Parry/block skills too high
Howling Fang
It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to get
hit.
I know there is an optional rule where you subtract the amount that the
attacker made his roll by from the defender's active defence....but, this
gets wrecked when you have other players in the group that don't have such
high active defences.
eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
So in order for me to get hit we have to play with the optional rules, but
if we do, the mage gets annihilated. And it gets kinda confusing when you
try to apply the rule to one set of combatants, but not another.
Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
Xiphias Gladius
> eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
> magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
> My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
What's he suppsed to defend with?
Historically, how would someone with only a mace defend himself against an
incoming attack? Answer: he wouldn't; he'd have a shield, since you
*can't* defend yourself with just a mace -- so what the hell is he doing
mixing it up with people hand-to-hand if he's got no defense?
> So in order for me to get hit we have to play with the optional rules, but
> if we do, the mage gets annihilated. And it gets kinda confusing when you
> try to apply the rule to one set of combatants, but not another.
> Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
Don't send your non-combat characters into combat?
- Ian
--
Marriage, n: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master,
a mistress, and two slaves, making, in all, two. -- Ambrose Bierce
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ian
SSBB Diplomatic Corps; Boston, Massachusetts
Wrathchild
> It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
> have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to
get
> hit.
>
> I know there is an optional rule where you subtract the amount that the
> attacker made his roll by from the defender's active defence....but, this
> gets wrecked when you have other players in the group that don't have such
> high active defences.
>
> magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
As to two high skill/defence characters sluggin it out - unless they start
feinting they'll never get each other. They could also try disarming or
smashing weapons and shields first (where PD doesn't help much). The system
provides the ways to do it - the characters just have to use them.
> My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
>
> So in order for me to get hit we have to play with the optional rules, but
> if we do, the mage gets annihilated. And it gets kinda confusing when you
> try to apply the rule to one set of combatants, but not another.
>
> Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
The points seems to be that things *aren't* even - you've got highly trained
slayers and a helpless (more or less) mage - you'll have to do something
else - like using full skill as the defence value or something - to even it
out. The system reflects the power of the characters in differen't
situations - if you're always fighting, the mage should learn how to handle
himself - learn the staff (mace? WHAT'S HE THINKING!) or the shield and get
some tough leathers to keep the blows away - or get really good at the
Shield spell (which provides PD) or Iron Arm spell (which allows high-skill
parrying). The system has the options for the mage to handle himself - he's
just got to use them (is there an ecco around here?)
Wrath
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
> magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
> My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
The mage is toast if he thinks he can play a fighter against your combat
monster ranger. This is as it should be. Leave the system alone, and
wiat for the mage to learn to stay away from combat like he's supposed to
do.
> So in order for me to get hit we have to play with the optional rules, but
> if we do, the mage gets annihilated. And it gets kinda confusing when you
> try to apply the rule to one set of combatants, but not another.
> Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
Sure, take the stats for ranger and write "mage" accross the top. Then
they'll be even at fighting. Untill then, a mage should get cut to pieces
whenever he goes toe to toe with a combat monster. Mages are supposed to
be smarter than that.
John
--
Remove the dead poet to e-mail, tho CC'd posts are unwelcome.
Ask me about joining the NRA.
Bryan J. Maloney
<mric...@iknowledgeinc.com> wrote:
> I am having some trouble in the fantasy campaign I'm playing in right now.
> It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
> have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to get
> hit.
That is not the problem. The problem is PD. Eliminate PD and much of the
problem witll go away.
> eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
> magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
--
For those in the know, potrzebie is truly necessary.
Gregory L. Hansen
Howling Fang <mric...@iknowledgeinc.com> wrote:
>I am having some trouble in the fantasy campaign I'm playing in right now.
>It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
>have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to get
>hit.
>
>attacker made his roll by from the defender's active defence....but, this
>gets wrecked when you have other players in the group that don't have such
>high active defences.
Use the other optional rule, use a contest of skills between the two
fighter's weapon skills, or weapon skill versus shield skill, and ignore
the calculated Parry roll. PD adds to defender, tie goes to defender.
I actually prefer something like that, because there is no doubt
whatsoever that against a sufficiently skilled opponent, your Parry will
not remain a straight 10 (or whatever it is). A sufficiently skilled
opponent can hit the average guy pretty much wherever and whenever he
wants.
The other thing you can do is use the Feint. That costs an attack, but if
nobody is hitting anyone anyway, that's not a big loss.
>eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
>magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
>
>My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
>
>So in order for me to get hit we have to play with the optional rules, but
>if we do, the mage gets annihilated. And it gets kinda confusing when you
>try to apply the rule to one set of combatants, but not another.
>
>Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
Why try? The ranger is considerably more skilled than the mage, is
wearing better armor, and has a shield. In melee, you just shouldn't
expect the mage to be able to do much of anything to the ranger. It looks
fairly realistic to me.
--
"A nice adaptation of conditions will make almost any hypothesis agree
with the phenomena. This will please the imagination but does not advance
our knowledge." -- J. Black, 1803.
Mark K Styles
>That is not the problem. The problem is PD. Eliminate PD and much of the
>problem witll go away.
Perhaps, just perhaps, a Broadsword Veteran (Skill 15) with Combat
Reflexes, with a Large Shield (PD4) and Plate Armour (PD4) should reasonably
be able to Parry 98% of shots against him, hmm. While the same guy woken up
in a Leather Jacket (PD1) can only Parry 38% of Attacks?
Another thing to remember is these are one second combat rounds (though
can take much more than that to play :-) ) and 1 solid hit every 60 seconds
between high Skill fighters is pretty reasonable, and these are "Really,
really hurt your foe"-level hits not just "Combat Sport score a point"-level
hits.
Mark K Styles
>eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
>magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
>My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
>Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
As for this, I'll simply reiterate "What is he doing at the front
lines?", and "Learn Staff."
Get him some Ranged spells he can use from the rear. Just from Basic,
any of the Missle Spells, Sleep or Blur and Major Healing to use on your own
party (i.e. the guys who make sure you never have to be on the front line).
Get Magic for more non-front-line fun or go all out and Johny One-Spell a
Staff-weilding, Deathtouch-casting Combat Mage if you want to be at the
front.
Mark K Styles
>Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>>That is not the problem. The problem is PD. Eliminate PD and much of the
>>problem witll go away.
> Perhaps, just perhaps, a Broadsword Veteran (Skill 15) with Combat
>Reflexes, with a Large Shield (PD4) and Plate Armour (PD4) should
reasonably
>be able to Parry 98% of shots against him, hmm. While the same guy woken
up
>in a Leather Jacket (PD1) can only Parry 38% of Attacks?
I'll correct myself here. It's Parry 14 with the PD6 Cap, so it's only
90% of Attacks in Plate and Shield and that only the Front from the Shield
Side which does him no good fighting two or three opponents (Possibly why a
lot of Knights were taken down by 3 or more Attacks from various angles).
> Another thing to remember is these are one second combat rounds (though
>can take much more than that to play :-) ) and 1 solid hit every 60 seconds
>between high Skill fighters is pretty reasonable, and these are "Really,
>really hurt your foe"-level hits not just "Combat Sport score a
point"-level
>hits.
This drops to about 1 hit per 15 rounds or so, but could be lowered to 1
hit per 5 rounds or so if they could Run-Around to Attack the Non-Shield
Side. Or they start Feinting and using thought instead of trading blow for
blow.
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >That is not the problem. The problem is PD. Eliminate PD and much of the
> >problem witll go away.
>
>
> Perhaps, just perhaps, a Broadsword Veteran (Skill 15) with Combat
> Reflexes, with a Large Shield (PD4) and Plate Armour (PD4) should reasonably
> be able to Parry 98% of shots against him, hmm. While the same guy woken up
> in a Leather Jacket (PD1) can only Parry 38% of Attacks?
Why? That flies entirely in the face of all serious research into this
area. Armor absorbs and spreads impact, it does not improve your parrying
ability.
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Mark K Styles wrote in message ...
> >Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >>That is not the problem. The problem is PD. Eliminate PD and much of the
> >>problem witll go away.
> > Perhaps, just perhaps, a Broadsword Veteran (Skill 15) with Combat
> >Reflexes, with a Large Shield (PD4) and Plate Armour (PD4) should
> reasonably
> >be able to Parry 98% of shots against him, hmm. While the same guy woken
> up
> >in a Leather Jacket (PD1) can only Parry 38% of Attacks?
>
> I'll correct myself here. It's Parry 14 with the PD6 Cap, so it's only
> 90% of Attacks in Plate and Shield and that only the Front from the Shield
> Side which does him no good fighting two or three opponents (Possibly why a
> lot of Knights were taken down by 3 or more Attacks from various angles).
It still contradicts serious research in the field.
Mark K Styles
What serious research? What were the results? And how would it be
better for the _game_?
Mark K Styles
>Why? That flies entirely in the face of all serious research into this
>area. Armor absorbs and spreads impact, it does not improve your parrying
>ability.
What, things suddenly don't glance off of solid, smooth, curved
surfaces? There is a difference between a solid hit that needs it's impact
absorbed and the numerous glancing blows in combat that really don't have a
lot of power because of the way they hit the person (and what he's wearing)
either because of the way they were defended and/or what they hit. The
mechanics of which are subsumed in the GURPS combat system by idea of PD and
the Parry.
Gregory L. Hansen
That's the difference between doing 2 points of damage and doing 10 points
of damage.
Blackberry
2000 08:24:24 -0600 reached theears of the unsuspecting...
>
>I am having some trouble in the fantasy campaign I'm playing in right now.
>It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
>have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to get
>hit.
>
>I know there is an optional rule where you subtract the amount that the
>attacker made his roll by from the defender's active defence....but, this
>gets wrecked when you have other players in the group that don't have such
>high active defences.
>
>magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
>
>My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
>
>if we do, the mage gets annihilated. And it gets kinda confusing when you
>try to apply the rule to one set of combatants, but not another.
>
I wouldn't. It seems fairly accurate to me.
Your ranger is better with a sword than something like 95% of the people on his
planet. In short, he is a verifiable Swordmaster. He is also beyond Master
level in shield parry.
The Mage has a relatively small, one-handed weapon, his clothes, and nothing
else. He's fairly good with the mace, but he's no master.
Have you ever watched SCA combat? In an SCA fight, the mace-wielder would have
only the slightest chance of actually defeating the swordmaster, and that would
only be due to a stroke of good luck on his part (i.e. seriously flubbed rolls
by the swordmaster).
--------------------
"It's enough to make you wonder sometimes if you're on the right planet."
-- Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Brian -- le...@NOnwlinkSPAM.com -- remove "NOSPAM"
Mark K Styles
Gregory L. Hansen wrote in message
>That's the difference between doing 2 points of damage and doing 10 points
>of damage.
