COMBAT is very simple and relies a lot on intelligence and tactical strategy and group teamwork instead of numbers and randomness. There is no point-based damage system because let's face it, you're not that invincible. Instead you have a health report, which is a dash followed by a series of letters indicating what's wrong with your character.
"hurt" can mean "broken/damaged/abrased/bruised/attacked/bitten/diseased/bleeding/twisted/etc"
"gone" means what it says.
-l hurt leg (-ll both legs hurt)
-a hurt arm (-aa both arms hurt)
-L leg is gone (-LL both legs gone, yikes)
-A arm is gone (-AA both arms gone)
(hands are part of arms)
other tags:
-d diseased
-p poisoned
-D dehydrated
-s starving
-i intoxicated
-c really cold
-e extreme heat
-x dying
-o very old
You don't actually have any health meter. A single strike against you will either hurt you in some way - or kill you. However, there are two defenses before that can happen.
The first is evasion, also known as dodging, reflex, etc. Evasion can also mean swiping away the attack. For example, you can evade an arrow by doding it, or by slicing it in half with a sword. Either takes a lot of skill, reflex and dexterity. You can evade a dagger by dodging or by parrying with your own weapon… both of which take skill, reflex and dexterity. The general ability to evade attacks is rolled into an attribute called, not surprisingly, Evasion… "evasion points" or EP measure your skill at naturally protecting yourself from attacks of all kinds.
The second is armor… you can get "armor points" or AP from shields or pieces of armor on your body.
Each attack has an "attack strength", or AS. That's not just the physical strength of the attack but its speed, momentum, force, skill, and aim.
After subtracting the EP and AP from the AS, if you have a positive number, it's a hit. If it's negative or zero, the attack fails.
When you attack, you choose a body part to attack:
HEAD
TORSO
LEFT ARM
RIGHT ARM
PELVIS/GROIN
LEFT LEG
RIGHT LEG
(hands are part of arms)
+ Your EPs apply no matter what body part is attacked - except for the legs. Legs get double the EP protection
+ Your APs are location-specific. Each armor piece can have different AP. So if you have a helmet with 3 AP, that protects the HEAD, breastplate with 5 AP, that protects the TORSO, gauntlets with 2 AP each protect the ARMS with 2 AP each, etc.
Important: in this realm, no armor is made for the legs! If armor is made for the legs, it WILL remove the double-EP bonus that the legs get.
Each slot can only have one item… so if you already have a Hat of Infinite Wisdom on your head, you can't wear a helmet.
So if you are attacking, what do you do?
Choose a weapon: it must be equipped in one of your useable limbs.
Choose a target: who are you attacking - and on what body part?
Choose a method: different weapons allow different methods of attacking
Calculate AS: Attack AS = Weapon AS + Method AS + Tactical AS + Attacker's AS
Calculate defense: EP + AP
Did it work???
Inequality: if (total AS) > (EP + AP), the attack succeeds!
Note: strange creatures may have strange body parts or many legs or whatever… use common sense and creativity. I will too, and as I control the creatures and monsters and NPCs, what I say goes.
TACTICS:
Higher Ground: +2 Tactical AS
Lower Ground: -2 Tactical AS
Flanking: -1 EP for the defender per additional flanker
Desperate / Low Health / Backed in Corner: +1 Tactical AS
FIGHTING STYLES:
Berserker: +1 Tactical AS and -1 EP
Combatant: ±0
Parryer: -1 Tactical AS and +1 EP
you need the "Duelist" skill to become a Berserker or Parryer.
Example Weapon:
BATTLEAXE: +5 AS, -1 EP. Dwarves get +6 AS and ±0 EP
methods: Swing (Slow, +1 AS) or Chop (Medium, ±0 AS)
It'll be rare for weapons to have negative EP, but if it's especially cumbersome (like a battleaxe) that could happen.
There are three speeds:
Slow - can do once and then can't do again next round
Medium - can do once per round
Fast - can do once per round and every-other-round twice-per-round
Lightning - can do twice per round
Your race determines your initial EP
Your class determines your initial AS
~~~
Combat System Two
~~~
Each encounter consists of three steps:
(1) Planning strategy with teammates
(2) Presenting to me the plan for winning or escaping (or whatever the goal is) the encounter
(3) Hearing from me the outcome of the plan. I may take into consideration factors you are not aware of as well as evaluating how realistic of a chance you have, etc.
