>see visible weak-points >go to stab them with rondel dagger >knight is already anticipating thuggery >he already has an optimal defense >be disemboweled in short order
Friendly reminder that among the other insanely moronic stuff Gary Gygax thought he honestly believed that the clothes you are wearing at this very moment offered as much protection from attacks as a full sized Roman body shield and adding a leather jacket to your street clothes offered twice as much protection as that shield.
They actually did. They did plenty moronic stuff, but you should actually know what parts where moronic (like his milieux autism). They were all a part of historical societies and their perchance for half decent tactical knowledge is one of their virtues.
Tell me that Chainmail isnt a pretty dang decent Medieval combat abstraction (if its all that fun to play is another matter). D&d is an even further abstractaction.
Tbf is there even an armor system that feels satysfying?
>AC
Armor reduces damage just as much as prevents it, and it's weird that it functions the same as "I dodge" >Damage reduction
More math to do, and can be overcome by just having a bigger stick. Actual armor makes almost all sticks innefective unless they find the unarmored bit, which this also fails to represent >Damage threshold, same issue as damage reduction, but even worse when you realise daggers which usually have terrible damage are your best bet against armor because they can get into the uinprotected areas, on the pluss side, it's faster >Ablative Hit-points
Could work somewhat, but it's a pain to make it so armour doesn't auto-win you the game but is still worth taking >Soak roll
Takes time, and is variable. If you're wearing armor you put it on specifically because you have to worry less about where you are getting hit and don't have to think about it, it pasively protects you. Bad representation of the fiction
I like Damage Reduction simply because it's simple. It's also truer to life as maces, war hammers, and poleaxes were all cases of hitting someone with a big enough stick that it didn't matter if the armor was pierced or not.
The chief problem is it only works for "big sticks". With things such as daggers and swords it starts to break down because they usually deal less damage but are more effective due to precision. It only really works as an accurate simulation against "big stick" type of hits.
I don't know how you'd feel about it, but I made an armor system that feels satisying to me.
The attacker rolls for hit location, and the target rolls for how well that location is able to defend (avoid/block/direct hit/critical hit). Locations like arms are better at blocking, while legs or other mobile features are better with avoidance.
A distinction between avoidance and blocking is that blocking transfers the final damage value to durability, while avoiding outright reduces damage (but to a diminishing degree based on how much armor the character is wearing and how heavy each piece is).
Heavy armor transfers all damage to its durability, and has the greatest damage reduction when blocking.
When a character rolls a "block" result with any body part, they can choose to parry with a weapon to transfer damage to the weapon's durability, too. Shields and swords have the best damage reduction when parrying.
Then there are a number of passive abilities linked to defenses, the simplest being counterattacks, which activate either on block or on avoid (assuming the part isn't injured or staggered and is in attack range).
There are plenty of bypasses, too; attacks that do more durability damage, attacks that ignore reduction from avoids or blocking, attacks/status effects that cause the feature to take more damage, things like that.
It's too much for a lot of people, but I like it because it randomly causes a variety of different results, and there are many ways to build a character with these things in consideration. I've never been a fan of dead turns resulting from not meeting an AC value, or from only getting a 1 or 2 on damage dice when I finally did exceed AC.
Having durability also means that a heavily armored dude or enemy can't just turtle; eventually, their armor will become ineffective.
But mostly it's just because I like my games to have plenty of character build options that are diverse yet effective.
This might work if your game centers on accurately protraying duel scenrios, not so much for the traditional "pulp fantasy" and monster killing.
I personally set a "complexity" and "load" budget for my mechanics, where complexity is how many different steps the thing takes before it is resolved and load is how many pieces of information a player needs to hold in their head at a time. In practice it's best when these numbers are as low as possible for anything routinely done. This I feel would exceed the budget I'd allocate for something as common as attacks. And again, being slow is exactly the opposite of the type of fiction you want to rpresent because armor protects you simply by being present. The more steps you have to perform to simulte it, the more it kills immersion because you won't actually feel like you're being protected, you'll feel like playing a defensive minigame. Which again, can be fine if your game is about duelling scenarios but would probably be too much for anything with a broader genre focus.
