Damage types (blunt/sharp/pointy)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Probably take a bit of tweaking with the numbers since its going to be different in cost but I tend to hand wave them based on historical data and what feels right to me anyway.

[Hugh Neilson]

On one hand, it's gear so we can build it any way we want. On the other hand, it is necessary to stat it out if someone wants to buy custom gear, or use it in a game that does not follow the "gear for cash" rule.

 

The "STR adds" mechanic is an orphan. If one views HA as "STR, only for this type of damage", then only the HKA uses the mechanic.

 

So maybe that means a Longsword becomes 1d6 Blast, AVAD (rDef, +1/2), 0 END (+1/2), No Range (-1/2), OAF (Sword, -1) plus 7d6 Blast, 0 END (+1/2), AVAD (rDef, +1/2), No Range (-1/2), OAF (Sword, -1), must use 2 STR to add 1d6 DC, +5 STR per 1d6 thereafter; OCV penalized 1 for each extra d6 below 3).

 

This equates to a 12 STR required to get 4d6 and no OCV penalty. With 32 STR, you get 8d6.

 

If you want to use the "advantages pro rate" rule, it's easy enough to change this to 2d6 Blast, AVAD (rDef, +1/2), 0 END (+1/2), No Range (-1/2), OAF (Sword, -1) plus 6d6 Blast, 0 END (+1/2), AVAD (rDef, +1/2), No Range (-1/2), OAF (Sword, -1), must use 5 STR to add 1d6 DC, +7 STR for 2d6, and 15 STR per 2d6 thereafter (8+ means 1d6); OCV penalized 1 for each extra d6 below 2). Now each DC requires 7.5 STR consistent with 7.5 points for 1d6 AVAD.

 

We could also get a finer tuned addition chain if we want to use half dice, etc.

[Markdoc]

I, too, think that the idea of using AVAD (Resistant Defenses) instead of KAs.

 

Would you handle strength mins and damage in excess of strength mins in the traditional way still?

 

No. STR min was really a kind of kludge put in place to control damage and as Hugh notes that was an artefact of how STR and HKA interact. Without HKA, that's no longer an issue. You also don't need to worry about the doubling HKA rules since that's no longer an issue. You can just add prorated STR normally. And since regular dice slightly generate less BOD on average and MUCH less BOD in the upper range, the fact that you might end up with slightly more DC is not going to increase lethality much, if at all. I'd just prorate STR and let it add normally.

 

I'm just riffing here - so don't put too much weight on the actual numbers: I'm making this up as I write, though I have played around with the numbers in the past.

 

Let's play with the knight's sword - a fairly heavy cutting and thrusting weapon. In real life it was, as far as we can tell, a pretty lethal weapon against lightly armoured troops and it remained in widespread use until plate armour became common, at which point it started to assume a secondary role. From that we can tell that it needs to be good at killing unarmoured people and it needs to be relatively effective even against chain mail.

 

I usually start with the armour and work backwards. Currently, chain mail gives you 6 rPD, while plate gives you 8. For now I'll stick with that, but go with my earlier suggestion that flexible armours like chain give you slightly less rPD, so Chain is 4rPD/2PD. Rigid armours give you the full bonus as rPD, so plate remains at 8.

 

A Longsword is currently 1d6+1 killing, or 4DC. If we use the same active points, that translates loosely into 3d6 (AVAD: resistant defence for BOD, +1/2 ... let's call that Killing, to save space). That means that for every 7.5 STR you have you add another killing DC, which means 4d6 from STR 8, 5d6 from STR 15, and 6D6 at STR 22 and above. That means on average it would take 2-3 strokes to kill an unarmoured foe for a strong (STR 15) wielder, though a single good hit to a vital spot would do it in one. That's satisfyingly lethal. But even if we use the "flexible armour" rule above, that may be too little. A healthy thrust to the vitals with a longsword in the hands of a strong man will on average get 1 BOD through, doubled to 2. Bleh. 

 

If we push the base damage up to 4D6 killing, (so a strong guy is now doing 6D6 killing) you would still need on average 2 strokes to kill a normal unarmoured person, though your odds of doing it in one go up. But now you are putting on average 2 points of BOD though chain mail, and if you hit a vital spot, you would do 4. Stabbing through chain means you'd need 5 average hits to kill someone, or - realistically - 2 really good hits. It would be almost impossible to do it in one. That seems ... kind of low, though to be fair, for most of history, people only armoured the torso and head, so in a fight, you would be mixing hits to the unarmoured bits in among the armoured ones. A guy wearing feudal style armour would almost always be one-shot killed by a blow to the unarmoured face, for example. That seems to put us about in the sweet spot, where PCs in medium armour would be at danger of a very serious wound or even death .... but the chances of that happening in one are tiny. They are more likely to take multiple minor wounds ... still a problem, but death by attrition rather than instagib. Go to full plate harness on the other hand, and a longsword is just not going to cut it - you really have almost no chance of getting any BOD through, even with a base of 4d6, unless  you boost it somehow.

