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mmu1
Ok, so this weekend, I played a short game of TRoS. All kinds of hype posted on the manufacturer's page aside (Best system ever! Real-time combat!), it actually played very nicely, but the reason I'm posting this is because of how much it reminded me, in some ways, of SR3 - and because I've actually been mulling over ways to make the SR3 system more suitable for a melee-heavy, fantasy world, and I like a number of things TRoS does. (and in fact, would probably just use it instead)

Multiple dice (d10s), degrees of success, combat pools, variable TNs, "Drama" points that let you re-roll failures like Karma... All that good stuff is quite similar.

It handles a number of things differently, though - for example, in combat, the TN, while variable, is determined by how difficult to use your weapon is, and various other factors - weapon reach, environmental modifiers, special maneuvers you might try - subtract or add dice to your pool. I don't know yet whether the system breaks down easily or not (it seemed fairly robust), but the nice thing about adding or subtracting dice - rather than modifying TN - was that you can factor in a lot of different tactical options without having the TN get extremely high or low for one of the fighters. Good tactics, a better position or a longer-reach weapon can still be very decisive, but it's not nearly as extreme as needing three times the dice of your opponent to have a fighting chance if he's got a reach 2 weapon, and you have no reach.

Another neat thing it does is that every combat round always (well, unless someone goes down right away, or retreats entirely - assuming there's room to do so) consists of two exchanges - and you have to decide whether you're going to attack or defend in the first one, and how to divide your combat pool between them. The winner of the first exchange gets initiative in the second one (which means he's the one that chooses whether he attacks or defends, and the enemy has to use a defensive maneuver).

Since you only have the dice in your combat pool (your skill dice are factored into it, but you don't get to use them on every attack - you get X number of dice from various sources, and as you spend them, they're gone for the round), this leads itself to all kinds of interesting situations... Do you stake everything on a huge blow in the first exchange, leaving yourself with nothing to defend with if the enemy manages to fend you off? Or do you defend, hoping that you'll beat him, seize initiative, and get a decisive blow in during the second exchange? f you get into the advanced rules, all kinds of other options open up, like feints, defensive disarms, ripostes... and despite the fact you simply buy or "activate" these various options by spending CP dice, instead of varying the TN, it seems to work.

Finally, before the exchange takes place, you can use up some of your CP dice to make a "terrain roll" in order to try to basically shape the battlefield. (leap up onto a table, kick a chair over in someone's path, position yourself so that you only need to fight one enemy at a time, etc.) Of course, the trick is knowing when it's worth it.

I suppose it shouldn't exactly be surprising that it handles melee combat well (since it's what the game appears to have been built around), but it's been a while since I came across a game that actually had some innovative mechanics that actually worked...
lorechaser
Man.

Their character creation rules are harsher than old SRs!

You rank 4 categories A-D.

They include Social Class, Attributes, Vocations, and Proficiency (or something similar).

The D level for Social Class is "Slave/Criminal." You start the game with nothing. You are illegal, on the run, and probably being chased by the law.

DAMN!

Yeah, I don't think I'm allowing anyone in my party that didn't take at least C level there. Which means everyone has to tank attributes, vocations (which are pretty much everything you can do) or prof (combat ability).

There is no one in the game that isn't gimped in some way. You're either on the run, baseline average in stats, which run 1-10 (D is 16 points, 4 in each is average), have basically no skills (you pick a vocation, and that is what you roll against for most skills. Your vocation level is your target. D rank Vocation is one at 9. So you have a target of 9 in something like Woodsman, and that's it), or can't fight worth a damn (D rank is 3 dice. A is 12).

And proficiency dice are the total dice you can assign to all the weapons you know. So 12 dice could get you a 4 in Longsword, 4 in Axe and 4 in bow. Then you have 4+your attribute combat dice. Ouch.

The melee combat section does look cool, but man. The character creation rules hurt me.
mmu1
QUOTE (lorechaser)
Man.

Their character creation rules are harsher than old SRs!

You rank 4 categories A-D.

They include Social Class, Attributes, Vocations, and Proficiency (or something similar).

