Damage Bonus in Melee - Part III

The damage bonus from in melee is resolved although the word-smiths continue to play with how exactly to describe them.

Summary
The Damage Bonus From Strength will be 10% of the strength attribute. Each 10 points of strength bonus is rolled on its own 1d10. Rolling at or below the bonus, give the bonus of the dice roll. Rolling above the bonus gives no bonus. This is unchanged from previous blog posts. See Damage Bonus in Melee - Part II for details of how it works and see Damage Bonus in Melee for why we thought it needed to be changed.

Strengths Greater then 100
The Damage Bonus From Strength greater then 100 was problematic. We wanted to continue the variable nature of the bonus but we wanted to keep the calculation simple. So we ended up doing was giving each 10 points of the damage bonus from strength its own roll.

Example
For example take something hugely strong, Strength 250. The Damage Bonus From Strength is 10% of 250 or 25 points. You would break that down into three d10 rolls. The first two rolls 2d10 do that amount in bonus damage. The third d10 would only do damage if you rolled at or below 5. So you have a minimum damage of 2 and a maximum damage of 25. A likely damage of around 12 (statistics is not my strength.)

Damage Bonus from Strength 25
Bonus	Roll	Potential	Average
10	1d10	1 to 10 points	5.5
10	1d10	1 to 10 points	5.5
5	1d10	0 to 5 points	1.5

Unexpected Consequences
The damage bonus in melee has given rise to some new skills. These skills afford those with them to better leverage their strength. The only new skill whose defintion has settled down is this Power Attack.

Power Attack
Power Attack helps the character maximize their strength bonus on damage rolls in melee. The skill level in Power Attack is the minimum damage bonus the character can roll, after a successful attack. The Power Attack can not exceed the character's Damage Bonus from Strength .

A character has a Damage Bonus from Strength of 6 and Power Attack of level 2. The character hits in melee, rolls the weapons damage and then a 1d10 for the Bonus Damage from Strength. With the Power Attack skill, the character will always get 2 points of Damage Bonus from Strength even if they roll a 1,2,7,8,9 or 10. Rolls of 3,4,5 or 6 are not effected. Without this skill, rolls of 7,8,9 or 10 do no bonus damage.

Damage Bonus in Melee - Part II

Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows!

Strength Bonus has found its resolution for the soon to be published D100 Draft 2. As I described in a previous entry, in the current system strength bonus was a straight adder to any damage roll in melee. While it worked just fine as play testing continued it was revealed that super strong creatures pretty much squashed any human they hit, every time they hit. In practice we have no problem with this effect. We none the less considered that even the very powerful do not always connect a blow with all the power behind it and how might we model that in the system.

What we have been play testing is this.

Damage Bonus from Strength

In melee using a hand held weapon each character gets a damage bonus from Strength. This bonus is based on 10% of the Strength Attribute. The 10% represents the maximum bonus. The effect of the bonus is determined by rolling 1d10. If that roll is equal to or below 10% of the Strength attribute then that roll is added to the weapon's damage roll. To determine the total damage of a hit you roll two times, first for the weapon, second for the strength bonus.
For example a character has:

• Strength of 55
• Strength Damage Bonus is 6 (10% of 55 is 6 because of rounding)
• Rolls a 45 for a successful hit
• Rolls a 1d6 for weapon damage
• Rolls a 1d10 for strength bonus damage
  
• Rolls of 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 are added to the weapon damage.
• Rolls of 7,8,9 or 10 are ignored.

Remaining issues:
We are still toying with how to handle a strength bonus greater then 10. There are a couple competing concepts. I will post about the winning one next time. This has also brought up some interesting possibilities for new skills.

Damage Bonus in Melee

In the current draft of the D100 Melee System, we add 5% of the strength as a damage bonus for hand help weapons. This is similar to the d20 model and It works well. A problem that has been realized is that damage is skewed towards always heavy damage. D100 has a radically different hit point model compared with D20 and so this skew causes a break down in the system against something monstrously strong, like a troll. A troll's strength of 200 has 1o point damage bonus. This means even if the troll were to make a hit with a club (1d4). When you combine that with the damage bonus for strength, the troll can do a minimum of 11 points and a maximum of 15 points. No one has an issue with the maximum, but the minimum seems unfair. Does the troll always get his full strength into the swing?

More Detailed Example of Issue
Take Opponent X, who is quite strong and has a 6 point damage bonus for strength. The weapon of choice is a club with 1d4.

