough strength would be able to move in heavy armor just as quickly and easily as someone without the armor, but they would tire faster. The good news is that most real fights only last a minute or so. There are some down sides to plate armor, like expense, the time it takes to put it on, and the fact that certain weapons can pierce it.
With the combat system I have in mind, fumbles should be relatively rare if you’re a skilled fighter, but they will be more likely if you’re unskilled or wounded. I’ll expand on that at some point.
As for sorcery, I haven’t put a lot of thought into that yet, but it will definitely be present in my game. My combat system will be based on historical martial arts, because it’s important to me for combat to feel realistic. Magic is a different story. I’m not really into historically based magic. I do love me a good fireball, and I’m picturing pretty typical fantasy magic. But how to get that into the game in a form that I like . . . I haven’t come up with anything that appeals to me yet. I’m thinking that once I get the combat system finished, I’d like to use it as a model for the magic system, but that’s just an idea. I don’t know how it would actually play out.
Hi Ben,
Disclaimer: I ran the trosfans forum, I am involved in the production of Blade, I was involved in the production of Codex. Feel free to take that into account should I mention those games.
Apologies for coming to this so late — I periodically search for references to Blade and for some reason this one didn’t hit the radar until now. It is an interesting discussion!
When you design your game my advice is to list your design goals for the game. Don’t cherry-pick other systems mechanics and try to massage them into a smooth whole. Instead — as you are doing here — I would list what I want for the game, what I don’t want for the game, and what will differentiate this game from existing games. With that list firmly in mind, then it is time to start considering specific mechanics.
What I want from a melee combat system is quite simple. When I’m playing, I want what is occurring to feel like the melee combat experience. What does that mean? I want tension across the gamers at that table. So combat has to contain genuine risk for all of the characters. I want pace. If combat unfolds at a glacial, chess-like pace then the experience is not combat-like. So combat scenes must flow swiftly. I want player tactical decision making to strongly influence the combat result. I don’t want a player to simply roll some dice when it is their turn, and the numbers on their character sheet then determine whether they are successful or not. Instead I want the player to be forced to make critical decisions when it is their turn, and these decisions then dramatically influence the success or otherwise of the subsequent dice rolling.
Burning Wheel: The best social combat system out there. The way it handles a conflict of ideas and the swaying of an audience — brilliant. And at the heart, it is the same mechanic as the melee combat system — where, perhaps, it isn’t so great. And that has to do with expectation. In combat I see every action I perform as being critical — and I want control over it. Social combat is a step removed, I think.
Archery: There is no way to make missile combat genuinely interesting. OK, that’s a lie. The best missile resolution system I’ve seen was for a wild west game (whose name escapes me). In essence you had a front-on and a side-on illustration of your target. Over that you placed a transparent template which had 12 concentric rings and the rings were divided into twelve segments (a bit like a clock face). You placed the center of the template over the specific location you were shooting at. Then you rolled 2d12, one for the rings and one for the segments. That then told you where exactly your bullet travelled.
I like this approach because it is quick — choose target illustration, drop the template, roll 2d12, and you know immediately whether you hit or not. But I also like it because it can be adapted to handle ranges as well as a variety of weapons.
Gender: IMO, there is little difference between men and women in melee combat. Once a certain level of strength is attained, physical capability is less important that training and precision. Men might be more likely to attain that base level of strength, or do so at a younger age, but in the end if two people of equal strength are in melee combat it doesn’t matter whether they are male or female — what does matter is training and experience.
What will have far more influence on gender roles than physical or mental capabilities are cultural norms. Fantasy worlds can have whatever they like in this regard, of course. But in game terms what works best is to avoid gender stereotypes — simply because by avoiding them you reinforce the fact that your game world is different from the real one.
The idea that men are larger than women on average is true — for this world. Your fantasy world doesn’t have to work that way. And once you dissociate your fantasy world from this one you are free to do as you wish. What happens if women are typically slightly larger than men? Do they become the warriors? Of course! But if a societies warriors are also its birthers what happens to that society in times of war? And so on, rippling cultural affects that make your game world distinctive and different.
Anyway, good luck with your game design Ben. I hope you and your crew progress it through to completion some day. I’d like to see it!
Regards,
Ian P.
Ian, I am glad you found my blog. I wish I had more time to spend on the trosforums and the new Blade forums, but I barely have time to make the occasional post on my own blog. My RPG design posts have stalled due to lots of life happenings, like having a baby and trying to sell my house. But enough of that.
Your design advice is well taken. Although I said I was trying to combine all my favorite mechanics, that’s not really true. I am trying to recreate the feel and the purpose behind some of my favorite mechanics that are most likely to accomplish my design goals. Often that means borrowing the mechanic more or less intact. Other times I decide to do something similar, or something completely different. If I ever get around to the next design post I’ve been thinking about, you’ll see a good example of that.
I have a few ideas on how to make archery more interesting. I think the main problem with most systems is simply lack of choice. Archers simply need to be given more tactical choices. Rate of fire is a big one, and maneuvering around to deal with other archers or approaching enemies is another. Archers can choose to use different arrowheads based on their enemies’ armor.
I really like the idea of the transparent template that you described. It kind of reminds me of TROS, actually, where you can choose to aim at the head, but whether you hit the forehead, face, chin, or neck is up to a roll of the dice. How large were the concentric rings on the template you were talking about?
Heh Ben,
In the original game both the template and the gunslinger illustrations were quite large — a full page illustration and a half page template. Each ring would have been a little less than half a centimeter in size. The quadrants were also quite small.
In the game I’m working on (aren’t we all??), all targeting (magical, missile, thrown) is handled like the above. However, instead of an illustration and a transparent template we will have an app that allows you to pose and rotate the target in 3d space, and then overlay the template. This allows for a full 3d combat environment, where characters may be above or below the target and the target may be taking cover.
Archers are always going to be support elements in a combat scene. The important design element to get right for archers isn’t so much a plethora of tactical options but ensuring they have the ability to influence the outcome of the scene. When it is their turn, when they are in the limelight, what they try, what they accomplish, has to have meaning. So no turns spent loading a weapon. No turns spent waiting for a target of opportunity that never eventuates. When they are on they get to do something. And for me this golden rule — my turn, I get to do something influential — applies to everyone at the gaming table even if they are a non-combatant in the combat scene.
No bored players! 8 ^ )
Regards,
Ian P.
So each ring must have covered maybe an inch or two of space. Pretty detailed, then. In your game, do you have different templates for cutting attacks versus thrust attacks? A thrust would require the concentric rings, while a cut would require a template with parallel lines.
I totally agree with you about making sure every player has a chance to do something influential in a combat scene. However, I disagree that archers are automatically support elements. If archery is made sufficiently deadly, as it ought to be, any melee combatant’s first goal will be to take out enemy archers—if they want to live longer than a few seconds, that is. Moreover, archers have methods for shooting much faster than the traditional RPG would suggest. Check out my posts on archery for more on that subject. Real archers have the potential to shoot an arrow every second, or even faster in the right conditions, although damage might suffer. Depending on the length of a round, the archer’s chosen rate of fire can have a major impact on the battle. I don’t think that’s trivial. The choice of arrowhead also matters, depending on the enemy’s armor. Factors like that could make archery a lot more fun—for me, at least.