Nonsensical and out-of-genre results in HERO fantasy.

[Yamo]

a) Let's say we have a knight in late medieval plate mail. He gets peppered by a barrage of arrows, all of which glance off without penetrating his armor (he takes no BODY). However, the total STUN from all these deflected arrows knocks him deeply unconscious. Needless to say, this is ridiculous and completely out-of-genre. Nowhere in history or genre fiction does such a thing happen, yet it's a very plausable result of such an assault in game terms.

 

Average attacks versus average DEFs are going to produce vastly more STUN than BODY damage. Yet the fantasy genre is usually more about cleaving through an orc in one mighty blow than battering said orc unconscious with your sword and then slitting his throat after the fight is over.

 

How to cut down on these inappropriate results without eliminating STUN altogether (which, among other things, would make it impossible to knock somebody out under any circumstances)?

 

Basically, I want people "downed" in combat to die more and go harmlessly unconscious less, but I don't want to eliminate STUN completely.

[Monolith]

Re: Nonsensical and out-of-genre results in HERO fantasy.

 

Originally posted by Yamo

a) Let's say we have a knight in late medieval plate mail. He gets peppered by a barrage of arrows, all of which glance off without penetrating his armor (he takes no BODY). However, the total STUN from all these deflected arrows knocks him deeply unconscious. Needless to say, this is ridiculous and completely out-of-genre. Nowhere in history or genre fiction does such a thing happen, yet it's a very plausable result of such an assault in game terms.

Let's look at the averages:

An arrow does 1d6+1 with an average of 4 BODY done. The plate armor has 8 DEF and the knight has a 7 PD. The average roll for the arrow is 4 BODY and 12 STUN. The combined DEF of the character is 15. Unless a head or vitals shot is rolled the knight takes no damage from any of those attacks.

 

Average attacks versus average DEFs are going to produce vastly more STUN than BODY damage. Yet the fantasy genre is usually more about cleaving through an orc in one mighty blow than battering said orc unconscious with your sword and then slitting his throat after the fight is over.

The fantasy genre is more about the main character getting knocked out or captured rather than getting killed; and that is the whole point of the rule. The characters are the heroes of the story and the rules are designed to keep them from getting rapidly killed off as they are in D&D. It is a very simple thing to just tell the players that if they take their opponent to -10 STUN that it is dead. The main thing is to keep the feel of the genre for the players, and when I say genre I mean fantasy genre not the D&D genre. Heroes get knocked out, not killed.

[Yamo]

The main thing is to keep the feel of the genre for the players, and when I say genre I mean fantasy genre not the D&D genre. Heroes get knocked out, not killed.

 

Yes, but there's two problems with that:

 

a) We have a pet peeve against special rules that only exist to give the players breaks versus the other characters in the game universe. If being dropped to -10 STUN kills an orc, it should kill a PC, too.

 

I'm clearly going for a very gritty game. Heroes get killed, not knocked-out. Lose a swordfight and you usually get stabbed/slashed to death by your foe if he's smart.

 

I'm going for Saving Private Ryan with crossbows and axes, not Xena: Warrior Princess.

[AnotherSkip]

Heck D&D had to add the -10 rule in order to keep the game from being a "fight till you are dead" scenario. I remember when the big deal was having a Paladin/Cavalier with max hit points so you could fight till you were at -14!!!!!

 

D&D is less realisitic in some ways because in hero you can wake up on your own and in D&D you either die or you can wander around some more. you can recover from most of the battle in either game but keep some of the damage. The main difference is when you drop whether or not you will be able to get up on your own.

 

I also think it is more realistic for a person to be smart and avoid charging the entire army by themselves. In 3D&D in some situations you could whoop on a party of normals (Great Cleave springs to mind

 

Also in D&D the knight can crush the party of normals and keep on trucking in HERO it is most likely a more serious fight.

[Lord Liaden]

If you want characters in the heaviest armor not to take significant Stun damage from large numbers of smaller attacks, IMO you should enforce the Standard Effect rule for multiplying the Stun damage from Killing Attacks. In my experience the scenario you describe is more likely to occur if the random multiplier for Stun happens to roll consistently high for all attacks. I would also not employ randomly rolled Hit Locations for these attacks, either; just use the normal Stun total.

