Rules Update: New Damage Model

So hit resolution and damage resolution use checks and pips, respectively? Your skill at using a weapon determines how often you hit something, and the weapons quality how deadly said hit can be. I like that.

Also, a skill or a weapon attribute that would let you add the checks into your damage, could now be a powerful but not overly deadly choice, at the cost of something more specialized.

...Mmm, what does an unarmed melee strike do now?

I would suggest Unarmed melee strikes just be assigned a color in general for determining pips on damage , which could be modified by items, skills, or class/race. (I'd probably just say everyone's unarmed attacks are blue and let skills and stuff differentiate big strong people, and specialized unarmed fighters from the weaklings)

I don't know about also adding your strength's pips to damage. It's not like in a d20 game where the strength addition scales a bit slowly, if you have the same color strength as your weapon you're doubling your damage output.

(Are we using the pips from the character sheet or from the resolution card flipped for the attack to determine the extra damage from strength?)

It's tough to say. It kind of feels like it could easily be too fast of a damage boost for melee characters considering there are only 6 levels and you don't get much hp. I kinda fear a melee character who takes hard hitter and charge (based off how they read from the demo cards) that would do a lot of damage on the charge attack -.-. Though I suppose I haven't really played enough to know how fast leveling up occurs.

I think each weapon could be different further individualizing the weapons. For example: A knife might not get to add Stregnth Pips but a broadsword might! Or maybe we leave room for magic weapons/tech modified to be extra special if they allow you to add Strength pips. It would be like +1 Sword in D&D.

I believe I left charge unchanged, but I changed hard hitter. Now it reads if you flip two checks you add blue pips to melee damage, and if you flip three chicks you add green pips to melee damage.

I've submitted the Roll20 module, you might just be able to load it up before your game tonight and take a look. One change you will most likely want to add to your game, now when creating characters players can set one ability to yellow, two abilities to green, and the rest start at Blue (0).

Hm... let's think about this new combat change a little more. A character with, say, 1 point in Agility and a green ranged weapon would deal 2 damage on average (2.08 damage when you include criticals). Another character with 1 point in Strength and a green melee weapon would deal 4 damage on average (4.17 with crits), with the exact same chance to hit. That's a huge damage boost to Strength characters, which will definitely overshoot the imbalance.

How about this: Agility-based attacks (ranged and light weapons, like daggers/whips) add checks to damage, while Strength-based attacks add your Strength's pips to damage? As if to say, your accuracy allows you to hit weak points better as an Agility-based character, but as a Strength-based character you just hit harder. The average damage boosts would look like this (including crits, not including attacks that succeed on a strike and thus would deal 0 extra damage for an Agility character)


So this way, Strength gets a slight edge, which might better balance with Agility's defense bonus. I'll test this out as soon as I can.