4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Ok, so here goes. I promised LP to post the system I was thinking for a PbP game for resolving trivial combat.

I’ll break it down to different posts, so it is easier to read and easier to edit.

Essentially it is a way to play out less significant combat encounters fast, and having them deal some damage to the characters and use up some powers.

Basically this should allow for more combat to happen between extended rests, but in a way that does not consume a lot of time in a game - something which might help play-by-post games especially.

The premises of the system:

- The system is based on the Obsidian skill challenge (DC’s and such) designed by Travis Huston Dunlap. Because of this it would be nice if skill challenges in the game would also use the same system. The system is available on the Enworld forums. Google “obsidian skill challenge” and you will get a good link.

- Because the system is based on Obsidian, it has three outcomes: success, partial success and failure. These are called Defeat, partial victory and victory in the combat challenge. Depending on the DM, failure can just be a costly victory, or a retreat and retry. Defeat should not mean any characters actually die.

- The system uses class roles to define what typically happens during a challenge. The idea is still to be flexible, so that roles can mix a bit.

- The encounters that are resolved using this are assumed to be from easy to normal difficulty. This means that the characters don’t really have a chance of dying as a result. They will just take a varying amount of damage and perhaps use some daily powers.

- Typical easy combats lead to each player losing about 1-2 healing surges if the combat is going well for the PC’s. This remains to be playtested, since the numbers in the challenge are just what I could do with basic math and keeping it simple.

THE COMBAT CHALLENGE SYSTEM

The combat challenge system is a free form combat resolution system that has been designed for resolving combat quickly without detailed tactical maps. It is meant to speed up play for non-essential encounters while still using up character resources. It is based on the obsidian skill challenge system.

That system provides the basic framework, which is briefly described below:

1) The challenge takes three rounds

2) The challenge has a DC based on level and the desired challenge

3) The amount of successful checks needed by the PCs to progress is based on how many PC’s are taking part in the challenge.

4) There is a list of skills that are allowed, and additinally any skill a player
describes as an action that suits the challenge can be allowed outside the list of allowed skills - one such “skill stunt” can be used per challenge per player.

ADDITIONAL SKILLS FOR PLAYER CHARACTERS

Since the combat challenge is meant to emulate combat, there are some new skills defined that will be used in most of the checks. The skills are meant to describe in a simple manner what a typical character would be able to do in a combat played in the normal detailed way. The primary skills are listed below, with the typical class role using the skill in parenthesis:

Block (defenders)
Assault (strikers)
Suppress (controllers)
Command (leaders)

Each character has the primary skill based on his role (but see additional rules) and one secondary skill he chooses based on his secondary focus from his primary class, or perhaps multiclassing.

Suggested secondary skills:

Block (melee leaders, melee strikers)
Assault (defenders)
Support/Suppress (ranged strikers)
Command (secondary leaders, like paladins)

The primary skill for each character is equal to:
1/2 level + highest ability modifier + 5

The secondary skill for each character is equal to:
1/2 level + second highest ability modifier +5 (total value of the secondary skill is maximum of primary skill - 1).

Additionally, all the other skills are considered tertiary skills with value of:
1/2 level + third highest ability modifier +5 (maximum of secondary skill -1)

The skill totals should be recorded for each character. The player can define his character’s skills as he sees best fitting to his character, so a defender might have assault as primary skill if the character is built to function in that manner. The idea is to be quite freeform here, but to fix the skills so that when the challenge starts, it is not possible to switch skill totals.

The effect of each skill depends on the Monster role it is used on in addition to providing a chance of success for purposes of total successfull rolls. See the MONSTERS / NPC’S chapter for the effects. The command skill is a special case. The command skill can either be used to attack a monster to give a +1 to any success rolls against that monster later in the challenge, or it can be used on a monster after someone else has attacked it on the same round, and in this case it counts as the same skill as the previous one used - it does not matter if the previous attack failed.