 

If we look at STUN, our strong guy is going to do - on average - 18 points of STUN with the 3d6 base attack. Killing STUN damage does not ignore PD, so that goes down to 16 on an unarmoured target - an average hit to anything except the extremities is going to Stun a normal target and a second solid blow will likely end the fight. A hit to the head or vitals, or a good roll, for that matter, will end it outright. That sounds lethal enough. Boosting the base damage to 4d6 raises the average STUN to 21 - which on average does not change things much - your unarmoured target will take 19 STUN, so it still requires two hits to end the fight, but the odds of a one-shot fight are greater - you just need to roll up a little. Definitely lethal enough, but we are talking about a heavy sharp blade in the hands of a very strong wielder, so fair enough. Against Chain armour, the target has 4 rPD and 4 PD (his own and the armour) so STUN delivered falls to 10 with 3d6 and 13 with base 4d6. That means 2 solid hits are required to put the target down, though a head hit will do it in one. Against a target in Plate, your STUN damage falls to 8 or 11 depending on whether you use the 3 or 4d6 base, but either way, it's going to take 2-3 solid blows to put him down, and he'll still be basically unhurt - just unconscious. You'll have to open his visor once he is down and finish him off.

 

So I'd be inclined to use the same number of DC as a starting point and work from there. Remember that PCs will likely have better than a 10 CON, and better than 2 PD, so they are going to be significantly more durable than this example. They are also going to be able to - for example - burn CSLs to boost their damage, so they will also be significantly more lethal against weaker foes.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

I was writing in haste last night, so I forgot to add one important point: how does this approach stack up against the current rules?

 

A 6d6 attack with the killing advantage (as discussed above) does on average 6 BOD and 21 STUN, and importantly, has a normal range of 4-8 BOD and 18-25 STUN. Normal in this case means within 1 standard deviation or on rough terms this means that 70% of the time your damage will fall in this range.

A 1d6+1 HKA with 15 STR would get you to 1 1/2 d6 HKA (same setup as above), rounding up, so an average of 5 BOD and 15 STUN. That sounds grossly inferior, until you realise that the HKA has a normal range of 3 to 8 BOD and 9-24 STUN, which means in real play, the HKA and the 6d6 killing attack will have similar lethality and a similar ability to take a target down.

 

That sounds counter-intuitive, but because of the way armour interacts with damage, 1 big hit is more dangerous than several small hits - and the current HKA mechanism will  generate a 9 BOD attack about 4-5x as often as a 6d6 killing attack will. 

 

I chose the Longsword, because it sits in the middle of the range as far as the current crop of muscle-powered weapons go, so these numbers suggest that we are probably in the right ballpark. These numbers mean that the two approaches will generate similar BOD - but the attack with the killing advantage will be more consistent in terms of getting STUN through defences, and while the HKA will be more likely to generate 'big hits' outside the normal range, the killing attack has the potential to generate rare, really big hits. It won't happen often, but when it does, people will notice.

 

There is actually a point to all this rambling (and it is related to the original post, even!) - when I get some more time, I will work through the rest of it.

 

 

cheers, Mark

[bluesguy]

I love these discussions.

 

For me I don't worry about it too much.  I know my players don't worry about it all

[mhd]

My current campaign just ended yesterday and we had quite a few snake eyes rolls, so this might just be the time to introduce this as a new rule, psychologically speaking.

 

I'm not quite sure about "killing stun" attacks, though. The ability to totally ignore any kind of natural resistance looks a bit too good for material weaponry, that's probably more suited to tasers etc., whereas even a good pick/mattock would have to compete with the Land Behemoth's layers of blubber.

 

Also, I'd feel more inclined to add regular PD to rigid armor as an additional benefit. Both chain and plate are quite good at defeating edges, but plate distributes the attack a bit better or lets it glance off. So chain might have rPD 5 and plate rPD6 + PD2. And you would need that, as converting to normal rolls would mean an increased amount of STUN compared to a KA with a 1d3 multiplier.

 

Strength adding normally to the damage role instead of a Min STR sounds nice, but I fear that this might devalue that stat a bit too much. If the campaign is somewhat realistic, even STR 15 would be very rare. So for most weapons, most people will be able to use them and add 1 die. Besides added brawling damage and encumbrance, there'd be little incentive to raise your STR.

If one uses lifting as a benchmark, using the alternative strength table from APG might extend the possible values a bit. Although even then, I don't think holding the world record in weight lifting equates to a STR 26, as that would include Pushing and using some kind of PS: Weight Lifting as a complementary skill.

[Markdoc]

My current campaign just ended yesterday and we had quite a few snake eyes rolls, so this might just be the time to introduce this as a new rule, psychologically speaking.

 

I'm not quite sure about "killing stun" attacks, though. The ability to totally ignore any kind of natural resistance looks a bit too good for material weaponry, that's probably more suited to tasers etc., whereas even a good pick/mattock would have to compete with the Land Behemoth's layers of blubber.

 

That's actually a good point. While I am happy to keep it in as an option (and you can actually already build something equivalent in the current rules), maybe it is too good for mundane weapons - particularly against big boss monsters.

 

Also, I'd feel more inclined to add regular PD to rigid armor as an additional benefit. Both chain and plate are quite good at defeating edges, but plate distributes the attack a bit better or lets it glance off. So chain might have rPD 5 and plate rPD6 + PD2. And you would need that, as converting to normal rolls would mean an increased amount of STUN compared to a KA with a 1d3 multiplier.

 

This should not be too much of a problem, if you are using hit locations - which I kind of assumed, and noted in the posts above - since the STUN multiplier for std killing attacks is 1/2 to 5, rather than a flat 3. So you will be doing more STUN on average with regular dice, but your damage will be less "spiky". When you run a spreadsheet with the different armour values, you actually end up doing about equal or a bit less STUN than with the current HKA rules - on average, so I don't think it will be too unbalancing.

