House/Experimental Close Combat rules.

[Inquisitor Cade]

Close combat. C&C appretiated. This took a while to put together, though most of it was spent formatting the table for the forum system.

Reach:
Every weapon has a reach. This is the distance in yards that the weapon can be used at. For every yard less than the reach of a weapon there is a -10% penalty to use it, either to attack or defend. Note, minimum weapon reach is 1. You can punch a character at 1 yard distance.
E.g. at 2 yards a sword is at -10% and a spear is at -20%. A short sword suffers no penalties and a knife cannot attack.

Facing:
Any attack against a  target outside of the 90° forward arc of the attacker, or a defender who is attacked from outside this arc, need to turn to face it. This causes a -20% chance to succeed or -40% if a character needs to turn more than 90°.

Manoeuvre:
The character and any opponents that can reach him, take a Ws test. If he passes and no opponents do he may move 2 yards in any direction. If he fails and an opponent passes he may not move. If both he and all opponents fail or both he and at least one opponent passes he may advance/retreat 1 yard. While a character could technically manoeuvre about whenever they wanted, it is really only applicable when moving into or within an enemies reach.

Attacking:
A character may attack anyone (or thing) that he can reach or is no more than a yard away from being able to reach. An attack takes 1 action. First he rolls a D100 to hit. If he rolls 96-00 then he misses. If he rolls below his Ws then he may move 1 yard in any direction. After this move (or lack thereof) if he can reach his target he hits them, if not the attack is ineffective. If the attack is not successfully defended against then roll hit location. The amount that the to hit roll beat (was less than) the attackers Ws by is a positive modifier to this hit location roll. Damage is then dealt to this location.

Defending:
If a character is hit by a close combat attack, and is aware of the attacker, then he may defend immediately, out of the turn sequence. If he chooses not to then he takes damage from the hit. To defend the character rolls a D100 with a +20% chance of success- the parry penalty of the weapon.  If he rolled higher than his Ws he fails to defend (96-00 always fails), if he rolls less than his Ws he blocks and the attack fails. If he rolls less than his Ws by at least the parry penalty of his weapon then he parries or evades the attack and may also move up to a yard in any direction except towards the enemy combatants (he may not end up closer to any enemy that can reach him). If the roll beats the Ws by twice the parry penalty or more he may also counter attack, performing a normal attack on the attacker out of the turn sequence, assuming he isn't too far away. For defending against multiple attacks the Ws of the defender is halved for purposes of defending after each attempt to defend. To 'reset' his Ws he must spend an action regaining his balance or does it automatically if he is not hit for a whole turn.
If a block is achieved, then damage might be dealt to the defenders weapon (e.g. by a powersword) or if the defender is unarmed then the attack is successful but automatically hits the defenders arm rather than rolling on the to hit table.
Another character may defend if they can reach the hit character and can access the angle of attack (e.g. she is not behind the hit character or a wall etc.) though if she parries/evades she may not move away, only towards the attacker.

Charging:
Charging is moving into range of combat. A charge move allows the attacker to move 6 yards per action up to the limit of an opponent defenders reach and perform an instant attack or manoeuvre.

Brace:
A character who braces gets a single free attack against a character who charges him from the front (if they were in the forward 90° arc during any part of the turn up to and including the charge).

Combat Shooting:
Combat shooting uses Ws instead of Bs and never benefits from aiming/rested weapon etc. Weapons that weigh more than the wielders' S cannot be used in this way. Remember to halve strength for holding weapons with 1 hand.

Non Combat Actions:
If a character can reach another character who performs or attempts a normal action (I.e. not one listed above) such as aiming, walking or climbing then he gets a free, out of sequence, attack action against her. If she chooses to defend (weather or not she succeeds) then she immediately stops action she was previously performing/attempting. An example of this rule in action might be if a character walks into reach of another or attempts to walk out of reach.

Speed:
In Combat the a characters speed is not based on how quickly he think, but how fast he can swing his weapon. Speed is therefore found by S/20 + a the speed rating of the weapon they are using (e.g. 4 for a knife, 3 for a short sword or a sabre, 2 for an axe or a powersword, 1 for a chainsword or a great hammer or 0 for a powerfist or a pike).

Encumbrance:
All weapons have an encumbrance value (Enc) that adds towards the total encumbrance of the character. If the Enc of a weapon is greater than the wielders' S then the weapon is at -1 speed and -2 damage. If the character's S is 3/4 the Enc of the weapon or less then the weapon is instead at a -2 speed and -5 damage. If the S is less than half the Enc of the weapon then the penalty is -3 speed and -10 damage. If a character wields a weapon 1 handed and is strong enough to do it without penalty, then he may use the weapon at +1 reach.

