Alternate Core Documents

[Zepheniah]

Now, the current "Parry" system is rather clunky and involves a lot of dice-rolling and I've been thinking about how to simplify and remedy that.
Consequently I have come up with this suggestion, which eliminates a great deal of dice-rolls, is simple and is easy to remember.

"For 15AP an enemy that attacks you with a melee or unarmed attack receives -5%, plus half your melee or unarmed skill as a penalty on that attack, rounded to the nearest five."

Comparisons: (attacker vs defender)

Spoiler: show

Old:
100 vs 100 Skill (Opposed roll 50%. +10 bonus to the defender gives 5%.)
--> effective % to hit: 45% (100*45%)
New:
100 vs 100 Skill (Chance to hit is reduced by 55%.)
--> effective % to hit: 45%

Old:
50 vs 50 Skill (Opposed roll 50%. +10 bonus to the defender gives +10%)
--> effective % to hit: 20% (50*40%)
New:
50 vs 50 Skill (Chance to hit is reduced by 30%.)
--> effective % to hit: 20%

Old:
50 vs 100 Skill (Opposed roll 75%. +10 bonus to the defender makes it 77%)
--> effective % to hit: ~12% (50*40%)
New:
50 vs 100 Skill (Chance to hit is reduced by 55%.)
--> effective % to hit: -5% (basically hit on a roll of LCK or lower, depending on GM ruling)

Old:
100 vs 50 Skill (Opposed roll 25%. +10 bonus to the defender makes it 30%)
--> effective % to hit: 70% (100*70%)
New:
100 vs 50 Skill (Chance to hit is reduced by 30%.)
--> effective % to hit: 70%

The above shows that while defense can be near impenetrable at times, however, to counter-balance the power of this modified effect, it only applies per attack, rather than per enemy. (Optionally if the 'per attack' seems too harsh, you could lower the AP cost to 10AP)
Plus, 50 vs 100 is an average combatant attempting to hit what's essentially the skill-level of a martial arts master.
Overall this method would eliminate about 2/3rds of all dice-rolls involving parry and making it a more desirable mechanic to actually use as it won't bog down combat nearly as much.

As an aside, the perks that refer to parry would work just fine in this system with a little re-wording.

Spoiler: show

Unstoppable Hoof - "You may ignore the first parry-action against you, once per turn."

Wall of Whirling Blades - "If you attempt to parry an attack and it hits you, you may force the attacker to re-roll the attack once per turn."

I would appreciate comments and feedback.

[TyrannisUmbra]

I don't really agree that it bogs down combat very much at all. The only time I've ever seen people stumble over parrying is when they don't read the rules and stop the game to go "Wait what are you guys doing?"

And... your suggested change kinda ruins the whole theme of parrying. As an opposed roll, you're deflecting your attacks by virtue of how good you are with a weapon -- when you succeed, you feel like, "Aww yeah, my character is amazing!" I can't help but feel that your suggested remake would detract from that. Instead of feeling like your character is amazing, failure would make you feel terrible because your opponent's /too/ good. Removing your opposed roll takes the responsibility out of your hands. Instead of you being the reason your character succeeds or fails, your opponent becomes the reason.

And to be honest... rolling the dice is simpler and takes less time than trying to figure out how much of a penalty the opponent gets.

Maybe it would be a decent alternative to the current method, but I /really/ don't want to replace the system we have (Which feels absolutely amazing and fun to use!) with one that doesn't have nearly the same amazing feel to it. Maybe it could be listed as an alternative, but I just... don't think the current system should stop being the main system.

[Zepheniah]

I don't really agree that it bogs down combat very much at all. The only time I've ever seen people stumble over parrying is when they don't read the rules and stop the game to go "Wait what are you guys doing?"

As a rule of thumb in my years of PnPing, one of the cardinal rules that I've learned is that the less periphery dice-rolling, the smoother, the better. This is as much to reduce the strain on the GM as it is to speed up combat by reducing the amount of recursive dice that have to be rolled.

And to be honest... rolling the dice is simpler and takes less time than trying to figure out how much of a penalty the opponent gets.