Or a couple of points of PD and not quite getting hit (I would like to
see this appaently convincing research though). Because in order to
maintain the feel of normal GURPS combat you have to raise armour DR by some
factor if you lost PD or make combat even more deadly (which might be
realistic but loses something in a game), IMHO. Which would have it's own
problems by creating abnormal amounts of High-ST PCs just so they can
"crack" the armour. I think it is perfectely reasonable to have "Glancing
Blows".
And like I said these are one second combat rounds, if you added the
Lulls option you _might_ think about lowering PD but then you add the extra
work of Lulls, if you wanted to "reality check" things by time.
I guess I have never heard a good _game_ reason to get rid of it (the
mechanic works and intuitively seems right) or a RL reason that intuitively
makes it wrong.
What I would like to see done is some math (but no way I'd want to do it
:-) ). In the long run, at a range of skill levels (and with no fancy
Feinting or other thought), in one-on-one melee combat, 1 PD is probably
worth 2 or 3 DR, maybe a little more. But the math would be a nightmare.
If your major problem is with high Defenses and characters just not
losing/winning a combat after _only a few seconds_ even if both participants
are high skilled in good armour with shields, start Feinting or Running
About or Aiming at lower PD targets (hands are a good one). It seems to me
the mechanics are there to "deal" with stuff like that.
Or maybe you want to eliminate another number from the game for some
reason. In this case, I think that would trade a good chunk of "realism"
for not much more simplicity.
I'm willing to be convinced but the evidence and argument had better be
good because I think things work really well as is.
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Gregory L. Hansen wrote in message
> >That's the difference between doing 2 points of damage and doing 10 points
> >of damage.
>
>
> Or a couple of points of PD and not quite getting hit (I would like to
> see this appaently convincing research though). Because in order to
> maintain the feel of normal GURPS combat you have to raise armour DR by some
> factor if you lost PD or make combat even more deadly (which might be
> realistic but loses something in a game), IMHO. Which would have it's own
No, making combat greatly IMPROVES the game.
> problems by creating abnormal amounts of High-ST PCs just so they can
> "crack" the armour. I think it is perfectely reasonable to have "Glancing
Or maybe encourage them to use weapons that WERE HISTORICALLY USED TO DEAL
WITH HEAVY ARMOR!!!
The one-handed sword was considered useless against heavy plate armor
unless one thrusted. Likewise, even the two-handed sword was historically
only used for cutting against lightly-armored opponents. Againsts
somebody in full armor, it was used for thrusting at less-protected areas.
> I guess I have never heard a good _game_ reason to get rid of it (the
> mechanic works and intuitively seems right) or a RL reason that intuitively
> makes it wrong.
How about the way that weapons were actually used?
> Or maybe you want to eliminate another number from the game for some
> reason. In this case, I think that would trade a good chunk of "realism"
> for not much more simplicity.
It's unrealism eliminated, not realism.
> I'm willing to be convinced but the evidence and argument had better be
> good because I think things work really well as is.
Really? How much study have you made of actual European armor and
swordsmanship to come to this conclusion?
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >It still contradicts serious research in the field.
>
>
> What serious research? What were the results? And how would it be
> better for the _game_?
PD is just plain stupid. Somebody with a leather jacket on can DEFLECT BULLETS!
Bryan J. Maloney
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >It still contradicts serious research in the field.
>
>
> What serious research? What were the results? And how would it be
> better for the _game_?
Okay, let me turn it around: What research have YOU done in the area of
archaic European combat to convince you the mechanism is so very perfect?
I do know that SJG did zero research.
David P. Summers
Howling Fang wrote:
>
> I am having some trouble in the fantasy campaign I'm playing in right now.
> It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
> have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to get
> hit.
You can use feints. There in Basic.
> I know there is an optional rule where you subtract the amount that the
> attacker made his roll by from the defender's active defence....but, this
> gets wrecked when you have other players in the group that don't have such
> high active defences.
>
> eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
> magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
I've played with eliminating PD (except for shields). Defense rolls
become 2 + skill/2
Mark K Styles
BULLETS!
1 out of 50 times! Which is freakish enough to be okay and maybe even
"realistic" enough. I'm assuming you mean the fact you always get a Passive
Defense Roll.
Maybe the solution is as simple as not allowing that at "impossible"
numbers, as with other rolls. You'd need at least a PD3 (ex. Medium Shield
or Scale) to Roll for a 1 in 50 chance and at the max of PD6 (ex. Heavy
Leather and Large Shield or Plate and Small Shield) you'd have about 1 in
10.
There are less drastic solutions to solve the problem. The above might
do it all since you have a real problem with the idea of a "glancing" blow.
Mark K Styles
Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>archaic European combat to convince you the mechanism is so very perfect?
Nuh-Uh, you show me yours/cite first, nyah-nyah :-).
I can say I haven't done any, which is why I ask to see yours (or what
you've found). If I'd done it myself I'd be posting the results as proof of
my rightness.
But I've yet to be paid, and lack both enough background and interest,
to do it myself. What I've said is the GURPS method intuitively feels right
and better than others I've played.
>I do know that SJG did zero research.
How much would that have cost? All to "prove"/"disprove" a game
mechanic that works fine, so that people years later can be stopped from
nitpicking? What they likely did was play-test which is research of a sort
and obviously proved the game mechanic to their satisfaction.
Mark K Styles
I'll add deadly in there. How so? So there is less incentive to enter
combat? The style of the game and mentality of the players and the GM are
there to control that. GURPS combat is nasty enough comparitively. Besides
making it more deadly just alienates a large portion of the gaming community
who likes less deadly, more survivable, and fun combat. Economics will help
kill any changes that direction.
>Or maybe encourage them to use weapons that WERE HISTORICALLY USED >TO DEAL
WITH HEAVY ARMOR!!!
>The one-handed sword was considered useless against heavy plate armor
>unless one thrusted. Likewise, even the two-handed sword was historically
>only used for cutting against lightly-armored opponents. Againsts
>somebody in full armor, it was used for thrusting at less-protected areas.
Those weapons already have higher damages (most of the time). And a
typical person weilding a sword is already next to useless against Plate or
Plate and Chain. Not only do they have to deal with PD they barely get any
damage through when they do hit. If one wanted to add a rule that after
hitting DR4 or 5+ armour (metal?) some number of times (5 or 10?) the
cutting edged weapon (or cutting edge of the weapon) no longer did cut
and -1 damage (or lost F/VF bonuns) until sharpened the incentive to use an
Axe/Mace or THAxe/Mace is even higher. Think less drastic (which might also
mean more creatively) when considering anything other then House Rules.
GURPS has momentum or design an entirely new game system.
>How about the way that weapons were actually used?
Even if that's the case, make minor adjustments in the rules (see
above). This is an RPG, a genre where sword is King because it's the
coolest, easiest to relate to weapon. Not that it was for all of RL
history, but the genre has taken the sword a great weapon, and the coolest
looking armour, which just happended to be designed to defeat the sword
(IIRC) put them in a cage and the Sword came out King. It's the mass
market, right or wrong it makes the money (I generally consider the Wizard's
First Rule). It'd be hard to change. A start might be to have an Optional
rule like above to make the sword less attractive.
Or as I continually say use good charcter design and House Rules. As a
Knight of the heavy armour period (whenever that happened to be in your
world) know how to use a THAxe/Mace and use when fighting heavily armoured
opponents. As a GM, put the above rule in place to tone down edged weapons
on armour and set the example with effective NPC Knights who use the right
tools for the job. If the PCs don't get the hint when their swords don't
work and the other Knights (make them obviously lower point totals too just
rub it in :-) ) beat the tar out of them...
>> Or maybe you want to eliminate another number from the game for some
>> reason. In this case, I think that would trade a good chunk of "realism"
>> for not much more simplicity.
>It's unrealism eliminated, not realism.
Prove it and suggest a better game mechanic to replace the good one that
exists.
Shawn Fisher
Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>>
>>
>> What serious research? What were the results? And how would it be
>> better for the _game_?
>
BULLETS!
Oh, come on now Bryan. The levels it gets to do admittedly get rather high
(easily a 12+ for historically accurate troops), but the glancing effect of
armor, whether it be a Milanese garniture or the front glacis of an M1
Abrams, is well established. That it adds directly to Active Defenses,
that's debatable, but that's ok with me. I like to use no-armor-PD-enhanced
Defense rolls, and THEN allow a PD-only roll _if_ the strike hits. Thus,
shields are handy, and plate armor can save you, but everything else is a 3,
or a 3-4 at best. It works great for the bullet in a magazine
pouch/bible/dogtag/belt buckle phenomena as well.
SAF
Douglas Kilpatrick
<le...@NOnwlinkSPAM.com> wrote:
>>eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
> Your ranger is better with a sword than something like 95% of the people
> on his planet. In short, he is a verifiable Swordmaster. He is also
> beyond Master level in shield parry.
95% is only 19 in 20.
That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
Doug
--
Doug Kilpatrick
kilpatd...@erols.com
Wrathchild
"Douglas Kilpatrick" <kilpatd...@erols.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:8lr3d6$6uu$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
What the **** are you talking about? What kind of example is that? What is
"representative people" here? Do you think that if you pick 21 random people
on the street, that 1 or 2 of them will have sword-16 or above? Get a grip!
Wrath
Mark K Styles
>> That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
>> second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
>
>What the **** are you talking about? What kind of example is that? What is
>"representative people" here? Do you think that if you pick 21 random
people
>on the street, that 1 or 2 of them will have sword-16 or above? Get a grip!
Doesn't all it mean that in a group of 20 he is the best, in a group of
21 he has a 5% chance of finding an equal, in a group of 22, there is a 10%
that somone could match him, and so on, so that in a group of 40 he almost
certainly has an equal? And _if_ you consider 1 in 40 a good number for
Skill 17 he might just find a better in that group. I probably have the
distribution slightly off but it should be workably explained.
Mark K Styles
>If one wanted to add a rule that after
>hitting DR4 or 5+ armour (metal?) some number of times (5 or 10?) the
>cutting edged weapon (or cutting edge of the weapon) no longer did cut
>and -1 damage (or lost F/VF bonuns) until sharpened
After more than a few seconds of thought this might be made into a
workable system. Here's the first draft in Rule-like Form.
Keep track of the number of times a cutting edged weapon of TL strikes
armour of DR TL+1 or greater. If the number of hits exceeds the weapon's TL
it now does -1 damage and is now treated as a crushing weapon. The penalty
is eliminated by spending time sharpening the weapon, sharpening the weapon
also reduces the effective number of hits. Cheap weapons dull on armour of
DR equal to TL after TL/2 hits (round up). Fine weapons dull on armour of
DR equal to TL+2 after TLx2 hits, and Very Fine Weapons dull on armour of
TL+3 DR after TLx3 hits.
