COMBAT MECHANICS:
PLANNING:
Before combat begins, players will have a chance to vote on how they intend to use the resources at their disposal. This comes in two parts: Objectives and Strategy. All combat votes will be Plan Votes.
-Objectives: I will usually state the primary objective of the combat; most often the defeat of an enemy boss but occasionally something more complicated.
Players, meanwhile, will be able to vote for various secondary objectives. I will give ideas, but I encourage write-ins based on the post.
Starting from 1 (the most important secondary) and going down, players will decide how important they deem each secondary objectives. I will then use this when I am deciding the outcomes of various dice rolls.
-Strategy: This is where players decide how they are going to succeed in their objectives. Players will allocate their characters into groups and lay out what order they intend to do things it. This strategy may take several posts to execute, giving players a chance to modify if something unexpected happens, but in generally I will stick to it.
Once votes are made, I'll roll dice and determine the outcomes until the next major decision point.
DICE MECHANICS:
When in combat, D10s are used to determine combat outcomes, with the threshold for success dependent on who's rolling.
-Standard dice: A standard dice naturally succeeds on a roll of 9 or 10. These dice are typically used for minions and green units.
-Strong dice (s.) A strong dice naturally succeeds on a roll of 7, 8, 9 or 10. These dice are typically used for player units and bosses.
-Dragon dice (d.) A dragon dice is more rare, and naturally succeed on 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. They are used when tapping directly into draconic power in some way, be it a manakete's dragon form or certain weapons that are more deeply tied to dragons.
Dice Numbers: Heroes and bosses will typically roll (1+(Level)) dice, while minions and green units will typically roll (Level) dice.
Additional dice can then be added based on tactics, circumstances, and Supports.
For example: in the recent bandit fight, there would be 2 groups, you, Kelton and the militia fighting outside of the camp and Artemis's group infiltration. Both groups would only be rolling against parts of the enemy force, making two smaller combats rather than one big one. You, Kelton and the green units would roll against the bandit boss and however many minions he was able to get to follow him, while Artemis, Axton, Lancel and Arden would face some of the others.
Supports: Although characters can have many supports, they can only benefit from one Support at a time in combat. When a pair of units with Support are in the same combat, they will each give each other 1 dice for C rank, 2 dice for B rank, and 3 dice for A rank (for a total of 2, 4 and 6 extra dice).
RUNNING COMBAT:
Enemies, rather than all being counted together, will start split up into groups, though as the battle goes on these groups can change.
Combat goes by rounds: in each round your groups will roll against any enemy groups they have been matched with. Whenever combat happens, I will roll the dice pools against each other 3 times, checking which side got more successes in each round. Which of these 3 sets get used depends on whether Ryza and company have Advantage, Parity or Disadvantage.
-Advantage: You're currently winning, or at least doing well. Whichever of the 3 rolls is better for you will be used.
-Parity: Both sides are roughly even. Most combats will start this way, unless clever tactics are employed. The middle result will be used.
-Disadvantage: You're on the back foot, and the result that is worst for you will be chosen.
Before rolling, I will have decided what the potential results of the combat, with outcomes becoming progressively better/worse the more you win/lose by. The typical results table will look like this (though I won't post it):
Win by more than 6: ???
Win by 5-6: ???
Win by 3-4: ???
Win by 1-2: ???
Tie : ???
Lose by 1-2: ???
Lose by 3-4: ???
Lose by 5-6: ???
Lose by more than 6: ???
After all combats in a round have been resolved, I will look at any unengaged enemy groups and determine what they would do in response to the events of the round. This could be moving to reinforce a nearby ally group, attempt to complete some objective, or perhaps even running away if they think things are going badly. I will then move onto the next round.
Should there be a radical change in circumstances, players will have a chance to vote for new/modified Strategy/Objectives, but otherwise I will keep rolling.
MODIFING DICE
There are several ways dice can be modified.
Battalions: Sometimes, a strong leader can push their troops to greater heights. This will be done through forming a Battalion. Weaker units can give their dice to a leader, upgrading them. This will typically cause their Standard dice to become Strong dice, though it could go all the way to Dragon if that's what the leader is using.
Weapons: Fire Emblem games encourage the use of strong weapons to tip the scales. To simulate this, having special weapons will improve dice. For example, in the bandit fight, I mentioned several times that the bandit boss's axe was shiner and sharper: it was a Steel axe rather than Iron. There are several types of weapons you are typically going to see.
-Steel Weapons/Tier 2 spells add an additional dice to the wielder's pool
-Silver Weapons/Tier 3 spells add two additional dice to the wielder's pool
-Rune Weapons/Tier 4 spells are very rare, but when used add two Dragon dice to the wielder's pool
-Killer Weapons: Crits are scary. When a character is wielding a Killer weapon, rolled 10s will count as 3 successes.
-Brave Weapons: The wielder of a Brave weapon can attack twice in a Round.
-Effective Weapons: Half the wielder's natural dice are automatically counted as successes when fighting an enemy their weapon is effective against (Example: Bows vs flyers).
Weapon Triangle: When facing an opponent who has weapon triangle advantage (Sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats spear), a character will lose one dice and their opponent will gain one. For groups of minions and green units, the most common weapon type in the group will be used.
Skills: All player characters, and certain powerful bosses will have skills that allows them to alter dice, re-roll dice, or gain automatic successes in certain circumstances. They will typically have two: a personal skill that is unique to the character, and a class skill based on their class.
Defense/Healing: On occasion, either strong defenses or a healer makes it so that fighters have a hard time wounding their opponents. This will be tracked by having Defense and Healing points, which counteract opposing hits. For example, in the bandit fight, Ardan the healer was with Artemis. This would mean that, should Artemis's group take injuries (enemy dice successes), Ardan would be able to cancel some of the enemy hits out on a 1 to 1 basis.
Other Items: Sometimes, players can use other items they might have to tip the scales in their favor. Items that can have combat effects will be listed in the Inventory post at the beginning of the quest.
I would like to thank Barondoctor and VagueZ for their invaluable help in designing this system, as well as the TreseBrothers (One of the best if not the best Indie game developers around IMHO) for providing the basis of the dice system.
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