close combat- possible revision?

[Radu Lykan]

a while ago before i got rid of the internet for over a year  somebody (i think it was cade but hes not very active?) was working on a revision of the close combat weapons and was considering basing it around the mechanics of the mount and blade computer game.
when i search for mount and blade or close combat weapons etc i dont get a decent return, does any body know if he completed the task and if yes are the rules available anywhere?
if not what do people think of a community project to get a close combat weapon revision done similar to marcos ranged weapons revision?

[Ynek]

A long time ago, I wrote a revision of the close combat rules which was based around the idea of rolls and counter-rolls, with each roll conferring a modifier to the next. This was on one of the older conclaves, and if I recall correctly, was one tiny part of the inspiration behind the combat rules in the ongoing Inq. 2.0 project by PrecinctOmega.

Essentially, my first iteration of a close combat rules rehash was a combination of a re-write of the central, core mechanic, and an addition of a heap of house rules that I had developed whilst GMing with my local gaming group. (When you make up a rule off the cuff, and it ends up working nicely, you tend to remember it for future reference.) It wasn't a perfect set of rules, and still suffered from many of the same problems as the current ruleset. However, what it did do was make close combat far more competitive and fierce. A WS50 character would utterly decimate a WS25 character, and a WS25 character would utterly decimate a WS10 character. What it did was make the difference between character weapon skills far more stark, but not so much that a WS80 character couldn't hold their own against a WS85 character. It felt as if it broadened the scale of abilities in a manner that the original rules had sort of glossed over. I liked the feel of this aspect of my house rules, but I wasn't quite satisfied.

The second iteration of my close comat rules took much longer, but I believe I actually published them on this conclave. It included fewer of my house rules (such as "shove" moves, "grapples" and "choke holds") but instead focussed more on the core fundamental rules. The "I hit you, then you hit me" mechanic was replaced with an additional dice roll, called "rolling for the initiative." Rolling for the initiative represented the fact that when you get into a sword fight, or a fist fight, a more experienced and skilled fighter is much more likely to land the first blow. If I remember rightly, spending an action in combat (whether the action was spent fighting, turning to run away, or turning to shout "bacon" at an anthropomorphic German sausage was irrelevant. Any action spent whilst in combat counted) resulted in a single combat turn. The combat turn began by rolling for the initiative, and then the winner of the initiative roll got to make a single attack. As with my first set of rules, the attack roll would confer a negative modifier to the defending player's defensive action roll, and the defensive action roll would confer a positive modifier to any counter-attacks, which would in turn confer a negative modifier to the resulting defensive action roll and so on.

I also included some simple rules for "stances" or "combat styles" in the second version of my rules, such as an "aggressive stance," which granted a positive modifier to all initiative rolls in exchange for a slight drop in defensive rolls, and the "defensive stance" which did the opposite. "deceptive stances" (partial concealment of one's weapon and one's readiness to fight) conferred a negation of certain modifiers such as reach. Stances counted as character skills, and were used in conjunction with such things as "preferred weapons" "familiar weapons" "competent combateers" and "master combateers"

Reach was simplified down to a singular modifier of about +15, regardless of the difference in reach between the two character's weapons. Dodging and parrying were streamlined into a single defensive action, (because our group were of the philosophy that you don't make a conscious decision whether to dodge an incoming blow, or parry it. You do whatever you have to to make sure that the sharp moving metal thing doesn't touch you,) and counter-attacking rules were altered to reflect the "persistant modifier" described above.

It's been quite a while since I last played Inquisitor, but maybe I'll take another look over my old GMing notes and see if I can whip up a third iteration of those rules to streamline them down once and for all....

Also, apologies to everyone about my recent inactivity on these forums. For the past couple of months, I've been working on a rather prestigious game-mod, and most of my creative free time has been spent creating 3D models for that project. My 3D modelling skills are coming along in leaps an bounds, and I have a few rather ambitious ideas of where I should take them next...

[MarcoSkoll]

@Radu Lykan: You're mixing a fact or two.