MONSTERS / NPC’s

Monsters and NPC’s who are opposing the PC’s do not have active skills. Instead, the DC of the challenge defines how difficult it is for the PC’s to defeat them.

Monsters still have passive abilities based on role.
Each monster has the following listing:
- damage per round (DPR)
- a special ability or abilities that describes its behaviour in the challenge
- Weaknesses and Resistances (see later)
- Tactics that are particularly useful versus that monster

Terms used later:

Weakness means that that the DC to hit the monster is -2 with the skills mentioned.
Resistance means that the DC to attack the monster with the skills mentioned is at +2, Weakness and resistance modifiers are also used for combat stunts.

Monster abilities:

Minion
DPR: 1/level and additional 1/level for every two minions in the fight (including itself)
Special Ability: DCs to block artillery, controller or leader are +2
Tactics: Successfully blocking or suppressing a minion reduces damage to 1/level and nullifies its special ability for the rest of the round.
Resistance: Assault
Weakness: Suppress

Soldier
DPR: 1/level
Special Ability: DCs to assault, block or support monsters other than the soldier are +2
Tactics: Successfully assaulting or blocking a soldier nullifies its special ability for the rest of the round.
Resistance: Assault

Brute
DPR: 2/level
Special Ability: DCs to attack monsters other than the brute are +2
Tactics: Successfully assaulting, blocking or suppressing a brute reduces its DPR to 1/level and nullifies its special ability for the rest of the round.
Weakness: Assault

Skirmisher
DPR: 2/level
Tactics: Succesfully attacking a skirmisher reduces its DPR to 1/level for the rest of the round.
Resistance: Block, Suppress

Lurker
DPR: 1/level. If the enemies surprise the characters (via stealth or similar conditions), the lurker deals +2 DPR/level or round 1 and +1 DPR/level on later rounds.
Tactics: Successfully attacking a Lurker reduces its DPR to 1/level for the rest of the fight and removes its resistances.
Resistance: All combat skills
Special: The perception skill can be used to attack lurkers as a combat stunt any number of times during a skill challenge (over the normal limit of one combat stunt per character). See combat stunts later.

Artillery
DPR: 1/level
Special ability: artillery deals +2/level damage
Tactics: Successfully blocking or assaulting an artillery reduces its DPR to 1/level for the rest of the round.
Weakness: Assault

Controller
DPR: 1/level
Special ability: Skill check failures on a given round do 1/level damage to a character who fails.
Tactics: Successfully assaulting or blocking the controller nullifies its special ability for the rest of the round.

Leader
(normal monsters are not leaders, it is just an additional elite/solo role)
DPR: +1/level
Special ability modifier: Additional role for elite or solo, add 2 to any DC increase from other roles (i.e. has to be blocked twice to get rid of +4 DC modifier, or once to get rid of +2 DC modifier).

Elites have two normal roles or one normal role + the leader role
An elite is basically treated as two monsters

Solos have three roles, one or more which can be doubled up.
The basic idea is for a solo to represent 4 - 5 normal monsters in a combat challenge, although it can be any number of monsters from 3 up.

Optional rules for minions:

A minion can also have a secondary monster role, if they do, remove the penalty in the basic minion stat block and substitute it with one from the other monsters (other than leader, elite or solo). If the secondary role deals more than 1 DPR/lvl damage, do not adjust minion damage unless you remove its own additional damage ability. Tactics are as for the secondary role and Weakness and/or Resistances are also according to the secondary role.

In addition to the secondary role’s abilities minions are also always weak vs. suppress and suppressing them will reduce damage to 1 DPR/lvl and remove any special ability they have for the turn.

SETTING UP A COMBAT CHALLENGE

Follow the steps below:

1) Define DC based on character level and desired challenge.

