Pennetra (New Combat System)

 

Okay, here’s a new combat system.  I’m calling it Pennetra because I had to write the word ‘Penetrating’ like 10 times in this post and other potential names like Penetrox are already taken by industrial aluminum joint compounds.

I’m trying to do (1) something new, and (2) something where a smaller % of attacks are misses.

Simple Version

This is the one-roll version.

Next to each weapon in your inventory, you have two numbers: Penetration and Damage.  Penetration helps you hit, and Damage is how much you hurt the other guy.  

	Penetration	Damage
Dagger	d4	4
Sword	d6	4
Greataxe	d6	5

Making an Attack

When you make an attack, you roll Penetration to see if you hit.

• If the result equals the target’s Defense, you hit.

• If the result is 2x the target’s Defense, you hit 2x and deal +2 damage.

• If the result is 3x the target’s Defense, you hit 3x and deal +4 damage.

That’s it.  That’s the whole mechanic.

Modifiers

• Increase your Penetration die by 1 size if you are a Fighter.

• Increase your Penetration die by 1 size if you have a magic weapon.

• Increase damage by 1 point if you are strong.

• If you have a situational bonus to hit, decrease their Defense by 1 point.

Defense

Unarmored = 1 (everything hits)

Leather = 2

Chain = 3

Plate = 4

Dragon = 5

There’s a satisfying effect here: against unarmored enemies, all weapons are equally likely to hit.  However, against heavily armored enemies, daggers (and other small weapons) become almost useless.  (The big advantage of daggers is that they can be concealed, thrown, and used in a grapple.)

When you get a situational bonus, you decrease their Defense instead of upgrading your Penetration die.  This is to benefit small weapons (like daggers) and non-fighters.  If you have a situational advantage against a person in leather armor, a dagger is as good as a sword–which kinda makes sense.

Some side effects of this system:

• Attacks hit more often, so you’ll need to increase HP if you want combat to take a similar number of rounds.  Alternatively, keep HP the same if you want combat to be shorter than what you’re used to.  (For monsters, I’m going to try 5 HP per level and see how that feels.)

• Physical weapons got a buff, but magic didn’t.  As a result, magic damage will feel weaker than what you might be used to.  This might actually be a feature if you want to push your wizard players towards using non-damaging spells.  It might be a bug if you want your wizard to be the nuke.

• The scaling between armor types is sharper here.  Plate is stronger than what you are used to, and leather is much weaker.  Chain is about the same.

Adding Complexity: Double Dice

Okay, maybe you want something a little more interesting?  Let’s change it to a pair of dice rolls.

	Penetration	Damage Die
Dagger	d4	d6
Sword	d6	d6
Greataxe	d6	d8

Once rolled, these dice are not fixed.  You can switch them freely.

This makes it even easier to hit your targets now.  It might look like you’ll be doing a little less damage, but since you can arrange your dice so that (if both dice are equal-or-higher-than the target’s Defense) the bigger die is the damage die, that doesn’t end up being the case.

The modifiers are the same as above.  2x and 3x hits each add another d4 of damage.

Monster Attacks

Some speculative conversions.

	Penetration	Damage Die	Flat Damage
Goblin	d6	d4	3
Bandit	d6	d6	4
Bear	2 x d6	d8	4
Orc	d8	d8	5
Ogre	d10	d10	6
Owlbear	3 x d6	d8	5
Giant	d12	d12	7
Dragon	3 x d10	d8	5

Adding Complexity: Mighty Maneuvers

Fighters have a chance to do cool things with their attacks, for free.

Beginning at level 2, Fighters get a third die to roll, called the Mighty Maneuver die.  This is a d4 at level 2, but it becomes a d6 at level 4.  (If you have a d5, you can use that for level 3.)

The fighter will roll all 3 dice, and assign each one to a task: Penetration, Damage, and the Mighty Maneuver.  After damage is dealt, the value showing on the Mighty Maneuver die becomes the DC for the enemy’s save to avoid the Fighter’s combat maneuver.  You still need to hit your target in order to attempt a Mighty Maneuver.

Enemies usually use a d6 to resist, or a d8 if they’re good at it.  And a lot of actions are impossible.  (You’ll never shove a dragon, for example.)

Example:

Frollo the Fighter attacks, and therefore rolls all three dice: 4, 5, 6.  The target has a defense of 3 (chain).  He decides to use the 4 for Penetration (a hit!) and the 5 for damage.  The 6 becomes Frollo’s trip attempt.

