So today's brief is on damage reduction apropos of one of the comments below.
I have wrested with damage reduction over the years and have found no good manner in which to implement this particular aspect I like.
First I would need to part from the paradigm that AC de facto includes damage reduction. Both AC and HP can not represent damage reduction. In fact, AC as a whole would need to be removed.
My notes always come back to a defense rating, an exhaustion/minor wound rating (hp), and a wound rating (W). Armor becomes a manner of deflecting potential damage to either hp or W only (or fire, acid etc). Shields are something else.
I started with having armor quite simply to absorb a set amount of damage. I don't have access to any of those notes but as I recall, the damage absorbed was equal to the ac bonus. So chain was -4 (?) so it got a -4 damage reduction. One could do the same in C&C. That has problems. If the damage range is only 1-4, chain pretty much means one can not get hurt. I tried adding a save to that, meaning the armor make a save and if it succeeded, it reduced damage. And on it went. Lots of dice rolling to get to a wound. So, uhhh NO.
I began adding this and that and changing this and that. Some armor absorbed lesser damage against some weapon types, armor location became important as well as hit location, critical hits had differing effects etc.
So the 'breakthrough' was adding damage to the weapon so that I could reduce it. ????
Doesn't make sense, huh? No it does not.
I have always like the bell curve. It produces a nice averaging effect that mimics reality and produces predictability. So I kept adding dice to my damage. Got my average damages and the small bonus to damage became more meaningful.
Then, one afternoon I decided to have armor take away dice from the damage roll. So, a great sword would do 5 die of damage but plate mail reduces that by 4 die. Your hit always produces damage but the armor reduces the amount without any subtracting.
Just think of the number of die at the table though!
Davis
I have wrested with damage reduction over the years and have found no good manner in which to implement this particular aspect I like.
First I would need to part from the paradigm that AC de facto includes damage reduction. Both AC and HP can not represent damage reduction. In fact, AC as a whole would need to be removed.
My notes always come back to a defense rating, an exhaustion/minor wound rating (hp), and a wound rating (W). Armor becomes a manner of deflecting potential damage to either hp or W only (or fire, acid etc). Shields are something else.
I started with having armor quite simply to absorb a set amount of damage. I don't have access to any of those notes but as I recall, the damage absorbed was equal to the ac bonus. So chain was -4 (?) so it got a -4 damage reduction. One could do the same in C&C. That has problems. If the damage range is only 1-4, chain pretty much means one can not get hurt. I tried adding a save to that, meaning the armor make a save and if it succeeded, it reduced damage. And on it went. Lots of dice rolling to get to a wound. So, uhhh NO.
I began adding this and that and changing this and that. Some armor absorbed lesser damage against some weapon types, armor location became important as well as hit location, critical hits had differing effects etc.
So the 'breakthrough' was adding damage to the weapon so that I could reduce it. ????
Doesn't make sense, huh? No it does not.
I have always like the bell curve. It produces a nice averaging effect that mimics reality and produces predictability. So I kept adding dice to my damage. Got my average damages and the small bonus to damage became more meaningful.
Then, one afternoon I decided to have armor take away dice from the damage roll. So, a great sword would do 5 die of damage but plate mail reduces that by 4 die. Your hit always produces damage but the armor reduces the amount without any subtracting.
Just think of the number of die at the table though!
Davis
3 comments:
It comes down to speed of play for me. I love the idea of armor doing both, absorbing damage and making it harder to do damage (to hit) in the first place. Add on charts and tables of various weapon types versus armor types and...you're not playing an enjoyable rpg anymore.
A blanket "Armor absorbs half of its protection value in hit points from each blow, down to a minimum of 1 hp of damage." or something like that might not add too much overhead, with shields only adding to AC and not to damage absorption.
I agree with the speed of play. To have the feel of the S&S setting one needs speed of play and combat. All those computations = fail.
So, there I am stuck and looking.
Hi! What if armor type changes the damage die? Maybe something like 2d6 vs unarmored, 1d10 vs very light armor, 1d8 vs light/medium armor, 1d6 vs heavy armor, 1d4 vs the best armor.
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