The great armour race...

[Arthur]

Re: The great armour race...

 

(insert heresy)

 

I never really bought that "Hero isn't linear" stuff, because where it really matters Hero is linear:

 

- Twice the STR does twice the damage.

 

So I take it your ruling is that four STR 15 guys working together can lift 100 tonnes. After all:

 

STR 15 + STR 15 + STR 15 + STR 15 = STR 60. STR 60 can lift 100 tonnes, right? If HERO is linear, this is your conclusion. Isn't that right?

[GamePhil]

Re: The great armour race...

 

(insert heresy)

 

I never really bought that "Hero isn't linear" stuff, because where it really matters Hero is linear:

 

- Twice the STR does twice the damage.

 

- Twice the AP of an attack does twice the damage.

 

(end heresy)

 

If it's heresy, it really is a common one. However, it rather misses the point, because the mechanics *are* linear, and no one denies it. It is the special effects that are doubled, and most notably lifting power. This allows Superman to fight side by side with Batman without too much trouble, because while his punches are a hundred times as powerful (taking Martial Arts into account), they are only 35 more points.

 

This is mainly in Champions games, as the damage a star does and the defenses of starships will indicate.

[Markdoc]

Re: The great armour race...

 

I ran a 2 year plus Wuxia/Chambara game and avoided the problems you are having in several ways.

 

1. Start with less points! A character built on 250 points will laugh at a -3 DCV penalty. A character built on 100 or 125 will at least think about it. And as long as the city guard (who in most wuxia films are just punching bags anyway) are built on 10-50 points, a well-made 100 point character can easily take on 4 or 5. The problems you have with "clonans", where everyone has the same DEX and DEF are a symptom of a) too many points and caps. Players always seem to treat points caps as recommendations from the GM as to what they should have - more points just mean they get there faster.

 

2. Play up the social side. When the players need to travel out of town, they need a pass. They have to convince roving patrols that they are not bandits. The same applied inside towns. My players pretty quickly grokked the idea that when you travel or do your shopping, you wear clothes, not armour. This had the advantageous side effect that in the big battle scenes, where their lord broke open the armoury and said "gear up, boys!" they all felt really buff in their DEF6 armour. Of course, this generally applied to the bad guys too. In many cases, obvious weapons were also outlawed or restricted, which is WHY you have martial arts in the first place!!!

 

3. Play up the physical side - as pointed out, in real life, most defences stack poorly if at all. Real armour needs care, it's heavy, it gets hot and sticky inside and it chafes. Real life warriors complained of the sores they got from wearing armour - and in pre-antibiotic days, chafing could easily lead to infection so severe you couldn't wear armour.

 

Good luck, Mark

[UltraRob]

Re: The great armour race...

 

Hey Mark!

 

I read your website, and agree with you 100%, next campaign I run is 75+50pt characters with martial arts based on that multipower system you have on your nifty site. ^_- Excellent work there!

 

Oh, I did want to ask, since you had PCs who didn't wear armour much, did you let them have Combat Luck so they didn't just die whenever they didn't have their armour on and a fight broke out?

 

I can see that when the PCs armoured up, they would feel cool and heroic if they weren't used to armour...Sounds good! ^__^

 

Rob

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ran a 2 year plus Wuxia/Chambara game and avoided the problems you are having in several ways.

 

1. Start with less points! A character built on 250 points will laugh at a -3 DCV penalty. A character built on 100 or 125 will at least think about it. And as long as the city guard (who in most wuxia films are just punching bags anyway) are built on 10-50 points, a well-made 100 point character can easily take on 4 or 5. The problems you have with "clonans", where everyone has the same DEX and DEF are a symptom of a) too many points and caps. Players always seem to treat points caps as recommendations from the GM as to what they should have - more points just mean they get there faster.

 

2. Play up the social side. When the players need to travel out of town, they need a pass. They have to convince roving patrols that they are not bandits. The same applied inside towns. My players pretty quickly grokked the idea that when you travel or do your shopping, you wear clothes, not armour. This had the advantageous side effect that in the big battle scenes, where their lord broke open the armoury and said "gear up, boys!" they all felt really buff in their DEF6 armour. Of course, this generally applied to the bad guys too. In many cases, obvious weapons were also outlawed or restricted, which is WHY you have martial arts in the first place!!!