Inquisitor Cade had proposed some changes to the combat rules: http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=335.0

It was my suggestion that, were he intending to include an armour modification for bladed weapons, Mount and Blade includes a slightly more varied system of damage - Cutting, Piercing and Blunt damage.

Cutting weapons are more or less your basic damage - it doesn't reduce armour, but has a higher damage stat in the first place. They're also usually weapons which are easier to hit with.
Blunt or Piercing damage effectively halves armour - for piercing weapons because it actually goes through armour better, for blunt weapons because it doesn't need to go through the armour. However, this is at a cost of lower damage weapons that are harder to use.

In basic terms, I think such a damage system could be quite easily implemented by just changing the weapons tables a bit. Depending on type, a sword might have two profiles. For a sword capable of both cut and thrust combat, you might get:
Swing: Reach 3, Damage 3D6 Cutting, -15% Parry
Stab: Reach 2, Damage 2D6 Piercing, -10% Parry

The reduced reach represents it being a harder attack that's easier to parry or dodge, and the reduced damage the fact that it is a narrower wound.

The differences in Cutting and Piercing damage might be set down by something like in Dark Heresy, where Primitive damage doubles armour - cutting damage faces double armour. This version is not too hard to implement.

More complex and more interesting would be changing it so armour types had different AVs dependent on which damage type they were taking.
Carapace might be AV10 against cutting damage (plates don't cut well), but only its normal AV6 against other damage.
Mesh might be AV4 against most damage, but AV6 against blunt damage.

But (and there is a big but*), the problem here is that it requires a more universal cooperation. Whereas what I did with the Revised Armoury has its full effect if the opponent happens to still be using the normal rules, this would lose quite a lot in that same circumstance.

