Continuing from yesterday

Good Monday everyone,

So I thought some more about what I proposed yesterday, and I think more than anything, if I was to go independent then the first thing I would need in a rule set, the rest would come later.

Taking the suggestion made yesterday, this would be based on a D10 system.

Now, last night I was playing Diablo3, and a few things jumped out at me, most of these were points that i already knew such as how fast combat is, something that the Malifaux duel system doesn't allow.
Next I noticed that the game has an extremely interesting way of allowing the player to mitigate damage or increase survivability, much like in an MMO, you can do this by either using abilities in advance of being hit, or you can drink a health potion shortly after being hit, there is no opportunity for me, the player to say "No! You don't hit me", quite often instead the only reaction was "WTF! Where did that insta kill attack come from?" while being ressed by my party.

Now how could I translate this over to RichiQuest (I so need a better name for it, but I'll leave that for now)?

My first thought is going back to the Zombies!! ruleset as mentioned yesterday only instead of D6 it's D10.
Ok so it's been a little while since I've played that game, but from what I remember, the player targets a Z, rolls a die and on a 4+ the Z is dead.

So that's a little simple for my tastes, but I think it works for hitting.

Ie: you roll a d10, on a 5+ as standard you hit.

But now I'm left wondering, where does this 5+ come from? Why is it a 5+?
So let's introduce a Defence stat, which for all points we'll call D.

What if every character in the game had a D stat ranging from 2 to 9, and in order to Hit the target, you need to roll higher than the target's D?

What about weapons, equipment and mods? Well they can make you either +1 or -1 to your D roll.

So Joe the Treasure Hunter is trying to shoot a demon called Imp with a sawn off shotgun.

The Imp has a D of 3 meaning a 4+ will hit.
Joe is wearing Gunslinger Gloves which increased his D roll by +1, essentially making it a 3+ to hit.
As mentioned, Joe's shotgun has the sawn off mod, reducing it's range and accuracy but increasing it's damage, applying a -2 to the D roll, meaning Joe needs to roll a 5+ on a d10 to hit Imp.

I think having an available number of General Actions still works, we'll say it's 2 plus a Tactical Action, so 2 GA and 1 TA, much like the 2AP + 0AP we're used to. This can be changed as required.

So Joe wants to spend both his 2GA on shooting the Imp, he does so and rolls a 1 and a 6.

The 1 misses because it is below the D requirement, but also is a 1, which will always miss. The 6 hits. This allows Joe 1 roll against the damage profile, his rolls a 10, which for damage is a critical, does 8 points of damage and kills Imp.

This damage would be shown on a Damage Chart shown on the weapon card where 1=0 damage, 2-3=2, 4-5=3, 6-7=4, 8-9=5 and 10 = 8.

Notice that Imp didn't get a chance to do anything.

Behind Imp is a Skeleton Archer, who responds to Joe's killing of Imp by also using 2GAs to fire off two Bow shots.

Joe's standard D is 4, meaning a 5+ will hit, however Joe is wearing Leather Armour which increases his D by +1, meaning Skele needs a 6+ on 2 D10 to hit.

Skele rolls a 6 and an 8, both hits.

Skele's Damage profile is 0/1/2/3/3/5, and Skele rolls a 3 and a 7, meaning he does a total of (1+3) 4 damage.

Joe has been buffed however by a Holy Shield from his good friend's healer TA, this acts like Armour and reduces his incoming damage by 1 to a minimum of 1, so that means the incoming damage becomes (1+2) so he takes 3 Wounds.

Again, Joe was not able to prevent the attack in any form, but because he was buffed by the shield, he took 1 less point of damage.

Outside of the combat exchange, Joe downs a health potion, this can be done once per turn and doesn't require any Actions to do so, he therefore heals based on the Health Potion's healing chart which grants him 2 HP back.

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What are your thoughts?

Too complicated? Not complicated enough?

Does this feel like Malifaux with dice, or like something entirely different?

Comments and critique welcome.


- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley