Analyzing the Attribute / XP Rule

In the spirit of my other plausibility analyses, let's run the "x2 XP" rule through the plausibility analyzer. We'll look at what Skill Rating (Skill Points + Att Bonus) the increased cost kicks in, and see if it makes sense.

Attribute: Skill Rating. Description.

Attribute 5: Skill Rating 6, Skilled. With the lowest possible human Attribute, you will struggle to become a Professional in the field.

8: SR 10, Professional. With an Attribute that's notably below Average, you can have a career in the field, but find it hard to stand out in the crowd.

10: SR 13, Professional. With an Average Attribute, after some hard work you've become a very good professor, doctor, lawyer, or whatever, but you face an uphill battle in becoming a truly remarkable member of your profession.

12: SR 16, Accomplished. With a notably above average Attribute, most in your field know you by reputation, but moving into the top tier of your profession is proving difficult.

15: SR 20, World Class. You're there. With the highest possible human Attribute Rating, you are literally one of the best in the world. But it's going to be a long, hard slog to become one of the truly great ones.

This is the central concept of the rule: If you're wholly unsuited for something, you should have to work hard to accomplish great things, harder than those with notable natural aptitude.

Let's suppose two characters, one with a 15 Attribute and one with a 5.

Alan, our 5, can't count (even on his fingers), has trouble walking and breathing at the same time, and finds a single sheet of Kleenex to be a heavy burden.

Bob, our 15, is the fittest of the fit, the smartest of the smart, a strongman to beat Hercules and a charmer to shame James Bond.

Those two characters differ greatly. And, although Alan can eventually scale the heights and become one of the greats, it simply takes more work. A lot more work.

That makes perfect sense. A person with absolutely no aptitude for a subject should have to work harder to develop it.

An argument can be made that Alan should be hard capped. Why should...

• A Barney Fife clone, twitches, fumble-fingers and all, ever be able to shoot the wings off a fly?

• A pasty-faced pushover, the sort of spindly geek that 98-pound weaklings laugh at and pick on, ever be able to become Mr. World?

• An socially inept introvert, the kind of dork who laughs at random, for no apparent reason, makes offensive comments incessantly, and becomes tongue tied when talking to anyone except his mom, ever become the kind of guy who can casually pick up supermodels in a bar?

That's a very good argument, which is why the optional Hard Cap rule exists. Yet this is an action movie game, and "head cheerleader becomes a veteran commando" is practically de rigueur.

Accordingly, the x2 XP rule increases the cost of skills, but doesn't cap them. It may not be perfectly realistic, but it is appropriately cinematic.

The x2 rule itself, however, holds up well under analysis. Attributes of 5 struggle to become Professionals, those of 10 can become standout Professionals, but struggle to become Accomplished, and those with a 15 can become World Class, but find it harder to progress beyond there.

That makes sense. We've all tried to learn something, only to hit a wall where progress is slowed to a crawl.

Again, the mechanic doesn't exactly model the real world, but it is easily understandable and very plausible. It makes the game more approachable, more like the real world.

And, as an added bonus it slows skill advancement at higher skill levels, something very necessary. It also provides a direct benefit for buying a larger Attribute during character creation (beyond the skill bonus) or increasing one during play. Both of these are good things, necessary things.

The rule makes different Attribute levels worthwhile (sometimes very worthwhile), slows down super-high skill progression, and just makes sense in real-world terms. Even if you disagree with the philosophy behind it (see last post), the rule itself works.

Revising Rules

Skills are the core of the system, which is why I've been banging on about them for so long. I want to move on to other topics, but before I do, I have some corrections and expansions to post. I'll start with the Skill Points chart, which has been thoroughly rewritten and slightly expanded.

Gauging Skill Points

Skill Points indicate the amount of instruction, study, practice, or experience a character has invested in a skill. You can judge how knowledgeable a character is using the following chart.

0 = Untrained. You know essentially nothing about the skill.

