Balance between offensive and defensive mechanics

 When designing a tabletop game for combat I realized certain elements do effect the flow of the game.

Offensive

More offensive tactics change how you're able to engage in combat with the combat being aggressive and turns into a game of don't get hit while this often forces you to increase the HP of creatures or embrace the fact of quick encounters.

Offensive game mechanics I've tested

1. Adding more weight behind attacks in trade of defensive power

2. Multi-strikes

3. Quick attacks

4. Crit system

5. Weapon clash

Defensive

This slows down the tempo of the game with a chipping away at HP play style; this causes the combat testing/ game balance to go on for longer. With rolling for defense down to other elements about defense that changes how encounters can and will go.

1. Holding down shield versus quickly raising it to defend

2. Rolling for defensive amount

3. Static block number

4. Finding an opening to strike

5. AC

6. Parry/ deflecting blows

Conclusion

It's a question of do you want a tabletop game where players are reactive or active in combat with both having their pros and cons that you'd need to bite the bullet on.

Personally I'm going for a mix of both in hand along with some other elements.

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