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At the start of the session, we set some goals. I gave the team a over arching goal to find an NPC that had left the comune under dubious circumstances and then everyone created a personal goal by throwing some plot ideas out there. My players are Aggro, Byrn, Rob and Sian.

Tonight's session was really about testing out the combat system with the character builds. I used basic Zombs with SDI of 2 and a initiative score of 4. Generally it went very well but we've spotted an edge case or two that we need to check. I'll go through that below.

1. Wits of 1 is bad
Normal difficulty of 2 means that you can't succeed in Normal circumstances with an Stat of 1. This should be mentioned in bold print. It made for some comedy RPG siuations but it's not advisable. I think you mention that characters are 2-7 but I couldn't find it on a cursory glance.

2. Hint: Being close combat guru, high Wit helps
High Wits means getting to the bad guy and killing them before they hasve a go. You can be useful with a low Wit and high Quick but only as reactive. Most situations will see PCs running in.

3. What does difficulty mean in combat?
Moving then attacking is +2 Difficulty, does this mean that two successes are swallowed up? Needs to be stated explicitly somewhere.

4. Attack / Defence for initiative
We all like attack/defence rolls for initiative but we're unclear on how that stance is set. Is it the choice of the player or is it taken from the situation? If it is taken from the situation then the GM should call it for each player and then they can get on with rolling initiative. If the player decides, then they are deciding on their intent for the turn before rolling initiative. Sometimes, it's obvious which stance a PC is in but in other - more fluid - situations it's less so. What's your take, CA?

5. Attack / Defence as a bonus?
We felt that the Attack/Defence for initiative is cool but it should have some other game effect when you take your turn. For example, being on the attack might give you an extra die when rolling hits. Being on the defense might suck up one damage while on the defense. Something like that.

6. How much AP should I give out?
Please give guidelines. I gave out 5 each and it was enough to fix some problems but I wasn't sure how many you intended. I'd give a little table giving epic-ness-of-campaign and how many you should give out. Buying skills is very cheap, especially as there are so few of them.

7. Skills could do with a description
Just a one-liner about what they can do.

8. Rules for building special weapons?
At some point, I am going to give the players cool toys. It's the inevitable end result of the arms race. However, I think it would be cool to include some guidelines to point out what sort of cool stuff you could give. Rather than upping the DR (which is powerful), having extra dice for hits might work. For example, Chainsaw would be DR of 4 (like a rifle) but a Mr Aardvark Special Chainsaw would be DR 4 with +2 hit dice.

It's worth doing this so that close combat characters remain important even when the campaign is high powered.

9. Special skills: Dual weild and Martial arts for blades
Martial Arts for DR of 2 is cool. Perhaps make a special skill for blades that gives hit dice? Also, Dual Weild for blades and firearms will be needed (a skill or special?).

11. Auto kill
When a DR is 3 higher than the SDI then the target dies. No argument, it's dead. We understand that for rocket launchers vs humans. However, the problem is that because you don't roll any dice that skill does not come into play. A person with a ranged skill of one can fire a rocket launcher and kill a human without question. Even at range (because range is dealt with using the dice rolled).

If that's OK (we understand that it's cinematic - cool, no worries) then Aggro found a killer build for his sniper. If you take a sniper rifle (DR 4) and the sniping special (+1 DR), then you are on DR 5 vs SDI of 2 for my standard shambling Zombs. That's an auto-kill. No die rolling.

As much as that's cinematic and even reasonable, it's not much fun. There's no risk beyond running out of ammo. Even a small risk is more interesting. Rather than auto-kill, perhaps roll D4 but start with one of the rolls as a free hit. i.e. My skill is 4, I get one free hit and roll the remaining 3D4. That won't change the zomb-smashing but it will make a big difference if going up against another human.

12. Auto kill vs a horde
If a horde has a Horde Factor of 4, SDI of 2 and 4 Necro Points then it needs 4 success to take the HF down by one. That's cool but if the sniper build above shoots at the horde, what happens?

We're really enjoying ourselves with your system and this feedback is minor compared to the huge amounts of laughs we're getting at the table!