The D level for Social Class is "Slave/Criminal." You start the game with nothing. You are illegal, on the run, and probably being chased by the law.

DAMN!

Yeah, I don't think I'm allowing anyone in my party that didn't take at least C level there. Which means everyone has to tank attributes, vocations (which are pretty much everything you can do) or prof (combat ability).

There is no one in the game that isn't gimped in some way. You're either on the run, baseline average in stats, which run 1-10 (D is 16 points, 4 in each is average), have basically no skills (you pick a vocation, and that is what you roll against for most skills. Your vocation level is your target. D rank Vocation is one at 9. So you have a target of 9 in something like Woodsman, and that's it), or can't fight worth a damn (D rank is 3 dice. A is 12).

And proficiency dice are the total dice you can assign to all the weapons you know. So 12 dice could get you a 4 in Longsword, 4 in Axe and 4 in bow. Then you have 4+your attribute combat dice. Ouch.

The melee combat section does look cool, but man. The character creation rules hurt me.

According to the guy GMing yesterday (it was a one shot, and I used a pre-made character), the quickstart rules (I'm assuming that's what you're looking at?) oversimply things, and actual character generation isn't as restrictive. I was busy enough playing not to have much time to leaf through the rulebook so I'll have to wait to confirm that until my copy arrives.

Regardless of that, it's actually very easy to scale up the power of starting characters without unbalancing things - this is the sort of game where, supernatural abilities aside, you can be an amazing swordsman, and you can still end up really screwed if you have to fight three thugs who can competently swing a club.
Garrowolf
I tried Riddle of Steel a while back and thought that it was great ... at first. Then I realized that it can't seem to handle multiple opponents in combat at all. It's all duels. It also had some other problems but I can't remember right now.
Austere Emancipator
It can definitely handle multiple opponents. It just makes fighting them all at the same time so difficult it kind of assumes you are using your Combat Pool to maneuver such that you engage as few of them as possible, preferably only one, per combat turn.

I haven't run it yet, and probably won't in the near future, but I do have the TRoS main rulebook, Flower of Battle and Companion. If I am going to run it, I'll use the point buy system from the Companion -- sound familiar? The basic priority system is indeed rather less restrictive than your example: you have Race & Sorcery, Social Class, Attributes, Skills, Proficiencies & Vagaries (ie. combat and magical skills), and Gifts & Flaws (~edges and flaws) and 6 priorities from A to F, so if you're a non-magical human you don't quite have to suck at anything else.

Still, it is rather interesting that there's 10 character attributes, the world-wide average of which is apparently 4. Yet the average priorities (C and D) put into Attributes only give you 39 and 35 points, respectively, to put in them.
hobgoblin
so the one with the initative selects who to fight, take some loss in pool based on the extra enemys (that cant be counted by another fighter on your own side) and go at it?
Austere Emancipator
The evasion of enemies works with the Terrain Roll principle mentioned by mmu1 above. At the beginning of the combat turn (I think) you choose an amount of d10s from your Combat Pool to roll against a target number decided by the amount of opponents (and possibly other factors) -- 5 at the lowest vs. 2 opponents, as high as 10 in some fights with 10+ opponents -- and if you succeed only one opponent can attack you that turn. If you fail, they can all attack you. The Flower of Battle book includes a slightly modified way of handling this, can't remember right now how it differs.

Either way, if you've got the initiative, I think you can only attack one opponent. Or maybe not, since even the defensive maneuvers allow for attacks -- and indeed you can simply forego the defense and attack instead, possibly trying to steal initiative to get your blow to land first.
hobgoblin
hmm, all in all the only diff i find (mostly) vs most other games out there is that it does not have a HP rating or similar. either your standing your your down.

this keeps turning up in game that go for faster play it seems.
the important people just have some way of saving themselfs x number of times from these fatal blows. a unimportant npc on the other hand have no way, and will fall the moment he screws up.

this means that you can trow scores of semiskilled npcs at the characters and watch them fall. kinda like trowing scores of pesants in bamboo armor at a samurai in metal armor...
mmu1
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
The evasion of enemies works with the Terrain Roll principle mentioned by mmu1 above. At the beginning of the combat turn (I think) you choose an amount of d10s from your Combat Pool to roll against a target number decided by the amount of opponents (and possibly other factors) -- 5 at the lowest vs. 2 opponents, as high as 10 in some fights with 10+ opponents -- and if you succeed only one opponent can attack you that turn. If you fail, they can all attack you. The Flower of Battle book includes a slightly modified way of handling this, can't remember right now how it differs.

