In Part One, I had started to lay out conversions for TFL’s Chain of Command into a fantasy RPG. While writing it I had some thoughts about What a Tanker as a better basis for fantasy rules. Siggian commented and brought up a cool idea that had each player have a small team and use What a Tanker as is for activation. When you lose a command die, you lose a figure! I think that his idea has great merit, and I will be talking about What a Tanker as a basis for fantasy rules in Part Three and see if I can refine some of these thoughts into something cogent enough to playtest.
For now I am going to finish some parts of these rules with concepts from Chain of Command.
Ranged Combat
Ranged combat works like AT fire in Chain of Command. Roll 2d6 and equal or beat the target number (TN). TN is 5 for in the open, 7 for light cover and 9 for good cover. Range bands give a -1 to the dice roll, based on weapon stats. Additionally, if the firer moved this phase the die roll is made at -1. If the target moved -1. If you hit, you roll the appropriate combat dice based on the weapon used. The target then saves normally.
Skills
Skills are resolved with a buckets of dice approach, much like combat. Roll a number of dice and achieve sufficient successes to, well, succeed. The average skill rating is 4, and normally you will need 2 successes. Success is a 4+ on a d6. Harder than normal tasks need a 5+ to succeed (lighting a fire in the rain). Easier tasks, which includes assistance if a friend helps, needs 3s+.
Skills are divided into combat and non-combat skills. Combat skills impact combat dice rolls and so are only a modifier and are not tested separately. Non-combat skills work as described above. Skills are as follows:
Combat Skills:
- Ranged. +1 to hit. Up to +5 possible; and
- Meleé. +1 combat dice. Up to +5 possible.
Non-Combat Skills
- Athletics (climb, jump);
- Healing (each success restores 1d6 hits. can only be done once per day);
- Navigate;
- Roguishness (pick pockets and locks);
- Sneak; and
- Survival (hunting, shelter, tracking).
Advancement
This is the tricky part. I have been thinking of earning and spending loot like Dux Britanniarum as a means for advancing. You earn loot through the usual dungeon crawling. Once you have enough loot, you level up. As you increase in level you will have increased upkeep costs, but also gain points to spend on combat and non-combat skills. Certain levels will also move your overall skill level from “trained” to “expert” and so on, making you harder to hurt.
The other option is you earn experience per battle or event, kind of like in What A Tanker. After 5 uses of a skill you can improve it by 1 point. After 5 battles you can increase a combat skill. After 10 battles you can increase your training level (from trained to expert).
Character Creation
I had considered character stats, but I honestly think that if I’m being honest to this thought experiment, the way to go is to use the Adding Characters section in Sharp Practice. For those unfamiliar with the rules, there are tables for breeding, personality, skills, physique, Looks, and Charisma. The results add either colour or a +1 to certain situations (or a negative if you are a sickly cove). This works well for creating fun characters already, and it would not be hard to slightly modify the tables to work in a fantasy setting.
End of Part Two
So far I’ve managed to jot down some thoughts on a ruleset. I have found that I really want a near-universal dice mechanic, and I’m not sure that the buckets of dice approach is the right one to use (and it’s not used for ranged combat). In Part Three I’ll be trying to sort that out, using some ideas from What a Tanker to create a slightly different Dungeon of Command concept. At the end, as promised, I’ll put pen to paper properly and write out a quick ruleset and test it with my gaming group.