The Bloodied Blade [RP-PvE Rolling System]

Throm'ka!
For a little more than a year, I've had this rolling system called the 'Bloodied Blade' system. I've found it to be a fun addition to events that involve fighting hostile NPCs, since it makes the NPCs' more powerful! That lvl 53 water elemental, that your hunters turtle can take down with a mean glare? Now it's a corrupt elemental champion - Which requires a smaller army to take down!

This is far from the first rolling system to be made, but what I like the most about it, is that it mostly allows the player to define his or her own failure, to better suit the character.

The system is not quite finished yet, and I doubt that there will come a time where there can't be made any improvements on it either. But the essence of the system is that it can work as a guide-line or inspiration for others to use in their events, and make what-ever modifcations they think would suit their needs!


*Recent changes!
Recent changes to the system have been made, which will be implemented fully in the guide later on.
The changes are the following:
Health has been added.
Blocking for others has been added.
Healing others has been added.
Descriptions and examples of the changes have been added at the end of the guide.

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To make a move in combat, you need to simply do a /roll
An enemy has three values.
Offensive, which means when the enemy hits you. [OV]
A Defensive, which means if you roll above this, you manage to wound the enemy! [DV]
And an endurance value, which shows how many wounds an enemy can take before he dies. [EV]

Now, let's take a look at a treeant ancient.
Ancient [OV]: 1-30 [DV]: 35+ [EV]: 6
The ancients are tough basterds and sport huge trunk-like arms which they use to crush and smash their enemies. However, they're huge and very hard not to hit if you can avoid getting squashed!

So, let's pick this one apart, look at, and explain the different values.
The ancients Offensive Value is 1-30, this means that when you roll to engage the ancient, and you roll between 1 and 30, the ancient hits you!
Now, how bad the ancient hits you, how wounded you become and such, is entirely up to yourself!
Players do not have Endurance points like enemy NPCs does, you decide yourself when you go hug the floor, and how gravely you're hit!

Next up we have the Defensive value, which is 35+.
This means that as long as you roll over 35 points, you manage to wound the ancient!
However, ancients are tough opponents, and can sustain 6 wounds [EV] before they're vanquished!

Now, some of you might notice that there is a gap between it's OV (1-30) and it's DV (35+), if you roll between the OV and DV, you neither manage to wound the enemy, nor are you wounded yourself! This doesn't mean that you both stand and flail around in the air though, you can still hit the enemy, without dealing a grevious wound!

Now, how many times can you attack an enemy, or can an enemy attack you?
This system is dependant on Rounds.
A player has one roll in each round.
This roll decides what happens, if the player gets hit, doesn't wound but isn't hit, or hits!
However, with multiple people it can get confusing who strikes when, and who emotes when!

Now, the initiative system can look rather confusing upon the first glance, but don't worry! After a few tries it'll come to feel rather fluent and logical!
Everyone does their /roll at the beginning of a round, and in the order the rolls appear, is the order in which the orcs do their emotes!

For this purpose I will use five orcs to explain the initiative system.
Rargnasha, Krogon, Orok, Drogu and Garros will be our five orcs for this purpose.

Our little pack of wolves are facing off against an Son of Cenarius in the Stonetalon mountains, who has the following stats:
[OV]: 1-30. [DV]: 55+. [EV] 4.
All the orcs are eager to engage the Son of Cenarius in battle, so they all roll as quickly as they can!

---Round one---

Rargnasha rolls 57
Krogon rolls 35
Orok rolls 12
Drogu rolls 77
Garros rolls 22

As soon as everyone have rolled, we see who starts and in which order we'll go on. In our case it's Rargnasha who starts, then Krogon, then Orok, then Drogu and last Garros.

Since Rargnasha rolled over 55, he manages to wound the monster!
Krogon rolled 35, and is neither wounded nor manages to wound. However, being the Blademaster he is, he emotes that he gets in a few strikes at the monster, however, none of them wounds the monster greviously, and as of such, does not count towards the wound score!
Orok rolls below the monsters Offensive Value, and emotes how the Son of Cenarius smacks him across his face with it's talons - Ouch! However, not wanting to get wounded yet, he emotes that he sidesteps and only gets a light slap!
Drogu, rolling over the monsters Defensive Value, manages to wound the monster as well! Which he then emotes (Badassedly)
Last we have Garros, who rolled 22, also under the Offensive score.
Garros emotes that he thinks it'd be fun to sneak up behind the hooved monster, and emotes that he gets hit in the face by a hoof!

Since all our players have rolled, round one is now finished, and a new round can begin, however, this time some of the other players are faster at rolling!