 

I am a little concerned about the ratio of STUN to BOD generated though, as I'd like combat to be somewhat lethal - I don't want every fight to end with most of the fallen being unconscious but largely unharmed. One thing we lose with a move to normal dice is the attack that can inflict decent BOD but little STUN.

Strength adding normally to the damage role instead of a Min STR sounds nice, but I fear that this might devalue that stat a bit too much. If the campaign is somewhat realistic, even STR 15 would be very rare. So for most weapons, most people will be able to use them and add 1 die. Besides added brawling damage and encumbrance, there'd be little incentive to raise your STR.

If one uses lifting as a benchmark, using the alternative strength table from APG might extend the possible values a bit. Although even then, I don't think holding the world record in weight lifting equates to a STR 26, as that would include Pushing and using some kind of PS: Weight Lifting as a complementary skill.

 

 

This, on the other hand, I have no concerns about - realism or no, it's a rare fantasy game where there are no PCs (or NPCs for that matter) with STR in the 15-20 range. In my last campaign, with PCs built on 100 points (75 + 25 complications) starting STR ranged from 8 to 20 - that was with 5E, so figured characteristics were in play, but I was also charging 2 pts per point of STR. STR is excellent value for points, so I'd expect to see some PCs at least investing in it unless actually restrained from doing so. I'm not too fussed about real world numbers, since our benchmark here is Conan, not olympic medal winners. As long as stat.s remain in the "plausible" rather than "realistic" range, most players are happy.

 

Adding 1-3 dice with STR is one thing - but when thinking about rules, you also need to take into account the fact that characters will be adding damage from CSLs and martial arts. In a prior game (admittedly after several years of campaign play) the party's toughest warrior could generate a 4d6 RKA (12 DC!) if he devoted everything to maximising damage output. So, yeah, my assumption when playing with these numbers was that most healthy adults would be adding 1d6 to the damage, and tough opponents would probably be adding 2-3, but of course we need to look across a wide range when considering new rules.

 

cheers, Mark

[Christopher R Taylor]

The biggest advantage, in my opinion, of using the AVAD build is more dice.  4d6 is not only more satisfying to roll than d6+1, but it gives a more reliable result with that sweet, sweet bell curve.  Killing Attacks have always been disappointingly few dice with wild results and this would flatten things out better.

[Markdoc]

There's another reason (actually two reasons), which I have been working towards with these long rambling posts.

 

The first reason is simple - by increasing the number of dice rolled and allowing STR to add directly, we actually open up the useful range of DC a small bit. A 1 pip RKA was pretty useless, but a 1d6 killing HA becomes 2d6 in the hands of most people ... and you can haymaker or martial arts it up from there. Not something you want to take to a battle with armoured warriors, necessarily, but far from useless. The fact that everything works on the same dice mechanism, means we can more easily allow stacking (Haymaker, martial arts, STR, etc). This is because, by removing the spiky KA rules mechanism, we get rid of the problem of damage scaling. By that I mean that a  3DC KA will occasionally (but regularly, like 1 time in 6) put out the kind of STUN you expect with an 6 DC normal attack, while a 2d6 RKA will put out the kind of damage you'd expect of a 10d6 normal attack at the same frequency ... and hit locations amplify that problem. That's why more dice can be problematic when it comes to KA, and why we have a bunch of extra rules to try and deal with that.

 

Note; I'm still a bit undecided as to whether we should tone down the base damage for weapons, and assume that optional combat maneuvers are just part of 'normal combat' ... for example, if the base DC of a longsword is 4d6 killing and an STR 10 guy can add +1d6 killing and grab the hilt with who hands and haymaker it for another 3d6 killing (I am prorating it to take killing into account) .... we're looking at an 8d6 attack from a normal - that'll make a decent hole in chain mail and has an even chance of cutting through plate harness. And it will flatten all but the toughest hero if it connects with the torso or head. Not unrealistic, but .....

 

Anyway, the second reason is that I have been thinking about combat maneuvers.

 

Originally (at the beginning of this discussion), I had thought about the differences between the damage types as being inherent ... this is a impact weapon, this is a slashing weapon, etc. But actuuuuaaaallllly ... it's not like that in real life. Most scimitars are slashing weapons; they are certainly not impact weapons, and in general they are not great for stabbing ... but some are. The classic European knight's sword, though, is designed to do both slashing and stabbing .. well, except for some estocs, which are just stabbing weapons. You can slash with a spear, but mostly it's designed for stabbing. A halberd though, has a blade and a point. It's designed to do both. A mace is a bludgeoning weapon ... but a mace with 4 spikes is also a kind of stabbing weapon.

 

Where I am going with this is that perhaps we should think of slashing or stabbing or bludgeoning as combat maneuvers - they are something you do, not inherent weapon properties. Weapons are designed to facilitate those things to a greater or lesser degree.  What if slash/thrust/bludgeon were also treated as optional combat maneuvers, which gave you combat bonuses at the cost of penalties ... and that using the appropriate weapon type removed those penalties?

 

We already have similar things in the system - Brace and Set are combat maneuvers that give you a bonus in exchange for a DCV or time penalty, but which can only be used with ranged attacks. Extending that principle would allow us to add optional 'melee weapon only' combat maneuvers.  We already have weapon builds which lean in this direction - in Ultimate Martial Artist, hook weapons have +1 to Grab/Disarm, for example.

 

If we wanted to go that route (and though leaning that way, I am still not 100% convinced myself) the advantage is that these are optional maneuvers: nobody actually has to use them, any more than they have to use haymaker or Brace. That's nice and simple.  To make this useful, though, the maneuver would have to be simple to use, in the same way that Haymaker is - nobody wants to continually reconfigure their attack to add advantages on the fly.