1 – 3 = Rudimentary. You've learned the basic concepts of the skill, but little else. There are large gaps in your understanding.

4 – 8 = Familiarity. You have mastered the basics, but struggle with intermediate concepts. You make mistakes that other beginners probably won't catch, but those who know what they're doing will.

9 – 13 = Proficiency. You have a solid grasp of the theory and practice of the skill. Advanced concepts can be challenging.

14 – 18 = Expertise. You have begun delving into the esoterica of the field, becoming knowledgeable in several advanced areas.

19 – 23 = Superiority. You are very skilled, thoroughly conversant with nearly all of the advanced subjects of the skill, though there are esoterica beyond even your grasp.

24 and higher = Mastery. There is very little you don't know about the subject matter.

Analysis

Let's see how the Skill Point descriptions above relate to Skill Ratings. We'll start with an Average person. (Reminder: Skill Rating is Skill Points plus Attribute bonus.)

The bonus for an Average attribute is +3. With Rudimentary training, 1 Skill Point, Average people have a Skill Rating of 4 (1 +3), which makes them Novices. An Average person with Rudimentary knowledge is a Novice.

This is a common-sense, easily understood measurement. People with virtually no training or experience are Novices, pretty much by definition. But let's look at the rest of the chart.

• Average people (+3) with Familiarity (4) are Skilled (Skill Rating 7).

• Average people (+3) with Proficiency (9) are Professionals (Skill Rating 12).

• Average people (+3) with Expertise (14) are Accomplished (Skill Rating 17).

• Average people (+3) with Superiority (19) are World Class (Skill Rating 22).

• Average people (+3) with a Mastery of the subject (24) are Grand Masters (Skill Rating 27).

And just to break free of all the Average people:

• A Legendary person (+5) with Mastery of a subject (24) is a Grand Master (Skill Rating 29), but he's almost a Legend. It takes that extra bit of knowledge to truly achieve immortality.

Again, all of these make sense. Proficiency pretty much defines the basic requirements to become a Professional. Superiority does indicate a World Class individual. And you can easily understand why Mastery of a subject would qualify you as a Grand Master.

In all areas of this game, my main goal has been to clarify and simplify the mechanics, then explain them as clearly as I am able. That means I've had to do a lot of revision, a lot of revision, but the final product is becoming ever better, which makes me happy. I hate crap, and the game (so far) isn't crap.

Revising Rules II: XP and Roleplaying Rewards

Next to last post before we start talking about shooting bad guys and blowing stuff up. Below is a clarified rule and some GM advice, both about XP.

Revised XP Guidelines

After some discussion about the XP per Module guidelines, it became clear that they could use some clarification. Here's the streamlined guidelines.

XP Rewards, per Module

Group Rewards
Survival — You lived. Yay! 1 XP.
Scope — If you beat a Landmark Module, +1 XP.
Significant Victory — If you did more than just win, +1 XP.

Individual Bonuses
Heroism — If you were a true hero, +1 XP.

Landmark Module: A Landmark Module is a major event, bigger in every way than the norm: heavier opposition, a more intricate villainous plot, and much higher stakes.

What qualifies differs from campaign to campaign: if a regular module is "solve this murder", a landmark module is "they're going to blow up City Hall"; if a regular module is "they're robbing Fort Knox", then a landmark module is "there's a nuke loose in New York City, and time is running out". (Very often, they're the climax of a series of adventures.)

Defeating a Landmark Module qualifies the PC's for an XP reward — obviously they learned a lot while figuring out ways to overcome such overwhelming opposition.

Significant Victory: The players out-thought and out-fought the module, not just winning, but achieving goals the module (or GM) hadn't even anticipated. If they won, and surprised you with what they managed to do at the same time, it's a Significant Victory. And they certainly gained some insights while devising ways to make the bad guys (and GM) look like fools, and that translates to extra XP.

Action Movie Heroism: The character risked his life for innocents, protected the helpless, and persevered in the face of overwhelming odds. Having to think his way out of such dire straits is worth some XP, don't cha think?

