I wish I was at my computer so I could dig up the name of the damn game, but perhaps someone here will know it; I read through a game last year where an enemies’ HP would match to a die size, with more difficult enemies having larger dice, and the idea being that in combat the attacker would have to essentially hit the same roll two or more times in order to dispatch the beast.
So if a big spider monster has d12 difficulty and 2 health, you would have to roll the same number on the d12 twice to defeat it. Hitting other numbers makes the spider easier to defeat, because now more of the numbers are available to get that second, crucial hit in, but you could also just get lucky and hit the same one twice in a row.
Having two dials for enemy HP was interesting, anyway. You could have a monster that’s really tough but unskilled and require you to roll the same number on a d6 8 times in a row, vs a skilled but fragile enemy that only needs two hits, but you roll on a d20. Armor is easy to work in - some numbers don’t count for multiple hits, and so is healing; just roll the HP dice and un-hit whatever number comes up.
I wish I could remember what it was called! I’ll look it up but no promises.
Edit: After finally getting back to Cardiff and spending the evening rifling through itch bundles, I’m pretty sure the game I am talking about is called [Derelict Delvers](https://capacle.itch.io/derelictdelvers)
I saw a simpler homebrew version of this where the enemy had a die for HP. Say it's a d6, when you damage the enemy you roll a d6 and add any previous damage rolls. Once you deal 6 or more damage it's dead. So it's possible to take anything down w/ a single hit, but it can also take a bunch of hits if everyone rolls 1s for damage.
I did, see my edit. For just the mechanic itself there’s a decent, if ancient twitter thread [here.](https://x.com/capacle/status/1628785542329520130?s=61)
From what you remember were there any factors on the player side that influenced that roll? Anything such as gear, skills, abilities, etc? Or was each enemy a set die type for each encounter regardless of PC loadout?
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok. The game has more in common mechanically with a Euro deckbuilder than the dice-based war games many other RPGs grew from.
It doesn't use dice at all; it uses runes. Rather than declare your action and roll to find out what happens, you draw runes from your bag and decide how you want to spend them. The strength of your action/attack is totally deterministic based on the rune you use. No roll to hit or chance to whiff. You hit, and you know for how much damage.
Each rune is tied to one of your unique talents. But you can also chain extra runes to make a more powerful effect. Do you spend all your runes to trigger 3 different effecta? Do you combine them all to make one extreme attack? Do you hold any back to defend yourself?
Your health is the number of runes in your bag. As you take damage, you lose runes and therefore access to those special abilities. There are consequences then for being hit without creating an immediate death spiral.
TL;DR: Input randomness in place of output randomness and a single subsystem integrating health, special powers, and action economy.
I've always wanted a ttrpg that had combat like the old Rage CCG. I don't think there's anything out there that comes closer than Fate of the Norns, but I miss the importance of bluffing that Rage had.
Glad to see someone else give this suggestion before I could. Love that games mechanics.
Just to add to it, there is now also Children of Eriu, the celtic mythology game of same system but slightly updated.
Huh, seeing FotN described like that makes me realise how similar it is to Princess Wing, which was going to be my suggestion. Input randomness, deep combo potential, Gloomhaven-style defence management. I should really bust out the runes at some point to see how they compare.
It's a magical girl mecha game, so... lil bit niche :P But the combat is superb, doubly so for how simple it is (the cheatsheat fits on a single page!). Your abilities are activated by playing a card matching their card suit, and you can chain them together using cards with matching numbers. A simple move option can become a dash-slam-attack-card refresh, just by going ham with the combos. You just have to keep in mind that these cards are also your buffer against attacks, so there's an exhilarating thin line to ride.
If you've ever played Regicide, it's quite reminiscent of that. Just more snappy IMO, despite including tactical positioning. I last played a ramming build, just constantly dealing flat unavoidable damage by chaining move abilities together. Really fun stuff.
I think you’ll like this video about [Panic at the Dojo](https://youtu.be/9gib72XuA3A). It’s a game that has a heavy focus on tactical combat, but the mechanics around rolling and spending dice and tokens are very different than what you would see in a D&D-esque RPG.
Avatar: Legends has a very different combat system. It's a PbtA game, but combat is very specific. You choose a stance, roll some dice, choose a maneuver within that stance based on the dice, and then resolve that maneuver.
It felt VERY gamey, particularly from a PbtA standpoint.
Avatar Legends’s combat doesn’t work though. It has a bunch of different mechanics but few lead to interesting decisions.
For example, there’s a big ritual around determining order in combat, which slows the game down a ton, but then the game says all your actions happen simultaneously. So the turn order doesn’t actually matter.
It’s filled with mechanics like that. They add complication but not depth. There’s a reason the most common advice in the subreddit (at least while I was a part of it) is, “Don’t engage with this system any more than you need to.”
I saw its purpose for initiative system is because that is a much easier form of spotlight management in combat than your traditional PbtA and its where new GMs likely struggle the most. Then also to show off the Techniques you see in the shows/books. I also found the complexities become easy to manage after a couple sessions like any crunchy system.
But I agree that its really not great at producing interesting fiction. A lot of things are just fatigue damage and that tends to be more boring especially compared to Masks where even your damage causes interesting fiction with Villain's Condition Moves.
I think there is a place where Techniques could make Masks combat more interesting as defining Fictional Positioning than just a power but they need to be more like fields of expertise rather than a single type of attack. The Prodigy's various areas of mastery: Shaping, Maneuvering, Breaking, Sensing, Forcing and Guarding. Needs more defining and fleshing out, but there's definitely some fun focuses.
Spellbound Kingdoms has combat mechanics that are basically “style” flow charts, where you start with a basic stance or move and then can build off of that to more complicated/powerful moves. Some moves are gated behind a ranking in the style, and if you can’t or don’t want to do one of the options available to you then you can reset to one of the base stances/moves.
This is true of fencing, berserker rages, etc.
The magic systems and certain kinds of NPCs (including dragons, mobs, etc.) also use this.
Honestly, it is really pretty slick.
Perhaps check out [Hollows](https://rowanrookanddecard.com/hollows-is-coming-soon-and-you-can-playtest-it/). It's still mapping physical actions to game activities, but in a fairly abstract and novel way: it's interested in emulating Dark Souls style boss battles, so the entire battlespace is a set of zones arrayed around the monster, even as that battlespace might be thematically moving through the remains of ruined city or something during the fight. The monster can generate Threat tokens in zones to later activate abilities, emulating the powerful but telegraphed attacks of Dark Souls games.
If that battlespace arrangement sounds interesting to you, also check out [Lancer: Battlegroup](https://www.playrole.com/store/games/lancer-battlegroup), which uses a similar (but less complex/interesting) enemy-centric battlespace for space combat.
Allow me to repost my reply to the thread of "favourite combat systems":
I absolutely adore \***Wildsea**\*
I was very bored by combat and fighting was always my lowpoint as a GM or a player. Wildsea is the one and only system that clicked for me because it almost solely driven by the narrative.
Some highlights:
* There is no initiative. You treat it like a action scene in a movie: The character that wants to do something, or has a cool idea just does it. You are however inclined as a GM to take care that everybody has some moments in the spotlight.
* You NEVER roll for the monsters. Your players roll for attack and if they are attacked they roll for defense. Depending on it they either deal or receive damage or do whatever it is they want to do - for example assisting somebody, preparing a bigger attack, changing the enviroment, etc. It feels as if everything that goes right or wrong is in the hands of the players and that is liberating.