 

I would allow for Hit Locations for placed shots, though, if you want the above scenario to co-exist with "one blow orc cleaving."

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Yamo

I'm clearly going for a very gritty game. Heroes get killed, not knocked-out. Lose a swordfight and you usually get stabbed/slashed to death by your foe if he's smart.

I am not an expert on ancient fighting, but I would bet that more plate armor wearing knight were knocked unconscious and killed than were killed by a sword blow. That is the "realistic" concept. I think very few knights were stabbed/slashed to death by their foes. I think they bashed on each other until one or the other was knocked out, stunned, or ran out of endurance.

[Yamo]

In my experience the scenario you describe is more likely to occur if the random multiplier for Stun happens to roll consistently high for all attacks.

 

Good point!

 

I am not an expert on ancient fighting, but I would bet that more plate armor wearing knight were knocked unconscious and killed than were killed by a sword blow.

 

That is true. Thanks.

[misterdeath]

Quick thought...

 

If you still want to use Hit Locations: Cut the stun multiplier in half. You get a head shot, instead of it being x5, it's x3. You get a lot less Stun in comparison to the Body being dealt. You're probably going to get "death by a thousand cuts", unless you've got high DC output characters.

 

D

[Old Man]

Or you can use critical hits, which have the overall effect of ramping up weapon effectiveness. The last campaign I played in used hit locations without critical hits, and I was surprised at how durable the combatants became, since I had always played with crits up until then.

[Chris Goodwin]

If you're going for Saving Private Ryan with crossbows, and want a very gritty game in general, I have to question why you're letting guys run around with 8 DEF armor.

 

Aside from that, use Impairing/Disabling wounds and the full bleeding rules.

[lensman]

2 Cent

 

Originally posted by Yamo

a) How to cut down on these inappropriate results without eliminating STUN altogether (which, among other things, would make it impossible to knock somebody out under any circumstances)?

 

Basically, I want people "downed" in combat to die more and go harmlessly unconscious less, but I don't want to eliminate STUN completely.

 

Here is my system, for quick fightd, not all

 

All armor gives its resistent DEF in non-resistent DEF.

Thus 6 pt chain is 6 res +6 non-res DEF

WeaponSmiths can increase that number when Armor is created.

 

I track only the Stun total in a phase for any one PC.

 

Then if you take enough STUN past DEF to exceed your CON, you are Stunned.

Next I make the PC make a CON roll. or suffer the effects of the first level, ie. -10, of negative Stun total.

The Con roll can be influenced by Characteristic skill lvls. Thus Hearty PC's, bought +3 lvls. Con based, and have a CON of 18 thats 16-. Every time they are Stunned that is -1 to the CON roll and every +10 STUN that ecveeds their CON is -1

This way they fight until they drop, and no one has to kepp a running total of STUN just have many times they have been Stunned, much easier.

[tiger]

Re: Re: Nonsensical and out-of-genre results in HERO fantasy.

 

Originally posted by Monolith

Let's look at the averages:

An arrow does 1d6+1 with an average of 4 BODY done. The plate armor has 8 DEF and the knight has a 7 PD. The average roll for the arrow is 4 BODY and 12 STUN. The combined DEF of the character is 15. Unless a head or vitals shot is rolled the knight takes no damage from any of those attacks.

 

He'd get is normal PD against a killing attack?

 

Did they change a rule I missed?

[sbarron]

So long as you have at least 1 point of resistant defense vs an attack, you have always been able to use you PD/ED vs. the stun of a killing attack. It has been that way for as long as I've been playing.

 

How do you do it?

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Monolith

I am not an expert on ancient fighting, but I would bet that more plate armor wearing knight were knocked unconscious and killed than were killed by a sword blow. That is the "realistic" concept. I think very few knights were stabbed/slashed to death by their foes. I think they bashed on each other until one or the other was knocked out, stunned, or ran out of endurance.