---Round Two---

Krogon 70
Rargnasha 23
Orok 72
Garros 1
Drogu 92

Since Krogon appeared as the first roll this time, that means that he goes first and wounds the monster!
Rargnasha is next up and since he rolled below the Offensive Value, emotes that he gets entangled by roots summoned by the monster!
Now, the monster only has one wound left, and since Orok rolled over it's Defensive Value, his attack wounds and kills it. He emotes how he cleaves off the monsters arm, killing it!
Now, since the Son of Cenarius is dead, it can't hit Garros, even though he only rolled 1! Likewise, Drogu can't inflict a wound on it either, since it is already dead!

In short, this means that all actions from and against a monster are anulled after it dies.

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Examples of combat
Here are a few examples of how some of the different rolls can turn out! Starting with rolling a creatures 'Offensive Value'

'Watering it down'
Rargnasha rolls 22 as he engages the ancient, since this is rather early on in the event, he decides that he's not going to sustain any major wounds or bruises yet.
Rargnasha charges at the treeant, letting out a challenging roar! The treeant responds by meeting his charge head on, by thrusting one of it's trunklike arms at him. However, he manages to raise his shield and stagger back from the force of the blow!

'Taking it'
Karak is figthing a Son of Cenarius, seeing that he only rolled 15, he decides to take the wound like a man, and emotes how it's talon gives him some deep cuts along the side of his cheek!

'Combining them'
Rargnasha and his little pack is figthing an Old One Tentacle, these are viscious things with an OV of 1-40 and a DV of 41+!
In the first round Rargnasha and Karak both roll under the OV of the Tentacle, OOC'ly they then agree upon that it'd be fun if the tentacle would pick up Rarg and throws him at Karak!

'Being dramatic'
Rargnasha and his little pack of wolves are figthing the Old One General, the Big bad boss of the event. Everyones up and being awesome, so Rargnasha decides to add a bit of drama to the fight against the baddie! As he rolls 22, against the Old General with an OV of 1-40, he decides that the General picks him up and smashes him against a ruin, effectively knocking him out and leaving the rest of the figth (Or a few turns!) To the rest of the group!


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Examples of rolling between OV and DV.

'Cancelling your attack'
Kozgugore puts an arrow to the string of his bow, aiming at the Twilight Cultist. Realising that there are too many orcs swarming him however, he lowers the arrow again, grumbling.

'Light wounds'
Krogon gets in a few strikes at the monster, however, none of them wounds the monster greviously.

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Examples of rolling over DV [WiP]

'Short'
Drogu swings his blade at the cultist, and makes a deep wound.
If you're one of the first on the initiative list, it is usually a good idea to make a short emote if you do not have one prepared, to let the combat run smoothly. But in the end, it all comes down to style and preferences.

'Descriptive'
Rargnasha is picked up by the dreadlord, which eyes begins to glow green with fel as he stares into the eyes of the orc. Rargnasha fumbles desperately for the dagger he was given earlier, and as he feels his mind give in to the Dread Lord, he pulls out the dagger and buries it deep into the Dreadlords eye-socket.


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Critical Hit

There are two sorts of Critical hits. Normal critical hits, and Dire critical hits.
A Critical hit is when you roll a natural 90-99 when attacking a monster, this is where you show off your skills and deliver a strong blow to the enemy! A Critical hit is worth two points of damage, which you can split as you see fit! Figthing a single enemy? Dump both points down on his head! Figthing two? How about pulling off something cool and deal one point of damage to each of them!

On a DIRE critical hit you score an immediate killing blow on all but boss monsters. Even if another would score the killing blow in this turn due to initiative, your roll will count as the first wound being put on the monster this turn, unless you have other plans!
This is your time to shine and type out a badass emote of how you kill the enemy!
Should there be more than one monster and/or a boss, then a DIRE critical hit will count as four points of damage that you can distripute as you see fit!

A critical fail will be a clean 1 out of 1-100.
When you roll a critical fail, the world is just against you, it can be a particularily wounding strike to your character, pulling out an 'epic fail' or otherwise just failing, critically.

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Special Abilities

Special Abilities are often added to NPCs to spice up their encounters in various different manners. The special ability can be anything from 'flavor' to an attack, to being something an entire fight is based around! Only the imagination limits what sort of things you can pull off with the special abilities. Usually, special abilities are set within the OV of the NPC performing it. For example;

Succubus special ability: [Seduce]; 1-10. On a roll of 1-10 the succubus manages to sucessfully seduce your characters mind, flooding it with lewd images- Causing your character to sit out on his next turn.