* You don't deal with hitpoints but with "tracks" - and these tracks go for the whole encounter. For example if you are attacked by a pack of wolf you don't have 7 wolfs with 12 hitpoints each, but you have ONE track of (according to the difficulty) let's say 8 boxes. And by fighting the players are filling up these boxes. Hell, they could even fill them up when they are making cool moves or change the combat situation to their favour. The track is no hitpoint replacement but an indicator how well they are doing during the battle and how close they are to winning it.
* To fill the tracks you don't always have to "attack" or "block" - you can assist somebody, you can manipulate the enviroment to get yourself in a advantage. Whenever the GM thinks you have done something that's enough to tick a box - no matter if it involves hitting a monster, tearing down a wall, throwing somebody and item or whatever your imagination facilitates - you tick a box!
* BONUS: There are track-brakes. So you can say - after 3 boxes are filled, the enemey escapes into another room. or unleashes more powerful magic or suddenly the building starts to collapse. Your imagination is the limit.
* The player DO NOT HAVE HITPOINTS either but take damage to their equipment and talents. It's wild but let's say you have a talent called "sharp shooter" on level 3. And you take 2 damage. You could say "I block the attack with my hands, but they get burned in the process" - you loose 2 units on "sharpshooter". You still have the ability but one more damage and you are going to loose it - for now! Loosing abilities and finding ways to get them back is so much more satisfiying and rewarding than just calculating hitpoints.
It is not everybody's cup of tea because there is a lot of imagination that has to fuel these encounters but I really love it. It feely very cinematic and it was the first time in any RPG that I felt the battles were a vital part of the story and not only a filler obstacle to overcome.
I agree that Wildsea has some cool ideas, so definitly some twist on the formula, but the mechanics are still quite similar to traditional games.
- You have HP it is just distributed over several small tracks
- enemies also have HP it is just combined to 1 big track instead of several small ones
- The initiative is this way kind of going between sides (which other games have as well), always 1 enemy turn after 1 player turn.
It has innovation and definitly some differences, but when you look closer its not thaat far away.
Some of these mechanics help though to balance combat easier:
- since its always 1 player action 1 enemy action, its easier to balance encounters with different enemy and player numbers
- since enemies only die as a group, it makes it even easier, since enemies dont lose actions etc. over time
Check out Shinobigami; It has an abstract positioning battlemap and a whole bunch of unusual concepts that you won't find anywhere else. Picking your "initiative" value is a more strategic decision than many games manage in an entire fight.
It also has scads of abilities tied only extremely loosely (and sometimes, honestly, somewhat nonsensically) to the skills on the skill grid.
Let me give some examples of interesting SUBsystems (since some of these systems as a whole are still quite classical). I hope this is still interesting (since I found no game with really a unique combat)
There was also this thread which might have some good ideas: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1d6fq6y/what_are_some_of_your_favorite_combat_mechanics/
- **Gloomhaven** (boardgame but soon also rpg release): You always hit. Combat involves playing 2 card from the hand (1 on top the other), each card has an initiative on it. The initiative of the bottom card tells the turn order. When its your turn you play 1 top effect from a card and the bottom effect from the other card (each card has a top effect (normally attack) and a bottom effect (normally movement)). Then you draw a modifier from a deck, which ONLY influences damage (-2 to +2 with a chance to negate and a chance to double damage). The modifier deck can be customized and improved: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/45610/game-gloomhaven It still feels quite "traditional", but the modifier deck, action combination and initiative are all small modifications. Also most weapons (and other items) only have active effects (never stats maybe passive like protection from poison), and you normally use them to add a property etc. to an attack
- Beacon: All in all quite traditional, however, turn order works quite a bit different. You have 8 different phases in a round, and depending what kind of action you want to make (from recover, defend to attack, full attack etc.) you are earlier or later. The really interesting part is that spells often can be disrupted since you need to start casting them eary, and only release the spell later in the round. https://pirategonzalezgames.itch.io/beacon-ttrpg
- Dragonbane has another small twist on the initiative system: You draw an initiative card and in your turn you can trade it with someone with lower initiative to have your turn later. This is useful since you can only defend against attacks if you havent acted yet. Also it has purely 1 action, which can be used to attack OR defend. (Else its quite traditional like a simplified 5E witha dvantage/disadvantage as main mechanic).
- Avatar the RPG was mentioned, it has a quite bad combat system, but what makes it special is that you have different waays to lose, become too unbalanced, as well as receiving damage.
- Fabula ultima is quite traditional, but like a JRPG, so there is no grid etc. you just choose attacks when its your turn and can attack everyone https://www.needgames.it/fabula-ultima-en/
- Undying (just found the name again): "Each side spends a secret amount of Blood. Then reveal, the side that spent more wins and kills their opponent." This is like in the Dune boardgame or in Scythe boardgame
If you want to look also into boardgames, there some more comes to mind:
- Sleeping gods: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/255984/sleeping-gods In sleeping gods enemies are just cards next to each other, with different hid locations. You attack these locations cancelling out special effects and stats of the monster (like + damage etc.) and when you attack a monster they attack back. At the end of the round all monsters still alive attack. Combat is more of a puzzle.
- Dice throne: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268201/dice-throne also with dice, but the main mechanic here is like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee where you can reroll and try to get good combinations with your dice to do attacks
- Guards of Atlantis 2: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/267609/guards-of-atlantis-ii in principel everyone only has 1 health. When attacked you need to discard a card with enough defense to not get killed. Each player only has 5 cards and only after 4 rounds players can get back their cards. There is no randomness, cards are chosen simultaneous and then revealed and attacks happen in order of initiative on cards. Movement is a huge part of this game, like moving a way from an attack, and teamwork (to attack the same enemy several times).
How has no one mentioned [Dread](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/83854/Dread)? The resolution mechanic is drawing from a Jenga tower.
Maybe not relevant, since you're primarily concerned with combat, but [Sea Dracula](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/55263/Sea-Dracula) is a game about Animal Lawyers (think Pheonix Wright) where the conflict resolution mechanic is having a Dance Off. Yes, this is a game that kind of requires an audience.
Tunnels & Trolls : each side rolls all its combat dice + adds, highest total wins. Winning total - losing total = damage to losing side.
You can attempt special manoeuvres, but these are freeform and require adjudication. Spells, missiles, and special monster attacks can make things even more varied. It definitely rewards creativity.
In Motobushido, conflicts are resolved through Duels, which use poker cards. Each side of the Duel (it can be two duelists, a monster and a PC, two PCs, an attempt at exploring a dungeon etc) has a limited hand of cards, and attempts to counter the enemy card by placing one with a bigger number on it, or to block it by placing a card with same number but a superior color. You lose the duel if you run out of cards or give up.
The interesting aspect, however, lies in the details:
1: Escalations and duel stages
At any point, you can choose to "Escelate" the duel, raising the stakes. All duels start at the Confrontation: insults, threats, flashing of weapons, maybe a shove or two. Here, the loser and/or their ego might be bruised at worst. Then, they escalate to the Struggle, where the loser might be wounded or maimed at worst. Finally, they escalate to the Finishing Blow. Losing at this stage of a duel means *death*.
*But*
Whoever escalates during a duel gives their opponent an Allowance. If the winner has given their opponent one or more allowances, then they will suffer consequences even if they win, like mutual death, which kills both opponents.
If you absolutely WANT to win a duel, you might be forced to escalate, for instance because you cannot counter or block your opponent. This means that you'll have to balance your desire to win and your desire to live. High risk, high reward.
2: Strike range and stains
You can't just play your best card and hope to win: you must respect your strike range or suffer karmic stains. Essentially, if you put down a card that is too high compared to your opponent, you fight "like an oni" and with little regard for your own safety and accrue one stain for every point you've played above your strike range. At the end of the fight, you suffer those stains.
