Elden SoulsKiroBorne is all the rage these days.
Everybody secretly has a really shitty combat system they think is really good cooking in their heads. This is mine.
It is almost certainly broken as hell and not fun at all at the table. You should add it to your own Gloghack, Cairnfork, OSEmake, Bastionlike, Knavourite Retroclone.
BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE
Rol a d6 to determine Hit Location (more on that later,) then roll your weapon dice, apply modifiers like Strength or your attack bonus or whatever. Weapon dice explode; whenever you roll max damage, roll another one of your damage dice and add it to the result. If you close your eyes it almost tastes like critical hits.
GETTING THE SHIT BEATEN OUT OF YOU
You have no HP. Every hit strikes a random location. Getting hit in the head or stomach is a bad idea.
If you take damage it becomes a Wound. You can have SUM Wounds equal to your CON Score before you pass out from the pain. At SUM Wounds double your CON Score, you die from shock.
At:
2 Wounds: You get a nasty Flesh-Wound. You'll live, but it will scar. (Record your scars somewhere on your character sheet.)
4 Wounds: The injury is deep enough to bleed 1d6 wounds worth of lifeblood each turn you don't clamp a free hand over it. (You take this damage to no specific location, just tally it next to your other limbs.) Tourniquets are your friend.
6 Wounds: Maimed; you can't use this limb for much of anything, least of all quickly. Fingers won't close around anything heavier than a pebble, legs won't support your weight, you can't take a full breath or keep anything in your stomach, you're heavily concussed and can only mumble and see two feet in front of you, etc.
8 Wounds: Mangled beyond repair. Arms or legs severed, ribcage shattered, skull crushed or decapitated. Instant death if this is your head, and you're going to need to be very very lucky if it's your torso.
A 1-2 hits your arms, 3-4 hits legs, 5 hits torso, 6 hits head. Odds are left, Evens are right.
ARMOR
Equip armor per limb. Each limb worth of armor takes up an Inventory Slot.
Hide 1 AC
Gambeson 2 AC
Leather 3 AC
Chain 4 AC
Scale 5 AC
Plate 6 AC
Subtract AC from damage received. It's not rocket science.
You can't rest in metal armor, and it makes enough noise that monsters will be expecting you when you finally round the corner. Plus, forget about swimming.
This is the part that I'm least comfortable with. Armor is weird and hashtag balancing it is actually really hard without getting stupid and fiddly in ways that I don't find fun.
DODGING
When you take damage, after your AC is subtracted from the enemy's roll, you can roll as many of your hit dice (Which are assumed to be d6's,) as you feel necessary. The SUM of your hit dice is subtracted from the damage, representing your ability to roll with the punches, dodge, and generally not get your shit pushed in by people with sharp objects. However, any hit dice you roll that show a 5 or a 6 are exhausted, and can't be used again until you've eaten a full meal (At least two of: Hot, with Meat, or with Alcohol,) and slept at least 6 hours.
BLOCKING
Action economy is weird when you're system agnostic. In systems with two actions, blocking costs one, in systems with movement actions blocking is a movement action, in systems with only one action and movement- you can't block if you were moving on your last turn. Blocking does not require Hit Dice, it redirects all damage from the targeted Hit Location to the shield. All shields have 6 HP.
Shields are made of;
Leather: 2 AC
Wood: 4 AC
Metal: 6 AC
PRESS
I'm calling it Press, because Advantage was taken. When you have someone flanked, or prone, or otherwise at a disadvantage, you gain a Press. You can also roll a Hit Die in exchange for a Press. The Hit Die exhausts as usual.
These press bonuses can be stacked.
- Choose hit location
- +2 Damage
- Bypass Shield
- Control Weapon (Renders one of their arms unusable until they drop their weapon or use this press against you)
- Sunder 1 point of AC
RANGE
Get in there and kick their asses. Weapons are used at four ranges, Distant, Far, Standard, and Close. Changing Ranges takes your movement. Only Ranged weapons can be used at Distant, Ranged and thrown weapons can attack at Far, all melee weapons can be used at Standard, and all One-handed weapons can be used at Close, except Spears. Two handed weapons and spears are bludgeons at Close range.
It requires a movement action, or round of movement or whatever your system uses to move between ranges. You can roll a Hit Dice to move an extra range increment.
WEAPON LIST
- Fists/d1/Hard to inflict anything worse than a concussion
- Bludgeon/d4/anything not meant to be used as a blunt weapon
- Dagger/d4/Ignores armor at Close range. Can be thrown
- Sword/d6/Not a bludgeon when used to smash things with the cross-guard.
- Spear/d6/Grants 1 Press against anyone with a shorter weapon. Can be thrown. Can't be used in Close range.
- Hammer/d6/Ignores 1 point of armor
- Axe/d6/+2 damage against shields and prone.
- Big Sword/d12/Two handed, Incredibly lethal.
- Big Mace/d8/Two handed, Ignores 2 points of armor
- Pole Arm/d10/Two handed, Grants 1 Press against anyone with a shorter weapon.
PERKS, FIGHTING STYLES, AND OTHER THINGS THAT ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT FEATS
- Tough; All your wound thresholds are increased by 1; you get a flesh wound at 3 wounds, start bleeding at 5, etc.
- Unarmored; You always get a free bonus Hit Dice to dodge. Make sure that you keep it separate from your other hit dice, since it doesn't matter if this one gets exhausted. This only works if you're unarmored, duh.
- Parryfreak; You can roll one Weapon Die (exploding) instead of any Hit Die. If this reduces the incoming damage to zero, you deal any leftover "parry" into damage to the enemy.
- Brutal; You can roll one Hit Dice per attack and add it to your damage.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Ranged attacks, Armor rethinking, Grappling, dual wielding, Tripping, weaboo bullshit weaponry.
