Battle System for upcoming RP, Accepting suggestions too. Options

[Nicsp]

So, as some of you may know, i'm currently working in a simple action-based RP which will, hopefully, attract new people here to these subforums. Now there's a problem, because of the nature of this RP, there will, no doubt, be many battles. And since the point of this RP is to attract new members, not only the usual text battling way could be a bit of a disadvantage for new RPers but also would require a certain distancing from the author to it's character since, as we all know, no one likes losing.

I have discussed what battle system should be used with Sparrowsmith via PM for a while and we came up with two options to choose from, one being very simple but requiring the need of one or more admins of the RP to be frequently present to handle the battles and the other one a lot more simple but also very complex. Needless to say, we are also accepting suggestions, if any of you have any.

"Rock, paper, scissors" system by Nicsp.

[Show/Hide] Clicky.

Instead of making up their own weapons, the GM will make a list of avaible weapons and assign to these weapons ten points through three different "stats", that data will only be avaible to the GM and to the player who owns the weapons, and then when two people fight, we have them choose what stat they want to use to battle the opponent, the stat is then PMed to the GM who will then reply to both people saying which is the winner. Each of these stats "beats" each other (Think rock, paper, scissors.), and when that happens, the "winning" stat gets a 2x value bonus over the other one.

So...By example...

Bob has...A shield.
Block: 5
Charge: 4
Strike: 1

John has...A chainsaw sword.
Block: 3
Charge: 3
Strike: 4

Block>Charge>Strike>Block

Bob uses block and John uses Strike.
Bob: 5
John: 4

But since Strike>Block then...

Bob: 5
John: 8

John wins.

Now on another occasion:

Both John and Bob use charge.

Bob: 4
John: 3

Since charge=charge then Bob wins.

After the result has been calculated by the GM and sent back to both of the RPers involved in the battle, it will be up to the RPers to now RP the battle as they see fit, keeping in mind which of the two has to win.

Tactical Stance system by Sparrowsmith

[Show/Hide] Click here!

An RP fight needs to go on as long as is necessary for entertainments sake, but as short as is possible for story development. One idea would be 'stances'.
In each post you can either change your 'stance' or attack, but not both. The three stances are offensive, defensive, and moving. If you're defensive, you can't be hit or hit, if you're offensive, then you can hit and be hit. Moving is for any REAL movement (of course you can move while attacking or defending) moving is for positioning that would take time (such as an archer getting to a good distance for firing).
This would still be difficult to do, but would create a real sense of a battle field...

So, these are the two options we have at the moment. Opinions and suggestions?

[Sparrowsmith]

There are still a fair few flaws with the stance system though.
For example:
2 players start in defensive. Whichever changes to offensive first leaves themselves vulnerable, so there's no reason to change.
Like wise, once one does attack (let's say an archer) then the other player will run after them. The archer will then either go defensive or run away. We eventually get a kind of cycling system.

Unless we mix the two together?
offensive vs defensive = no hit either side.
moving (charging) vs defensive = damage done to defensive.
offensive vs moving (charging) = damage done to moving.
moving (dodging) vs offensive = offensive misses

after a dodge both parties change to defensive
two identical attacking stances lead to damage on both sides.


if you HAVE to change your stance every turn, then this could lead to some interesting fights (stances carry from one turn to the next)
1 - offensive
2 - defensive (no damage)
1 - charging (damage done to 2)
2 - offensive (damage done to 1)
1 - offensive (damage done to both)
2 - dodging (stances reset to defensive)
1 - charging (damage done to 2)
etc

and the fight would be written like the following: (I'll do a draft, and assume they have swords and shields)
"1 leads with an attack, bringing his sword crashing towards 2. 2 quickly brings his shield upwards to parry the attack. 1 wastes not time tackling 2 to the ground while his shield is raised. 2 picks himself up and brings his sword against 1's side. 1 counters by bringing his sword around and scraping 2 as 2's blade slides deeper into his side. 2 rolls backwards out of the way of the attack. 1 quickly follows, tackling him to the ground"
and that's a very basic draft. It's sort of like a mixture between stances and rock paper scissors, but without the numbers and with a lot more combinations.
It's complex, so probably wouldn't hold well, but would otherwise have potential I think.