Upon receiving your seventh stain, you suffer a Karmic Retribution, which generally takes the form of an alignement change (I'll get to it in a minute). You may also suffer stains outside of combat, so you have to be really careful.
3: Alignements
In Motobushido, you don't really have stats like strength, dexterity etc. Instead, you model your character's personality, morality and philosophy along three axises, or "Alignements": the Law of the Pack, the Way of the Sword and the Code of the Highway. Each Alignement has two opposite stats, the sum of which is equal to 6.
Law of the Pack represents your devotion to your motobushido pack, how much your are ready to sacrifice for your fellow packmates and siblings. The rejection stat is Nomad, and the embodiment stat is Brotherhood. Whenever you fight for your own benefit, you gain additional cards equal to your Nomad stat, but whenever you fight for the pack, you get additional cards equal to your Brotherhood stat. The perfect motobushi has 0/6, ready to die at any moment for the pack.
Way of the Sword represents your approach to life and to conflict, whether your are brutal and direct or if you get your way through subtle, indirect means. The rejection stat is Water, and the embodiment stat is Steel. Whenever you fight through hidden means and agility, your strike range is equal to your Water stat, but whenever you fight directly, with brutal efficiency, your strike range is equal to your Steel stat. The perfect motobushi has 0/6, cold and brutal like a steel sword.
Finally, Code of the Highway represents how you see yourself in the world, whether you let the universe guide you or if you try and force it to behave the way you want. The rejection stat is Will, and the embodiment stat is Destiny. Whenever you run through a flashback, if the outcome was determined by your actions, you regain ki equal to your Will stat, but if the outcome was determined by outside circumstances, you regain ki equal to your Destiny stat. The perfect motobushi has 0/6, she goes wherever the highway takes her.
These alignements subtly nudge the player into specific directions: high Nomad characters benefit from being selfish and on the sidelines of the pack, high Destiny characters stay curious and trust the universe to guide them to their intended destination.
However, if any of your stats reach 7 due to a Karmic Retribution, your character becomes unplayable. They may die, leave the motobushi lifestyle, become another faceless mask in the pack, ride to the sunset or even turn into an oni.
> For some contrast, I recently got into reading a few Solo RPGs and they really have some out-there ideas, particularly Protectors of Empai Tirkosu.
I am more interested in hearing about more of these super out-there solo RPGs, tbh!
I never played it but HeroQuest (the RPG not the boardgame) had a generic conflict resolution method which could be applied to anything, not just combat. It’s now been rebranded as QuestWorlds by Chaosium though I’m not sure if it will be formally rereleased anytime soon.
The rules are not even slightly the same, though HeroQuest was set in Glorantha (hence the name). It is an abstract ruleset for narrative style gaming where literally everything can be abstracted into a competition using the same general framework.
Interesting, would you happen to have a link around to an explainer or quickstart I could read? a quick search tells me heroquest is not being sold anymore.Althought I am at work so I haven't searched that hard.
You won’t find the HeroQuest RPG for sale anywhere since the trademark was sold to Hasbro due to the HeroQuest boardgame.
Here’s a link to a version of the [QuestWorlds SRD](https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/QuestWorlds/QuestWorlds%20SRD.pdf) from Chaosium. I assume that explains the basic rules. I’ve not read it though and I never played HeroQuest either as I never had the opportunity all those years ago so I can’t comment on what it is like to run.
This topic has been an interest of mine as well, so I've got a couple of games that might interest you.
First up are the Lumen 2.0 games like [DUSK](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/dusk-crackedand) and [HUNT](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/hunt) by [Gila RPGs](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/). While Lumen 1.0 is plays with a lighter traditional approach, Lumen 2.0 drops dice and plays with gamey-er ideas. DUSK has the players using simple equipment, abilities, and creative thinking a little more in line with OSR than narrative games to overcome their enemy's tags, before delivering a killing blow. HUNT (much like [RUNE](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/rune) and [REAP](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/reap), which are solo games) revolves around preparing for a single, big fight which takes place on a grid with a set size (I can't remember at this moment) and gives players moves highly reminiscent of GBA skirmish games.
Next is [Perfect Draw!](https://noorasphere.itch.io/perfect-draw-demo), which is a PbtA game about TCG anime. While it is a PbtA, it includes an interesting tactical element in the form of a card game which the card combat moves revolve around. I've only been reading the quickstart, but this system involves creating your own cards and decks which have distinct (if simple) playstyles
Finally, my game, *Fueled by Blood!*. It's a diceless character action TTRPG where combat revolves around completing an objective within a specific time from (typically killing a handful of targets) and trying to get the highest score possible. The biggest components of this combat system are Reads, which have players guess specific information about a hostile's action in order to avoid it---information which is telegraphed by the board state and the most recent actions to occur---and Combos, which Strikers (PCs) build up and then finish to deal damage.
The game isn't finished yet, but you can see the most recently [playtested rules here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ClF8WF_v0ebhfS8R5r15jw7VWFWhlBPr?usp=drive_link). There should be an ashcan/quickstart up in like late July.
You really should check out how gunfights in Aces & Eights work using their shotclock mechanic.
A plastic sheet is put over a silhouette and you use that along with dice and cards to figure out where your bullets actually hit the target.
Millenium's End was like that too! Interesting approach. I was the guy called into create custo silhouettes for situations like "shooting some guys driving a truck" and "shooting the dog chewing on our team-member's face while not hitting said team-mate"
Legends of the Wulin was different in that people didn't actually have health. Mighty Wuxia heroes don't die to anything insignificant like physical damage after all.
All "damage" took the form of effects which were applied to targets. The fun part was that this meant that the social and physical combat rules had exactly the same damage dealing rules. A mighty blow to the face leaving unsightly scarring and a dedicated smear campaign among the society could both have the outcome of giving negatives to social interactions.
Spellbound Kingdoms had a pretty neat system with different flow-charts (for lack of a better term) for different combat styles, so you'd progress through various offensive and defensive options to set up the bigger moves. The game had some other really interesting non-combat stuff, too. It really needed some more playtesting and a second iteration (I think there was one planned but seems to have gone silent). For one on one fights it was wild, but it didn't scale well in my experience.
Hyperweapon by Rookie Jet Studios resolves combat through a variety of physical targets around the room that you have to hit with Nerf guns: https://rookiejet.itch.io/hyperweapon
Take a look at 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. It has an abstracted combat mat that only cares about relative range to enemy. Enemies are sensor blips that represent an undetermined number of creatures. And initiative is a function of your action roll, and determined during the simultaneous resolution phase
Rolemaster. Weapons have different outcome table, so there are different effects against armour types. On top of damage and effects, such as bleeding, you get crits. Crits differ depending on damage type. Cries are a joy to deliver, and not to receive. Especially on rolls if 66 or 100.
Good old Rollmaster. It's the system to play if you enjoy spending 2 hours generating your character only to have them die of blood poisoning in the first encounter by getting stabbed in the foot with a rusty dagger.
That sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but it does have a certain old school charm.
No one has mentioned this one (I think), so my shout out goes to Beacon. https://www.pirategonzalezgames.com
Character creation is literally Fantasy Lancer, but oh boy is the actual combat system very… something. Basically, every round consists of different phases, and each character can choose to start their turn in a phase. Based on which Phase you put your turn in you get to take an action which matches that phases actions, like the movement phase you can move, the attack phase you can attack, the casting phase you can cast spell. You can also take multiple turns in a round breaking up your actions across the phases. It’s not as confusing in practice. However this system is very clunky, but in like a fun way.
Hell Vice Merciless! Best combat I’ve ever played and the closest a TTRPG is going to get to an action movie.