Damage:
Each weapon has a base damage value. To this is added S/20 of the wielder (halving S for 1 hand).

Weapons:

Weapon	Damage	Reach	Speed	Parry penalty	Enc
Knife1	D6+1	1	4	-10%	5
Short sword1	D10+1	2	3	-10%	15
Sword1	2D6+1	3	2	-15%	25
Bastard sword1	3D6	3	2	-20%	35
Great sword1	2D10	4	1	-20%	55
Glaive1	2D6	5	1	-25%	45
Improvised club	D10-1	2	2	-20%	20
Axe1	3D6	2	2	-20%	25
Great axe1	2D10+2	3	1	-25%	60
Halberd/poleaxe1	3D6+1	4	1	-25%	45
Mace	2D10-1	2	2	-15%	20
Heavy mace	2D10+1	2	1	-20%	45
Great mace	3D10	3	0	-25%	65
Hammer2	3D6+1	2	2	-20%	30
Great Hammer2	2D10+3	3	1	-25%	60
Long hammer2	3D6+2	4	1	-25%	50
Staff	2D6-1	4	3	-10%	25
Short spear1	D10	4	2	-20%	30
Spear1	D10	5	1	-20%	35
Pike1	D10+1	6	0	-25%	45
Trident1, 4	D10	5	1	-25%	40
Gauntlet	D6	1	4	-5%	5
Claws1,4	D6	1	4	-10%	10
Whip3	D6-1	4	0	-30%	10
Ball and chain3	3D10	4	-1	-35%	65 to use, 45 to carry
Flail3,4	D6+2	3	1	-25%	30
Pistol5	D6-1	1	3	-35%	0-19
Heavy pistol5	D6+1	1	2	-35%	20+
Rifle5	2D6-1	2 or 3	1	-25%	0-39
Heavy rifle5	2D6+1	2 or 3	0	-30%	40+
Bayonet5,6	+1	+1	+1	+5%	+5

Notes:
1:Blade weapons (swords, axes, spears) count armour as 1/3rd less than it really is.
2:Hammers count as doing double damage for purposes of knock back.
3:Loose weapons are at -20% to defend against
4:Flails, claws and tridents inflict D3 hits
5:These are guidelines only, reach depends on the model.
6:Bayonets that aren't attached to weapons count as knives. Upgrades to the damage of bayonets affect the whole damage, not just the bonus provided by the bayonet.

Upgrades in order of decreasing rarity:

Rune - any.
If damage is dealt after reductions for armour etc. then on a successful Wp test from the attacker the victim adds 6D6 damage to their injury total.

Force - any.
If damage is dealt after reductions for armour etc. then on a successful Wp test from the attacker the victim adds 5D6 damage to their injury total.

Agoniser - any
Anyone who takes damage after deductions for armour etc. must test for system shock.

Thunder - hammers.
For every full turn, up to a maximum of 6, that the weapon does not deal damage to anything before an attack, the damage dealt is increased by 1 damage die.

Power - any.
Does + 1 damage die and ignores half the armour value (stacks with blades e.g. a powersword hitting carapace armour will halve the Av then take away a third, 6 to 3 to 2). The parry penalty of the weapon suffers by an additional -5% and the Enc increases by 5.

Servoes - gauntlets and claws.
-4 speed, triples damage including damage from other upgrades, -10% parry penalty, + 60 Enc. The arm counts as S 80

Fencing - any weapon with reach 2 or more.
-3 damage, +1 speed and -5 Enc

Shock - any.
+5 Enc. Anyone hit after deductions for cover and force fields (but not armour) must pass a T test or is stunned for that turn.

Vibro - bladed and spiked
+5 Enc. +2 damage. Increases armour penetration to ignore 1/2 the Av.

Lacerator - non-bladed
Any location that takes damage after reductions for armour etc. automatically starts bleeding.

Chain - bladed and spiked.
Doubles the base damage of the weapon. Automatically causes bleeding if any damage is done after reductions for armour etc. Increased the Enc by half, -5% parry penalty and -1 speed.

Duelling - any.
-1 damage, +5% parry penalty.

Spiked - non-bladed weapons only.
-2 damage, counts as bladed for armour reduction.

[Carados]

Some different types of armour would be nice, to offset some of the bonuses some weapons get 

[Simeon Blackstar]

I know what you're getting at with the whole speed thing, but it leads to the crazy situation of where something like an Ogryn (strong but thick) is attacking faster than an Eldar Aspect Warrior (not so strong, but very fast).  Also, how do you switch between normal and close combat speed when charging into combat/finishing close combat?

