combat luck and armor........

[steph]

in your fantasy game if a character got combat luck can he get also a armor....? so a character with a plate 7 def with combat luck got a rpd of 10 ........and can we combine armor ........a leather 3 with a chain 5 for a 8 of rpd

hope i am clear

english not my first language

steph

[Vondy]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

As written: combat luck and armor stack - so your math is correct.

 

A lot of GM's, however, rule that they do not stack in order to keep power levels balanced.

[Edsel]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

In our game we allow them to stack but impose a limit on maximum allowable resistant defense.

[Kristopher]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

I don't have Fantasy Hero (I know, I know)...

 

FH has some kind of penalty for wearing heavy armor, correct? What if the penalty was applied against the number of Combat Luck levels has? Just a random thought.

[Curufea]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

I let them stack. However combat luck has different restrictions than armour and won't always apply.

Armour: must be worn to be effective, must hit the location of the armour, must be a non-area effect attack.

Combat Luck: must be aware of the attack, must be able to dodge the attack.

[Edsel]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

To be a little more specific in my DC game and Eosin's FH game characters may stack Combat Luck and other armor. However the overall resistant DEF limit is 8.99. This means that you can't buy three levels of combat luck, two is the most you can get away with. The limit of 8.99 DEF is overall which means that you could, for instance, have a DEF of 10 on your chest (areas 10-11) but you'll have to make up for that by having a lower DEF elsewhere. We use the Hit Location tables for almost all KA and occasionally for normal attacks too.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

Here are my house rules on the subject of defense stacking in heroic / semi-heroic games:

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/armamentsNotes.shtml#Stacking%20Defenses

[jonstryder]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

In our game, our GM rules that armor does not stack, except under special conditions.

 

Natural Armor: as part of a racial trait or similar effect may stack with body armor (like Field Plate), but you may only apply half of the armor rating from the natural armor. (This is with the Armor power.)

 

Now Combat Luck, he rules, does not stack. Now if your GM is willing to do this, he can allow half of Combat Luck to stack with your worn armor. you get the full benefit of it if your out of armor but beyond that you don't get a big a benefit from it if you wear armor.

 

In some rare cases he allows magic items to stack their effects with worn armor, but may apply a +1/2 advantage to the item to allow it to do so. OR an Aid to armor power would work as well but would be expensive.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

I have yet to run FH, but I intend to let Combat Luck and Armor combine, however Combat Luck is limited to one level, period, no more.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

I have yet to run FH' date=' but I intend to let Combat Luck and Armor combine, however Combat Luck is limited to one level, period, no more. [/quote']

 

What about "light" characters that don't want to wear heavy armor for stylistic reasons but want to remain competitive? Combat Luck is a great enabler of such.

[assault]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

What about "light" characters that don't want to wear heavy armor for stylistic reasons but want to remain competitive? Combat Luck is a great enabler of such.

 

The thing is precisely that it is an enabler. It has a threshold effect - some resistant defence versus no resistant defence.

 

It only takes the basic 6 points' worth for that.

 

Beyond that you are getting into de facto invulnerability territory. "Hi, I'm Achilles" kind of stuff.

 

Most "light" characters should still have to wear armour if they are going to get into serious combat.

 

On the main thread topic: I'm quite happy to let Combat Luck stack with armour. The special effect is different, and characters pay points for the privilege. What's not to love?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

Most "light" characters should still have to wear armour if they are going to get into serious combat.

in your opinion.

[Vondy]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

This is really a style and genre question. In a game with a dashing swashbuckler flair, or a chop-sockey theater shtick, its appropriate to have characters in light or no armor facing down armored opponents. In a gritty midieveal simulation game its not appropriate. A lot of games are somewhere in the middle. It depends on what you want the game to run like. There's no correct answer to this - just personal prefrence.

 

As for my games, I allow 2 levels of combat luck (hey, its as good as chain , most "light fighters" have a slight dex advantage, and you don't take encumberance penalties), but I don't generally allow it to stack.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

The main thing to keep in mind, in my opinion, is the synergy between Combat Luck and Deadly Blow / Martial Manuever extra damage.

 

If you allow Deadly Blow or Martial Arts that apply to weapons, then CL helps to keep defenses in line with offenses. It is a substantial avenue for the game to balance itself out in a "natural" fashion.

[Vondy]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

The main thing to keep in mind, in my opinion, is the synergy between Combat Luck and Deadly Blow / Martial Manuever extra damage.

 

If you allow Deadly Blow or Martial Arts that apply to weapons, then CL helps to keep defenses in line with offenses. It is a substantial avenue for the game to balance itself out in a "natural" fashion.

 

You make a good point.

[keithcurtis]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

The Savage Earth campaign is very much influenced by Frank Frazetta, Edgar Rice Burroughs, etc., where characters wear very little armor (or anything else, for that matter). Still, stacking is pretty frighteningly efficient. Here are the rules I use in order to enforce some sort of genre feel to the campaign:

__________________________________________________

Combat Luck

Combat Luck is a valuable talent in the Savage Earth, since the campaign stresses a minimum of armor. There are some significant differences between Savage Earth Combat Luck and savage Luck as presented in the rulebook. To begin with, Combat Luck is not stackable. If the character has any other form of resistant defense, Combat Luck does not work. This includes armor, natural resistance (ala Animates), or adept enhancement. The single exception is if they are facing a Name Character. A Name Character is a major NPC or another PC. Combat Luck does not function against Name Characters. For that, a character must depend on traditional armor or other resistant defenses. A character who is wearing armor may receive the better of the two defenses (Armor or Combat Luck), but will have to take the combat penalties for the armor.