*Nothing to do with Sir Mixx-a-lot.

~~~~~

@Ynek: Actually, you've posted two versions on here:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=818.0
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1488.0

Dodging and parrying were streamlined into a single defensive action, (because our group were of the philosophy that you don't make a conscious decision whether to dodge an incoming blow, or parry it. You do whatever you have to to make sure that the sharp moving metal thing doesn't touch you)

... I do feel this is a bit literal as an interpretation. I've long preferred to see it as abstracted such that dodge/parry is just shorthand.

A "parrying" character might not be parrying, but is acting in a more aggressive (but less safe) fashion that gives him opportunities to exploit openings his opponent leaves.
A "dodging" character is, again, not necessarily dodging, but defending in a more cautious manner that can't push home advantages that his opponent might leave him.

In this way, players have some control over the general stance and aggressiveness of their character. I feel a version of the rules that simplifies things down to just one defensive action makes for a much duller close combat.

The trick to spicing up close combat would really be to make it so that players started using a wider range of moves rather than fewer! I try to do this with a lot of my characters, to the point that not a lot of my characters fall foul of the dull Attack-dodge-attack-dodge close combats.

S.Sgt Birgen has a combat style that's in-your-face and as much unarmed martial art (the benefit of her having armoured limbs) as it is armed.
Sgt Kronen will try and put you off your footing, constantly forcing you to shift your position. And she fights particularly dirty, having  finished a close combat or two by attaching a krak grenade to her opponent.

This, I feel, is the development that close combat needs. Take the basics, change a few modifiers to make certain things more/less effective, then add in some more variety.
Close combats would be much more interesting if they were less monotonous.

[Ynek]

Some well-thought out arguments.

Heh. I think this was pretty much exactly what you said the first time I posted bits of those rules in another thread about a year or so ago. Heh. It's nice to see that you haven't changed any during my recent absence.

Whilst I can see where you're coming from when you say that the parrying and dodging actions represent different styles of combat rather than literally representing parrying and dodging, I would have to say that whilst that may be the current consensus amongst us, I don't think it's what the developers intended when they wrote the original rulebook. Power weapons don't destroy non-power/shock/daemon weapons when you dodge, implying that no weapon-to-weapon contact takes place within a dodge action. This implies that dodging was perhaps originally intended to represent literal dodges, as neither your weapon nor your body are harmed with a successful dodge. Parrying on the other hand does result in power weapons destroying other weapons, implying that weapon-to-weapon contact DOES happen during a parry action, implying further that the parry rules were originally intended to represent literal parries.

However, perhaps in a bit of an Alexander Graham Bell moment (tried to invent a hearing aid, invented the telephone instead), the rules which were originally intended to represent literal parries and dodges actually better represented two different combat styles, and this is the spirit in which we, as the players, tend to view those rules.

You argued the point that by combining parry and dodge actions, I have lessened the variability of combat, but I would disagree. Even though combining parrying and dodging might appear to remove the choice between offensive and defensive combat styles, the addition of combat stance rules takes over this job of representing different styles of combat. The combat stances "plugin" is also easier and more fluid for players to play around with and add new styles. (Since each style is effectively a handful of modifiers rather than a handful of rules. In my experience, this makes things a little easier to create new styles.)

Additionally, since you mentioned "different combat actions," other than parrying and dodging, I came up with quite a few for our house rules, but simply didn't include them in the above post for the sake of conciseness.

"Shove:" Counts as an unarmed attack with reach 0. If it hits and the target fails to parry/dodge, roll two D10s for every full 10 strength that your character has, then add together the results of all the D10s rolled. If the result is higher than the opponent's toughness stat, the shove is successful. The affected character takes no damage, but will suffer knockback equal to one yard for every full 10 that the shove test was passed by. If they move a distance equal to greater than one tenth of their strength, they are knocked prone.



"Grapple:" Counts as an unarmed attack with reach 0. If it hits and the target fails to parry/dodge, both players roll a D100 and add their character's strength. The player with the highest score wins. If the grappling player wins, they successfully grapple their opponent. If the grappled player wins, they may make an immediate counter-attack against their enemy. A grappled character may not move from combat, and can only spend actions trying to break free. To break free, the players must both roll a D100 and add their strength. If the grappled player wins the dice roll, they may break free from the grapple, and can choose to make an immediate counter-attack if they choose to. If the grappling player wins the dice roll, they maintain the grapple hold.

A character may attempt a "one armed grapple," In which case, they simply halve their strength for the purposes of the initial D100 test, and for any subsequent "break free" attempts unless they spend an action switching to a two-handed grapple. Switching how many hands you are using does not require any strength tests and does not allow the target to attempt a free "break free" action.

A character who is executing a one-armed grapple may continue to attack their target, and will automatically hit them in combat. They may also parry/dodge attacks by other characters, but will be at one half weapon skill when they do so. A character who is executing a two-armed grapple may not perform any actions aside from switching to a one-armed grapple or releasing their captive. Choosing to release their captive does NOT result in an immediate, automatic counter-attack from the grappled character.

Whilst a character is being grappled, they may not parry/dodge, and are automatically hit by other characters in close combat.
Grapples with power fists or power claws double the grappling player's strength.


I just realised what a wall of text I'd just thrown up there, so I'll shut myself up as I've evidently already started to ramble. ;P

[MarcoSkoll]

Heh. I think this was pretty much exactly what you said the first time I posted bits of those rules in another thread about a year or so ago.

Probably. I couldn't actually remember where, though.

Whilst I can see where you're coming from when you say that the parrying and dodging actions represent different styles of combat rather than literally representing parrying and dodging, I would have to say that whilst that may be the current consensus amongst us, I don't think it's what the developers intended when they wrote the original rulebook.

Maybe not, but the fact the two provide characters with variety works out well.

As for power weapons, I don't think they really need the bonus of being able to destroy opponent's weapons on the dodge as well. Frankly, I prefer they were considerably less destructive to weapons, such that there's enough of a chance your weapon can take a hit or two that you're prepared to risk it for some cool manoeuvre.

For an aside, I have my own house rules for power weapons destroying things:
- All destructible weapons get an AV. Unless stated otherwise, this is normally equal to their maximum close combat damage. Chain weapons and/or polearms halve this.
- When a power weapon parries/is parried by something destructible, roll the damage against the weapon.
- Every full 3 hit points done to a weapon means -1 damage and -5% PP, every full 6 taken means -1 Reach. Anything that reaches 0 reach is destroyed.

Hence, a knife will often get cut in half in one by many weapons, but a sword can take a hit or two before being totally unusable - after all, half a sword isn't completely useless...

Bit more complex, but someone getting impaled on the sword they just cut in half is far more fun. Particularly if I decide to throw in my optional special effect where cutting your opponent's sword in half isn't necessarily an effective parry...

...the addition of combat stance rules takes over this job of representing different styles of combat.

Your stance system, last I knew of it, included a "cancel all stances stance" - which would be rather annoying to play against, seeing as it completely negates any choice in how to express each character's own flavour of combat.

That's part of what puts me off it.

EDIT: Yes, I know that not all characters will have all stances, but I feel this could be handled more interestingly. Also, stances don't themselves do anything to increase the range of actions a character takes (beyond declaring the stance itself). In fact, your description could almost be read as it discouraging the development of a wider range of actions.