Hit locations increase complexity of the attack. My players can barely handle things that take 5 steps to complete from choosing the action and rolling dice to getting the result and moving on, and it rarely adds enough for me to routinely useit aside from crits/major injuries.
Might actually be the best solution. It's similar to what I've settled on for my armor system where hits from these weapons ignore armor on hits that would actually wound, as I have ablative HP as well. I'll need to playtest it more though, as I'm still not entirely sold on the idea.
Either way it's elegant solution to the problem of "how do we do armor accuratelly without bogging the game dwon too much". Would your daggers have higher crit chance to make them extra effective against armor or is it simply a lottery from the point where the two combatants start brawling?
Any roll to-hit total 20 or higher is a crit. If you've got +2 and roll a 19 that's a crit. However, this means on higher end gameplay you're critting more and more often. I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing.
Friendly reminder that among the other insanely moronic stuff Gary Gygax thought he honestly believed that the clothes you are wearing at this very moment offered as much protection from attacks as a full sized Roman body shield and adding a leather jacket to your street clothes offered twice as much protection as that shield.
Yeah, shields got a bad wrap. In practice, you could cower behind a large enough shield all battle and come away fine. Infantry didn't take all that many losses until their morale broke and they got chased down.
I hate teaching armour class. I just can't can't through to these kids.
Have you tried beating it in with a stick?
2 months ago
Anonymous
I actually also settled on "crit chance" increasing with character progression, but I also made crits do variable effects the player can choose from to make them a bit more exciting to compensate for the fact the "rare thing" rush will disappear. Have to playtest it more, might report later if the thread will still be up.
nta but warhammer crunchiness with rpg narrative and campaign mechanics seeems great
>basically playing a wargame in a tomb
I don't have any experience with wargames, to be honest, I just stripped all the concepts I enjoy from RPGs & moulded them to my liking.
From what I know, wargames are essentially one-and-done battles with no loot, no progression of character abilities, so if that's the case, my game isn't a wargame at all; it's meant to span over multi-session campaigns with the characters' equipment/powers improving over their course. >Did you resolve this issue somehow or is the speed of the game simply not a problem for your table?
While I did say my speed is usually going to be better due to it being straight from my head, it isn't fast-paced by any stretch. I'm not in a hurry to get out of combat like most people are, that's why I made it such a meaty part of the game. I love combat, it engages me; even when I was playing 5e I couldn't wait to get to the session's battle encounter.
I understand that I have a backwards way of thinking; I see so many people on here say "ugh combat is such a slog" & I feel like something is legitimately wrong with me.
It might just be me, but the dead turns resulting from "you didn't hit AC" or getting 1-2 damage from an attack against something with 50-60 HP *feels* slower than taking a few extra steps & always dealing damage with some kind of effect stacked on. >Not trying to be an butthole
You're okay, Anon. I always come off like I have a chip on my shoulder, or that I'm full of myself and want to brag about my le epic greatest game. Maybe I do secretly want to brag, and I do have resentment for not being able to do what I want in 5e, but I legitimately do want others to get something out of the things I found for myself, otherwise I wouldn't talk about it.
Sorry for longcat, gotta cut into two…
While wargames are technically about "one and done" battles, playing Pathfinder for example always felt more like warhammer than DnD (partly due to our DM running adventure paths very by the book so there isn't much freedom or character expression anywhere but combat which makes these things quickly resolved so we can go back to arguing about rules for maneuvers). I guess the point I was trying to make was that the game is mostly about the tactical challenge of optimally using your aailable resources and powers to overcome the opponent, with actual problem solving or creative solutions taking a back seat because combat is no longer an obstacle to a goal, combat becomes the goal of the game, which is in contrast to a more narrative focused game where you only fight things because they stand in your way
([...]) >how you manage the very crunchy rules while maintaining a "narrative flow"
This is going to sound bad, but I put very little focus on the narrative. The story premise is baked into the hero's treks through wilderness, delving dungeons, with all the allies she gains (and loses) and all the monster fights along the way to the outer stretches of where most dare to go, and either take down a dark lord responsible for a portion of the undead problem, or a dragonborn, his lieutenants, and their army of corrupted monsters on their turf.