I'm thinking that we could go something along the lines of:

 

Slash: +1 DC, -2 DCV, attack is treated as reduced penetration.

Slashing weapons gain +2 DCV with Slash

 

Trip/Disarm: -2 OCV, target can be tripped or disarmed

Hooked weapons gain +1 to trip or disarm

 

Thrust: +2DC, (Std effect, only to counter rPD), -2 OCV

Thrusting weapons gain +2 DCV with thrust

 

Pierce:  -2 OCV, attack is treated as Armour piercing

Piercing weapons gain +1 OCV with pierce

 

Crush:  -2 DCV, +2DC (std effect, stun only)

Crush weapons gain +1 DCV with Crush

 

The reason for using "std effect" here is to avoid adding any extra dice rolls that have a different effect for the base weapon damage. So 2d6 (Stun only standard effect) simply adds 6 stun to your overall damage: you don't need to roll, and you don't need to worry which are the stun dice and which are the normal dice. Likewise 2d6 (only to counter rPD, std effect) simply reduces rPD by 2. Again, you don't need to roll two different kinds of dice or whatever. You just subtract 2 from the defence.

 

So you could define weapons like this:

 

Knife; +1d6, killing (Thrust)

Dagger: +1d6, killing (Slash/Thrust)

Espada: +2d6, killing (Slash/Thrust)

Misericorde: +1d6, killing (Thrust/Pierce)

 

etc. 

 

Basically if it has a straight, pointed blade, it's probably a thrusting weapon. If it has a curved blade, or a broad cutting blade, it's probably a slashing weapon. If it has a spike, it's a piercing weapon. If it has a hammer or mace head, it's a crushing weapon. And of course, many weapons combined different features.  But the key difference here is that you can perform any of these maneuvers with any weapon, if you are prepared to accept a penalty. An epee is not really designed primarily to slash, but you can certainly slash with one. A swordsman faced with an armoured knight might not wish to try and pierce his armour with the blade but instead try and stun him by putting all his effort into a heavy blow with the hilt (crush) ... etc.

 

It's fairly fast and loose, but I think it could work to give a more realistic flavour than the approach we have now.

 

cheers, Mark

 

PS: this discussion has focused on muscle-powered weapons, but I have had in the back of my head the idea that the same approach could be applied to modern firearms, so I took that into consideration.

[Christopher R Taylor]

by increasing the number of dice rolled and allowing STR to add directly, we actually open up the useful range of DC a small bit. A 1 pip RKA was pretty useless, but a 1d6 killing HA becomes 2d6 in the hands of most people ... and you can haymaker or martial arts it up from there.

I agree, the granularity of the KA system has always been so small its difficult to open up any real distinction between weapons for interesting variety.  The 1 - 1/2 - d6 model worked, but it was so close together it didn't feel like much of a shift.  Adding a d6 feels more like a significant change in the effect.  Again, more fun for players, who I always felt were disappointed and uncomfortable with the dice of KAs.

 

Here's the million dollar question though, what do you do with increased stun multiple, which only is allowed for killing attacks in the rules?  My first inclination would be to leave them in, but only for settings that use the hit location chart (so you look at the nSTUN column and adjust by stun multiple) but that will give some huge numbers.  Hitting someone on the head could be x3 stun.  Do that with a 6d6 attack and you're looking at effectively 18d6 worth of stun damage - an average of 63 stun.  Maybe that's okay - a greatsword to the dome should be pretty stunning.  But that's going to knock a dragon on his butt, and maybe that's not what you want in a fantasy game.

 

An alternate choice would be to give a die or two extra damage - only for stun - rolled as part of the package (different colored dice?).  So you roll your 6d6 for the greatsword, then another 1 or 2d6 to represent the increased stun multiple:

 

6d6 roll: 6 body, 21 stun

stun multiple: 0 body, 7 stun (3.5 with 1d6)

total: 6 body, 28 stun (or 24 stun)

With a head hit that's still 56 stun (or 48), which is still pretty catastrophic.

 

It may be worth just reworking the entire hit location table to get rid of multipliers and go with straight adders.  x1 1/2 should be +1d6 maybe?  Or +2d6?  x2 could be +2 or 3d6.  That's what happened to Haymaker, to flatten it out a little.

 

Another option is to have the multiple take effect after defenses for stun just like body, so only what gets through gets increased.  Sure, you rolled 24 stun, but armor and PD soaked 16 of that, so you only get 3x8 for 24 stun to the head.  But that might end up being too little.

[Markdoc]

I agree, the granularity of the KA system has always been so small its difficult to open up any real distinction between weapons for interesting variety.  The 1 - 1/2 - d6 model worked, but it was so close together it didn't feel like much of a shift.  Adding a d6 feels more like a significant change in the effect.  Again, more fun for players, who I always felt were disappointed and uncomfortable with the dice of KAs.

 

My players haven't been uncomfortable with KAs, as such, but the fact that the rules have two different mechanisms for "I hit him with the thing" has clearly seemed a bit odd to them and caused some minor confusion in teaching new people the rules. But I agree that opening up the range of dice that are meaningful will give some more options.

 

 

Here's the million dollar question though, what do you do with increased stun multiple, which only is allowed for killing attacks in the rules?  My first inclination would be to leave them in, but only for settings that use the hit location chart (so you look at the nSTUN column and adjust by stun multiple) but that will give some huge numbers.  Hitting someone on the head could be x3 stun.  Do that with a 6d6 attack and you're looking at effectively 18d6 worth of stun damage - an average of 63 stun.  Maybe that's okay - a greatsword to the dome should be pretty stunning.  But that's going to knock a dragon on his butt, and maybe that's not what you want in a fantasy game.