~~~
Combat System Three - a mix of One and Two
~~~
Each encounter consists of three steps:
(1) Planning strategy with teammates. If very well thought out, it means it was thoroughly discussed. Or you could just jump right into combat. If something attacks the group, you might not have time for this step
(2) Second-by-second action. Instead of playing it in a round-by-round style (like we would with system One) each player PMs me their general strategy for the encounter. This stage might happen again after major events that would shift the action (such as a player dying)
(3) Post-battle post by me, saying what happened each second and how it ended up
System Three would still have a stat-based system like System One, but it wouldn't be as complicated. It'd be something like this:
AR = Attack Ranking. Some percentage
DR = Defense Ranking. Some percentage
AC = (AR-DR)/100.
So if your AR was 70% and the opponent's DR was 20%, your attack's AC would be 50%, and in general will succeed half of the time.
* Physical close-range weapons have high AR but low APS (attacks per second). A sword might have 80% sucess (80 AR) but only get 1 APS. So there's a lot of luck involved, but that's why the AR's are usually high. A single hit from a high-AR low-APS weapon would deal lots of damage
* Magical/ranged/fast/monk attacks would have low AR but high APS and low damage per hit… some magical flurry attack might have 10% AR but 100 APS so every second it would get around 10 low-damage hits in
The second vote will be about the setting… I have envisioned two settings. Setting A and Setting B.
Setting A: Vulkanoa: set on a tropical volcanic archipelago centered around a powerful mystical volcano, Vulkanoa. Most players would be explorers or adventurers from the Motherland, the far off center of civilized society. Some players might be natives of the tropical archipelago region. Most adventuring would be very wild with overgrown ruins and reclusive lizardlike tribes and colonialism outposts
Setting B: Atmos: this is a very unique setting I recently dreamed up, haha. The entire planet is gaseous, not with oxygen or anything we know but with an element known just as Sky. Lots of things float in Sky, including Earth… sky islands occupy the right level of density in the atmosphere. Atmos is their name for the entire universe because the inhabitants believe that it is the entire universe and that Sky = Life. Where the Sky runs out and Space begins, they cannot comprehend this and claim the edge of the universe. The lowest altitude of Atmos is known as the Core, an eternal dark sphere of impenetrable gases. Surrounded that is the Storm, a perpetually stormy layer that is extremely dangerous for skyships, and extremely mysterious. Above that is "the Aire", the majority of the planet. It's split into the Lower Aire (very dusty, floating in a sea of reddish/orangish dusty haze in all directions), Middle Aire (a wide variety of gases) and Upper Aire (perfect crystalline blue skies, shining sunlight [they believe that the Sun is their God and Goddess having sex and producing light], tops of towers from below, etc)… most sky islands have their lowest tips in Lower Aire. Some sky islands are very small, and some are miles across. This ones usually spout cities that ascend for miles up, from great hazy foundations in the Lower Aire through tall parallel bustling city towers ringed by platforms, bridges and landing docks in the Middle Aire and up to shining golden tower tops in the Upper Aire. Above the Upper Aire is a mysterious region known as the Aetrium. It's where Sky starts becoming sparse and the air gets harder and harder to breathe. The Aetrium is associated with psychedelic journeys as one runs out of Sky to breathe, mystical experiences and dazzling calm viewpoints of the world below. The Aetrium is characterized by its purplish dark sky speckled with stars ("sky-gems") and far-off galaxies and nebulas and aurora lights dancing at the top of the world. In general Atmos is stormiest at the Core and gets calmer and calmer the farther you go out, so the Aetrium is hauntingly calm and tranquil and quiet.
Water floats in Sky ergo it tends to clump up. Water is precious, obviously. There is something called the Ocean which is a giant globule of water somewhere in Middle Aire.
You would enter Vulkanoa during a time of rampant colonialism and exploration and changing ways
You would enter Atmos during a strenuous guerrilla war raged against the Monarchy by secretive empires
While adventuring in Vulkanoa would be mainly wild with ancient ruins and whatnot, as I said, the way of life in Atmos would be more city adventures and epic quests and politics and things
Question
unreality
~~~
Combat System One
~~~
~~~
Combat System Two
~~~
Each encounter consists of three steps:
(1) Planning strategy with teammates
(2) Presenting to me the plan for winning or escaping (or whatever the goal is) the encounter
(3) Hearing from me the outcome of the plan. I may take into consideration factors you are not aware of as well as evaluating how realistic of a chance you have, etc.