Roleplaying Rewards

Most games have individual XP rewards for inspired roleplaying, making a funny joke, or generally doing things that keep the game enjoyable and entertaining for everybody. I like such rules, and encourage GM's to follow them. But not by handing out XP.

XP is permanent. Each point is a major reward, representing a permanent increase in power that lasts for the rest of the campaign. As a reward for a single moment of play, it's kind of overkill.

Resolve, on the other hand, is ephemeral. (I'll talk more about that when I get to combat.) It's a great benefit in a specific situation, and once spent, it's gone.

GM's can be free with Resolve, because they know it won't unbalance a character. You can give it as a reward for nearly anything, and even if you give too much away, it will be spent sooner or later. No big.

But XP is permanent. And too much XP can and will have a big impact on the game.

It's better to be strict with the XP and loose with the Resolve. The game runs better that way.

Examining Rules: XP Issues

This is the last Skills post. Starting next post, I want to talk about combat. Because killing Evil and taking its stuff.

Time in Grade

Getting too specific about the relationship between game mechanical values and the real world is an exercise fraught with peril. Nonetheless, as a very rough guide, each XP point represents roughly 400-500* hours of efficacious training, studying, practice, or field experience.

(Less effective teaching, interruptions, flawed study materials, and many other factors can lengthen the time necessary. Natural aptitude can shorten it, sometimes significantly. Real life is complicated, and more's the pity.)

Roughly speaking, a Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) is equivalent to 7 Skill Points in the major, a Master's about 10 SP, and a Doctorate approximately 12 SP. These correspond to 7 XP, 10 XP, and 14 XP in the skill, respectively. (Assuming the character has an Attribute of 10.)

This is fewer XP than the "training hours" figure might lead you to expect. School is a lot of work, but it's unrealistic to expect that all those hours in college go directly to studying a major. Some go to your minor, some to other classes, and some to learning how to drink through a beer bong or scream with the crowd during football games. (Or matches. Depending on your location.)

[*In The Weeds Note: This is an approximate median value, which is lower than the mean. Most people take longer than this, but a few take less and very few much less. Training by time isn't a big part of an action-movie game, and is horribly inefficient compared to, you know, actually playing the game (see next subheading), so this is a really obscure and mostly moot point. You're welcome.]

XP Per Module

It's assumed that each module will earn the PC's 2-3 XP on average. Obviously, 2-3 XP per module represents a huge discount on the time necessary to improve a skill. There are three reasons for this:

1. Real world experience in dire circumstances. Frankly, training and practice are good for learning the basics, but not as valuable for actually mastering something. It's not enough for soldiers to practice on the gun range, sooner or later actual combat experience is necessary. (But practice on the range comes first. Learn the basics, then risk your life in a desperate struggle not to get shot.) You learn more in a minute of combat than you do in a month of target shooting.

2. Action Movie Heroes. This is an action movie system, and player characters are action movie heroes. They advance much faster than NPC's because they have lots to do, and need a lot of skill points just to survive.

3. It's a Game. This is, above all, a role playing game and no matter the real world theory behind the mechanics, it needs to be enjoyable. Too-slow advancement is frustrating. On the other hand, too-fast advancement is boring. Fortunately, 2-3 XP per module is a good compromise between "Are we ever gonna get there?" and "God Mode Cheat Code".

Before we start Combat proper, I have to drop back and discuss two quick rules, which are somewhat related: Partial Success and "Tens Are Wild" (the latter coming tomorrow).

Partial Success

The Success Level chart is all about consequences — what happens after the Skill Challenge. (If there are no consequences, nothing at stake, you shouldn't be rolling in the first place.)

• Failure means something bad happens.

• Success means something good happens. (Specifically, what you were trying to do.)

Partial Success is a little different. It means you Succeeded, but not as well as you'd hoped, or you got exactly what you wanted, but the cost of doing so was higher than usual. Exactly what this means is up to the GM to improvise, but as a general rule of thumb: either the cost was twice as much or the benefits were halved.

