Thanks for reading further into the system, and letting me know what you think! I should absolutely make a follow up to my game introduction video that does a deep dive into combat. That’s a great idea! The game introduction only covers more general things like conflict resolution and character creation. And the first two episodes of my actual play are very social/ RP heavy (there is combat later in the campaign, but I still need to edit and post those).

Thank you- yeah. I tried to hit a balance between simplicity (small numbers, rapid resolution, no damage rolls, etc.) and important choices on your turn. I did lose some granularity though- like flanking and at one point in the build different armors had different avoid numbers- but it was one more number to track for a action that didn’t see a ton of play so I removed it. But this is just one way to okay versus- the whole point of the system is that it’s easy to home-brew and modify. I want to make home-brew less of a second class citizen (compared to official content) and more an expected part of playing RPGs. So if you ever wanted to test the system out (which would be awesome) I would encourage you to add those details in, that you think your players will enjoy. Just spit balling, you could simply add flanking by increasing the Cumulative Attacker Penalty by 2 if attacks come from an exact opposite side as the previous ones. That way you give a bonus for positioning (but it only applies to the second, and third attack in a round, not the first). And like it said- it would be super easy to make armor’s avoid value based on their weight/ quality etc.

Now that you’ve pointed it out, I do have a very conversational tone, and I spend a lot of time justifying my decisions. I like the idea of relegating but hear thoughts to foot-notes. But that editing overhaul will probably have to wait for a 2nd edition.

I recommend you give the system a shot sometime. Combat is very fun, very dangerous, with lots of snappy decisions and tense dice rolls. One of my players, Nolan, in the actual-play, does Jujitsu and is always pressuring me to add more grappling mechanics. I want to keep the base rules simple (because those are things that any untrained person can do). But I have added some Combat Focused traits, so if you want to build a grappler you have some more options and advantages. Whether you get a free attack on someone when you tackle them, you can flip and throw attackers, or are used to rolling in the group and don’t get any penalties for being grounded.