Combat

Rules as per Fudge, or increased granularity through custom rules in development.  All material taken from the FUDGE books will be in separate tables and attributed at the end of the document.

Schools of Combat

The way of the Warrior.  Since combat, ritual or defensive, is a relatively common part of Shashnian life, it has a cultural tradition of apprenticing, just like any other craft.  It makes no distinction of age or gender, as when ones village is raided by bandits, predators or demons, all must take up arms.

The way of the warrior is taught in a series of schools, which focus on the varying approaches to combat; strength, speed, distance and balance.  These schools came from different regions, where the tools which became weapons were available.

The most basic school, that of balance, uses the Kathini, which arose from the humble spear of hunters and fisherman.  The Kathini can be thrown, or wielded as a staff with sharp ends.  The various styles of Kathini may focus more on one task to another.  Some being capable of long distance flight, others having bladed tips, and others contracting to be concealed.

The school of strength is named after the Myndarin, a hearty race of the forests, who axes are mighty.  These lumberjacks use force to overpower counterattacks and defenses, and practice with a variety of weights of axes and sometimes shields.

The school of distance is that of the farmers, who's fields in the temperate swaths provide for the Great Cities of the world.  Their weapons started as tools, such as scythes or hoes, and all are a variation of blade or point at the end of a pole.  Polearms take the advantage in combat beyond the reach of their opponents, and this school focuses on that principle: from dismounting riders, or catching holes in armour.

The school of speed is that of the archers of the plains.  The number and accuracy of projectiles unleashed can prevent personal combat before threats close.  The archers of the plains have perfected their aim against giant predators for generations.  This school teaches much about where to be as a combat unfolds as it does in archery.

Basic combat skills:

• Defensive combat movement
• similar to an Aikido style but also incorporating some hard blocks or aimed parrying.
• Armed combat
• Four essential weapon schools
• Balance budo
• Strength budo
• Distance budo
• Speed budo
• Unarmed combat
• Grappling budo
• Hardstrike budo

One level in each of these must be taken before any advanced schools can be started.

Combat abilities:
-Within each school there are a number of special abilities that can be learned for each weapon.  From dual wielding, unnaturally fast movement, multiple arrows notched, or crushing strikes.
-Each ability is purchased individually, though they may stack

Some combat abilities can be gained by the use of bionics (biotic mutualists mutated and joined through magic ritual).

Advanced combat schools:
-Double tonfa swords (or variations thereof, bracers, sais, etc)
-Vine style: chain-staff, rope dart, whip, nunchucka
-Cavalry
-War Mage: incorporating spells into armed attacks
-Combat Medics
-Biosuits; boars, dragonflies, squid
-Mastery of any of the basic four, which allows for extra-ordinary abilities
-Biotic titan/tank piloting
-Monks of the Demon Gate walls; unarmed-spell combat, self-mastery, incorporating spells deeply into ones body

Discussions and Development

Combat needs to encompass the following gameplay types:

• Simple Melee
• attack
• defend
• evade
• entangle
• retreat
• Complicated Melee
• fancy manouvers
• martial arts
• ninja styles
• weapon effects
• Ranged combat
• archery style
• sustained/flamethrower
• large projectile
• thrown
• misc magic stuff
• Other magic effects
• shields
• stuff
• personal lvl combat
• tactical lvl combat
• nonphysical combat
• psychic or magic brain vs brain?

Weapon Types

A common way of dealing with combat in many role-playing games is turn-based resolution. This is not very reflective of real life but is easier mechanically. Hacking the turn into a bunch of discrete actions within a turn allows for more discrete resolution of time. Ultimately it's just a finer scale of turn-based.

So, is this a problem? In current computer games the rate of actions is determined by the physical restraints of the weapon/equipment (ie, reload time) and the reaction speed of the character. Other limitations such as navigating through cumbersome menus can also slow reactions.

Turn-bsed combat is completely reasonable in a slow-paced game. Provided that this pace is not too slow to lose interest. Therefore, turn-based could work against a steady speed AI, but not against another PC who is absent from the world and wants to be able to choose the way their character reacts.

(note: i feel it is important that the PC characters remain in the world at all times, even if not active with the players there. They could respond by preset, scripted reactions and dialogue, with major events popping up like mail when they log in).

Real time would be preferable when the game system is playing in real time.

I do like the amount of consideration for strategy that turn-based play allows.

I like the idea that I have heard from Drakenfyre about (insert system) where the type of moves in a combat sequence are declared and then resolved. My interpretation of it may not be rote to the original system, but perhaps the concept should be applied without copying.

As I see it:

• all players in the combat determine which moves they intend to use in a combat turn
• positions of the players are calculated throughout the combat turn
• actions that are within legitimate range of each other apply
• actions can counter each other, cause damage, cause knockdown, cause effects

in this way a lump of time and actions could be resolved quickly while automatically compensating for their interaction. So, rather than having to decide upon an action each time, a character chooses a suite of actions like they would choose a specific 'hand' from a 'deck' of their potential actions. The resolution could even be taken out of automated mode if the players so desired
(again another expression of a core principle: increased attention will lead to increased control over the results but automation/simplification is still the possibility. Thus allowing play to be simplified and quickened, without removing control if the player really wants to 'give er').

defensive notes

Armour will take damage but reduce the amount of damage to the character. E.g. getting hit by a bullet while wearing kevlar still hurts, but it won't hurt you nearly as much.

• Armour would need to have three statistics:
• % of damage reduction
• how much penetrating damage does compared to the initial blow
• ratio of damage absorbed to its integrity lost
• the translation of damage points to reducing the armours hit points
• minimum threshold of damage
• does the blow even matter e.g. dragonbone magical plate mail is too tough to notice a child's hit with a stick (and less extreme examples)

chat with patrick about combat

i heart snow says:

for combat, what if a player declared a series of moves that they would perform in a set amount of time. the number of actions would be dependent upon the speed of those actions (which would vary based upon type (eg. magic, punch) and the skill at which the players could perform them at (eg. more punches if higher HtH skill))

the moves would be resolved after both players declared in a comparativ

i heart snow says:

method. some moves counter other moves and then the overall result of that amount of time would be determined

DrakenFyre says:

sounds like the system for Haven: COV

i heart snow says:

well, i must admit. when you described it to me, it sounded like a good way to resolve complicated combat quickly. But, it could also be played out like a bit of CCG or have other modifiers beyond the basic rules... additionally, having never read the rules for H:COV, i'd probably write the mechanics differently. is it too bang on thus far?

DrakenFyre says:

let me grab the rulebook and skim through there

DrakenFyre says:

okay, first initiative, then you have an attribute that determines the number of actions, each maneuver has and action cost depending on it's complexity, both sides then write down their offensive and defensive actions in the order they will be performed, then go through the actions and compare the offensive to the corresponding defensive and the chart tells you the damage (affected by strength)

i heart snow says:

do you think it would work if the declared actions were not done in order?