The weapons profiles/modifications all look pretty good (though you mean increasing availability or decreasing rarity).  Rune and Force weapons look really nasty (as they should), though perhaps an opposed test would be appropriate.  Agonisers aren't Imperial tech, so I'm not sure how their availability should compare to force and rune weapons.  Lacerator is for non-bladed?  Spiked reduces damage?  Thunder weapon should specify time since last hit, as swiping and having the hammer parried/dodged wouldn't discharge it.

Other than that, this is good stuff!

[MarcoSkoll]

It's an interesting system, but I can see places to improve.

Firstly, combat speed.

While it's an interesting idea, thinking fast is important in combat (at least for parrying), and strength should only really come into play with the heavier weapons.

Personally, I'd suggest that speed in combat was calculated from a modified Initiative stat. At a very quick fudge, I'd suggest that if the character's Strength is less than twice their weapon's weight, you subtract the difference from their Initiative and recalculate speed from there.

~~~~~

Now, that makes me think. As thinking fast is important for parrying, perhaps there's some way the character's speed can be built into the sequence of reducing WS for successive parries, so a fast character finds a long sequence of parries easier than a slow character.

I'll need to think on that one to avoid a clunky system.

~~~~~

I can't really agree with the blade armour reduction. After all, one of the best weapons to use against a plate armoured soldier was a hammer, because it wasn't necessary to penetrate the armour to do damage.

I don't know whether you're familiar with the (somewhat indy) video game Mount and Blade, but it has an interesting enough damage system, that defines damage as Cutting, Piercing, or Blunt. Piercing or Blunt attacks ignore some armour, but tend to have a lower damage.

Things like Swords can be Cutting (if swung) or Piercing (if thrusting). So, a decent sword might be 30C / 28P, and the player chooses which attack to use at each time.

Damage is randomised from half to the full value of the weapon's damage value, with that random roll affected by the character's skill stat with that weapon.

The value is then multiplied by a "speed modifier", which is calculated from the time in the swing the attack hits (nearest the middle being best), distance to target (closer being worse, because you haven't the room to swing the weapon), and relative movements of targets. So, a well timed swing at near maximum reach with your speed added to the swing is better than a poor swing at close range at a target moving with the direction of your blade.

This "base damage" is then modified for armour. A cutting weapon will have a random number from half to the full armour value on the location subtracted. A piercing or blunt weapon will have a quarter to one half of the armour subtracted.
(It's then further reduced by a percentage based on the armour value, but that's less relevant here.)

Generally, this means that versus heavily armoured targets, a blunt or piercing weapon will do more damage... the downside is that it's harder to hit with them (they're heavier/slower, or you can't just swing in a wide arc)

Either way, there's some potential for the idea to be modified for Inquisitor. Things like a player can decide whether a sword wielding model can swing or thrust (although of course, some swords wouldn't allow both) - where swinging is higher base damage and easier to hit with; and thrusting is lower damage, but ignores some armour.

You could also add some damage bonus for a healthy margin of success on a hit roll.

~~~~~

On a similar note, I would note that I'm not keen on power weapons being represented with armour reductions - that's an abstraction for 40k.

~~~~~

Still, an idea with merits.

[Inquisitor Cade]

Cheers for looking at it.

Some different types of armour would be nice, to offset some of the bonuses some weapons get

I hope to create some house rules about armour at some point, but for now I'm just looking at close combat.

omething like an Ogryn (strong but thick) is attacking faster than an Eldar Aspect Warrior (not so strong, but very fast).

True, but I'd have thought that if it came to beating a tree with a stick for example, the stronger ogryn would be able to hit it at a faster rate, more obviously if it was a very big, heavy stick they both had to use. In an actualy fight, the grace and speed of the eldar would tell from the difference in Ws, and that the Eldar would almost certainly have a lighter, faster weapon.

Also, how do you switch between normal and close combat speed when charging into combat/finishing close combat?

I copped out of answering this one as it is already a problem in the LRB (daemonswords with deflection) I'm going to say GM discreation.

though you mean increasing availability or decreasing rarity

Oh yeah, whoops.

perhaps an opposed test would be appropriate.

I disagree as the force weapon isn't trying to control thevictims mind, only unleash terrible energies upon it. If the weilder can channel the energy into the weapon, there isn't much the victim can do about it, or at least that's my understanding.

Lacerator is for non-bladed?

Yeah, the idea is that there are a multitude of small blades on the surface of the blunt weapon, not long enough to give it much penetrating power, but they will tear through skin. The LRB Lacerator is a gauntlet type weapon.

Spiked reduces damage?