Not sure of the time required for sharpening but the old "around the
campfire at night" should do (a more detailed 1 hour to remove the penalty
and half an hour to remove each hit?). Anything along this lines should be
in a Compendium or Low-Tech book and optional for anyone who wants the
detail. No way I'd want anything like it in Basic, personally.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
Mark, Wraithchild is a stat normalizer. They have *faith* that a skill 16
is incredibly high. No amount of rational doscourse will dissuade them
from thier irrarttional belief. Just smile, nod, and let them on thier
way. It's safer.
Howling Fang
>The points seems to be that things *aren't* even - you've got highly
trained
>slayers and a helpless (more or less) mage - you'll have to do something
>else - like using full skill as the defence value or something - to even it
>out. The system reflects the power of the characters in differen't
>situations - if you're always fighting, the mage should learn how to handle
>himself - learn the staff (mace? WHAT'S HE THINKING!) or the shield and get
I'll tell you what he was thinking...we paly where when you are holding a
ready missle weapon it take up one of your hands...to hold the actual ball
of flame or whatever. So he needs a one handed weapon...which a staff ain't
(aside: his mace is actually a magical staff/mace that can be either, but I
was illustrating a point).
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Even if that's the case, make minor adjustments in the rules (see
> above). This is an RPG, a genre where sword is King because it's the
> coolest, easiest to relate to weapon. Not that it was for all of RL
To hell with cool.
Likewise, PROVE THE REALISM YOU CLAIM.
Bryan J. Maloney
wrote:
> X-no-archive: yes
>
> "Bryan J. Maloney" wrote:
> > PD is just plain stupid. Somebody with a leather jacket on can
DEFLECT BULLETS!
>
> Water, even very small amounts, can deflect bullets. So how much DR
> does water have?
How much PD does A VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF WATER HAVE?
Runesong
"Howling Fang" <mric...@iknowledgeinc.com> wrote:
> I am having some trouble in the fantasy campaign I'm playing in right now.
> It comes when you have two characters dueling one another and both of them
> have high weapon skills and high active defences. No one ever seems to
get
> hit.
Very simple. If your characters are honourable, duels should be fought with
one weapon (preferrably the same weapon) and NO ARMOUR. That should
rule out PD and DR, AND make duels much more interesting.
Of course, if you're from the D&D camp of duelling...
> eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
> magic +1 to all active defences and combat reflexes. Parry 15.
>
> My friends mage has a mace skill of 12, PD1 and that's it...his Parry 7.
Why are these characters duelling anyway? Would an honourable warrior
challenge a scholarly mage to a duel in the first place?
Mages have spells... he'll have to be pretty dirty to compare to the
warrior.
> Does anyone have any other ideas that might make it more even all around?
Other that the no armour deal, not really... sadly, stereotypes dictate that
fighters fight and mages cast spells, and the two are mutually exclusive.
(I prefer to play in High Mana area anyway, where anyone may learn magick
if they so choose...I HATE wasting points on Magery when I want a well-
rounded character :)
- Runesong
Runesong
"Bryan J. Maloney" <bj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> PD is just plain stupid. Somebody with a leather jacket >on can DEFLECT
BULLETS!
Aye, or bullets can be defected by leather jackets... that's
why it's PASSIVE defense. ;) 'Sides, PD1 or 2 won't matter MUCH against 2+
dice worth of bullet power.
- Runesong
Mark K Styles
ra...@westnet.poe.com wrote in message...
>> Doesn't all it mean that in a group of 20 he is the best, in a group
of
>> 21 he has a 5% chance of finding an equal, in a group of 22, there is a
10%
>> that somone could match him, and so on, so that in a group of 40 he
almost
>> certainly has an equal? And _if_ you consider 1 in 40 a good number for
>> Skill 17 he might just find a better in that group. I probably have the
>> distribution slightly off but it should be workably explained.
>Mark, Wraithchild is a stat normalizer. They have *faith* that a skill 16
>is incredibly high. No amount of rational doscourse will dissuade them
>from thier irrarttional belief. Just smile, nod, and let them on thier
>way. It's safer.
Aahhh, thanks for the warning they are a tough group to rationalize.
:-) I'd add a nod, there has to be an emoticon for a nod, but I don't know
it. :-) *nod*
I just thought the stats in the example were completely wrong.
Runesong
"Bryan J. Maloney" <bj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> > Even if that's the case, make minor adjustments in the rules (see
> > above). This is an RPG, a genre where sword is King because it's the
> > coolest, easiest to relate to weapon. Not that it was for all of RL
>
> To hell with cool.
>
> Likewise, PROVE THE REALISM YOU CLAIM.
Bryan, I know you have a thing with realism in GURPS, so I guess my question
is: Why does everything HAVE to have a logical, based on reality
explanation, and why do you harp on those who would rather play the game
than worry about historical data? :) BREATHE.
- Dru, aka Runesong
Mark K Styles
>> above). This is an RPG, a genre where sword is King because it's the
>> coolest, easiest to relate to weapon. Not that it was for all of RL
>
>To hell with cool.
Cool sells books (it's capitalism, right or more likely wrong, that's
what it is). House Rule the uncool yet real. I've given you ideas already.
>Likewise, PROVE THE REALISM YOU CLAIM.
Prove _your_ case. Things DO bounce of other things that's obvious.
SHOW this amazing evidence you have that disproves that fact. Why rounded,
smooth metal armour even if just as damage resistant as equivalent cloth or
leather is better? Just why does personal armour tend to be rounded not
flat polygons (it is somewhat structural admittedly but there is better
reasons)? Why is a tank sloped not just a thicker armoured box?
Prove me wrong, please try, and with more than two repetative empty
sentences (no offense intended but so far you've been very hard to discuss
with, and I read and participated in the recent G:T "debates").
I've given you _GAME_ mechanics that would really help what you see as
problems. You give me game mechanics that would work just as well.
Bryan J. Maloney
<sno...@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote:
> "Bryan J. Maloney" <bj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> > > Even if that's the case, make minor adjustments in the rules (see
> > > above). This is an RPG, a genre where sword is King because it's the
> > > coolest, easiest to relate to weapon. Not that it was for all of RL
> >
> > To hell with cool.
> >
> > Likewise, PROVE THE REALISM YOU CLAIM.
>
> Bryan, I know you have a thing with realism in GURPS, so I guess my question
> is: Why does everything HAVE to have a logical, based on reality
> explanation, and why do you harp on those who would rather play the game
> than worry about historical data? :) BREATHE.
He made a claim. I want to see it backed up.
Likewise, if something is bullshit, I don't like it.
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Prove _your_ case. Things DO bounce of other things that's obvious.
> SHOW this amazing evidence you have that disproves that fact. Why rounded,
> smooth metal armour even if just as damage resistant as equivalent cloth or
> leather is better? Just why does personal armour tend to be rounded not
Prove that it improves parrying ability. THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE CLAIMED!
> flat polygons (it is somewhat structural admittedly but there is better
> reasons)? Why is a tank sloped not just a thicker armoured box?
Show that tanks parry and I'll discuss the relationship of their armor to
their parrying.
> I've given you _GAME_ mechanics that would really help what you see as
> problems. You give me game mechanics that would work just as well.
Easy: Eliminate PD.
So combat's bloodier--that's a good thing.
Wrathchild
??????
What's that?
Wrath
Wrathchild
Man, and I was just about to chime in on your behalf in the slugmatch with
Bryan above. Oh well.
Wrath
Wrathchild
"Mark K Styles" <mkst...@netcom.ca> skrev i en meddelelse
news:PXbg5.38051$qS3....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
> Wrathchild wrote in message ...
> >> That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
> >> second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
> >
> >What the **** are you talking about? What kind of example is that? What
is
> >"representative people" here? Do you think that if you pick 21 random
> people
> >on the street, that 1 or 2 of them will have sword-16 or above? Get a
grip!
>
>
of
> 21 he has a 5% chance of finding an equal, in a group of 22, there is a
10%
> that somone could match him, and so on, so that in a group of 40 he almost
> certainly has an equal? And _if_ you consider 1 in 40 a good number for
> Skill 17 he might just find a better in that group. I probably have the
> distribution slightly off but it should be workably explained.
>
How so? I don't get it. What are the axioms here?
Wrath
Mark K Styles
Wrathchild wrote in message...
>Man, and I was just about to chime in on your behalf in the slugmatch with
>Bryan above. Oh well.
My sincere apologies if you were called something you are not. I
usually don't make snap judgments like that, but I haven't been around here
long enough to really be able to "know" people, so I sometimes have to take
other's word for things. But a hard-core "stat-normalizer" (I'll now admit
I don't know enough to make that judgement on you) like a hard-core anything
is hard to rationalize with.
I actually think I was agreeing with you before Raven stepped in, at
least I hope it sounded that way. I was trying to support your point
against Douglas. I make no judgement as to the commoness of Skill 16 or 17
I just thought Douglas' example made as much sense as it obviously did to
you. Now I have to be careful about not offending Douglas by saying
statistics are funny things and can be confusing if read literally.
Wrathchild
Right ho ;-)
Wrath
Mark K Styles
Enough already with the all caps. Settle, I can read the little letters
just as well with a less negative connotation.
Assume for a moment that in the GURPS game a Parry is moving an
opponent's weapon out of the attack path with your weapon (it is but just
assume for now). That attack path is the path the weapon needs to follow in
order to _solidly_ contact the person and his armour if any in a way that
gives enough power to do damage to the person and/or his armour. An
unarmoured person can be hit at nearly any angle and the weapon will "bite"
and do damage so he has a fairly wide attack path that can cause him damage.
Add a leather jacket and not only do you add resistance to damage from a
good hit you add a few smooth curved bits (not many) that narrow the
available attack path. Add a metal corslet and you've just added lots of
curved smoothed surfaces and closed off even more of the attack path. Add a
shield and you've just closed off a large chunk off the path to a damaging
hit. The narrower the attack path the easier it is for the defender to use
his weapon to move his opponent's weapon out of that attack path to a path
that misses or can not "bite" enough to do damage.
Does that not sound at all like Parry (the ability to move your weapon
in a way that moves the opponent's weapon where you want it to) with Added
PD (your Parry is easier beacause there are more places to move your
opponent's sword where it won't do any damage to you)? There is the
explanation.
The other possible choice to model this would have been that PD
subtracts from the attacker's skill. The best game way to model this might
be that up to PD4 adds to defense and PD over 4 subtracts from the
opponent's skill. That way the 3d6 mechanic is better served statistically
(and no arbitrary PD6 cap is needed).
>Show that tanks parry and I'll discuss the relationship of their armor to
>their parrying.