 

Absolutely. Look at the Battle of Agincourt:

 

In the battle, which was preceded by heavy rains, the French troops were at a disadvantage because of their weighty armor, the narrowness of the battleground, the muddy terrain, and the faulty tactics of their superiors, notably in using massed formations against a mobile enemy. The French cavalry, which occupied frontal positions, quickly became mired in the mud, making easy targets for the English archers.

 

After routing the enemy cavalry, the English troops, wielding hatchets, billhooks (a type of knife), and swords, launched successive assaults on the French infantry. Demoralized by the fate of their cavalry and severely hampered by the mud, the French foot soldiers were completely overwhelmed. D'Albret, several dukes and counts, and about 500 other members of the French nobility were killed; other French casualties totaled about 5000. English losses numbered fewer than 200 men

 

The French... in PLATE were knocked down (and in many cases unconcious) to either Drown in the mud or be stabbed through the face while down.

[Monolith]

Re: Re: Re: Nonsensical and out-of-genre results in HERO fantasy.

 

Originally posted by tiger

He'd get is normal PD against a killing attack?

 

Did they change a rule I missed?

As sbarron stated, that has always been the rule. As long as you have some rDEF you get to use your full non-rDEF against the STUN damage of an attack. Now I have seen some house rules that only allow non-rDEF up to the amount of rDEF. So if you have 5 rPD and 10 n-rPD you are only allowed to use 10 PD versus the STUN damage instead of 15. I just use the standard rules myself.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by MisterVimes

The French... in PLATE were knocked down (and in many cases unconcious) to either Drown in the mud or be stabbed through the face while down.

I just rewatched the Kenneth Branagh version of Henry V a week ago. That is one of the only reasons I even made a comment about knights here.

[Old Man]

Wasn't that the one where all the weapons and shields were clearly made of rubber in the slo-mo battle sequence? A good movie, but a poor props department.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Monolith

I just rewatched the Kenneth Branagh version of Henry V a week ago. That is one of the only reasons I even made a comment about knights here.

 

And they say you can't learn anything from Telly-vision

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Old Man

Wasn't that the one where all the weapons and shields were clearly made of rubber in the slo-mo battle sequence? A good movie, but a poor props department.

 

I don't think so. I recall that they used live steel... but I could be wrong

[Vanguard00]

Re: Nonsensical and out-of-genre results in HERO fantasy.

 

Originally posted by Yamo

a) Let's say we have a knight in late medieval plate mail. He gets peppered by a barrage of arrows, all of which glance off without penetrating his armor (he takes no BODY). However, the total STUN from all these deflected arrows knocks him deeply unconscious. Needless to say, this is ridiculous and completely out-of-genre. Nowhere in history or genre fiction does such a thing happen, yet it's a very plausable result of such an assault in game terms.

 

Not true. The knight in plate armor (a rarity, by the way) would take an amazing amount of punishment from swords, axes, maces and arrows all hitting his armor, whether they penetrated or not. It was a rare thing to see a knight taken out by killing him--it was more often a case of getting the knight off his feet and doing him in at one's leisure.

 

Average attacks versus average DEFs are going to produce vastly more STUN than BODY damage. Yet the fantasy genre is usually more about cleaving through an orc in one mighty blow than battering said orc unconscious with your sword and then slitting his throat after the fight is over.

 

An orc shouldn't be wearing plate mail. An orc should, at best, be able to scrounge the occasional breastplate, maybe a bit of chainmail, and most likely wore leather, wood, or hide armor, maybe with some strips of metal for reinforcement. Let's presume a DEF 3-4 average and hit him with a great sword (2d6HKA) wielded by a muscular hero-type (15+ STR) and you get a 3d6 HKA easy...that's 10.5 BODY on an average attack. Even with the DEF of 4 that orc is hurt. It you max out your damage you've just done 14 BODY to the orc after Defenses. That's dead in my book (assuming you gave the orc 10 BODY).

 

How to cut down on these inappropriate results without eliminating STUN altogether (which, among other things, would make it impossible to knock somebody out under any circumstances)?

 

Basically, I want people "downed" in combat to die more and go harmlessly unconscious less, but I don't want to eliminate STUN completely.