Excellent observations all around. I will definitely need to update some descriptions and add even more to the chapter on running the game - at this rate, GM information may outstrip Combat as the longest chapter.

I apologize for taking a few days to respond, but since the game was mostly designed around a quick combat system, flaws therein are to be handled rather seriously. Its taken about six tries, and I started typing it up in google docs, where these answers are now over six pages...


One is about the level of ability for a child for something sub-human, so yes, a normal task might be beyond them. Difficulty One tasks exist, but close to the level of “why roll when competent people should achieve it?” level. However, there is always the option of tool use - a crowbar will augment strength getting through a door, and the person might be deaf, but the SONAR isn’t. Its a little hard to quantify difficulty, but I was thinking of making the new chart look like:

1: Kick down a hollow core interior door (ie closet/privacy lock)
2: Standard Interior door
3: Metal Exterior Door (Average House)
4: Reinforced Door (Secure Area)
5: Thick Metal/Vault Door
6: Bank Vault, Hardened Missile Shelter

By about five, you should either be using tools, switching to another skill (I’ll charm the combination out of the Secretary) or have the GM step in and ref-frame the task. Continue the door busting example, the vault will take “X long to burn through” once you have the welding rods, and the challenge to keep things away for that long.


Interesting. A few of my play-tests tended to have close-combat be somewhat too indecisive, which is why I was thinking combat should be top two rather than top one on the damage dice. Its a bit frustrating to have too many missed shots, especially when they’re close enough to touch. A change to how initiative works is in consideration to also make creatures more deadly and make HtH a bit more useful/desirable, even when facing melee only opponents.

I’d guess that an average toughness zombie should be about SDI 2 NP 2 now, and leave SDI 1 NP 1 creatures for the “made of Plasticine” Tom Savini type.


I haven’t had much luck determining a stable reward system for Altruism Points yet, because there are so many options for how they are used. Since they control healing, the reward rate firstly reflects how deadly you want the game to be. Group projects (ie “leveling up” vehicles or settlements) can also drain AP, as might some of the optional rules for last moment saves.

You are quite correct in the observation that skills are probably priced far too low. Once deficient attributes are brought to to around average, it is far cheaper to acquire more skills. I should probably raise the costs of skills/SAs by at least 50-100% and add in options to improve secondary attributes Three AP for two more animus circles sounds right, the others should be rather more expensive, though I’m not sure yet how much. (Two to one for deadening, three to one for lucidity?)

The character Yegevi Lvod on the blog is an example of a character with 45 AP spent - as you’ll note, he isn’t much tougher than a starting character, he just has a lot more skills and SAs.

Three to five points is probably a good average per game, though barring other uses, that does mean a new skill each session or a new SA/level of attribute every other session at the current prices. For more lethal or paranoid games, it is better to error on the low side to keep the tension between healing and helping the group, maybe two or three points. I certainly wouldn’t recommend more than seven at a time, especially if people pool points together on each other.

A game in my collection called “Random Anime” handles XP in a unique manner - the player’s decide who gets it, rather than the GM (generally by vote). Something about that seems appealing from the work together/encourage cinematic play angle, but perhaps group survival is already fairly well emphasized. Are you seeing any determent to group survival yet, or do we need to consider a bit more to convince people to defect?


The original intent was to avoid having one overly useful attribute, and to have what gets rolled dependant on the situation. If a creature ambushes you by smashing through a wall, obviously you are on the defense. Characters with ready weapons intentionally going into a fight are on the offense. Simply waiting to get attacked so as to use your better attribute doesn’t really sound that smart, so I would argue from verisimilitude that its not really the player’s choice.

This also means that creatures can be dangerous in different situations. Some you need to sneak past and not startle because they react quickly. Others strike from ambush, but can be vulnerable if you attack first. Depending on the stats, a good offense can be the best defense thus limiting a desire to simply hole up with a sniper rifle in a non-cinematic fashion.

Perhaps I should allow for strategic moves to get behind cover, take no action, and re-evaluate? (Which will let them re-roll based on their preferred attribute if its higher.)

As I said before, Initiative is probably going to change to by combat rather than round. Under those conditions, it requires either escaping and re-entering, hand to hand maneuvers, flash-bangs, or a really good plan to change up. Though, if hand to hand combat continues to be a killer in your game, this might not be necessary.