Here are some examples:

• Suppose you're bribing a bureaucrat. A Success means they'll stamp your papers for $500. A Partial Success means it costs $1000.

• You're breaking into a safe. Success means it takes an hour. Partial Success means it takes 2 hours.

• You're trying to persuade a farmer to sell you some scarce ammo (which he needs for home defense). Success means he sells you twelve cartridges. Partial Success means he's only willing to part with six.

• You're in a science fiction setting, and using nanopaste to fix an engine. Success means you only need to use 1 unit, Partial Success means it costs 2.

• You're a spellcaster, and Success on a Casting Challenge means the spell works and you take 1 Fatigue. Partial Success means you take 2 Fatigue. (Or the spell might have a lower range, lower duration, be less effective, and so forth.)

• You're calling on the divine for miracles, which costs you some of your Divine Favor. Success means you lose 2 points of Favor, but the miracle works. Partial Success means the miracle works, but you lose 4 Favor.

In general, Partial Success means half benefits or double cost. GM's option which, and if neither really applies, feel free to treat it as a Success. This comes into play with all Skill Challenges, but also Pushes (which I'll talk about later).

Yeah, that sucked. Let's try again. Punch-up time!

Partial Success

With a Success, you achieved your goal — jumped from one zeppelin to another, fast-talked a doorman into letting you in the building, identified the strange substance left at the scene of the crime. You did it. You succeeded.

But that's not always how it works out. Sometimes you barely succeed, by the skin of your teeth. Failure loomed large, and for a moment you were sure you failed, but at the last second you pulled it out. That's a Partial Success.

All Skill Challenges have goals: what the character wishes to accomplish. Make the jump. Get in the door. What is this crap? On a Success, they achieve those goals. On a Partial Success, they only partially achieve them.

Maybe the cost was higher than expected. Maybe the benefit of succeeding is less than it would be otherwise. Maybe there will be complications down the line. The key is: this was almost a disaster, and the character only barely succeeded.

Example: Stephen leaps from one zeppelin to the other in midair, aiming for a guy wire. On a Success, he grabs the wire, taking Fatigue from the exertion. Unfortunately, in this case he just misses it, and begins to slide down the side of the blimp. He grabs ahold of a protrusion, and pulls himself up. Because of this Partial Success, the GM rules he takes an extra point of Fatigue.

Example: Paul and Robert are trying to blow a safe. On a Failure, they scorch all the money in the safe, rendering it worthless. On a Success, they can crack it open and make off with the loot. On a Partial Success, they burn a large part of the money, but can still make off with a substantial payday.

Example: Chandra is part of a autoplas crew, and the weapon overheats, blowing the governor. The enemy is bearing down, so she makes a desperate attempt to repair the weapon. On a Success, the weapon would function normally. But with a Partial Success, it will blow out again in a minute or so.

Higher cost: money, units of whole blood, or time.

Reduced benefit: not as much information, lesser quality, grudging acquiescence.

Later complications: someone saw you, the judge wants revenge, you burnt out the motor.

These are not the only options, of course. Anything that fits the general theme, and would make the game more interesting, is perfectly acceptable. Just remember that the character did actually succeed, so they do get to benefit from the Partial Success.

Conclusion

This is what the rule should have been from the beginning. It's simple, easily understood, and (used properly) can increase the tension in a scene.

Thanks to all the commenters who kept pushing against the earlier versions, especially winston inabox and Dominick.

All seeming good/making sense. Resolve awards instead of XP awards seem like a good idea if 1 XP is a big deal and your system is linear such that extras never fade into insignificance.

I don't quite get the difference between the partial success versions though. More explosions in the examples?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;729995All seeming good/making sense.

Cool.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;729995I don't quite get the difference between the partial success versions though. More explosions in the examples?

There isn't any conceptual difference, and only a small mechanical difference. But the writeup was shit.

