Active defenses as modifiers

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by harlandski

I'm working on a hack to speed up combat and reduce the number of rolls. I'm inspired by what happened with Chronicles of Darkness, where they took a similar algorithm to GURPS (roll to attack, roll to defend, roll for damage, roll for soak) and boiled it down into one roll.

You may wish to check out an article from Roleplayer 23 (included in Compendium II):

Very Basic Melee Combat: Really Simple Shortcuts for Really Quick Battles by Steffan O'Sullivan. Yes, this means it was for Third Edition, but even with the changes between Third Edition (Revised) and Fourth Edition, I think it still works. The very first section of this article is titled Attack, Defense, Damage and is about handling all three with a single roll... or rather, a Quick Contest between fighters. So when two fighters clash, each combat turn is another Quick Contest, and the results determine which (if either of them) were successfully attacked, and how much damage was done.

I'm uncertain as to whether I should go into more detail; the article isn't overly long, but covers five different shortcuts; the section I'm mentioning is only the first, and only three paragraphs long. Half the length is from the third paragraph, an example of combat using these rules!

...

Total tangent, but it is kind of funny if you read it in Compendium II like I am; the side bar article from the previous few pages is The Fight's Over Already? Optional Rules for Pacing Combat. I really did love how much information was crammed into ye olde Compendiums :D