The game's narrative flow is every step taken to recover, improve, and prepare for the final confrontations; which I admit is bereft in terms of narrative. It's boring for someone looking for a story, but it's fine for me when I'm playing a game.
I get you anon, I used to be like that when I played 5E but that mad eme become the DM to implement all the weird rules I've come up only to realize I actually like OSR play more. Your ideas sound interesting but I dunno if "tactical combat" would be enough to convince me to play your game instead of all the other "fantasy combat simulators". Either way, feel free to brag more, other anons might find it a useful source of inspiration. I might even steal some principles for my own game if they'll support its goals.
>This might work if your game centers on accurately protraying duel scenrios, not so much for the traditional "pulp fantasy" and monster killing.
You may be surprised to hear that it works quite well with monster killing in varied dungeon environments.
The armor and defense systems are just a part of a greater whole. To mention something irrelevant to the topic, I have a reaction system which allows a character to (potentially) act with reduced power multiple times before their next turn, for a slew of different offensive and defensive applications; the reactions are arguably as (or more) important than actions themselves!
And then there are other important tactical systems like the Aerial, Cover, and Hidden states, zoning effects like push/launch/smackdown, restricting targets by lifting them, status ailments, status boons, etc. Everything is constructed to fit together and allow different play styles. >type of fiction >kills immersion >defensive minigame
Why yes, I did mention this is too much for some people. This is precisely why I make my games for myself, because I know what I want out of my games.
I am unsatisfied with typical game design, and the typical player is unsatisfied with what I enjoy; this is fine.
And to address "my players can barely handle things that take 5 steps to complete from choosing the action and rolling dice to getting the result and moving on" (
Hit locations increase complexity of the attack. My players can barely handle things that take 5 steps to complete from choosing the action and rolling dice to getting the result and moving on, and it rarely adds enough for me to routinely useit aside from crits/major injuries.
), the major reason why I'm fine with the things I do is because it's from my own detail-oriented mind; it's unfair to expect someone else to play something I made with the same level of efficiency, everyone processes information differently and interprets words differently.
I'm not trying to give anyone shit, either, it's just the nature of the beast, and I like exploring different perspectives.
And to address "my players can barely handle things that take 5 steps to complete from choosing the action and rolling dice to getting the result and moving on" ([...]), the major reason why I'm fine with the things I do is because it's from my own detail-oriented mind; it's unfair to expect someone else to play something I made with the same level of efficiency, everyone processes information differently and interprets words differently.
I'm not trying to give anyone shit, either, it's just the nature of the beast, and I like exploring different perspectives.
Well I am surprised to hear that it works even for traditional dungeon delving, though are you not basically playing a wargame in a tomb at that point? With this much tactical nuance I imagine combats might go at about the same pace as an average pathfinder session, or even slower. Did you resolve this issue somehow or is the speed of the game simply not a problem for your table?
Not trying to be an butthole, but from my experience the more tactical the system becomes, the more it feels like playing warhammer and less like any other RPG. So I'm curious how you manage the very crunchy rules while maintaining a "narrative flow".
>basically playing a wargame in a tomb
I don't have any experience with wargames, to be honest, I just stripped all the concepts I enjoy from RPGs & moulded them to my liking.
From what I know, wargames are essentially one-and-done battles with no loot, no progression of character abilities, so if that's the case, my game isn't a wargame at all; it's meant to span over multi-session campaigns with the characters' equipment/powers improving over their course. >Did you resolve this issue somehow or is the speed of the game simply not a problem for your table?
While I did say my speed is usually going to be better due to it being straight from my head, it isn't fast-paced by any stretch. I'm not in a hurry to get out of combat like most people are, that's why I made it such a meaty part of the game. I love combat, it engages me; even when I was playing 5e I couldn't wait to get to the session's battle encounter.
I understand that I have a backwards way of thinking; I see so many people on here say "ugh combat is such a slog" & I feel like something is legitimately wrong with me.