No. Figuring out a flat value once per level is much, much simpler and faster than making an opposed roll every single time you're attacked by an enemy that you're parrying.

And... your suggested change kinda ruins the whole theme of parrying. As an opposed roll, you're deflecting your attacks by virtue of how good you are with a weapon -- when you succeed, you feel like, "Aww yeah, my character is amazing!" I can't help but feel that your suggested remake would detract from that. Instead of feeling like your character is amazing, failure would make you feel terrible because your opponent's /too/ good. Removing your opposed roll takes the responsibility out of your hands. Instead of you being the reason your character succeeds or fails, your opponent becomes the reason.

You're addressing the 'feel' of the system without ever using it, which is silly, not to mention that being at 'master' levels in unarmed lets you reduce lower-tier attackers to next to 0% chance to hit by parrying them sounds like the kind of "Aww yeah, my character is amazing!" that you're personally looking for in the parry mechanic.

[TyrannisUmbra]

As a rule of thumb in my years of PnPing, one of the cardinal rules that I've learned is that the less periphery dice-rolling, the smoother, the better. This is as much to reduce the strain on the GM as it is to speed up combat by reducing the amount of recursive dice that have to be rolled.

And in my time, the number of dice rolls hasn't been enough of a problem to warrant such a drastic change, even when playing with people who have never played a PNP in their life, in a system with a lot of dice rolls. This is one of the biggest problems I have with these types of changes -- the people that they cater to tend to be the type that need to be handheld through everything anyway. Removing dice rolls and replacing them with other, just as complex mechanics is not going to solve the problem.

I'd also like to point out that out of all my games, the only people that actually end up using most of the advanced combat actions beyond precise shots and aiming at body parts are the people who don't need to have their hands held -- they all tend to produce any needed rolls immediately, without needing to be told what to do. There's no holdup, at all.

No. Figuring out a flat value once per level is much, much simpler and faster than making an opposed roll every single time you're attacked by an enemy that you're parrying.

It's most definitely not that clear-cut. There's enough temporary bonuses and maluses that in pretty much /every/ combat, somebody is going to have different skills. And at this point, it's not on the player to remember someone's parry 'bonus', it's on the GM, who needs to factor the bonuses into his offensive rolls. Even if the numbers are always the same for a level, the enemies you're fighting are always going to be different from enemy to enemy. Not to mention that rolling a dice takes only seconds, no matter who rolls it. It's literally the fastest action you can do when playing PNP. No matter how you slice it, you're replacing something quick and simple with something that requires math -- and while I usually don't balk at math in the PNP, in this case it's completely unnecessary.

And... simpler math has been removed from the PNP in the past simply on the basis that 'math is bad'.

You're addressing the 'feel' of the system without ever using it, which is silly, not to mention that being at 'master' levels in unarmed lets you reduce lower-tier attackers to next to 0% chance to hit by parrying them sounds like the kind of "Aww yeah, my character is amazing!" that you're personally looking for in the parry mechanic.

I've designed PNP systems in the past, and have played with many different rulesets. As a general rule of thumb, a mechanic that requires a player to become actively involved is much more fun than a mechanic that just 'happens' without any input.

Bleh, I'm sorry if I sound harsh, parry is just one of my favorite advanced combat mechanics, and I'm very attached to the way it works in its current incarnation.

[Zepheniah]

As a rule of thumb in my years of PnPing, one of the cardinal rules that I've learned is that the less periphery dice-rolling, the smoother, the better. This is as much to reduce the strain on the GM as it is to speed up combat by reducing the amount of recursive dice that have to be rolled.

And in my time, the number of dice rolls hasn't been enough of a problem to warrant such a drastic change, even when playing with people who have never played a PNP in their life, in a system with a lot of dice rolls. This is one of the biggest problems I have with these types of changes -- the people that they cater to tend to be the type that need to be handheld through everything anyway. Removing dice rolls and replacing them with other, just as complex mechanics is not going to solve the problem.

I'd also like to point out that out of all my games, the only people that actually end up using most of the advanced combat actions beyond precise shots and aiming at body parts are the people who don't need to have their hands held -- they all tend to produce any needed rolls immediately, without needing to be told what to do. There's no holdup, at all.