I kind of like the offensive/defensive stance concept, but it does kind of run against the idea of simplicity. Allowing people to weave and improve their DR, but lowering their attack ability while doing so isn’t so hard to model (+1 DR /-1SDI), or standing still for a better shot (-1DR, +2 dice - no change in SDI since better aim isn’t going to make a pistol penetrate armor after-all.)

Some games have the players decide what they want to do, and then roll to see if they do it in time. This might be worth instituting, with the modification that certain stances let you see what other people are doing and react, but you will have a penalty to your turn order since you’re waiting to see what others do.

This will probably be optional rather than a main rule, since I don’t want to give people too many options for survival - this is supposed to be rooted in games like “Resident Evil” and “Last Night on Earth”


Difficulty in combat has switched between a few different concepts, but the language hasn't kept up - and I'm still a little torn as to the ideal version.

For the time being, the process should be refined to removing dice from the die pool, though eventually its going to be differentiated into a series of effects. Cover and movement mean harder to hit, so fewer dice. Range means less power for the weapon and less likely hood to hit critical points, so DR of the target goes up. Shooting while moving would in theory be critical difficulty, (ie you trip while firing) but that means you’re less likely to screw up with a rocket-launcher than a hand gun. Removing successful dice after the roll is still an option.

As an aside, this is why I normally don’t work with dice pool systems - too much math and too many ways to manipulate the numbers. You can alter what counts as a success, how many you need, or the number of times you roll to get said target number.

This will probably be combined with a system to hit static targets based on range (and possibly size or gun type). In short, it uses the same sort of target numbers as everything else, and longer range means more successful rolls are needed. In turn, even over-kill results will need a to hit roll (which, unfortunately, was what I was trying to avoid). On a hit, maximum damage is applied, plus a bonus for each additional success on the too hit roll. (Though this does mean that things with sufficient animus like tanks or Epsilon reanimates can’t be one shot-ed, even with powerful weapons. If you’ve got suggestions, I could use some help on this.)

A possibility that reuses a similar mechanic to what is in place is to hit a static target, compare range values to determine the appropriate die type and size for the number. In which case:
Derringer/Thrown Knife: Range 1
Handgun: Range 2
SMG/shotgun: Range 3
Assault Rifle: Range: 4
Battle Rifle: Range 5
Anti-Material: Range 6
Guided missiles etc Range 7+

Well, now a sufficiently long range weapon can’t miss, so it will take a lot more thought, but I’ve delayed posting this long enough, and you probably need these rules interpretations for your next session.


The first idea is simply dropping dice from the attack pool. This means that volume of fire can compensate, but more powerful weapons don't necessarily have a longer range. Of course, this isn’t how difficulty works in the rest of the game, and I’d like some consistency. This does mean that as the situation gets harder, the negative difficulty modifiers get more dangerous. I probably need to clarify it to increased difficulty vs critical difficulty to explain task is harder vs task carries a great risk.

Another idea was to simply eat extra successes (much like the fairly new necrotic threshold concept for creatures between fully stated and a few NP - or for that matter, hordes).

A final version was actually dropping the weapon’s DR (or alternately raising the creatures SDI) to simulate how the bullet is losing power at range or its becoming more difficult to hit the one vital spot. However, the problem with this is that there is no way to simulate hitting a static target. (ie can you hit that transformer to take out the power?)

At one point, the idea for overkill was to add extra dice, but that didn’t really guarantee extra damage, and rolling dozens of d4s is a bit difficult. Pumping up human SDI so it wouldn’t come into play as much seemed to fix it, but apparently it only delayed the problem.

I also need a better cover/concealment system.


Instant kill comes in when the dice would otherwise need to be smaller than a d4. For a while, this was a problem, since with human DR of one, that meant a standard sniper-rifle was an instant kill. I was thinking of adding a set progression of extra dice, or simple doubling, or changing how dice are read to allow more than one hit per die.