It might just be me, but the dead turns resulting from "you didn't hit AC" or getting 1-2 damage from an attack against something with 50-60 HP *feels* slower than taking a few extra steps & always dealing damage with some kind of effect stacked on. >Not trying to be an butthole
You're okay, Anon. I always come off like I have a chip on my shoulder, or that I'm full of myself and want to brag about my le epic greatest game. Maybe I do secretly want to brag, and I do have resentment for not being able to do what I want in 5e, but I legitimately do want others to get something out of the things I found for myself, otherwise I wouldn't talk about it.
>basically playing a wargame in a tomb
I don't have any experience with wargames, to be honest, I just stripped all the concepts I enjoy from RPGs & moulded them to my liking.
From what I know, wargames are essentially one-and-done battles with no loot, no progression of character abilities, so if that's the case, my game isn't a wargame at all; it's meant to span over multi-session campaigns with the characters' equipment/powers improving over their course. >Did you resolve this issue somehow or is the speed of the game simply not a problem for your table?
While I did say my speed is usually going to be better due to it being straight from my head, it isn't fast-paced by any stretch. I'm not in a hurry to get out of combat like most people are, that's why I made it such a meaty part of the game. I love combat, it engages me; even when I was playing 5e I couldn't wait to get to the session's battle encounter.
I understand that I have a backwards way of thinking; I see so many people on here say "ugh combat is such a slog" & I feel like something is legitimately wrong with me.
It might just be me, but the dead turns resulting from "you didn't hit AC" or getting 1-2 damage from an attack against something with 50-60 HP *feels* slower than taking a few extra steps & always dealing damage with some kind of effect stacked on. >Not trying to be an butthole
You're okay, Anon. I always come off like I have a chip on my shoulder, or that I'm full of myself and want to brag about my le epic greatest game. Maybe I do secretly want to brag, and I do have resentment for not being able to do what I want in 5e, but I legitimately do want others to get something out of the things I found for myself, otherwise I wouldn't talk about it.
Sorry for longcat, gotta cut into two…
) >how you manage the very crunchy rules while maintaining a "narrative flow"
This is going to sound bad, but I put very little focus on the narrative. The story premise is baked into the hero's treks through wilderness, delving dungeons, with all the allies she gains (and loses) and all the monster fights along the way to the outer stretches of where most dare to go, and either take down a dark lord responsible for a portion of the undead problem, or a dragonborn, his lieutenants, and their army of corrupted monsters on their turf.
The game's narrative flow is every step taken to recover, improve, and prepare for the final confrontations; which I admit is bereft in terms of narrative. It's boring for someone looking for a story, but it's fine for me when I'm playing a game.
>The chief problem is it only works for "big sticks"
Nah, it works for everything, especially if you also start distinguishing damage types and armor has different reduction thresholds for each, as well as account for weak locations/crit spots on armor (where the respective damage reduction threshold gets a respective penalty). I.e. sufficient blunt force or piercing capability *will* go through anything (think bec-de-corbin), but specialized counter weapons can beat specific armor types (i.e. rapier/rondel/thrusting longswords can beat chainmail, even if more slashing or general type "swords" can't, unless supernatural strength levels get involved). But this also works best if you don't rely on "meat points" health tracking systems. Since most wounds that manage to actually penetrate one's armor are going to be lethal (maybe not instantly, but lethal nonetheless), and blunt force can still be incapacitating with almost any weapon, provided sufficient force is applied to a suitable body area (usually the head). This kind of combat simulation/realism, however, tends to be very counterintuitive for popular genres of RPG play, i.e. heroic stuff, as well as isn't very magic compatible (e.g. "fireball or lightning slinging" magic systems tend to completely invalidate such armor/combat systems, without "vibranium / adamantine / orichalcum" style magical materials being incredibly common, to counteract it, which then also tends to sour/destroy such magic users' player fantasies.
I don't know how you'd feel about it, but I made an armor system that feels satisying to me.
The attacker rolls for hit location, and the target rolls for how well that location is able to defend (avoid/block/direct hit/critical hit). Locations like arms are better at blocking, while legs or other mobile features are better with avoidance.