They sacrifice some of the impact trauma for added ability to cut through armour.

Thunder weapon should specify time since last hit, as swiping and having the hammer parried/dodged wouldn't discharge it.

Fair point.

Updating original post now...

[Inquisitor Cade]

Your arguments are compelling, I'll have a look at rethinking the speed, but want to avoid my normal weakness to making systems unusably complex.

By the sounds of it I should go through the weapons and reverse them, so blades get the higher damage and blunt ignore some armour. I'll do this when I have a bit more time. In an ideal world I would impliment a peircing type attack as well, but again fear I wouldn't keep it simple.

I think that the force field that surrounds a powersword would act to disrupt/destroy the armour before the actual weapon comes into contact, so in practice cutting into something would be easier. The effect on flesh however wouldn't be as improved as flesh doesn't put up much resistance anyway. cutting your finger on a powerblade for example would be fairly equvalent to cutting it on a normal blade, compaired to, say, cutting it on a chainblade.

[MarcoSkoll]

In an ideal world I would implement a piercing type attack as well, but again fear I wouldn't keep it simple.

Well, it's not too much trouble to give a weapon two profiles which a character can choose between.
It could even be as simple as ruling bladed (or other appropriate weapons) weapons can make an attack at -X damage, -Y% to hit, but ignoring some armour.

Cutting your finger on a powerblade for example would be fairly equivalent to cutting it on a normal blade, compared to, say, cutting it on a chainblade.

Skin is actually fairly tough. Ignoring dragging your finger along a blade (which changes matters), you either need something very sharp, or with quite a bit of energy behind it.

I can set my finger on a sharp blade without harm - I can even push down with quite a bit of force. If I had a power knife (or indeed, a monomolecular blade), I couldn't hope to replicate the feat.

Still, even if we do differentiate between a power weapon's damage on soft and hard object, injury is not just about injury to flesh. Bone, if you will.
If you try cutting bone with a mundane blade, you'll likely fail. You might smash it if you swung hard enough, but cutting it is a no go. However, a power weapon would excel. And being able to notably damage bone is a whole heap more injury to inflict on your foes.

So, really, I prefer to see power weapons as more damage, not less armour.

[Carados]

Quote from: Inquisitor Cade on Today at 03:41:40 PM
In an ideal world I would implement a piercing type attack as well, but again fear I wouldn't keep it simple.

Well, it's not too much trouble to give a weapon two profiles which a character can choose between.
It could even be as simple as ruling bladed (or other appropriate weapons) weapons can make an attack at -X damage, -Y% to hit, but ignoring some armour.

You could always just create 3 different attack 'modes' as you will.

Thrush, Cut and Whack 
Combine it with certain types of armour, such as Mail and Plate and you have a somewhat simple system that adds a bit of spice.

Perhaps you should do away with changing the damage based on what it does, and instead give bonuses/penalties to the armour.  I'm no armour nut so I'll have to use the plate example.  Having plate armour would add eg. +3 to the armour value if hit by a thrush or cut attack.  Against something that whacks however, there is a negative modifier, perhaps -1 or maybe -3.

No need to mess about with all the weapons that way except denoting what type of attacks it can do.

Yeh? No? Go away? 

[MarcoSkoll]

You could always just create 3 different attack 'modes' as you will. Thrust, Cut and Whack

Well, it's probably better to keep it to something that actually describes the form of damage, not the type of attack, because then you can apply it to ranged weapons as well.

For example, bows in Mount and Blade are piercing weapons. (Throwing rocks however is blunt damage.)

You can actually spider this into what Inquisitor has already started to do. If you look at what I've done with the Revised Armoury, I've defined some classes of weapon as "Heat" or "Laser"... basically, whether it's affected by Ceramite or Reflec armour.

Inquisitor already has some definition in there for damage types versus armour - while it would require a certain amount of rewriting, taking that a little further wouldn't prove too pressing on the system.

Indeed, with the right attack types, you could possibly actually unify things a bit - simply deem any "Armour piercing ammunition" to have the piercing characteristic, and go from there.

[Carados]

You could always just create 3 different attack 'modes' as you will. Thrust, Cut and Whack

Well, it's probably better to keep it to something that actually describes the form of damage, not the type of attack, because then you can apply it to ranged weapons as well.

For example, bows in Mount and Blade are piercing weapons. (Throwing rocks however is blunt damage.)

That was bad of me... I was intending to use those terms, I just wasn't sure whether cut was an appropriate name or not for the third (blunt and piercing being the others).  Either way, if we want to keep things simple then we can give, for example, give a sword the ability to do both cutting and piercing damage - declaring which type before attacking.  The damage, parry penalty etc. could remain the same but the actual damage done in practical terms is determined by the armour (if any) that it happens to hit.

