Author Topic: dob85y's House Rules  (Read 2977 times)

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Offline dob85y

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dob85y's House Rules
« on: January 19, 2014, 06:12:06 PM »
I'm starting this thread after some members showed interest in the customized combat system i am using in my games.
As all of the material is published ICE material i cannot take any credit for the system other than how it works together. Please feel free to post opinions, ideas ect. Also obviously feel free to try them out if you like them.

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2014, 06:16:30 PM »
Combat System


I am running a "homebrew" combat system made up of the ABTP, HB11 attack tables and Martial Law Crit and weapon tables. This was not an attempt to make the worlds most complicated system, rather i wanted a system that rewarded the use or armor (im Australian so the spelling is correct here) and made the choices of armor carry consequences. Added to this i have made a location system that randomly determines the hit location (inverted D100, the ones dice determines the major location and the tens determines left or right essentially)

This boils down to two rolls, one attack (and also determines location) second crit if any (All crits if multiple use the same roll).
To help the flow of the game i have created an EXCEL based calculator that determines the results of the attack and combined critical effect.

At the beginning of each encounter the players roll a combat perception (difficulty varies) to see if they notice any weaker points in the enemies armor (or a normal perception if they spend the round), and allow a "called shot" which is added as a penalty to the OB to adjust the hit location.  They may learn thought the encounter if any specific hits hurt more.

A couple of other combat based touches, stun always means you go last in the round, only really means anything if your trying to do something other than parry.

Something i didn't mention was that the Crit modifier is adjusted for the class of Crit.
Currently I am using T=-10, A=+0, B=+10, C=+20, D=+30, E=+40, these are added to the crit roll instead of the listed values in the HB 11 attack charts.
You could adjust these values change the how lethal the game is.

The Hit location chart as below used inverted 1D100, eg swap the tens and the ones, it distributes the hit locations all over the body. I allow a penalty to "aim up" to hit a specific location. In true HARP style ill include an example,

1   Head
5   R Foot
10   L Foot
15   R Leg
20   L Leg
30   Groin
40   Abdomen
50   Torso
55   R Hand
60   L Hand
65   R Arm
70   L Arm
75   R Shoulder
80   L Shoulder
90   Neck
96   Head

Say the unmodified attack roll is 64, when looking at the location chart, read it as 46, which will be Abdomen strike, lets say the defender is wearing a chain shirt, If the attacker stated they wanted to aim for the right arm, as it is unarmored, they apply a penalty of 20 to the OB (i step in lots of -5) to make the 46 a 66, which brings it into the threshold for the Right Arm, but changes the attack table from Chain to None.

One thing i forgot to spell out (most of you will have already thought of it) don't forget to adjust the DB of the defender removing the DB for the BASE armor type.
The ABTR rules are spot on for calculating the DB values of higher quality/magical armor. It does take a bit if you are working out piece by piece for different materials.
Basically for a suit,
Soft Leather -20
Rigid Leather -30
Chain Mail -40
Chain and Plate -50
Plate -60

Bonuses for well made or magical material are added the the DB. One of my players has a Dragon Scale Shirt, which is Rigid Leather +20, the rest of his armor is Master Crafted Supple Soft leather, which after removing the shirt component provides an additional DB of +5 giving a total DB modifier (for armor) as +25. I don't separate the DB by location, thought it something i've thought about, balancing simplicity against "realism"



Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2014, 06:35:38 PM »
Overcasting

I wanted to introduce a capability for casters to pump an uncontrolled amount of mana into a spell kind if like an all or nothing last ditch effort.
And there are those stories of magic being dangerous for the untrained, apprentices causing all sorts of problems trying to do things there not trained to do.
So basically it goes like this.
Power points can be scaled beyond that of the current ranks in a given spell. This also allows a caster to try and use spells they are learning but have not yet mastered.
Each power point spent beyond ranks they have in a spell incur a -25 penalty, additionally any spell that fails, is an instant fumble. When rolling the fumble, add the overcasting penalty to the result. Obviously the exact results of the fumble are up to the GM, however these moments I find can add very interesting side effects other than just imploding the caster.

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2014, 07:41:39 PM »
Ambush, Snipe and Damage Vulnerabilities

I'm not sure if others have found this but I feel the listed Snipe and Ambush bonuses to the crit are under powered by allowing only the number of ranks to actually influence the crit roll. By the time you have an enemy unaware, you actually successfully stalk and hide, successfully roll your skill check, and then attack and hit, the overall effect should just about be a one hit kill (unless you really mess it up or your an amature)
Perhaps the scale of the crit charts i am using is a factor, but I have decided to use the total bonus rather than the ranks to add to the critical roll for ambush and snipe.

This leads into Damage Vulnerability, which essentially give the same effect as snipe and ambush, but the bonus added to the crit is the raw dice roll of the attack (as well as eliminating the size based cap). This reflects that a really good hit, on a vulnerable creature like a stake to a vamp's heart, or a slash to a zombies neck, will end it. While it does rely on a large amount of chance, the it reflects on the randomness of combat and how nothing is ever a sure thing.

