Hi all, Since I saw this question posted several times, I figured I would answer it in one post. Here''s my idea for a straight-forward, somewhat balanced RPG system: 1) Attacker rolls to see if he hits. If he fails, attack ends. If he succeeds, keep the amount that he succeeds by. (ie, using a percentage system, Jimbob the Destroyer has a 55% chance of hitting (rolling 55 or less succeeds). He rolls a 45, succeeding by 10 points) 2) Defender rolls against his defense MINUS the amount the attacker succeeded by. If his roll succeeds, he successfully defends -- attack ends. If he fails, the attack hits -- keep the amount that he failed by. (ie, Ed the Mangler defends against Jimbob. He has a defense rating of 35%, minus the 10% that Jimbob succeeded by. This gives him a 25% chance of succeeding (35 - 10)... He rolls a 60, failing by 35 points (60-25)) 3) For damage, use this formula: Attacker''s attack + Bonus based on how much attack succeeded by plus how much defense failed by - Defender''s defense (ie, Jimbob Succeeded by 10. Ed failed by 35, so Jimbob gets some sort of bonus for damage based on that 45 percent (let''s say that it''s a straight 45% bonus). So, say that Jimbob''s attack power is 100. He would actually do 145 damage minus whatever Ed''s defense was (if Ed had a defense of 60, Jimbob would do 85 damage to Ed (145 - 60) -- now this is either a lot or a little based on the number of hit points that Ed has, but you get the idea)) Why is this fair? (I''ll explain it by the steps): 1) The attacker rolls versus his attack. You record the amount he succeeded by, because the more he succeeds by, the better he did at aiming. 2) The amount the attacker succeeded by was subtracted because it shows that the attacker did a great job of aiming, so avoiding getting hit will be more difficult. The amount the defense failed by is saved for the next step. The good news about this system is the fact that a great attacker can still hit a great defender if he succeeds by enough. 3) Damage includes a bonus based on how "solid" the hit was. If the attacker barely succeeds, and the defender barely fails, it was more of a glancing blow (and a lower bonus to the attack). If the attacker succeeds well, and the defender fails miserably, it was a VERY solid hit (causing up to almost 200% bonus on the damage) Anyway, there are several tweaks possible here. You can make the damage more random. Account for critical success/critical failure, but this is a decent base system. -Chris ---<<>>--- Chris Rouillard Software Engineer crouilla@hotmail.com

First things first. You are double penalizing the defender. The attackers percentage hit was 10% and you subtracted this from the defender defense skill. That roll results in a 35% overage(actually 25% + 10% from attacker). This overage is then added to the attackers 10% to arrive at 45%. You are clearly doubling the effect of the attackers roll in this case. I think your system would be clearer if you handled hitting and damage as wholly seperate functions. Later it will be easier to debug because there is less complexity in the algorithm. Lets say that the attacker is hitting too much as a result of this system. You remove the 10% penalty to the defense skill in hopes that this will slow it down. Since the damage is a result of the defense skill roll, you have also reduced the damage by 10%. Using a seperate hit and damage function allows these tangential effects to be avoided when a change is made to the function.

This is just my two cents.
Kressilac

ps You have the core of the combat system, but a you hit me, I hit you system is very boring. As you add strategy, spells, special attacks, and combinations or attacks you will see that the separation mentioned above really begins to pay dividends. I hope this helps.

&ltgeek mode>
Since we''re talking about systems, I think White Wolf''s "World of Darkness" RPG series has the best system out there. Granted, it''s optimized for use with dice, but it''s really, really nice.

A player has all these stats rated from one to five. There are two groups: attributes and abilities. Attributes are things like strength, charisma, intelligence. Abilities are things like acting talent, firearms skills, computer knowledge.

When a player wants to do something, the storyteller sets a difficulty for that task on the scale of 2 to 10, and picks an attribute and ability pair for that task. For instance, if I wanted to shoot someone in standard conditions, the task would be Perception & Firearms at difficulty 6 (standard).

The player totals the number of points in the attribute and ability, and then rolls that number of d10s (10-sided die). Every die that meets or beats the target difficulty counts as a success. Every die that was a "1" takes away from a success. An enhancement is that if the player is specialized in the task at hand, s/he can re-roll "10"s for more successes. The number of total successes determines the degree of success.

That one paragraph describes nearly the entire game system. You can use it for battle, physical feats, encounters (charisma-type stuff), spellcasting, anything. It allows for incredible successes if you keep re-rolling 10s, and disastrous failures if you roll more 1s than successes (called a "botch").