 

Example: Gilead has 3 points of Combat Luck and is wearing Leather Armor 12- (2 DEF). This reduces his natural DCV from 5 to 4 while so encumbered. Against palace guards and teeming barbarians, he has a DEF of 3. This is his combat Luck. It is better than his armor defense. If he were to fight Hando the Slayer, veteran of a dozen pit fights and recognized NPC, he would only be able to rely on his 2 DEF leather armor on its 12- activation roll.

 

Combat Luck is not Hardened, as in the rulebook. This is to make Spirit Weapons (which are Armor Piercing) more frightening.

The maximum value for Combat Luck is 3 points of Defense.

 

Combat Luck: 4 points for Armor (3 PD/3 ED); Luck Based (-1/2), Does not stack with other armor (-1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4), Not vs. Name Characters (-1/4)

__________________________________________________

 

So far it has worked for us. It allows for lightly-armored characters who are very effective against mooks, and makes primary characters in the campaign more important.

 

Note that in my campaign, I do not use sectional defense, but Armor on an Activation. It doesn't have a strict correlation to the amount of body covered either. A character could just be really adept on catching blows against the bits of their body that are armored. It's very abstract. I've taken some flak from some folks who prefer a grittier "more realistic" treatment of armor, but it works well for us.

 

Keith "Genre primus" Curtis

[Vondy]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

...Savage Earth Combat Luck and savage Luck...

 

What I want is some of that "savage Luck."

 

Von "poking Keith with sticks" D-Man.

[keithcurtis]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

What I want is some of that "savage Luck."

 

Von "poking Keith with sticks" D-Man.

THIS is why I need an editor.

 

Keith "Firing up GoLive" Curtis

[Basil]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

"Stack"---isn't that a D&Dism? A D&D way of thinking??

 

Frankly, unless there is definite, physical (or mental or spiritual or...) interference between different "pieces" or "layers" of protection, they should all work. Anything else is, IMO, a "dodge" to reduce effectiveness for no good reason.

 

If there is a good reason, i.e. game balance, then let the GM enforce it. Either case by case, or by DEF caps.

[assault]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

Most "light" characters should still have to wear armour if they are going to get into serious combat.

in your opinion.

 

Yes, that's why I said it. Your point is?

 

 

 

I admit that I ignored the chop-socky and Burroughsian variants. In these cases, I would allow multiple levels of Combat Luck. But I still wouldn't set up any fancy rules about stacking. I simply wouldn't allow PCs to wear armour in these settings!

 

If I wanted to have Samurai type armoured characters running around, I'd make the appropriate adjustments.

 

 

 

And this is my opinion too.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

Yes, that's why I said it. Your point is?

 

I admit that I ignored the chop-socky and Burroughsian variants. In these cases, I would allow multiple levels of Combat Luck. But I still wouldn't set up any fancy rules about stacking. I simply wouldn't allow PCs to wear armour in these settings!

 

If I wanted to have Samurai type armoured characters running around, I'd make the appropriate adjustments.

 

And this is my opinion too.

And thank you for expressing it as an opinion rather than as a definitive fact.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

"Stack"---isn't that a D&Dism? A D&D way of thinking??

 

Frankly, unless their is definite, physical (or mental or spiritual or...) interference between different "pieces" or "layers" of protection, they should all work. Anything else is, IMO, a "dodge" to reduce effectiveness for no good reason.

 

If there is a good reason, i.e. game balance, then let the GM enforce it. Either case by case, or by DEF caps.

 

Many reasons why it is important to control layering of defense are discussed in the document I linked to.

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/armamentsNotes.shtml#Stacking%20Defenses

[keithcurtis]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

"Stack"---isn't that a D&Dism? A D&D way of thinking??

 

Frankly, unless their is definite, physical (or mental or spiritual or...) interference between different "pieces" or "layers" of protection, they should all work. Anything else is, IMO, a "dodge" to reduce effectiveness for no good reason.

 

If there is a good reason, i.e. game balance, then let the GM enforce it. Either case by case, or by DEF caps.

"Stacking" is a commonly accepted term in HERO for what we are discussing.

I don't see any difference between arbitrary limitation on how armor interacts and defense caps. They are both artificial constructs. Vanilla vs Chocolate.

 

Keith "YMMV" Curtis

 

PS. As an aside, I've dealt with munchkins who wanted to wear Plate Armor over their Leather Armor and get DEF 11. This is easily handled without invoking any new rules by using the "Real Armor" limitation. It just doesn't work.

[Vondy]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

"Stack"---isn't that a D&Dism? A D&D way of thinking??

 

If the term fits, wear it.

 

I don't like sanitation of my every day speech by politcal correctness hounds, why would I want in in my gaming jargon?

[Basil]

Re: combat luck and armor........

 

Many reasons why it is important to control layering of defense are discussed in the document I linked to.

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/armamentsNotes.shtml#Stacking%20Defenses

There are some good ideas there. Certainly (IMO) better than not allowing Combat Luck to be effective while wearing armor (note the low-case a).

 

Still, it seems to me, to avoid hanging disbelief by the neck, it is necessary to allow defenses to apply unless there is a clear reason they would interfere with each other (including one nullifying the other). It's just too hard for me to accept anything else as plausible.

 

BTW, from my days in the SCA, and my research/exposure to facts since, I can state flat out that you physically cannot fit plate over leather armor. Thus, you cannot "stack" them. Nor can you fit leather armor over plate. You can wrap some chunks of leather around plate, but I think a GM is more than justified in stating it has no effect.

 

BTW, you can replace "plate" in the above paragraph with "chain".

 

Oh, and Von D-Man: Appeal to Ridicule combined with Straw Man. My point is that "stacking" is a way of thinking that belongs to D&D.

 

I don't believe it is appropriate to HERO, to make such an arbitrary mechanism a central part of designing characters.