What I'm most focused on would be the lethality; how gritty the combat and damage systems feel. There are two systems I've considered using: the World of Darkness and Song of Ice and Fire. World of Darkness has a very generalized system of damage. Song of Ice and Fire has an abstracted system where details about the kind of damage can easily be filled in. What I'm curious about with Shadows is, if my character is hurt, do I feel where and does it feel like I'm hurt?
The combat system was designed to be fast and deadly, but I wouldn't call it gritty.
Here's the rundown (terms may slightly vary from here to rulebook, I'm translating on the fly):
1. Determine order of action (based on Quickness stat (=Combativeness+Empathy) +1d10). The "Quick" combat attitude can be chosen before rolling the d10 , to affect the Quickness.
2. From lowest to highest Initiative, each opponent declares a combat Attitude for the round : Standard/Offense/Defense/Move. That choice will alter the three main combat attributes for the round: Attack/Defense/Quickness. These numbers are already calculate on the character sheet, and differ only by a Variable called Combat Potential.
3. From highest Initiative to Lowest Initiative, opponents proceed with their maneuvers. When attacking, only the attacker rolls (adding his Attack for that round based on the Attitude), then success is determined by comparing to the opponent's Defense (also based on his attitude this round). Damage is based on a success margin plus a set number for the weapon (I believe some advantages could modify this as well), minus the defender's protection (fixed number provided by armor and shield). It's pretty quick because there's only one roll per attack.
There are also typical modifiers for conditions (attack form the back, etc...). Damage is added to the Health chart and move the character from Good health to Dying (5 stages total, each of them adds a modifier to any roll performed by the character : geometric progression indeed). There is no hit location system, however it would be easy to add by any gm.
There is also the ability to learn "Combat Arts", which improve some combat aspects : Devious Attack, Two Weapons Attack, Parry, Archer, Cavalry.
In my experience, combat was very deadly, even when fighting animals such as wolves (not even Feondas). I think this reflects well the game's aspect of man vs nature and how vulnerable characters should feel when facing this hostile world.