 

An alternate choice would be to give a die or two extra damage - only for stun - rolled as part of the package (different colored dice?).  So you roll your 6d6 for the greatsword, then another 1 or 2d6 to represent the increased stun multiple:

 

6d6 roll: 6 body, 21 stun

stun multiple: 0 body, 7 stun (3.5 with 1d6)

total: 6 body, 28 stun (or 24 stun)

With a head hit that's still 56 stun (or 48), which is still pretty catastrophic.

 

It may be worth just reworking the entire hit location table to get rid of multipliers and go with straight adders.  x1 1/2 should be +1d6 maybe?  Or +2d6?  x2 could be +2 or 3d6.  That's what happened to Haymaker, to flatten it out a little.

 

Another option is to have the multiple take effect after defenses for stun just like body, so only what gets through gets increased.  Sure, you rolled 24 stun, but armor and PD soaked 16 of that, so you only get 3x8 for 24 stun to the head.  But that might end up being too little.

 

 

Actually, I have already thought about this a lot. Back during the 6E consultation period, I suggested dropping KA in favor of the AVAD approach we are discussing here and also discussed adding two new mechanisms. The first was increased STUN for normal dice (you simply add 1 to your rolled total, so 2 becomes 3, 4 becomes 5, etc) and the other was increased BOD for normal dice (a 6 counts for 3 BOD, 2-5 is 2 BOD, 1 is 1 BOD). The rationale was to build less-lethal attacks that did more STUN, relative to BOD or lethal attacks that did more BOD relative to STUN.

 

We worked through the maths and at +1/2, both mechanisms worked well (ie: were not unbalancing) until you started to buy multiple levels of the advantage out past +5. But in retrospect, I don't think either mechanism is needed. You can get exactly those effects by just buying extra DCs that do either no STUN or no BOD and I really prefer not to add extra rules just for the sake of extra rules.

 

So, given that, increased STUN modifier seems like it was a KA-specific advantage that can just go away along with KA. The exception, of course, is Hit Locations. I am leery of adding extra STUN there, since we are already increasing the STUN to BOD ratio by moving to normal dice and I don't want to push that too much further. 

 

I've already thought about alterations to the Hit locations chart. I did not mention that before because I wanted to focus the discussion on the AVAD mechanism, but my preferred solution is a simpler variant of what you suggest - adding extra dice. The problem with multiples is that, as you notice, the results can be catastrophic, especially once you get to larger numbers of dice. But there's another issue for me, which is that at lower levels of dice, head or vitals hits do relatively little. So stabbing someone in the throat with a knife often had little effect - you might as well have stabbed them in the shoulder.

 

But rather than complicating the system with extra dice that do only stun, I am thinking about simply adding extra dice to an attack for more vulnerable locations, or subtracting them for less vulnerable ones.

 

In other words, instead of a process that goes :

roll to hit > determine location > roll damage> Determine how much goes through defences>multiply damage that goes through defences

it would be:

roll to hit > determine location > add or subtract dice and roll damage> Determine how much goes through defences

 

The overall effect is the same - vulnerable locations cause more damage, less vulnerable ones cause less - but is even simpler than the mechanism we currently use. I am a big fan of simple, where that is possible. And since there are already multipliers to both BOD and STUN in the existing system, the fact that you can do more BOD with these extra dice is a feature, not a bug, in my eyes. 

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

And, since this is me we are talking about, you just know I have already run the numbers.

 

The current approach to Hit Locations is kind of complicated, in that we calculate bonus BOD damage after subtracting DEF, while stun damage is calculated before. I understand why the system was built like that - it's another rules artifact heavily influenced by the way KA work, and the need for a multiplier, but there is another factor as well, which is that if you multiplied BOD damage prior to defences even with normal dice, it makes armour behave quite differently.

 

Anyway, that makes for a complicated analysis, but it is not impossible. I ran two analyses, one for average damage rolls and one for what I called "realistic high rolls" using the same mid-line approach discussed above - a big guy with a longsword, doing 1.5 d6 HKA or 5d6 AVAD. A "realistic high roll" is something that can happen maybe 1 time in 100 or more. With a 5d6 AVAD attack, you can - in theory - roll 10 BOD and 30 STUN, but that's going to happen about 1 roll in 8000 - maybe once a year at an active gaming table. On the other hand, you can max out 1.5d6 about 1 time in 18, which means you are likely to see a maxed out roll in most combats where there are several characters involved.  

 

Using the current system of multiplying damage, the two approaches are very comparable but an analysis does highlight some interesting effects.

If you look at an unarmoured target, on limb hits, the AVAD does the same BOD but more STUN. On Head hits, the AVAD does less BOD but more STUN. And on torso hits it does less BOD and the same STUN. The differences are not huge, though - we are talking about 1 or 2 points. On realistic high rolls, the KA does significantly more BOD in all locations, but the AVAD does more STUN on Limb and Head Hits

 

When you move to armoured targets, the balance changes. For Chain mail (6 rPD), neither of those attacks do BOD on an average roll, but the KA starts to do significantly more damage on a high roll than the AVAD. And high rolls with KA are far more frequent, meaning that you can expect to do way more BOD over time. Interestingly though, STUN is almost exactly the same. Plate armour decreases the damage slightly, but does not change this dynamic. So under the current system, KA is unambiguously superior to AVAD against armoured targets, doing, on average more STUN and more BOD. 