His enemy, the evil unicorn Hexodia, is not easily tripped with four legs.  The unicorn rolls a d8 to avoid being tripped, but gets a 5.  This is less than Frollo’s 6, and so the unicorn topples with a surprised neigh.

Alternatively, Frollo could have used 6 for Penetration (a double hit!) and 1d4+4 for damage.  (The extra 1d4 comes from the second hit).  This would have left the 5 for the Maneuver.  Since the unicorn also rolled a 5, it would not have been tripped.

Why Would Anyone Use This System?

Compared to regular D&D, there's less math and smaller numbers, so attacking is a little simpler. Attack rolls are probably faster for everyone except the fighter. And attacks miss less often, so combat feels faster.

Compared to Into the Odd, it allows for smoother scaling of enemy difficulty. In ItO, enemy Armor affects your hit chance and reduces your damage (effectively double-dipping). In Pennetra, enemy Defense mostly reduces your chance to hit, but because you often switch dice to land the hit, the hits tend to be smaller as well, so Defense functions as a subtle (and milder) form of damage reduction.

It has diminishing returns on strong attackers, which is nice. Even if you get your Penetration die up to d12 (or d20), you'll still miss occasionally against an armored foe.

I think it preserves the intended differences between the different weapon types, while still giving people a reason to carry a dagger.

And it makes Fighters feel cool. They get something that no one else does.

Discussion

You could take this a step further, and add a fourth die that improves your Defense for the next round.  There’s a couple of ways to do this, but I don’t like any of them very much.  

I probably would let a player take a total defense action, though, and gain +1 Defense at the cost of forfeiting all other actions.

Expect some hesitation as players try to figure out which configuration does the most damage.  (It’s not too hard.  An extra hit is worth 2.5 points of damage.)  Is this decision interesting and meaningful?  Maybe.

It’s more interesting for fighters, since they have to choose between dealing more damage and doing something cool.  It could potentially lead to some situations where a fighter focuses more on the maneuver and less on the damage, which is cool.  

I like fighters to be: 

• Simpler than other classes.

• More spontaneous.  Instead of declaring what spell you are casting, a fighter is largely reacting to openings that the enemies give.

• Good at doing several things in combat, not just damage.

Domain Expansion

Actually, you could rip out the engine from Pennetra and apply it to other types of resolution mechanics. Example: crafting.

When you craft something, roll a Materials die, Tools die, and a Skill die. The results are assigned to your three goals of Quality, Efficiency, and Time. (Low Efficiency means that you end up using more raw materials than you thought you would. High efficiency means that you have some left over.)

If you think of any other fun applications, post it in the comments.

Some Classes

GLOG-adjacent.  Fighters and barbarians are both durable, but they’re different kinds of durable.

Fighters 

Fighters upgrade their Penetration die by 1 step.

Level 1 - Defend

Level 2 - Mighty Maneuvers 1d4

Level 3 - Extra Attacks

Level 4 - Mighty Maneuvers 1d6

Defend

Once per round, you can intercept a physical attack that was meant for an adjacent ally.  You take all of the damage that they would have taken.  You can declare this after damage is rolled.

Mighty Maneuvers

See above.

Extra Attacks

When fighting multiple enemies, a Fighter can attack two enemies at once.  They will roll all three dice at the same time.  A Penetration die is assigned separately to each enemy, and the third die is used for Damage.

Alternatively, the third die can be used for a Mighty Maneuver, performed against both enemies simultaneously.

Barbarians

Barbarians get more HP than fighters, but they can’t wear armor.  Like Fighters, they also upgrade their Penetration die by 1 step.

Level 1 - Rage

Level 2 - Quaff

Level 3 - Mighty Strength

Level 4 - Mighty Rage

Rage

Increase your damage die by 1 step, but you cannot take any actions that aren’t part of an action to directly murder your enemies.  Rage ends when all enemies are subdued or driven off.  Once per round, you can attempt to end it early with a 2-in-6 chance of success.

Quaff

You drink down some booze.  It heals for you for 1d6+[Level] HP, but you get drunk.  For the next hour, if you ever (1) make an attack roll (2) and miss (3) and get doubles, you suffer a fumble.  Your weapon breaks, an enemy gets a free attack against you, etc.

Mighty Strength

You can do some magnificent feat of strength 1/day, like rip a door off its hinges.  If used to intimidate, you get a large bonus.  This ability isn’t useable in combat.

Mighty Rage

Your rage improves, increasing your damage die by another step when raging.