2) Define the opposition for the characters. It is recommended to use an equal amount of monsters compared to the amount of PC’s (with elites counting as two and solos counting as four). The DM should describe what kind of enemies the characters are facing and what are their roles. This is needed for the characters to be able to use proper tactics.

3) See how many successful checks the players have to make to gain a partial victory and how many are needed for victory. Decide on what happens on each outcome besides taking damage and loss of powers that are defined later here.

RESOLVING A COMBAT CHALLENGE

On each of the three rounds the following happens:

Players go in their preferred order, selecting an opponent in turn, and describe how they are going to fight that opponent. Selecting the opponents makes a difference, since you can have an easier time to assault a controller if you block a soldier for example. So, the players can come up with a plan on how they will fight.

An opponent may only be selected if nobody else succeeded vs. that opponent on the same turn yet. You may still select an opponent that another character attacked and failed against during this round. Elite monsters can be successfully attacked two times (once more than regulars) and solo monsters can be successfully attacked as many times as they have roles (they may have the same role twice, so take that also into account).

Roll for the relevant skill and record the success and failure, keeping a running total for the whole challenge - a natural “20” rolled means that you gain two successes. Note for each monster how they were defeated on that round, in case the monster role has an effect based on that.

At the end of each round, sum up the damage from the monsters based on their damage per round and add it to the challenge’s total damage.

Once everyone has rolled their checks, a new round begins until three full rounds have passed.

Options during the challenge that are usable by the players:

Use an action point or a daily power to reroll a check.

Use up one action point, daily power reroll an attack - you may only use one of these to reroll a check on any one turn. The character gets an extra +2 to the reroll for a daily attack power.

You may also use up a daily utility power to reroll a skill stunt or any use of a non-combat skill(e.g. stealth, but not assault) during the challenge.

“Going for broke”, as in the obsidian skill challenge. Try to achieve two successes by rolling at -5 by using really risky last ditch effort. (Only on round III)

Combat stunts: A character can use a normal skill (non-combat skill) to make a stunt in combat. Such stunts should be allowed once per challenge per skill. A particular stunt counts as an attack skill (e.g. acrobatics used to get past enemies could be assault on a controller in the back) based on the action and how the DM sees the usefulness of that stunt in combat.

Outcome Of the Challenge

At the end of the challenge, check the total number of successful checks against the required amount for partial victory and victory. There can be many names for the defeat and partial victory, based on what they mean in the case of a specific combat challenge. The DM should describe in the end of the challenge what happens.

Results of the outcomes are listed below.

Defeat

Each character has to use up an action point or a daily power. If the characters fail to do so, they take the damage total as double damage. See the damage distribution later.

Partial victory

The team takes the full damage listed.

Victory

The team takes half damage.

Distributing the damage

Divide the damage equally into portions numbering three times the number of characters. Each character takes damage equal to the portion, and the rest of the portions can be divided as the characters wish.

Should be tuned ... Perhaps you need to divide only by two.

Optional rule: Defenders are the only characters who can take more damage than two portions.

OPTIONAL RULES:

Including a skill challenge element:
You can include a skill challenge element using a normal skill, by replacing half the enemies with challenging elements like traps and such. These can be defeated using normal skills appropriate for those. You can set requirements like “each character must climb the wall or swim the moat once during this challenge” etc.
Avoid requiring successful checks and try to allow at least three skills.
You could define a damage value for the skill challenge events or just have the challenge deal less damage and have more effect on the plot based on how it goes.

Natural “20”:
Instead of giving an extra success, give an extra attack against a different monster (or the same one if it is an elite or solo).

I will just reserve a spot here in case something relevant turns up. Feel free to comment.

Here is the original thread for this system at the ORP forums.

There is some more stuff on what the system is aiming to do in that link and some number crunching too.

The main conclusion is that you should not use 1st level combat challenges. 1st level characters can handle a second level challenge without problems, at least damage wise.

No comments?

Maybe there is less need for this than I thought.