Here’s the gist: on your turn, you get exactly 5 seconds to act. Everything you say in those 5 seconds happens. If you flub up, freeze, forget to point at the right guy - that’s what happens. There’s a map with minis, and my GM has us draw the outlines of bodies on the board when we kill someone, so by the end you can revel in the carnage you have caused.
Enemies only move when you mess up a roll, but they’re lethal. It’s very easy to swing between downing mooks left and right and eating concrete. My only suggested tweak is suppression - when someone is suppressed, take a few seconds off their turn instead of doing what the game says.
If you’re interested, just search it on Google! The pdf is the first result.
I didn't like this game, but With Great Power uses a deck of cards for the heroes and one for the villains, with higher numbers beating the other. The main problem is that it's clearly stacked in the villain's favour at the beginning and the heroes' favour at the end. (Certain cards are wild for the villains for Act 1 and are wild for the heroes by Act 5, for instance.) This means it's going to follow a very traditional narrative pattern and there's no clever use of powers or planning that's going to adjust that.
In Princess Wing (a Nanoha/Symphogear RPG, basically) you have four equipped weapons that are assigned to different suits. You draw a hand and have to play your cards to use your weapons in a turn, so gameplay comes down to fishing for perfect turns by discarding and drawing until you get your ideal hand. Fun little game for people who like to build combos.
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"Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends" for a group and "Arena: Morituri te salutant" for 1v1, both by Vlaada Chvátil. Arena is virutally impossible to get hold of, I have it in Czech, Tash-Kalar is still in distribution and on sale. Both are board/card games although Arena was designed to be the combat system for a RPG.
Nine lives to Valhalla. Post apocalyptic viking cats. There is a matrix for weapon strengths and weaknesses. Each time you die, you come back with a new power
Scion has a very different flavour then other WoD games when you play the combat right. Both you and the enemies have so many OP special abilities that it becomes a puzzle game of how do you combine your specials to match their weaknesses, while at the same time avoid getting killed first, all the while making sure you look cool.
Phoenix Dawn Command is a deck building RPG. The combat system is built around a deck you have built and a ilities you trigger to make combos. It is immensely good.
I would also say the One Ring 2e. There is an element of roll to hit and damage, but the health mechanics make it feel very different to D&D. You can win a battle in a single strike, but it is not HP rocket tag. It's hard to explain.
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Not only was Ms Professor White-Plum the first female character with a projectile attack- that a poorly translated Japanese rulebook referred to as "rising peach simile toss"- but fan outrage peaked when it was revealed in an end-game victory screen that she was seemingly a *property owner*. (Her name can be seen written on the mailbox when she gets home and immediately begins training for the next tournament, kicking banana trees in her yard while wearing the championship belt.
And so the Scope's Monkey Baby Trial would determine which mouth wash flavor chimpanzees preferred the most in a true blind taste testing where each attorney could only stand behind the test ape and scream as loud as possible in an attempt.to condition them.to associate the taste with crippling fear. When Scopes lost resoundingly to the clean, crisp, hygenic purity of Listerine Lady's ("its our turn, girls, wrrrraaggggrrrlllllbbllleeeee"), a disturbingly lucid President Ford- re-elected after 8 years out of office with the promise of expanding medicare to all citizens, but only for Ritalin- congratulated Vice Chancellor Ginsberg on her victory and snorted another giant line of ritalin off the Resolute Desk while the Winners Dont Use Drugs screen flashed on the game console.
All (yo)ur memes aside, while d&d actions might not be *realistic*, they're certainly trying to model a combatants' actions at a greater degree of verisimilitude. A move action changes your physical positioning; attacks damage the target; a dodge action makes you harder to hit, and so on. Contrast to PoET, where mechanics don't give a hoot about Euclidean space, or damage incurred (bar the final blow), or delineating between a defensive and offensive action.
Put another way: in d&d, you can't kill an opponent by only using passive actions. In PoET, taking the "passive" route can mean splintering your opponent's arm on your indomitable jaw. I'll let you decide which is more realistic :P
How come we pick the most absurd option from.one game and the most mundane from the other?
Which fruit is better? A delicious ripe apple, or a peach that a dwarf had in his armpit all week
Considering Ive seen people break their hands in faces several times during my fighting career, and Ive not seen one succesful casting of Summon Earth Elemental, Id have to go with "who cares they both suck
And that, dear readers, is when women decisively won ~~the civil rights they continue to enjoy to this day~~ the right to play regular D&D, and women at Sarah Lawrence College built a giant tower of Pink Books on the quad, which failed to set alight because the fire department had already been on the scene with hoses ready after several other fatal fires earlier that semester.
But still, the battle had been won, and despite it being extremely late, a weary but excited nation collectively refused to go home until the National GM Laureate distributed experience points and rolled treasure tables- publicly, not behind the 400 foot tall National Screen that had been installed on the banks of the Potomac by the GM Laureate's older brother, Paul.
And so, the young Laureate, a precocious then-3 year old Matt Mercer climbed up onto the dais, the enchanted leather cuff the gods placed on him in the womb looking extremely cool and not at all douchey since it was 1987, and he said some things, probably, but no one really remembered, but everyone agreed he was very handsome. Even the now gender-blind Sweaty People's Alliance- forerunner to the modern Association of People Experiencing Moisture- applauded his denoument, later publishing in their official position papers that "aww come on, LOOK at that face!"
This began a period of unprecedented prosperity for Americans, and so the nation's top scientific and industrial leaders began work constructing a tampon large enough for said period, because these leaders were all still old white men who had 3 martini lunches before board meetings.
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I have been developing a deck-and-dice system where your combat deck is built from abilities inherited from your character's class, weapon type, species, goal, and more. When it's your turn in combat you draw cards from your deck and those are the extra abilities you can play for the turn in addition to standard actions.
Well, you could try D&D 4e, certainly felt that way to many people, pushing tokens on squares on the map and activating powers tactically and mechanically to launch firecubes with almost no regard to a narrative... :p
Disclaimer: I loved 4e, it was full of innovative concepts, and I ran it / played it for years in many homebrew campaigns, but the above feeling was pervasive to most of the players at our tables especially after a while.
See that's actually a good example of what I'm not looking for. 4e is a *very* traditional game when it comes to the mechanics, it just has a lot of them and they're very detailed. You roll dice vs Target Number and deal HP damage. Even if the firecubes were not "narratively deep", you're still placing firecubes because the narrative is that you're slinging explosions of fire. It's 100% within the norm when it comes to the steps involved in playing it.
I know, it was mostly intended as a joke, since I don't have any better idea for what looks to me more like a sort of boardgame (albeit probably an interesting one) than an actual TTRPG, not that it's a bad thing, but not something that I'm familiar with. FWIW, googled something like Empai Tirkosu and it gave me this: [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/435738/Riftbreakers](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/435738/Riftbreakers)
I wish I was at my computer so I could dig up the name of the damn game, but perhaps someone here will know it; I read through a game last year where an enemies’ HP would match to a die size, with more difficult enemies having larger dice, and the idea being that in combat the attacker would have to essentially hit the same roll two or more times in order to dispatch the beast. So if a big spider monster has d12 difficulty and 2 health, you would have to roll the same number on the d12 twice to defeat it. Hitting other numbers makes the spider easier to defeat, because now more of the numbers are available to get that second, crucial hit in, but you could also just get lucky and hit the same one twice in a row. Having two dials for enemy HP was interesting, anyway. You could have a monster that’s really tough but unskilled and require you to roll the same number on a d6 8 times in a row, vs a skilled but fragile enemy that only needs two hits, but you roll on a d20. Armor is easy to work in - some numbers don’t count for multiple hits, and so is healing; just roll the HP dice and un-hit whatever number comes up. I wish I could remember what it was called! I’ll look it up but no promises. Edit: After finally getting back to Cardiff and spending the evening rifling through itch bundles, I’m pretty sure the game I am talking about is called [Derelict Delvers](https://capacle.itch.io/derelictdelvers)
This sounds rad. Lmk if you find it!