If Opponent X connects and gets all their power behind the blow, they do 10 points of damage. SPLAT! Now lets say Opponent X falters some and connects. In the current system, any hit does a minimum of 7 points of damage.

Opponent X is strong, but do even the very strong always get all their power behind each blow. Rather, the very strong have tremendous potential for power behind each blow. Much the same as each weapon has its own potential for damage. Melee is a dance, some blows miss (we got that covered), some blows are blocked (we got that covered), some blows are shifted (we got that covered too) and some blows hit without full force and there in lies the problem.

Solution(s)
This is a little tricky to resolve because we want the system to be kept simple. We do not want to reference a chart each time in melee. We do not want a complicated formula, but we don't want a straight adder bonus either. What we are experimenting with is rather then having a straight bump to the damage roll, we have a second damage roll for the strength bonus. We are also trying out a combined damage roll that accounts for the damage potential of both the strength and the weapon.

For example:
Currently
- Short Sword 1d6
- 60 Strength: +3 on damage
- Hits do 1d6+3, or 4-9 points per hit
Idea #1 - 2 rolls for damage
- Short Sword 1d6
- 60 Strength: +3 on damage
- Hits do 1d6+1d3, or 2-9 points per hit
Idea #2 - 1 roll for damage
- Short Sword 1d6
- 60 Strength: +3 on damage
- Hits do 1d9, or 1-9 points per hit

This example shows a bonus roll that is not an easy dice roll. You would have to roll a d6 divided by 2. What do you do when the bonus is 7 or 9? Obviously this introduces some complexity that we do not really want to deal with. But at this point its just a concept. I'm partial to the single roll (Idea #2) but the debate and testing continues.

Monsters, Humans and the Scale of things.

D100 is a simplistic system and this fact affords it some interesting advantages in developing monsters and defining what there capabilities are. Firstly what is a typical human is easily understood. When creating a monster relative to normal human it is quite easy to see how deadly the monster might be.

Human
A normal human has all attributes of 40 and so a movement (Strength + Reflex) of 80. Presuming this person has no martial training, they can pick up a club or a knife or a sword and have a 10% chance of hitting in melee.

Goblin
Let us consider a fairly common and low power monster the goblin. A goblin is smaller then a normal human, weaker, and none to bright. However they have some martial skills and they are much faster (Movement 120) then a normal human. In a straight up fight between a goblin and human, the goblin's 35% verses the human's 10% is a clear advantage. It is not hard to imagine a small set of goblins easily destroying/routing a much larger group of humans. After all if it goes badly for the goblins they can run 50% faster and easily get away.

Minimally Trained Human
If a human has basic martial training (Basic Melee) there attack score doubles to 20%. It is not hard to imagine that some proportion of the general population would have this training, either from life experience or perhaps from being pressed into military service sometime in the past.

In this scenario the a straight up fight between the two still favors the goblin with 35% verses 20%. However it is more difficult to invision a small set of goblins destroying/routing a much larger group of humans. Due to the goblin advantage being reduced by half.

Moderately Trained Human
If a human has some specialized training in a weapon (Simple Weapons) for example a club, they have a 45% of hitting in melee. This human has likely spent sometime in either the watch or repeated pressing into military service and probably has even had a some melee under their belt.

In this scenario a straight up fight between the two slightly favors the human with 45% verses 35%. This makes it difficult to envision a small group of goblins destroying/routing a larger group of humans. Even if only a few humans are at this level among many humans it may be enough to turn the tide.

The Man at Arms
If a human has specialized training in a weapon (Blades 2, Light Armor & Shield) for example a short sword, they have a 50% of hitting in melee. This human has likely been a man at arms or a professional soldier.

In this scenario a straight up fight between the two strongly favors the human with 50% verses 35%. The human gets as many as two attacks and as many as 3 defense rolls. This makes it difficult to envision a small group of goblins even attacking a larger group of humans. Even if only a few humans are at this level among many humans it would be enough to turn the tide.

The Scale
The point of all these examples is that goblin, would be absolutely terrifying and deadly to a normal human even if there were large numbers of humans relative to the number of goblins. With even a little skill this quickly reverses.

If you consider larger creatures, say a werewolf or a troll. The human could never match the speed of a werewolf (250) or the strength of troll (200). Tangling with either of these beasts even if you are highly skilled is a dance with death. A single blow (+10 on damage) from the troll is lethal to even a heavily armored human. The werewolf is so fast, you would be hard pressed to even attack it as it can attack and move away from you in most cases.