Oh no, I liked it. I just didn’t have much to say. By the way, the exact effect of the different options (assault, block etc.) still isn’t clear to me. Is it all about the bonuses and penalties the different monster roles assign to them?

BTW, I posted my 3E mass combat system here and I don’t see you commenting in it either

Sorry, I just wasn’t looking for rules on that really. I was just interested in the language

It was maybe a bit complicated compared to what I might use, but our campaigns rarely feature mass combat so that the end result would be meaningfully affected by the PC’s.

By the way, the exact effect of the different options (assault, block etc.) still isn’t clear to me. Is it all about the bonuses and penalties the different monster roles assign to them?

Each of the main PC skills is basically just going to produce successes in the skill challenge if you make the DC.
The difference between the skills is just how the monsters are affected by them, which is meant to be relatively minor (remove a -2 from someone else, or reduce damage a bit). This is to avoid making it too hard for parties which have mostly defenders or similar situations. Basically you can try almost anything with -2 to -4 tacked on. Secondary skills are also just based on player preference, to allow for different styles - I’d probably require the player to write them down and tell me if they want to switch them.

Some problems I have still:

- Scaling damage at very high levels. Controllers (and strikers to less extent) get beaten to pulp if you don’t allow defenders to take a lot of damage from the total. This means that controller/striker heavy groups might get smashed. The problem is lesser at lower levels and paragon even. The solution might be to just allow healing surges to be burned for hp, so a challenge will never kill anyone. The controllers would still lose a lot of surges.

- Differentiation of the skills, in a manner that makes them relatively balanced for an average encounter.

- Brutes are maybe too different from anything else in terms of damage. I am considering dropping 1 damage/level from them. Perhaps it is just the idea I have of brutes that led me to the solution that is currently there, but elite brutes would work better for my idea.

- I have not decided yet, if a single monster can be attacked many times. There are three options: Allow any number of PC’s to attack a single monster OR allow attacking until a success is made OR allow only one attack per monster.

Yeah, with monsters having a more passive role, one can easily see a cheap exploit (that IMO would ruin the spirit of the challenge) where the more “inconvenient” monsters are simply ignored, and the “easier” ones (due to bonuses etc.) are the only ones being attacked. So “forcing” players to divide their skill checks between monsters might be a good thing.

Yeah, I think I might go via the “attacks allowed until one succeeds” for each monster. That should solve it.

Plus what to do with skirmishers and lurkers?

I normally don’t see those as vastly different from any other “grunt” monster, like soldier or brute. I just did not come up with their rules yet. I really should.

I was thinking that lurkers would deal extra damage if the party is surprised, and just 1/level otherwise.
Skirmishers I am definitely not sure about. Perhaps they are more difficult to block?

Nice work Rothe. Thank you for putting the time into this. I have been wanting to look into the viability of something like this for a while. Now keep in mind, this is something I have been wanting to work on for a while so my opinions will be based on that, so please don’t take anything personally. Especially since I don’t know what your goal was with this - other then quicker more pbp friendly.

I like your idea of using class and monster roles to affect the out come. I think that is the most important element of a system like this..

I think the skills you have for this are great, though having a secondary based on class/multi-class will come back to bite you - keep multi-class out of it, if for no other reason then a Bard screwing the hell out of it. Also most classes (maybe all, I just haven’t done the leg work to be certain) have a secondary role, just use that and call it good. Providing a static bonus is good too, I wish the rest of the system used that, but it is markedly different from the rest of the system (excluding alchemical items of course), which could cause some concern for some people.

I think it is still too complicated to be quick like a skill challenge is. Generally, it feels like a skill based combat system (minus position & movement) and not like a skill challenge - which is fine, but I thought that was the goal. Specifically, counting damage has to go and same with specifying specific targets. These are too much if you want to make it significantly faster then normal combat and make it feel like a skill challenge.