Or something more complex!

Dreadlord special ability: [Dominate mind]; 1-5. On a roll of 1-5 the Dreadlord dominates the mind of your character, turning you upon your allies for one round. In the next round, instead of rolling against the Dreadlord, you and the player closest to you make a /roll against each other. The one who rolls heightest will win, a mind controlled person will always seek to harm the former allie closest to him or her.

Another sort of special ability that have been used is 'The lowest rolling player', two examples for that;

Kor'kron Warlock special ability: [Searing Agony] activated each round; Warlock casts a curse of searing agony upon the player character with the lowest roll, your character feels like every nerve in his or her body screams in pain, you take shadow damage.

Another example could be

Iceborn Yeti Matriatch: [Share the Love], activated every second round; The Iceborn Yeti Matriatch charges to and picks up the player character with the lowest roll, using him or her as a club for the next round! While being used as a club, your character doesn't get to roll.

A type of special abilities that has been used is AoE abilities, that creates a new round for all players, where rolling doesn't count towards attacking the target, but instead avoiding the ability!

Kor'kron Magi: [Flamestrike] activated every 3rd round; Roll over 30+ or feel the burn!

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Health and damage to player character explained:
At the start of each event a character at full health has 7/7 Health Points. Should the character be wounded due to other roleplay outside the event, the player may decide to give him penalties.
If you roll under the enemy OV value, your character takes 1 point of damage. Should you roll from 2-10, your character will take 2 points of damage. And a natural 1 means 3 points of damage.
It is still up to the player of the character to say how severly his character is wounded, however -Once the character reaches 0 health points, he or she can no longer fight on - Be it that they've been knocked to the ground and winded -Gravely wounded - Or disarmed.
After each battle all characters recover 2 points of health.
To make an example.

Rargnasha, Anthrios and Neothir are fighting a few Kor'kron with the numbers; 40/50/6.
Rargnasha has been suffering from alot of bad rolls. In the first round he rolls an 11, which just barely keeps him from taking 2 points of damage.
In the second roudn he rolls a 5, which makes him recieve 2 points of damage, in the final round he rolls a 1, and recieves 3 points of damage, taking him down to a total 1 health point.
In the following round, Rargnasha rolls 14 - Which makes him recieve the final point of damage to hit the ground. Since I don't plan for Rargnasha to die just yet, I decide to have him knocked out by the Kor'kron.
After the battle, Rargnasha manages to get to his feet, and staggers onwards to the next battle with just 2/7 health left.


Guarding and Healing.
These two mechanics helps the Player characters stay in the figths for longer, and they function along with the same system of dealing damage. If you roll below the enemy OV when attempting to heal or guard - You're interrupted and dealt damage! If you roll between the enemy OV and DV, you're interrupted, but do not sustain any wounds. Should you roll over the enemy DV when you intend to guard or heal, you will sucessfully block or heal the same amount of wounds!
However, you do not have to declare that you guard or heal before you roll. Usually, it is done after you see what everyone have rolled! Let's take the example of our fight earlier!
A rule of thumb is that you can guard people who roll after you, and you can only heal damage that has already been taken. This rule however depends on the game master and can be altered as pleased.

Rargnasha rolls an 11
Anthrios rolls 73
Neothir  rolls 82

Rargnasha takes the hit like a man, and while Anthrios punches a Kor'kron in the mouth, Neothir  decides to assist the General and heal his wound.

Anthrios rolls 96
Rargnasha rolls a 5
Neothir rolls a 36

This time, it seems like there's some descisions to make, since Anthrios rolled a 96, there's 4 different ways he could use his crit to guard and/or deal damage!
1. Deal 2 points of damage to Kor'kron.
2. Deal 1 point of damage to Kor'kron, block 1 point of damage from either Rargnasha or Neothir.
3. Block 2 points of damage for Rargnasha
4. Block 1 point of damage from Rargnasha and Neothir each.

In the third round,
Anthrios rolls 35
Rargnasha rolls 1
Neothir rolls 100.

Neothir now can like with the previous example of guard, choose to distribute her abilities amongst healing and dealing damage as she'd please, either going full damage on the Kor'kron, a mix of healing and damage, or focus fully on healing her allies!

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Things considered added to the system:
Buffing


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Final word.
Thanks to everyone who've helped improve upon this system, and Evesia for sitting with me and help with correcting some mistakes.
Thanks to Neothir, Anthrios and the Sin Belore who've tested and improved upon this system - Much love!
I hope that the community can use it to have some fun, and if anyone feels like it, please feel free to mention changes you've made yourself or suggestions for how to improve the system!