 

I think the question is, what do you want in your campaign? Historical realism or genre realism? If you are looking to be faithful to the genre of heroic fantasy then you should examine the combat rules a bit more carefully, taking into account certain examples (as you provided above) and taking those rules which benefit those examples, doing away with those that seem counterproductive. The Hero System is nothing if not adaptable, and more often than not the printed rules give examples on how to modify them to fit your campaign.

 

If I had the rule books handy I would quote some supportive material, but I'm afraid I can only suggest you reread the sections on combat.

[Killer Shrike]

It depends on what you want in your campaign. If you want combat to be more lethal, simply double the damage of all the weapons. Average damage goes up, Defense mean less, people die faster. Simple, deadly, and vicious.

 

If you are worried about the STUN Lottery, just apply the STUN Multiple to the BODY that actually gets thru the defenses (but the target takes ALL of it, with only Dmg Reduction applicable) if not using HIT locations.

 

If you want to discourage a homogenous horde of plate-mail wearing characters, apply DEX penalties based on DEF and enforce encumbrance. Consider requiring a Talent or "Weapon Familiarity" for each type of armor ala D&D 3e. No Familiararity, take proficiency penalties. Also, dont forget to apply Real Weapon/ Foci rules; eventually even the best suit of Plate gets pounded into scrap. Even if you allow the Durable option, the Armor will get beat to flinders by determined opponents.

 

Another option to counteract heavy armor is to encourage Archers and Light Swordsmen etc to learn Find Weakness; 8 to 4 to 2, yep, theres the whites of your eyes.... Thus, if the Heavy armored guy gets on such a character b4 they can set up its bad, but a heavy armored guy crossing an open field vs an archer is in trouble, and a heavy armored foe fighting a duelist on the defensive had better make his move fast before the duelist finds a hole in his defenses.

 

Also, characters could buy CSLs only to do extra damage, only vs a particular type of Armor to show that they have trained at finding the weak points.....

 

 

Tons of options

[Dauntless]

I don't have FREd handy, but isn't there a power limitation you can take on RKA's that does a -1 Stun multiplier for a -1/4th limitation?

 

If so, you should take this limitation when creating arrow attacks, since it makes since. Arrows really don't stun you...they just kill you. Guns on the other hand have really nasty hydrostatic shock effects which tears up your insides and blows holes out the back end.

 

Also, in real life, a good crossbow or longbow will quite easily penetrate thick plate mail even out past 100 yards. So if you want to make it realistic...characters in Platemail aren't safe against archers. Also, if you're going for utter realism remember that fighting in duels or skirmishes is different than fighting in a grand melee with hundreds or thousands of combatants. In small scale duels, you essentially always know where your opponents are....in a battle you don't.

[Al_Beddow]

One thing I noticed missing in all this is... the endurance expendature for running around in such heavy armor. I mean plate mail was HEAVY! It should be soaking up a characters endurance quite quickly and thus wearing them out.

 

Chain mail wasn't exactly light either (epecially if you had the longsleeved shirt with hood and leggings...

[Markdoc]

If the original poster has not been letting players add their PD to their rDEF for STUN, I think we have isolated the source of the problem

 

Having said that, you still often get the "knockout effect" on heavily armoured characters. Personally I have no problem with that - as far as I can tell, that's historically accurate: "slit the throat of the armoured guy on the ground" was a standard tactic for centuries before Agincourt!

 

If you want a high risk game, the solutions are:

1. winkle your heavily armoured guys out of their metal shells (ya gotta peel 'em before you eat 'em, as the dragons say)

2. Add some NPCs into the mix with either find weakness, AP weapons like picks or heavy Crossbows, just plain ol' big-damage attacks.

3. Introduce a critical hit system (the one I used in the past is simple - on a critical hit, you get to choose your hit location OR you can choose max damage).

 

In general, though, I favour #1, which is an "in-game" solution dependant on the GM running games where heavy armour is not an option. Frankly, I find FH quite lethal enough in my hands as it is...

 

cheers, Mark

[Killer Shrike]

I think the rDEF + nDEF not being applied cropped up later via another poster IIRC....