Offline pyrotech

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2014, 07:58:40 PM »
One thing to remember with ambush and snipe.  In most cases, the target of a successful use of these skills isn't going to be able to be able to parry, dodge, or use their quickness bonus for their DB (and gets the surprise/position bonus to attack too).  All this adds up to a much higher crit results before you even get to the part about adding the number of ranks to the roll, or more importantly ignoring the damage caps.

So a successful sniping or ambush is very likely to be a devastating attack even before the bonus is added.  I had the same impression of these skills at first until I realized the likelyhood of a fatal wound from this kind of attack.
-Pyrotech

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2014, 09:41:48 PM »
In the base rules yes, good point. All of the modifiers from the Attack roll are directly influencing the crit outcome.
But in the home brew system i am using the Crit is a totally separate roll adjusted only by the class and they are the Martial Law tables. That must be why i am seeing it as under powered.... Thanks

Offline Bruce

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2014, 12:14:23 AM »
This is something I thought about with my revised combat tables. One fix I am toying with is taking the # of ranks and applying them as row shifts down on the appropriate critical table. Another idea that I just thought of is you could take the total roll and any amount over the cap for the weapon being used is applied to the crit roll.

Bruce
When you game, game like you mean it! Game Hard!

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2014, 04:50:38 PM »
Regeneration

Ive been noticing for a little while that Regeneration as hits per minute seems a bit redundant, when the combat round lasts 2 seconds.
Apologies if this has been changed in the revised version (i am still running on the original HARP documentation).

It has really stood out now that i am running a "Demonic Invasion" campaign where a small army of Vlatch have gained entrance to the world of the living. Reading the description of regeneration it makes comment that a creature is nearly unstoppable when it is regenerating 3 hits per minute. This equates in the best circumstances to 1 hit every 10 rounds. A lot of damage is dealt in my combats in a 10 round period, this is why i have changed the regeneration period from to rounds to minutes. 3 hits per round regeneration is far more "unstoppable".

Offline Bruce

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2014, 06:34:57 PM »
Even then. Most deaths in combat result from loss of blood or some kind of instant death. Are the creatures in question immune to bleeder results. If they aren't then it's all downhill for them once they receive a 3 bleeder or higher. Maybe not as fast as someone who doesn't have regeneration but you get the point. Now if they are immune to bleeders, then yeah I'd ask the party if they have all their affairs in order before the battle.

Bruce
When you game, game like you mean it! Game Hard!

Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2014, 10:15:49 PM »
Thanks for pointing that out... it just gave me an idea.  ;D
Email -    Thom@ironcrown.com

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2014, 05:47:20 AM »
Even then. Most deaths in combat result from loss of blood or some kind of instant death. Are the creatures in question immune to bleeder results. If they aren't then it's all downhill for them once they receive a 3 bleeder or higher. Maybe not as fast as someone who doesn't have regeneration but you get the point. Now if they are immune to bleeders, then yeah I'd ask the party if they have all their affairs in order before the battle.

Bruce
These are the standard Vlatch in Monsters Field Guide. A lot of demonic creatures have regeneration, and no not immune to bleed, immunity to stun however gives them an edge. You are right about the bleed wound too, once you have a number of bleeding rounds = to or greater then the regeneration factor, forget about it. I have an idea around regeneration healing specific wounds and their effects (eg bleed/rnd) rather than just concussion hits. Regeneration implies that all wounds will be eventually healed unless fatal. Ill play around with some scenarios and numbers through the week and post an update.

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2014, 07:13:29 AM »
So i have tried a few things and come up with.....
Major heal spell.
Requires no concentration
On self only
Regeneration 1, 1 pp Free equivalent Major heal spell each round.
Regeneration 2, 4 pp Free Equivalent Major heal spell each round.
Regeneration 3, 8 pp Free Equivalent Major heal spell each round.

Points may be used to heal a larger wound over a number of rounds after declared.
This basically means Regeneration 1 takes 4 rounds to heal one basic option starting the round after the damage is incurred.

The regeneration heals specific wounds, which i keep track of line by line and mark those which are not affected by regeneration with an asterisk.

Ill be doing more testing this weekend.



Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2014, 05:25:19 PM »
One thing to remember with ambush and snipe.  In most cases, the target of a successful use of these skills isn't going to be able to be able to parry, dodge, or use their quickness bonus for their DB (and gets the surprise/position bonus to attack too).  All this adds up to a much higher crit results before you even get to the part about adding the number of ranks to the roll, or more importantly ignoring the damage caps.

So a successful sniping or ambush is very likely to be a devastating attack even before the bonus is added.  I had the same impression of these skills at first until I realized the likelyhood of a fatal wound from this kind of attack.

More testing has found my original method to be way overpowered at high levels with the combat system as it is. I am going to try another approach, when rolling the relevant skill (ambush or snipe) to successfully use the skill is an all or nothing, what ever remainder is left over after breaking 100 is what is added to the critical roll. Eg if Raiinath rolls a total of 140 for his snipe roll, then 40 is added to the crit roll. That way there is a reason to continue to develop the skill at higher levels.