Conclusion
To me this scale is just one more thing that makes D100 so good. It highlight what is wrong with D20 and the like. A creature that is 12' tall and weighs 500# and hits you... is lethal. You can tangle with the creature in melee but you will have to focus all your energy on not getting hit in order to survive. In D20 at high enough level you could take on this creature without fear. This would never be the case in D100, you would always need companions or better yet attack it with ranged weapons.

D100 Draft PDF finally released

It is not pretty but for a draft it is sufficient. The second draft will be available in February 2008 and promises to be prettier. You can download the PDF at the D100 site. Enjoy!

Playtesting and PDFs

There are many a great lesson to be learned in this life and wise man once said to me.

Be careful what you complain about in committee for it may be assigned to you.

I wish I had listened! Because I had long been whining about not having a PDF of the complete rules. I could dog ear one, make notes on it, and not have to be browsing the website in play. In truth I rarely have to refer to the rules in play, but making notes about tweaks, ideas and changes is easier for me on a hard copy. So after my repeated mentions of having no single PDF of the entire rules set, I was volunteered to correct the problem. Oh happy day.

However as it turns out it was not all the hard to automate the content capture and so now I must tweak the format of that capture (in an automated way) and then we'll be good to go. As it stands now the DEC 2007 rules are a little more then 100 pages of 8.5x11 including all charts & graphics. I only have few format issues to correct and a few linking issues to adjust and it will be complete.

That said I believe a PDF of DEC 2007 rules will be available, just before the FEB 2008 rules are released. Just in time to be obsolete!

D100 logo finalized

In the grand scheme of things this is a minor event.  I created it and I wanted to show off a bit!  You can also go see it live at the D100 Open Melee System.  I am proud of myself for getting it to look that good.  I became so frustrated at one point I considered offering bounty for the logo design at www.sitepoint.com

I used a free logo generator on the web to create the shield design.  I then used GIMP to spruce it up, add text and the fade to transparent white ellipse.  I am an amateur and it took me many hours to create the effects.  Translate that to a whole lot of rework, Save As, beer and trips to the potty!

Critical Hits and Critical Blunders

As it happens in D100, melee is quite deadly even to the well skilled and experienced. We have found that this is largely due to two factors:

1. Many on 1 confrontation. In D100 this is a scenario for even the well armored and highly skilled to avoid. Put simply if surrounded you are unlikely to survive. Even if the opponents have only 1 attack each, 9 attacks can not be defended against and you are going to go down.
2. Critical Hits. In D100 under 2007.12 Rules happen anytime the player rolls a 00, 01 or 02. 3% is not great odds yet it happens quite often and is frequently the end of the character who is hit by one.

"Many on 1" is situational and really a function of how well the system is modeling reality. No changes are coming there. Players should avoid the situation, purchase good armor and well be ready to run when need be.

Critical hits however is going to be changed. The designers went back and forth on the "how" many times but ultimately decided to keep it simplistic. First they are reducing the incident rate from 3% to 1%. Players who roll a 00 score a critical hit. However they are not reducing the deadliness of it, in fact they are increasing the deadliness to maximum damage, then doubled. Unlike before however they are allowing the defender (if they have an action available) to attempt to block the blow. If the defender fails the block or has no actions available, the defender can bump it.

In summary, in the revised rules, they have reduced the rate at which the critical occurs by 2/3, they have increased the effect of it, and allowed the defender a chance to avoid it or reduce its effect.

It looks like the next rules draft will be out at the end of February!

Ahh so what to do about magic?

Well what happens when you combine 60 points for each of two player characters, matched up against: 16 goblins, 16 orcs and 8 evil humans. In a word... CARNAGE!



Ok it was a scenario designed for 4 PCs not 2. The goblins had short bows. The humans had long swords blades 4. The Orcs had short swords blades 3. The match lasted 43 seconds (took about an hour to play but there were many sidebars as it was play testing), 1 PC still standing and all others were killed or incapacitated. Most were incapacitated (grey X's on map above).