I was under the assumption that one of your major concerns was the
Passive Defense roll. I'm also sure that if tanks did Parry (see Mecha for
ones that do) PD would add to Parry, both in RL and especially in GURPS.
>Easy: Eliminate PD.
>So combat's bloodier--that's a good thing.
Why is it a good thing, you've never said? I've explained that
economics would be against it, that I think it's fine as deadly as it is,
and that the GM and his world serve to control incentive to enter combat (or
should to fit the feel of the chosen genre).
ra...@westnet.poe.com
>>Man, and I was just about to chime in on your behalf in the slugmatch with
>>Bryan above. Oh well.
> My sincere apologies if you were called something you are not. I
> usually don't make snap judgments like that, but I haven't been around here
> long enough to really be able to "know" people, so I sometimes have to take
> other's word for things. But a hard-core "stat-normalizer" (I'll now admit
> I don't know enough to make that judgement on you) like a hard-core anything
> is hard to rationalize with.
FWIW, It was a snap judgement on my part, and possibly uncalled for, if so
I appologize. Through a bunch of smileys in there if it helps.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
>> Mark, Wraithchild is a stat normalizer.
> ??????
> What's that?
The Stat-normailzation cult is a group of people who belive that the vast
majority (like 95%) of people all have stats in the 9-11 range. That
skills above 12 are uncommon, and 15 represents people who are tops in
their field. Any character with a stat above 13 is either world famous,
or highly cinematic.
Needles to say, I disagree with this assesment, and find that those who
espouse it's view to take many viewpoints that are not, to my reckoning,
rational or reasonable.
However, I may very well have been hastey in my aspersion. I
appologize. My remarks were largely in jest. I hope I have not offended.
Bryan J. Maloney
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >Prove that it improves parrying ability. THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE CLAIMED!
>
> Enough already with the all caps. Settle, I can read the little letters
> just as well with a less negative connotation.
> Assume for a moment that in the GURPS game a Parry is moving an
> opponent's weapon out of the attack path with your weapon (it is but just
> assume for now). That attack path is the path the weapon needs to follow in
> The other possible choice to model this would have been that PD
> subtracts from the attacker's skill. The best game way to model this might
Neither is a good way to model deflective effects of armor and this has to
do with GURPS's use of 3d6 as a resolution method. If you have to use PD
at all, it should be as a roll on its own without any input from active
defenses.
> be that up to PD4 adds to defense and PD over 4 subtracts from the
> opponent's skill. That way the 3d6 mechanic is better served statistically
> (and no arbitrary PD6 cap is needed).
Again, you run into the 3d6 problem.
>
> >Show that tanks parry and I'll discuss the relationship of their armor to
> >their parrying.
>
>
> I was under the assumption that one of your major concerns was the
> Passive Defense roll. I'm also sure that if tanks did Parry (see Mecha for
> ones that do) PD would add to Parry, both in RL and especially in GURPS.
No. My complaint is adding PD to the active defense roll. If GURPS were
a purely linear dice roll, it would be less of a problem, but since it
uses 3d6, the bonus given by PD is out of proportion. That is +1 does not
equal +1. Some +1 is better than a different +1.
> Why is it a good thing, you've never said? I've explained that
It punishes weenie players. If I want to play D&D, I'll play D&D (and I
do from time to time).
Bryan J. Maloney
> Wrathchild <wrath...@get2net.dk> wrote:
> >> Mark, Wraithchild is a stat normalizer.
>
> > ??????
>
> > What's that?
>
> The Stat-normailzation cult is a group of people who belive that the vast
> majority (like 95%) of people all have stats in the 9-11 range. That
> skills above 12 are uncommon, and 15 represents people who are tops in
> their field. Any character with a stat above 13 is either world famous,
> or highly cinematic.
Yeah, people like Steve Jackson and Kromm. Try getting anything outside
that past them as a "real" person.
Mark K Styles
>at all, it should be as a roll on its own without any input from active
>defenses.
And why is that? It makes you harder to hit whether you stand still or
do something about being hit. I'll deal somewhat with your linearity issue
later but for now... The rationale I gave earlier covers why it makes and I
see you switched to attacking linearity instead of the glancing effect. If
you first make yourself harder to hit and than actively do something about
not getting hit one would think those efforts would be additive and mutaully
beneficial.
>> Why is it a good thing, you've never said? I've explained that
>It punishes weenie players. If I want to play D&D, I'll play D&D (and I
>do from time to time).
GURPS combat is already many times more deadly and messy than AD&D
combat and I've found it a good "realistic" gaming compromise between
hacking your way through the hordes invincibly and death by a really good
paper cut. One's character would hopefully live long enough to be played
well and developed. If you don't want to get into combat don't. As a
player, talk your way out of it, sneak around, or run like hell. As a GM,
give player's an option other than combat as fits the feeling of your genre.
You seem the vast minority so far and a good House Rule or two and
adjustments in your play style should solve your problem, whatever it may
be, rather than force feeding the ""solution"" to the masses in some
retooled Fouth Edition.
[Some rearrangment follows to group these phrases]
>do with GURPS's use of 3d6 as a resolution method.
>Again, you run into the 3d6 problem.
>No. My complaint is adding PD to the active defense roll. If GURPS were
>a purely linear dice roll, it would be less of a problem, but since it
>uses 3d6, the bonus given by PD is out of proportion. That is +1 does not
>equal +1. Some +1 is better than a different +1.
So now you attack the bell curve that GURPS is based on? I have a shelf
partially full of linear or more linear games, in d20, d%, d6 and even
cards, if you'd like a recommendation.
Now past that, why do you not attack the fact that Skill-15 and Skill-16
are not related in the same way as Skill-14 and Skill-15. Oh wait... you do
attack the linearity of the skill system! Better question then I guess, why
don't you attack the range modifiers on magic spells (-1/hex but what if the
mages had different Skills surely -1 is not -1 then) or modifers to Hit
Locations (-2 for the Arm but -2 at Skill-12 is by no means -2 at Skill-20,
no siree bub). My offer of a recommendation stands, I liked Palladium
pre-Rifts but it's a lot like AD&D.
Perhaps events in real life are best modelled on a bell curve (things do
tend to have averages and cluster around the average). Maybe not. It works
for a game, certainly, in most reasonable cases (everything breaks at the
very extremes that one of the reasons they are called extremes). What 3d6
_might_ be is granular, but it is convenient for a game system. Not only
does almost everyone own d6 and therefore they are not all wierd with
strange numbers of sides using three of them has 10 as the average, a nice
fit with the decimal system. I suppose on could have used a 3d20 mechanic
with the average set at 30 to reduce that but I don't think it would be the
same. I saw the Buffy FUDGE site that showed up in that thread and it had a
lot of mechanics that looked like your suggestions what about that.
I'll hopefully help by commenting on House Rules you want discussed but
you have yet to raise a good argument for changing the _game_, the ways you
suggest, in a 4e.
Douglas Kilpatrick
<mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> I actually think I was agreeing with you before Raven stepped in, at
> least I hope it sounded that way. I was trying to support your point
> against Douglas. I make no judgement as to the commoness of Skill 16 or
I was just addressing the "95%" part, not the "Rarity of Skill 16" part. I
do not pretend to have any idea how common a skill of 16 is, but 95th
percentile merely means "better than 19 in 20".
Doug
--
Doug Kilpatrick
kilp...@erols.com
Mark K Styles
Douglas Kilpatrick wrote in message...
>>I was just addressing the "95%" part, not the "Rarity of Skill 16" part.
I
>do not pretend to have any idea how common a skill of 16 is, but 95th
>percentile merely means "better than 19 in 20".
But not "automatically second best in a group of 21". That was my
point.
Wrathchild
>
> > ??????
>
> > What's that?
>
> The Stat-normailzation cult is a group of people who belive that the vast
> majority (like 95%) of people all have stats in the 9-11 range. That
> skills above 12 are uncommon, and 15 represents people who are tops in
> their field. Any character with a stat above 13 is either world famous,
> or highly cinematic.
>
> espouse it's view to take many viewpoints that are not, to my reckoning,
> rational or reasonable.
>
> However, I may very well have been hastey in my aspersion. I
> appologize. My remarks were largely in jest. I hope I have not offended.
>
> John
Ok, so that's what we're talking about. No, I don't actually recognize
myself in the above definitions, although I generally argue with an eye
towards the definitions of attributes and skill levels presented i the Basic
Set - and if that is the definition of a stat normalizer I guess I could be
one. I tend to set a cap of 100 (or even 60 at one time!) points on
attributes in character generation (when I'm the GM) - I don't know if that
would contribute to my stat-normalizationess ;-)
However, attributes - and thereby skills - and the relation between
different levels are defined, I believe, around the concepts and principles
used in Intelligence Scales. A character of IQ 12 is defined as having an
Intelligence Quotient of 120. This is more or less superimposed on the other
attributes as well. All this is bell curve country.
Two of the most well-known Intelligence tests - and therefore the tests that
has contributed most to the public image of IQ's and such in the western
hemisphere - are the Wechsler Intelligence Scales and the Stanford -Binet.
Both of these tests have an average IQ of 100, an hence, I guess, the GURPS
mean of 10. Results form such tests generally compare the individual with a
statistical survey of the population at large. The IQ of 100 actually means
"a score of 100 points on the test, which is the average score of the
population you are compared with". An IQ of 120 is 120 points on the test.
Both tests have very similar standard deviations, 15 and 16 respectively.
The short story here is that the statistical material shows (which may or
may not have anything to do with reality) (see eg. Anastasi, 1990, p. 75+
and 237+) that:
* 68.26% (or 7 out of 10) of the population will have an IQ within 100+/- 1
* standard deviation , that is between ca. 84 and 116, ca. GURPS IQ 8-12.
* 27.18% (or 3 out of 10) of the population will have an IQ within 100+/- 2
* standard deviation , that is between ca. 68-83 and 117 to 132 ca. GURPS IQ
7-8 or 12-13.
* 4.28% (or 1 in 25) of the population will have an IQ within 100+/- 3 *
standard deviation , that is between 52-67 and 133-148, ca. GURPS IQ 5-7 or
13-15.
(Funny thing is: 3d has a mean of ... 10.5 and a SD of 1.5, i think (someone
correct me) - pretty close to 1/10th of the above)
A single digit per mil number (x in 1000 or below) of people will
attribute-wise be outside these numbers.
With the superimposition by GURPS onto other attributes, the same goes for
them, within the context of the game. This is wholly arbitrary, of course,
and has no basis - that I know of - in science or other things.
Attributes in then placed as raw talent, especially in the cases of IQ and
DX, and form the basis of skills, as we all know. How many character points
put in a skill then determines skill level.
