Ryuutama's Weapon Types

If you haven't read about it, Ryuutama is a pastoral japanese RPG about travelling and living small adventures under the protection of some dragons called Ryuujins. While I love the concept, the system seems a little clunky to me by reading alone. Still, I love how it condenses the whole of the possible weapons into six categories:

 

 

 

 

It made me reflect on how our classic visions, inherited from D&D, base weapons on their interaction with different armors; which is logical in a game that was born from a wargame. Ryuutama shows that weapons can be classified using a different paradigm. Maces are ruled as axes as per the rules if I remember well (weapon with low accuracy that benefits from strength). I think that Light Blades are sort of redundant: a knife can be used as an improvised weapon. Instead I find one-handed or versatile spears somehow forgotten in this aspect.

 

I am already creating this autumn's new game for my group, I am focused on not doing any D&D derivate and go fully into my JRPG autism. Surely I will de-emphasize armor and do something very similar to this.

 

"Roll Under" Combat System

 

 

This is just a concept I came up with, that I like and may become part of a ruleset someday. Numbers are improvised but I want to give an idea of the chance proportions more than an exact measure.

Premises: 

* Health of common human NPCs goes from 1 to 4 points (lets call them "hearts" as I am playing a lot of Zelda lately). Beyond four hearts, you can only find adventurers and monsters, with no limit at all.

* Worn armor adds to your hearts. 

* Everyone has a "fight" skill, that ranges from 1 to 4 in common humans (with 4 being strong ones). Characters that are worthy of being a shonen anime character can raise their fight skill beyond that (6,7,8...). This should be rolled randomly, but leveled during the game.

* Melee checks are done by rolling 1d12 equal or under that score. A hit means you deal your weapon's damage (a fixed number of hearts: like 2 for a punch, or maybe 4 for a sword). On a miss, you might still deal 1 damage. This way, variable damage is achieved with a single roll,

* Initiative is simultaneous for now. Lets see what happens. If two hits would happen mutually, the highest number happens before the other (and if that means that the enemy is killed, his attack doesn't happen). It would still happen if there is a tie.

* If your opponent hits you and you miss, you don't deal the 1 damage, and viceversa. As an addendum to this, i'm thinking that spears should increase your fighting skill by 1 or more, maybe. So they are good at stopping attackers and have a reason to be lent to unskilled levies both as in mimicking the real world as in gameplay.

* If there is a sensible reason for which a miss would not deal damage, it doesn't.

* Some armors might substract 1 damage from all attacks, negating damage on a miss. 

* Ranged combat doesn't need special rules or it seems so.

* Receiving no damage from an attack is possible only if you choose to evade (and spending an action for it). Roll under your evade skill, dexterity or whatever there is, to do it.

*  An enemy moves too fast, and you can't represent it through AC? you can represent it by giving the attacker disadvantage (roll 2d12 and take worst). Maybe two misses are no damage, miss and hit is a miss, and two hits are a hit. Yeah, that sounds good.

* Giving advantage (roll 2d12 and take best) is also easy to do. Power ups from feats or magic weapons can also take the shape of multiple attacks, chain attacks (extra attacks on a hit), damage multipliers (like "you deal 2x damage if you spend a turn charging the attack") amongst others.

* Shields should work as negating damage on a roll of X I guess. I'm having samurais all the time on the mind, so I havent thought about that, but im sure that shields do not give more "hearts". It doesn't work conceptually.

* I like that this system makes the low-ranked fighters be careless about what weapon they wield, as the increase in damage per turn will be very small for a PC of fight:1. No matter which weapon he gets, he will tend to deal 1 damage per turn ever unless he rolls a 1.  

[bx?] Very variable weapon damage: Sword VS Mace

Enter rule sketch:

All weapons do d6 damage. But fighters, and only fighters, can use certain weapons to their full extent.

For example, swords allow a second attack if the first one hits. This way, swords are better against enemies with light armor or none, and they get exponentially better as the fighting man or woman accumulates attack bonus.

The table below shows the equivalent damage per attack in percentage (where a 100% would be a d6 sword that always hits) and which damage die would deal that amount in a single attack. Notice that it behaves as a common longsword a little above leather armor, and drops a little on plate and shield (17 ac)

On the other side of the ring, we have the mace. Maces, on the hands of fighters, deal double damage on natural 20s. This increment will be hardly noticed against low acs unless the occassional lucky shot, but against highly armored foes, and those who are above your hitting range and require 20s, you will deal much more damage per hit. See below:

 

 

Mace keeps being a d7 (a little better than the d6 it is normally) until plate armor, at which it exponentially rises. I have also calculated the effect of a +1 damage in both cases. For the full effect of a +1 strength (+1 to hit and +1 damage) see the +1 damage at the next best ac. The equivalence to the normal bonus is flawless (+3 numbers in the die as it should). 

And now, my opinion: 

All weapons being equalled one to other both in damage and to hit makes no sense. "b-b-but a dagger can slit your throat just as a broadswooord". NO. If you are so retarded as to not find the flaw on that argument you deserve to be thrown into the roman colosseum with a broomstick.

All weapons being differentiated by their damage dice makes a little to introduce the concept of good and bad weapons. But it fails in the gamist aspect, not as much as it is unrealistic, but because it annuls any meaningful choice in weaponry: the d8 longsword is the best on one hand, and then there is the greatsword. End. "b-but an axe can be used to chop a door". Well, yes. But how are they going to chop it if NOBODY PICKS THE AXE, BECAUSE THE LONGSWORD DOES D8?

All weapons having a VS ARMOR table is wonderful. It comes with problems on its own, of course. Referencing the table is one, and also is when monsters are adjudicated an armor type based on their numerical value instead of their armor type in game. But at least comes close to what it should be the ideal: give weapons small nuances in combat that makes them a valid choice to be carried, even if in a completely marginal case and even if their bonus is almost always negligible (in fact, marginal differences would be the best in my opinion)

My approach here described is just an idea, but fails in the execution as the mace gets too good at 20+ and does it too far from plate armor, which the sword damages very competently anyways. The choice would be viable if the Plate Armor spot was around 18 AC instead. But still, I spent a lot of work tonight on calculating this shit. Let's call it a day, and who knows, this study might be useful at some point.

