I had the idea of making a very simple single player board game RPG as a way to pass the time (both in spending the time creating it, and just playing it when bored). The plan is for it to be fairly fast paced, and tipped in favor of the player, so that it is just a fun dungeon crawl-like romp to pass the time.
Anyway, without getting into too many details not related to this post, I wanted to come up with a simple battle system. I don't want to worry about comparing a bunch of stats, lots of dice rolls per turn, etc. I want a mix of randomness with a little bit of strategy. This is the system I came up with.
The player's actions are based upon the cards in his hand. He can hold up to five cards in his hand at any time. When an enemy is encountered, the player plays a card and rolls a die. This is repeated for each turn until one of the two dies. Values on the player's card and the enemy's card are compared to a single D6 that is rolled. Depending on the values, attacks either connect or are evaded. After the turn, the played card is discarded. Once the player holds two or less cards in his hand, he may draw additional cards from the top of his deck until he has five cards again.
Example of a player's attack card:
Thrust (Name of the attack)
DMG: 4 (The amount of damage done if an attack is successful)
MISS: 1, 2 (If the value of the die rolled is in this sequence, the player's attack misses)
DEF: 6 (If the value of the die rolled is in this sequence, the player defends the enemy's attack)
Example of an enemy card drawn from the encounter deck:
Orc with a nasty sunburn (Name of the enemy)
HP: 9 (The number of hit points the enemy has)
DMG: 3 (The amount of damage done if the enemy attack is successful)
ATK: 1, 3, 6 (If the value of the die rolled is in this sequence, the enemy's attack is successful unless the number is also in the sequence of player's attack card's DEF)
If the following number is rolled, the result is...
1 - The player's attack misses, and the enemy's attack hits
2 - Both the player's and enemy's attacks miss
3 - Both the player's and enemy's attacks hit
4 - The player's attack hits, and the enemy's attack misses
5 - The player's attack hits, and the enemy's attack misses
6 - The player's attack hits, and the enemy's attack is defended against.
There would be multiple variations of the values for different versions of the card. For example, another thrust card may only do 3 damage, but have a DEF value of 1, 3, which would only allow the example sunburned orc to land an attack if a six was rolled. There would also be a variations of the values on the enemy cards, making certain attack cards either more or less useful against that particular enemy card.
As the player leveled up, he would choose additional cards to add to his deck. These could be more powerful attacks or modifier cards that could be played along with an attack (such as a defense card to increase the chance to defend, or to boost the amount of damage done on a successful attack).
So, the basic sequence of a battle would be:
1. Play a card
2. Roll a die
3. Adjust hit points accordingly
4. Go to step 1
Any thoughts? This is my first attempt at coming up with a battle system. I think the only games I've ever played with any kind of a battle system were Risk and Battle Masters. And that was a long, long time ago.
You make a good point about the hit/miss thing. I believe my line of thinking was that since the scales are to be tipped in favor of the player, that it would be more likely that he would be hitting, rather than missing. So rather than listing a longer sequence of 3, 4, 5, 6, it would be easier to just list 1, 2. But I believe you are right that it would make more sense the other way. Sure there might be an extra number or two, but it would be easier to understand two-fold because, as you said, hits would work the same for both sides, as well as that the user just has to see if the number is there, rather than ask, "is the number rolled not there?"
I figured that some of the "which card should I play?" logic would be based upon weaker attacks more often than not have a better chance to hit and/or have a better built-in defense value over powerful attacks which sacrifice defense for extra damage.
I also figured that there might be some kind of combo system. For example, an attack card that can only be played after successfully landing an attack of a certain type. Or perhaps it can be played any time, but if done after a specific attack, it does bonus damage.
Another option to make sure the player keeps a somewhat varied deck (I figure there will be a cap on the number of cards in the attack rotation), would be that attacks and monsters could be color coded. For example, a specific Orc card could be coded red and blue. All Slash cards would be coded red and yellow. Since both cards share a color, the Orc can be damaged by the attack. A Thrust card however, would be coded yellow and green. Since the Orc has neither of these colors, that particular Orc could not be damaged by a Thrust.
With something like that, the player would need to make sure they have a variety of attacks in his deck. Otherwise, he could end up on a "block, please block! and give me a good card!" run.
After I typed the thing up, I came up with a few other ideas. I wasn't even considering weapons coming into play. I figure maybe the damage rating can be a bonus applied to the weapon. For example, say you are wielding a sword with a damage rating of 3. A Slash attack would have +0 DMG, whereas a Thrust could have +1 DMG.
Along the lines of keeping things simple, at first I wasn't even considering having armor in the game. However, I figure an easy way to do it would just be to make pieces of armor (or maybe they will just be complete sets) give +X hit points to the player.
And now as I type this I think of even more crazy things to add, such as allowing loot to be color coded. For example, a sword may do less damage than another, but it would be color coded yellow. If your weapon is yellow, you can attack yellow coded monsters even if your attack card does not have yellow.
Of course, if I keep brainstorming, I'm going to negate the whole idea of a simple battle system! It's fun though.