“Pew Pew” play is good fun (especially for kids) but he wanted to play one of Dad’s “Board Games” with the superheroes (all the RPGs, Minis and Boardgames are kept together). We only started adding in the super powers in the last couple of games – the arrows, the shape-changing and so on. I liked that it encouraged his imaginative descriptions without me prompting him to do so.

I’d like to get a better map / board – the MSH maps aren’t really to scale for the Heroclix and the minis don’t really fit inside the spaces. Making a map + buildings might be a fun craft-time project for us as well. Of course durability is a bigger factor than normal. It’s one of the reasons I like the plastic minis.

@Moomin: Thanks for turning me on to those Galactic Heroes pages.
–Great figures and beautiful terrain.

We play a very simplified version. We just use two good guys each (a three-dice strong one like Yoda, and a two-dice strong one like R2-D2) and don’t any special abilities (so far). He seems to like it. Maybe as he gets older we can add in more complications.

I’d like to see more rules like yours and other ideas that can be used with action figures or other toys. It can get old just going “pew pew” at each other. I especially like how you mix in some role-play descriptions into your game. Great ideas!

I also use a Target Number or Base of 4, but the defender always has the option of rolling their Coordination or Armour Value (possibly getting higher than 4, possibly not).

I handle damage a bit differently. Degrees of Success provides the base damage with a multiplier based on the Weapon used. Example: d’Jaun is using his short sword and attacking Bili. Bili chooses no defense (which defaults to 4) and d’Jaun has a Melee of d8 – he rolls a 7 which grants him 3 Degrees of Success (7-4=3). A sword does “x2” so the total would be 3×2=6.

Any successful attack always gives a minimum of 1 point of damage (plus that of the Degree of success). The scalability takes care of itself. A character with a d6 melee using his or her fists would inflict damage, but not as much as d12 Troll could bash out.

Weapon Damage by Degree of Success
Degree of Success x 1 Damage- claws, hands ,foil, short bow

Degree of Success x 2 Damage- blade, club, cudgel, cutlass, dagger, hooves, horns, long bow, repeating crossbow, sling, spear, sporting bow, short sword ,teeth, thrasher

Degree of Success x 3 Damage- bastard sword, bayonet, carbine, halberd, military crossbow, pike, pistol, revolver, rifle, sub-machine gun, stinger

Degree of Success x 4 Damage- broadsword ,laser carbine, shotgun

Degree of Success x 5 Damage- laser rifle

The above is a slightly modified list of what I also use with Traveller, (something I gleaned from the web of forum many moons ago)…

Cheers and Keep it Up… Your Mechanics look very good…

Wothbora

Boris Von Hack the Brawny (Str +) 2nd level Fighting Man is armed with an Axe. He is facing off against Slippery Cedric the Quick (Dex +) 3rd level Traveler who is armed with a Sword and Shield and wearing light armour.

Boris has a d6 for his Combat Roll (d6 for Fighting Man). Cedric also has a d6 for his Combat Roll (d4 for Traveler, + one step for being 1 level higher than Boris).

Boris chooses to fight aggressively this round. This lets him roll d8 for his Combat Roll this round. Cedric chooses to fight defensively. This lets him block any of Boris’ Combat Rolls that are less than his own Combat Roll.

Both characters roll their Combat Dice and compare results. Boris gets a 1 and Cedric gets a 3, but since Boris is using his Axe two-handed he gets to roll again… and gets a 6! Boris’ result is greater than 4 so he is successful. Cedric’s defensive fighting does not block Boris’ attack since he rolled lower. He also fails to succeed in his attack against Boris this round as he rolled less than 4.

Cedric next gets to try blocking Boris’ attack with his shield and rolls d6… and gets a 5, which isn’t a block. If he had rolled 6 his shield would have blocked the attack. He also gets a Dexterity Roll of d4, but since he would be unable to get a 6 on d4 he chooses to have it enhance his Armour Roll instead.

Boris gets d10 for his weapon roll (d6 for Axe, +1 step for two-handed, +1 step for Strength).

Cedric gets d6 for his armour roll (d4 for Light, +1 step for Dex).

Cedric doesn’t want to chance taking d10 stamina loss this round so he reduces his Armour roll to d4 and the Weapon Roll to d8. He might alternately have reduced his Armour roll to 0 and the Weapon Roll to d6 if he wasn’t feeling very lucky.

Boris rolls a d8 for Weapon Roll and gets a 4. Cedric rolls d4 for his Armour Roll and gets a 3. That’s lower than Boris’ roll so he loses 4 Stamina points this round.

How does the d4 Defence Roll work?
–Please provide a few game examples, eh? :-/

Thanks.

This part:

“The defender can choose to reduce Weapon + Armour Dice on a 1-for-1 basic to a minimum of d4 for the Weapon Roll”

Is where it’s a hybrid of Armour Save and Damage Reduction.

@Timeshadows: The Dex save is d4 vs. whatever your opponent rolled for their Combat Roll. Since they normally need to roll a 4 to succeed anyway I’m not sure this will come up that often – although it would if you were being charged (dive out of the way) or there was some other condition that let your opponent succeed as long as they matched your Combat Roll. Currently the save is much less than 25% since in D&D it’s only worth about 5%.

Dex save will also factor into missile weapons and avoiding traps (still working on that part).

I see what you’re saying about the reroll a 1 being more beneficial if you have a lower Combat Dice (based on Class, not Weapon). Not sure if that’s an awful thing or not. It certainly encourages weaker combatants to fight with their weapons two handed… and in a way that does seem appropriate. hmm…

I definitely need to keep an eye on any “reroll a 1″ type scenarios with the dice-step system.

Next, I’d like to suggest that the Two-Handed rule allow for a re-roll based on the die-type of the weapon:

d4: 1…(25%)
d6: 1-2.(33%)
d8: 1-3.(24%)