I played AD&D 2nd for years, but as soon as we found the White Wolf system we dropped it entirely. It''s extremely easy to use, and gives a lot more depth to characters than the "6-stat on 3d6" system. Anywho, just thought I''d bring it up.

</geek mode>

I understand that it is attacker slanted, and I created the system based on that idea, and the fact that it if fairly realistic (except for the damage system, which I left intentionally vague).

If your attacker was attempting to hit a creature with 85% defense (say a very agile creature, or one with hard armor that added to the defense capability due to the fact that glancing blows would bounce off), you''re saying that no matter how well someone aims a sword or arrow shot, they should have the exact same chance of hitting the guy?

If I eliminated the defense penalty and simply rolled against the base defense of the 85% creature, the attacker would never have better than a 15% chance of hitting. How would that make the game fair? If your attacker had a 90% attack rate, you''re telling me that you would enjoy a game that, no matter how high you made this number, the defender would always control combat? Frankly, I would be bored to tears with a game which, when I got to the final creature with my stats all 100, I couldn''t hit him because he had a defense of 90. This system adds balance to the game (in my game, things like range from target, spells, and visibility will aid the defender)

As for the damage, you''re right -- I did slant it towards the attacker. That I was considering changing, but the original posters said that they wanted a damage system along the lines of FFVII (controlled more by hit points than damage). I actually am going to implement the same system, but start the attacker''s damage at the roll level:

Roll Bonus + Random(Attacker''s Damage)

This way, if they get a solid hit, the least damage they can do is based on how well they hit. The most they can do is based on their hit and their normal damage (of course, this percentage would be multiplied by their actual damage, so that it scales with hit points). This way, a mediocre hit would do fairly mediocre damage. A good hit will still do incredible amounts of damage.

As for complexity, my system will be very robust, with extremely well-controlled AI (including enemies who actually aid each other and attack with logic), magic, and skills -- trust me, you''re not talking to someone who is new to the world of RPG''s. I kept it simple for the original posters, who asked for a straight-forward system, not for my own benefit.

Hope that clarifies things.

-Chris

---<<>>---
Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

I have yet to see a mainstream RPG that really made use of the power available in our PCs to create a truly realistic combat system. That term realistic is thrown around all too easily without really thinking about what it means. Just about every combat system I''ve seen eventually boils down to a percentage chance to hit, and in the majority of those systems this chance rarely, if ever, changes from attack to attack.

So what would a realistic combat system really entail. Let''s think about how swordfighting really works. Granted, to really understand how it works would require that we actually KNEW how to fight with swords, and something I get the feeling there are very few kenjutsu master programmers out there. (kenjutsu is basically the form of swordfighting Samurai warriors used) Regardless, the basic requirements of a realistic combat system would involve defining an entire series of attacks that
1. start from a given stance
2. target a particular area of your opponent
3. and conclude to a given stance
Every given stance has predefined abilities to protect from every given attack.
Every given stance requires a certain amount of time to transition to another given stance. If you use an attack that was not designed to be used from your current stance, you are either penalized on that attack, or you take the extra time to shift to the appropriate stance.
Every character develops his skill in each stance and attack independantly. Characters may specialize in one or two specific attacks, becoming very good at them, but at the expense of not being diverse and being weaker in other areas.
Now, designed properly with feints, parries, and all the other bells and whistles of real one on one combat, we have a system that is far more then the hack and slash nature of almost every system that exists today.
Think about it. You measure your opponent and see that his stance provides very good protection to his upper body and not so good protection to his lower body while your stance has a very low ability to attack the lower body. You shift to a stance more appropriate for low attacks, or maybe you make an attack that ends in such a stance (attacking as opposed to shifting stance alone takes more time). However, your opponent also performs some action that results in improving his protection to his lower body. You try a feint to force him into a more vulnerable position. He is deceived by the feint and shifts his stance to compensate. You find a hole in his defenses and are in a very good position to attack that spot. You attack and score a very serious injury to his midsection. This injury severely hampers his combat abilities and you suddenly have the upper hand. It''s almost a sure win now.