 

If we move to adding dice for hit locations instead of multiplying (I chose to test -2d6 for Limbs and +4d6 for Head and Vitals, based on the idea that the average damage for random rolls should stay the same) the results are;

Against unarmoured targets, on average rolls, the AVAD does slightly more STUN and slightly less BOD than the KA does in the current system. It does about the same as AVAD does using the multiplier system for hit locations, though the distribution changes - limb hits hurt a bit more and head hits a bit less. The same is true on high rolls. Armour decreases the damage and "flattens the curve" from high to low value hit locations, but it does not make any huge adjustments to the damage levels we see now.

 

So it should not change the balance of combat too much - at least among humanoid vs humanoid combat. Though the precise numbers will change, in most cases if you need 2 hits to put your opponent down in the current rules, you would still need two hits to put them down, with a similar weapon. It does change the balance against big monsters (I'll get back to that).

 

What it does do, is three things I like.

 

1. It simplifies combat. Instead of calculating part of the damage pre-defences and part post-defences and then applying two different multipliers, you simply make one damage roll and subtract defences for STUN and BOD.

 

2. It makes limb hits less useless, and Head hits less devastating, while still making the head hits way better than limb hits. No player likes to hit his opponent,  roll 10 damage with his greatsword and then see the 4 BOD that gets through the leg armour being decreased to 2 ... hah! a mere flesh wound Everybody likes getting more damage on a head though, and I think that would continue, even if the effect was not quite as extreme.

 

3. The curve flattening starts to become pronounced when you move up to bigger attacks. I have already mentioned the PC in a former game who could generate a 4d6 HKA with a greatsword - on one occasion, she hit some poor slob for 18 BOD/90 STUN, which is going to drop just about anybody in a fantasy world and essentially makes any armour useless ... it would even make Dr Destroyer stagger! But if you are adding dice instead of multiplying, a big attack gets a bonus, but not such an extreme one. This reflects the change to Haymaker, where it nets you a 4d6 bonus, instead of the 1.5 x STR it used to. The reason I think this is good is because it avoids the scenario pretty much every GM has where a lucky headshot drops their boss villain in one, ending what should have been an epic encounter with one attack. It also allows us to increase the damage on attacks via martial arts and CSLs without the often devastating volatility that added to games.

 

In general, I am not a big fan of houserules, which often have unexpected downstream effects. That doesn't mean I don't use them, just that I only use them when I really think it is necessary. But I am seriously considering taking these two changes (dropping KA and changing AVAD to replace it, plus altering the way hit locations work) to my next game.

 

cheers, Mark

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm still pondering the suggested system of types of attacks.  My first instinct is that while it has a good feel in terms of theory and ideas, it is extra complication that 90% of players will care nothing about and will never use.  It will make weapons behave more like they should, but most players will find it too fiddly and too much work to bother with, so it won't ever come into play.  That's why I prefer things built into weapons so they just automatically do them rather than requiring special effort on the part of players.  Also, when you add martial arts into the mix, it gets even more complicated to attempt an attack, so I am inclined not to use the concept at all.

 

When it comes to hit locations and stun multipliers, I like them a lot for certain builds.  Adding +1 stun mod to hammers and maces gives them a punch and unique status.  Enchanting a weapon to be +1 to stun multiple is a powerful upgrade that is interesting in the game.  Dropping that entire system means a loss of flexibility and distinction and I don't like going in that direction.  Granted, the alternate attack type system you suggest would help offset that, but it doesn't really work well for me as noted above.

 

As for rolling extra dice, I don't think most players have a problem with that: the more the merrier, and just not counting body on a couple dice makes the damage easier, not more complicated.  I do like the idea of adding and subtracting dice in hit locations (and yes, before defenses) rather than multiples.  Multiples get out of control in an awful hurry, but adders are pretty flat and controlled.  Having adders for stun and body allows someone to just add a die or two to their damage with stun multiples.  The only question is how much?

 

Right now, +1 stun multiple is +1/2 advantage, and it can have huge effects when combined with hit locations.  It might be better to make StnX more granular, with +1d6 for +1/4 advantage, so you can stack them up.  After a certain point, its going to be very inefficient and not worth using - yes, you can get +8d6 with a +2 advantage, but that's really expensive, and is it worth it?  Probably not with most attacks.  Granted, in Heroic you're not going to see that cost most of the time unless its a spell, but still.

[Markdoc]

I hear what you are saying about building modifiers into weapons, but I still don't think we need a +1 STUN modifier advantage - you can get the same effect by adding an extra d6 of Stun only Damage to impact weapons (and I say that as someone who used to think that we did need it and playing around with the numbers for a few evenings). Indeed, one of the reasons for suggesting AVAD instead of KA, was the fact that it makes attacks very easy to customise. You can increase stun by adding STUN-only dice or lethality and armour penetration, by adding BOD-only dice, for example, as I did above.

 

I suggested using the modifiers as maneuvers, but there is no reason that they could not be 'baked in' to the weapons if you preferred. My concern about that is that it almost inevitably generates a 'superior' weapon that almost all PCs will then choose (then they wail about there being 'no choice' in weapons). That creates a magnitude of difference which is a bit unrealistic - whereas with the maneuvers, I balanced the advantages off with a disadvantage, so you can choose to use it or not. That way, weapons end up as better for specific purposes, but you don't get a weapon that is superior under all circumstances.