Skill 16 with the broadsword (which is where all this started) costs
different cp's at different DX levels (yes I know you all know that, but
bear, ok?). DX 12 = 24 points, DX 13 = 16 points. This, again according to
the rules (and not saying if they ar realistic or not) represents between 24
or 16 * 200 hrs study (qqv. 4800 and 3200 hrs, 600 8-hour days or 400 8-hour
days) or the experience of equivalent practice, which will reduce the number
of days some, but not below 50% I'll venture.
So!
To state that you have a 4-5% chance of finding a Broadsword-16 guy in a
random crowd to me is ... ridiculous, even given the most militant and
primitive of ages. The sample would have to include a person with a DX well
outside the "normal" range, that futhermore has invested upwards of a year's
(minimum!) activity in gaining that one skill at that level (study and
practical experience). The chance is deep in the per mil range, if even that
high, to find someone like that in a crow of 20 people. If that was not what
was stated I'll gladly hear about what was.
AND ALL THIS IN IN GAME CONTEXT. I DONT CARE ABOUT THE REAL WORLD HERE! ITS
ARBITRARY, RELATIVE, COMPRESSED AND EXPANDED AND BENT AND ... AND ... AND
...
Just a game ... (I've got to remember that .. got to ...)
Wrath, professional psychologist
Gregory L. Hansen
Douglas Kilpatrick <kilpatd...@erols.com> wrote:
>In article <8lq89s$k...@edrn.newsguy.com>, Blackberry
><le...@NOnwlinkSPAM.com> wrote:
>
>>>eg. My ranger has a sword skill of 16, PD2(armor), medium shield(PD3),
>
>> on his planet. In short, he is a verifiable Swordmaster. He is also
>> beyond Master level in shield parry.
>
>95% is only 19 in 20.
>
>That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
>second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
In a group of 21 people, the ranger has a 34% chance of being better than
anyone there.
Depending on the people, of course. If you select randomly among modern
Americans, chances are he's better than anyone there. If you select
randomly among modern SCA fans, chances are still good that he's better
than anyone there, since I doubt any SCA fan with a day job can or would
dedicate himself to the same kind of training that a professional sword
swinger would. If you select among Roman Centurians, or British Knights,
he might be a lot closer to average.
--
"A nice adaptation of conditions will make almost any hypothesis agree
with the phenomena. This will please the imagination but does not advance
our knowledge." -- J. Black, 1803.
Douglas Kilpatrick
glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu (Gregory L. Hansen) wrote:
> In article <8lr3d6$6uu$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>, Douglas Kilpatrick
> <kilpatd...@erols.com> wrote:
>>That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(just thought I would point out that word)
>>second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
> In a group of 21 people, the ranger has a 34% chance of being better than
> anyone there.
19/20^21 ~= 0.34, sure nuf. Weird.. my intuition was telling me that his odds
were better than that. I was expecting something in the low 40's...
So in any random group of 21 people in a population in which a skill of
16 is a 95 percentile skill, there is nearly a two-in-three chance that
our hypothetical ranger will not be the best swordsman in the group.
Better? Still doesn't quite sound as impressive as
>>> Your ranger is better with a sword than something like 95% of the people
>>> on his planet. In short, he is a verifiable Swordmaster.
Doug
--
Doug Kilpatrick
kilp...@erols.com
Douglas Kilpatrick
<kilpatd...@erols.com> wrote:
> 19/20^21 ~= 0.34, sure nuf. Weird.. my intuition was telling me that his
> odds were better than that. I was expecting something in the low 40's...
Um, off by one error. Since the group is 21 people, and the ranger is a
part of that group, there are 20 people to test for sword skill, not 21.
(19/20)^20 ~= 36%. So its not much of a difference.
Mark K Styles
Douglas Kilpatrick wrote in message...
>> In a group of 21 people, the ranger has a 34% chance of being better than
>> anyone there.
>
>19/20^21 ~= 0.34, sure nuf. Weird.. my intuition was telling me that his
odds
>were better than that. I was expecting something in the low 40's...
>
>So in any random group of 21 people in a population in which a skill of
>16 is a 95 percentile skill, there is nearly a two-in-three chance that
>our hypothetical ranger will not be the best swordsman in the group.
Please correct me, I never liked statistics IF I could avoid them. But
am I missing something?
You are taking 20 people and Our Swordsman has already been shown to be
the best (with Skill-16 and 95% percentile _only_ for the sake of argument).
Your are then going back to the general Pool of people and looking for
another individual. That individual has a 1 in 20 chance of being equal _or
better_ than Our Swordsman. You compare them and if Our Swordsman is better
you discard the new guy. You then go back to the general Pool and if it's
big enough there is still a 95% chance the next guy is worse than Our
Swordsman.
So after 20 additional people, 40 total, the is only a .95^20= 35.8%
chance that we have NOT found someone equal to or better the Our Swordsman
or a 64% chance we did. After a 100 total people, we have a 98.3% chance of
having found an equal or better for Our Swordsman.
Am I wrong?
Paul T.
"Mark K Styles" <mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote in message
news:pkmg5.38495$qS3....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>
> Enough already with the all caps. Settle, I can read the little
letters
> just as well with a less negative connotation.
> Assume for a moment that in the GURPS game a Parry is moving an
> opponent's weapon out of the attack path with your weapon (it is but just
> assume for now). That attack path is the path the weapon needs to follow
in
> gives enough power to do damage to the person and/or his armour. An
> unarmoured person can be hit at nearly any angle and the weapon will
"bite"
> and do damage so he has a fairly wide attack path that can cause him
damage.
> Add a leather jacket and not only do you add resistance to damage from a
> good hit you add a few smooth curved bits (not many) that narrow the
> available attack path. Add a metal corslet and you've just added lots of
> curved smoothed surfaces and closed off even more of the attack path. Add
a
> shield and you've just closed off a large chunk off the path to a damaging
> hit. The narrower the attack path the easier it is for the defender to
use
> his weapon to move his opponent's weapon out of that attack path to a path
> that misses or can not "bite" enough to do damage.
The other way to explain this situation:
If the weapon was going to hit the person near the edges (where it would
bounce
off existing armor), then it would be a glancing hit, armor or no. In other
words,
it is doing low damage. The armor's DR takes good care of this.
Yes, sloped armor does deflect hits--tanks and such are an obvious example.
However, parrying involves deflecting opponent's weapon with your weapon,
and, more importantly, moving your body _out of range_. Trying to move your
body aside so the attack misses is an extremely unreliable method to avoid
being hit. Someone who is parrying is not going to do that, unless you want
to move into the realm of abstraction and say that this person's combat
experience (high weapon skill) allows them to dodge better. While this makes
sense, the rules simply do not allow for it.
Removing PD solves a lot of problems with high AND low defenses--when people
complain about high defenses it is almost always because of PD, and defenses
are very low in GURPS because they have to balance the effect of the PD.
DR solves these problems in a very simple way, and while the realism is
arguable,
it is certainly no LESS realistic than current PD mechanics.
Yes, attacks glance off armor due to factors _other_ than the fact the
weapons
cannot penetrate the material the armor is made out of, but this is very
difficult
to model in a game, and can be ignored since DR handles this with an end
effect which is just as realistic and complete.
I would say that PD for things like tanks with sloped armor is better
handled
by penalties to the attack roll. The sloped armor effectively reduces the
target
area that the attacker can strike with any chance of doing damage. And Bryan
has already pointed out that this tank is not parrying in any way.
If armor should have any effect at all on parrying, it might come from lack
of mobility (resulting in a reduced parry). PD is a very very very arbitrary
thing. Realism--shaky. Playability--causes a lot of problems. Hence, many
of us have deleted it from te system.
Does this agree with your reasoning, Bryan? And priestma?
P.
prei...@my-deja.com
> myself in the above definitions, although I generally argue with an
> eye towards the definitions of attributes and skill levels presented i
> the Basic Set - and if that is the definition of a stat normalizer I
> guess I could be one.
Probably not. Stat Normalizer is more like "Garibaldi can't have a
Strength of 13 because he doesn't shatter people's jaws when he punches
them" (to rephrase a past example). Of course, one can interpret the
subjective descriptions in the Basic Set in myriad ways...
> I tend to set a cap of 100 (or even 60 at one time!) points on
> attributes in character generation
FWIW and IMHO, the suggestion tucked in the back of CII to assign both
character points and a certain amount of experience points to be spent
while designing the character works out better. Simply capping
attributes can lead to weirdly large amounts being spent on Advantages.
There are other ways to get around this, but the cp+ep method seems
elegant - YMMV.
> used in Intelligence Scales. A character of IQ 12 is defined as having
> an Intelligence Quotient of 120. This is more or less superimposed on
> the other attributes as well. All this is bell curve country.
Eep! The natives get restless when someone mentions GURPS IQ and RL IQ
anywhere within about a hundred miles of each other, much less equates
them. I can only hope we've all matured past flaming...
There are, of course, excellent reasons for not equating GURPS Int and
RL IQ scores, the main one being that GURPS Int is much broader. OTOH,
it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to cast an eye towards the
_distribution_ of RL IQ scores; it provides a RL distribution of a type
of mental ability (whether narrow or broad we won't discuss), and so is
a good candidate for basing the _distribution_ of GURPS Int on. I, for
one, am glad you've provided some statistics on IQ so we can take this
into account.
> * 68.26% (or 7 out of 10) of the population will have an IQ within
> 100+/- 1 * standard deviation , that is between ca. 84 and 116, ca.
> GURPS IQ 8-12.
Or, put another way:
- Int 10+: 73.4% (~3 in 4)
- Int 11+: 26.6% (1 in ~4)
- Int 12+: 10.6% (1 in ~10)
- Int 13+: 3.04% (1 in 33)
- Int 14+: 0.621% (1 in 160)
- Int 15+: 0.0890% (1 in 1125)
- Int 16+: 0.00884% (1 in 11,300)
- Int 17+: 0.000607% (1 in 165,000)
- Int 18+: 0.0000287% (1 in 3,500,000)
- Int 19+: 9.28*10^-7% (1 in 108,000,000)
- Int 20: 2.05*10^-8% (1 in 4,870,000,000)
At any rate, this is probably a good distribution to use. Not only does
it have a basis in real life, it gives pretty good results: the scale
has higher resolution where most of the people are, high scores are
unlikely enough for all but the most ardent opponents, and yet there's
still plenty of room for variation in the more normal range.
> To state that you have a 4-5% chance of finding a Broadsword-16 guy in
> a random crowd to me is ... ridiculous, even given the most militant
> and primitive of ages. The sample would have to include a person with
> a DX well outside the "normal" range, that futhermore has invested
> upwards of a year's (minimum!) activity in gaining that one skill at
> that level (study and practical experience).
Depends extremely strongly on the situation, so much so that
generalizations are unlikely to be useful. Not that that'll stop us...