The original examples were all focused on the math — x2 or 1/2 — not how the rule should be used, or what options there are to apply the central concept, how you can use it to spice up your game. It was blah, it was bland, it was boring.

The examples not only are more interesting, they help GM's get a better grasp of the flexibility the rule offers. It shouldn't just be "x2 or 1/2". They should have more flexibility, and I think that omitting the math and focusing on all the possible options makes it clear how flexible the rule can be.

Very nice system, all sorts of cool stuff!

I like the 2d10 resolution system, and the open ended exponential scale.

Quote from: warp9;730045Very nice system, all sorts of cool stuff!

I like the 2d10 resolution system, and the open ended exponential scale.

Thank you.

So, this is really almost the last post before I begin Combat. So lets talk Tens.

Tens Are Wild

Rolling one 10 (but not two) during a Challenge means either a lucky or unlucky event has taken place. If it's a Cold 10, something bad has happened, called a Mishap. If it's a Hot 10, something good has happened, a Fluke. (If both dice are 10's, neither occurs. It's a bonus of 0, like always.)

When a 10 happens, determine Success or Failure normally (using the standard rules for that type of Challenge), then stick on the event as a side effect.

Fluke: If the Hot dice comes up 10, a Fluke (as in "fluke of luck") has occurred. A Fluke is a small bit of good luck that happens as a side effect of the character's actions.

An enemy drops his weapon. While you're riffling through someone's mail, an apartment key falls out. You miss the dog, but it's startled and runs off anyway.

Flukes are small bits of luck that make a character's life easier for a little while. They shouldn't short circuit major parts of an adventure (unless it'd be a good idea, just this once) but they should be noticeable.

Mishap: If the Cold dice comes up 10, the character suffers a Mishap, a small piece of bad luck that happens as a side effect of their action. A key piece of equipment is dropped (or broken), the character trips and falls, their weapon jams, etc.

You jumped to the moving semi, but dropped your gun. You shot the mook, but set fire to the pool of oil. You knifed the sentry, but woke up the guard dog.

Mishaps are not meant to be crippling occurrences, rather they are minor events that will make the character’s life a little more difficult. Characters should be able to recover from Mishaps with a little effort. (That said, if something a little more severe is apt and interesting, go for it.)

Campaign specific uses: Some specific settings and campaigns use Mishaps or Flukes to invoke certain effects. In Dead Man’s Land, a Mishap can be a sign that the character’s incipient zombieism has suddenly surged, causing them difficulties.

Each setting will include its own rules for dealing with such occurrences. In many cases, they will be more severe or beneficial than default Flukes and Mishaps. (And yes, in Storm Knights, a Mishap can mean you've disconnected.)

And, as always, if the best outcome for the game would be to ignore the rule just this once, feel free to do so.

Behind The Scenes

So, how does the rule work and why does it work that way? One quick caveat: this is another case where the explanation can make things appear more complex than they are.

Generating a bonus involves rolling two 10-sided dice, and using the smaller (but ignoring the larger). If the smaller is Hot, you add it to your skill, if it's Cold you subtract. When you roll doubles, you add 0.

So when you roll a single 10, you always use the other die (as that single 10 is always the largest die). As a result, a Hot 10 means your bonus will be -1 to -9, a Cold 10 means it's +1 to +9.

This rule piggybacks off that fact. A Hot 10 gives you something good, when your bonus is going to be negative, and a Cold 10 gives you something bad, when the bonus would be positive.

This rule makes the game more interesting and enjoyable, but also a bit more cinematic. You've all seen the scene: the hero shoots a bad guy, and he slumps to the ground, pulling down a lever as he dies. Suddenly machinery whirs to life around. Things just got more dangerous. That's a Mishap: the hero Succeeded, but a minor bit of bad luck also happened.

Flukes are the same thing, but in a good way. You shoot the bad guy, but he drops a grenade that rolls underneath their car and detonates it. A Fluke of luck.

