DEF/BODY of inanimate objects

[Nelijal]

Originally posted by Old Man

Here's another poorly thought out idea. What if some of the DEF was ablative based on the current BODY of the object? Call it aDEF for short.

The DEF of a damaged object should definitely be lowered, as I suggested above, but I don't think adding another stat to keep up with is the way to go. The input is good, though; some of us do seem to be thinking along the same lines. Heroic HERO players unite! Once we get this hashed out, we'll have to run it by Steve.

[Greenstar]

My plans for armor damage were much more simplistic - but a lot easier to keep track of. Each time a location was hit and penetrated (e.g. the character took BODY damage), the rDEF of the armor in that location would drop by 1 until it was repaired. Nope, it's not nrealy as realisitic as what's been proposed here (and very good proposals they are, too!), but it may save me a few more calculations in a game that's already filled with them. Some of my players just aren't good with "mechanics" so I'll be doing a lot of that as the GM, freeing them up to just RP.

[Nelijal]

Greenstar, I imagine that once we've exhausted our hair-splitting tendencies, we'll have something along those lines to use during the game. For armor, your rule sounds right to me, we just have to figure in how such a rule applies to other objects. My players, too, will balk at more calculations; for some reason, nobody wants to do integral calculus during combat, go figure.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Old Man

Perhaps a given material should be defined as a ratio of DEF/BODY instead of just DEF. So we could define wood to be DEF 2/BODY 3 per inch of thickness, while granite would be DEF 5/BODY 2 per inch. Then a 4" thick door would be 8DEF/12 BODY if wood, and if granite, would be 20 DEF / 8 BODY. That simulates the relationship between hardness and brittleness a little better.

 

 

This is a good idea and translates over to your aDEF idea. Using the above example, if the door took 6 BODY then it would be reduced to 4 DEF / 6 BODY.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Greenstar

My plans for armor damage were much more simplistic - but a lot easier to keep track of. Each time a location was hit and penetrated (e.g. the character took BODY damage), the rDEF of the armor in that location would drop by 1 until it was repaired. Nope, it's not nrealy as realisitic as what's been proposed here (and very good proposals they are, too!), but it may save me a few more calculations in a game that's already filled with them. Some of my players just aren't good with "mechanics" so I'll be doing a lot of that as the GM, freeing them up to just RP.

 

Simple and easy to use but your players are never ever going to buy DEF 1 or DEF 2 armor if they can help it. What would be the point if they have to buy a new suit after every other turn of combat?

[Toadmaster]

What if you take this a step further and assume all armor has body, while the effect of overcoming body in an object is to break or cause a gap in the object, but in the case of armor what if each time the body is overcome the armor loses a point of DEF, so instead of having to apply the damage to the armor before injuring the wearer you just track both the armor and the character, for example BoB the Slayer takes 3 hits doing 9 points, 11 points and 8 points of damage, if he were wearing boiled leather (lets say DEF 3, Body 6), then after the first hit he loses a point of DEF (6 body got through), the second hit he loses another point of DEF (9 more body got through) and the third hit pretty much finishes off his armor (and probably BoB too), but if he had been wearing Chain Mail (DEF6, Body 10) he wouldn't have lost any DEF until the third hit this way light armor is more easily damaged than heavier armor and the only calculation to keep track of is body taken by armor. Light armor might be ruined after a fight that inflicts lots of damage or kills the wearer but heavy armor will last awhile slowly being damaged (and will probably out last the wearer) which seems right to me.

[Nelijal]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

What if you take this a step further and assume all armor has body, while the effect of overcoming body in an object is to break or cause a gap in the object, but in the case of armor what if each time the body is overcome the armor loses a point of DEF, so instead of having to apply the damage to the armor before injuring the wearer you just track both the armor and the character, for example BoB the Slayer takes 3 hits doing 9 points, 11 points and 8 points of damage, if he were wearing boiled leather (lets say DEF 3, Body 6), then after the first hit he loses a point of DEF (6 body got through), the second hit he loses another point of DEF (9 more body got through) and the third hit pretty much finishes off his armor (and probably BoB too), but if he had been wearing Chain Mail (DEF6, Body 10) he wouldn't have lost any DEF until the third hit this way light armor is more easily damaged than heavier armor and the only calculation to keep track of is body taken by armor. Light armor might be ruined after a fight that inflicts lots of damage or kills the wearer but heavy armor will last awhile slowly being damaged (and will probably out last the wearer) which seems right to me.

