Introduction to the alpha and game designer notes for the madness within
Penumbra Tactics is the as yet unnamed tabletop set in TransFormidableSoft's "Penumbra" setting. The setting idea is to take the tropes of Shadowrun and give them a more mythical and anime aesthetic, more D&D meets cyberpunk 2020. We're just stealing anything not nailed down because we want to make a setting for fun to share and let people play in and with it's toys.
This game wants to vaguely emulate the Final Fantasy Tactics (Advance) style of game. Tactical battles using square maps, partly to let the MANY D&D 3.X and 4E maps be usable, lots of virtual tabletop systems have squares and D&D style AOE built in. This is a game in development, so some experimentation like hex mapping may be experimented with too. But hex maps does mean creating more resources.
Rules wise though, I have a fun idea of a streamlined Shadowrun 3, with the 4 stage condition damage. this LIKELY will change, and the 4E/NWOD style successes add 1 to damage is more likely. The quick one is you can deal damage in 1, 3, 6, or 10 damage blocks [a few quirky items and things WILL break this in both ways] and everyone* (yup, orcs break this with 11 hp, but 95% of things will have 10 HP, sometimes less =D 9 HP means a medium and a serious breaks you, maybe a jury rigged gear has less HP, etc) You do an initial shot setup, determining modifying abilities from both players (and expect this to reach BULLSHIT levels) this can leave things like the Giff cop laughs at your light daamge weapon, because he's so tough he counts as Hardened (reduce all incoming damage by one stage before rolling for damage. If modifiers make it reduce below light, the damage is ignored [feel free to roll if on hit triggers matter, but it won't hurt the hippo, just anger him further]. god forbid you make this stack twice and force people to bust out S and D damage weapons.
( quick rules notes for comparison: light pistol (1 damage) stages up 3 times with 6 net successes to become deadly, 10 damage, probably a KO!. In a NWOD style, it would do 7 damage with 6 net successes. This also means HP would be free from always being 10, and will probably become TOUGH score multiplied by 2 (average being 8-12, and occasionally 20+.) which certainly puts opponent in Serious damage.
The quick and dirty. Roll a number of dice equal to the stat your action says to use. Sometimes they'll have bonuses and other modifiers. (Eg, Assault rifle, +1 Strength VS Toughness attack, 12/24/48 square range. Ballistic damage type. Special feature: FULL AUTO! 1/encounter you can reroll all failures on your attack roll by declaring you will go FULL AUTO! and performing an assault action.)
The target number is 4 and you roll to meet. A modest number of things modify this, Range is the usual one. Bonus gear like scopes can help negate that, or targeting gear to even get your TN down. You also lower your target by 1 if you use a full action to attack. If your target number goes to 7+, you need to roll above the TN. This is the Rule of 7s. To roll 7+ on a D6, roll your dice pool and note how many sixes you have. Then roll that many dice, and count them as 6+ the number listed.
If you somehow got to TN 13, yeah, the gods obviously don't want you doing that, you can't do it. (optional idea, no rule of 6, it auto fails)
Aside from moving the TN up and down, adding or removing dice from a dice pool is possible. The most common is -1 dice per level of damage, STUN and Health combined. (so a medium wound and light stun is -3 dice. Serious stunned and wounded (ouch!) you're at -6 dice, and probably mostly useless [or even if you're a 13 dice monster, that's brought you down to size]
Some quirky dice modifiers: Reroll 1s (blessed!) Reroll 6s (cursed! do this before rule of 7 checks)
Really weird ideas: Special bonuses for combinations (eg, 1-5 or 1-6, getting three 6')
Gameplay wise, we're playing with the kooky SR 3 initiative, full jackass mode!
roll 1d6 and add your QUICK+INT scores together. This is your initiative. When it comes to your turn you can spend 10 points to activate. if you have initiative left, you can activate again. A basic bitch has 8+1d6 init (like, the super joe average goon squad, slightly above human average, so 12 on average roll) -1 to the initiative score per point of damage... but you can also go back up if you get healed =D
Meanwhile, Mr Roid Rage cybered to the gills commando is sitting on 18+4D6 cranked initiative. and he gets all 6s, jeez, 42, WTF is wrong with you.
He'll go at 42. shoot poor basic bitch joe.
then shoot him again at 32.
Once more at 22
Ok, it's Joe's turn... oh wait, he probably dropped init below 12 from being wounded =D or most likely dead several times over
THIS IS NOT FAIR. There will probably ways to attack initiative though, but generally fights should not have such crazy variation, that's more the most ridiculous top end vs guy off the street.
Fair variation we used: top to bottom, end of the round you. subtract 10. if you got some left, do it again!
so joe and speedy D go at it, Speedy cheese gets first shot. joe gets a go. then speedy gets his 3 extra turns to crush him into paste =D
So we have a bucket of dice and a truly sadistic initiative, because this is a mean game and that's half the fun =D Movement so far is probably move # squares equal to agility. lots of modifiers too. D&D 5eish movement and stuff like squeezing. Size categies (tiny, small, medium, large, huge gargantuan) and 5 foot squares.
Overwatch rules might get odd, got to figure out how wide AOE is. Probably lots of playing around with special attacks having lots of lines, cones, etc, they're fun.
Action economy (aside from stupid initiative tricks) is 2 simple or 1 Complex action. Complex actions upgrade the action taken.
Action choices
These should be pretty obvious, probably on cards.
Move / Sprint: Your usual move, or you perform 3 moves in a row. This might matter if you have free actions *wink*
Take Cover / Dig In: ok, not sure on this one yet, but I do like the sort of sac move and attack for defense, or full defense. // I got some rules for my other game so =D YOINK!
Attack / Assault (everyone will have some sort of basic attack, default is unarmed (STR Vs TOUGH. stun damage. 5' range. keywords: Impact, blunt)) Most gear will list it's attack and assault rules. A few weapons get penalized for being used with assault, but most will have alternate options (assault rifle probably has suppressive fire as an assault option)
Use Action (your class gives you a basic attack and is often a basic utility ability at very low cost, it's simple and complex action effects will be listed) This includes your cantrips for
spellcasters, or other oddities like focus chi.
Class level ups, gear, and feats can all add special actions. But generally it's 2 small or one big action, and your free actions.
There's also free actions, these can be used once per activation, but can provide a gaggle of small quirky moves (the 'adjust a mode choice, 5' step Sproink! of a faun, TF into something, channel ki, pocket sand! type stuff) sometimes really cool things but those usually have some sort of resource cost ([eg, rogues might get spend a finish point to get a free action melee attack]) You shouldn't get too many of these too often. but you can activate each one once (or more, if you got something to reactivate things)
Some last thoughts, or, how do I win?
Health boxes have to be healed between fights, or using an action of some kind (healing potions, first aid kits, cure magic)
Stun heals 1 box at the end of round steps before rolling initiative for the next phase. If you get the KO status, you have to heal all your boxes to get up, but stun will probably be easy to shake.
I want a lot of scenario play, there's also some thought of Stealth as a stat gear has, and the opponent has a chance to detect illicit gear by rolling something (int?) they need # successes = stealth rating of the gear. Probably quickest stealth rule. if the scenario has it, you get the first move.
oh did we mention this is PVE with a self DM mode ala Super Dungeon Explore?
