Quote from: Kyle AaronThat's one advantage of comparative game mechanics, like "Attribute + Skill + roll, highest roll wins, winning margin added to damage roll." Most exchanges will get some kind of actual tangible result...

My favorite game mechanic in the entire multiverse.

I like the comparative mechanic. I love T&T. You know when you roll dice that something's going to happen.

But I also like the strategic challenge in a game where you need to seek an advantage. Most of the games I play where you can just sort of whack away at each other and frequently miss have some sort of fatigue rule. That can get dicey. Sometimes, if you simply never can find that dirty trick or advantage in the rules or the situation that will give you an edge, you have to know when to back away and say, "I guess today's not your day to die."

Of course, I sympathize with not wanting to slog through twenty rounds of combat to get there. It's fun watching Wesley and Inigo do it in the movies, but not so much without the choreography.

After hearing people talk about Harn combat, it sounds a bit like Swashbuckler!
Swashbuckler! boils down to each combatant choosing their maneuver and comparing results in a combat matrix. The results of the exchange are greatly dependent on the maneuvers chosen by the parties involved.

I bought HarnMaster Lite last week (and its on its way) so I will just need to check for myself.

With HarnMaster you choose one of 3 (IIRC, or is it just 2?) agressiveness levels to your attack, there is a 4x4 matrix associated with each of these. Then both you and your opponent roll against your respective weapon skills. The result of a single roll is one of: Marginal Failure (over your skill), Critical Failure (over your skill and ending in '0' or '5'), Marginal Success (on or under your skill), or Critical Success (on or under your skill and ending in '0' or '5').

You then look up the results on the appropriate matrix. A lot of these results are effectively no result because having a "tie" of a MF - MF or MS - MS happens quite often.

This achillies heal of this type of roll-under/roll-over mechanic (which is typical of percentile because doing double digit subtraction sucks) is when you've got opposing rolling going on. So percentile systems should generally avoid rules that stipulate opposed rolls. It's the opposite of dice pools which tend to work better making opposing rolls instead of independant action rolls against fixed targets.

Quote from: DwightWith HarnMaster you choose one of 3 (IIRC, or is it just 2?) agressiveness levels to your attack, there is a 4x4 matrix associated with each of these. Then both you and your opponent roll against your respective weapon skills. The result of a single roll is one of: Marginal Failure (over your skill), Critical Failure (over your skill and ending in '0' or '5'), Marginal Success (on or under your skill), or Critical Success (on or under your skill and ending in '0' or '5').

You then look up the results on the appropriate matrix. A lot of these results are effectively no result because having a "tie" of a MF - MF or MS - MS happens quite often.

This achillies heal of this type of roll-under/roll-over mechanic (which is typical of percentile because doing double digit subtraction sucks) is when you've got opposing rolling going on. So percentile systems should generally avoid rules that stipulate opposed rolls. It's the opposite of dice pools which tend to work better making opposing rolls instead of independant action rolls against fixed targets.

I am having a Harnmaster flashback and it is not good...I need squirrels.:ninja:

I realize my response is largely conditioned by experience but I feel rather strongly that unless you're using table look-ups, percentile dice should be roll-under, and so should additive rolls of 3d6. Roll of a d20 should be roll-over.

Most other rolls should be additive roll-over, especially if you have a variable number of dice and/or instead of adding pips, you're summing "successes". (I.e., dice pool.)

Quote from: Kyle Aaronnever mentioned roll-over. Rather, I said that a comparative game mechanic, where "highest roll wins, add margin of success to damage" or something similar would avoid that.

Fudge simultaneous combat rolls works like that, especially if you don't allow different offensive and defensive modifiers.  On most rounds, one character hits the other and, as a result, combats go quite quickly.  

That said, a certain amount of whiff can be useful, especially if the battle takes place in motion and involves a lot of characters.  Whiffing against a character who is dodging, for example, can let them hold out while their friends finish off their opponents and then come over to help.

I like the "blackjack" style rolls that Unknown Armies uses -- roll as high as you can under your percentile score.  It makes comparative rolls easy while retaining the intuitive nature of percentile.

KoOS