If you watch movies, these happen all the time. (French farces are built almost solely out of Flukes and Mishaps, piled atop each other pell-mell.) One scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade illustrates both: the fight on the tank. The driver is shot, and in dying steers the tank in a bad direction. Mishap. Indy somehow shoots three enemies, instead of one. Fluke.

This mechanic means you can Fail, and still have something good happen. It means you can Succeed and have something go wrong. Both can occur in the real world and action movies, so both can occur in the game.

(For those lusting after hard core math, Flukes happen about 9% of the time and so do Mishaps.)

I've got some GM advice, which I'll post tomorrow.

Combat Basics

Down to brass tacks. I want the system to be as simple and easy to use as possible. That starts with the core mechanic of the game.

• Roll the dice, get a bonus.
• Add that to the Skill Rating.
• Compare the Skill total to the Challenge Rating to get Success Levels.

This is the core mechanic: everything else is built off it. As long as you can count by threes, you can play the game. Simple, easy to understand, easy to do.

And it makes sense. Skill Rating, sometimes you do better (+ bonus), sometimes you do worse (- bonus). Success Levels to measure that.

Ideally, combat should be just as simple, just as clear, just as straightforward. I'll start with attacks.

Attack and Damage

When a person swings a sword and hits someone, the damage they do is caused by where they hit the target, the amount of force they applied, the characteristics of the blade, the characteristics of any protection the target was wearing, and many other factors.

No one of these is clearly and simply "To Hit", nor is any one clearly and simply "Damage". It's just an attack. The hitting and dealing damage occur at the same time, for the same reasons. If you did well on the attack, you hurt the target more. If you did poorly, you didn't.

So rather than splitting these two up, as is traditional, I'm keeping them together:

Skill + Damage = Attack Rating

And, on the other side, the same thing:

Skill + Defense = Defense Rating

The mechanic works exactly like you'd expect: Roll the dice, get a bonus. Add that to the Attack Rating. Compare the Attack total to the Defense Rating to get Success Levels, which indicate Damage.

Damage
0 SL = 1 Fatigue
1 SL = 1 Wound + 1 Fatigue
+1 SL = +1 Wound

And there it is. Simple, direct, obvious. An attack is just an Attack. And it causes Damage.

I'll talk about other elements of the Combat system next post.

The purpose of these little posts is to get some feedback and, having gotten some, to change such things as needs be changed.

I posted. I got feedback (thanks, Phil and harermuir) and I've changed some things.

All mechanics induce oddities, even those which work. After some discussion, I've been convinced that the first combat mechanic induces oddities which most players won't accept, for good reasons. So, Take II.

This is the mechanics for a Combat Challenge. It's a little different from a Skill Challenge, but uses the same Skill Ratings, the same dice rolls, the same SL chart, etc.

Combat Challenges use a traditional To-hit and Damage split: Skill vs. Skill on Attack, modified Damage vs modified Toughness on Damage. It's a little more involved, but that's the basic idea and it's pretty straightforward.

To-Hit

For "to-hit", the attacker's Attack Rating (plus a rolled bonus) is compared to the defender's Defense Rating (no roll, unless they're expending an action on defense). A simple Success (0 SL) is all it takes to hit the target.

That's pretty simple. Attack 12, Defense 10. Quick — do they hit or not? Of course they hit, because 12 is > 10. It's easy to tell.

Attack Rating is your Skill in the appropriate weapon: Hand-to-Hand for fists, clubs, swords, etc. Firearms for pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Missile Weapons for crossbows and bows.

Defense Rating is your Skill in the appropriate defensive skill: Hand-To-Hand against fists, clubs, etc. Dodge against guns, bows, crossbows, etc.

Damage

Damage is more involved. It involves the Effective Damage (plus that same rolled bonus) being compared to the Effective Toughness of the target. The result is read as Damage: 1 Wound for each SL, plus 1 Fatigue. (So 0 SL does 0 Wounds and 1 Fatigue.)