"The people that know what they're doing know what they're doing." Yes, that's perfectly accurate.
Now, like I mentioned before, this is designed with speed and the GM in mind. Rolling opposed rolls for multiple attacks quickly can become a hassle to compare the results, before the GM can even type out the green/blue text IC.
Combat is fun and combat is more fun if you get to actually do things more often. As such, the suggested mechanic is designed to be easily understandable by everyone, require a minimum of number-comparisons and is condensed into a single roll of the dice, rather than three.

No. Figuring out a flat value once per level is much, much simpler and faster than making an opposed roll every single time you're attacked by an enemy that you're parrying.

It's most definitely not that clear-cut. There's enough temporary bonuses and maluses that in pretty much /every/ combat, somebody is going to have different skills. And at this point, it's not on the player to remember someone's parry 'bonus', it's on the GM, who needs to factor the bonuses into his offensive rolls. Even if the numbers are always the same for a level, the enemies you're fighting are always going to be different from enemy to enemy. Not to mention that rolling a dice takes only seconds, no matter who rolls it. It's literally the fastest action you can do when playing PNP. No matter how you slice it, you're replacing something quick and simple with something that requires math -- and while I usually don't balk at math in the PNP, in this case it's completely unnecessary.

And... simpler math has been removed from the PNP in the past simply on the basis that 'math is bad'.

Since the GM would be the one to check or apply those things, he would be easily aware of any bonuses or maluses his players have and just note them down on whatever document or sheet he uses to track combat.
For example if a character takes buck, which grants her +6 unarmed skill from the END bonus, that character's chance to parry goes up by +5%, up to the maximum of 55%. It's noted down once by the GM and everything continues as normal.

You're addressing the 'feel' of the system without ever using it, which is silly, not to mention that being at 'master' levels in unarmed lets you reduce lower-tier attackers to next to 0% chance to hit by parrying them sounds like the kind of "Aww yeah, my character is amazing!" that you're personally looking for in the parry mechanic.

I've designed PNP systems in the past, and have played with many different rulesets. As a general rule of thumb, a mechanic that requires a player to become actively involved is much more fun than a mechanic that just 'happens' without any input.

Bleh, I'm sorry if I sound harsh, parry is just one of my favorite advanced combat mechanics, and I'm very attached to the way it works in its current incarnation.

While I agree with the sentiment that 'player involvement = good', combat mechanics aren't often as clear cut. The basis for this system comes from D&D's 'Armor Class', which could be raised and lowered, based on the defender's agility. A 'miss' in D&D is more often than not a parry of some sort and even while the 3.5e and similar d20 systems for example are heavily focused on combat as one of the, if not the, main modus of fun. Notably it's also primarily focused on melee combat, but instead of introducing additional dice-rolls for simply attacking, it makes the whole thing fun through player input via positioning, giving bonuses for smart movement, flanking and such. Outsmarting and outmaneuvering your adversaries is very arguably more fun than charging head-on and hoping you roll higher than them on a d100.

[TyrannisUmbra]

"The people that know what they're doing know what they're doing." Yes, that's perfectly accurate.
Now, like I mentioned before, this is designed with speed and the GM in mind. Rolling opposed rolls for multiple attacks quickly can become a hassle to compare the results, before the GM can even type out the green/blue text IC.
Combat is fun and combat is more fun if you get to actually do things more often. As such, the suggested mechanic is designed to be easily understandable by everyone, require a minimum of number-comparisons and is condensed into a single roll of the dice, rather than three.

The people the change would most affect are the people who don't need the change. Additionally... It's not three rolls, only two: The attack roll, and the parry roll.

Like I pointed out before, the people who use parry, as well as the majority of advanced combat techniques, tend not to be the people that need the game simplified. The people who most use them are the ones that are quick and on the ball, and combat goes extremely quickly with advanced combat actions flying around. There were parries going on in my most recent session without skipping a beat. As for the GMs, each GM I've seen in action is only tripped up when they don't fully understand the mechanics, and quickly get faster within the next few sessions -- something which is the same no matter what the mechanics are. The speed issue is an issue of "What is this, I've never seen it before," not an issue of "This is complicated and tedious."