 

It also allows players to customise weapons in-game - If a player wants to add a hook to to the back of his axe, he can.

 

Of course, the maths is one thing - I'd have to playtest it to see how it played out in real life. But my experience, even with newbie players, is that they are cool with (indeed, they like very much!) combat maneuvers, as long as they are simple to use and understand.

 

Right now, +1 stun multiple is +1/2 advantage, and it can have huge effects when combined with hit locations.  It might be better to make StnX more granular, with +1d6 for +1/4 advantage, so you can stack them up.  After a certain point, its going to be very inefficient and not worth using - yes, you can get +8d6 with a +2 advantage, but that's really expensive, and is it worth it?  Probably not with most attacks.  Granted, in Heroic you're not going to see that cost most of the time unless its a spell, but still.

 

At +2 for +8d6, you could get a 9d6 attack for 15 points - generating an average of 1 BOD and 32 STUN. A regular 15 point attack would net you a whopping 3 BOD and 11 STUN on average. That's not enough BOD difference to be meaningful, but the 32 STUN is a guaranteed stun on almost any normal opponent and a one-hit KO on many. So that's not inefficient, it's super efficient - and the thing with stacking advantages, is the more you stack it, the more efficient it becomes. +3 becomes +12d6 pushing your average STUN damage to 45 and only costs 20 points, for example. A normal 4d6 attack is not very useful. A 1d6 +12 STUN modifier costs exactly the same, but should take down any mundane foe in one hit. 

 

So that's not going to work. If you really want to add a STUN modifier to normal dice, I played around with +1/2, just to add 1 to the average (adding a dice adds 3.5 on average!), and even then, stacking the advantage up can still generate overly-efficient builds (I commented on this in an earlier post). It's simpler (and safer) to just to add STUN-only dice if you want extra STUN. STUN damage is very important and often what actually takes a foe down: there's a reason it's a -0 limitation!

 

 

cheers, Mark

[Christopher R Taylor]

It's simpler (and safer) to just to add STUN-only dice if you want extra STUN. STUN damage is very important and often what actually takes a foe down: there's a reason it's a -0 limitation!

Clearly, that's what i had in mind with a stun multiple adding stun damage.  How would a stun multiple add body to begin with?  However, you're right about the stacking.  +1/2 to add +1d6 is probably fine; that would give you a pretty big thud but not any worse than the way hit locations and stun multiples work now.  I mean, +1 stun modifier with a head hit on a killing attack is x6 stun, so you can spend 15 points and get up to 36 stun!  That's even more than you listed above!  Its broken!!!!!  Except it isn't broken, and works fine.

[Markdoc]

Clearly, that's what i had in mind with a stun multiple adding stun damage.  How would a stun multiple add body to begin with?  However, you're right about the stacking.  +1/2 to add +1d6 is probably fine; that would give you a pretty big thud but not any worse than the way hit locations and stun multiples work now.  I mean, +1 stun modifier with a head hit on a killing attack is x6 stun, so you can spend 15 points and get up to 36 stun!  That's even more than you listed above!  Its broken!!!!!  Except it isn't broken, and works fine.

 

Adding Stun only dice is fine - under current rules it costs 5 points per normal d6 you add. My point was that adding a d6 for a +1/4 advantage (cost 1.25 points per d6) is way, way, too cost effective. Basically there's almost no reason you would ever not take it, since it is far more cost-efficient than buying more dice of damage.

 

For killing attacks under the current rules, the +1 Stun modifier at +1/2 advantage was acceptable, since a) a d6 of killing cost 15 points, so it cost roughly 7.5 points to add (on average) an extra 3.5 points of STUN. And of course, even at that pricing, the GM needs to scrutinise powers that stack high levels of STUN multiple, which is why it has a stop sign. Compare that with your suggested 1.25 points to add an extra 3.5 STUN to normal dice and I think you can see where the problem lies.

 

It's not that the concept of extra STUN dice is is bad - indeed, I think the concept is fine! The problem with the suggestion lies in pricing it as a +1/4 advantage. Even at +1/2, you need to be careful about stacking the current Increased STUN Modifier advantage too much. The current mechanism is not broken, but what you were proposing is 4x as effective, and therein lies the problem.

 

Personally I'd stick with the current pricing of a -0 limitation and just add extra stun-only dice rather than using an advantage on existing dice to add extra dice. Not only does the latter approach raise cost problems, but, in addition, that's a new mechanic. Right now advantages and limitations alter the dice of effect that you buy: there's no comparable advantage that just adds extra dice.

 

cheers, Mark

[Tasha]

Have you though of moving body out of the Primary column and into the secondary stats? Basically Turning Body into a stat similar to STUN and in the same numerical range of STUN (ie base 20 with averages of 30-40 depending on genre and character type). You do Killing damage as your AVAD, then just read the straight pips on the dice. It also means that armor can expand to be more than that narrow 3-8 that it is in Heroic games. You could say that Stun from the Killing attack is half the damage rolled on the dice. With Hit Locations modifying that number.

[Markdoc]

Have you though of moving body out of the Primary column and into the secondary stats? Basically Turning Body into a stat similar to STUN and in the same numerical range of STUN (ie base 20 with averages of 30-40 depending on genre and character type). You do Killing damage as your AVAD, then just read the straight pips on the dice. It also means that armor can expand to be more than that narrow 3-8 that it is in Heroic games. You could say that Stun from the Killing attack is half the damage rolled on the dice. With Hit Locations modifying that number.