Either way, if you've got the initiative, I think you can only attack one opponent. Or maybe not, since even the defensive maneuvers allow for attacks -- and indeed you can simply forego the defense and attack instead, possibly trying to steal initiative to get your blow to land first.

Here's how the combat works, by the core rules:

1. Assuming you don't stumble across your opponent unexpectedly, declare Stance.

2. Make a Terrain Roll if necessary.

3. When the DM says "throw", drop a red or white die. (Declaring either an attack or a defense - your opponent does the same. It's only done once at the start of the fight, or following a significant pause in the fighting.)

4. If both dice thrown are white, the enemies simply circle each other. (if that goes on long enough, you can try to taunt or fake out the other guy to get him to attack)

If both dice are red, and you're not comfortable with the idea of both you and the enemy landing blows simultaneously (should both of you succeed on your attack rolls), then you can try to seize initiative to get your blow to land first. Only recommended if you don't like your character, or you're very quick and very good.

If there's one red and one white, the attacker declares his offense (and how many dice he uses), the defenders follows suit. Dice are rolled, and successes compared.

5. Assuming both fighters are still alive, the winner of the first exchange has the initiative and gets to choose whether to attack or defend. (or disengage)

If you find yourself fighting multiple opponents (The core rules cap the number of people that can get at the same target in a normal melee at 3 - though if you fight 10 people, you are still way more screwed than if you fought 3 or 4, because it's a lot harder to make your Terrain Roll) you can actually, per the rules, divide your CP however many ways you want - though obviously, even for a very skilled character that makes absolutely no sense if fighting more than 2 people at a time. (and even then, it's more efficient to use, say, 1/3 of your CP to make the Terrain Roll with ease, and the rest of the CP to kill your current opponent in one round, then repeat with the next victim, than it is to divide your CP in two and fight two enemies at once)

It is pretty fast and deadly, but not much more than SR, really. And if your character is skilled, it's actually very tactical, because you get a ton of options that can affect your outcome. Feints, beats, counters, trips, disarms, getting inside the enemy's reach, half-swording...
hobgoblin
so basicly its a intricate modeling of the art of the duel?
riddle of steel indeed...
Austere Emancipator
...master strikes, overrunning, draw cutting, rota, twitching, winding and binding, murder strokes, shield bashing, bind & strike, evasive attack, hooking, simultaneous block/strikes, stopping short, block open & strike, expulsion, grappling, evasion...
MikeJW
I love the Riddle of Steele. It's the most interesting and tense combat I've had in any game.
hobgoblin
and what did that feel come from? all the options, or that if you loose you realy loose?
as in, no "20 hp damage? i can probably take 3-4 more of those biggrin.gif"...
mmu1
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
and what did that feel come from? all the options, or that if you loose you realy loose?
as in, no "20 hp damage? i can probably take 3-4 more of those biggrin.gif"...

I've played other games in which you can get dropped by a single solid sword blow, and while the risk is a part of it, it's definitely not all of it.

It basically comes down to this, for me:

The fact you have to make two exchanges of blows in each combat round increases the importance of good tactics, instead of just lucky die rolls, and makes the combat more suspensful. If you take a risk in the first exchange, it can really pay off, or bite you in the ass in the second. A big part of the fun is not hitting as hard as you can as soon as you can, but maneuvering to get your enemy into an untenable position and finishing him off.
hobgoblin
kinda what combat pool does in SR3 if you have more then one initative pass? hmm, i can understand how that introduces tractics into the mix, ill have to keep that in mind...
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