So what did we test:
1) Spell level = casts per round of that spell
2) Casting time = 1 second
3) Bow Level = missiles per round
4) Missile Rate of Fire = 1 second

So what did we learn:
1) Magic, well used with even simple spells is very powerful.
2) Magic skills may be too cheap.
3) If you have magic and your opponent does not, your opponent is going to loose.
4) Critical hits are deadly. One PC died in the first 10 seconds with a critical hit to the head.
5) Fireballs rock, but lowly sleep spell won the day.
6) We need articles/equipment for magic protection. This is a balance issue that requires A LOT more testing.
7) GAP comparisons for success of spell was too cumbersome. In a simple engagement we had not noticed, but calculating GAPs on 10 people at time was way too much work and we just stopped and went with simple Willpower checks instead.
8) MapTool remains the coolest thingie out there for remote RPG play.
9) Wands, rings and Staffs are far less useful in revised system.
10) Revised rules for magic were so simple to follow we never thought about them in play.
11) Revised rules for bows were so simple to follow we never thought about them in play.
12) Good armor is worth the money. Especially against missiles. A PC absorbed three volleys from a group of archers at short and medium range, and although damaged he was not brought down.
13) Large engagements are a lot of fun, especially with interesting terrain.

So what do we need to do.
1) Initially we will keep the spell costs unchanged, but add some protection equipment and see how that effects things.
2) More testing of spells with protection.
3) Small engagements, large engagements, open space, confined space.
4) Review spell list and drop the GAP for area of effect spells, its too cumbersome to calculate, simple willpower checks suffice and in truth degrade the power of the spell somewhat.
5) Consider an option for willpower based area of effect spells to use the GAP when the spell is targeted on a single creature instead of area of effect.

Well its time for a redo

Playing testing has revealed that we inadvertently mucked up the simplicity of the system. What we came to realize was that we had fallen into a trap of having different rules for different types of skills. Skill for Melee, Missiles and Spells were each getting their own rules set. This was a very sad realization and a violation of the games creed. "Keep it simple."

What is most interesting is that the rules actually worked very well. They were fair, gave good mechanics is play, but it was overly complicated as the rules were significantly different for: Missiles, Melee and Spells. Sadly all this work on Spells and Missiles will be abandoned. The spells points concept is dead. The rate of fire concept for missiles is dead. We are back to basics, and while not as detailed it is much much easier to learn, remember and most importantly PLAY!

So expect in the next few weeks to see a new draft of the Rules released at: D100 Open Melee System

...and Happy New Year!

Spells Spells Spells

Lately there has been some debate about how we are handling spells. The problem seems to be that at low skill level they are not powerful enough to be worth while and spell casters get bored in melee. At high level they still are not powerful enough. So in general magic is viewed as too weak and too slow. A fair observation.

The way to fix it has become a conundrum however. The discussion has been wide. Alternate ways have been discussed some are structured after novels but ultimately all of those have been dismissed as too structured and confining. In d100 we had more less followed the D20 model where a spell's level defined how often per day it could be cast. While this was simple it was not particularly fair to the caster who at skill level 1, would cast that spell 1 time per day.

So what we are play testing now is a way to increase the number of times a spell can be cast. We are testing a points based system. Once again our overriding goal is simplicity. This is not easy to achieve, we are currently going with a sort of scaled points system based on cost of the spell. Total number of points being a function of willpower and intelligence. I'll post more when some testing has occurred.

More Pre Requsits

Well after some discussion and poking around we are probably going to drop pre-req's for melee skills.  However the consensus is to leave them for spells.  Speaking spells we need more a lot more.  So far spells have been created as needed in play testing, that is not a practical method for creation.  Over the next few months we expect the spell lists to grow every week.  

We have had some interesting discussions on the basis for spells, nothing has been decided but eventually our "theory" will be set and then spells will be reorganized.  At a minimum the spells will be split into 2 categories.  Spells of the Will (Willpower) and Spells of Intellect (Intelligence).  I'll write more detail on the that later once it has been decided.

To Pre-Requisite or not

In developing the the skills and spells we have adopted a hierarchy approach to the skills, meaning you needed one skill before you gained another.  On the surface this seemed like an easy way to add depth to the characters.

We have found in practice that for spell casters it acts more like a penalty and for melee skills it is near useless.  So I think for melee skills it will go away and for spells it will be simplified or dropped all together.

Play testing continues and new players are showing us many holes in the system.  We have been so focused on the mechanics that we lack the breadth of skills and spells of other systems.  So the evolution continues!