~~~~~

As for your grappling rules - I do feel Inquisitor needs some grapple rules, but I think yours lose something in how limited what is allowed with them is.
Whenever I get into grappling (with rules mostly improvised by the GM on the fly), it's generally to do things like drag an opponent around, slam him into a wall or two, or dangle him by his throat off the roof of a tall building.

Just using it to hold an opponent in place seems pretty limited.

[Cortez]

One of the changes to close combat that I have considered is replacing the current 'dodge' entirely with a new move called 'Block' which would work in essentially the same way but would include power weapon damage and could include a 'block bonus' to each weapon instead of the set +20 (kind of opposite to parry penalty).

You could then re-write a new dodge rule, possibly using initiative as the stat, to represent actual dodging.

The biggest issue I've found with the other close combat attacks is that you waste an entire action sidestepping or doing an acrobatic role to relatively little advantage. It can often be better to just hack away and hope.

[MarcoSkoll]

The biggest issue I've found with the other close combat attacks is that you waste an entire action sidestepping or doing an acrobatic role to relatively little advantage.

That is, in my mind, a core issue - that a lot of the other combat actions don't provide any real bonus.

Personally, I think that outmanoeuvring should perhaps, instead of being straight -20 penalties, play into the successive parry rule. Being attacked from the side could penalise you by one parry/dodge, the rear by two parries/dodges.
This would dramatically improve its usefulness, given a circle wouldn't just be -20 to one parry, but half to all successive parries - albeit at the cost of a chance of hitting your opponent and penalising him in the same fashion anyway.

I might, however, recommend including a test for that kind of manoeuvring and footwork, such that it didn't look like one player was standing still!

~~~~~

Given how much Infinity I've been reading & playing lately (the new expansion book came out last week), I almost wonder about restructuring some of the Face to Face dice roll mechanics to work in Inquisitor CC.

The principle with an FtF roll is basically mechanically equivalent to an opposed roll, except it's far quicker and easier to do if it's unnecessary to know by how much one player beats the other.

Basically, in an FtF, both players roll their dice such that the player who gets the highest successful roll wins the dice off.

So, if A has a 70% chance of success, and B a 55% chance:

A rolls 65, B rolls 50 - both successful, but A rolled higher.
A rolls 40, B rolls 50 - both successful, but B rolled higher.
A rolls 60, B rolls 65 - B rolled higher, but failed, so A wins the roll.
A rolls 50, B rolls 50 - both successful, but it's a tie. (A tie would normally be broken in Infinity by who had the higher modified stat, but you can change this and handle the tie however you normally would.)
A rolls 85, B rolls 80 - both failed, nothing happens. (If you still need to know which did better if both do fail, it'd still be whoever rolls higher.)

Also, in Infinity, rolling exactly the necessary number is a critical success - this which means you win the roll automatically, unless your opponent gets a critical on a higher roll. (I'd add that Infinity is a D20 game, so it's a bit more common than in Inquisitor).

This would normally be rolling between X-4 and X, but mathematically, it'd be the same to use the 01-05 band beating everything else (higher modified stat winning any ties).

This quicker, easier way to do opposed rolls could really play very nicely into Inquisitor close combat, letting parries and attacks properly roll off against each other without having to calculate "I won by three degrees, -30 to you..."
Just roll both sets of dice at once!

You could mix in something like Ynek's initiative rules (again, FtFing the rolls) - although I'd say keep it in the normal action structure, without worrying about setting aside reaction points (or whatever they were called). Give a bonus to the active character to win the initiative in their turn though...