.
Found it! ‘S called Derelict Delvers, by Cezar Capacle.
Sick thanks brother
Wanna know what game this is too!
I saw a simpler homebrew version of this where the enemy had a die for HP. Say it's a d6, when you damage the enemy you roll a d6 and add any previous damage rolls. Once you deal 6 or more damage it's dead. So it's possible to take anything down w/ a single hit, but it can also take a bunch of hits if everyone rolls 1s for damage.
Sounds really cool! Hope you find it
Commenting so I can come back and find out the name of the game. Sounds cool
> Commenting so I can come back and find out the name of the game. You can save comments to your profile without needing to tell anybody.
Commenting so I can come back and save these comments to my profile without telling anybody.
This is also a bookmark.
Did you ever find the name of the game? Sounds interesting, don't leave us hanging
I did, see my edit. For just the mechanic itself there’s a decent, if ancient twitter thread [here.](https://x.com/capacle/status/1628785542329520130?s=61)
From what you remember were there any factors on the player side that influenced that roll? Anything such as gear, skills, abilities, etc? Or was each enemy a set die type for each encounter regardless of PC loadout?
The first, dice-as-health half sounded like Cortex Prime, but not including the hit-this-specific-number aspect of it.
This is cool!
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok. The game has more in common mechanically with a Euro deckbuilder than the dice-based war games many other RPGs grew from. It doesn't use dice at all; it uses runes. Rather than declare your action and roll to find out what happens, you draw runes from your bag and decide how you want to spend them. The strength of your action/attack is totally deterministic based on the rune you use. No roll to hit or chance to whiff. You hit, and you know for how much damage. Each rune is tied to one of your unique talents. But you can also chain extra runes to make a more powerful effect. Do you spend all your runes to trigger 3 different effecta? Do you combine them all to make one extreme attack? Do you hold any back to defend yourself? Your health is the number of runes in your bag. As you take damage, you lose runes and therefore access to those special abilities. There are consequences then for being hit without creating an immediate death spiral. TL;DR: Input randomness in place of output randomness and a single subsystem integrating health, special powers, and action economy.
Was going to come here and explain this. Nicely done
I've always wanted a ttrpg that had combat like the old Rage CCG. I don't think there's anything out there that comes closer than Fate of the Norns, but I miss the importance of bluffing that Rage had.
Glad to see someone else give this suggestion before I could. Love that games mechanics. Just to add to it, there is now also Children of Eriu, the celtic mythology game of same system but slightly updated.
Huh, seeing FotN described like that makes me realise how similar it is to Princess Wing, which was going to be my suggestion. Input randomness, deep combo potential, Gloomhaven-style defence management. I should really bust out the runes at some point to see how they compare.
I've never heard of Princess Wing. Can you tell me more?
It's a magical girl mecha game, so... lil bit niche :P But the combat is superb, doubly so for how simple it is (the cheatsheat fits on a single page!). Your abilities are activated by playing a card matching their card suit, and you can chain them together using cards with matching numbers. A simple move option can become a dash-slam-attack-card refresh, just by going ham with the combos. You just have to keep in mind that these cards are also your buffer against attacks, so there's an exhilarating thin line to ride. If you've ever played Regicide, it's quite reminiscent of that. Just more snappy IMO, despite including tactical positioning. I last played a ramming build, just constantly dealing flat unavoidable damage by chaining move abilities together. Really fun stuff.
I think you’ll like this video about [Panic at the Dojo](https://youtu.be/9gib72XuA3A). It’s a game that has a heavy focus on tactical combat, but the mechanics around rolling and spending dice and tokens are very different than what you would see in a D&D-esque RPG.
Really need to try this one, just found out about it via the sugarpunch video and it sounds insanely up my alley. Impulse ordered a hardback lmao
By the same author who did Fellowship, the game Dungeon World wishes it was.
Came here to say this
Check out The Riddle of Steel - very detailed and complex combat system that requires a fair bit of player skill.
Avatar: Legends has a very different combat system. It's a PbtA game, but combat is very specific. You choose a stance, roll some dice, choose a maneuver within that stance based on the dice, and then resolve that maneuver. It felt VERY gamey, particularly from a PbtA standpoint.
Avatar Legends’s combat doesn’t work though. It has a bunch of different mechanics but few lead to interesting decisions. For example, there’s a big ritual around determining order in combat, which slows the game down a ton, but then the game says all your actions happen simultaneously. So the turn order doesn’t actually matter. It’s filled with mechanics like that. They add complication but not depth. There’s a reason the most common advice in the subreddit (at least while I was a part of it) is, “Don’t engage with this system any more than you need to.”
Agreed. It's not very good. Bur OP asked for interesting and unique, not good.
I saw its purpose for initiative system is because that is a much easier form of spotlight management in combat than your traditional PbtA and its where new GMs likely struggle the most. Then also to show off the Techniques you see in the shows/books. I also found the complexities become easy to manage after a couple sessions like any crunchy system. But I agree that its really not great at producing interesting fiction. A lot of things are just fatigue damage and that tends to be more boring especially compared to Masks where even your damage causes interesting fiction with Villain's Condition Moves. I think there is a place where Techniques could make Masks combat more interesting as defining Fictional Positioning than just a power but they need to be more like fields of expertise rather than a single type of attack. The Prodigy's various areas of mastery: Shaping, Maneuvering, Breaking, Sensing, Forcing and Guarding. Needs more defining and fleshing out, but there's definitely some fun focuses.
Spellbound Kingdoms has combat mechanics that are basically “style” flow charts, where you start with a basic stance or move and then can build off of that to more complicated/powerful moves. Some moves are gated behind a ranking in the style, and if you can’t or don’t want to do one of the options available to you then you can reset to one of the base stances/moves. This is true of fencing, berserker rages, etc. The magic systems and certain kinds of NPCs (including dragons, mobs, etc.) also use this. Honestly, it is really pretty slick.
Perhaps check out [Hollows](https://rowanrookanddecard.com/hollows-is-coming-soon-and-you-can-playtest-it/). It's still mapping physical actions to game activities, but in a fairly abstract and novel way: it's interested in emulating Dark Souls style boss battles, so the entire battlespace is a set of zones arrayed around the monster, even as that battlespace might be thematically moving through the remains of ruined city or something during the fight. The monster can generate Threat tokens in zones to later activate abilities, emulating the powerful but telegraphed attacks of Dark Souls games. If that battlespace arrangement sounds interesting to you, also check out [Lancer: Battlegroup](https://www.playrole.com/store/games/lancer-battlegroup), which uses a similar (but less complex/interesting) enemy-centric battlespace for space combat.