[osr] shields shall be activated

Have the summer end rains already blessed your part of the world? I can feel them approaching in timid peeks; barely passing through the ranks of their mortal enemy, the ch3m7rails. Welcome to your comfy mood blog where we sometimes post and discuss rpg houserulings. 

I was working on a chart tonight. In my d6 pool d&d there is one rule that proved to be very cool: the shield roll. Shields basically do not add to your AC, but instead block an attack 1/3 of the time (roll a 5+ on a d6)

This means they mean much more protection than the small +1 (5%) they add to AC in B/X. But the increase is not good on itself: its a matter of taste. The good part is that it's relative importance increases as you wear less armor: the percentage of blows stopped increases as you are easier to hit. 

For example, a PC in plate armor can be hit on a 6 (17% chance), so the shield drops the chance by a third (by about 6%). The same PC in light armor is hit on a 5 or a 6 (33% chance) so the shield drops the chance by 11%. At AC four (no armor) and three (no armor and yet a level 1 fighter) the shield will be useful in 17% and 22% of the attacks received, respectivelly.

I made a chart that ports the system to B/X like this: Instead of adding a +1 to your AC, the shield can be activated once you have been hit (before damage). Roll a d20 when you do it: your AC becomes that number against that specific attack.
These are the chances against a monster with no attack bonus. Took a little time to calculate the percentages manually with the Windows Calculator, then I translated it to AC:

As you can see, the relative protection of the shield increases greatly, from their simple +1 ac on the original; being much greater in the lighter armors, but never too big as to make them useless. A fighter in leather and shield has 16 AC! just as if he wore plate. However, a one in plate and shield is just 18 AC, just one pip over his original equivalent, which I like because it mimics how plate armor got diminishing returns from the shield in real life.

Against monsters with actual attack bonuses (which is the norm) this shield boost diminishes gradually, but still getting on a median an extra AC point (around +2) at chainmail levels, with marginal benefits the greater the armor and the greater the monsters, but not reaching total zero. This way, the decision on wether or not to use one is always present.

YMMV about if the increased AC is a good thing or not. To compensate for it, I'd limit the shield activations to one per turn, which will only be relevant against monsters with multiple attacks or against multiple enemies.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT #1: (afterthoughts the next morning)

One more iteration on the concept of Activated Shields. A much simpler method than the previous entry, in which the shield d20 roll replaced the current AC. 

The rule is:

Shields don't provide any passive AC bonus. Instead, they block a succesful hit on a roll of 6 on a d6 (before damage is rolled). This makes their relative AC be better or worse depending on the armor worn (as they are going to "work" more on lower ACs), according to this table.

 

AC (ascending)	% to be hit at +0 bonus	1/6 blocked by the shield	+ ac equivalent (+1 in d&d)
2	95	15'8	3'17
3	90	15	3
4	85	14'1	2'87
5	80	13'3	2'66
6	75	12'5	2'5
7	70	11'6	2'33
8	65	10'8	2'17
9	60	10	2
Unarmored (10)	55	9'16	1'83
11	50	8'3	1'66
Leather armor (12)	45	7'5	1'50
13	40	6'6	1'33
Chainmail (14)	35	5'8	1'17
15	30	5	1
Plate Armor (16)	25	4'1	0'83
17	20	3'3	0'66
18	15	2'5	0'5
19	10	1'7	0'33

 As you see, this makes shields be a liiiitle better on leather and chainmail, not enough to make a big difference, but its a little treat to those fighting man who don't get plate as soon as they can. I want to open the possibility of using less armor in order to open more encumbrance. Not sure if this little boost would be enough.

Below this lines, you can see the same table but for a shield roll that prvented hits 1/3 of the time (5 or 6 on a d6)

AC (ascending)	% to be hit at +0 bonus	2/6 blocked by the shield	+ ac equivalent (+1 in d&d)
2	95	31'6	6'33
3	90	30	6
4	85	28'2	5'66
5	80	26'6	5'33
6	75	25	5
7	70	23'2	4'66
8	65	21'6	4'33
9	60	20	4
Unarmored (10)	55	18'33	3'66
11	50	16'6	3'33
Leather armor (12)	45	15	3
13	40	13'3	2'66
Chainmail (14)	35	11'6	2'33
15	30	10	2
Plate Armor (16)	25	8'3	1'66
17	20	6'6	1'33
18	15	5	1
19	10	2'5	0'66

As you can see, the relative AC of a shield is greatly improved from the original. It is remarkable that with this rule, they can a priori block natural 20s.

The point in which shields will really shine with this rule is when fighting monsters with high attack bonuses. A fighter in plate armor and a shield, for example, when fighting a red dragon with +8 attack bonus, would defend with an equivalent AC of 9 (17 -8).

By this rules, the 16 AC plate would become an 8, and then get the bonus from the shield: +2'17 for the 1/6th version and +4'33 for the 1/3 version; making it a factual AC of 10'17 and 12'33 respectivelly.

Not sure if implement this or on how. I like that the increment in AC can make up for the fact that I want to drop the attribute scores (and with it, the Con bonuses) and it seems appropiate that the con bonuses are more important at higher levels, just as when the monsters attack bonuses are higher and raise the effectivity of the shield. So in a way, the 1/3 version of the shield might not be as OP as it looks in comparison.

On the other hand, there is something so easy on giving normal shields 1/6 of effectivity, and have magical shields (that would be +1 as per the original rules) to work at 1/3.

Non-fighters have also the choice of using shields at a reduced armor rate. Be it taking the 1/6 instead of the 1/3, or using them at disadvantage (roll 2d6, keep lowest). I'm a bit reticent to hard-coded restrictions, and though it may sound ridiculous, the game feels more "real" to me if that kind of things are just severely handicapped instead.

The great downside of the shield roll is that it, of course, adds another roll. On its defence, I'd say that it only comes up on a succesful enemy hit. Personally in my current "D6 D&D rules" I pair it with my variant of Homebrew Homunculus D&D without damage dice, and with the damage rolls gone, I don't find the shield rolls tedious at all.

Hurt and Fatigued

No way there is this in B/X and never saw or used it!!! not the action of running, of course, but the concept of exhaustion and its effects. I find very cool that they are very intense, in contrast for the fact that they appear in such marginal cases: 30 rounds of combat running are A LOT. It could probably be written as "characters are exhausted after running for 1 turn", as 1 turn encompasses 60 rounds, and running is probably better modelled on "turn based time". If combat is taken place, it makes strange to have a pursuit ongoing.

