Lots of thoughts on this. Cant pick one, lean towards 1 with elements of 2 and 3. I am going to go with 1, but make the suggestion that it should include some strategic tweeks and flourishes as described below:
1)
Attacking someone, rather than resulting in a sheild block, either at the defenders option, or even randomly in a nondelayed system - can result in a pure counterstrike - giving both players potential hits, and thus un-sheild-defended damage. This ups the risk for the attacker - having the inititiave, or surprise element, should rule out, strategy, or luck, from that point forward.
Similarly -
2)
Dragging someone, who is armed with a reach weapon - using only your hands (see end for note) - should be dangerous no matter how many there are of you. Dragging as such should risk random chances of you being spiked - unsheilded, by the dragee's weapon. If someone can block with a sheild automatically, they can stick out their sword, so you impale yourself on it. Secondly, one should first incapacitate someone, via this process, and _then_ drag them. Of course if they don't have a weapon, not such an issue.
Now, this makes it harder to drag generally, so you do now need one thing extra - the ability to give drag permissions to people, or have a draglist
This is all essentially because first attacker gets unfair advatange in a pure, hit, block system, because any hit scores fatigue, or wounds, lowering odds.
You have to remove that, to avoid surprise based tactics ruling over all others.
IMO, now, in general, I dont like pure automation, for whole combat wide processes. As aspects of defending IMO its okay, so long as its not really dictating character.
As such, I am stuck a little on choice. 3, has some good features, 2 also, and 1 is like the old almost great idea, but kinda stripped of its flourish and creativity. So put it back in, and people may like it again
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I also would like to comment on death states - a "death state" should only be mortal _RANDOMLY_ by pitting the wounds against say, the strength stat, or if new stats are introduced to combat to spice it up, the endurance stat. The person could survive a mortal wound, with healing - OR die, despite healing. If the person receives no healing however - they will bleed externally or internally to death - most real life battle deaths are from this cause, rather than the level of wounds - a lack of treatment, and bleeding.
If your really wanted to "grit" cantr combat up, you could add bleeding, so that ANY wounded character, slowly becomes more wounded until they get healing via extrenal or internal bleeding (provided the wound is much deeper than a stratch). Such a bleed, would have a random chance of stopping on its own. I doubt this would be popular, but heck, id playtest it with my characters. Could add drama and suspense.
(Of course healing would ideally include bandages, poltices, salves, teas and not just wine and onions - perhaps------;---: healing for a death wound, or bleeding, has to be administered by someone else, using their "healing" skill and potentially various tools or items?)
I think, in a way, the problem isnt with cantr combat isnt that it is too dangerous, its that it is stacked in favour of certain strategies. If cantr combat was as dangerous as real life combat, for both attackers, and defenders, it most likely would happen much less casually.
The problem is, cantr is written like D&D. D&D uses a swing, block mechanic, and its familiar to everyone. By contrast HARN (another rpg) for example use a system where both attacker and defender make choices such as counterstrike or block, or dodge - and hits resolve in severe losses to ability, bleeding eventually death rolls. Thats sort of my inspiration for the most realistic combat system, however how far you want to take it is a matter of taste. In the actual harnmaster rules, there are specific wounds, like, a broken ankle, or wounded thigh. That would be far too much for cantr, which is a freeform RPG, to a large degree. But conversely, its hard to freeform roleplay around the existing system, which is flat in character.
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It would be nice to have: Counterstrikes, dodges, blocks, agility stat, endurance stat, death states/rolls, perhaps some proper variation in the types of weapon (defense properties to weapons - ie weapon blocks for example). Just a little something to work, depth wise, with on the mental level, so we can flesh it out, cantr style. You can add this sorta dimension into the slower played turn based type system, system 1, you got yourself gold IMO.
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There is alot of talk of armour. I personally doubt armour could possibly spice combat as much as agility fighters, counterstrikes, weapon variations. In fact, armour would really add very little to the game, especially as the game already includes weapons developed to completely overcome armour, such as the rapier, and various short swords, and crossbows.
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I do find it odd that people are leaning toward three - it relies _totally_ on an auto-retaliate mechanic, that was universally and catergorically rejected in the past discussions. If thats going to be the option, your going to need to somehow rethink it without autoretaliate (which inevitably leads you back, at least somewhat to the slower turn based system you see in 1)
I think what people are now not liking about one is the lack of flourish, and personal options/freedom - the turn based system is kind of structered, by nature, so you do loose some freedom by switching to it - if you dont get the options you can then get, like say, counterstrike, or whatever, that opens it back up bigger than it was before - if you dont have those types of options and flourish, your losing more than gaining freedoms. If its a overly simple turn based system without option like this, your really not getting what you should be getting out of a turn system - which is attacker and defender options and depth.
Also an unconcidered, though slightly complex option for turn systems - some turn systems used a "speed" factor (like d&d), which is decided by agility/dexterity, weight carried, the speed of the weapon and a random variable. Rather than your turn, my turn, all turns are independantly determined by such factors.
Instead of "taking turns" - one could simple assign a time period for resolving each type of attack, based on several variables. (This would result, in, say a dagger, being able to attack more often).....Im not really in favour of this type of system for cantr, I think simple turn based is good enough, but I just thought id mention this, as another angle..
In other case this halfdead state will be overused.
