Thread: TARAK TALES BACKGROUND THREAD - WORLD MATERIAL (no comments)

Combat Details One of the biggest issues of any RPG is combat. The character creation portion of the rulebook takes up a chunk, description of the game world takes up a chunk, gear is a few pages, and then combat! Combat in the d6 system is pretty simple. There's attack and defense, and they're abstracted enough to be controlled by simple die rolls. Attack skills are countered by defense skills in a fairly logical counterparting, i.e. Brawling Parry defends against Brawling attacks, Melee Parry defends against Melee attacks, and Dodge defends against any sort of ranged attack. It's usually convenient to presume one roll is one attack a shot, a punch, a stab, but you can also play it as more dramatic a cinematic clashing of fencing blades, summed up in just a couple of die rolls. It depends on what kind of time frame you're talking about, and what suits the needs of the story at the time. Resolution is the same as anything else in the system. Attacker rolls the attack skill say, Brawling and defender can either rely on the difficulty as defense not a good idea in this case, as a Brawling attack's difficulty is Very Easy, i.e. probably 5 or can roll a defensive skill in this example, Brawling Parry. If the defender rolls poorly, the base difficulty takes over in other words, the attack will always be at LEAST the base difficulty, and a roll might push it higher. Attacker rolls the dice and compares the total to either the difficulty or the defender's roll whichever the defender chose to see if the attack was successful Punch in the nose!. Difficulties are usually based on weapon complexity for melee weapons fists are Very Easy, knives are usually no more difficult than Easy, i.e. about a 10, swords and larger weapons are either Easy or Moderate, i.e. 10 or 15, depending on how simple they are to use, etc., or range point blank is Very Easy, short range is Easy, medium range is Moderate, long range is Difficult, i.e. 20, and anything more extreme is Heroic, i.e. 30. Other modifiers can make things more or less difficult the GM is the judge of that, which is as it should be. There are a few variations which should be mentioned There are two types of defense combat and full. Combat is the normal type it can substitute for the difficulty. Full is different it means the defender is doing nothing but avoiding damage. In that case, the roll ADDS to the standard difficulty, making it all the more effective. A full defense can also involve some movement, so you can traverse some distance while doing so this tends to be more relevant in table-top play, what with maps and the like, but it can be effective here, as well. A full Dodge will defend against any attack, not just ranged. And it kind of -requires- some room to move, actually. At any time during a conflict, a person can change their action to a defensive action. Again, this is usually more relevant in table-top play, but it can be used here as well with some adjustments. In other words, they abort whatever play they originally had and just defend themselves. You can only abort to a combat defense you have to declare a full defense ahead of time. A person can parry a Brawling attack with a Melee Weapon, but most folks can't parry a Melee attack with Brawling Parry, i.e. their bare hands. If you meet someone who can, be very very concerned.listu Okay, so your attack is successful. Now what? Well, now we figure out damage. Damage is also an opposed roll the damage roll usually the attacker's Strength plus additional dice or pips for the weapon, or a straight weapon damage versus the resistance roll usually the defender's Strength plus additional dice or pips for any armor they happen to have. The rolls are made and compared if the resistance roll is higher, yeah, the target got hit but shrugs off any possible damage. If the damage roll is higher, there's a table that can give the result. One shot can kill, if the damage roll far overwhelms the resistance roll. Armor can be useful, but it's a trade-off each pip of regular armor takes away a pip of Dexterity skills, so if you have 1D worth of armor, all your Dexterity skills are -1D. You can avoid this with special armor high tech or enchanted or if you have natural armor of some sort in which case the modifier is built in, but by and large, armor restricts. Therefore, very many people in a d6 game just go without. Damage inflicted can be either stun or lethal. Brawling damage is stun by default, weapon damage is lethal by default, and spell damage depends on the spell. In the case of brawling and weapons, it's possible to change the damage type throw a killing punch, or swing with the flat of the blade, but the attack roll is at a -1D penalty if you try and do that. Lethal damage results range from a stunned result -1D to all active rolls the rest of this round and all of the next round damage resistance rolls are not affected, a wounded result -1D to all active rolls until healed, a twice wounded result as wounded, but -2D, an incapacitated result conscious but unable to do anything much great effort might accomplish something, but might damage you further, a mortally wounded result usually unconscious and bleeding out limited time left to be stabilized before you die, or killed outright. Stun damage is simpler various tiers of stun results leading up to straight unconsciousness. Having more dice worth of stun damage than you have Dexterity makes you basically paralyzed until some of the damage wears off having more dice worth of stun damage than you have Stamina a Strength skill or Willpower a Knowledge skill whichever is higher knocks you out. That's it in a nutshell. Specific variations can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, so it's up to the GM to adjudicate any variations. And that's fine, because the GM has all the resource material on hand.