So previously I take a stab at a one-roll combat for Fate 3.0 (or Spirit of the Century), and this time round I am trying to attempt one for a game with medium crunchy combat – Dragon Warriors. A quick introduction to its mechianics. Characters have Attack and Defence for hand to hand combat. To hit, you take your Attack, subtract the target’s Defence, and attempt to roll 1d20 under it.
Weapons does fixed amount of damage, but have different Armour Bypass Roll. Armour has an Armour Factor (AF) and to actually hurt the target, you would need to roll the weapon’s Armour Bypass Roll and exceed the AF. If not, your blow simply bounces off.
This is the basic mechanic used for resolving blasting spells too (Speed vs. Evasion) and indirect spells that in D20 would require a Will save (Magical Attack vs. Magcial Defence). With the basic rules out of the way, let’s see how we can have a mass mob combat consisting of hero characters and mooks.
Before we begin, a reminder – the purpose of one roll (or fewer rolls) combat is not to make it a replacement for full fledge combat. It is more for pacing, setting the scene and making combat a ‘strategic game’ instead of micro-management, tactical ones. Hence, the player, when he makes a choice, actually lasts for a few round.
Combat Actions with Attributes
Dragon Warriors, unlike Fate, is not skill-based; this poses a difficulty as this reduces the amount of options for non-combants (whose abilities are more useful when it comes to really tactical combat). Hence in this case the GM must prepare to use attribute checks to replace the usual Attack rolls. The standard attribute check is a 1d20 equal or under the relevant attribute. To simplify opposed rolls (Dragon Warriors do not have skills for opposed rolls), the target number to beat is the relevant attribute of the mob, or the GM can decide one.
Here are the five stats in Dragon Warriors, and here how you can use them for combat.
- Strength – feats of strength (push down a pillar to crush enemies), a throw
- Dexterity - tumbling, keeping out of the way of enemies, athletics
- Intelligence – trick or misdirect the enemy, coordinate the battle
- Psychic Talent - Ironically, I am drawing a blank here. This measures ESP, innate powers of magic and such, and has no use formally unless you are spell-caster.
- Looks – the ultimate dump stat in Dragon Warriors (it’s a linear 3d6 anyway, so you don’t have much of a choice). Not much use in combat unless you determine that it also means charisma and leadership.
Combat Proper
First, we got to prepare the enemy, right? Take the usual stat for the enemy and for every extra in the group, give it +1 HP (so 5 goblins would get +4 HP).
Second, there is no need for Armour Bypass Rolls here. AF will reduce Combat Effectiveness. Shields bestowed +1 AF.
Third, let’s measure Combat Effectiveness for the party. Everyone will roll their Attack and attempt to hit as normal. Unlike usual combat, there is no missing. Everyone’s Combat Effectiveness (or CE) is equal to the “to-hit roll” (which is Attack – Defence) minus the roll of the 1d20. There are no criticals here. Total up the entire party’s CE.
Next, the enemy will attack too. Unless players come up with something crafty, everyone is going to be attacked. The enemy will just roll once and attempt to hit. That is it, no CE calculation. Every hit, if it does damage, will reduce the party’s CE by the damage inflicted. If the GM deems a party member is swamped (that is, attacked from all sides), give a bonus from +1 to +3 to their Attack score.
Finally, take the party’s CE and divide by the number of players (round up to the most convenient numbers to speed things up; so if you have 4 players, round up to multiples of 4 and so on). This is the amount of damage done.
Attribute Checks
Now, if one of the players decided to go for a strategy instead of wading into attack mode, he makes his attribute test as above. The degrees of success (which is the player’s attribute minus the number rolled, assuming that he rolled under) becomes the player’s CE. However, the GM should give a bonus depending on how effective the strategy is. A general who is trying to funnel his enemies through a chokepoint is doing more good than someone who is just trying to stay out from combat. Give a multiplier to the total CE (x2 for a good effect, x3 for something that would really turn the tide). I afraid it is totally GM’s fiat at this point.
Remember that there is no initiative whatsoever – so even if the adventurers achieve total overkill in the first exchange, the enemies still have a chance to attack for one exchange.
Spellcasting
Now this is a tricky thing – how do you factor in the effect of spells? All spells, as a rule, contribute to CE or directly takes away HP. As a rule of thumb, spells that disable enemies immediately reduce the mob’s HP by 1 for each mob disabled. For blasting spell, treat it as an attack using the spell’s Speed as the attack roll and the enemy’s Evasion as the defence roll. However, do not add the damage to the CE unless it is an area of effect spell. If it is single target spell, add the rank of the spell. If it is an area of effect spell, then roll for damage and add the result to CE.
Spells with Expiry Rolls are presume to last for the entire battle. If a spell has no formal rules for combat but inflicts a certain condition, reduce the enemy’s Attack and Defence roll accordingly. In a pitch, have the sorcerer to test his Psychic Talent and add it to the rank of the spell and come up with a multiplier depending on how ingeniously the spell is used to come up with the CE.
How many spells can a sorcerer/warlock cast per exchange? For sanity sake, it is good to limit to one, as an exchange usually consists of a minute and a sorcerer can cast 10 spells (each round is 6 seconds). If it is an issue, set a formal length of tme for each exchange. Remember that the magic points must be expended for spellcasting and mystics must make fatigue rolls.
Is this workable?
The next question on my mind (and perhaps for any reader) is – is this combat any more fun? Faster? Hopefully someone would playtest this!
Next up, tackling a roll under game – Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying.
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