[Mist] Dodge/Parry mechanic

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Does this combat mechanic sound cool or artificial?

A horizontal or vertical melee attack is at close range. Defend by making a Parry check.

A diagonal melee attack is at longer range. Defend by making either a Parry or Jumping check, whichever is higher.

This would push dextrous combatants into rooms, where they have room to dodge. Positioning might become more interesting.

[buzzkill]

What about weapon reach and AI to counter?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

What about weapon reach and AI to counter?

Dumb AI doesn't bother me in this or in similar cases. It's still an opportunity for the player to gain tactical advantage by making smart moves.

I thought about weapon reach. That's kind of problematic, because in real life spears would be most useful in tunnels. If they countered dodge, they would be most useful in rooms. That doesn't sound right. So perhaps it's best to leave weapon reach out of the equation.

[WaveMotion]

A horizontal or vertical melee attack is at close range. Defend by making a Parry check.

A diagonal melee attack is at longer range. Defend by making either a Parry or Jumping check, whichever is higher.

This sounds really artificial, yes. Why can the character only be at that range from his opponent from a certain set of compass directions? If diagonal distances are longer, shouldn't it take longer to move a space diagonally than it does to move horizontally? In my opinion it's problematic to base game logic on the idea that diagonal distances are not equal to horizontal distances, because so many other basic elements of roguelikes assume that they are equal.

This would push dextrous combatants into rooms, where they have room to dodge. Positioning might become more interesting.

This is a good design goal, however. Maybe penalize Dodge according to how many wall/occupied squares are next to the player?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

You're right. Mechanic trashed.

I have another weird dodge idea. You may start to dodge a melee attack if you make a Jumping skill check . Dodge is a move in a randomly chosen direction. If there's space there, you move there and dodge the attack. If there isn't space, the dodge was unsuccessful.

Well, something like that. Presumably you'd had to switch dodging mode on beforehand, and you couldn't try a normal parry if you were dodging.

But maybe it's too complicated. Something simple like "you may dodge instead of parrying if there's 5 open squares around you" might work better.

In all these ideas, it is presumed that Jumping score is usually higher than Parry.

[LostTemplar]

Parry and dodge may be goood if they cost some energy (as in real life they cost some time)
maybe about 75% of the normal action, this will be realistic and give some nice strategic choice (there should be some tactical settings to turn parry/dodge on and off). If you are not going to make them cost energy, you dont add anything new to gameplay, just complicate the model, so generic miss chance would be better.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

In the future version of Mist, monsters don't roll to hit. Instead, the player makes a 1d100 under Parry check to avoid the attack. Making a Jumping check instead is simple.

In addition to that, player's armour reduces damage.

This is designed to speed up the analysis of combat situations. You don't need to look at monsters to find their to hit chance.

[Scatha]

If you want to salvage the idea you seem to have been going for, without adding player-complexity such as a dodging mode, the following seems fairly simple:

You always get a dodge roll and a parry roll. The dodge roll chooses a direction randomly and then if it's empty you get a jumping roll; the parry roll is straight.

This means everyone fights better in rooms, but some characters get a larger advantage than others. If you wanted your system to be symmetric you could have the same for monsters, but you generally don't seem concerned about this. It wouldn't need Jumping to be higher than Parry to work smoothly.

Some monster attacks could be un-dodgable, or un-parriable, so that you only get the one type of defensive roll.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Jumping is already higher than Parry in my plans, for other reasons, so that part comes free.

I'd like to show 'Dodging' in the status line when your positioning allows it and your Jumping is higher than Parry (almost always unless you are heavily armored). The simplest option would be to require free space in all eight directions, but not to count monsters as blocking your movement. Presumably squares of stone are a much bigger obstacle to movement than a monster somewhere in that square.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

How about something like this: "You get +10 to Stealth next to terrain features that block movement, and +10 to Parry otherwise because you can dodge freely to all directions."

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I think I'm getting close to something that works... I could actually implement this rule in the very next version of Mist Classic.

If there's no terrain features that completely block movement next to you, you get a "Dodging" status that has the following effects:

• You may dodge missiles by making a Jumping skill check. Without the Dodging status dodging missiles is not allowed.
• +10 to Parry. (In Mist Classic terms, +5 to AC.)
• -10 to Stealth. (In Classic, -1 to Stealth.)

While I'm at it, I might modify some older positioning rules in the future version:

• If you're standing on a platform and the attacker is not, you may reroll a failed Parry check once.
• Missiles, breath attacks and spells have a 50% chance of hitting a platform unless the shooter is next to that platform.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Taking cue from Sil, here's a different way to implement dodging.

In the future version of Mist, you normally use one of three skills for melee attacks: Slash (blades against lightly armored), Pierce (blades against armored, skill score is always lower than Slash), or Bash (clubs against any monster, score is usually somewhere between Slash and Pierce). If the monster is distracted, you may after a successful attack make an Ambush skill check to land a critical hit.

All the rolls are 1d100 under skill score, no modifiers.

Flanking gives you a free attack on a creature if you move between two squares both of which are adjacent to it. If there is more than one valid creature, it chooses the targeted creature by preference, and a random one if none are targeted. In Sil, attacking a creature moves the target to it.

How about this: after a flanking move, you get a melee attack sequence against the target, but use Ambush to hit instead of the normal combat skill. (You can't attack two monsters in this way.)

Rogues and people with high Cunning are best at Ambush. Usually Ambush is lower than your usual melee combat skill.

I could also give the Dodge ability from Sil to all players. +15 to Parry if you spend the turn moving.

Or perhaps: you always use Jumping instead of Parry to dodge melee attacks if you spent your turn moving (no choice). Jumping is usually higher than Parry, unless you are clumsy and heavily armored.

Essentially you could choose to trade your normal combat skills, say Slash & Parry, to Ambush & Jumping. Depending on your skill scores, your armour, and the number of enemies you would prefer different fighting grounds.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

A little tweak: flanking attacks get -1 blows rather than use a different skill.

Here's a description of all melee combat maneuvers that would be available:

Defending: Normally you defend against melee attacks by making Parry checks. If you spent your turn moving, you make Jumping checks instead if your Jumping is higher than your Parry.

Normal attack: Bump a monster to get an attack sequence against it. If there are more than one monsters in melee range, you get an additional attack sequence against another monster, chosen at random.

Charge: move towards a monster to get a single blow against it with double damage. Scared monsters avoid charging attacks automatically because they're doing their best to keep out of your melee range. (Best with heavy weapons with a single blow.)

Flanking attack: move between two squares that are both adjacent to a monster to get an attack sequence against it, with -1 blow. If there are more than one possible targets, choose one of them at random. (Best with light weapons with many blows.)

You'd get the dodge benefits (may use Jumping skill instead of Parry) with both charging and flanking attacks. Is it weird that charging helps your defense?

[ekolis]

I don't get flanking. How can a single player flank an enemy? Don't flanking attacks require two attackers? And what does it mean to move into a square that is between two other squares that are adjacent to a monster? Doesn't that just mean "horizontally adjacent to the monster", since the two adjacent diagonals are also adjacent to the monster? Or do you mean that the player is moving from a square that's adjacent to the monster to another square that's adjacent to the monster? That might actually make some sense as a "flanking" move...

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Or do you mean that the player is moving from a square that's adjacent to the monster to another square that's adjacent to the monster?

This.

Flanking is probably not the best term for this attack. "Sidestep attack" would be closer to truth if the ability works like I described. You trade one blow for fancy defensive footwork.

I'm still debating with myself whether Mist wants to have this sort of defensive maneuver. It might steal some fun away from tables and other defensive terrain features.