~~~
Combat System Three - a mix of One and Two
~~~
Each encounter consists of three steps:
(1) Planning strategy with teammates. If very well thought out, it means it was thoroughly discussed. Or you could just jump right into combat. If something attacks the group, you might not have time for this step
(2) Second-by-second action. Instead of playing it in a round-by-round style (like we would with system One) each player PMs me their general strategy for the encounter. This stage might happen again after major events that would shift the action (such as a player dying)
(3) Post-battle post by me, saying what happened each second and how it ended up
System Three would still have a stat-based system like System One, but it wouldn't be as complicated. It'd be something like this:
AR = Attack Ranking. Some percentage
DR = Defense Ranking. Some percentage
AC = (AR-DR)/100.
So if your AR was 70% and the opponent's DR was 20%, your attack's AC would be 50%, and in general will succeed half of the time.
* Physical close-range weapons have high AR but low APS (attacks per second). A sword might have 80% sucess (80 AR) but only get 1 APS. So there's a lot of luck involved, but that's why the AR's are usually high. A single hit from a high-AR low-APS weapon would deal lots of damage
* Magical/ranged/fast/monk attacks would have low AR but high APS and low damage per hit… some magical flurry attack might have 10% AR but 100 APS so every second it would get around 10 low-damage hits in
The second vote will be about the setting… I have envisioned two settings. Setting A and Setting B.
Setting A: Vulkanoa: set on a tropical volcanic archipelago centered around a powerful mystical volcano, Vulkanoa. Most players would be explorers or adventurers from the Motherland, the far off center of civilized society. Some players might be natives of the tropical archipelago region. Most adventuring would be very wild with overgrown ruins and reclusive lizardlike tribes and colonialism outposts
Setting B: Atmos: this is a very unique setting I recently dreamed up, haha. The entire planet is gaseous, not with oxygen or anything we know but with an element known just as Sky. Lots of things float in Sky, including Earth… sky islands occupy the right level of density in the atmosphere. Atmos is their name for the entire universe because the inhabitants believe that it is the entire universe and that Sky = Life. Where the Sky runs out and Space begins, they cannot comprehend this and claim the edge of the universe. The lowest altitude of Atmos is known as the Core, an eternal dark sphere of impenetrable gases. Surrounded that is the Storm, a perpetually stormy layer that is extremely dangerous for skyships, and extremely mysterious. Above that is "the Aire", the majority of the planet. It's split into the Lower Aire (very dusty, floating in a sea of reddish/orangish dusty haze in all directions), Middle Aire (a wide variety of gases) and Upper Aire (perfect crystalline blue skies, shining sunlight [they believe that the Sun is their God and Goddess having sex and producing light], tops of towers from below, etc)… most sky islands have their lowest tips in Lower Aire. Some sky islands are very small, and some are miles across. This ones usually spout cities that ascend for miles up, from great hazy foundations in the Lower Aire through tall parallel bustling city towers ringed by platforms, bridges and landing docks in the Middle Aire and up to shining golden tower tops in the Upper Aire. Above the Upper Aire is a mysterious region known as the Aetrium. It's where Sky starts becoming sparse and the air gets harder and harder to breathe. The Aetrium is associated with psychedelic journeys as one runs out of Sky to breathe, mystical experiences and dazzling calm viewpoints of the world below. The Aetrium is characterized by its purplish dark sky speckled with stars ("sky-gems") and far-off galaxies and nebulas and aurora lights dancing at the top of the world. In general Atmos is stormiest at the Core and gets calmer and calmer the farther you go out, so the Aetrium is hauntingly calm and tranquil and quiet.
Water floats in Sky ergo it tends to clump up. Water is precious, obviously. There is something called the Ocean which is a giant globule of water somewhere in Middle Aire.
You would enter Vulkanoa during a time of rampant colonialism and exploration and changing ways
You would enter Atmos during a strenuous guerrilla war raged against the Monarchy by secretive empires
While adventuring in Vulkanoa would be mainly wild with ancient ruins and whatnot, as I said, the way of life in Atmos would be more city adventures and epic quests and politics and things
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