A distinction between avoidance and blocking is that blocking transfers the final damage value to durability, while avoiding outright reduces damage (but to a diminishing degree based on how much armor the character is wearing and how heavy each piece is).
Heavy armor transfers all damage to its durability, and has the greatest damage reduction when blocking.
When a character rolls a "block" result with any body part, they can choose to parry with a weapon to transfer damage to the weapon's durability, too. Shields and swords have the best damage reduction when parrying.
Then there are a number of passive abilities linked to defenses, the simplest being counterattacks, which activate either on block or on avoid (assuming the part isn't injured or staggered and is in attack range).
There are plenty of bypasses, too; attacks that do more durability damage, attacks that ignore reduction from avoids or blocking, attacks/status effects that cause the feature to take more damage, things like that.
It's too much for a lot of people, but I like it because it randomly causes a variety of different results, and there are many ways to build a character with these things in consideration. I've never been a fan of dead turns resulting from not meeting an AC value, or from only getting a 1 or 2 on damage dice when I finally did exceed AC.
Having durability also means that a heavily armored dude or enemy can't just turtle; eventually, their armor will become ineffective.
But mostly it's just because I like my games to have plenty of character build options that are diverse yet effective.
Armor should increase hit points (separate from actual health which should be represented as wound counters), natural agility should increase dodge chance.
You go through these systems in descending order, i.e. an attack is rolled against the enemy's dodge chance, if it lands the damage is subtracted from their hit points, once the enemy is out of hit points they start taking wounds which kill swiftly.
Of course some weapons and skills can go through one or all of these systems, i.e. a Rogue's assassination ability would be able to mortally wound an opponent and ignore dodge chance and HP entirely, etc.
Also make armor somewhat ablative in that once you've been dropped to 0 HP and taken wounds, your HP total is reduced until you can take downtime to have your armor repaired, buy new armor, etc.
It works fine as a mechanical representation of the fiction, but it's near impossible to actually fine tune. Often there will be characters which won't have armor (unless you're playing a knight troupe) which means the armored dude could still be kicking while everyone else is twice dead, or armor won't really feel satysfying because it's simply "I can survive 2 extra hits" whereas actual armor, even if you punctured the breatplate with a warhammer would still be at least 90% effective, and if the hammer punctured the plate it would have stopped the blow so it would not harm the wearer, unless the spike was stupidly long.
>"knight"
>I can see his skin
Pathetic
b-but mommy? i'll take even the worst of mommies than be born a fricking freak -
Your worst fears have already come true
>see visible weak-points
>go to stab them with rondel dagger
>knight is already anticipating thuggery
>he already has an optimal defense
>be disemboweled in short order
That armor and weapon is for a foot soldier, not a knight.
Half armor of this variety was mass-produced for professional infantry in the Early Modern period.
I dont get it
Maybe you should take an amour class and learn to not be a homosexual
Why do they call it armor class when every class has armor?
Because it's "class of armor."
1st class, 2nd class, 3rd class and so on. No, it doesn't make sense anymore with ascending AC.
Why isn't what? Are you able to form complete thoughts?
Because the original designers of D&D had no idea how melee combat worked, never mind medieval melee combat.
Friendly reminder that among the other insanely moronic stuff Gary Gygax thought he honestly believed that the clothes you are wearing at this very moment offered as much protection from attacks as a full sized Roman body shield and adding a leather jacket to your street clothes offered twice as much protection as that shield.
They actually did. They did plenty moronic stuff, but you should actually know what parts where moronic (like his milieux autism). They were all a part of historical societies and their perchance for half decent tactical knowledge is one of their virtues.
Tell me that Chainmail isnt a pretty dang decent Medieval combat abstraction (if its all that fun to play is another matter). D&d is an even further abstractaction.
*Ahem* "Studded Leather"
Tbf is there even an armor system that feels satysfying?
