Okay, so I've got an idea for a turn-based combat system that's different from others I've heard of. My purpose in writing this is to get general opinions on it. Any opinion is fine. I do have a specific question though, will this be too complicated or will combat take too long for the player to enjoy it? Of course, I also want know how I can make it better.

The basic idea is:

    1a. Two roles, two characters, attacker and defender.

    2a. The attacker attacks repeatedly.

    3a. Each subsequent attack is easier to counter which means, evading the attacking and attacking in the same move.

    4a. This is determined by the attacker and defender's relative speed and skill. A new character will have a hard time pulling off combos against a veteran NPC.

    5a. When a counter happens characters switch roles, the attacker becomes defender and vice-versa.

Another Idea I'd like to try with melee weapons is weapon range:

    1b. The character with a shorter weapon is automatically defender until they get in range and successfully counter.

    2b. Defenders get closer by the same sort of process as the counter-switch method above.

    3b. But it's a lot easier to get closer because they don't need to attack, just move forward.

    4b. Weapons can still fight at closer than maximum range, but suffer increasing penalties the further out of their "optimum range," which may or may not be their maximum.

    5b. Characters can carry multiple weapons to switch between, but suffer penalties if they carry too many weapons, especially large ones.

    6b. Characters can't pickup discarded weapons and suffer large penalties when switching, but become lighter weight, of course.

Lastly, I don't want to use a hit-point system:

    1c. When attacking characters choose between attacking the left and right arms and legs, the torso, and the head.

    2c. Then they choose a specific target such as, on the head, eyes, mouth, chin.

    3c. If they hit anywhere on the target they wound him.

    4c. Wounds cause disabilities and bleeding.

    5c. Disabilities are essentially status-ailments. Examples could be, blindness, disorientation, etc.

    6c. Disabilities are more likely to come from hitting specific targers, and hitting different ones will give different disabilities.

    7c. Characters all have a blood-level of 100 that can be reduced over time by bleeding from wounds. All wounds, except from blunt weapons, cause bleeding.

    8c. If blood-level is reduced to 50 they lose consciousness, at 0 they die. (You only need to lose 1/3 of your blood to die, so the blood-level value represents 1/3 of a character's blood.)

Hello Mr. Ridiculous,

I think what you have for the basic idea sounds like it could be a lot of fun, I think it could be an entire game on it's own.  I'd say make a prototype of that, and polish it to a tee.  Once you have the core gameplay loop down, slowly start to add in the specifics, and test as you go.  Knowing how players react to each feature will be good indicators of how and when to implement them into the game, if at all.  In other words, make sure you test the hell out of your game to see what works and what doesn't.  I'm sure you can take it from there

Thanks MetalTug. I wonder if I did anything wrong. I haven't gotten any responses for five days.

You're fine man, just keep working on your project, it's an awesome idea.  Update us as you go along, and I'm sure a lot more people will be interested once your game gets closer to completion.  I'll be sure to check it out once you have something to show.

If this isn't considered too soon to bump, I would like to see a few more replies. Especially replies covering what specifically you like or don't like.

In general, I think it's a great start. The counter-switch mechanic sounds fun and the melee weapon range is a cool variation. I don't like the blood system because it's just another name for hit points and you said you don't want hit points.

This does sound like it could be a very involved, tactical, and somewhat slow system, which means it should really be the central focus of the game rather than a secondary feature. It could almost be a purely turn based arena fighting game without any other game play.

Hey, thanks for responding. I'll edit my first post later to make it clearer, but the blood system is meant to be a way to keep fights from going on too long than a name-change for an HP-system. Bleeding is a constant drain on your blood-level, since all wounds inflict some bleeding. However, most matches will be decided by who gets the worst disabilities, (I couldn't think of the word "injury" when writing that. Another thing to change.) many will outright kill you.