~~~~~

...actually, this gives me a lot of ideas for the entirety of the system. I'm seriously tempted to write Infinisitor now. Now that would be one hell of a game system.

[Inquisitor Goldeneye]

Edit:- Whoops! That'll teach me to just skim the thread instead of reading it properly.

[MarcoSkoll]

That's the first version of Ynek's rules, I linked them above.

[Ynek]

The principle with an FtF roll is basically mechanically equivalent to an opposed roll, except it's far quicker and easier to do if it's unnecessary to know by how much one player beats the other.

Basically, in an FtF, both players roll their dice such that the player who gets the highest successful roll wins the dice off.

So, if A has a 70% chance of success, and B a 55% chance:

A rolls 65, B rolls 50 - both successful, but A rolled higher.
A rolls 40, B rolls 50 - both successful, but B rolled higher.
A rolls 60, B rolls 65 - B rolled higher, but failed, so A wins the roll.
A rolls 50, B rolls 50 - both successful, but it's a tie. (A tie would normally be broken in Infinity by who had the higher modified stat, but you can change this and handle the tie however you normally would.)
A rolls 85, B rolls 80 - both failed, nothing happens. (If you still need to know which did better if both do fail, it'd still be whoever rolls higher.)

Actually, as a purely hypothetical idea....

When a player spends an action making attacks in close combat, the defending player has two basic defensive choices: Either try to be quicker, and hit their opponent first, or try to parry/block/dodge/defend against the blow.

In the case of the former, the players both take a weapon skill test with all appropriate modifiers applied. If both players pass their weapon skill rolls, then both are hit. (I believe that there is a term for a simultaneous kill in fencing, but the name currently eludes me) but the player who passes with the highest dice result gets to attack first. If they take their opponent out of action, stun them, or knock them prone with this attack, then their opponent does not get to make their attack.

If the defending player chooses to make a defensive action against the blow, then it is handled as per the parrying or dodging rules of your choice.


Also, purely as a side-note, and perhaps veering off topic a little bit, I must admit that I'm not a huge fan of the idea of "degrees of success," (which are almost universally degrees of %10), because these effectively just turn the game into a D10 game rather than a D100 game. But, like I said, that's off topic. XD

[MarcoSkoll]

Actually, as a purely hypothetical idea....

That did come to mind, although I think I'd put a reasonably generous penalty on trying to make an attack when you're the defender.

As I earlier suggested though, I'd probably want to build it in as a suite of different (and valid) options, such as to get players varying things more.

Also, purely as a side-note, and perhaps veering off topic a little bit, I must admit that I'm not a huge fan of the idea of "degrees of success"

I have reservations myself, but between quibbling over getting modifiers perfect down to the last digit or just getting on with the game, the latter has my vote.

That would be one of the strengths of the method used in Infinity - when the actual number rolled is the amount the test was passed by, it's a serious time saver.
A 12 under 65 is a pass by 12. Easy.

Might be a mite uglier in Inquisitor though - keeping the probabilities square would mean treating natural roll of the target number as 0 degrees, and auto success and fail would be above/below that hit number (and would shift per roll). Still, it's still got big advantages and I'm increasingly tempted to take it on as a personal method. (Those of you who have met me will know I already do D3s my own way...)