Due to training and natural selection, warriors will most likely have
above-average Dex scores, averaging in say the 11-12 range (11.5 = ~1 in
6). This would require 10-15 years of training and service at a rate of
2 cp/xp per year to get Sword-16, which is likely more than many would
achieve. A Dex-13 swordsman would be more agile than most (in the top
20-25%), and would require 16 points, or maybe 5 fairly active years. A
Dex-14 one (top 5-10% of swordsmen) would require only a few years,
suggesting fair numbers of higher skills.
If we had a distribution of training and experience amounts, we could
get a good idea of reasonable skill distributions, but we don't. Still,
it seems that Sword-16 is probably fairly good, but by no means an
exceptional swordsman.
This is all rough and approximate, of course, but the number seem to
work out gameably well, which is really kinda the point.
-P
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Mark K Styles
Well I'm going to take a second to digress and perhaps help to explain
why I sound like a hard core "PD is Great" advocate, with all the associated
hard-to-deal-with-ness (I do try not to be hard core anything :-) ). The
main thing is I've yet to encounter a serious problem with PD. First, I'm
basically immune to long combats after a RIFTS campaign were the GM through
in the occasional huge battle. We had 6-12, avg. 8, players which were
split into 2 groups after a battle where all 12 showed up lasted an
extremely enjoyable yet gruelling 16 or so hours (including breaks), more
typical was an entire session (~6 hours), sometimes plus the first hour of
the next for looting and First Aid (in that order :-) ). Oh, to have that
kind of time to waste again :-) but it did make me pretty immune to combat
taking a long time to play out. Second, I typically play in TL3 Fantasy
where magic can deal with things either on the PC's side or, especially,
more often, on the GM's. Deathtouch, Sleep, Roundabout, Penetrating Blade
plus many others are good ones. And that's if you go for a lot of combat to
begin with. Third, a lot a GURPS stuff is out there with PD in it, it would
be tough to change, and I am not enthusiastic for a 4e.
>DR solves these problems in a very simple way, and while the realism is
>arguable, it is certainly no LESS realistic than current PD mechanics.
What PD makes, for me at least, probably quite a few others, is
intuitive sense. Armour just "should" both deflect things and stop them
when they hit, it just looks obvious. It also makes the mechanic of
Deflector Screens and Shield Spells, and even Tank Armour, possible (yes one
could model them by penalties to hit but it doesn't seem as "right", oh yeah
and I know tanks don't Actively Defend but if they did PD should add to it).
It seems to me most complaints stem from after a bad or multiple bad
experiences in the game, not from the "logic". Tweak the game not gut the
idea.
>If armor should have any effect at all on parrying, it might come from lack
>of mobility (resulting in a reduced parry). PD is a very very very
arbitrary
>thing. Realism--shaky. Playability--causes a lot of problems. Hence, many
>of us have deleted it from te system.
I fully agree that a lot of people don't like it, I've just been
advocating less wholesale, drastic ways of dealing with it (I think the idea
of PD/DR is great compared to other systems but implementation might need
tuning). Now for a collection of ideas that might be less drastic than
eliminating PD.
A Parry Manuever (perhaps even in Basic if a few are put into the next
revision). It would be Hard by comparison to what exists but Average from
what most people seem to experience, so probably called Hard in the game.
With that, a person with ST 12, DX13 (good basic swordsman material) could
spend 12 points (8 to Bsword, 4 to Bsword Parry) for a Basic Parry of 9.
Not impressive? Continue.
A "2/3 Skill Parry at Light or less encumbrance, 1/2 Skill Parry at
Medium or higher" rule made applicable for all weapons (with specially
designed Parrying weapons given a flat bonus of +1 or so, this likely should
include the Staff, how many heavily encumbered Staff fighters were there? I
wouldn't change Dodge at all but maybe the same rule for Block). It seems
reasonable with what people have described and a little experience, even a
Parry requires the ability to move (well the GURPS abstraction at least).
This means there is a choice to balance armour vs. mobility. The Swordsman
above now has a Parry of 12 or 14 with reasonable armour to stay at Light
(about Heavy Leather with his gear) which gives him DR2 if a blow lands.
With Plate and Medium Shield his Parry is 9+7=16 with 6 or 7 DR if he gets
hit. Still not close enough in ability, or too far outside the range where
3d6 works best, for you?
Add "PD of 4 or less adds to Active Defense, any PD over 4 subtracts
from the Attacker's Skill". The Light Swordsman had Parry 14 and DR2, the
Heavy now has Parry 13, but he has DR6 and his Attacker has -3 to Hit him.
The Heavy has traded damage resistance for active defense. That sounds
great to me, it not only has good comparitaive numbers it helps keeps things
in the 3d6 range.
Those 3 seem to work together very well and you get to keep the PD/DR
mechanic.
Some other sorts of problems and some ideas that might be useful
(probably not). Maybe PD should only affect solid things not beam weapons
or Magic Jets for example. I think that's done on some weapons (Flamers or
Screamers?). But then you have the exceptions that might make it more
complicated: what about shiny armour and lasers?, or what about Deflector
Screens?, etc. So it might be good to have no general rule and just a few
of the more obvious cases singled out.
If it's the 1 in 50 chance for a Leather Jacket to deflect a bullet (I
don't think that significant and some chance is probably realistic and good
for the gaming aspect) that you think is a problem, then move the rule in
line with the existing Impossible Numbers rules and then you need at least
PD3 to get a completely Passive Defense Roll.
I've already mentioned an option to reduce the effectiveness of cutting
weapons versus Heavy Armour if the trouble is _forcing_ people to use
historically accurate weapons instead of suggesting it during character
design. Edges dull, rules elsewhere.
If you run with a purely DR based system it has it's own problems. I've
already said combat is deadly enough and raising DR to compensate causes
other problem. Another, if you run a purely DR-based system where is the
freakish chance your Hero out for a midnight bathroom break in his Leather
Jacket has the chance to survive the 3d+1 basckstab by the Orc he never knew
about? At best he takes 6 hits, no 1 in 50 chance the Orc hits but glances
wide. Making a Leather Jacket DR4 so there is the chance (also 1 in 50, not
at all coincidently :-) ) might mean altering the weapon rules to higher
damage, which would necessitate raising DRs again, which would and so on.
Unless you eliminate that slim chance, but I think that would hurt the game,
freak events make things more fun.
I do not at all doubt people have problems with PD, in fact one would
have to be completely oblivious to miss that. I just think it can be fixed
without eliminating a good mechanic, the PD/DR system.
Paul T.
I am still unconvinced, however, of whether the benefits outweigh all the
paperwork
of those new rules. I prefer simplicity unless it creates unrealistic
outcomes often.
Just for the record, I do not think that DR needs to be raised. Just the
defenses.
Well, to each his own, I suppose.
P.
Mark K Styles
>
>I am still unconvinced, however, of whether the benefits outweigh all the
>paperwork
>of those new rules. I prefer simplicity unless it creates unrealistic
>outcomes often.
It is a little more paperwork yes, but most at character creation, you
can buy the Parry Manuver, record 2/3 and 1/2 of that, and since you should
know generally you Encumbrance Level (at least down to Light or higher than
Light) pick the right one. One new number, an extra split second the first
round of combat during play (which is the important part, unless you drop a
big pack to move quicker or pick up a chest in combat for some reason, then
it's 2 split seconds) and a minute or two, maybe, at creation.
>Just for the record, I do not think that DR needs to be raised. Just the
>defenses.
Yuck :-) , I'd think it would have to go up, it's hard enough to keep a
character alive now, but not easy enough to live to not feel real, already.
But...
>Well, to each his own, I suppose.
Chacun son gout :-). This might just be a case of YMMV, no big deal.
I'll continue to advocate as few changes as possible though, if there for
some reason has to be a 4e, but I do think another Revision might be good,
even just to remake the Compendiums optional again, and tweak the common
problems (PD/DR being one).
prei...@my-deja.com
> begin with. Third, a lot a GURPS stuff is out there with PD in it, it
> would be tough to change, and I am not enthusiastic for a 4e.
YMMV, but I didn't have any problem - I just plain dropped PD and that
was that. No fuss, no muss, and I didn't notice it causing any problems
(after I changed Parry to 4 + skill/2).
> What PD makes, for me at least, probably quite a few others, is
> intuitive sense. Armour just "should" both deflect things and stop
> them when they hit, it just looks obvious.
Deflecting and stopping an attack are simply different facets of the
same thing. It's like a stop-it-dead Parry vs a guide-it-aside Parry -
they're simply different methods of accomplishing the same thing.
Similarly, one could view DR both as the ability of the armour to absorb
damage (stop-it-dead) and to cause attacks to glance off by being hard
to penetrate (guide-it-aside).
If an attack hits the armour, dents it, and stops dead, that's due to
DR. If it dents it and glances weakly to the side, that's still fairly
clearly DR. How about a moderate dent and a strong glance? At what
point does it become PD and not DR? IMHO, both deflecting and stopping
an attack can be explained in terms of DR, making PD largely superfluous
(which would be ok, except that it causes a bunch of odd problems, like
with flying tackles, nets, ...).
I don't even consider PD necessary for tanks. The sloped armour of a
tank has higher DR and, hence, is less likely to be penetrated than flat
armour and, hence, is more likely to make an attack bounce off. Rien de
probleme.
Similarly, I consider the whole "even a sheet of paper will deflect a
bullet at a high enough angle" argument to be totally beside the point.
We only care about representing armour in vaguely plausible situations,
and such extreme angles of incidence are so wildly rare as to be absurd
to not ignore. Besides, the problem there is one of the binary nature
of GURPS combat - either it hits or it doesn't, with no concept of a
grazing wound. With a complex enough grazing wound system, the DR of a
sheet of paper would be enough to protect against sufficiently grazing
bullets (if anyone could be bothered to use such a system).
> It also makes the mechanic of Deflector Screens and Shield Spells
These could simply be given a flat defense roll. IMHO, this would make
more sense than PD, since they're a separate and discrete layer of
protection from anything worn underneath - I am very skeptical of
GURPS's claim that armour layers so astonishingly and nonlinearly well.
> and even Tank Armour, possible (yes one
> could model them by penalties to hit but it doesn't seem as "right",
Agreed - just use the higher DR on sloped armour. Non-penetrating
rounds bounced off (or possibly embedded).
> It seems to me most complaints stem from after a bad or multiple bad
> experiences in the game, not from the "logic".
My complaints stem primarily from the illogic, unrealism, and downright
inelegance of the current system - I haven't actually had too many
problems with it in play; I just think it could be both _better_ and
_simpler_ with this easy change. YMMV.
