RP battle system - TESTING

I have made a battle system on the behalf of Stormwind City Wardens and the Forlorn Cartel and our fights vs eachother. I chose to post it here also to get more feedback on it. It is still a very raw draft and the point is to make fights fairer. Everyone else is of course also welcome to apply it and use it against both us and eachother, just remember that we are still testing. So this would be the BV 1.0 ALFA.

Using /roll to determine a fight is nice and good - except that it's not really fair. A plain /roll between two characters is always a 50/50 chance. This means that a super-villain and a snotty thug gets equal powers when they fight Billiam. Why would the super-villain be as easy to beat as the snotty thug? And why would Billiam lose 50% of his fights against that very thug?
"No good, no good at all" my organisation-obsessed brain tells me.

A /roll could be used in a fairer way. /roll is by default 1-100, so why not let it be percentages? This way the super-villain might have a 75% of beating Billiam, while the thug may only have a mere 15%. To put this in practise I will give you examples:

Super-villain attempts to hit Billiam in the head with a branch.
Super-villain rolls 64
Billiam gets hit in the head and falls to the ground.
Billiam gets up on his knees and throws some sand towards Super-villain's face.
Billiam rolls 79
Super-villain is blinded by the sand and staggers back, cursing and rubbing his eyes.
Billiam gets up on his feet and tries to grab Super-villain's arm.
Billiam rolls 74
Super-villain isn't grabbed and waves the branch around menicangly, trying to hit Billiam again.
Super-villain rolls 12
Billiam is hit on his left arm, a snapping sound can be heard. Billiam falls back to the ground, holding his damaged arm.
Billiam: ARGH!
Super-Villain: MUAHAHAHA!!! DIE, INFIDEL!

As you can see all rolls BELOW 75 benefits Super-villain, while those above benefits Billiam, giving the Super-villain an accurate 75% chance to win.
The rolls would always be based on the person with the highest % chance to win, hence versus Snotty Thug all rolls above 85 would benefit the thug and those below would benefit Billiam, not the other way around making Snotty Thug benefit from rolls below 15. The reason for this is merely to avoid confusion and arguments.



Once you have counted up your Battle Value you will remember that number. As soon as you start a fight you and your opponent will whisper eachother your BV and do this calculation:

Highest - lowest + 50 = The % chance that the stronger of you will win the rolls.

This is, naturally, a work in progress. I have certainly made loads of errors and missed out on stuff. Feedback is most appreciated.

Counting up your Battle Value


BV is a number that can only be increased by more training, better armour, weapons, experience etcetera. It can be decreased temporarily, though, by things like alcohol, darkness, wounds or illness. More on this at the bottom.
Remember that armour, weapons etc are your IC things, not your PvE or PvP stuff. It is also not interesting how purple or grey your things are as getting stabbed by a low level dagger hurts just as much as if it was a swirley ICC25HC dagger with fancy enchants.

Always chose the option and the number of points that fits your character the most. Be honest!

Armour:

Protection versus your agility and endurance.

Cloth:
You are not very well protected against strokes. But you can move more easily, especially if you are young and trained in agility.
7-13 points

Leather:
You have weak protection against strikes but are rather agile. You also make funny sounds when you move.
11-17 points.

Mail:
You have pretty good protection against strikes but your agility suffers and the heavy armor makes you slower.
13-20 points

Plate:
You have great protection against strikes but move rather slowly because of the heavy armour and you are having a hard time doing quirky moves, it's pretty much impossible just bending down..
15-22 points

Shield:
You can parry and block attacks with your shield but might cause less damage and will move slower.
4-9 points


Weapon:

Your ability to use your weapon versus your physical strength and endurance, aswell as your training and experience.

Dagger, knife, small axe or similar:
You need to get close to your opponent to strike but will also be able to swing your weapon quicker and with more accuracy. If you are dual-wielding you have a greater chance to inflict damage. The damage will hardly be as severe as with heavier weapons.
5-11 points

Two-handed weapon like longsword, mace or similar:
You can hit from a rather long range but your attacks will be slow and your chances to parry weaker. Your hits are likely to slash limbs off or crush bones - should they hit.
8-14 points

Staves and similar:
You can whack your opponent in the head or make them fall with a succesful blow to their legs, but hardly inflict worse damage than bruises or a broken finger.
5-9 points

Guns, bows, slings and similar:
Your weaon requires you to be at a range from your opponent. If you hit you might do massive damage - but it is hard to hit properly unless you have a very steady hand and years of training.
4-12 points


Magic:
Your powers are depending on your training and experience in an even bigger degree than when using normal weapons. If you hit the target might get crippled for life or die, but every time you use your magic ability you will get more tired and your "mana" will drop leaving you defenceless at the end.
6-15 points

Fists:
Practically useless against enemies in mail or plate armour, the fist fighter can still knock someone out with a good blow. Your prks are that you have your hands free to grab and scratch. you probably also enjoy biting or poking others in the eye.
2-6 points


Experience:

Your experience and training with the armour and weapon you are currently using versus your age and physical or mental strength.