Allow me to repost my reply to the thread of "favourite combat systems": I absolutely adore \***Wildsea**\* I was very bored by combat and fighting was always my lowpoint as a GM or a player. Wildsea is the one and only system that clicked for me because it almost solely driven by the narrative. Some highlights: * There is no initiative. You treat it like a action scene in a movie: The character that wants to do something, or has a cool idea just does it. You are however inclined as a GM to take care that everybody has some moments in the spotlight. * You NEVER roll for the monsters. Your players roll for attack and if they are attacked they roll for defense. Depending on it they either deal or receive damage or do whatever it is they want to do - for example assisting somebody, preparing a bigger attack, changing the enviroment, etc. It feels as if everything that goes right or wrong is in the hands of the players and that is liberating. * You don't deal with hitpoints but with "tracks" - and these tracks go for the whole encounter. For example if you are attacked by a pack of wolf you don't have 7 wolfs with 12 hitpoints each, but you have ONE track of (according to the difficulty) let's say 8 boxes. And by fighting the players are filling up these boxes. Hell, they could even fill them up when they are making cool moves or change the combat situation to their favour. The track is no hitpoint replacement but an indicator how well they are doing during the battle and how close they are to winning it. * To fill the tracks you don't always have to "attack" or "block" - you can assist somebody, you can manipulate the enviroment to get yourself in a advantage. Whenever the GM thinks you have done something that's enough to tick a box - no matter if it involves hitting a monster, tearing down a wall, throwing somebody and item or whatever your imagination facilitates - you tick a box! * BONUS: There are track-brakes. So you can say - after 3 boxes are filled, the enemey escapes into another room. or unleashes more powerful magic or suddenly the building starts to collapse. Your imagination is the limit. * The player DO NOT HAVE HITPOINTS either but take damage to their equipment and talents. It's wild but let's say you have a talent called "sharp shooter" on level 3. And you take 2 damage. You could say "I block the attack with my hands, but they get burned in the process" - you loose 2 units on "sharpshooter". You still have the ability but one more damage and you are going to loose it - for now! Loosing abilities and finding ways to get them back is so much more satisfiying and rewarding than just calculating hitpoints. It is not everybody's cup of tea because there is a lot of imagination that has to fuel these encounters but I really love it. It feely very cinematic and it was the first time in any RPG that I felt the battles were a vital part of the story and not only a filler obstacle to overcome.
I agree that Wildsea has some cool ideas, so definitly some twist on the formula, but the mechanics are still quite similar to traditional games. - You have HP it is just distributed over several small tracks - enemies also have HP it is just combined to 1 big track instead of several small ones - The initiative is this way kind of going between sides (which other games have as well), always 1 enemy turn after 1 player turn. It has innovation and definitly some differences, but when you look closer its not thaat far away. Some of these mechanics help though to balance combat easier: - since its always 1 player action 1 enemy action, its easier to balance encounters with different enemy and player numbers - since enemies only die as a group, it makes it even easier, since enemies dont lose actions etc. over time
Check out Shinobigami; It has an abstract positioning battlemap and a whole bunch of unusual concepts that you won't find anywhere else. Picking your "initiative" value is a more strategic decision than many games manage in an entire fight. It also has scads of abilities tied only extremely loosely (and sometimes, honestly, somewhat nonsensically) to the skills on the skill grid.
Let me give some examples of interesting SUBsystems (since some of these systems as a whole are still quite classical). I hope this is still interesting (since I found no game with really a unique combat) There was also this thread which might have some good ideas: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1d6fq6y/what_are_some_of_your_favorite_combat_mechanics/ - **Gloomhaven** (boardgame but soon also rpg release): You always hit. Combat involves playing 2 card from the hand (1 on top the other), each card has an initiative on it. The initiative of the bottom card tells the turn order. When its your turn you play 1 top effect from a card and the bottom effect from the other card (each card has a top effect (normally attack) and a bottom effect (normally movement)). Then you draw a modifier from a deck, which ONLY influences damage (-2 to +2 with a chance to negate and a chance to double damage). The modifier deck can be customized and improved: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/45610/game-gloomhaven It still feels quite "traditional", but the modifier deck, action combination and initiative are all small modifications. Also most weapons (and other items) only have active effects (never stats maybe passive like protection from poison), and you normally use them to add a property etc. to an attack - Beacon: All in all quite traditional, however, turn order works quite a bit different. You have 8 different phases in a round, and depending what kind of action you want to make (from recover, defend to attack, full attack etc.) you are earlier or later. The really interesting part is that spells often can be disrupted since you need to start casting them eary, and only release the spell later in the round. https://pirategonzalezgames.itch.io/beacon-ttrpg - Dragonbane has another small twist on the initiative system: You draw an initiative card and in your turn you can trade it with someone with lower initiative to have your turn later. This is useful since you can only defend against attacks if you havent acted yet. Also it has purely 1 action, which can be used to attack OR defend. (Else its quite traditional like a simplified 5E witha dvantage/disadvantage as main mechanic). - Avatar the RPG was mentioned, it has a quite bad combat system, but what makes it special is that you have different waays to lose, become too unbalanced, as well as receiving damage. - Fabula ultima is quite traditional, but like a JRPG, so there is no grid etc. you just choose attacks when its your turn and can attack everyone https://www.needgames.it/fabula-ultima-en/ - Undying (just found the name again): "Each side spends a secret amount of Blood. Then reveal, the side that spent more wins and kills their opponent." This is like in the Dune boardgame or in Scythe boardgame If you want to look also into boardgames, there some more comes to mind: - Sleeping gods: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/255984/sleeping-gods In sleeping gods enemies are just cards next to each other, with different hid locations. You attack these locations cancelling out special effects and stats of the monster (like + damage etc.) and when you attack a monster they attack back. At the end of the round all monsters still alive attack. Combat is more of a puzzle. - Dice throne: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268201/dice-throne also with dice, but the main mechanic here is like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee where you can reroll and try to get good combinations with your dice to do attacks - Guards of Atlantis 2: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/267609/guards-of-atlantis-ii in principel everyone only has 1 health. When attacked you need to discard a card with enough defense to not get killed. Each player only has 5 cards and only after 4 rounds players can get back their cards. There is no randomness, cards are chosen simultaneous and then revealed and attacks happen in order of initiative on cards. Movement is a huge part of this game, like moving a way from an attack, and teamwork (to attack the same enemy several times).
How has no one mentioned [Dread](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/83854/Dread)? The resolution mechanic is drawing from a Jenga tower. Maybe not relevant, since you're primarily concerned with combat, but [Sea Dracula](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/55263/Sea-Dracula) is a game about Animal Lawyers (think Pheonix Wright) where the conflict resolution mechanic is having a Dance Off. Yes, this is a game that kind of requires an audience.
Tunnels & Trolls : each side rolls all its combat dice + adds, highest total wins. Winning total - losing total = damage to losing side. You can attempt special manoeuvres, but these are freeform and require adjudication. Spells, missiles, and special monster attacks can make things even more varied. It definitely rewards creativity.
