An important part of any role-playing game is how it handles combat. Part of this is because ot the wargaming roots and partly because succeeding in a specific, measurable conflict gives a feeling of satisfaction that is not very well replicated in other aspects of role-playing.
Well, to continue on in my musings, I think that I start off by repeating part of what I wrote about a year ago.
Combat Musings
To see the original post, please click on THIS LINK. I have split the original post into 2 separate sections so that I address each separately.
As I have stated before, I want a more compact combat system for the core rules. This may be something along the lines of a combination/cross of Hack & Slash and RM’s 10MWtD, or it could be something else.
2 paragrapghs snipped
Or we may end up with somehting completely different (perhaps even a combination of the two ideas above).
No matter which way we go for the combat system in the core book, one of the supplements that I want to do will be a revised Arms Law, which not only has the attack tables for each of the base weapons/weapon types, but I also want to have a critical table for each and every attack table. This would mean that a dagger no longer did a 10CK or 11DS, you would have A thru E only (or the equivalent if we use each crit column for a specific body area), and damage would be by that particular critical table. On the plus side, this really opens up options like a Dagger that strikes as a Long Sword, etc. I am mentioning this here mainly because I know how some folks feel about Arms Law and would not like to think that is was not going to be around any more. Yes, it will be around….
For those of you have have purchased the Combat Companion, you have now seen how I would do combat in a revision of Rolemaster. 19 pages in in a single book for the system, and then a 100+ page Arms Law, with an attack table for each weapon, and 1 critical table for each class of weapon (short blades, long blades, etc..).
Combat Companion gave me an excellent oppurtunity fo explore this, and so far the only real criticism of the combat tables has been the lack of variety in the single column critical tables — which is something that I fully expected to begin with.
The only problem would be trying to talk somebody into writing 19 full page critical tables (95 entries per table). Everybody who has ever written a critical table before knows exactly what I am talking about here. It is one of the most difficult tasks you might ever undertake, especially if you are trying to keep the tables all relatively balanced against one another.
Recently, I started a discussion about getting rid of the individual weapon skills and replacing them with weapon styles. This idea is basically that you start off learning a basic style, which can be used with a number of weapons, and can then move on into Advanced styles which lets you do even more. All of the styles would give access to certain maneuvers (i.e. like doing multiple parries in one round) and the more ranks they have in a style, the more special maneuvers they gain access to. Basic styles would have less special moves, but they would also be the major requirement for gaining the Advanced styles. Using styles also opens up all sorts of role-playing opportunities as players try to learn more styles or there might be rivalries between those of opposing styles, etc..
Another benefit of using Combat Styles instead of individual weapon skills is that there would no longer be a need for separate Martial Arts skills, as they would be just another Combat Style. Additionally, certain Aptitude Abilities may have professional abilities that reduce or change the requirements for a given class of styles (i.e. Martial Artist Aptitude has a professional ability that reduces the Prerequisite for Advanced Martial Arts Combat Styles, or perhaps it could reduce the cost of Advanced Martial Arts styles outside of the SCRs from Aptitude Points).
There would also be some combat actions available to characters that did not rely on style. This includes things like Dodging, Parrying, etc.
Again, we only have to look at the Combat Companion to see these musings from last year put into actual working form. The Combat Styles can be kept simple for the basic game (i.e. attack and parry only, which is what the current rules allow for), and then expanded in Arms Law, making it the definitive book for combat.
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