Years of training:
Divide this number by 3 and add 3-7 points.

Battle experience:
Depending on if you have been a soldier, guard, scribe, thug or assassin and for how long and how successful.
5-12 points


Body and mind:

Reach:
Your reach depends on your length.
Gnome: 0-1 points
Dwarf: 0-2 point
Human: 2-4 points
Night elf: 3-5 points
Draenei: 3-6 points

Agility:
Defines how easy you can dodge attacks or escape, among other things.
Gnome: 4-6 points
Dwarf: 2-5 points
Human: 3-5 points
Night elf: 3-6 points
Draenei: 2-4 points

Endurance:
This is based on how often you jog around, if you smoke, drink, if you are lean or overweight, how heavy armour you are using etcetera.
0-7 points

Mental strength:
More interesting to magic using character's than melee ones. This depends on your training and how tainted you have become using magic. Remember that a using magics should make you insane sooner or later, thus lowering your mental strength.
0-9 points.


Perks:

Perks that will increase your BV. You may only choose a maximum of two. Chose what fits your character, not what gives the most points.

Veteran:
You have been doing this for more than 10 years. You know what's going on.
4 points

I have a Cause!:
You are fighting for a cause or to fulfill an oath that you have no intentions of breaking. What you do is the right thing to do and you know it!
3 points

Dirty tricks:
You have no honour and will poke people in the eye or kick them in the groin without remorse.
3 points

Morals!:
Honour and morals are important to you - your duty is your life.
4 points

Popular:
You have friends or colleagues that will back you up no matter what happens.
2 points

Young:
Without old wounds or stiff limbs you can move quicker than those old rugs! You are younger than 25 but older than 16.
2 points


Flaws:

You may choose as many as fits your character, but a minimum of two.

Alcoholic:
You drink way too much to be considered healthy.
-4 points

Coward:
You would rather sell your mother than get injured badly. Actually, if your mother was here you'd use her as your meat-shield.
-2 points

Hysterical:
Loud noises and stressful events makes you lose it.
-3 points

Stupid:
You're just not smart. At all.
-2 point

Alone:
No one really likes you. No one will come to your funeral except to make sure you are really dead.
-2 points

Lazy:
Standing up is an effort, not to mention engaging in combat! Do they serve beer?
-5 points

Untrained:
You are the opposite of a veteran, hardly even knowing which end of a sword to stick in an enemy.
-2-5 points

Temporary Flaws

Remove 2-10 points temporarily from your BV for everyone of these, depending on how bad they are:

Wounds
Bad sight
Entoxication
Illness
Low morals/fear
Exhaustion

tl;dr

In all honesty, that is precise reason I play WoW and not something like table top warhammer where you have to roll dice for every fart you make.

Why not just use a duel and not turn yourself into X-zibit? "Sup dawg! I heared you like RP so I put RP system into yo' RP system so that you could RP while you RP!"; An excuse like "But dis guy is level eighty and im seventeen but i play a epic 10000 year nelf rogue who kills 100 people every day!" looks silly, now, doesn't it? If you have loud mouth - you better be ready to prove it before pickin' on others. And WoW isn't one of those text based RPGs where you can write whatever you damn well please (Well... Okay you CAN; But that's besides the point) & hit someone for over 9000 damage with no effort (Besides some put into character development;) To sum it up: It already has a duel system, why invent a wheel?

Although, I see you put a lot of hard work into it, soooo if people accept it - I guess I won't have a choice.

Also...

"War isn't fair"

You start off by misunderstanding all of it, great.

First of all: This thread is not made for discussions on if we NEED a battle system or not, if duel would be fairer, if levels matter in RP or ANY of that. I will ask the moderators to delete all posts on that and ask those who wish to discuss it to start your own thread.

Second: If you don't want to use it - don't.