> If it's the 1 in 50 chance for a Leather Jacket to deflect a
> bullet (I don't think that significant
It's about 12%, even for Joe Average:
Joe Average: Speed 5, Dodge 5+1, Dodge-and-Drop 8+1 --> 25.9% Dodged
without the jacket, 37.5% with it, meaning the jacket deflects 11.6% of
incoming handgun bullets.
It gets a little worse with higher-point folks:
Joe Soldier: Speed 6, Combat Reflexes, Dodge 6+1, Dodge'n'Drop 9+1 -->
37.5% Dodged without the jacket, 50.0% dodged with it, meaning the
jacket deflects 12.5% of incoming handgun bullets.
This is with a 4-pound soft leather jacket of the kind you could pick up
in a department store. DR 1 sounds good; PD 1 does not.
> If you run with a purely DR based system it has it's own problems.
> I've already said combat is deadly enough and raising DR to
> compensate causes other problem.
> Another, if you run a purely DR-based system where is the
> freakish chance your Hero out for a midnight bathroom break in his
> Leather Jacket has the chance to survive the 3d+1 basckstab by the Orc
> he never knew about?
The freakish chance is in whatever cinematic optional rules you're
using; core GURPS should be encumbered by as few assumptions and biases
as possible.
Further, that's a very powerful blow - Strength in the 16-18 range for a
swinging attack - and, with a stationary target, having this glance off
soft leather seems rather bizarre.
Also, the character's already screwed up if he doesn't know about the
Orc, unless the GM is just being a jerk - either the characters set no
guards and failed all their sense rolls, the Orc is _very_ good at
stealth, or the GM just wants to whack the character.
Finally, he'll likely survive a torso blow of that magnitude long enough
for his comrades to try first aid (unless he's foolishly wandered well
away from them, he goes down immediately, and the Orc finishes him off
while he's unconscious) - 3d*1.5 --> ~16 damage, giving him 4+ minutes
before he might bleed to death.
> At best he takes 6 hits, no 1 in 50 chance the Orc hits but glances
At best the Orc rolls a 17 or 18 and fails to hit; in a situation so
stacked against him, that's about the best the character can hope for.
Note that, if you want, this failure to hit could be described as the
armour freakishly turning the blade, and it's the 1-in-50 chance you
mentioned...
YMMV, though - the right way is the way that works best.
Paul T.
<prei...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8m50o0$m4n$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> > begin with. Third, a lot a GURPS stuff is out there with PD in it, it
> > would be tough to change, and I am not enthusiastic for a 4e.
>
> YMMV, but I didn't have any problem - I just plain dropped PD and that
> was that. No fuss, no muss, and I didn't notice it causing any problems
> (after I changed Parry to 4 + skill/2).
I would prefer giving skill higher value, like:
Parry = 2 + 2/3 skill
But I agree. It's a lot less work than all the little fixes
necessary--mentioned
in the previous post--when you keep the PD.
Wouldn't an attack penalty model this just as well (I'm not sure whether
attack penalties would be all that practical in gameplay, but for the sake
of debate...)?
If an object is 5' across, but sloped so that the outside foot or so on each
side is not a valid target (your shot will bounce off), why shouldn't this
be
a similar situation to simply aiming at a target 3' across?
>
>
> > It also makes the mechanic of Deflector Screens and Shield Spells
>
> These could simply be given a flat defense roll. IMHO, this would make
> more sense than PD, since they're a separate and discrete layer of
> protection from anything worn underneath - I am very skeptical of
> GURPS's claim that armour layers so astonishingly and nonlinearly well.
True. I personally don't like how the effect of PD varies with your skill as
well.
>
>
> > and even Tank Armour, possible (yes one
> > could model them by penalties to hit but it doesn't seem as "right",
>
> Agreed - just use the higher DR on sloped armour. Non-penetrating
> rounds bounced off (or possibly embedded).
Once again, I am not sure about the raised DR. A well-aimed shot should
be able to ignore the sloped armor. But this is still simpler than all the
baggage that comes with PD, and models things just as well.
Also, I do agree that a glancing hit is simply one that did not do enough
damage to surpass DR. However, for an armor that is quite brittle but
quite likely to deflect objects, you can use a split DR of sorts:
For example, Deflector screen: DR 20/5
Any attack doing under 20 damage simply "bounces" off.
Any attack doing more than 20 damage is a very solid hit, and therefore
would not have been deflected--the effect of the deflector here is minimal,
and you only subtract the 5 DR before calculating damage.
>
>
> > It seems to me most complaints stem from after a bad or multiple bad
> > experiences in the game, not from the "logic".
>
> My complaints stem primarily from the illogic, unrealism, and downright
> inelegance of the current system - I haven't actually had too many
> problems with it in play; I just think it could be both _better_ and
> _simpler_ with this easy change. YMMV.
That has been my opinion as well.
It could be argued that things do not get all that much better with PD.
But they do get simpler, and it is hard to argue that they get _worse_.
I go for simplicity and elegance.
Not to mention that unless he really screws up on his to-hit roll, his
attack
should land in the middle of the target (he's attacking a stationary target
from behind!) that the soft leather should certainly not make a 10%
difference.
But everyone to their own.
P.
Mark K Styles
>But I agree. It's a lot less work than all the little fixes
>necessary--mentioned
>in the previous post--when you keep the PD.
It boils down to three simple fixes solving most of the problems I've
heard, less than page more probably. It avoids rewriting tons of creatures
and other rules, etc, and preserves a pretty unique armour system and, of
course, compatabilty.
>Wouldn't an attack penalty model this just as well (I'm not sure whether
>attack penalties would be all that practical in gameplay, but for the sake
>of debate...)?
Which creates just as many new rules for assessing those penalties.
>True. I personally don't like how the effect of PD varies with your skill
>as well.
That's the 3d6 mechanic. I personally wonder why people attack it only
for PD yet let range modifiers and hit location penalties go? It seems a
non-argument if you let those go.
>Also, I do agree that a glancing hit is simply one that did not do enough
>damage to surpass DR. However, for an armor that is quite brittle but
>quite likely to deflect objects, you can use a split DR of sorts:
>
>For example, Deflector screen: DR 20/5
>
>Any attack doing under 20 damage simply "bounces" off.
>Any attack doing more than 20 damage is a very solid hit, and therefore
>would not have been deflected--the effect of the deflector here is minimal,
>and you only subtract the 5 DR before calculating damage.
Which is less complicated than slight changes to PD how? Split DR adds
back the number, although I also see where your going with it and it looks
fine.
>That has been my opinion as well.
>It could be argued that things do not get all that much better with PD.
>But they do get simpler, and it is hard to argue that they get _worse_.
>I go for simplicity and elegance.
I'm still of the opinion PD and DR game model their respective ideas
fine and that one statistic is not necessarily better than two when two is
not much more complicated and does a better job. YMObviouslyV :-) . I
think it would be hard to get across the ideas of "toughness" and
"slipperiness" (I know the words could be better) with one "hard-to-damage"
rating. I think PD plays better that way and while the distinction is not
needed in most cases but when it is it is nice to have (How would one model
PD6DR2 in DR only? DR12/2? Or the DR20/5 Screen? How is that better?).
>Not to mention that unless he really screws up on his to-hit roll, his
>attack
>should land in the middle of the target (he's attacking a stationary target
>from behind!) that the soft leather should certainly not make a 10%
>difference.
I delibrately picked an instance of cinematic levels. First the Orc
would probably get the +4 to hit likely giving him a better critical hit.
And the Fighter wouldn't see it coming so he'd only have the 3 or 4 roll to
have a chance. Yes, realisticly the Orc skewers him dead and it's all over
and in GURPS even a Hero dies quick (which is fine with me, _at the level it
is now_), it's that 2% chance that makes the game suprising.
>But everyone to their own.
A well they should have choice. But "conflict breeds strength" to
paraphrase the Shadow, and rational discussion and refining of ideas here
can only make them better. Divergent, yes, but two now stronger diverging
ideas.
Mark K Styles
prei...@my-deja.com wrote in message...
>YMMV, but I didn't have any problem - I just plain dropped PD and that
>was that. No fuss, no muss, and I didn't notice it causing any problems
>(after I changed Parry to 4 + skill/2).
Probably about as much fuss as the three main suggested rules, our
methods do vary.
>Deflecting and stopping an attack are simply different facets of the
>same thing. It's like a stop-it-dead Parry vs a guide-it-aside Parry -
>they're simply different methods of accomplishing the same thing.
>Similarly, one could view DR both as the ability of the armour to absorb
>damage (stop-it-dead) and to cause attacks to glance off by being hard
>to penetrate (guide-it-aside).
I replied to Paul first so this is in there to but to seperate
"toughness" and "slipperiness" (I've got to think of a better word :-) )
instead of using "hard-to-damage" gives more flexibility when needed (I'll
repeat it just seems right for hopefully one of the last few times here).
>If an attack hits the armour, dents it, and stops dead, that's due to
>DR. If it dents it and glances weakly to the side, that's still fairly
>clearly DR. How about a moderate dent and a strong glance? At what
>point does it become PD and not DR? IMHO, both deflecting and stopping
>an attack can be explained in terms of DR, making PD largely superfluous
You have a point, the seperation is fuzzy but it had to be made for
workablilty in the game (obviously extensive RL use found a few flaws or we
wouldn't be talking about fixing them). I think they have a few little
problems easily fixed, you see a big problem fixed by scraping the idea,
both valid views. Both might work, but "first do no harm" or the least
possible and I think easier fixes are possible.
>(which would be ok, except that it causes a bunch of odd problems, like
>with flying tackles, nets, ...).
I don't follow but it sounds like it might be an interesting point.
>to not ignore. Besides, the problem there is one of the binary nature
>of GURPS combat - either it hits or it doesn't, with no concept of a
>grazing wound. With a complex enough grazing wound system, the DR of a
>sheet of paper would be enough to protect against sufficiently grazing
>bullets (if anyone could be bothered to use such a system).
It does. A Defense Roll made only with PD addes still hits the armour,
it just glances off and does no damage, a "grazing hit". Important if using
Deathtouch or say a ExtremelySuper-Soaker with Cinematic Acid, for examples,
the first still causes the Spell Damage but not the Staff Damage and the
second doesn't the character but eats her armour (whether PD should help
versus a liquid, gas, or beam is another matter but I explained one game
reason why it probably should and the made by PD rule takes care of the
effects of getting grazed). If an optional armour damage system were
implemented (some want that level of detail) a "made by PD" graze might
cause half damage to armour?
>> It also makes the mechanic of Deflector Screens and Shield Spells
>These could simply be given a flat defense roll. IMHO, this would make
>more sense than PD, since they're a separate and discrete layer of
>protection from anything worn underneath - I am very skeptical of
>GURPS's claim that armour layers so astonishingly and nonlinearly well.