D100 Melee System DRAFT Rules go public

Enough typing on my part! Go read the draft rules for yourself!
The d100 Melee System

The draft rules represent nearly two years of work by the team of players who developed them. Currently the site has a hypertext version of the rules. A PDF version will follow later on.

More Melee Skills Please?

As a result of play testing outside the inner circle, I realized that many of their complaints and requests trended the game back towards D20 style melee. While initially each request seemed simplistic and justified. However in total, the significantly complicated the system.

For example D100 Melee System, has no "Charge" or "Bull Rush" defined as either a skill or an option in the Rules for moving in melee. On the surface these were simple enough to add as skills and whala! We had well defined charge and bull rush and procedure to carry them out. However what I realized is that neither was really needed as the D100 System already supported those actions and had no need for a defined "Charge" or "Bull Rush" procedure. A character could charge in melee by moving and then attacking in the following second. In fact the D100 System is superior without the defined procedure because it affords a good deal of risk in making an attack styled after a charge. The initiative and actions of both characters determine the outcome, rather then some simple check.

It was a good lesson to learn, the requests were coming from a D20 mindset where the definition is required, in the D100 mind set, the character need only sequence their actions to achieve the same goal. Furthermore it did result in one additional rule, that allowed the character to combine a move action and a attack/defend action into one action with considerable deductions.

Missiles in Melee

Well that is why we play test the game. Recently we play tested a real campaign but added two new players, both d20 die hards and both skeptical. All in all the game went well, but the two became confused repeatedly in melee. It seems the fluid and flexible nature of D100 Melee system confounded them in certain situations involving: Missiles and changing weapons. They made excellent points. No rules were changed but we have to alter the terminology some with respect to bows. Namely not referring to the bow as having "melee" points. Rather as a "Rate of Fire" in melee. It is unfortunate that this terminology created such a stumbling block because both became fixated on it. Lesson learned and that is why we play test outside the creator circle!

Skills Skills Skills

The foundation of the D100 Melee System is the development of abilities through characters acquiring skills. Rather then a class model with limitations and bonuses by major categories we developed a simple listing of skills.

How Does A Skill Work?
Each skill is based on an attribute: Strength, Will Power, Reflex, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma and Movement. The base chance of success is the attribute value. As levels in a skill increase the chance of success increases too.

Is its complicated?
No. The most complicated it can get is when a skill has a pre-requisite. All that means is that to get one skill, you might have to first have another skill. It gets no more complicated then that.

Kinds of Skills
From the perspective of melee there are essentially 2 kinds of skills: Martial and Magical. There are other skills for abilities not melee related, for example: climbing, swimming, bluffing, professions etc.

Acquiring and Improving Skills
The skills are built up by awarding the characters with "Improvement Points". The points are used to buy more skills. The system includes guidelines for how Game Masters could choose to dole out points, but really it is up to the Game Master to do what works best for the group at play. The guideline is simple with no complicated formulas what so ever.

What about Feats?
D20 style feats, do not exist in the D100 Melee System. All character abilities are skills.

Even Magic (Spells) is a skill?
Yes all character abilities are skills. Magic skills for the fantasy realm have the most pre-requisites of any list so far developed for D100 Melee System. Magic is different from D20 Style magic, this is for many reasons: Playability, Lethality, Sustainability. In D100 a character could invest "Improvement Points" and make a deadly caster, a sustainable caster would require more points and so on. In play testing thus far, we have found most characters who start as pure casters, do not live very long unless the party is large, or they are very smart about melee. A more typical path has been to split the skills between magic and martial until a certain level of melee survivability is achieved.

The question of class

An early question for us was if the system should have character classes or not. I was strongly opposed to having class system but we debated it for quite a long while. Classes do provide certain benefits, that make the rules easier to construct. Our decision was that these benefits to the writer of the rules were not really a benefit to the player in any appreciable way, so we ultimately decided to have no classes in D100 Melee System.

If you do not have a class does this mean all your characters end up being strange hybrid characters with odd mixes of abilities?

The truth is, that it could. In play testing thus far, it has not worked out that way. In fact quite the opposite. For the most part characters start out as generalists that stand a fair chance of surviving melee. However as each character grows (and they grow quickly) they develop specific abilities that they need to achieve their personal and also party goals. Effectively creating reasonably skilled generalist with terrific specialized skills in areas the party believes it needs.

So how does it work without a class to define the character?