Since the GM would be the one to check or apply those things, he would be easily aware of any bonuses or maluses his players have and just note them down on whatever document or sheet he uses to track combat.
For example if a character takes buck, which grants her +6 unarmed skill from the END bonus, that character's chance to parry goes up by +5%, up to the maximum of 55%. It's noted down once by the GM and everything continues as normal.

Uhhh, what GMs do you play with that control player buffs and debuffs like that? The players themselves are the ones making notes on their sheets and changing values for every game I've ever seen or been a part of. With opposed roll parry, the players are the ones who need to know their own character's stats, since they're the ones making the opposed roll -- with attack penalty parry, the GM needs to know the players' stats (Or the players need to know the NPC's stats, which is another huge problem entirely, and one more likely to hold up the game), because the GM's the one controlling NPC rolls. Penalty-parry places the players' burden on the GM, whereas opposed-parry places it on the players, distributing responsibility. The players can simultaneously do their combat rolls while the GM does his, and that's pretty damn quick, since the players who are parrying in the first place are the players that don't need to be prompted on their rolls.

While I agree with the sentiment that 'player involvement = good', combat mechanics aren't often as clear cut. The basis for this system comes from D&D's 'Armor Class', which could be raised and lowered, based on the defender's agility. A 'miss' in D&D is more often than not a parry of some sort and even while the 3.5e and similar d20 systems for example are heavily focused on combat as one of the, if not the, main modus of fun. Notably it's also primarily focused on melee combat, but instead of introducing additional dice-rolls for simply attacking, it makes the whole thing fun through player input via positioning, giving bonuses for smart movement, flanking and such. Outsmarting and outmaneuvering your adversaries is very arguably more fun than charging head-on and hoping you roll higher than them on a d100.

Armor class is a pretty terrible and broken mechanic. I've spent a LOT of my time with groups of people trying to design a way to replace AC with a less broken system entirely. People break AC on a daily basis, making unkillable characters. The idea of the rogue tank is the example of what is wrong with the system, and why it should not be used as a model for 'good gameplay'.

Also, the reason penalty-based combat is a bad thing is because it's inherently frustrating for the player. Rolling your dice and failing the attack because while you rolled high enough to hit by a good margin, something out of your control caused a penalty that means you miss. On the opposite end, someone rolls a high enough margin and it might as well have been pointless to even try to parry -- in fact, it feels like a complete waste because in that case, they wouldn't have ever been able to be parried in the first place. At least with the current mechanics, you always have the chance to succeed, even if it's small. The current dodge mechanics have the same problem: It feels absolutely terrible when you spend AP to dodge only to have it not matter, which happens a lot with that mechanic. I think out of all the times I've made use of the mechanic, one attack was within the range of the dodge penalty to become a miss. And even then it didn't feel good. The reaction was more like, "Finally, I guess once every 50 times is how often I can expect it to work!"

When a major mechanic becomes a passive number, it stops being something a player can call 'theirs', instead becoming something detached, something that just 'happens' or just 'is'. Dice rolls are 'your' number, because you rolled it. The GM didn't roll it, it wasn't just a figure on your character sheet. Once that number is 'yours', that's when you start thinking things in terms of 'I' and 'me' instead of 'the game' and 'the enemies'. That's the point when a player gets enjoyment from combat. When they can proudly say, "I did that!" Not when they say, "My numbers did that."

[Zepheniah]

The people the change would most affect are the people who don't need the change. Additionally... It's not three rolls, only two: The attack roll, and the parry roll.

Like I pointed out before, the people who use parry, as well as the majority of advanced combat techniques, tend not to be the people that need the game simplified. The people who most use them are the ones that are quick and on the ball, and combat goes extremely quickly with advanced combat actions flying around. There were parries going on in my most recent session without skipping a beat. As for the GMs, each GM I've seen in action is only tripped up when they don't fully understand the mechanics, and quickly get faster within the next few sessions -- something which is the same no matter what the mechanics are. The speed issue is an issue of "What is this, I've never seen it before," not an issue of "This is complicated and tedious."