That''s a bit dramatized, and not very detailed, but an appropriately complex system would provide a wealth of diversity and possibilities. People could spend countless hours experimenting with various attack combinations to come up with a very powerful chain of attacks. People would develop various styles for various situations. Attacks could be weighted towards various physical stats like strength and dexterity (ie a particular attack requiring great strength as opposed to dexterity, or vice versa. Of course, lots of practice with any attack will eventually overcome any physical limitations)
Basically, I don''t believe any system is ''realistic'' until it truly simulates swordfighting in all it''s glorious detail. Sometimes I get the feeling not many other people are interested in a combat system with this level of detail though. Perhaps someday I will work on bringing this idea to life myself.

That sounds like an interesting combat system, but most people that I know don''t play RPGs for the combat, which is why most games try to avoid long, drawn-out combat sequences (unless there are very few of them, which most of the time isn''t the case). Even if they''re very cool, people tend to get bored if combat takes too long, or happens too often (read FFVIII). If you can make a realistic game that is fun, it would be great (and you would make a LOT of money ) -- read this as saying, don''t fall into the "Trespasser" trap, making a game so realistic and avoiding enjoyability.

Good luck on your system. I can''t wait to play it when you come up with it.

-Chris

---<<>>---
Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

Couple of things here.

To the original poster: I was merely stating that intertwining the damage and hitting systems in your game could lead to unwanted side effects when you are troubleshooting the algorithm in the future. In my experience, I have noticed that it is much easier to segment damage from hitroll. If hitroll must play a roll in damage then do so in a very controlled manner and not in a generalized combat formula. Again this has been my experience. Also in regards to your post I made no mention of not using the defense skill to adjust the possibility of a hit. I am only mentioning that the hit percentage of the attacker should not be applied twice.

The second post is with respect to the Raskell. Your realistic system has two flaws none of which relate to your idea. The first one was stated by crouilla. The second flaw is that it is extremely difficult to provide the player with a GUI that can support a user making these decisions. Any keyboard usage would be clumsy and the mouse couldn''t possibly be accurate enough while creatures are moving on screen. In many games it is hard enough to target a creature, let alone a specific body part. A system of menus like in the FF series would be too slow and would draw out combat leading to crouilla suggestion. While your idea is wonderful and probably could be implemented by two computer opponents fighting each other, I don''t think it can be done to the level of detail you describe. At best a GUI would begin to get confused with left/right and high/mid/low target points on a creature.

As far as I know Die by the Sword is the closest game you will find with your idea.

Kressilac

PS I always liked the Shadowrun and Vampire''s game systems. Vampire had a slightly better system in that the skill success vs target number percentages were more linear in nature allowing better skill progression.

Sorry I sounded so worked up in my response, kressilac -- I''m in the midst of a product release at work (it''s shipping in a week), so it''s pretty hectic here.

You''re right about damage being unrelated for the most part to the attack... However, I wanted to implement a more realistic approach to attacking, where how well you hit aids in the amount of damage you do (and glancing blows are penalized for the amount of damage they do)

Hopefully, I''ll find a better way as I progress, but my combat system isn''t my main concern right now -- my backend AI is.

-Chris

---<<>>---
Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

I thought I would note a couple of games with what I think are unique combat points...

Revenant:
The game is slow and choppy and buggy, but the cool thing is that you can learn keyboard-controlled series of moves, such as kick-slice-kick, etc, as your character levels. Mouse still controls direction and aim, but you get a wider variety of attack styles.

Everquest:
When playing EQ, once you attack something you continue to attack while in range and alive. Warriors in EQ get buttons for "bash", "kick", and "second weapon". These buttons go on and off (you have to wait a certain amount of time to bash again once you bashed, for example) but it also provides a wider range of moves with varying effects and damage yields. This could be expanded for specific attacks, and given keyboard shortcuts.

-fel

The realistic sword combat sounds an AWFUL lot like Bushido Blade. You have 3 stances, dozens of characters, and a handful of weapons. You have to pick the best combination of character + weapon (dont pick the broadsword and the agile weakling... he''ll barely be able to lift it let alone fight) and you can cripple arms/legs, even one hit kills. Battles are significantly shorter than most rpgs... I have had many battles that have been decided in less than a second (fun playin newbies sometime and emphasize skill/strategy. You get killed most of the time if you charge, patience is the best strategy. You can pick low/middle/high stance with each weapon, and each combination of stance + character + weapon has different moves and attacks.

The story is of course a last-minute addon like most fighting games, but if the fighting sequences were mixed in with an RPG world (free roaming 3D world? then the combat sequences could be put in seemlessly, just draw your weapon)

Hell, maybe I''ll fiddle around with this

Later,
Daniel Major