vonpenguin, totally. It's a major stumbling block. But to counter all that, I've had a new idea - see below
Okay, so back to that rule tweak I mentioned earlier on making damage into one roll. I've had another brain wave on it.
You see, the problem with it was that it was just *too* dangerous. You would certainly do far more damage with a one-roll damage system, rather than rolling to strike, getting carryover successes, then adding them to a damage roll.
For instance, if you rolled to Strike somebody in the one-roll system, and got 7 successes to Strike, +5 weapon Damage, that's 12 damage straight up. And your opponent is
so dead.
On the other hand, with a 2-roll method, you roll to Strike and get 7 successes. Then you get a +3/+3 carryover, adding on to a weapon that's say, 5/5, so you end up with +8/+8 to Damage. If you roll a 7 and a 6, you would end up with 9 damage. You have more chance of doing slightly less damage.
The thing is, the one-roll system is
so much simpler, which I love.
So here's my solution (stupidly simple change, I know):
I will reduce weapon damage!Ta-daaa!
Okay, so what does that actually mean?
Essentially, if a weapon was doing, say, 5 damage before, now it would be more likely to do 3 damage. A weapon that did 8, would probably do 6. Because they are
guaranteed to deal that damage once you hit, they become way more deadly.
For example, you roll to Strike with Dex / Firearms, both are at 5's. You're shooting a glock that does, say, 3 damage.
You hit with 4 successes.
Your opponent rolls to Dodge, gets 1, so you hit with 3 net successes. You add 3 to that for the glock, and so you do 6 damage. It's a brutal gut-shot.
Simple, right?
I think it will still be a bit more deadly, but I'm fine with that, personally. Bullets, knives, swords...they're dangerous things.
The other issue was Absorb. I don't like (and never will like), static "absorb" stats. They're too invariable, and can end up with someone "absorbing" 10 damage from everything that attacks them, which is just silly, and makes the game return to a D&D smash-fest, though without the joy of actually reducing HP!
So instead of that, now with Absorb, it's only rolled for with armour, not with Constitution (sorry folks), and you roll it as part of your Defensive Action. It's also only 1 die.
So, say you get shot at with a glock, the attacker gets 5 successes.
You have a ballistic vest (Absorb level 5) and decide to Dodge, so you roll Dexterity / Dodge / Armour. 3 dice.
All your stats are 5s. You end up rolling a 6, 7 and 8, meaning 1, 2 and 3 successes respectively (and 6 total).
You Absorb and Dodge all of it (your attacker got 5 successes to Strike), so are safe.
IF you didn't spend your action Dodging, you could still roll for the Absorb with 1 die. Just roll 1d10 + 5 for the ballistic vest. Say you get an 8 again, then you would have Absorbed 3 from the Strike roll. This isn't enough to stop the attack (he hit for 5 successes), but you have reduced the Strike to 2 successes. He then adds the +3 damage, and you take 5. Ouch.
Do you see how that would work?
It's simple, fast, removes stuff like Hardness Rating, which is difficult to explain, and also removes confusing Carryover Dice at the same time. With the tests I did with my friends, it worked perfectly.
Give it a whirl, try it on for size, let me know how you find it! I think it's a winner
~Oliver
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