I'm noticing a pattern of up-front dismissal, followed by anecdotes.
The thing with advanced combat actions as opposed to parrying is that they cost a lot of AP to perform and hence don't take up as much time as other, simpler actions.
The problem with parry is, which is what would be what's eating up time, is that it's a very cheap action, involving additional rolls for each attack the enemy performs, per enemy. That can turn into a lot of rolls really fast.
-->In the last session your were fighting one enemy. That's not a good pool of reference for how well the current parry works, because the whole problem with the current parry system is that it gets bogged down more rapidly, the more opponents are involved.

Uhhh, what GMs do you play with that control player buffs and debuffs like that? The players themselves are the ones making notes on their sheets and changing values for every game I've ever seen or been a part of. With opposed roll parry, the players are the ones who need to know their own character's stats, since they're the ones making the opposed roll -- with attack penalty parry, the GM needs to know the players' stats (Or the players need to know the NPC's stats, which is another huge problem entirely, and one more likely to hold up the game), because the GM's the one controlling NPC rolls. Penalty-parry places the players' burden on the GM, whereas opposed-parry places it on the players, distributing responsibility. The players can simultaneously do their combat rolls while the GM does his, and that's pretty damn quick, since the players who are parrying in the first place are the players that don't need to be prompted on their rolls.

A GM shouldn't exclusively track his players by looking at their sheets whenever he needs to and rather have the important info jotted down just like he has with his NPCs.

Armor class is a pretty terrible and broken mechanic. I've spent a LOT of my time with groups of people trying to design a way to replace AC with a less broken system entirely. People break AC on a daily basis, making unkillable characters. The idea of the rogue tank is the example of what is wrong with the system, and why it should not be used as a model for 'good gameplay'.

Armor Class is far from an optimal mechanic, yes. I realize that and that's why it's only loosely based on AC, using it as an example of a combat-centric system of defense doing away with superfluous parry rolls.
Yes, stacking bonuses ad nauseum breaks the game. That's not news. That's the kind of thing GMs crack down on and the kind of thing that responsible players just don't do.

Also, the reason penalty-based combat is a bad thing is because it's inherently frustrating for the player. Rolling your dice and failing the attack because while you rolled high enough to hit by a good margin, something out of your control caused a penalty that means you miss. On the opposite end, someone rolls a high enough margin and it might as well have been pointless to even try to parry -- in fact, it feels like a complete waste because in that case, they wouldn't have ever been able to be parried in the first place. At least with the current mechanics, you always have the chance to succeed, even if it's small. The current dodge mechanics have the same problem: It feels absolutely terrible when you spend AP to dodge only to have it not matter, which happens a lot with that mechanic. I think out of all the times I've made use of the mechanic, one attack was within the range of the dodge penalty to become a miss. And even then it didn't feel good. The reaction was more like, "Finally, I guess once every 50 times is how often I can expect it to work!"

Rolling so high that it becomes pointless to parry is something that is an issue in the current system, not the suggested revision.
Getting parried by an enemy that happened to roll high is the exact same as happening to roll within the 'parry-margin' on your attack and both are entirely out of your control.

When a major mechanic becomes a passive number, it stops being something a player can call 'theirs', instead becoming something detached, something that just 'happens' or just 'is'. Dice rolls are 'your' number, because you rolled it. The GM didn't roll it, it wasn't just a figure on your character sheet. Once that number is 'yours', that's when you start thinking things in terms of 'I' and 'me' instead of 'the game' and 'the enemies'. That's the point when a player gets enjoyment from combat. When they can proudly say, "I did that!" Not when they say, "My numbers did that."

Calling "Parry" a major mechanic is not something I can't agree on with you. It's a supplement to the melee and unarmed combat and not the best thing since sliced bread.
You can say "I did that!" when you come up with a clever way to outmaneuver your enemy and stab him in the flank, rather than rolling better than him on your parry roll, which is 'just numbers'.
You can say "I did that!" when you topple an enemy and stomp on his head.
You can say "I did that!" when you buck an enemy into another enemy.
You can't say "I did that!" when you happened to get a good parry roll, or your enemy happened to get a bad one. That's pure RNG. Pure luck.