Maybe I'm just dense , but I'm not following what you're saying. It seems interesting, though, so could you offer another explanation?

[Toadmaster]

Ok, normally you use body for objects like doors, walls, swords, when the body is overcome you have broken the door open, knocked a hole in the wall or broken the sword. What if for armor you use the body for the value to reduce the DEF, so for example lets say boiled leather armor is DEF3, Body 5, for each five points that gets through the DEF you reduce the DEF by one (holes torn in the armor etc), this Body is not deducted from the damage the character wearing the armor takes, it is just used to keep track of the armor.

 

So for example BoB is wearing his Boiled Leather armor DEF3, Body5 and takes a hit for 7 points of damage, the armor stops 3 points, the other four are applied to BoB and his armor (each take 4 Body), the armor is damaged but still fully functional, BoB takes another hit for 5 Body, so BoB takes another 2 Body as does his armor (for a total of 5 points), since this is equal to the armors Body of 5 it loses a point of DEF, the next hit does 12 points, the armors new DEF of 2 reduces the impact and BoB and his armor each take 10 points, the armor is reduced by 2 DEF (10 points is 2x 5body, so 2 DEF is lost) his armor is hanging in shreads (0 DEF) and BoB is probably not feeling so hot either. Had he been wearing Chainmail (DEF6 Body 10) this would look like 1 body vs BoB and armor for the first, 0 Body for the second and the third would have done 6 Body, so his armor is still at full value, if he were to take another 3 pts of body (total of 10)then his armor would lose a point of DEF.

 

I don't have Fred handy so this is off the top of my head but armor might look like this

 

Leather DEF 2, Body 4

Boiled Leather DEF3, Body 5

Chainmail DEF6, Body 10

Platemail DEF 10, Body 12

 

So damage to kill the wearer of light armor probably also cuts the armor to ribbons (no salvage) but chainmail while damaged would still be useful. It is a little extra work to keep track of the damage to the armor but really probably isn't to bad if you want the extra "realism".

 

Hope this is a little more clear.

[Old Man]

That might work. It does seem like more work but something needs to be done to keep the tank fighters honest. As it stands they're just 8 DEF, all the time.

 

Oo, what about shield damage?

[Greenstar]

Simple and easy to use but your players are never ever going to buy DEF 1 or DEF 2 armor if they can help it. What would be the point if they have to buy a new suit after every other turn of combat?

 

A valid point, and I've thought of 2 ways around it:

 

1. Light armor should be very cheap in comparison to heavy armor.

 

2. I'm seriously thinking of making this a chance per penetrating hit rather than a certainty. Call it 50%. Not nearly so elegant as the suggestions posted about the armor itself taking damage and tracking DEF loss that way, but it does have the saving grace of not requiring that yet another number be tracked. Several numbers, actually, as I'll be using sectional armor...leading to:

 

3. You'd only have to repair/replace the areas that were damaged, not the whole suit. Assuming you are even alive to do so, that is....

[Toadmaster]

Or instead of tracking damage just say any hit that surpasses the Body of the armor in one blow reduces the DEF, so in the above example DEF 3 Body 5 armor a blow doing 8 or more damage in one hit would reduce the DEF, this makes the armor last longer and reduces book keeping (just one number 8+ to remember instead of tracking "hit points" over the life of the armor).

 

Shields could work the same way or just say that when their body is exceeded the shield breaks or is otherwise useless.

 

An advantage I see to damaging armor besides the "realistic" aspects is that it reduces the scavenger effect, you know those dungeon hauls where the party strips everything of value from the corpses, at least in some cases the armor, shields etc wouldn't be worth saving. It also might encourage players to take repair spells in addition to the obligatory healing spells. Also adding Body to armor could be used in addition to DEF for higher quality work creating a little more flavor to armor.

[Nelijal]

Thanks, Toadmaster, I understand now. I'm going to pull together some of the items in this thread and post a semi-cohesive set of suggested guidelines. Some of the posts are a little repetitious (of course, I've never done that ), each person giving their own take on very similar ideas. That's not a complaint, the input is great, it just looks like time to put the stuff together and give the thread a new reference point for further discussion.

 

It may just be a day or two before I can do this due to the weather here in NC, my ISP was down last night and I lost power this morning. Transformers make a nice *pop* when they go.

 

Anyone else is of course welcome to post their own summary of what's been discussed so far. Less for me to do, and it's much more fun for me to critique other posts than the other way around.