Rargnasha wrote:Now, since the Son of Cenarius is dead, it can't hit Garros, even though he only rolled 1!

Dude. It's a 1. Botches must always fuck the character over somehow. Corpse should fall on Garros. Or he slips on the blood. Or something.



On topic, I like this system. It adds a bit of complexity without having to do super extensive maths.

I also really like this system, mainly for the reason Drustai stated. It allows freedom and complexity all in a simple enough format.

Well done Rarg

Had quite a share of memorable events and encounters using this little tool here. Easy to use after a bit of explanation and very flexible! Orc-approved!

Losers need to suffer. 1 is always a critical fail, however agreed on the system being extensive enough without being overbearing. Sounds like fun to the point I almost wish I had a character in a guild tbh.



Alternatively.. I'll get my Pathfinder books out and we can sit for hours reading a million different books and spreadsheets!

Sounds like something similar that Siegmund tried with us tonight. Definitely approve, it can be fun to use.

Too much hassle for my taste. For me, dungeon mastering is, in the end, a narrative exercise, and I like to tinker my systems to cater to that demand. That means as very few stats and rolls as possible.

Why is this a sticky?

You mentioned... Drogu

I do like the system, it's quicker than the turn based one.

erwtenpeller wrote:Too much hassle for my taste. For me, dungeon mastering is, in the end, a narrative exercise, and I like to tinker my systems to cater to that demand. That means as very few stats and rolls as possible.

Why is this a sticky?

Well this is a useful suggestion for how things can be done, no on is forcing anyone to use it. Different methods cater to different types of events and can be tweaked to what suits it best.

Allonia_Miral wrote:Sounds like something similar that Siegmund tried with us tonight. Definitely approve, it can be fun to use.

Well from the DM i heard it from said they use such on the horde side, so yep! Now i just need to read it all!

Edit: Yeah nice read. I didn't really fully get the sytem that time when i saw it but now i do so i think i'll just go with this from now on!

erwtenpeller wrote:Too much hassle for my taste. For me, dungeon mastering is, in the end, a narrative exercise, and I like to tinker my systems to cater to that demand. That means as very few stats and rolls as possible.

Why is this a sticky?

This system, in my experience, wasn't so much a storytelling tool as a fightset tool.
"There's a monster, beat it" And focused on the players. Not the event-leader.
This is ment to make a fight in Silithus more exciting if you're all maxed out and maybe in Transed PvP epics. Not just to tell a story. For that purpose it's still extremly simplistic since there are no personal factors in it at all.

And fighting can't be a narrative experience?

It can. But this is a ruleset made for the players. To create a sense of order and scale without contstant EM (Eventmaster) input.
It's one roll per person, per round. Hardly lots of rolls. Only way to have less seem's to be with skipping them for players fully and just having them go all out with emotes.
Which in my experience tends to get... messy. (Or just, a load of players standing around wondering what to do. Had both happen for me in WoW).

This gives you a structure around your narrative experience.
You rolled high enough to hit? Write an emote with details! Maybe a war-shout in glee!
You got hit yourself? Write an emote detailing how! Yell out for help!

In my experience as a player in this system, you're involved far more than in much RP-PvE combat I've had in WoW. Get's flavour and structure.

The times I've used it, it has for the most part included the best of both worlds.

Hm. I suppose I should see it in action before judging. Whenever I see any sorts of stats involved in a system I tend to get all rebellious. I feel RP systems should focus on providing an experience as narrative as possible, with as little stats as possible.

The problem with too lose frameworks is that they generally become chaotic and often give to much of the naration into one hand.
An event where the GM spends five minutes telling everyone EPIC STUFF IS HAPPENING! Will be extremly boring for everyone not the GM. Same as one where the GM goes "Okay, there's a bad guy, you gotta kill it!" And let the players run-free. Those too polite to make room for themselves will likely get bored, and agitated.

Reason why most "out of computer game" RP has some form of system.
Even in free-form roleplaying the GM generally will point at the people in combat and ask "What do you do?" (And then see if it works through rock-paper-sissors generally.)
Some of these systems are FAR to rigid. DnD is a prime example. It's still fun, but often the RP is forgotten inside of it all.

The thing about the narrative experience, it often needs the static framework to be allowed to take shape for the participants use, and not only the leaders telling.
Even if this static framework should always be as small as possible.

I completely agree with everything you just wrote. I've been experimenting with my own systems in search of the perfect balance between player input and guidance, between the narrative experience and a structural one. It's a tough nut to crack, and there is no one right answer. It appears every shackle in the chain has advantages, and disadvantages.