>AC
Armor reduces damage just as much as prevents it, and it's weird that it functions the same as "I dodge"
>Damage reduction
More math to do, and can be overcome by just having a bigger stick. Actual armor makes almost all sticks innefective unless they find the unarmored bit, which this also fails to represent
>Damage threshold, same issue as damage reduction, but even worse when you realise daggers which usually have terrible damage are your best bet against armor because they can get into the uinprotected areas, on the pluss side, it's faster
>Ablative Hit-points
Could work somewhat, but it's a pain to make it so armour doesn't auto-win you the game but is still worth taking
>Soak roll
Takes time, and is variable. If you're wearing armor you put it on specifically because you have to worry less about where you are getting hit and don't have to think about it, it pasively protects you. Bad representation of the fiction
I like Damage Reduction simply because it's simple. It's also truer to life as maces, war hammers, and poleaxes were all cases of hitting someone with a big enough stick that it didn't matter if the armor was pierced or not.
The chief problem is it only works for "big sticks". With things such as daggers and swords it starts to break down because they usually deal less damage but are more effective due to precision. It only really works as an accurate simulation against "big stick" type of hits.
This might work if your game centers on accurately protraying duel scenrios, not so much for the traditional "pulp fantasy" and monster killing.
I personally set a "complexity" and "load" budget for my mechanics, where complexity is how many different steps the thing takes before it is resolved and load is how many pieces of information a player needs to hold in their head at a time. In practice it's best when these numbers are as low as possible for anything routinely done. This I feel would exceed the budget I'd allocate for something as common as attacks. And again, being slow is exactly the opposite of the type of fiction you want to rpresent because armor protects you simply by being present. The more steps you have to perform to simulte it, the more it kills immersion because you won't actually feel like you're being protected, you'll feel like playing a defensive minigame. Which again, can be fine if your game is about duelling scenarios but would probably be too much for anything with a broader genre focus.
Are you moronic? Just use hit locations? Your system supports that, right? You're not playing dogshit systems, right anon?
Hit locations increase complexity of the attack. My players can barely handle things that take 5 steps to complete from choosing the action and rolling dice to getting the result and moving on, and it rarely adds enough for me to routinely useit aside from crits/major injuries.
Ah, there's your problem, you play with Black folk.
I'd add a feature for some weapons that when they crit they ignore armor. Going after weakpoints isn't easy, after all.
Might actually be the best solution. It's similar to what I've settled on for my armor system where hits from these weapons ignore armor on hits that would actually wound, as I have ablative HP as well. I'll need to playtest it more though, as I'm still not entirely sold on the idea.
Either way it's elegant solution to the problem of "how do we do armor accuratelly without bogging the game dwon too much". Would your daggers have higher crit chance to make them extra effective against armor or is it simply a lottery from the point where the two combatants start brawling?
Any roll to-hit total 20 or higher is a crit. If you've got +2 and roll a 19 that's a crit. However, this means on higher end gameplay you're critting more and more often. I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing.
Yeah, shields got a bad wrap. In practice, you could cower behind a large enough shield all battle and come away fine. Infantry didn't take all that many losses until their morale broke and they got chased down.
Have you tried beating it in with a stick?
I actually also settled on "crit chance" increasing with character progression, but I also made crits do variable effects the player can choose from to make them a bit more exciting to compensate for the fact the "rare thing" rush will disappear. Have to playtest it more, might report later if the thread will still be up.
While wargames are technically about "one and done" battles, playing Pathfinder for example always felt more like warhammer than DnD (partly due to our DM running adventure paths very by the book so there isn't much freedom or character expression anywhere but combat which makes these things quickly resolved so we can go back to arguing about rules for maneuvers). I guess the point I was trying to make was that the game is mostly about the tactical challenge of optimally using your aailable resources and powers to overcome the opponent, with actual problem solving or creative solutions taking a back seat because combat is no longer an obstacle to a goal, combat becomes the goal of the game, which is in contrast to a more narrative focused game where you only fight things because they stand in your way
I get you anon, I used to be like that when I played 5E but that mad eme become the DM to implement all the weird rules I've come up only to realize I actually like OSR play more. Your ideas sound interesting but I dunno if "tactical combat" would be enough to convince me to play your game instead of all the other "fantasy combat simulators". Either way, feel free to brag more, other anons might find it a useful source of inspiration. I might even steal some principles for my own game if they'll support its goals.