 

3. Play up the physical side - as pointed out, in real life, most defences stack poorly if at all. Real armour needs care, it's heavy, it gets hot and sticky inside and it chafes. Real life warriors complained of the sores they got from wearing armour - and in pre-antibiotic days, chafing could easily lead to infection so severe you couldn't wear armour.

 

Good luck, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: The great armour race...

 

Yes, I let players have combat luck - although in the days before FREd, we called it "heroic roughness" and it was built with the -1/4 limit that it did not stop the first 1 point of BOD - so players could get stabbed, grimace heroically and then ignore the bleeding wound in their side (since it was, in reality, only -1 BOD).

 

But since attacks could easily score more damage than heroic toughness could cope with, players tended to fight differently than when they had armour - much more blocking and dodging and an emphasis on high CVs with lots of levels, since one good shot could end a fight.

 

The players learned that early on - their biggest, toughest warrior jumped 3 pathetic 10-15 point thugs and decided to sweep and take them all out. Well, he missed one who despite his ludicrous 4 OCV promptly had an easy shot - the player was at half DCV and had all his levels in offence. The mighty Kigamoro got a puny 1d6+1 HKA in the belly (double damage for vitals and a maximum damage roll) and suddenly he's on his back, coughing up blood and bleeding to death...

 

Taking this approach had the (intended) side benefit that PCs ended up with superheroic CVs by the late stages of the game. That meant that if they were prepared to take a risk by putting all their levels in OCV, they could power through the mooks like lawnmowers, headshotting left and right. Or they could fight defensively with little risk of getting killed. But when it came to the big bad guys, they were built the same way, so the levels balanced out and it made for a very tactical style of play: going on the full offensive gave you such a high OCV you could almost be certain of a hit - but at the risk of getting pasted if it failed. Going fully defensive, meant your opponent had to go fully offensive to be sure to get you, with the same risk - so with good timing you could draw your opponent out and then go for that elusive head shot when his DCV was low... Finally, of course levels could be dropped into damage to make sure the shot that counted realy hurt. It made one on one martial arts combats really tense (and often quite bloody) affairs.

 

cheers, Mark

[UltraRob]

Re: The great armour race...

 

Yes, I let players have combat luck - although in the days before FREd, we called it "heroic roughness" and it was built with the -1/4 limit that it did not stop the first 1 point of BOD - so players could get stabbed, grimace heroically and then ignore the bleeding wound in their side (since it was, in reality, only -1 BOD).

 

cheers, Mark

 

Question: Since the players did take a point of BODY, did they get 1/2 or full PD versus the stun from killing attacks? That's one aspect of Combat Luck I have been pondering over, whether it allows the player to use 1/2 their PD against the STUN from the killing attacks or not.

 

I do like the 1 BODY idea, at the very least it lets them know they can be whittled down, so fights are still dangerous. Oh, and I assume you did not let "heroic roughness" stack with armour, correct?

 

Best

Rob

[Markdoc]

Re: The great armour race...

 

Question: Since the players did take a point of BODY, did they get 1/2 or full PD versus the stun from killing attacks? That's one aspect of Combat Luck I have been pondering over, whether it allows the player to use 1/2 their PD against the STUN from the killing attacks or not.

 

I do like the 1 BODY idea, at the very least it lets them know they can be whittled down, so fights are still dangerous. Oh, and I assume you did not let "heroic roughness" stack with armour, correct?

 

Best

Rob

 

Right: heroic toughness does not stack with armour. Nothing stacks with free "real" gear - that's part of the real item limitation in all my heroic games. It would stack with magical Ch'i armour or something similar that a player had paid for in points. I allowed this "armour" to work like real armour, so players got their PD against Stun damage from KA, but one side effect of martial arts games, is that damage can escalate fast, so some of the players and NPCs were dishing out up to 4d6 HKA of hurt, at pretty high OCVs. in those situations, even adding in your PD (which never went higher than 8, or normal human maximum among the PCs) is not going to bounce all the stun from a good hit.

 

Even with all these advantages, the players spent a lot of time nursing wounds: sometimes after special set-piece fights, they had to hole up for a while to let PCs recover from near-death experiences. And we had a couple of PCs who just flat-out died.

 

cheers, Mark