House Rules for Warriors of the Red Planet (Part VII)

My last post introduced a basic one roll mechanism for combat in a solo rpg loosely based on the Warriors of the Red Planet. My intent was to create a quick and easy combat system so that solo players could enjoy a game with fast-paced procedural play. 

I paused a while to give it my ideas more thought. A 1 roll combat resolution would work well if there was 1 player and 1 enemy. A roll could be made to see if an attack was successful. The roll could be modified by player and creature strength, but essentially a high roll over a certain target number would indicate a player hit and damage on the enemy. A low roll would indicate the enemy hit and damaged the player. If the system was finely nuanced enough, a roll in between could be no result for either side. But this type of one-roll system raised too many questions for me to continue writing. 

During a battle there are other actions to consider such as range attacks, special attacks, player or enemy movement, non-fighting actions such as hiding or retreating, or spell casting. Where do these get placed in a battle around this one roll conflict resolution? The other big problem is how does a one roll combat resolution work for a 1 player versus a group of enemies, visa versa, or a group versus a group? It doesn't seem to... 

So I thought about this and arrived a way to make it work. For this to all work, I would need to make a turn order for a conflict situation, and the only way I can think of to make group battle work (and by group battle this is numbers as small as 2 players versus 2 enemies) with a singe roll is to treat each side as a unit. The word unit will make everyone hearken back to early wargaming and start pulling out their editions of Chainmail. I don't plan on doing that as I want this to be something original, but unit play is the direction I will likely go for conflicts with unit numbers being as low as 1 player versus 1 enemy. 

The trick will be to add and subtract all the relevant numbers to arrive at an attack strength for each side to determine how the roll will go. Once I have worked these details out, I will be ready to share what the combat system will look like. Until, thanks for reading, and if anyone has thoughts or suggestions feel free to write a comment.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

House Rules for Warriors of the Red Planet (part III)

House Rules for Warriors of the Red Planet (Part V)

House Rules for Warriors of the Red Planet (part IV)