Third: War is certainly NEVER a pure 50/50 chance but depends on stuff like tactics, weapons, armour, morals etc.

Billiam stole my idea, true story. On a more serious note, contact me when you want to try it - I'm in jail, so I surely have nothing better to do

Just sayin' what I think. Sorry, you didn't make it clear nuff for a moron like me not to post that kind of feedback xD

Haha, it's okay, mate, I should have expected it.

Zinkle in prison. As always, eh? ^^

Billiam wrote:Haha, it's okay, mate, I should have expected it.

Zinkle in prison. As always, eh? ^^

Yeah, Geld threatened to do stuff to his genitalia with his jagged combat knife if he tried to escape. Your system reminds me of D&D by the way!

an interresting system, not something I would impliment everywhere but I'd sure like to try it out with you!

I think it is too complicated to be implemented outside a small circle of dedicated enemies. Suppose a "Random Guy #137" joins in to your fight without having a single clue about the rolls, what will you do?
a) drop the system and continue RPing
b) pause the RP and explain him the system
c) ignore him
d) continue rolling among yourself while the guy messes up your odds!

...you can also call a friend, ask the audience or do a 50-50.

I'll just keep going to realistic values and common sense. I never liked rolling. Oo

A good idea, though you havent taken into consideration sneak attacks or attacks from behind. Plus this system is very unfair on humans as you are valuing "years of experience" - all of the alliance races except humans live substantially longer so the amount of points added by this makes the score seriously over-powered. This ties in with the age thing also, 16-25 years old represents about 3 years in the Dwarf lifespan for example

So a good idea but many flaws and loopholes.

Imanuel wrote:I think it is too complicated to be implemented outside a small circle of dedicated enemies. Suppose a "Random Guy #137" joins in to your fight without having a single clue about the rolls, what will you do?
a) drop the system and continue RPing
b) pause the RP and explain him the system
c) ignore him
d) continue rolling among yourself while the guy messes up your odds!

...you can also call a friend, ask the audience or do a 50-50.

That's why we all hope it will spread

Trave/Vargosh/Thandros wrote:I'll just keep going to realistic values and common sense. I never liked rolling. Oo

In general opinion, people don't feel like following even more rules. Despite of what you mentione is a pretty good system, I don't think many people will be bothered to learn it all our of their head or put effort into reading it over should a battle start. As I have to agree with Trave, sticking to commen sense is always a good thing. Should the opponent make a mess out of it, there is always the option to leave the fight rather then continue.

I like the system, but I've always wondered - why does someone not create a dang addon like this? I mean, we have in-game Chess, Bejeweled etc. addons, but no pokemon-esque RP Battle System?

sounds like uh.. a great system..!

i might want to ask someone other than myself to do all the maths and just give me the percentage however

(also would there be anything stopping two people deciding some pre-set percentages beforehand? Besides ego, perhaps?)

It's an interesting idea. Implemented correctly I can see it becoming rather useful. There's a few things that bugs me a bit though...

First. In the section were you discuss armour, you mention that the heavier the armour the less agile you become. The problem is that heavy armour is (supposed to be) custom fitted to counteract just that.
In a properly made harness (plate) you're supposed to be able to run, jump, climb and even make a roll on the ground and rise with the help of only the momentum. The reason for this is because dodging is superior to all other kinds of defence (by a huge margin), so any armour that makes it user less capable to dodge will join that person in the grave.

Second. Shields are for more than blocking and parrying blows, they're actually just as much of weapons as the thing you use them with. Besides active defence, they can be used for attacks and most importantly, to hide what you're doing and feints.

Third. You divide weapons in weight-classes for purposes of damage. The problem here is that a dagger doesn't do less damage than a twohanded sword, a hatchet doesn't do less damage than a Dane axe (twohanded axe). If they hit properly they will render a combatant incapable of continuing the fight and if they don't (misses, are parried, deflected by armour or just just causes a fleshwound) the fight continues.
If you differentiate weapons I suggest you do it based on reach, not on weight. Longer reach -> better chance of controlling the fight.
You could then group them in for example:
Short (daggers, knives, hatchet, shields, fists, kicks)
One hand (short sword, battle axe, mace, warhammer, short spear...)
Hand and a half (longswords, twohanded swords, Spear, twohanded axes, poleweapons)
Half staff (Mauls, longspears, poleweapons and spears in formation)

Just a few suggestions and nitpicks... Bets of luck with the system

Gahalla wrote:It's an interesting idea. Implemented correctly I can see it becoming rather useful. There's a few things that bugs me a bit though...

