Over the winter holiday I had a chance to sit-down and really crank through some of the ideas I had in my head and complete my first draft of the combat system.
You can find the complete v0.1 document over on Github and Google Drive, but I'll try to summarize some of the concepts and what I am trying to do with combat.
General Concept: The Battle Grid
One of the things that will immediately jump out to you when you read through the design document is the Combat Grid. I have been pondering on this concept for a few months, trying to figure out how to combine a few different ideas into a single system.
I knew from the outset that I didn't want to use the common battle-mat and map layout that you see in D&D. This is partially attributed to the fact that I very frequently play those games so I am personally just sick of that mechanic. I also wanted to explore another way to represent the characters in combat. I have played "theater of the mind" in several RPG systems and more often than not, I have found that my players never are able to full grasp the concept. They always lose track of whom is engaged with whom, and the distances characters are from each other.
How could I find some way to get in-between both systems? How could I have something that is simple and streamlined at the table but at the same time could give some sort of visual representation of where characters are in relation to each other?
The solution actually came from chess, which several of my regular players are really involved in. I knew from the outset that my combat was going to have players all take their actions at once and then have enemies all take their actions at once. This provided for a common mechanic similar to chess that just seemed to "click" for me. Once I had that idea down, I was able to expand from there to allow for a fairly tactical system that doesn't get bogged down in measuring combat distances in feet.
Characters can act in combat lanes and can have their "stance" represented by the column they are in. I think there is enough information provided her to give people an idea of where and what they are doing in combat without having to spend five minutes on each of their turns trying to measure out 60 feet of movement. Playtesting I suppose will see if my assumptions play out as much as I hope.
I would love to get some feedback from anyone who would like to provide a comment either on Github or on the Google Doc linked above.