Dune RPG

[RaconteurX]

Personally, I'd be interested mainly in how they reinterpreted certain skills and also how they handled Prescience and the various skills and abilities of the Bene Gesserit, Mentats and so on. Been ages since I sold my copy... don't recall much about the specific rules for those things.

[Chris Landmark]

I still have my own copy as well (lying on the floor next to me at the moment, as I'm in another spate of construction on my CODA Dune project which has been ongoing since Decipher first published CODA Trek). So I could provide some information.

Regarding combat, it does work a bit differently than other ICON games. Characters have a certain number of "Option Points" equal to their Initiative. These Option Points are spent during the round to perform various Combat Options.

Combat Options can be such things as Aim, Dive for Cover, Draw/Recover Weapon, Hand Switch, Armed Attack, Block, Feint, Riposte, Shield Defense, Slow Attack, etc. Some of these Combat Options are available to everyone, while others are only accessable to characters with a particular Advantage (Shield Defense, Slow Attack, and Slow Attack Sinister, for example, are only available to characters with the Shield Fighting advantage). Each Combat Option has a type (Action, or Reaction) and a cost (0 to 3) in Option Points. Each subsequent Combat Option of a particular type (Action or Reaction) performed by a character in a round incurs an additional +1 Option Point cost. So for example, a character who has performed and Attack (A1) and a Parry (R1) so far this round will pay 3 Option Points (as the first additional Action) to follow up with a Slow Attack (A2). A subsequent Attack (A1) would also cost 3 Option Points (as a second additional Attack, it costs 2 more Option Points than usual), but a second Parry (R1) would only cost 2 Option Points, since it is only the first additional Reaction.

In addition to serving as two separate tracks for additional Option Point costs, the other difference between Actions and Reactions is this: in order to declare an Action, you must have the full cost in Option Points available to pay for it. To declare a Reaction, you don't actually have to have any Option Points left; you simply suffer a -1 test penalty for each Option Point you don't have available to spend.

One final note: some Combat Options can be either Actions or Reactions, giving the player the choice of which they will be performed as.

This system had its advantages and disadvantages (mostly through the fact that complexity = slow combat in the limited experience I had in running it), but it certainly did do a great job (in my opinion) of capturing the give-and-take of Duneverse dueling. Once I finally get around to the combat system in my CODA Dune project, I want to try and infuse something like this mechanic into the existing CODA combat rules, though the standard CODA combat mechanics would be an option for more speadily resolving combat.

[Imagus]

Thanks for doing that - I'd just realised I forgot to post mine!

The only excuse I have is the new arrivals...

Sorry...