It is actually really simple. Instead of classes, class abilities, class feats, class restrictions and class bonuses. You have a long list of skills. All skills are based on an attribute: Strength, Intelligence, Will Power, Reflex, Constitution, Charisma, Dexterity and Movement. The character acquires the skill and gains the ability. The character can continue to invest in the skill and improve the ability if they so choose. No skills are restricted, no ability in one skill prohibits an ability in another skill. The only cheviot is that some skills have pre-requisites. In other words some skills require that you first obtain another skill to get it.

Melee Melee Melee

I have to apologize for taking so long to get back to making a blog entry. So much has happened its hard to no where to begin.

#1 The system has been renamed the The D100 Melee System. This change was made, mainly because we found in play testing that we did not really need rules for role playing. The skill system is so flexible and so easy to follow that we found rules for the actual role playing to be of little value and so they were dropped. Yet another simplification achieved!

#2 Terminology changes, these are too numerous to list, but mainly they involve switching to terms that firstly make sense and secondly are easy to remember. We have been avoiding acronyms completely. There shall be no terms like "THACO" to learn in the D100 Melee System.

#3 Melee has had some HUGE changes. The round has been made a little more complicated, by breaking it into 10 phases. Each phase is 1 second. Each phase is played out for actions. In the beginning this was tried, because in melee, the fight was often over before some characters acted. On the surface it sounds more complicated and as it happens it is a change all of us working on the system resisted making. However once we tried it, we realized we would never go back. It actually made melee much easier to execute and simplifies things for the players greatly. Furthermore it added emphasis to maneuver and position that was not present before.

#4 Spells & Magic in melee have been completely re-worked and fits neatly into melee now. The round/phase system really facilitates the caster. The caster has to play smart and be well positioned and/or protected to be of magical value in melee. However in play testing this has proven to add excellent balance with fewer rules and A LOT OF FUN!

#5 Maneuvering in Melee is now as important as the attack/defend actions themselves. Combats that used to play out in the 4 or 5 rounds, now play out in 1 or 2 rounds. Characters who are outnumbered and not careful can get surrounded. Characters have many options and for changing their position, reducing their risk and maximizing their threat that simple does no exist in D20 or any other RPG today. Players have to consider their characters location and proximity to threats constantly. No more D20 style, stand in the room and knock down all comers. Even the powerful and skilled in this melee system will have trouble when outnumbers by foes of even low threat level. The character has to be aware of where he is all the time in melee. This model allowed for the elimination of many rules relating to melee: charging, back stab, attack of opportunity, surprise, flat footed, spell casting, missiles and many more. They are not needed because the simple maneuvering model when combined with initiative makes them irrelevant. Yet another simplification achieved!

#6 Bruise Damage: We just dropped it. In play testing we kept forgetting to use it and realized it just was not needed except in VERY rare circumstances. Yet another simplification achieved!

#7 Shields, we completely reworked how these work. They are clean, useful, and do not slow down melee as they did before. Yet another simplification achieved!

#8 A new D100 public portal has been set up, but the content is not loaded up. A draft rules set is set for publication there in December 2007.

D100 The Melee Round

Despite a very busy summer, progress continues on D100. Recent play testing reveled some problems, not serious problems, but problems none the less. These issues revolved around movement in melee. The conundrum was how to allow for movement in melee with out have various action types and making it overly complicated. It was a tough nut to crack, keeping it simple and also flexible. We tried several methodologies and ended up with a hybrid of the brighter ideas.

In order to properly explain this I have to give you a bit of background, specifically describing the round. We arbitrarily selected a 10 second round long ago. Later we consider a GURPs style one second round, but found it killed the beauty of the skill level system, so a 10 second round it is. I have not explained skills yet but we already have a well developed melee model based on skill level and number of attacks/defends per round. It is a beautiful system and will be the subject of another entry. The result of the skill system is that a player gets Melee Points. These points translate 1:1 to attack or defense action in the 10 second round. Each action (attack or defend) burns a Melee Point and takes 1 second.

So to solve the conundrum of Moving in Melee, we divided the round in 10 seconds, any seconds remaining after or before actions (Attack/Defend) can be used for movement. This as it turns out solved several other problems with respect to spell casters, charging, withdrawing, free attacks, missiles and many more. Whats best, is its solved with one rule and not one rule for each situation. Very simple, very fluid, easy to remember and it works!

In Conclusion, I need to follow up with a post on Skills and Melee Points. Perhaps tomorrow!