Picture is from the OSE srd, which is an awesome tool to search for monster stats or any kind of Basic D&D information in the cellphone. Consulting B/X specifies that exhaustion prevents you from running further (which was kept ambiguous on the above bullet points) and that exhausted characters always deal at least 1 damage on a succesful hit.

I like the idea of worn out PCs that are not in conditions to fight. D&D uses hp as a measure of stamina, too, so they could have modeled fatigue through HP loss. But this way is more tangible, factually it introduces a status effect.

I was wondering if the same penalties could be applied to when monster or PCs are worn out by combat (and this is the purpose of this entry). Written in B/X format, the idea to be tested would be:

"Whenever a PC or Monster has his HP dropped to a number equal to its HD or less, he is badly wounded, and incurs in exhaustion effects"

This means that, stastically, fighters and dwarves would be wounded after taking more damage than elves or magic users (because their 1d8 HDs have more HP on them)

This also means, of course, that some monsters can be badly hurt before they are dead. I like this for many reasons:
- It makes for an organic place to call for a morale check, and different monsters allow for many different psychological approaches to being close to death/defeat (though making morale checks at 50% hp also makes sense, as to prevent this state)
- It serves as an alternate way to subdue dragons
- Its a way to reveal to the players that the monster is about to go down, without telling them the actual HP
- Maybe some monsters can have special attacks that only happens in this point
- Differentiates living monsters from undead or animated monsters, which have no point in having a "wounded" status.
- The higher HD a monster has, the higher the chance that becomes wounded at some moment during combat; which feels appropiate in genre.

Assuming healing at 1d3 hp per day rate, this means that high level PCs will be wounded more days than low level ones. This might be a little weird but narrativelly it makes sense as it is implied they sustained more damage to arrive to this situation. I imagine it sort of when Zoro or Goku are incapacitated after a great battle.

In my game, as I don't use hp (only HD) I must homebrew some proportions, remembering that fighters and monsters, with 1d8 hp per hd, will on a median be put in "wounded" status at 2/9ths of their health.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: The whole concept is interesting to pair with the "Roll the Body" type saves; or save versus death at 0 hp. From AxianSpice:
 

"When you reach 0 hp, you drop down and you might be dead. You make a final Save versus Death when (if) someone checks on you. You pass it, you're back on your feet with 1 hp and still have a chance to make it back from the dungeon. This type of rule can be found, for example, in Dungeon Crawl Classics. If you're left there, you're dead, eaten by monsters or just bled out"

I like it in part because it gives back the survability that the debuffs take from characters. In part, also, because I like that with little effort it gives you the whole spectre of possible status without any extra bookkeeping:

Full power
Wounded
Unconscious
Unknown state
Dead

(Idea sketch) defensive/offensive combat maneuvers

Some idea I had for combat rules for a given game.

Armor numbers being something like: 

Light armor: 3
Better armor. 4
Best armor: 5

Then you have a panoplia of weapons with one assigned dice each, for example:

Greatsword: d10
Sword:d8
Dagger:d6

etc.

If you get your weapon and hit greater than the armor, you deal a hit (scratch a heart away, roll for damage or whatever you like to do afterwards)
But after you have rolled "to hit", you can choose to convert that result in your armor score this turn, then roll for attack again.
This can be used for both defensive and offensive maneuvers, and represent the parrying potential of certain weapons, while also adding some "choice" into combat.

Example:

Your PC, armed with Light Armor and a Sword, fights an enemy who has Best armor and a Greatsword.
You know that the greatsword will easily hit an armor of 3 with a d10
You attack first, and roll the sword's d8, and get a 6 (which is over the enemy's armor score)
You can choose between dealing a hit OR adopt a parrying style, converting the 6 into your armor score for the round and trying your luck rolling "to hit" again.

The same idea can be used aggresivelly: Lets say that you rolled a 1 instead. You can choose to keep that first roll as your armor (lowering your armor to a score of 1) but you would get to roll again and maybe take your enemy's last hit.

Certain weapons can be worked out so they have different damage dice on the first roll than in the second, to illustrate they are more defensive or offensive in nature. For example, a spear can have a d10 on the first attack, capable of defending up to 10 ac, but have a secondary attack of d6.
Great axes can be done in reverse: a first attack of 1d6 and a second of 1d12. The first one will probably get you exposed in order to deal the big, bad second attack.

As always, unarmed combat is difficult to model, as anything worse than a d6 will never go through best armor unless the enemy chooses to adopt a worse ac for some reason. One possible way to do it is to have unarmed combat go like (First attack d4/Second attack d6)

Shields can be done by adding an extra d6 to the first attack roll, choosing the best of the two. In this way, it provides help both in the defensive mode and the offensive mode. The shield die cannot be used to deal damage, only to be put as armor... unless the master decides otherwise. I must make the numbers so the combination of sword and shield doesnt deal both better defense and attack than a greatsword, which would render it useless.

Spear Combat [pits & perils]

or "differentiating weapons when all of them deal the same damage"

Normally I only run my BX-based mutations, no time for anything else. But I am currently searching for a different group to play exclusivelly Pits and Perils. There is a lot to love into that game, but never played it yet. It's a very simple ruleset, but the player-facing rules are maybe too simple for my taste. I have, of course, already customized it: adding armor as AC instead of extra HP was the first step (naked: 7, leather:8, chainmail:9, plate:10, shield +1)

I also feel that the equivalent of health points (hits) are very high for starting characters. A fighter for example starts with 10 hits, which is equivalent to a "level five" monster. 

from the hireling section

Finally, like in plain OD&D, all weapons deal the same damage and have no other mechanical differences beyond "2 handed great weapons deal an extra point of damage on a hit". In this case, all one handed weapons work by rolling 2d6 versus an AC (always 9 in the original) and dealing one hit or two hits on a roll of 12. Fighters add +1 to this roll, and Strong characters add +1 in melee attacks. 

As I never understood the "all weapons are equal" approach I made some differentiations myself:

Daggers: Fighters do not add +1 when using daggers. This makes them a little worse than swords for them, but gives all the other classes a good reason to carry them (the usefulness of any weapon for the minimum encumbrance!). If you are attacking a grappled enemy, you can attack him an extra time per turn with the dagger.