First. In the section were you discuss armour, you mention that the heavier the armour the less agile you become. The problem is that heavy armour is (supposed to be) custom fitted to counteract just that.
In a properly made harness (plate) you're supposed to be able to run, jump, climb and even make a roll on the ground and rise with the help of only the momentum. The reason for this is because dodging is superior to all other kinds of defence (by a huge margin), so any armour that makes it user less capable to dodge will join that person in the grave.

Second. Shields are for more than blocking and parrying blows, they're actually just as much of weapons as the thing you use them with. Besides active defence, they can be used for attacks and most importantly, to hide what you're doing and feints.

Third. You divide weapons in weight-classes for purposes of damage. The problem here is that a dagger doesn't do less damage than a twohanded sword, a hatchet doesn't do less damage than a Dane axe (twohanded axe). If they hit properly they will render a combatant incapable of continuing the fight and if they don't (misses, are parried, deflected by armour or just just causes a fleshwound) the fight continues.
If you differentiate weapons I suggest you do it based on reach, not on weight. Longer reach -> better chance of controlling the fight.
You could then group them in for example:
Short (daggers, knives, hatchet, shields, fists, kicks)
One hand (short sword, battle axe, mace, warhammer, short spear...)
Hand and a half (longswords, twohanded swords, Spear, twohanded axes, poleweapons)
Half staff (Mauls, longspears, poleweapons and spears in formation)

Just a few suggestions and nitpicks... Bets of luck with the system

That ^

have you also taken into account the skill/style of the combatant possibly?

Gahalla wrote:First. In the section were you discuss armour, you mention that the heavier the armour the less agile you become. The problem is that heavy armour is (supposed to be) custom fitted to counteract just that.
In a properly made harness (plate) you're supposed to be able to run, jump, climb and even make a roll on the ground and rise with the help of only the momentum. The reason for this is because dodging is superior to all other kinds of defence (by a huge margin), so any armour that makes it user less capable to dodge will join that person in the grave.

Yes. heavy armor does restrict your movement by a lot. Even when it is custom fitted it will restrict your movements and greatly reduce your view. First of all. Most of your midsection by a heavy armor is rendered useless. Getting up form the ground is extremely difficult due your ankle and shoulder joints being restricted.
A person with high agility and speed can out do a person in heavy armor quite easy, The only problem is hurting the bugger in the giant tin can.
This probably requires a rondel or any other form of piercing dagger. As you should keep in mind the heavy armor was designed for one versus one duel styles on open field, Protecting the wearer from incoming blows of weapons and arrows.
Not the now more popular hit and run tactics.

Rhebeca wrote:

Gahalla wrote:First. In the section were you discuss armour, you mention that the heavier the armour the less agile you become. The problem is that heavy armour is (supposed to be) custom fitted to counteract just that.
In a properly made harness (plate) you're supposed to be able to run, jump, climb and even make a roll on the ground and rise with the help of only the momentum. The reason for this is because dodging is superior to all other kinds of defence (by a huge margin), so any armour that makes it user less capable to dodge will join that person in the grave.

Yes. heavy armor does restrict your movement by a lot. Even when it is custom fitted it will restrict your movements and greatly reduce your view. First of all. Most of your midsection by a heavy armor is rendered useless. Getting up form the ground is extremely difficult due your ankle and shoulder joints being restricted.
A person with high agility and speed can out do a person in heavy armor quite easy, The only problem is hurting the bugger in the giant tin can.
This probably requires a rondel or any other form of piercing dagger. As you should keep in mind the heavy armor was designed for one versus one duel styles on open field, Protecting the wearer from incoming blows of weapons and arrows.
Not the now more popular hit and run tactics.

not everyone wear's three inches of steel in the style of a western knight.

If we are talking about heavy armor.. they are. Otherwise it would leave huge gaps between the plates. Making it more vulnerable, And then I would put it under medium or even light armor.

Thank you for all the replies, I don't have the time to look through it all right now but will get back on it tomorrow!