>This might work if your game centers on accurately protraying duel scenrios, not so much for the traditional "pulp fantasy" and monster killing.
You may be surprised to hear that it works quite well with monster killing in varied dungeon environments.
The armor and defense systems are just a part of a greater whole. To mention something irrelevant to the topic, I have a reaction system which allows a character to (potentially) act with reduced power multiple times before their next turn, for a slew of different offensive and defensive applications; the reactions are arguably as (or more) important than actions themselves!
And then there are other important tactical systems like the Aerial, Cover, and Hidden states, zoning effects like push/launch/smackdown, restricting targets by lifting them, status ailments, status boons, etc. Everything is constructed to fit together and allow different play styles.
>type of fiction
>kills immersion
>defensive minigame
Why yes, I did mention this is too much for some people. This is precisely why I make my games for myself, because I know what I want out of my games.
I am unsatisfied with typical game design, and the typical player is unsatisfied with what I enjoy; this is fine.
And to address "my players can barely handle things that take 5 steps to complete from choosing the action and rolling dice to getting the result and moving on" (
), the major reason why I'm fine with the things I do is because it's from my own detail-oriented mind; it's unfair to expect someone else to play something I made with the same level of efficiency, everyone processes information differently and interprets words differently.
I'm not trying to give anyone shit, either, it's just the nature of the beast, and I like exploring different perspectives.
Well I am surprised to hear that it works even for traditional dungeon delving, though are you not basically playing a wargame in a tomb at that point? With this much tactical nuance I imagine combats might go at about the same pace as an average pathfinder session, or even slower. Did you resolve this issue somehow or is the speed of the game simply not a problem for your table?
Not trying to be an butthole, but from my experience the more tactical the system becomes, the more it feels like playing warhammer and less like any other RPG. So I'm curious how you manage the very crunchy rules while maintaining a "narrative flow".
nta but warhammer crunchiness with rpg narrative and campaign mechanics seeems great
>basically playing a wargame in a tomb
I don't have any experience with wargames, to be honest, I just stripped all the concepts I enjoy from RPGs & moulded them to my liking.
From what I know, wargames are essentially one-and-done battles with no loot, no progression of character abilities, so if that's the case, my game isn't a wargame at all; it's meant to span over multi-session campaigns with the characters' equipment/powers improving over their course.
>Did you resolve this issue somehow or is the speed of the game simply not a problem for your table?
While I did say my speed is usually going to be better due to it being straight from my head, it isn't fast-paced by any stretch. I'm not in a hurry to get out of combat like most people are, that's why I made it such a meaty part of the game. I love combat, it engages me; even when I was playing 5e I couldn't wait to get to the session's battle encounter.
I understand that I have a backwards way of thinking; I see so many people on here say "ugh combat is such a slog" & I feel like something is legitimately wrong with me.
It might just be me, but the dead turns resulting from "you didn't hit AC" or getting 1-2 damage from an attack against something with 50-60 HP *feels* slower than taking a few extra steps & always dealing damage with some kind of effect stacked on.
>Not trying to be an butthole
You're okay, Anon. I always come off like I have a chip on my shoulder, or that I'm full of myself and want to brag about my le epic greatest game. Maybe I do secretly want to brag, and I do have resentment for not being able to do what I want in 5e, but I legitimately do want others to get something out of the things I found for myself, otherwise I wouldn't talk about it.
Sorry for longcat, gotta cut into two…
(
)
>how you manage the very crunchy rules while maintaining a "narrative flow"
This is going to sound bad, but I put very little focus on the narrative. The story premise is baked into the hero's treks through wilderness, delving dungeons, with all the allies she gains (and loses) and all the monster fights along the way to the outer stretches of where most dare to go, and either take down a dark lord responsible for a portion of the undead problem, or a dragonborn, his lieutenants, and their army of corrupted monsters on their turf.
The game's narrative flow is every step taken to recover, improve, and prepare for the final confrontations; which I admit is bereft in terms of narrative. It's boring for someone looking for a story, but it's fine for me when I'm playing a game.