Swords: Using an one-handed sword with two hands allows you to re-roll an attack once per combat. +1 against enemies classified as large (I saw this somewhere and felt good- not sure of where!)

Maces: On a roll of 12+ deal an extra hit. This makes them stastically good against heavy armors. One handed axes can fit here maybe. Crossbows also use this one when compared to bows, though the former take a turn to reload.

2-handed swords/axes: an extra hit on any succesful attack, just as RAW. 

Spears: This one is a little more complicated. Or is it not? You get +1 AC to represent the biggest reach. This benefit is not cumulative with plate armor (to prevent AC bloat) and is negated as soon as you are hit, because you enemy has closed the range on you. If your enemy is that close to you, you must spend one turn to disengage or else they are too close to use the spear against them. If you do, you also recover that extra +1 AC.

Used with a shield, you're harder to hit, so this bonus might last longer. But the fighters only get their +1 when using it two-handed.

On special cases such as charging on a horse, or bracing against a charge, you get the +1 independently of wearing a shield or not, and all damage is doubled.

I've been watching a lot of HEMA fights lately, something that always puts me in a "weapon differentiation" mood, and I am very proud of this rule. I wanted something situational, that didn't put it over or under other weapons, and that represented the fact that when the enemy is over you, you better drop the spear and unsheathe a sword or a dagger, as modern fighters claim. In fact I liked this rule so much that I will port it to my normal game rules (both the current and the old d6 one. I like that variant to much to forget it)

Fire Elixir Forever

I ran a long cyberpunk-themed campaign years ago, based on the adventures of a street gang (the PCs) versus another gangs of diverse levels; the most powerful one being a mix of the Yakuza and the OCP from Robocop. The rest of the setting was a wild mixture from Battle Angel Alita, Grand Thief Auto, The Warriors, Streets of Rage, Gungrave, Daredevil and Akira. The game stopped eventually due to two of my friends stopped talking to each other for unrelated reasons.

I used a very simple ruleset I came up with (Very similar to Lasers and Feelings, with "fiction first" style HPs and freeform skills) which had its pros and its cons, but it was very narrative and I didn't like it drove the game towards the players "negotiating" with the GM out of character; and made combats rely on my personal judgement and whims more than in tight rules. This made combats seem unfair on victories (it always felt like I had "given" them the combat) and even more unfair when they lost. I am maybe being so hard with myself: everyone involved were thrilled and we all remembet the campaign very fondly; pieces of it still appear on our day to day conversations and have changed the way we look at our hometown forever (the game was set on an alternate version of it)

Recently I "unwillingly" came up with some rules that I think that would have worked very good, and I want to write them here just in case I need them again. I don't think I will reunite the old gang or continue that campaign where we left it, but some of them are back in town and who knows if I can pull out some sort of spiritual "reboot".

Character Creation: Roll 4d6, then arrange them from highest to lowest. In that order they give you:

1) your age (add 11 to it. If your character is not part of a young gang for some reason, ignore this result)

2) # of starting items. You roll them on a separate table: some of them are actually traits and are inherent to you, while others are physical objects and can be given or traded to other PCs before the game starts.

3) Your starting hit points. Your gang's vest gives you an extra +1 as long as you wear it. 

4) Your # of skills

Skills: 

Kung-fu: This covers all melee or shuriken-based combat, from fists to katanas. 

Gun-fu: guns, guns, guns. I don't think the genre needs more differentiation in combat skills.

Ninjutsu: This is for when you dodge, sneak, jump more than one would thought, etc. It is possible for non-combatants to be skilled in this arts, specially for animals and kids.

Hacking: From John Connor stuff getting easy money to programming the Matrix

Mechanics: Engineering and repair of vehicles, cyberparts, the physical part of robots, etc.

Medicine: From first aid to acupunture to surgery to the implantation of cyberparts. Ido from GUNNM is an example of somebody who knows both medicine and mechanics

Driving: Useful for biker gangs who do a lot of road mayhem.

Charisma: This is not something that magically bends people to your will, but will come up when an NPC makes a reaction roll, when you try to influence a crowd or when you make a proposal to an NPC that is at least feasible to be accepted. This is Harry McDowell from Gungrave or Cyrus from the Warriors.

Notice that there are no void skills like cooking or lore: history. These nine are those that shape the genre I am trying to emulate. However I don't want to limitate the game to them. You can make up any skill you want as long as it doesnt step on the toes of all those listed above. Any kind of specific lore, an incredibly useless profession or hobby, etc. If you want optimization you can do it, if you want to be a flute player you can do it too. We had this rule for years, it worked perfecly and I loved it

Resolution:

You roll 1d6 if its something everyone can attempt. + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (This is called the Special die), up to 4d6

5-6 is a success. 4 is a partial success, and 1-3 is a failure

Combat:

Highest Hp goes first, unless duels and stuff where everyone rolls at the same time. 

You roll 1d6, + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (Special die), up to 4d6

The results are read like this:

1-3: miss

For each 4, you deal 1 damage.

For each 5 or 6, you deal 2 damage if using fists, 3 if using a street weapon and 4 if using a proper weapon.

Armor is rare, and normally pieces of combat cloth, such like a superhero's suit, provide some work as an extra amount of HP.

Real armor is more likely to happen when one has a metal exoskeleton, or a piece of cloth designed to stop a specific weapon (a kevlar vest for example). This kind of armor negates your best result when rolling against it, instead or in addition to HP increase.

Starting Items/Traits: not the definitive version, I am improvising it, but it looks something like this. There are also examples ingrained on how to deal with bonuses and mechanical parts on a system like this. Probably would benefit greatly from improving the table to a 1d36 one.

3 Minor Psychic Powers. Choose 1, the others may be granted to you sometimes at GM's discrection: Telekinesis, Psychometry, Telepathy, Clairvoyance. You can get better at this by investing in a secret skill: Eerieness.

4 1d6 grenades. They deal 1d6 damage on a hit. On a 4, you can but your enemy gets a free move against you. On a miss, you lose turn cant launch them yet.

5. Toolbox. Allows you to repair and custom vehicles, cyborgs and other stuff. Advanced surgery needs you to work in a lab (improve your homebase until you have one). 