The tactical aspect you use is really whats causing my concern - those sort of tactics are what cause “analysis paralysis” (board game term, means you think too much and don’t act) and slow the game down. The normal combat system uses them. It’s that player who stands over the grid going “umm”. A skill challenge’s tactics is deciding which skill to use, that’s it. No target or long term thought, just how can I get a success or set my friend up for one.

I’m hesitant to offer suggestions because I am not clear on the exact goals, and I am certain my vision of something like this is different from yours. Can you spend some time detailing your vision for this a little more? Your premise is pretty open, but I bet you have a more refined idea in your head, and I’d like to hear about that.

Overall, great leg work here. Most of the heavy lifting type of clarifications are done nicely. I think it has a lot of promise. Nicely done!
~Lakoda

For the skirmishers - more difficult to block sounds good. Conversely, you could make lurkers more difficult to assault, since they stay out of reach and such.

Also, I don’t know if that would make it more complicated than what you’re going for, but I was hoping the different combat skills would have slightly different effects based on their concept. Something like, “command” giving some bonus to other players (say +1 to skill checks), “block” negating or reducing damage from the monster it affects, and… I’m not too sure about assault and suppress. Maybe require each monster to be assaulted once (i.e. damaging them badly enough to kill them), or maybe “assault” counts extra toward successes. (That would necessitate increasing the required number of successes. And “suppress” could have similar effects to either Block or Assault, mostly the latter, except that it’s strong or weak vs. different sorts of monsters.

I am building the effects into the different monsters. That way, the skills are clearly more useful against specific monster types. For instance, a successful block removes a -2 to attack controllers and artillery when used against soldiers plus it also reduces damage of some monsters.

I do want to keep the challenge within the obsidian skill challenge limits, since I like the idea of a skill challenge being more or less equal to a combat challenge in the base mechanics. That makes it easier to combine them. This means I don’t want to equate single attacks into anything like killing a single enemy. The whole challenge will simulate one combat encounter and the end result is what tells you if the monsters got killed or not.

I was still thinking about an optional rule though, that would let you “kill” enemies only on round III. So that any enemy that is successfully hit would not deal further damage on that round.

Lakoda, I missed your reply after Kazum, so I will continue here.

I know the system is more complex than a standard skill challenge. However, to make a clear cut difference between character roles and monster roles, you have to use some mechanics that allow enough variety. It is not going to be solved in 5 minutes, but since there is no risk of death involved, I am hoping the players will not think too much and get the famous “analysis paralysis”.

My idea is that once you get to know the system, you can resolve a combat in 15 min, which is impossible to do with miniatures and a battlemat. 15 minutes is roughly 1 minute per round per character (4-5 players), so it is doable.

Also, in a PbP, you can have the DM make the obvious choices for a player if he fails to reply soon. There usually is an obvious choice or two an the difference between them is relatively minor anyway.

As for the skills, I only want to have two “trained” skills per character, the rest is just rolled with the -4. So the comment about multiclassing is just that you can choose any skill that suits your character for your secondary skill - bards would not get extra secondary skills from having several MC feats.

Further on the complexity, if you remove the effect of choosing targets, you are making the different skills quite similar. My earlier idea was that soldiers could perhaps just give penalties to assault in general (against all enemies) but that seems to me like just arbitrary increase in DC. I like a bit of tactics to be mixed in.

You could make an even more simplified version where the monster effects are not based on if they are successfully attacked or not, which could be used for even faster combat resolution. Perhaps my version is just the middle ground between that and a real combat.

Oh, and damage is going to be obviously something that will be debated back and forth and compared to just losing surges.

Surge losses are something that might work for the more simple version, but they are difficult to balance.
A defender has more surges AND has higher surge value - damage simulates it better, even though it adds a bit of complexity. If you make a simple version that lets defenders take more damage in surges, they are actually taking more damage in hp terms too.

I think you should perhaps try it a few times to see how the damage works. It is still a lot faster and simpler than any actual combat encounter.