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Old 09-06-2020, 11:21 AM   #3
Blind Mapmaker
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Mannheim, Baden
Default Re: [Basic Set] Advice for abstracting combat as a contest

Got a little time with nothing else to do and thought I'd give it a shot following tBone's outline (the basic mechanics are his - I am just filling in the blanks):

Each party of combattants rolls 3d6 to decide the outcome.

Each PC rolls the following as complemtary rolls to that 3d6 roll (see the article for details).

1. Attack: Use your main attack skill. If you're willing to expend at least three times the FP of an FP-based attack you may use that instead. Roll only vs. the lower skill if using spells and such. Subtract -1 if your average damage is lower than the average DR in the other party, subtract -3 if your maximum damage is lower than the average DR.

2. Defence: Use your preferred Active Defence. You may add DB for a shield, but subtract -1 if your chosen Active Defence is Shield.

3. Chance Roll (1d6):

1: Toughness: Roll vs. HT
2: Sneakiness: Roll vs. Stealth
3: Tactics: Roll vs. Tactics
4: Reflexes: Roll vs. doubled Basic Speed
5: Scary Face: Roll vs. Intimidation
6: Pure Damage: Roll vs. ST

4. Choice Roll: Roll vs. another one of the skills above of the player's choice.

5. Tally all the rolls and modifiers from all the PCs then either assign some comparable modifiers for the other party or roll and tally their rolls. Then have one of the players roll 3d6+party tally and roll 3d6+opponent modifiers. Compare and interpret the rolls.

That last bit is the hard part if we're actually talking combat. Obviously the winning party wins, but if the margin of victory is only one or two, the other folks might still be standing or in orderly retreat and their opponents might have taken considerable damage too. If you want to keep things moving I suggest treating a margin of victory of 1-2 as medium damage with maybe one character below 0 HP if help is readily available and the rest above 1/3 HP, MoV of 3-4 as everybody above 1/3 HP and MoV 5+ as scratches and expended resources/FP. It probably makes sense to note down any critical failures during the preliminary phase and assign the worst damage to those PCs.

Of course, you could also treat any MoV from -2 to +2 as a reason to play out some of the combat, though that might not be what you want.

You might add extra modifiers according for capabilities of the PCs - like +2 for fire magic users vs. trolls - or the situation - like an overall +4 for a well set-up ambush. The list under 3 is of course expandable pretty much ad infinitum - just make sure you don't mix up the probabilities if you use more d6s (though nobody is going to diss you if you use d20 for tables in your GURPS game).

Hope that gives you some ideas. As I said the main kudos for the system goes to tBone. It's a really neat one.
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Last edited by Blind Mapmaker; 09-06-2020 at 11:30 AM. Reason: added "use" before "more d6s"
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