Gods and Monsters: Review of Combat

The first thing you evaluate in an RPG after character generation is combat. I skimmed the first and rushed to the later with Gods and Monsters.

Combat is surprisingly easy to navigate in Gods And Monsters. Time in combat is measured in 10 second rounds during which players can take any one action. There is no initiative, everything happens at once and so it's not ordered either.

To Hit Rolls

A hit in combat is easy to calculate. A score of 11 or lower on a d20 is a hit. Each participant in combat has a to hit bonus and a defense score. The hit bonus adds to your chance to hit and the target's defense score subtracts from your chance to hit. So Larik the warrior has a +3 to hit but the orc he's fighting has a defense of 4. So larik needs to roll a 10 or under to successfully strike the orc.

Simple combat rules with no charts. I like it.

Suprise

The rules for surprise in Gods And Monsters are more complicated then D&D but simpler then AD&D. Instead of a single round of suprise, the character is seemingly "off balance" or "out of focus" until 2 rounds have passed or the player makes a willpower or fortitude roll. The rules can be found here. (Gotta love games distributed under the GPL, you can reference the rules online.)

So far I like what I'm reading in Gods and Monsters.