6. Bionic implants, choose 1: Hacking Port (counts as a computer), Adamantium bones (+2 HP), Hidden street weapon; Bionic Eye capable of Thermal Vision. 

7. Aesthetic portable computer: Allows for hacking shit. Taking your effort to set multiple computers allows you to roll, and then re-roll the special dice that many number of times.

8. Tiger Kick: When using street or no weapons, you can add the situational die to combat rolls whenever you can use your legs. Once you miss a roll, your attack becomes predictable and you lose this bonus.

9. First Aid Kit. Use a turn & a medicine roll to cure 3 HP on a 5-6. On a 4, the kit is exhausted. On a miss, you also fail to heal anything.

10. Knife, Chain, Nunchucks or Spiked club (street weapons)

11. Apple, Chicken, Soda or Cigarettes. Those kind of shit gives you back 2 HP when consumed.

12. A couple of walkie-talkies

13. You get a light motorbike that allows for 2 passengers. Roll 1d6 to see its max speed (1:low, 6:very high)

14. Gun or Katana (mean weapons)

15. 1d6 doses of your favorite drug. Choose its effect: Hypnotic, Trippy, Stimulant, Chill, Knock-Out...

16. 1d6 Flashbombs and 1d6 shurikens.

17. Panzer Kunst. This martial art helps you to fight enemies twice as high as you or higher. Every time you score a 6 in melee combat, you can roll the "special" dice and add it.

18. Bionic Body specifically adapted to a single skill (+1 special dice per scene/combat)

Leveling up was achieved by surviving X game sessions, and every now and then you earned a new skill or improved an existing one. Now you also get +1 HP. We didn't use HP back then, but a status box (healthy - wounded - dead). In practice didn't work so good.

Lethality. The game is meant to be quite lethal for PCs once you start combating outside the "unarmed" range. You are expendable troops after all, but there are ways to cheat death. 0 or even -1 HP is just incapacitation/dying depending on what caused it; and can still be treated with a medicine kit or similar. But, if you have read enough Battle Angel Alita, you'll know that -2 HP characters that have their head or brain preserved can still come back if a good cyborg mechanic puts them on a new body.

You are also meant to improve your homebase through the game (specific rules to be written another day), and doing so allows you to have new characters start at level 2 or 3, which makes character death a little less painful.

Balance: I don't care shit about balance. You are a gang. All gangs have tough guys and weaklings, skilled and dumb members, who help each other. This is OK. If you get less skills or HP or shitty gear, you can still hang around and interact with the game world. You are not expected to get into mandatory mortal kombat, nor there are pre-planned solutions: attempt things that your character could do. Think how to buy, steal or borrow a solution. Ask NPCs to help you. Whatever. You are not meant to grind the whole setting. There is also a kind of balance in having toughest members fighting while the weak run or do their thing. Ajax and Swan make most of the beatings in The Warriors for a reason. Still, with time you may level up get better at something eventually.

Gameplay procedures: Will expand on this on another entry. I'm taking a lot of time to write this one and I am fucking eager to click publish, so I can chill and take my time with the rest. For now I'm proud with what I got.

initiative without rolls

 

Happy new year! it feels like its been a long time without posting. Or maybe its just my feeling. This blog has been boosted like x 10 in visitors since Alex Schroeder mentioned me in his blog (its not like I had many before lol) and I should be making only hIgH qUaLiTy posts from now on. 

I want to take an entry to talk about my initiative houserule, and why I like it so much.

Basically, unless there is surprise, initiative goes to the side whose has the single member with more max HP, and only in case of a tie I randomize it.

Additionally to this, I don't do the "one side acts, then the other side acts" thought it would work perfectly I guess. I complicate it a little further by making the side who acts choose one member which acts (for the monsters, the GM chooses) and then, after the action, a member of the other side acts; and this goes on until everyone involved has taken its turn. Arrows and Spells can be shot reactivelly (spells require an armor-based roll to work in time) but doing so it consumes the turn of the shooter/caster.

I've been playing like this in my last campaign and I've accostumed myself a lot to it; to the point that I don't think I am going back. Combat is much more swift (much more combined with the "no damage, just take a Hit Die" houserule), and also it makes interesting effects in game: 

Having a Fighter in the party is suddently much more important. His instincts help everyone to take the lead on a fight, even if he doesn't fight himself: Maybe he just grabs the initiative so the thief can do something first. Tougher monsters are also scarier, because their sheer "speed". Suddently it also matters in which turn of the watch the monster appears: if the fighter is asleep, the monster can get a great advantage.

The "alternate sides" thing also adds an element of strategy for the players, something that its often missing from combat when a game makes the fights a little bit abstracted. Using this (also abstract) ways to control combat gives PCs more buttons to press which, in my opinion, adds a +1 to old D&D.

Sometimes I like to distinguish swords from the other weapons because they add a little bonus to HP only for initiative purposes. They are the weapon of heroes after all.

And thats it. 

I want to note that it is also possible to make a much more gamist initiative without rolls, and I found out by playing pokémon this last weeks.

In the GBA games, initiative works like this: both trainers choose their movement at the same time, then the pokemon with most speed acts first. Stats are very granular, so having a tie is very rare.

Certain movements have priority over others, regardless of speed. For example, taking a potion or changing pokemon goes always before any attacks (there is but one attack AFAIK that specifically strikes before retiring the pokemon). Some attacks have a "quick" tag that makes them go before the enemy, and there are slow attacks too, which work the opposite way.

It could very easily be ported to tabletop by assigning a sort of speed stat (dexterity is the easiest) and then listing which kind of actions have priority over others. This very choice can lead to very different combat systems and tones (for example, if healing has priority over attacking, if spells go first or last, etc). 

Offtopic: If you speak or understand spanish and like the game, I reccomend you this awesome Team Rocket Edition hack by Dragonsden. You play as a Team Rocket recruit acting parallel to Red and Blue in the original Game Boy games. The lore of the game is so good that its really a pity that its not "official", I am really enjoying it!

Math on d6 D&D: building around d6 pool combat.

(Warning: This post is heavy on numbers. Is meant to be used as a reference)

Working after the steps of Homebrew Homunculus again, I was trying to make my own try at taking damage rolls from combat. One hit is one hit, so it takes one hit dice. Easy! Is fast, simple and requires almost no conversion. But of course, this started the design train: you change a little thing, and then you change another one to go with that, and end up having a whole different game. 