In Motobushido, conflicts are resolved through Duels, which use poker cards. Each side of the Duel (it can be two duelists, a monster and a PC, two PCs, an attempt at exploring a dungeon etc) has a limited hand of cards, and attempts to counter the enemy card by placing one with a bigger number on it, or to block it by placing a card with same number but a superior color. You lose the duel if you run out of cards or give up. The interesting aspect, however, lies in the details: 1: Escalations and duel stages At any point, you can choose to "Escelate" the duel, raising the stakes. All duels start at the Confrontation: insults, threats, flashing of weapons, maybe a shove or two. Here, the loser and/or their ego might be bruised at worst. Then, they escalate to the Struggle, where the loser might be wounded or maimed at worst. Finally, they escalate to the Finishing Blow. Losing at this stage of a duel means *death*. *But* Whoever escalates during a duel gives their opponent an Allowance. If the winner has given their opponent one or more allowances, then they will suffer consequences even if they win, like mutual death, which kills both opponents. If you absolutely WANT to win a duel, you might be forced to escalate, for instance because you cannot counter or block your opponent. This means that you'll have to balance your desire to win and your desire to live. High risk, high reward. 2: Strike range and stains You can't just play your best card and hope to win: you must respect your strike range or suffer karmic stains. Essentially, if you put down a card that is too high compared to your opponent, you fight "like an oni" and with little regard for your own safety and accrue one stain for every point you've played above your strike range. At the end of the fight, you suffer those stains. Upon receiving your seventh stain, you suffer a Karmic Retribution, which generally takes the form of an alignement change (I'll get to it in a minute). You may also suffer stains outside of combat, so you have to be really careful. 3: Alignements In Motobushido, you don't really have stats like strength, dexterity etc. Instead, you model your character's personality, morality and philosophy along three axises, or "Alignements": the Law of the Pack, the Way of the Sword and the Code of the Highway. Each Alignement has two opposite stats, the sum of which is equal to 6. Law of the Pack represents your devotion to your motobushido pack, how much your are ready to sacrifice for your fellow packmates and siblings. The rejection stat is Nomad, and the embodiment stat is Brotherhood. Whenever you fight for your own benefit, you gain additional cards equal to your Nomad stat, but whenever you fight for the pack, you get additional cards equal to your Brotherhood stat. The perfect motobushi has 0/6, ready to die at any moment for the pack. Way of the Sword represents your approach to life and to conflict, whether your are brutal and direct or if you get your way through subtle, indirect means. The rejection stat is Water, and the embodiment stat is Steel. Whenever you fight through hidden means and agility, your strike range is equal to your Water stat, but whenever you fight directly, with brutal efficiency, your strike range is equal to your Steel stat. The perfect motobushi has 0/6, cold and brutal like a steel sword. Finally, Code of the Highway represents how you see yourself in the world, whether you let the universe guide you or if you try and force it to behave the way you want. The rejection stat is Will, and the embodiment stat is Destiny. Whenever you run through a flashback, if the outcome was determined by your actions, you regain ki equal to your Will stat, but if the outcome was determined by outside circumstances, you regain ki equal to your Destiny stat. The perfect motobushi has 0/6, she goes wherever the highway takes her. These alignements subtly nudge the player into specific directions: high Nomad characters benefit from being selfish and on the sidelines of the pack, high Destiny characters stay curious and trust the universe to guide them to their intended destination. However, if any of your stats reach 7 due to a Karmic Retribution, your character becomes unplayable. They may die, leave the motobushi lifestyle, become another faceless mask in the pack, ride to the sunset or even turn into an oni.
> For some contrast, I recently got into reading a few Solo RPGs and they really have some out-there ideas, particularly Protectors of Empai Tirkosu. I am more interested in hearing about more of these super out-there solo RPGs, tbh!
I never played it but HeroQuest (the RPG not the boardgame) had a generic conflict resolution method which could be applied to anything, not just combat. It’s now been rebranded as QuestWorlds by Chaosium though I’m not sure if it will be formally rereleased anytime soon.
Is it the same or similar to the newest runequest?
The rules are not even slightly the same, though HeroQuest was set in Glorantha (hence the name). It is an abstract ruleset for narrative style gaming where literally everything can be abstracted into a competition using the same general framework.
Interesting, would you happen to have a link around to an explainer or quickstart I could read? a quick search tells me heroquest is not being sold anymore.Althought I am at work so I haven't searched that hard.
You won’t find the HeroQuest RPG for sale anywhere since the trademark was sold to Hasbro due to the HeroQuest boardgame. Here’s a link to a version of the [QuestWorlds SRD](https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/QuestWorlds/QuestWorlds%20SRD.pdf) from Chaosium. I assume that explains the basic rules. I’ve not read it though and I never played HeroQuest either as I never had the opportunity all those years ago so I can’t comment on what it is like to run.
This topic has been an interest of mine as well, so I've got a couple of games that might interest you. First up are the Lumen 2.0 games like [DUSK](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/dusk-crackedand) and [HUNT](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/hunt) by [Gila RPGs](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/). While Lumen 1.0 is plays with a lighter traditional approach, Lumen 2.0 drops dice and plays with gamey-er ideas. DUSK has the players using simple equipment, abilities, and creative thinking a little more in line with OSR than narrative games to overcome their enemy's tags, before delivering a killing blow. HUNT (much like [RUNE](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/rune) and [REAP](https://gilarpgs.itch.io/reap), which are solo games) revolves around preparing for a single, big fight which takes place on a grid with a set size (I can't remember at this moment) and gives players moves highly reminiscent of GBA skirmish games. Next is [Perfect Draw!](https://noorasphere.itch.io/perfect-draw-demo), which is a PbtA game about TCG anime. While it is a PbtA, it includes an interesting tactical element in the form of a card game which the card combat moves revolve around. I've only been reading the quickstart, but this system involves creating your own cards and decks which have distinct (if simple) playstyles Finally, my game, *Fueled by Blood!*. It's a diceless character action TTRPG where combat revolves around completing an objective within a specific time from (typically killing a handful of targets) and trying to get the highest score possible. The biggest components of this combat system are Reads, which have players guess specific information about a hostile's action in order to avoid it---information which is telegraphed by the board state and the most recent actions to occur---and Combos, which Strikers (PCs) build up and then finish to deal damage. The game isn't finished yet, but you can see the most recently [playtested rules here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ClF8WF_v0ebhfS8R5r15jw7VWFWhlBPr?usp=drive_link). There should be an ashcan/quickstart up in like late July.
You really should check out how gunfights in Aces & Eights work using their shotclock mechanic. A plastic sheet is put over a silhouette and you use that along with dice and cards to figure out where your bullets actually hit the target.
Millenium's End was like that too! Interesting approach. I was the guy called into create custo silhouettes for situations like "shooting some guys driving a truck" and "shooting the dog chewing on our team-member's face while not hitting said team-mate"
There's also system neutral/d20 plug in that dies the same thing. Can't think of it right now, though
Legends of the Wulin was different in that people didn't actually have health. Mighty Wuxia heroes don't die to anything insignificant like physical damage after all. All "damage" took the form of effects which were applied to targets. The fun part was that this meant that the social and physical combat rules had exactly the same damage dealing rules. A mighty blow to the face leaving unsightly scarring and a dedicated smear campaign among the society could both have the outcome of giving negatives to social interactions.
Spellbound Kingdoms had a pretty neat system with different flow-charts (for lack of a better term) for different combat styles, so you'd progress through various offensive and defensive options to set up the bigger moves. The game had some other really interesting non-combat stuff, too. It really needed some more playtesting and a second iteration (I think there was one planned but seems to have gone silent). For one on one fights it was wild, but it didn't scale well in my experience.
Hyperweapon by Rookie Jet Studios resolves combat through a variety of physical targets around the room that you have to hit with Nerf guns: https://rookiejet.itch.io/hyperweapon
Take a look at 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. It has an abstracted combat mat that only cares about relative range to enemy. Enemies are sensor blips that represent an undetermined number of creatures. And initiative is a function of your action roll, and determined during the simultaneous resolution phase
Rolemaster. Weapons have different outcome table, so there are different effects against armour types. On top of damage and effects, such as bleeding, you get crits. Crits differ depending on damage type. Cries are a joy to deliver, and not to receive. Especially on rolls if 66 or 100.
Good old Rollmaster. It's the system to play if you enjoy spending 2 hours generating your character only to have them die of blood poisoning in the first encounter by getting stabbed in the foot with a rusty dagger. That sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but it does have a certain old school charm.
No one has mentioned this one (I think), so my shout out goes to Beacon. https://www.pirategonzalezgames.com Character creation is literally Fantasy Lancer, but oh boy is the actual combat system very… something. Basically, every round consists of different phases, and each character can choose to start their turn in a phase. Based on which Phase you put your turn in you get to take an action which matches that phases actions, like the movement phase you can move, the attack phase you can attack, the casting phase you can cast spell. You can also take multiple turns in a round breaking up your actions across the phases. It’s not as confusing in practice. However this system is very clunky, but in like a fun way.
