Op-En - A New Skirmish Game by Prim

[YellowStreak]

So instead of rolling FightVs.Fight and PowerVs.Toughness, you'd simply roll FightVs.Defence. Similarly instead of ShootVs.Agility and PowerVs.Toughness, you'd roll ShootVs.Agility. The result of that single roll would determine damage.
To represent Stronger fighters, you could increase the base damage of their weapons. I'd also probably switch Shields to buff the new Defence stat and Armour would reduce incoming damage.
Any thoughts?

I like the sound of it, worth further playtesting!

[Primarch]

One thing I noticed during the games on Sunday was that most of the skills weren't used a lot. Now, was that just down to people not being familiar with the rules, the skills being a waste of an action compared to attacking, or a mix of both? Should some of the skills be changed to abilities that work automatically?

[Primarch]

There is an updated version of the core rules in the first post now. I have changed a few things based on feedback from the games we played last weekend. I am currently working on a lot of changes and updates to the Honour and Glory Setting book and the Roster file, so I have removed the older versions for the time being. Once I have changed everything, I will upload the new versions.

[The Underdweller]

Regarding the skills, I think it was a mix of unfamiliarity and some skills not being relevant at the time. I used most of my spells, as well as ethereal jaunt, multiple times, with varying effectiveness, as well as the boar's "free" stampede.

Some skills, such as the bear's intimidate or buff, seemed less useful than just closing with the enemy, at least during the game I played.

[Primarch]

I have updated the first post with the FULL (but not final) version of Honour and Glory, plus the Roster Sheets.

I still need to update all of the example Opposing Forces and the NPCs/Monsters in H&G to show the updated Stats, but all of the rules you will need to build your own forces are there. If you can't wait to use the examples, simply remove the Power Stat and reduce the character's cost by the value of the Power Stat.

Included in the update:
An example of how to create a character.
Some skills are now abilities.
Full campaign rules.
All of the scenarios.
Various changes and amendments suggested by Underdweller, Jus and Yellowstreak.

[Primarch]

I have uploaded the finished version of the Honour & Glory book to the first post.

In addition to fixing the stat blocks of the example forces, I have increased the cost of some of the Forms slightly. Large characters and Mighty characters are a little more expensive now.

I am sure that there will be errors and typos to fix, so if you spot any, please let me know.

There is still more playtesting to be done, but no more edits until more dice have been rolled.

[Primarch]

It looks like we'll have a few players testing things out again this month, so if anyone has any questions beforehand, please post them up here.

[Grantholomeu]

Hey Prim, just an idea I had but of course no need to feel pressured into it:

What if different weapons had a max damage characteristic? That way by taking a magical greatsword you have the additional buff of the chance to do 10 damage or something ridiculous like that, while bows are capped at say, four damage.

I was thinking about how you could make max damage fair, and I came up with the idea of your die roll for your attack only doing so much. Possibly if you meet their defenses you do base dmg, if your roll is greater than their defenses you do +1dmg, and if your roll is 2x or greater your opponents you do +2dmg or x2dmg. Possibly a nice way to cap damage, and it'd make upgrading base damage more significant which I think would be good for reliability. If the big bear druid guy I played had a base damage of 4, that'd mean he'd be doing 4-6 (or 8 if x2) per hit, but my elven longbowman would only be doing 1-3.

Speaking of the elven longbowman, one other thought I had was that with ranged characters it's a lot easier to focus on one big shot than it is for melee characters just because ranged characters have to do a lot less moving to actually get into the fight, and they usually can't attack twice anyways so they might as well increase their die size. Not sure what to do with that information, just wanted to point it out.

Is there no way outside of magic or cover to increase your defensive stats? Maybe it's just the nature (heh) of the team I was playing, but I felt like I had a lot more offense than defense.

Thanks again for the game, it was fun!

[Primarch]

Hey Prim, just an idea I had but of course no need to feel pressured into it:

What if different weapons had a max damage characteristic? That way by taking a magical greatsword you have the additional buff of the chance to do 10 damage or something ridiculous like that, while bows are capped at say, four damage.

I was thinking about how you could make max damage fair, and I came up with the idea of your die roll for your attack only doing so much. Possibly if you meet their defenses you do base dmg, if your roll is greater than their defenses you do +1dmg, and if your roll is 2x or greater your opponents you do +2dmg or x2dmg. Possibly a nice way to cap damage, and it'd make upgrading base damage more significant which I think would be good for reliability. If the big bear druid guy I played had a base damage of 4, that'd mean he'd be doing 4-6 (or 8 if x2) per hit, but my elven longbowman would only be doing 1-3.

Speaking of the elven longbowman, one other thought I had was that with ranged characters it's a lot easier to focus on one big shot than it is for melee characters just because ranged characters have to do a lot less moving to actually get into the fight, and they usually can't attack twice anyways so they might as well increase their die size. Not sure what to do with that information, just wanted to point it out.

Is there no way outside of magic or cover to increase your defensive stats? Maybe it's just the nature (heh) of the team I was playing, but I felt like I had a lot more offense than defense.

Thanks again for the game, it was fun!

Thanks for the feedback, sorry it took so long to repond, work has been busy and I haven't had time to really focus on it until now.

It was always an intention that you could take an opponent out by either wearing them down or getting in a lucky hit (or two). Having the possibility of the little minion take out the enemy boss with a blowout roll on an attack means that there will always be a chance for you to win.

I'm also against adding any more math to the game, as I think it is already complex enough. Similarly, having a cap on weapon damage adds an extra thing to keep track of/look up.

That said, I do see the points you and ToD made about characters dying too easily and ranged attacks being too good as being valid arguments that need to be addressed.

Currently ranged attacks roll their basic die and get a bonus at short range. An easy fix is to reduce the die for anything outside short range and use the basic die only for short ranged attacks.
Another easy fix is to simply increase the Body Stat of all characters by 1. It may not be a big change per character, but it adds the equivalent of an extra character's worth of wounds per force on average. If need be, that value could be increased further for more elite characters.
(Both those changes also have the added benefit of me not having to massively rewrite everything).

So, I'll amend the rules and see how things play out I think.

If anyone has any thoughts/feedback, please post it below.

[kojibear]

I had my first two games of Op-En and played through to completion in each game in about two hours with the occasional chat etc included. The system is not overloaded with special rules and re-rolls, so it plays quite smoothly.

Thanks to generic but customizable force creation, I could create a force based on the Companions of the Hall from the Forgotten Realms, if any of you are familiar with them. This band of adventurers and do-gooders have very individual personalities and abilities, and I was able to create a character that was fairly close to each one within the current force building options. So, if you have favorites from different genres and settings, Op-En gives you a chance to bring them to the table-top.

Primarch and I tried a small adjustment to the range attack rules, and added an extra negative for shooting at long range. It helped a little in the second game, and would force you to use a boost counter if you wanted to remove modifier. Ranged attacks are still very strong, so maybe limiting the force to a max of 25% or 50% archers could avoid gun lines? Though I can appreciate that some players would love to have a force full of elf archers.

Damage caused by magic cannot be lowered by armour which makes sense in that a suit if metal is not going to save you from
Being cooked from the inside when hit by a fireball, but is another possible rule that could be abused.

I had a great time and the system is very good!

I’ll post more thoughts as they come to mind.