 

That's a really interesting idea, and it's one that I haven't considered before. But it would have major implications for the game's play style, and a character designed for that game would not fit into a standard game.

 

On the whole, I like the way the system is balanced and don't want to want to change the overall style of the game too much. The changes we are discussing - dropping KA and using AVAD to replace it - don't introduce any significant changes or even much in the way of new rules: a Character built in a game using these changes could be moved back into one using pure 6E rules without any problems, and the changes suggested could be modelled purely using the current rules (though the pricing would be different and a bit more complex).

 

This also means that I can use published material with essentially no changes - just convert the KA over to AVAD blast, at the same DC, and you are done, pretty much. There would be some changes to play, of course: if there were not, it would be pointless to suggest rules changes. But the changes are ones of details and balance, rather than how the game plays.

 

As an example, in my fantasy campaigns, I no longer ask players to track END, except for special cases like magic use or calculating LTE, when that is relevant. The reason is because it was mostly pointless record keeping in a fantasy setting. In a fight, mundane characters pretty much never ran out of END: they are getting usually 3 actions per turn, using 1-2 END per action and getting post-12 recoveries, so on the whole they consume 0-2 END per turn. People almost always ended up dead or unconscious long, long before they ran out of END. So that's a house rule, but it has minimal effects on the way characters are designed or play.

 

cheers, Mark

[mhd]

Have you though of moving body out of the Primary column and into the secondary stats? Basically Turning Body into a stat similar to STUN and in the same numerical range of STUN (ie base 20 with averages of 30-40 depending on genre and character type). You do Killing damage as your AVAD, then just read the straight pips on the dice. It also means that armor can expand to be more than that narrow 3-8 that it is in Heroic games. You could say that Stun from the Killing attack is half the damage rolled on the dice. With Hit Locations modifying that number.

 

Which is basically what Fuzion did.

 

I don't even think the conversion itself would be a big issue (just triple BODY), but I've yet to see a good way to reconcile that with STUN. Taking half as STUN seems a bit unsatisfactory. You're dead before you run out of STUN. Which is why Fuzion and its derivatives mostly treat STUN attacks as separate or drop STUN altogether. (With short-term stunning being caused by large enough wounds or blunt trauma)

 

The normal damage roll is a great mechanic to model taking two kinds of damage, both being variable. But it naturally leads to a 1:3 BODY/STUN ratio.

 

[...]I no longer ask players to track END, except for special cases like magic use or calculating LTE, when that is relevant. The reason is because it was mostly pointless record keeping in a fantasy setting. In a fight, mundane characters pretty much never ran out of END

Take away the post-12 recovery, and things look slightly different. Well, my previous campaign did have rather low maxima, so at most we had STR 15 with rather high END values (>30), so even there voluntary recoveries where mostly about STUN. For the next one (where I'll introduce this new damage mechanic), we're using the characteristics templates from Narosia (where you just pick 5 pre-selected packages), which leads to a much lower END/STUN, so END might actually matter for once. Which is fine for me, as I tend to like mechanics that stretch out battles and creates lulls in combat, at least for Heroic-style games.

 

Anyway, my new game will start tomorrow, and there's even a chance that we'll get to play once the character creation is done… I'm going all out and will use the AVAD mechanism, the suggested maneuvers and the hit location modification. I do agree that more options in combat are actually fun and appreciated by the players, especially if there's no buy-in. And as we played without hit locations in the last campaign (which was the first exposure to HERO for some participants), having no separate STUNx/NSTUNx etc. multipliers but just simple added dice is actually a lighter load and will simplify things.

 

Well, at least that's what I hope it'll do. I'll definitely report back after the first few battles.

[Christopher R Taylor]

6th edition eliminated figured characteristics entirely, so that's not really an issue but its a thought in previous editions to consider.

 

I'll say this, a system like the one proposed by Markdoc would be a major simplification to the hit location table.  You wouldn't need a colum for ka and normal at all, just a stun column and a body column.  More room for marking down PD and ED armor

[Markdoc]

 

Take away the post-12 recovery, and things look slightly different. Well, my previous campaign did have rather low maxima, so at most we had STR 15 with rather high END values (>30), so even there voluntary recoveries where mostly about STUN. 

 

 

Yeah, in my own game, it was the same. END numbers were not skyhigh, but recoveries still tended to be almost entirely about STUN anyway.

Removing regular END use did not change the dynamic at all: recoveries with or without END were pretty much exclusively a defensive manoeuvre to recover STUN.

As noted, people tended to run out of STUN long before they ran out of END.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

6th edition eliminated figured characteristics entirely, so that's not really an issue but its a thought in previous editions to consider.

 

I'll say this, a system like the one proposed by Markdoc would be a major simplification to the hit location table.  You wouldn't need a colum for ka and normal at all, just a stun column and a body column.  More room for marking down PD and ED armor

 

If we went for the "Add dice solution", you wouldn't even need that: it'd just be a single column saying "add N dice".

 

But your post, together with MHDs, brings up an idea that I hadn't thought of before (but should have), which is that if we are messing with the hit locations chart, that we could use it to alter the ratio of BOD to STUN that you get with Hit Locations - in other words, use the Hit location chart to significantly alter the ration of BOD to STUN of normal dice, as well as boost or decrease damage. That's kind of what it did for killing dice, but it didn't really follow that logic for normal dice. That would solve the problem I have, with the fact that just boosting damage makes one-hit KOs likely, rather than boosting lethality.

 

I'll have to think about the numbers a bit.

 

regards, Mark