Effective Damage is the Damage of the weapon, plus your Attack skill.

Effective Toughness is your Endurance, plus any Armor worn, plus your Defensive skill.

(I could, at this point, regale you with 23 years of history and arguments behind the Effective Toughness and Effective Damage. I won't, but know there's a good reason: if I didn't add the Skill to Damage and Toughness, high Skill characters would be missed a lot. But when they got hit, they'd always, always, always take a lot of damage, even from wimpy little weapons. The math makes it inevitable. This way, a low Skilled attacker will do low amounts of damage, even if they somehow manage to hit. A high Skilled attacker, the opposite. It works.)

Analysis

This mechanic entails one roll. One simple (and very quick) comparison for "to-hit", and a simple SL mechanic for Damage.

Is this more complex than the first post? Clearly, yes. But it avoids the oddities that method induced.

Last question is this: "What about the quality of the attack? Hitting better should do more damage, and all that?" Good question. The answer is this: it's baked into the second half, determining Damage. Effective Damage vs. Effective Toughness includes it. It's not obvious, but it's in there.

I may figure out some way to patch the earlier method. Until I do (if I do), I'm going to assume this one.

With this out of the way, I should be able to continue with the Combat posts fairly soon.

Attacks

Looking back on yesterday's post, I may have made it seem more complicated than it is. This is the most important combat mechanic, so I want it to be as clear as possible before I go on.

Let's start with the simplest aspect: "to-hit".

When you attack, you use a combat skill: Firearms, to shoot guns. Makes perfect sense.

The defender has his own skill. In the case of Firearms, it's called Dodge.

To attack, you roll the dice, get a bonus, and add it to the character's attack Skill. If it equals or beats the defense Skill, you hit.

Simple. Clear. Straightforward.

Damage is straightforward as well. All weapons have a Damage Rating (called "Damage" or DR). A small pistol might do 16, a large one 18, an assault rifle 22.

Here's the thing about skill: the more you know about using a weapon, the more deadly you become with that weapon. A guy who's never handled a knife might be able to score a hit, but he'll never be as lethal with it as a trained expert.

So we add the attack Skill to Damage. The higher your Skill, the more Damage you do. (I called this "Effective Damage". I may use a different term in the finished writeup.)

The converse is also true: the more you know about defending yourself, the less damage you take (because you block better, or parry better, and so forth). So we add the defense Skill to Toughness.

All objects have an innate Toughness. For people, their Toughness is their Endurance. To this, we add their Skill. (And if they wear armor, this gives a bonus as well.) This is the character's Effective Toughness.

So far, so good. Everything makes sense.

This is how the above is used:

Roll a dice, get a bonus. Add to attack Skill. See if you hit (equal to or higher than defense Skill).

Add that same bonus to Effective Damage. Compare to Effective Toughness to determine how much Damage they took.

That's how simple it is.

Two attacking values: Skill and Effective Damage. Two defensive values: Skill and Effective Toughness.

Compare Skills to see if hit, compare Effective Damage to Effective Toughness to calculate Damage taken.

That's it. One roll, one bonus, one mechanic.

I realize I may have made it seem more complicated than it is. My apologies for that. It really isn't complicated at all.

So, combat hit a hard speedbump, and I had to do some deep thinking and conferring with the playtesters. That being completed, I'm almost ready to start the combat posts all over again. Again.

But first, some news:

Dan Davenport has unexpectedly and graciously invited me to participate in his interview series in the RPG.net IRC channel, discussing "Storm Knights" (my Torg revamp) and the ∞ Infinity Gaming System.

I'll be joining the rough-and-ready chat crowd on:

Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 7 PM – 9 PM Central Time

at http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat

So drop in and watch me get torn to pieces by people who have no idea who I am or why I'm there. It'll be fun!

If you can't make it, he saves the chat transcripts on his blog at:

http://gmshoe.blogspot.com

P.S.: The combat posts will begin again real soon now.