[MarcoSkoll]

That was bad of me... I was intending to use those terms, I just wasn't sure whether cut was an appropriate name or not for the third.

Perhaps not, but it's standard for M&B. For our cases, "standard" is probably better.

You could then categorise damage something like this:

Kinetic Damage:
- "Standard" damage is the default.
- "Piercing" is any damage with a propensity for penetrating armour (possibly with various levels...)
- "Blunt" is anything that doesn't need to pierce armour to do damage.

Energy Damage:
- "Heat" is things that do damage via heat.
- "Laser" is any weapons that do damage via coherent electromagnetic radiation.
- "Electrical" would be things like the Death Arc and Shock Weapons

I'm just musing really. Do with it what you will.

[The_fire_cleans]

Hmm, interesting. It looks quite good, seems a lot more realistic, as far as my experience of bladed combat goes.

I concur with marco about the speed thing. when fencing against someone stronger than me, unless I'm not strong enough to wield my blade effectively, the speed is entirely from reflex and practice, actual physical strength having a minimal effect. Though actually, when parrying strength is really important. When  someone is attempting to pound your head in with a hammer, simply placing your sword against the handle of the hammer really wont cut it.
Also, with the step from a parry, its entirely possible to step forwards after a parry assuming your parry actually worked. Its actually quite a common stratagem if your opponent has a greater reach than you.
finally, the reach=yard argument seems a little implausible to me: a sword gives about a yard on to how far you can lunge anyway. either you need to change the reach values, and perhaps have a yard = 2 reach or have it slightly abstracted, where small but important differences are magnified.
Oh, as an aside, it would be great if there was more variation in sword than simply short, normal or falchion? is it a slick fast yamoto or little more than a sharpened lump of metal?

IMO:
keep speed from initiative, and have a penalty to speed if the weapon is heavier than the characters strength/20.
have a penalty to your parry equal to the difference in strength between the characters if yours is lower, perhaps with hammers etc giving a bonus to this.
allow free movement is a parries reaction, someone only retreats after a parry if they feel that they are going to be squished if they step forwards.
Have 2 reach = 1 yard, with >4 values of reach being possible

Oh, BTW, in combat it would be easier, rather than incorporate initiative into WS somehow, just let the people designing the characters account for that when writing the stats. how much your speed would improve your capacity to fight well depends on your style.

[Radu Lykan]

 i like the way this is going, the cutting/piercing/blunt combination from mount and blade works well in the pc game(great game if you havent tried it, cant wait for multiplayer expansion ) and i see no reason for it not to in the "real" world environment of inquisitor.

[Inquisitor Cade]

its entirely possible to step forwards after a parry assuming your parry actually worked. Its actually quite a common stratagem if your opponent has a greater reach than you.

I was thinking that this would be a special ability.

I'm working on a second draft, but it might be a week or two in the making.

[MarcoSkoll]

finally, the reach=yard argument seems a little implausible to me: a sword gives about a yard on to how far you can lunge anyway. either you need to change the reach values, and perhaps have a yard = 2 reach or have it slightly abstracted, where small but important differences are magnified.

Usually, I work out reach based on each unit of reach being roughly a foot of weapon length, with 4 feet and above being reach 4.

Oh, as an aside, it would be great if there was more variation in sword than simply short, normal or falchion? is it a slick fast yamoto or little more than a sharpened lump of metal?

That can probably be built in from Helst and Charax's Close combat weapon customisation.

have a penalty to your parry equal to the difference in strength between the characters if yours is lower, perhaps with hammers etc giving a bonus to this.

Interesting idea. Parrying against a Space Marine's swings would be damned near impossible for most people, and they'd be better dodged. I might make it half the strength difference so that characters aren't too strongly penalised for having modest strength, but I like that idea.

That said, if hammers make parrying harder, I might make staves better at parrying strong characters, because you can get a much wider and more solid grip on a staff to make it easier.

i like the way this is going, the cutting/piercing/blunt combination from mount and blade works well in the pc game(great game if you havent tried it).

Actually, on that note, I'd mention that M&B can be downloaded as a free trial version (with characters limited to Lvl 6 or 30 in-game days, unless you then buy a licence), so anyone who's interested in the how the mechanics play could download it to poke at it.

My suggestion is that it's probably easier to pick up the basics of the game at around Beta v0.808 (roughly when I got into it) - an easier learning curve, and also a fifth of the download size to boot. So, if you just want to poke, I suggest digging up a Beta - which will give you the basic idea. If you decide you like it, you can get the full version later on.