I thought on making the fighter do multiple attacks instead of getting to hit bonuses. Even if the average damage per round was the same, there could be the chance that each round none of the attacks landed, or any number of them would. This way, there would be a kind of "variable damage" without any damage roll taking place!

But there is a number of how many d20s one can roll simultaneously in a confortable way. So I ended up doing what I had already done other times, and made it with d6. Only that, this time, I did the math.

This an orientative chart on the damage output of an attacking PC (where a 100% represents doing consistently 1 hit dice of damage per turn over time) depending on their class/level and his/her opponent AC.

This other table shows the % damage output of Fighter 1 (a just made level 1 fighter) versus enemies with various ACs (still not assigned what kind of AC do these numbers represent, so I described them as Base, fightey, soldier and tank). He rolls 1d6. Fighter "2" rolls 2d6 and Fighter "3" rolls 3d6. Each result equal or over the AC is a hit, and again, the chance of dealing consistently one hit every turn is represented as 100% damage.

If we look at fighter 1 alone, we see that AC 3 is slightly easier to hit than the "base" in d20. AC4 is a little worse than d20 leather (actually corresponds to wearing just a shield in the original), AC 5 being roughly equal to chain and AC 6 being an enchanted +1 plate and a shield.

Then it shows the chances of hitting the same enemies by fighter "2" and fighter "3". The brackets are there because we dont know yet at which level would a character get their second and third attacks.

As I see it, if we take the AC6 (Tank) to be roughly equivalent to Enchanted Plate + Shield, the chances to hit are pretty similar than if Fighter "2" was a 7th level fighter and Fighter "3" was a 10th. Well, this can be worked with. We can make it so the fighters gain other bonuses like weapon expertises, AC bonuses by using armor or extra HD until then, and the additional attacks are gained at those levels. But I'd lean towards granting them the attacks earlier, as otherwise the fighter hasnt any kind of "to hit" bonus until then. 

But if we look at the lowest ACs, we see that the increments compared with their d20 counterparts are crazy: the chance to hit base AC is doubled, and the same could almost be said about the next higher one. AC5/chain stands a little better with just slight increments. This informs us that our new high level fighters are roughly equally capable vs higher armored foes, but are about double as capable vs unarmored foes or lowly armored mooks. This could be seen as a problem or as a boon. For one, I can see it fixing the problem in which high level fighters had to slay hordes of mooks one by one. Now they can just send an attack to three 1HD enemies at once with a great chance of killing them, without the aid of any cleave or "you can attack as many 1hd enemies as your level" houserule.

But why is the "2d6 take worst" represented at the top of the table? Well, that is for wizards and other non-fighters. While in the d20 combat all classes start with the same "to-hit" bonus (with some of them having a +1 for fighters) in the practice the fighters always deal a little more damage because they can afford using all weapons, while wizards are restricted to daggers and darts. 

By making wizards roll with disadvantage, we make the a distinct gap between fighters and wizards even at level 1, which feels very right to me. 

Then, the idea is this: when PCs use lesser or tricky weapons like daggers or such, they roll as 1 "combat level" less, so fighters roll with disadvantage at level 1. Wizards still roll with disadvantage, there are no lower levels than 2d6 take worst.

This solves two problems right the early stages of the game design: it creates variable weapon damage when there was none, and implants an invisible system of weapon restrictions: wizards can carry and use any weapon, but they won't do more damage than they would with a staff or a dagger anyways.

Though AC6 is the maximum available, you can always make monsters tougher by other means. For example, a giant might only be attacked after you dodge his attack first. If you are hit by him, you suffer the wound and cannot act for one turn. I kind of like this limitation because it invites me to be more creative with monster rules. 

How does strength, magic swords, etc factor into this? Well, this is the foundation. We will have to slowly figure out the rest around it, but that will be part of a new entry. For the sake of making reading this easier, the provisional codename and blog tag for this project will be d6 d&d.

On the other hand, working the saves is very straightforward. Here is how I would set them (taking the fighter saves as a guide) using 2d6 vs target number, or 1d6 roll under (the one I am using right now). I dont think I'd advance them more than that. A 100% chance of saving should never be reached, and there has to be room for other bonuses that might come from elsewhere.

(Notice the drop on the saving chance for first level characters. Today I had one guy rolling his 1 just before running into a pit trap with only one hit remaining. Yeah!)

********************  EDIT:  ***************************

I have been working deeper on this. I will drop here two more tables, and I will explain in a moment.

This one is the classic to-hit, ascending AC table. Leather and Chain are merged halfway into a new armor (a kind of "light armor"). To check how much would a shield add to each armor, just add a 5% to it. The percentage is the rate in which a hit is delivered each turn, with a 100% meaning that the character will stastically deliver a hit per turn.

The next table shows the same, but using the d6 pool. Armor is arranged in two types: Light and Heavy. This is mainly because each step up and down the AC means much more in this situation, and I didn't want armor to be so much decisive in combat. Instead, being a fighter gives you +1 AC straight away, moving you beyond non-martial classes right at level 1. Fighters (and clerics if you use them) are also the only ones able to use plate, so wizards and thieves have to search for alternative ways to go higher than AC4. 

The number in brackets is the damage if the target uses a shield. Shields deflect 1/3 of the succesful strikes. So, when you are hit, you roll in this (provisional) table:

6-deflect

5-deflect if you are a fighter

4-hit

3-hit

2-hit and shield breaks if enemy is Strong AND has a mace/axe

1-hit and shield breaks if enemy is Strong or has a mace/axe.

If you are hit by a flail, you roll twice and get the worst result. They are designed to bypass shields after all!

I love how this approach creates a lot of granularity with very little. Yes, the shield roll adds another roll to combat, but they are only going to come up with shield-wearing characters and monsters (which are not too many). The same is true for flails. And we took out damage rolls anyways, so in the end there are much less rolls involved.

In this way, shields are comparativelly much more protective the less armor you wear, which makes some sense given on how they are supposed to behave in real life. A fighter in loincloth gets much more relative cover by a shield than a fighter in plate does, even if the total numbers are higher for the latter.