Take initiative, for example.
Using initiative generates a better in-character flow of time, and provides easier opportunities for people to work together.
however, individual turns means a lot of waiting, and when you have a party bigger then 5 people, that means that players will at some point be spending more time waiting for their turn, then doing cool shit.

Drop initiative for "everyone goes at the same time" and it makes it harder for everyone to coordinate their actions and work together, however, it does make turns go by faster and players have a lot less downtime.

I've found that every shackle in the chain has disadvantages and advantages. Perfect balance seems impossible.



I hadn't thought of combining initiative and rate-of-success into one roll though. That is an interesting approach, and one I'd have to see in action to decide if I like it or not



I've had really really bad experiences with systems that try to incorporate any form of statistics. I'm a big fan of using the dice as a loose guideline, rather then a solid stat. I don't think a good DM needs stats, or set abilities, to deliver a smooth experience. I find them restrictive to both the narrative I'm trying to tell as a DM, and the narrative players are trying to create with their actions.

The initative system in this is really quite brilliant. It is pretty much initative of the player. Based some with latency and game factors. But if you play a slow character you can always try to wait a few seconds and just make yourself be late.
While the times I did it I was on Muzjhath, whom I generally RPed as having good reflexes, and thus I redied myself towards the end and was ready the moment a "new turn was declared"
Still, some people still forget to RP in this system, but that's something you can always encourage.

I will also say this, one of the best combat systems I've studied is the one in Scion: Hero. Even if it is filled with about two rolls to many each round of combat. It's still very ballanced and leads itself well to narrative combat.

Edit:
On the personal bases. You can always, in general, once you've gotten more used to it have some flexibility between players. Say, if you roleplay someone you know is knew to battle, you can always make it tougher on yourself. Easier to get it, harder to hit. Etc.
Even if this might just make it far to complicated for the general players.

Muzjhath wrote:But if you play a slow character you can always try to wait a few seconds and just make yourself be late.
While the times I did it I was on Muzjhath, whom I generally RPed as having good reflexes, and thus I redied myself towards the end and was ready the moment a "new turn was declared"

Wait, now you've sort of lost me. You roll for initiative, to determine combat order...

So how does a "wait" work? Do you tell your fellow players you're skipping this one to go later in the round?
And hoes does the "readying" thing go down? Do you go first despite your initiative roll because you've indicated readiness?

You roll once. To see "Do I hit, or get hit, or nothing?"
The order of those rolls show up in the chat window = initative.

Thus with "wait" I ment, that you, as a player type out /roll and then wait with pressing enter until you see enough others have.
WIth me "being ready" I ment I typed out /roll and tried to press enter as quickly as possible.
So still no initative roll. Just trying to take initative and roll first. (Or make sure to roll among the last)

Its like this:

GM: Turn starts!

everybody types /roll

the speed in which people type /roll, determines the initiative order.

so if it takes you 2 miliseconds to type /roll and another person takes 2 seconds,

you'll see in your chat box:

X rolls 3
Y rolls 7

and thus X goes first.

Oooh! Okay, I get it now. The order in which the rolls come in is the order in which actions are rolled out.

In that case, I do exactly the same in my events.

Except that I usually let players type out an action, then roll to generate a random rate of success, and then a raid warning tells them how well they did.

This allows me to look at rolls as an advice rather then a rule, so I can decide to ignore the outcome if it's dramatically appropriate, or if a player is doing something that just wouldn't work no matter how successful the roll. (like hitting a fire-immune foe with a fire spell.)

This system is made for as little GM intervention as possible, in my experiences. While your seems rather GM heavy.
Would say those are the two biggest differences.

When i first tried this system out, i thought i'd hate it, Never been a big fan of rolling myself.

however, now i'm used to it, its awesome! had many wonderful events using it, and the red blades continue to experiment, adapt and improve on each event.

Highly recommend it!

Muzjhath wrote:While your seems rather GM heavy.

It is! Which has it's advantages. It prevents power-plays and spotlight-hoggers, but sometimes results in a conflict between the DM and the player when the player doesn't agree with how their characters action turns out. It's best used in a group where the DM is familiar with the characters involved.

It looks like an interesting system to try out, I'll give it a spin some time. But I'm cutting out the requirement for creature stats, that's just something I can't work with.

Aye. GM heavy (I refuse to use the term "dungeon master" since I think it's silly and noninclusive) can be very good. And I'd say better in small groups.

Also, stats on monsters can be very good if you're leading an event that is made up by three groups of 5. The leader in each group can know Where stuff will happen, and what stats they'll have. Then do it quite automonously. (Butchered English! <3)