Dark But Vicious Silver

[Kindling]

In the spirit of Small But Vicious Dog, this is a d6-based DnD/WFRP mashup for use with Dark Silver if I ever want to make things ultra-lethal and grimdark.

Roll 2d6+6 in order for STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

Your WS is equal to STR + DEX / 4
Your BS is equal to DEX + WIS / 4
Your T is equal to STR + CON / 4

Your AC is DEX + CON / 3  + armour bonuses + 1d3+3 (rolled either at chargen or at the start of each combat, GM's discretion)

Non-combat checks are roll-under relevant stat +/- modifiers on 4d6. If you have a relevant skill, you get to use 3d6 instead (you get INT / 3 skills)

Attack rolls are 2d6 + WS (for melee) or BS (for ranged). If you get snake eyes you have to re-roll as 1d6 + WS/BS, if you get double 6 you get to re-roll as 3d6 + WS/BS. If you then get triple 6 you can re-roll with 4d6 + WS/BS and so on. You hit if you roll your target's AC or higher.

If you hit a PC or important NPC roll 2d6 - the target's T for damage. Instead of hitpoint-tracking there is a table of horrific wound effects that you roll on, modified by the amount of damage you did so that higher damage means more likelihood of death or permanent injury.

If you hit an unimportant NPC roll 2d6 damage. If you roll equal to or above the target's T they die, otherwise they are wounded and for one round can't do anything. Next time they're hit you don't need to roll damage, they just die. If they're undead or some kind of other implacable monster they can act in the round after being wounded, just because.

You get 3 Fate points that can be spent to auto-succeed on any non-combat roll or attack roll or make whoever hit you only roll 1d6 damage instead of 2d6. The only character advancement is gaining/regaining Fate points, which should be at roughly a rate of 1 per "quest" completed, with whatever constitutes a quest being up to the GM.

There is no magic, at least not for PCs.

I am aware that this is probably "broken" in many ways, but I think it should work for its intended purpose of putting PCs through a relentlessly brutal meatgrinder.

EDIT: You can give up your attack to either Fight Defensively (+2 AC vs melee attacks) or Hunker Down behind your shield and/or cover (+2 AC vs ranged attacks)

Everyone can rage. If you go into Frenzy you take -4 AC, -4 BS, +4 WS and roll 3d6 damage rather than 2d6. Frenzy lasts until either you decide to calm down a bit or you get hit. You can only Frenzy once per combat.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I kinda like that system. Not a power-gaming, crunch-heavy system by any means, but I think it works well with the visceral nature of Dark Silver. (btw, what are WS, BS, and T?)

How do different types of weapons play into attack rolls? Is there any difference between using a greatsword or using a dagger? What about magic, demon-bound weapons?

[sparkletwist]

Well, if you want my personal opinion, I don't like this very much-- but I think anyone around here who knows me would've been able to predict that. Since you've acknowledged that you're aware it's probably "broken" I won't bother complaining about the details.

I will say this, however. An average stat is 13, meaning an average T is (13+13)/4 = 6. Since damage is 2d6 - T, that means average damage is 1, and a fairly good chance of a hit not doing any damage at all. Depending on what you were going for, this could very well make the system actually quite a bit less lethal and gritty than what you probably intended.

[Seraph]

I am assuming that this uses the same terminology as WH40K, so

WS would be Weapon Skill (Melee Attack)
BS is Ballistic Skill (Ranged Attack)
and T is Toughness.

I can't say for sure without actually trying it, but it sounds like this could potentially be fun.  I do like that BS incorporates Wisdom (I am assuming in the form of "senses"), and the WS is both Str AND Dex.

[Kindling]

Hehe, I was anticipating your response Sparkle. As I was typing the original post up I was thinking "I'm pretty sure this represents everything Sparkle hates" :P
You do make a good point about the maths behind damage, though. Maybe 3d6 damage will be the baseline instead.

Yes WS BS and T are Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill and Toughness (I think BS was originally Bow Skill in WFRP, but I could be wrong about that. They call it Bow Skill in SBVD anyway. I prefer Ballistic Skill, as it incorporates javelins and other missiles)

I think all one-handed weapons would attack as per normal. Maybe 2H would incur an AC penalty but do an extra dice of damage? Magic weapons might give a bonus to WS and/or damage but would probably have some kind of noncombat curse effect too to balance things out.

And yes it is the same aspect of "wisdom" that made it the governing stat for Spot and Listen checks in 3E that brings it into play for BS

I basically brainstormed the whole thing in like 10mins so it's very rough-and-ready and not at all playtested/in-any-way-tested (for example the issue with damage maths that Sparkle pointed out) but I think it could be fun, maybe not for a full campaign but for a session or two here and there.

EDIT: Also I was considering including a Warhammer-style "Attacks" derived stat as well but couldn't come up with a good way to implement it. I was thinking maybe your A is always 1 unless you have 15+ DEX in which case it's 2 but I dunno that feels a bit wrong somehow. Maybe I'll just leave it out, and everyone just attacks once per round.

EDIT2: OR, or maybe and/or, I could make T = STR + CON / 5 rather than / 4? Maybe both that and 3d6 base damage, just to make things really nasty.

[Steerpike]

I think what you should really do is a quick playtest.  You can probably recruit some people on IRC, or failing that, just try out a quick combat or two yourself.