The shield roll can also adapted to monsters that don't have shields, be it to increase their ACs or for other purposes. For example to add “counterattack” abilities; such as “additionally to its normal attacks, a dragon breathes fire over an attacker on a shield roll of 6”

The next point: 2 handed weapons. When you get hold of a greatsword or greataxe, you are given a red die instead of your normal one. When that die comes up a 6, your weapon crits, doing 2 hits of damage. As you go building your pool you get more d6, but only your red dice can cause critical hits. 

The increase in damage by armor and by levels is shown in the F1, F2, F3 d6 crit rows. As you can see, the damage increases much more in comparison against the more armored enemies than it does against the less armored; which makes them specially important when fighting giant enemies or fully armored knights. Again, I love when simple mechanics help portraying something logical in-game, even if its not excesivelly realistic. As levels go up, the crit die matters a little less, but remains a great advantage.

Next: adjusting fighter improvements to fighter levels. 

d6 F1 works similar enough to d20 Fighter 1 when targeting plate armor. d6 is a little worse, but d6 with a 2handed weapon is a little better, so one evens the other. The same is true for fighter/light armor and the other ACs when using shields. 

For Fighter/naked and Wizard/naked, one handed weapons work a little better than in the d20 counterpart, if compared with the same leather/chain median, with 2handers being way better. 

Is hard to choose to which Fighter attack levels do d6 F2 and d6 F3 correspond, as damage output is exponential the less AC your enemy has. Adjusting the levels VS fighter/plate armor leaves lesser ACs much easier to hit. Adjusting to lesser ACs leaves AC6 much harder to hit. 

Personally I feel that they should err on the side of generous; for two reasons. First, the d20 fighter will also benefit from multiple bonuses like strength (available even at level 1) or magic weapons; which on the d6 counterpart are very hard to implement. Second, there are only 2 pool upgrades, and until then the fighter has not much progression beyond getting more HP. If I wait for the fighter to have the corresponding "firepower" on the d20 to give him the pool increment, he will be always under the power curve. If I give them a little earlier, he will be sometimes over the curve, and sometimes under it, so the "power curve" will be more tightly followed, paradoxically. 

Following this points, I can see F2 adjusting to fighter 3 or 4 (level 6- 7 for a wizard), and F3 being somewhere around levels 7 or 8. If using a level 10 cap, wizards should never achieve this combat range. 

Next: Lesser Weapons.

Daggers, staves, maybe bows. I originally had two ideas for them, which are:

- rolling with disadvantage

- rolling normally, but on a 6 you must roll again. You keep the second roll, and this time a 6 is a hit.

I like the second one better, as it represents the attacker using that result to "find a weak point" in the enemy's defence, then you are able to hit normally. This decreases drastically the effectiveness of the weapon towards the greater versions or ACs, but still allows for 2 handed, lesser weapons strike x2 on a hit.

The math for both approaches VS ac is unfolded at the table above.

When you get an increment of the pool, they also go up one step, so F2 rolls 1d6, and F3 rolls 2d6.

Alternativelly, fighters roll all their normal dice and just roll again if the highest one is a 6. This one is very wild, as they are more likely to roll again the more dice they have, but in the end they get surely better output anyways. I should do the math but a priori it is cool and feels organic. If there is some kind of "bow expertise" might work by allowing spending a turn aiming to automatically get the first 6.

This approach also allows for easy unarmed combat: You must roll again on a roll of 5 or 6, and in your second roll all numbers are valid.

Note to myself: If I end up doing weapon expertises, they should not increase dice rolled in any way, but work as a side help, never equiparating themselves to a "fighter level" but useful in all levels. A good one for trained swordsmen is "you get an extra attack once per combat". A good one for martial artists might have something to do with shield rolls.

Edit: Note to myself #2: As maces/axes have a small upside on shield rolls, trained or not, swords should have one too. A good idea is to have them increase the initiative by one level (see the post I did later about Initiative without rolls)

One roll combat

 And when I say one roll combat, I mean to talk about when to hit and damage are resolved with a single roll. 

I am aware that making them a separate thing has its reasons, for example modelling fictionally different weapons or abilities. But as a game, one roll makes things smoother and easier, so I always implement that rule in one way or the other. But there are different ways to do it, and each way bends the combat math in a particular way.

tumblr:  shroomarts

Option A: There is the Into the Odd approach. 

Every turn you roll damage and you always hit; but armor soaks some damage. If we assume that the average damage per turn is equal to common DnD, this means that you will deal less damage every turn, but more constantly as there are lower peaks (1d6 damage can deal 6 damage if you hit; but if armor soaks 2 damage per turn, you will do damage 4/6 of the time, but can only deal 4 as a maximum). 

What does this mean? Well, this means that incresing the damage output of a weapon also increases it's capability to hit, and viceversa. This can be good or bad, depending on many factors. Also, it might seem like a minor nuisance, but it will take more pencil-writing time for GM and players as there are more and smaller "damage transactions" and displace the thrill of a big hit. Also, converting monsters and PCs to this numbers so the power levels are similar requires to ponder a lot of factors. Non- damaging attacks that require a to-hit roll can still be done by making an additional save vs effect.

Necropraxis "Degree of success as damage" and Blackrazor's "Auto-Hits" are two more essays on this approach.

Option B: Fixed damage. 

To make it a little generous we'll make it so each weapon's damage is rounded up from its classic damage die average: Fists do 2, Dagger does 3, Sword does 4 and polearms do 5 damage. Monster damage is also averaged and rounded up.

You can argue that this takes some randomness out of the game, and it is true, but that tends to soften  the more hits you need to take down an enemy. If you need 5 hits to take down a 18 hp troll with a 4 damage sword, on average it will still be very close to that number if you hit it with a d6 sword. The difference will accentuate the less hits you need to end a combat. For example, a 4 hp goblin will die on the first hit 50% of the time with a d6 sword and 25% with a d4 dagger. But with fixed damage it will Always die by the sword, and Never with the dagger, in the first round. Bear in mind that the randomness necessary so combat has still uncertainity is still on the to-hit roll (will it hit me or not?) but yeah, the numbers go wild at early levels. The pros are that this difference dissipates over time as levels go up, and that requires minimal conversion from classic rules.

Option C: Remove Hit Points. 