[Dance_Explosion]

I have to say i DO have some misgiving about how parry may or may not work at high levels, i am currently testing it with a level 15 zebra right now, we currently expect to go into lots of Melee heavy fighting in the next few weeks so ill be able to come up with a good assessment of how well it works. now i am against this kind of passive "fighting defensively" type of change to melee, but i have not honestly tested melee all that much as of yet so i do need to give it a go!

Ill get back to this topic after some good testing has been done!

[TyrannisUmbra]

I'm noticing a pattern of up-front dismissal, followed by anecdotes.
The thing with advanced combat actions as opposed to parrying is that they cost a lot of AP to perform and hence don't take up as much time as other, simpler actions.
The problem with parry is, which is what would be what's eating up time, is that it's a very cheap action, involving additional rolls for each attack the enemy performs, per enemy. That can turn into a lot of rolls really fast.
-->In the last session your were fighting one enemy. That's not a good pool of reference for how well the current parry works, because the whole problem with the current parry system is that it gets bogged down more rapidly, the more opponents are involved.

...You do realize parry only works for one attack, right? You don't get to pay only 15AP and parry every attack during a turn. It's 15 AP per attack you want to parry, and you need to choose to save AP by not attacking during the turn to do it.

As for the last, the majority of players and NPC will be using guns. You... generally don't get more than a few melee/unarmed users at once. And I /think/ the most players in the same party I've seen with melee/unarmed skill is... three, but only two of them actually used it in combat.

A GM shouldn't exclusively track his players by looking at their sheets whenever he needs to and rather have the important info jotted down just like he has with his NPCs.

And that's the reason why your GMs feel like they have too much they need to pay attention to. The reason the character sheets exist in the first point is to be that reference point.

Rolling so high that it becomes pointless to parry is something that is an issue in the current system, not the suggested revision.
Getting parried by an enemy that happened to roll high is the exact same as happening to roll within the 'parry-margin' on your attack and both are entirely out of your control.

No, it's not an issue with the current system. In the current system, the defender always has the ability to win a parry with a critical roll. Your system applies a penalty which may or may not ever mean anything to begin with, depending on how high or low the attacker rolls.

Being parried by the target's roll is /much/ different than being parried by numbers. Rolling is active, penalties are passive and un-fun. When someone rolls, it's an extension of themselves -- instead of feeling like, "Their numbers are too high, this is bullshit," you feel like, "That SOB, he's gonna get it now!" It's a feeling of competition vs powerlessness.

Calling "Parry" a major mechanic is not something I can't agree on with you. It's a supplement to the melee and unarmed combat and not the best thing since sliced bread.
You can say "I did that!" when you come up with a clever way to outmaneuver your enemy and stab him in the flank, rather than rolling better than him on your parry roll, which is 'just numbers'.
You can say "I did that!" when you topple an enemy and stomp on his head.
You can say "I did that!" when you buck an enemy into another enemy.
You can't say "I did that!" when you happened to get a good parry roll, or your enemy happened to get a bad one. That's pure RNG. Pure luck.

Parry is a major mechanic because it completely changes the way the game plays depending on whether it exists or not. Would you argue on unicorn magic being a major mechanic or not?

You can say those things regardless of the system. They have no relevance here -- the only relevant comparison is by active rolling, or passive penalty, and rolling is much more fun, interactive, and fulfilling than not rolling. A roll is yours, a penalty is not. You can't say "I did that!" to a passively occuring penalty. Rolling feels much more to a player like their own ability vs their opponent's, whether or not random chance is factored in. The fun comes from the act of competing with your roll, not whether or not something is based on chance.

Like I said before, I wouldn't have a problem if your parry system was offered as an alternative to the current one, as long as one of the most fun, unique, well-though-out and well-designed game mechanics doesn't get replaced by something much less fun and unique.

[SilverlightPony]

I agree with Tyrannis. Rolling is more fun.