It came to me in a dream (quite literally a T&T themed dream that I had last night / this morning). In the dream I played Tunnels and Trolls but, the combat mechanic that I happened to be using was the SR.
The dream itself was also prophetic as I can remember how the system worked, which means I can make it happen, thus play it and fulfill the prophecy.. A person can go mad thinking of such things though, so without a further ado, down to business.
The system was quite simple. Every combat round consisted of two phases, which could be likened to the "to hit" and, "roll for damage" steps in D&D. The to hit roll was a SR with the target number being the monsters MR, followed by a roll for damage (Weapon dice + Adds) if you were successful.
Looking at this system objectively in the cold light of day, I really do think it has legs but, I know it's going to need work before it's ready for practical usage. For one, I think that Combat Adds would have to serve a dual purpose with this system. They could either be used to increase the chance of a hit (before rolling), maybe on a 1:1 basis. So you drop 1 point of potential damage and in return you gain +1 to your SR, or you simply take your Combat Adds as a bonus on the "damage roll".
Other matters that need consideration are whether or not to reinstate the "death spiral" effect that was removed with 7.x, and the viability of this system outside of 7.x (the AP increase granted by more frequent SR's offsets the generally high nature of MR rated monsters but, 5.x requires a lot more AP to increase attributes).
It's on these matters that I could really use some input and some feedback. What do you think to the idea guys? How might you tweak it to make it work for you and your group?
I actually put just such a combat system together some time ago in a post at The Lone Delver:
ReplyDeletehttp://danhemsgamingblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/alternative-t-combat-methods.html
I wrote up a full article for Pocket Troll #1, but that never came to be. Perhaps I'll publish it as a stand alone post at my blog instead and we can toss some ideas back and forth.
Ah I remember reading that a while back. Must have really sunk in too to come out in a dream.
DeleteI'd be really interested in making this happen as it played out quite well as I imagined it, so any help you need with your post that I can possibly give, I'll happily do so. :0).