Dave's Shortcut for Champions

As much as I like Champions for role-playing, it can get cumbersome going through all the minutiae for combat. I spent several years trying to come up with a streamlined system and the first model was smoother but still cumbersome. Then I took a look at it from a different angle and came up with a method that is much quicker and only takes one roll of the dice.

One of the things I did was to not worry about Killing dice. Just make them the equivalent in normal dice.

Here's how it works:

Calculate your to-hit number. If you make it, multiply the number of damage dice by 1 and assume no body. If you make it by 1, multiply the number of damage dice by 2 and multiply the maximum BODY damage that can be done by 20%. Continue this until you can make it by 5 or more. It will generate the following chart:

 

Make To-Hit Roll By	STUN Damage multiplier	BODY Damage multiplier
0	1	0.0
1	2	.4
2	3	.8
3	4	1.2
4	5	1.6
5	6	2.0

For example, Blastor attacks The Rok with a 10d6 attack that does a maximum of 20 BODY. He makes his attack by 2. That means he does (10*3) 30 STUN and (20*.4) 8 BODY damage. The Rok still gets to apply his defenses.

The interesting thing about this is that the more likely you are to hit a target, the more likely you can do maximum damage. The reverse is true. If it's very hard to hit the target, you're less likely to do maximum damage. Some people may balk at this but, in general, I am more interested in the story being told than the details of the combat. Sometimes that's important but this method helps me speed up the story-telling.