Workshopping Close Combat

[Alyster Wick]

So I had a chance recently to play a game of Inquisitor for the first time in about three years (and was nice enough to post a battle report! http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2509.0).

There were gunfights down hallways, craven tech priests using servitors as human shields, sneaking and scanning and all manner of chicanery, it was fantastic. Except for one thing: the close combat, it was terrible. I won't get into details but I feel like everyone has their stories.

Now this has been a much discussed topic over the years so what I'd like to do is start a discussion around improving close combat. The rules just don't let it flow the way the rest of the game does unless you have stupidly high weapons skills and that is just no fun. Now I'll be covering a wide range of topics here having to do with close combat, not all of them necessarily having to do with the mechanics of combat itself (as I think there is a lot that's wrong).

HUGE DISCLAIMER: Most of my (gestating) thoughts on close combat borrow heavily from other discussions on this board and other game mechanics. Assume none of these ideas are completely original and feel free to take credit if I bring up something you've suggested (Marco, there is definitely an idea or two of yours I'll be bringing up).

To get the convo going, I have some draft rules for two of the most iconic weapons in the 40K universe: power weapons and chain weapons. Let's face it, it's unbearably lame how unimaginative the rules for these weapons are considering the depth of the rest of the game, so here it goes.

Power Weapons

Power weapons use an energy field to disrupt solid matter, allowing a weapon to more easily pierce the attackers' target. To represent this, a power weapon will roll separately for damage versus armor before applying general damage. For example:

Crude Power Weapon: d10 vs armor
Power Weapon: 2d6 vs armor
Master Crafted Power Weapon: 2d10 vs armor

This damage is spent armor only. For example, a character who rolls 7 points of damage against a character in carapace armor (value 6) negates the armor but the last point of damage is not applied to the injury total or when calculating levels of injury. If, however, the power weapon comes into contact with an unarmored location the power field die will be applied to the character as normal.

These various "strengths" of power weapon can be applied to an basic close combat weapon (master crafted short sword, crude power maul, etc). Once the damage from the field is done you apply the damage from whatever weapon received the power upgrade per usual.

My thinking: This may not be 100% according to fluff but I think it's infinitely more interesting than having a weapon that just does a lot of damage. Rules wise it following the idea of what a power weapon is actually supposed to do and makes them somewhat more interesting.

Food for Thought: I'm up in the air about leaving the damage dice in place once the upgrade is applied. Should there be an increase to the base damage that a weapon does in addition to the power field damage? Rules wise I think it makes sense when you're talking about basic characters, but the weapons may seem underpowered when facing off against Space Marines (but then that's always a problem, isn't it?).

Chain Weapons

Any blades weapon may receive the chain upgrade. When rolling for a weapon with the chain upgrade the user will roll double the normal dice allowed and only the highest rolling dice will count. (Example, a character attacks with a sword which does 2d6 damage normally. With the chain upgrade, they will roll 4d6 and select the 2 highest die when calculating damage). Additionally, for every level of damage that's done there is a 25% chance that the location will start bleeding.

My Logic: Again, chain weapons are awesome. There damage dice should reflect their uniqueness and iconic status. Just having a bunch more die being rolled seems anticlimactic. Rolling more dice and picking the highest allow for higher average damages without hugely raising the max damage. You're pretty much guaranteed some horrendous damage but there is less of a swing.

Food for Thought: Honestly, some of the same concerns I had for power weapons apply here. Is it too genericizing to have "chain weapon" be an upgrade? Am I trying to spice things up but then falling into a trap of removing their uniqueness by making it an upgrade instead?

Anyway, I'd love some feedback on this. What works, what doesn't, etc. Also, I swear that once this gets going we'll get into more talk on the actual mechanics of combat. Again, it's late in the states and I didn't want to launch into a huge diatribe on the mechanics of close combat, but I did want to get the post off the ground.

[MarcoSkoll]

Is it too genericizing to have "chain weapon" be an upgrade?

Generally, this is the plan with what I've got of the "Revised Edition" - power and chain weapons become upgrades for regular close combat weapons.

At present the draft for power weapons is Critical(10) Damage, Heavy AP, -5 Parry - which basically means all hits are critical hits* and halve armour.

* The Critical(X) mechanic means any roll with a units die of less than or equal to X is critical (whatever critical means in that context). It allows for much easier tweaking of critical chance than expecting players to keep working out 30% of a shifting target number.

Chain weapons... I forget what I made those, at least without trying to find my notes, but they were again an upgrade for a regular weapon.

[Van Helser]

As a personal rule, I don't tend to like anything that requires more dice rolling than is already called for. Things tend to get slowed down in game a bit too much.

Marco's rules are nice and streamlined. One alternative way of dealing with power weapons is that they plain ignore the first 6 points of armour on a location. Anything less than power armour doesn't stand a chance of protecting against it. Less maths once everyone cottons on to the fact that flak, mesh and carapace armour are not counted (and coming up against power armour is such a rarity that needing to do sums only comes into play rarely).

Ruaridh

[Alyster Wick]

Interesting. Marco, if you have a copy of the revised rules and could PM me about the location (I assumed you've posted it somewhere) that'd be great. I have your armory downloaded from a while back, but I only saw ranged weapons in there.