Offline Turbs

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2014, 11:39:49 PM »
simple and elegant.
I like it..
would also like to hear how it plays out and if you found it balanced or not.
The universe is hostile. So impersonal. Devour to survive; So it is; So it's always been.  ~Tool; Vicarious~

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #14 on: February 18, 2014, 03:15:49 AM »
So far i have only run one session with it, so ill reserve judgment just yet. Early indications have not raised any alarm bells.

Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #15 on: February 27, 2014, 03:06:47 AM »
Bypass Armor/Feint
I have always enjoyed the lightly armored, dagger wielding arch type who's skill and agility beats the heavy armored tank.
To this end i have been looking at what there is in HARP to support this type of character. Dirty fighting is the answer but i think it stops just as little short. I am looking at adding a bypass armor/feint to the dirty fighting skill that is an all or nothing roll with a difficulty based on the type of armor worn by the opponent.
This would not be treated as a separate roll just an extension of the initial skill check.
To successfully use the skill the character must win initiative, allow the opponent to attack while using a half parry. After the opponent has attacked, and if the character takes no damage, he can roll an attack (half OB), gaining all benefits of dirty fighting and changing the armor type to none.
The difficulty to succeed is based on the armor worn. Full suits are the basis of the difficulty, 120 for SL, 130 for RL, 140 for CM, 150 for P/C and 160 for PL. To work out the difficulty for ABTP use the combined DB with out material or workmanship bonuses +100 as the difficulty.



Offline dob85y

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Re: dob85y's House Rules
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2015, 04:05:28 AM »
Combat System


I am running a "homebrew" combat system made up of the ABTP, HB11 attack tables and Martial Law Crit and weapon tables. This was not an attempt to make the worlds most complicated system, rather i wanted a system that rewarded the use or armor (im Australian so the spelling is correct here) and made the choices of armor carry consequences. Added to this i have made a location system that randomly determines the hit location (inverted D100, the ones dice determines the major location and the tens determines left or right essentially)

This boils down to two rolls, one attack (and also determines location) second crit if any (All crits if multiple use the same roll).
To help the flow of the game i have created an EXCEL based calculator that determines the results of the attack and combined critical effect.

At the beginning of each encounter the players roll a combat perception (difficulty varies) to see if they notice any weaker points in the enemies armor (or a normal perception if they spend the round), and allow a "called shot" which is added as a penalty to the OB to adjust the hit location.  They may learn thought the encounter if any specific hits hurt more.

A couple of other combat based touches, stun always means you go last in the round, only really means anything if your trying to do something other than parry.

Something i didn't mention was that the Crit modifier is adjusted for the class of Crit.
Currently I am using T=-10, A=+0, B=+10, C=+20, D=+30, E=+40, these are added to the crit roll instead of the listed values in the HB 11 attack charts.
You could adjust these values change the how lethal the game is.

The Hit location chart as below used inverted 1D100, eg swap the tens and the ones, it distributes the hit locations all over the body. I allow a penalty to "aim up" to hit a specific location. In true HARP style ill include an example,

1   Head
5   R Foot
10   L Foot
15   R Leg
20   L Leg
30   Groin
40   Abdomen
50   Torso
55   R Hand
60   L Hand
65   R Arm
70   L Arm
75   R Shoulder
80   L Shoulder
90   Neck
96   Head

Say the unmodified attack roll is 64, when looking at the location chart, read it as 46, which will be Abdomen strike, lets say the defender is wearing a chain shirt, If the attacker stated they wanted to aim for the right arm, as it is unarmored, they apply a penalty of 20 to the OB (i step in lots of -5) to make the 46 a 66, which brings it into the threshold for the Right Arm, but changes the attack table from Chain to None.

One thing i forgot to spell out (most of you will have already thought of it) don't forget to adjust the DB of the defender removing the DB for the BASE armor type.
The ABTR rules are spot on for calculating the DB values of higher quality/magical armor. It does take a bit if you are working out piece by piece for different materials.
Basically for a suit,
Soft Leather -20
Rigid Leather -30
Chain Mail -40
Chain and Plate -50
Plate -60

Bonuses for well made or magical material are added the the DB. One of my players has a Dragon Scale Shirt, which is Rigid Leather +20, the rest of his armor is Master Crafted Supple Soft leather, which after removing the shirt component provides an additional DB of +5 giving a total DB modifier (for armor) as +25. I don't separate the DB by location, thought it something i've thought about, balancing simplicity against "realism"




So I've been running an on again off again campaign using this system.  I have found that the critical's are too light on for my liking. I've now changed the modifiers in my game to

'E' Crit +85
'D' Crit +60
'C' Crit +30
'B' Crit +20
'A' Crit +15
'T' Crit -10

Its certainly encouraged my melee fighters to make good use if parrying and initiative.
As a side to this I have also reduced the size class of all swords that are one and two handed to medium (Katana, Claymore and Bastard) as they already gain a benefit of using the two handed attack table. This means that only truly large weapons (Two Handed Sword, Axe etc) are counted as large two handed attacks.