>The chief problem is it only works for "big sticks"
Nah, it works for everything, especially if you also start distinguishing damage types and armor has different reduction thresholds for each, as well as account for weak locations/crit spots on armor (where the respective damage reduction threshold gets a respective penalty). I.e. sufficient blunt force or piercing capability *will* go through anything (think bec-de-corbin), but specialized counter weapons can beat specific armor types (i.e. rapier/rondel/thrusting longswords can beat chainmail, even if more slashing or general type "swords" can't, unless supernatural strength levels get involved). But this also works best if you don't rely on "meat points" health tracking systems. Since most wounds that manage to actually penetrate one's armor are going to be lethal (maybe not instantly, but lethal nonetheless), and blunt force can still be incapacitating with almost any weapon, provided sufficient force is applied to a suitable body area (usually the head). This kind of combat simulation/realism, however, tends to be very counterintuitive for popular genres of RPG play, i.e. heroic stuff, as well as isn't very magic compatible (e.g. "fireball or lightning slinging" magic systems tend to completely invalidate such armor/combat systems, without "vibranium / adamantine / orichalcum" style magical materials being incredibly common, to counteract it, which then also tends to sour/destroy such magic users' player fantasies.
I don't know how you'd feel about it, but I made an armor system that feels satisying to me.
The attacker rolls for hit location, and the target rolls for how well that location is able to defend (avoid/block/direct hit/critical hit). Locations like arms are better at blocking, while legs or other mobile features are better with avoidance.
A distinction between avoidance and blocking is that blocking transfers the final damage value to durability, while avoiding outright reduces damage (but to a diminishing degree based on how much armor the character is wearing and how heavy each piece is).
Heavy armor transfers all damage to its durability, and has the greatest damage reduction when blocking.
When a character rolls a "block" result with any body part, they can choose to parry with a weapon to transfer damage to the weapon's durability, too. Shields and swords have the best damage reduction when parrying.
Then there are a number of passive abilities linked to defenses, the simplest being counterattacks, which activate either on block or on avoid (assuming the part isn't injured or staggered and is in attack range).
There are plenty of bypasses, too; attacks that do more durability damage, attacks that ignore reduction from avoids or blocking, attacks/status effects that cause the feature to take more damage, things like that.
It's too much for a lot of people, but I like it because it randomly causes a variety of different results, and there are many ways to build a character with these things in consideration. I've never been a fan of dead turns resulting from not meeting an AC value, or from only getting a 1 or 2 on damage dice when I finally did exceed AC.
Having durability also means that a heavily armored dude or enemy can't just turtle; eventually, their armor will become ineffective.
But mostly it's just because I like my games to have plenty of character build options that are diverse yet effective.
Armor should increase hit points (separate from actual health which should be represented as wound counters), natural agility should increase dodge chance.
You go through these systems in descending order, i.e. an attack is rolled against the enemy's dodge chance, if it lands the damage is subtracted from their hit points, once the enemy is out of hit points they start taking wounds which kill swiftly.
Of course some weapons and skills can go through one or all of these systems, i.e. a Rogue's assassination ability would be able to mortally wound an opponent and ignore dodge chance and HP entirely, etc.
Also make armor somewhat ablative in that once you've been dropped to 0 HP and taken wounds, your HP total is reduced until you can take downtime to have your armor repaired, buy new armor, etc.
It works fine as a mechanical representation of the fiction, but it's near impossible to actually fine tune. Often there will be characters which won't have armor (unless you're playing a knight troupe) which means the armored dude could still be kicking while everyone else is twice dead, or armor won't really feel satysfying because it's simply "I can survive 2 extra hits" whereas actual armor, even if you punctured the breatplate with a warhammer would still be at least 90% effective, and if the hammer punctured the plate it would have stopped the blow so it would not harm the wearer, unless the spike was stupidly long.
>he didn't take armor class in high-school.
Lol. Easiest credit I ever earned.
I like the way the cyberpunk system does armor.
I hate teaching armour class. I just can't can't through to these kids.