Quick Combat

Sometimes the Game Master may need to sum up a combat Death

encounter rather than fighting it out tactically. Perhaps the Note that this quick and dirty system won’t Incapacitate
purpose of the combat is really just to convey information, such characters unless they’re already wounded. Whether death
as how savage a foe is or what the weakness of some greater is possible or not is up to the Game Master, the situation,
threat might be. Or maybe the group just doesn’t have enough and the “grittiness” of the setting, but players shouldn’t feel
time and needs to get on to the more important scenes. cheated—narrating a heroic death can be just as tragic—or
When this occurs, you can use this quick and simple system epic—as dying in a tactical fight.
to sum up the results of a fight and still keep a little tension
and drama in the scene. Defeat
The party always “wins” Quick Combat fights unless
No cards are dealt in Quick Combat. Instead, the Game
everyone fails their roll. Then the Game Master may decide
Master sets the scene, then each player chooses the
the group fails with whatever consequences that entails. This
primary skill he wants to use and how he plans to use it. The
might mean they’re actually defeated, are forced to retreat,
skill should generally be a combat ability such as Fighting,
or are even captured.
Shooting, Spellcasting, or the like, but anything is allowed
that makes sense and fits the action described. This can be very unsatisfying, of course, so another option
in this rare occurrence is for the Game Master to start a
Each player then rolls the chosen skill and adds or subtracts
regular combat from the end of the narration. For example,
the following cumulative modifiers:
if a typical fantasy party is defeated by an orc patrol and
Quick Combat Modifiers everyone fails their Quick Combat roll, the GM might start a
regular combat as the surrounded heroes get their second
Modifier Circumstance wind—with whatever wounds they suffered in the “first” part
+2 / -2 The party outclasses their foes / the foes of the battle simulated by Quick Combat.
outclass or significantly outnumber the party.
Increase this to +4 / –4 if the difference is
Ammunition and Power Points
The Game Master must decide how much ammunition or
particularly great.
how many Power Points are used in Quick Combat based on
+2 / -2 The party has a tactical advantage of some sort the circumstances, success level, and most importantly, the
/ the foes have a tactical advantage character’s stated plan.
Results Generally, this should be from 1–3d6 rounds, bursts,
The Game Master then interprets and narrates the results, Power Points, or whatever is appropriate. Remember this
allowing for each character’s intended plan and her player’s is all narrative and subjective. The important thing is to take
input. “Failure” may not mean the hero actually failed in her into account the player’s intent for her character, the overall
desired plans, by the way—it may simply mean she took some situation, and her success level.
damage or is affected in some other negative way.
Heroes may spend Bennies to soak damage from failure
Examples:
A wizards wants to conserve Power Points and use his
as usual. Healing abilities (spells, potions, the Healing skill)
Fighting. With a Critical Failure, the plan might fail and he rolls
may be used as well.
3d6 Power Points. With success, the GM decides he spends
• Critical Failure: The hero’s plan gets her into serious 1d6. With a raise, he saves all his Power Points.
trouble. She suffers d3 wounds.
A machine gunner in Weird Wars wants to lay down heavy
• Failure: The character suffers a wound. fire to fend off waves of shambling zombies. Whether he gets
• Success: The warrior manages to get through the fight a Critical Failure or a raise, he expends 3d6 full-auto bursts
unharmed. because his plan was to burn ammo. The GM might also give
• Raise: The hero truly shines during the fight. The player him a +2 tactical bonus for blowing through so much ammo if
and GM should work together to narrate a particularly the general tactical situation makes sense as well.
heroic moment. Afterwards, the hero gets a Benny.

1
 Design Notes smiles on the players’ faces as we narrated the tale together
and felt I wasn’t taking anything away from them. And I was
I’ve been doing Quick Combat for years. Sometimes I don’t also happy when we got to the big finale and the game had
want to just completely hand-wave a fight—it might provide a all the tactical crunch I wanted—the best of both worlds.
clue, indicate the wrong “path,” wear the party down, or just Having a good grasp of the “real” game also helped
serve as a warning for straying into a deadly area. But it’s not when determining the rough modifiers for Quick Combat,
a big part of the plot. especially when compared to the actions they wanted to take.
A recent trip to several Italian conventions with our translators Sometimes they’d do something that fit their skills, gear, and
at Jolly Troll really drove this system home. I brought a typical Edges perfectly. Sometimes they’d do something that was
American convention adventure of around three hours length, important for the story even though their characters weren’t
but that’s just now how they do things there. Italian convention particularly good at it. That was always entertaining as well,
demos are supposed to be around 45 minutes long. whether they rolled well, poorly, or right in the middle—which
I usually described as “desperate” but ultimately successful.
The adventure I ran was for Deadlands, and it’s essentially
a gauntlet of javeranas (desert pigs called javelinas in the real Part Two
world with piranha-like teeth). A sinister power is controlling the I was at a convention recently where I actually just played
unending horde of devil-pigs to herd the heroes to a particular rather than running games (a rare thing for me). Most of the
destination and the big finale. Game Masters did a fine job, though I noticed a few of the
I had planned on running the first couple of battles tactically, adventures were just combat after combat. If you’re reading
then backing off as they got closer to the end and using my this, you hopefully think fights in Savage Worlds are fun too,
usual short-cut—the rules you see here—for the rest. but I felt like some of these encounters were similar to what
But given the incredibly short time limit, I I was trying to do with my javeranas adventure. Since these
had to use Quick Combat for Game Masters didn’t have this Quick Combat tool in their bag
all the battles. My job was to of tricks, I decided it was time to formalize it.
herd the group and whittle As soon as I did, some of the playtesters asked about
down their ammo, Power modifiers based on certain Edges and Hindrances, the
Points, and wounds a bit. foes’ Special Abilities, etc. I highly advise you to avoid that
Combined with incredibly temptation. The whole point is to quickly sum up a character’s
creative descriptions potential in total and relative to his foes, take into account what
from great players and the player wants to do, and quickly roll the dice. Then narrate
embellished by all of us after what happens, figure out any wounds or ammo / Power Point
seeing the die rolls, it worked loss, and move on. Keep it Fast, Furious, and Fun!
great. You also shouldn’t feel obliged to use Quick Combat. Even
Like I said, I’d been doing it for a fight that isn’t particularly important to the plot is still a great
years—maybe a decade—but had time to let your players shine, especially if they enjoy good
never had such an extensive test tactical fights and built heroes specifically to take advantage of
of it. I ran a half dozen sessions what we feel is one of the most satisfying encounter systems
in rapid order and watched it around!
work over and over. I saw the —Shane Hensley
October 2015