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!