Rhebeca wrote:
Yes. heavy armor does restrict your movement by a lot. Even when it is custom fitted it will restrict your movements and greatly reduce your view. First of all. Most of your midsection by a heavy armor is rendered useless. Getting up form the ground is extremely difficult due your ankle and shoulder joints being restricted.
A person with high agility and speed can out do a person in heavy armor quite easy, The only problem is hurting the bugger in the giant tin can.
This probably requires a rondel or any other form of piercing dagger. As you should keep in mind the heavy armor was designed for one versus one duel styles on open field, Protecting the wearer from incoming blows of weapons and arrows.
Not the now more popular hit and run tactics.

Agreed on the view, that is extremely restricted. The biggets drawbacks with these helmets is that it's virtually impossible to see anything at your sides. So much that many users had open helmets for ground (as opposed to horseback combat).

It should be mentioned that there's many types of harnesses. The harnesses of riders were thicker, heavier and tolerated less movement. For instance, you couldn't lift your arms above your shoulders due to the shoulderguards (then again, you weren't supposed to either). The idea was that the cavalry was only allowed to charge to break the enemy or to break of and reform after the charge, thus they didn't need agile armour since they wouldn't (shouldn't) be caught in a prolonged fight anyways. Even so, they were much more agile than tourney armour (which is for jousting and not combat).

But there were harnesses for ground combat too however, generally issued to the first rank of a formation or shock troops (those that run forward from behind a formation to break the enemies one). These genrally always have open helmets, maille protecting the joints (and not "plate") to allow movement and weigh much less than other harnesses. An example is the typical armour of Spanish Rondelero's (sword and buckler-men), who had the job to dive in under the pikewalls and then stab the pikemen to death.
These need to be very agile armours to allow the entire body to move as it needs to in massed combat. To allow the wearer to use his body's full movement range. Anything else would be deathtrap to wear.

I've seen people use that kind of armour and move faster than anyone I know, seemingly barely restricted (granted, they were exhausted afterwards).

As for harming people in harnesses. Yes, a dagger is a good way. Pull them off their feet, put one foot on their chest to immobilise them and stab them.

or... smash their faceguard in... works too.

Spoiler:

If I may hijack the thread, and propose a great simplification of roll system.
1) it accounts for your fight partner(s) not knowing the rules of the system
2) easy to implement an easy to drop depending on situation.

First of all you use common sense when fighting, and just role-play out all obvious things. For instance, if somebody raises his sword and brings it down you just parry/block/dodge (realistically seen, if you are an able warrior, the chance of you failing to evade that attack is negligent anyway). When things look obvious, you just role-play them out without any rolls

Then you can do some rolls of -yourself- to spice up your own battle experience. For instance: "Hmm...did that guy's attack just interrupt my spell...hmm...looks like not! If I roll more than 80 he did interrupt me! /roll". You can do such internal rolls for your character's fatigue, for those stitchings on your belly snapping, or your damanged joint starting to ache, or super-powerful-spell critically misfiring. If you want to spice up your own experience of emote-battle, you can roll for your own state and your own extraordinary actions

If you and your adversary charge at each other trying to knock the other one down, you just whisper that person "Hey, want to roll on this one? I am wearing plate and am a fat tauren, and you are an orc in loincloth. So i roll, and if I roll above 40 I win?" or you simply roll against each other disregarding odds. In unclear situations where the outcome of an action hangs in the balance, offer your adversary to roll against each other, or do a percentage roll

Example, I was having a fight in the mountains of Dun Morogh which involved guns. Guns + mountains = avalalanches. So whenever my enemy fired her gun, we did a roll for an avalanche (above 75 it happens, and depending on how much greater than 75 the roll is, the stronger the avalanche) and then simply did the roll whether our characters can avoid it or get out of it. For normal actions we used no rolls.

Replies to page one:

Imanuel: The system doesn't require everyone you fight against to be a part of it but is of course entirely based on people using it by their free will. Against those who will not use it you'd simply fight them as you do now.

Jomir/Nastor/Gannas: Yes, there are loads of flaw to it, as I said this is just the Alpha draft.
What you mention might be true, especially the part about dwarves and other races and age. I suppose the other races would need to rethink the ages 16-25 to fit their own lifespan. Do consider that even if it might be unfair to humans the WoW world is. Of course a night elf can train more and for a longer time than a human and thus be better skilled, I only see that as obvious IC.

Marticore: I think you have misunderstood. There are no point in reading it all over once a battle starts, why would you do that? You have your BV already, withdraw some points if you had a drink or was wounded and that's it. All you would need to do before a fight is to compare your BV with the other person's and do the simple calucation.

Etular: Oh yes, that would be fabulous, actually. Make one!