If HD is equal to 1d6 and so is the average weapon, they can both be removed for simplicity and make it so average attacks take out 1HD from the enemy, and proportionally increasing attacks that deal more damage. This is what I used when I made this OD&D port (still untested, fucking COVID). 

This is even more deterministic than fixed damage, as all weapons will drop your 1 HD character down in the first hit. This is not necessarily bad as there is still randomness on the "to-hit" roll: amongst two 1 HD combatants, the first that strikes through the opponent's armor wins. There is something I like a lot in that simplicity. How to increase your chances at that early levels? Get good armor and try to win initiative. 

At 0 HD, you can still rule various things to make PCs a little more durable:

- Roll in a Death and Dismember table. 

- Give them a Save VS Death.

- The famous rule of sacrificing the shield to prevent a hit, though I've never liked it much. 

- Just make fighters or other martial classes have extra HD at the start.

- Constitution bonuses give you 1 HD for each +1

- Make it so depending the viciousness of the monster, 0 HD means a different thing. A bandit might just drop you unconscious to sack your body, and a kung-fu user might just KO you to show you his superiority. A goblin might not be as merciful and you must save vs death, and an assassin will kill you straight if  he lands the last strike. Note that being KOed by a pack of wolves or similar and not having somebody to rescue you is pretty much equal to death.

- Increase a little the base AC to pay off the decreased chances of survival. This way a hit will take more to happen, but will be more decisive. Your character will die in about the same time, but in half the rolls. 

What I like most of 1 attack = 1 hd is that is simple enough that I can complicate it in different, newer ways: for example, instead of increasing damage or to-hit numbers, granting PCs ans Monsters extra attacks which can be rolled simultaneously; this way you get different damage possibilities depending on how many do hit.

The easiest way to implement it, however, is to differentiate weapons based on their chance to hit (daggers get penalties, because is harder to hit with a dagger. If you think about it makes even more sense than giving them damage penalties). 2 handed weapons however can take an extra HD if the wielder is strong (13+ strenght)

Homebrew Homunculus has written not one, nor two, but three posts building around this approach.

Building a machine from unused parts

I was reading something about the "forgotten rules of rpgs today", the ones that are usually handwaved or something. It listed three: item weight, crafting rules and XP. I'm not going to tell if this is true or not, but it made me wonder "could a ruleset be made using ONLY those, as the mechanical parts?" 

Here is an attempt for the skeleton. There is no setting or context, only rules; but maybe the latter might suggest the former.

You can carry (4+level) weight, or +2 weight and be encumbered; with items having set weights in a list. Characters fill one weight slot from their inventory when they suffer a wound. Leveling makes your character either stronger (and thus being able to carry and withstand more) or experienced with packing stuff so they are easier to transport. For now it remains abstract.

Certain actions cannot be taken while encumbered, as climbing a rope. Certain monsters are fast enough to catch you encumbered, but not when you're not. 

Certain items can be crafted from mixing 2-3 other items during downtime (as always, the full list of items and permutations is the heavy part of the game, but yeah it can be done). Certain mixtures are trickier than others and might require a roll with a probability fixed on the formula (X in 6 is sufficient). Mixtures can also have level requirements as part of their recipe.

You also have a chance to get mixtures "done" during an adventure, by rolling 1/2 your level on a d6. If you achieve it, it represents that your character had the intuition to prepare the item during the last downtime (so, every level represents your character getting more and more wise and foreseer)

Your party gets 1 XP whenever you recover 1 treasure, but you can only split it between party members if you have enough XP for everyone to receive equal share. (If you have 5 XP in the pool, and you're three party members, during downtime you can give 1 XP to every member and leave 2 XP in the pool)

level 1: 0 XP - level 2: 1 XP- level 3: 2 XP - level 4: 4 XP - level 5: 8 XP, etc

Combat having no rules at all means that fights have predetermined outcomes: they are either automatically won if the players fight (though it might have unwanted effects, like atracting more enemies, etc) or automatically lost if engaged, unless certain items are used (like flaming oil vs a troll, silver vs a vampire or using a smoke bomb for the party to flee). Now I think about it, it sort of feels like a LucasArts graphic adventure resolution: find the right combination and maybe it works; but with added level advancement. 

Even as I feel that this could work (It even makes the game diceless if we push it) I also think that it requires much work from the GM to decide ad-hoc (or for me, the author to decide preventivelly) if a single item is either worthless in a determined situation or, for the contrary, if its as powerful to obliterate the encounter. In the end, it can be interesting if you have a "dungeon" in which you can control many of the possibilities the players might try (like, for example, in a LucasArts game), but harder to implement in a larger environment with lots of different types of encounters and items.

So there is another approach, starting from the simplest combat system I could devise: When two people get into a fight, they both roll 1d6 and the highest roller deals 1 wound to the opponent. Based on that, there are some sub-rules:

- Certain items can deal more damage, add a bonus to the roll or bypass combat entirelly. That's the only way to get some kind of combat bonuses, and that's what they're for; all the focus on inventory has to pay somehow.

- Certain items can be used when there is a tie: they can from offset the tie, to win the combat straight (like, maybe, a tie in combat can represent the perfect moment to show a mirror to the medusa)

- Certain monsters can also have abilities that trigger on a tie. Unless the ability says so, the if the PC has a relevant item, the item's ability is the one that triggers instead.

- Even if there are many monsters, they count as one. Monsters only roll once per turn, but get a bonus on their roll (+0 to +5) depending on their strenght, size or numbers. This also influences the wounds that the enemy can take. Certain monsters deal more than one wound. Armor (if exists) absorbs 1 - 3 wounds.

- If many PCs confront the same enemy, only one of their rolls is taken into account, they choose which one (the highest one normally, or maybe a roll that ties to use an effect). When a monster deals damage, the party can divide it amongst them as they decide. A character that is downed is still alive, but must be tended to walk by their partners, and counts as 3 weight.

What kind of setting and adventures does this inspire? no attributes, no classes, no characters being stronger than others... Sort of a situation where all the PCs are mostly equal in capacities but with a crafting ("skill"?). If I think of items as magical compounds, I picture the titular Alchemists of this blog name. If I think of items as common items, I can see it being a game of gang kids getting in any kind of trouble armed with whatever they find available. Treasure can be anything that is relevant to the genre: from different pieces of Jewelry to the control of a neighbourhood block. And you, when you read them, what kind of game did you see in this rules?