Melee skill should make the pawn harder to hit in melee

[Negocromn]

Alright, here's my idea.
For this, we are not considering manipulation bonuses or brawler bonuses, we are going to assume the hit chance derived from melee skill is the only variable and that it is completely accurate.

When a pawn attempts to melee attack another pawn that is not using a ranged weapon, it suffers a penalty on its hit chance per the following formula:

FHC = BHC - EMS²/1000
FHC ≥ 33%

FHC = Final Hit Chance
BHC = Base Hit Chance
EMS = Enemy Melee Skill

Which means pawns with 0 skill, pawns that are using ranged weapons, animals and so on will be hit with no penalties same as before. Also, the penalty is very very low in low levels and only starts to be actually powerful in the last top levels that are very hard to reach and maintain in unmodded RW.
A little table to illustrate the final hit chance of an attacker with skill X vs a defender with skill Z:

    0       1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8       9      10   
0   33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%    33%   
1   72%     71,9%   71,6%   71,1%   70,4%   69,5%   68,4%   67,1%   65,6%   63,9%  62%
5   82%     81,9%   81,6%   81,1%   80,4%   79,5%   78,4%   77,1%   75,6%   73,9%  72%
10  88%     87,9%   87,6%   87,1%   86,4%   85,5%   84,4%   83,1%   81,6%   79,9%  78%
15  93%     92,9%   92,6%   92,1%   91,4%   90,5%   89,4%   88,1%   86,6%   84,9%  83%
20  97%     96,9%   96,6%   96,1%   95,4%   94,5%   93,4%   92,1%   90,6%   88,9%  87%

    11      12      13      14      15      16      17      18      19      20
0   33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%     33%
1   59,9%   57,6%   55,1%   52,4%   49,5%   46,4%   43,1%   39,6%   35,9%   33%
5   69,9%   67,6%   65,1%   62,4%   59,5%   56,4%   53,1%   49,6%   45,9%   42%
10  75,9%   73,6%   71,1%   68,4%   65,5%   62,4%   59,1%   55,6%   51,9%   48%
15  80,9%   78,6%   76,1%   73,4%   70,5%   67,4%   64,1%   60,6%   56,9%   53%
20  84,9%   82,6%   80,1%   77,4%   74,5%   71,4%   68,1%   64,6%   60,9%   57%

I think this would add some much needed differentiation between low and high level melee characters, and it would make melee in general cheaper, more reliable and durable too.

[falconbunker]

Makes sense

[Pickle]

That's a good idea, but it would be better if the brawlers was separate in at least two or three categories depending on their backstories, the strong ones who make more damages but are slower, and some kind of dodgers who could approach an enemy without being hit. An other one could be a kind of assassin who can touch directly vital organs, or avoid them voluntarily to keep someone alive, that could be useful.

With range weapons there are some differences between fighters, because of the weapons, but the brawlers are all the same, and for me mostly useless in front of Pirates or Mecha, unless you need a bait. Which is unfortunate... for them

[Limdood]

I make great use of brawlers. 

Caveat:  i use the mending mod, so i can at least make sure my gear stays top notch, which helps greatly for personal shields. 

Shielded brawlers...3+ of them with plasteel longswords are fantastic and can kill things FAST.  interestingly, despite having a huge damage output (which is generally worse than fast small damage for capturing), the longswordsmen take prisoners easily...albeit with missing legs.

Then again, i'm much less a fan of killboxes and prefer tactical hide and seek and cover for fighting.  luring pirates past an autodoor with my melee team behind it...

I see this making sense...melee disparity should favor the higher skill, but i don't think by that much...the game has and needs a lot of random chance and something like a 1.5% miss chance per skill point disparity should be about as high as it should go...and then you'd have to calculate animals (i think it should be based on difference, not raw skill).  I'm completely against melee giving a miss chance for bullets though, no need for it to be the "super duper defense skill"

[erdrik]

What about animal handling giving the dodge chance when in melee with animals?

[Pickle]

Hmmm... I'm not sure an elephant handler will be better in melee with an elephant... xD

Well, I agree for the bullets, even a sniper with cataracts shouldn't miss that.

[kesulin]

it's an excelent idea, i agree with it. 

[Negocromn]

Bro, I'm not trying to reinvent the melee system, I'm trying to keep this suggestion as simple and down to earth as possible.

I've been playing with plasteel longsword brawler squads since the time Tynan added the weaponsmithing table to the game, a year or two ago, can't remember. It's great fun indeed.
I don't see the point of complicating this with skill difference instead of just using raw skill tho. It would create some problems for what possible benefit? Quicker fights between brawlers?

[erdrik]

Hmmm... I'm not sure an elephant handler will be better in melee with an elephant... xD

Its not that they are better in melee with an elephant, so much as they know how the elephant will react and can predict how to get out of the way.

Which would just so happen to be useful if they are in melee with an elephant.

[NephilimNexus]

Pulling an idea from the old PalladiumRPG, the best way to handle melee would be as follows:

Attacker chance to hit or block = 4% per point of Melee.
If hit is scored, defender rolls to block with their own weapon.
After block is rolled then defender rolls to attack.

And yes, this means two guys with 20 melee will end up fighting for hours without ever landing on hit on the other (see "Princess Bride" for an example of this).  This is fine - it just means you need to bring in more people, or someone with a gun, to break the stalemate.

Example: Colonist Brawler with a sword (melee 10) attacks a Raider with a knife (melee 5).  Colonist has a 40% chance to hit or block, raider has a 20% chance for the same.  Colonist rolls a 50, misses.  Raider rolls a 16, hits.  But the colonist then rolls a 32 to block, so that hit is now blocked (or rather, parried).  Next round the colonist rolls a 12, hits the raider.  Raider rolls to block and gets a 70 - failure.  Raider has been stabbed.

[mumblemumble]

I honestly think instead focused targetting ala fallout 1/ 2 would be much,  much better.  Instead of higher damage to hopefully jackhammer through a tortoise shell,  they aim for the eye and hopefully brain them.

Especially if there are presets for aiming like fatal,  center mass,  and less lethal.

This way we don't get arbitrarily more damage,  but instead shots more likely to be crippling in good hands.

To those who never played fallout... Here's an example.  A spear did around 8 or so damage,  and geckos had around 40 hp,  so it took 5 stabs to bleed them dry.  But,  a good shot to the eye by a high level  / lucky person could slice through the eye and kill them in 1 shot,  ripping the brain apart. This generally only happened if you aimed for separate parts of course,  so it wasn't really an option till you had good skills,  since odds of hitting were extremely slim if you weren't practiced in that combat type . But once you were up there,  the possibility of a damage bonus from an aimed hit made them a good alternative to working the body.

You could also nutshot people to incapacitate them.

This would DEFINITELY be better,  especially considering the psudo turn based,  percentage chance to hit mechanics,  than arbitrarily more damage,  which could really,  really fuck with balance.

Especially with the health system,  putting more damage on some guns would just make them way too overpowered... Like the sniper rifle.

[GuesUserNameGUN]

Missing bullets would be to OP, but i think there should be a dodge chance for melee on melee fighting. the higher level melee skill you have, more damage you do/ more chance to dodge other melee attacks.

[Limdood]

i wouldn't want to see a dodge chance of over 30% at melee 20.  fights don't need to last forever.

[mumblemumble]

I could only see dodge chance apply to melee v melee,  not ranged..  Even then,  this could be a bit unbalanced.

[Negocromn]

Updated the OP with an actual suggestion.

Numbers are a bit arbitrary since there's no easy way to test combat in RW, but I'd say they are reasonable.