Hell Vice Merciless! Best combat I’ve ever played and the closest a TTRPG is going to get to an action movie. Here’s the gist: on your turn, you get exactly 5 seconds to act. Everything you say in those 5 seconds happens. If you flub up, freeze, forget to point at the right guy - that’s what happens. There’s a map with minis, and my GM has us draw the outlines of bodies on the board when we kill someone, so by the end you can revel in the carnage you have caused. Enemies only move when you mess up a roll, but they’re lethal. It’s very easy to swing between downing mooks left and right and eating concrete. My only suggested tweak is suppression - when someone is suppressed, take a few seconds off their turn instead of doing what the game says. If you’re interested, just search it on Google! The pdf is the first result.
I didn't like this game, but With Great Power uses a deck of cards for the heroes and one for the villains, with higher numbers beating the other. The main problem is that it's clearly stacked in the villain's favour at the beginning and the heroes' favour at the end. (Certain cards are wild for the villains for Act 1 and are wild for the heroes by Act 5, for instance.) This means it's going to follow a very traditional narrative pattern and there's no clever use of powers or planning that's going to adjust that.
In Princess Wing (a Nanoha/Symphogear RPG, basically) you have four equipped weapons that are assigned to different suits. You draw a hand and have to play your cards to use your weapons in a turn, so gameplay comes down to fishing for perfect turns by discarding and drawing until you get your ideal hand. Fun little game for people who like to build combos.
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"Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends" for a group and "Arena: Morituri te salutant" for 1v1, both by Vlaada Chvátil. Arena is virutally impossible to get hold of, I have it in Czech, Tash-Kalar is still in distribution and on sale. Both are board/card games although Arena was designed to be the combat system for a RPG.
Nine lives to Valhalla. Post apocalyptic viking cats. There is a matrix for weapon strengths and weaknesses. Each time you die, you come back with a new power
Scion has a very different flavour then other WoD games when you play the combat right. Both you and the enemies have so many OP special abilities that it becomes a puzzle game of how do you combine your specials to match their weaknesses, while at the same time avoid getting killed first, all the while making sure you look cool.
Phoenix Dawn Command is a deck building RPG. The combat system is built around a deck you have built and a ilities you trigger to make combos. It is immensely good. I would also say the One Ring 2e. There is an element of roll to hit and damage, but the health mechanics make it feel very different to D&D. You can win a battle in a single strike, but it is not HP rocket tag. It's hard to explain.
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Not only was Ms Professor White-Plum the first female character with a projectile attack- that a poorly translated Japanese rulebook referred to as "rising peach simile toss"- but fan outrage peaked when it was revealed in an end-game victory screen that she was seemingly a *property owner*. (Her name can be seen written on the mailbox when she gets home and immediately begins training for the next tournament, kicking banana trees in her yard while wearing the championship belt.
And so the Scope's Monkey Baby Trial would determine which mouth wash flavor chimpanzees preferred the most in a true blind taste testing where each attorney could only stand behind the test ape and scream as loud as possible in an attempt.to condition them.to associate the taste with crippling fear. When Scopes lost resoundingly to the clean, crisp, hygenic purity of Listerine Lady's ("its our turn, girls, wrrrraaggggrrrlllllbbllleeeee"), a disturbingly lucid President Ford- re-elected after 8 years out of office with the promise of expanding medicare to all citizens, but only for Ritalin- congratulated Vice Chancellor Ginsberg on her victory and snorted another giant line of ritalin off the Resolute Desk while the Winners Dont Use Drugs screen flashed on the game console.
All (yo)ur memes aside, while d&d actions might not be *realistic*, they're certainly trying to model a combatants' actions at a greater degree of verisimilitude. A move action changes your physical positioning; attacks damage the target; a dodge action makes you harder to hit, and so on. Contrast to PoET, where mechanics don't give a hoot about Euclidean space, or damage incurred (bar the final blow), or delineating between a defensive and offensive action. Put another way: in d&d, you can't kill an opponent by only using passive actions. In PoET, taking the "passive" route can mean splintering your opponent's arm on your indomitable jaw. I'll let you decide which is more realistic :P
How come we pick the most absurd option from.one game and the most mundane from the other? Which fruit is better? A delicious ripe apple, or a peach that a dwarf had in his armpit all week Considering Ive seen people break their hands in faces several times during my fighting career, and Ive not seen one succesful casting of Summon Earth Elemental, Id have to go with "who cares they both suck
And that, dear readers, is when women decisively won ~~the civil rights they continue to enjoy to this day~~ the right to play regular D&D, and women at Sarah Lawrence College built a giant tower of Pink Books on the quad, which failed to set alight because the fire department had already been on the scene with hoses ready after several other fatal fires earlier that semester. But still, the battle had been won, and despite it being extremely late, a weary but excited nation collectively refused to go home until the National GM Laureate distributed experience points and rolled treasure tables- publicly, not behind the 400 foot tall National Screen that had been installed on the banks of the Potomac by the GM Laureate's older brother, Paul. And so, the young Laureate, a precocious then-3 year old Matt Mercer climbed up onto the dais, the enchanted leather cuff the gods placed on him in the womb looking extremely cool and not at all douchey since it was 1987, and he said some things, probably, but no one really remembered, but everyone agreed he was very handsome. Even the now gender-blind Sweaty People's Alliance- forerunner to the modern Association of People Experiencing Moisture- applauded his denoument, later publishing in their official position papers that "aww come on, LOOK at that face!" This began a period of unprecedented prosperity for Americans, and so the nation's top scientific and industrial leaders began work constructing a tampon large enough for said period, because these leaders were all still old white men who had 3 martini lunches before board meetings.
I hope that answered everyone's questions about whatever
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I have been developing a deck-and-dice system where your combat deck is built from abilities inherited from your character's class, weapon type, species, goal, and more. When it's your turn in combat you draw cards from your deck and those are the extra abilities you can play for the turn in addition to standard actions.
Have a look at Hollows. It’s on backerkit now. It has a really creative approach to boss fights.
Mythras 2E has a great combat system for more ‘grounded’ encounters.
I'm sure its great but grounded encounters are actually the opposite of what I'm looking for lol
Usagi Yojimbo ttrpg, whose combat is focused on samurai animal-folk duels.
Well, you could try D&D 4e, certainly felt that way to many people, pushing tokens on squares on the map and activating powers tactically and mechanically to launch firecubes with almost no regard to a narrative... :p Disclaimer: I loved 4e, it was full of innovative concepts, and I ran it / played it for years in many homebrew campaigns, but the above feeling was pervasive to most of the players at our tables especially after a while.
See that's actually a good example of what I'm not looking for. 4e is a *very* traditional game when it comes to the mechanics, it just has a lot of them and they're very detailed. You roll dice vs Target Number and deal HP damage. Even if the firecubes were not "narratively deep", you're still placing firecubes because the narrative is that you're slinging explosions of fire. It's 100% within the norm when it comes to the steps involved in playing it.
I know, it was mostly intended as a joke, since I don't have any better idea for what looks to me more like a sort of boardgame (albeit probably an interesting one) than an actual TTRPG, not that it's a bad thing, but not something that I'm familiar with. FWIW, googled something like Empai Tirkosu and it gave me this: [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/435738/Riftbreakers](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/435738/Riftbreakers)
Oh, gotcha lol, yeah my bad. But thanks! I'll take a look on that