ItO combat is great. Simple, deadly, to the point. Some things I don’t like:
- “Magnet” combat where you always deal damage. I understand the rationale (misses waste time), but missing should at least be POSSIBLE, especially if your enemy is known for being quick on their feet.
- Removal of involvement from ability scores. As it currently stands, the strongest character with a club will on average deal less damage than the weakest character with a noble weapon. This harms versimilitude and decreases buy-in for me. I’m not looking for 5e levels of bonuses, just basic involvement.
- Lack of information about range and how it affects damage.
So I want to add the minimum amount to ItO combat to fix these issues. Just so we’re clear on the core rules:
- Enhanced attacks add d12 to your damage. Impaired attacks reduce your damage die to a d4.
- When you attack an enemy, you roll your weapon’s damage die and deal damage to their hp equal to the result.
Here’s what I propose:
- Every creature has an Evasion value. This works in the same way as Armour but does not stack with, and is replaced by, your Armour value. If your Dex > 14, the Evasion value is 1. If your Dex < 7, the Evasion value is -1. (That means you take more damage) Otherwise, Evasion = 0. Evasion does not go down if your Dex goes down.
- You gain an +1 damage if your Str > 14. You gain -1 damage if your Str < 7. This applies both to melee and ranged attacks.
- If you attack with a short weapon (dagger, hammer) against an opponent with a long weapon (spear, glaive), your attack is impaired.
Let me know what you think!