Raising DR to two solved that, since the next step up of weapons would be much harder to find. Thus I stopped worrying about the problem as much, but apparently I was premature. Allowing auto kill to add in a minimum number of successes seems to be the right framework. Probably along the lines of 1+ total excess DR (Ie 6 DR vs 2 SDI = 1+1+roll) for the survivable option (ex cinematic RPG VS Player) or DR + successes for the less...


Well, the effectiveness of that SA seems to underlie my suspicion that Combat Oriented Special Abilities are a little over-powered. (Similarly, I’m not too warm on SAs that increase derived stats, though those might be a little safer.) As stated above, just set a difficulty number, and if it hits, it kills. Or possibly does an automatic number of damage against certain undead.


Each level of horde is about a half dozen additional creatures. Instant kill - at least with a non-explosive weapon probably shouldn't apply. (I will have to note that somewhere, along with the generally low effect of explosives on undead.)

The sniper SA only works against a single target, which a horde technically isn’t. Of course, if you want to be cinematic, then yes, the sniper is pulling off three or four head-shots in a row as fast as they can cycle to bolt. Otherwise, there is the use of the "negative" difficulty - roll and if there are no successes, then something goes wrong - the weapon jams, the scope shakes off of zero, the barrel overheats and looses accuracy or he is too busy looking straight ahead to see more coming from behind..


For the sake of simplicity and role-playing, I am actually disinclined to allow such builds. I rather like the idea that the game isn’t a race to find the best assault rifle, and that weapons can be a way of expressing character rather than a simple tool. As the rules stand now, holding on to Great Grandpa's old Enfield Mark 1* Revolver from his days hunting Rommel in Africa is just as good as any other pistol, but says something about the sentimentality of the character. (The practicality of a 120 year pistol on the other hand...)

Currently, the only weapon that has notable special rules are Magnetic Acceleration Guns (ie Gauss Rifles) where they can be set to one of three modes:

* Sniper: DR 4/ single shot only
* Assault: DR 3/ Burst possible
* Silent: DR 2 / subsonic rounds (admittedly, it still whines from capacitors charging, but its less noticeable - think meowing cats vs lawnmower noise levels) (Addendum, the decibel level of meowing cats and lawnmowers, not cats fighting lawnmowers - that is an entirely different volume.)

Some weapons that are sort of borderline in power (ie .44 revolvers, slug shotguns) might get an extra die rather than a boost in DR. I think I put in a rule for slugs vs shot in shotguns or adjusting the choke. (Or maybe not.)

At the moment, distance in combat is still based on the range between the attacker and defender, not the effective ranges of the weapons (ie the penalties to hit with a pistol should happen a lot sooner than the ones for a sniper rifle. Currently everything can shoot just as far, but the power, and to some extent size, vary). The ballistic stickler in me wants to change that, but at the moment range is a nice simple approximate value people can visualize easier than a table that lists short/medium/long/extreme ranges for four different barrel lengths. (Pistol, SMG/Shotgun, Rifle, Sniper or guided weapon).

Making a big deal about ammunition types is an optional rule as you might note. Even then, its do you have the right size ammo for the gun, rather than do Glaser(TM) Safety Slugs preform better than Gold Dot(TM) Controlled Expansion Rounds. (And for the pedantic like me, that answer depends on the material and angle of strike.)


While I’m aware of some sword styles that use paired weapons, using multiple firearms is more of a cinematic invention than a practicality. Maybe if you had two single action cap and ball pistols (ie pre-1870s) you would fire one and cock the other, but that isn’t likely. More probably, you use one, then draw the other rather than reloading since those things are not easy to fill in combat (or out - it takes two or three minutes to measure powder, seat ball, and place a cap)

Admittedly, arguing real-life practicality in a horror movie inspired game might not be the best practice, but from a game balance and keeping up the tension point of view, this really should be kept to a minimum. At best, firing two pistols at a time adds an extra die or two for more lead flying around, (like burst fire) but not really any greater affect.

Similarly, a special ability for dual melee weapons would probably not let you attack twice, but would mean an offense doesn’t open gaps in your defense. (So if normal aggressive move is +1DR -1 SDI, you ignore the -1). As mentioned repeatedly, I’m trying to come up with some more hand to hand maneuvers and change up how useful that skill is.