For house rules, I may settle on the following for Power Weapons:

Power Weapons ignore the first 6 points of armor. In addition, the power field generates additional damage at the following rates:

Crude: d10
Regular: 2d6
Master Crafted: 2d10 (and ignore the Unwieldy rule below)

Additionally, these weapons count as Unwieldy (hope this hasn't been used before).

Unwieldy: The weapon is large, awkward to hold, or otherwise unbalanced. Subtract 15% from its parry penalty. Additionally character suffer from a penalty of -5% to hit for every damage dice rolled (including bonuses from the power field). For example, a regular power sword does 2d6 based + 2d6 for the power field (a total of 4 dice). This means they have a -20% chance to hit in close combat.

Additionally, this penalty is reduced by 1 for every point of strength a character has over 50. So if a Strength 65 character was using a Regular Power Sword, they would suffer a -5% to hit.

****

How do those rules sound? Suitably nasty (maybe too much so?) and while there will be more physical dice being rolled they're all thrown simultaneously and are counted together (rather than a separate armor and damage roll). In the spirit of the game, most lighter armor is ignored and there's a reasonable chance that power armor will be completely ignored depending on the class of the weapon(and if someone were to field something with armor more than 10, this system feels in keeping with the rules).

I know the Unwieldy rule sounds a bit, well, unwieldy, but while it's somewhat complicated on the front end once you calculate the penalty it's pretty simple (even if one character drops their weapon and another picks it up). It's worth noting that the penalty should dovetail into what (I hope to) write soon about opposed dice rolling for combat (as opposed to the current system which makes it reaaalllly boring when two characters who aren't melee masters fight).

I'm still ruminating on Chain Weapons, more later.

[Van Helser]

Unwieldy is a fine idea, but I think all the maths required is a bit off putting. There's also the consideration that half a character's Strength is used if a weapon is being held one handed and the maths becomes even more tricky. A flat -10% to hit and parry might be fair.

As far as power field effects go, having crude/normal/advanced isn't such a bad idea, but I'd be more tempted just to have it as a fixed bonus to damage. +4/+6/+8 for example. Saves on situations where damage could be 2D6+2D10+strength bonus.

Ruaridh

[MarcoSkoll]

Interesting. Marco, if you have a copy of the revised rules and could PM me about the location (I assumed you've posted it somewhere) that'd be great. I have your armory downloaded from a while back, but I only saw ranged weapons in there.

The discussion of the "Revised Edition" is mostly going on here - http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2387.0 - but not all of the rules in progress have made it into the version that's posted there.

What the posted version covers is:
> Experimental reaction system.
This lets characters save actions to try and use them at other points in the turn, allowing characters to respond to each others actions in a more interactive fashion.

> Draft close combat mechanics.
There's no weapons in the released copy, but it heavily adjusts the available options to try and make fights more cinematic than just the active character incessantly attacking again and again. There's bigger incentive to try and out-position opponents, more possible attacks... and even the chance to try and manoeuvre the whole fight.
Really, I want to see LOTS more motion and variety. It's not a good cinematic fight if the characters aren't trashing the entire room, using the terrain and being creative.

I do however need to update the files and thread, as the version I have in my notes is considerably more advanced than the last version I posted.

[Alyster Wick]

Thanks Marco, I'll have to check that out. My schedule has been a bit nutty lately so I'm trying to focus on writing primarily as I get ideas, if I'm barking up a similar tree to what you've put together let me know and maybe I'll pause to check it out sooner rather than later.

Here's what I have together so far.

Basic Mechanics:
The close combat starts when the character with the highest initiative's turn comes up. All characters involved in the combat roll their action die for that turn. This is the number of actions they get to initiate in the close combat.

The turn begins with the character who has the highest initiative. This character announces an action and their opponent announces a reaction. From there each player rolls their die and you compare the results to see who won. The idea is that each action has two components, one is an attack and the other is, well, something else. If both characters succeed in their actions, the one who succeeded by the widest margin's attack is successful. Obviously if one succeeds and the other fails the one who succeeded win. However, if both fail then the character closest to succeeding gets their secondary action.

Some sample actions and reactions are below.

Actions:
Killing Blow: Character attacks w/ Dbl S Bonus, no secondary action (opposing player takes next action regardless of the result)

Attack and Move: Character makes a basic attack (retains control of the action if successful), secondary action is to move two inches

Corral Opponent: If successful you may move both pieces two inches (retain control of the combat and take another action)(a character who is corralled counts as having attempted a dodge for their next parry/dodge roll), secondary action is you move two inches

Attack and Goad: Make a basic attack (opposing player takes next action regardless of result), secondary action takes place regardless of success. Goad: both characters take a leadership test, if the attacking character wins by a greater margin their opponent's next action must be a Killing Blow at -10% to hit.

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This is super early on. I'm working on some thoughts about reactions (it really doesn't give the full flavor until reactions come in). The idea was to have fights be cinematic events where the action goes back and forth depending on the result of the previous action. Someone with a higher WS would be able to exercise more control but someone with a high Initiative could also make a dent based on their speed. And with secondary actions things would still move even as attacks failed (as opposed to just having two static models roll dice back and forth).

I will say that the current rules set do allow for movement during battles, but I don't feel that the current rules encourage it. By making movement a required part (largely) of any announced action it lends itself to more cinematic battles.

Thoughts? Love it, hate it? Reserving judgement?