To each his own, I thinks PD works fine. Well, only the outer layer of
PD counts in Defense so I'm not sure what you mean. You make a good point,
maybe a Deflector Screen and Shield Spell should be treated as a layer of
armour on the outside so their PD doesn't add to armour's PD? Actually I
like the sounds of that and will have to look into using it.
>> It seems to me most complaints stem from after a bad or multiple bad
>> experiences in the game, not from the "logic".
>My complaints stem primarily from the illogic, unrealism, and downright
>inelegance of the current system - I haven't actually had too many
>problems with it in play; I just think it could be both _better_ and
>_simpler_ with this easy change. YMMV.
I find the opposite of all the above, I see the logic, it is intuitively
real, and moe elegant than most systems I've seen.
>It's about 12%, even for Joe Average:
[Snip]
>This is with a 4-pound soft leather jacket of the kind you could pick up
>in a department store. DR 1 sounds good; PD 1 does not.
I was consider the Passive aspect, it's ~2%. Yes at "normal" Active
numbers it has quite and effect. If you have Skill-16 and aim for the Arm
that's a 7.4% penalty, but if you have Skill-12 it's -24.1%. This is GURPS
and non-linear. It's almost a non-argument unless you attack every plus and
minus in the system.
Maybe PD values are to high, I don't think so at all, but even if one
does that has reasons. First, you couldn't very well set a Leather Jacket
to PD0, it's _supposed_ to have some protective effect (it's "logical" and
all that :-) ), so you set it as low as you can 1, then the next best is 2
and so on.
>The freakish chance is in whatever cinematic optional rules you're
>using; core GURPS should be encumbered by as few assumptions and biases
>as possible.
Agreed wholeheartedly, but I don't think PD is one of those.
>Further, that's a very powerful blow - Strength in the 16-18 range for a
>swinging attack - and, with a stationary target, having this glance off
>soft leather seems rather bizarre.
>Also, the character's already screwed up if he doesn't know about the
>Orc, unless the GM is just being a jerk - either the characters set no
>guards and failed all their sense rolls, the Orc is _very_ good at
>stealth, or the GM just wants to whack the character.
I know it was powerful (ST13 All-Out Thrusting with VF Broadsword with
+2 Puissance, for example). Replace the Orc with anything you want an
Assassin maybe, that would explain the Stealth, or maybe he _was_ the
Stereotypical Big Dumb Clueless Fighter, etc. It doesn't matter at all, the
example was never intended to make too much sense, just point out that
normally amazing things don't happen (the Hero would likely be dead meat at
any amount of realism) but just to say that on 3d6 2% is a close as you can
get, in the game, to the random quirkiness that RL seems to exhibit. GM's
fiat can never ever cover that and the suprise factor is a good thing, IMHO,
you might think otherwise.
>Finally, he'll likely survive a torso blow of that magnitude long enough
>for his comrades to try first aid (unless he's foolishly wandered well
>away from them, he goes down immediately, and the Orc finishes him off
>while he's unconscious) - 3d*1.5 --> ~16 damage, giving him 4+ minutes
>before he might bleed to death.
Oh perfectly sensible, I know that it's pretty obvious, but where is
the fun in that. 1 in 50 nothing, but when the unexpected happens (in this
case the non-Death of the Hero) run with it.
>At best the Orc rolls a 17 or 18 and fails to hit; in a situation so
>stacked against him, that's about the best the character can hope for.
>Note that, if you want, this failure to hit could be described as the
>armour freakishly turning the blade, and it's the 1-in-50 chance you
>mentioned...
Agreed, I didn't mention this. That roll, in the game, already
represents the Orc, or whatever, doing his part in this exchange. Whether
he fails miserably on a clean shot should be his own fault. The Passive
Armour roll is the Fighter's very limited part of the exchange. Not being
hit is his job, or more acurately his armour's job :-).
>YMMV, though - the right way is the way that works best.
Which IMHO is PD, but everyone has there own ideas as it rightly should
be.
Michael
<ra...@westnet.poe.com> wrote in message
news:8ls0ak$cti$4...@mycroft.westnet.com...> >>> That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
> >>> second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
> >>
is
> >>"representative people" here? Do you think that if you pick 21 random
> > people
> >>on the street, that 1 or 2 of them will have sword-16 or above? Get a
grip!
>
of
> > 21 he has a 5% chance of finding an equal, in a group of 22, there is a
10%
> > that somone could match him, and so on, so that in a group of 40 he
almost
> > certainly has an equal? And _if_ you consider 1 in 40 a good number for
> > Skill 17 he might just find a better in that group. I probably have the
> > distribution slightly off but it should be workably explained.
>
skill - i.e. in a group of 21 _trained swordsmen_ he has a 5% chance of
having an equal, ex cetera.
Michael
Franz & Michael Köttl
Newsbeitrag: 8lq96b$ohk$3...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu...
> In article <oG1g5.37816$qS3....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca>,
> >
> >>area. Armor absorbs and spreads impact, it does not improve your
parrying
> >>ability.
> >
> >
> > What, things suddenly don't glance off of solid, smooth, curved
> >surfaces? There is a difference between a solid hit that needs it's
impact
> >absorbed and the numerous glancing blows in combat that really don't have
a
> >lot of power because of the way they hit the person (and what he's
wearing)
> >either because of the way they were defended and/or what they hit. The
> >mechanics of which are subsumed in the GURPS combat system by idea of PD
and
> >the Parry.
>
> That's the difference between doing 2 points of damage and doing 10 points
> of damage.
Small nicks and bruises are *0 HP* !
Remember, that your average fist does 1d-3
Remember, that bruises are not worth any HP at all.
So the deflected bullet which leaves you with a bruise is worth 0 HP
The attack doing 2 HP is already something more serious - you might call it
a flesh-wound, but it is more than a bruise. Armor *was* penetrated. Skin
*was* penetrated. You bleed (not enough to qualify for HP-losses, but you
bleed)
--
Just some ideas.
Michael Köttl
prei...@my-deja.com
> >YMMV, but I didn't have any problem - I just plain dropped PD and
> >that was that. No fuss, no muss, and I didn't notice it causing any
> >problems (after I changed Parry to 4 + skill/2).
>
> Probably about as much fuss as the three main suggested rules
IME and IMHO, rather less - the trivial changes to Active Defenses (+4
instead of +PD, shields count as cover, no parries are 2/3) were all
that I did to solve the problems assosciated with PD, and no new
problems cropped up that I noticed.
While I agree that a Parry maneuver wouldn't be too much work (although
I still think weapon skill with the -50% "affects parry only" limitation
would be better priced), what you've suggested doesn't IMHO adequately
address many problems.
First, a 2/3 Parry still leaves most unarmoured fighters without an
effective defense - it takes skill 15 to have even a 50% chance of
parrying a blow. Moreover, the overly high defenses of the heavily
armoured are now joined by the overly high defenses of the moderately
armoured (heavy leather + medium shield + skill 15 --> Parry 15), just
like Fencing now suffers from. Counting all PD over 4 as a penalty to
be hit sounds rather like a hack, a similar and somewhat more elegant
way of getting which would be to count shields as cover (penalties to
hit rather than PD).
Additionally, this only addresses one aspect of the PD problem. Another
important issue is the question of which attacks it affects. While an
armour plate could certainly cause a sword to turn in the wielder's hand
and glance off, it seems intuitive that a mace or club would be much
less prone to this - it has no edge, and so can't turn, skitter, or be
deflected in quite the same way. Indeed, since a mace doesn't have an
edge to bite with, it's arguable that a blow which deflects off armour,
since it has already transferred pretty much the same momentum and
energy that it would have without the armour, has done its damage
already. Are blunt weapons affected less by PD then? How about
bullets? Or extremely powerful attacks from an Ogre? Or grappling
attacks by a net, bola, or lasso? Or a flying tackle - with the rules
as they stand, you are more likely to flat-out miss someone in 100
pounds of steel than the same person unencumbered (Dodge 6 vs Dodge 5).
With armour supplying only DR, however, these questions are resolved.
The armour makes you easier to tackle by the amount in encumbers you, it
makes you easier to entangle by the amount it slows you down, it will
block less of force from the Ogre's tree trunk, and so on.
Simply removing PD and doing nothing else fixes all of these problems.
The one problem it _does_ create is that everybody's defenses are as
pathetic as those of the unarmoured now, necessitating the 4 + skill/2
modification.
> I replied to Paul first so this is in there to but to seperate
> "toughness" and "slipperiness" (I've got to think of a better word :-)
I can't think of any real-life armour that would markedly differ in
these categories, though, and the only fictional armour I can think of
that fits the bill is Reflec armour. FWIW, I would likely handle Reflec
as I would handle Deflector Fields - a separate defense roll against
whatever weapons it affects (something like a 12- roll against lasers,
for example).
So, since I don't know and wouldn't use any armour that requires
different degrees of "toughness" and "slipperiness", I don't see a need
for each having its own number. Indeed, since they follow pretty much
the same increasing scale (within low-tech and separately within
high-tech), it seems like both numbers are trying to represent the same
thing.
> It does. A Defense Roll made only with PD addes still hits the
> armour, it just glances off and does no damage, a "grazing hit".
I don't believe the rules say that, except if using the breakable
shields rule (and then only for shields). Additionally, it's not used
consistently - a bare-handed attack against hard armour only causes
damage to the attacker when it hits (B51), not when it misses by the PD
(although this is clearly for ease of play).
Moreover, many grazing hits are pretty much as good as the real thing -
entangling attacks are one example.
Finally, this leads to strange problems. An unarmoured swordsman with
Parry 8 will allow 3/4 of hits past his guard to strike his body. With
plate armour, his Parry 12 will allow only 1/4 of hits to firmly
strike. Dodging with plate armour (Dodge 8), 3/4 of hits will strike
firmly.
Hence, his footwork and motion cause his armour to deflect 1/4 of the
attacks that hit it, and his bladework prevents 1/4 of incoming attacks
from reaching his body, suggesting that 3/4 of 3/4 of the attacks should
strike firmly, or a little more than half. Yet under 50% of that number
actually does. What gives?
(This is, BTW, what I mean by layers of defense layering astonishingly
and nonlinearly well - the combination of parrying and armour is much
greater than one would intuitively expect.)
> numbers it has quite and effect. If you have Skill-16 and aim for the
> Arm that's a 7.4% penalty, but if you have Skill-12 it's -24.1%. This
> is GURPS and non-linear. It's almost a non-argument unless you attack
> every plus and minus in the system.
Not at all.
Firstly, the argument here is simply that soft leather can have a 12%
chance of deflecting a bullet, which is absurdly high and suggests a
flaw in the system. No mention of nonlinearity is made, just that the
number is far too high and should be fixed. (Indeed, probably any
number worth representing in GURPS's granular system is likely too high
for this.) That other parts of the system may or may not have issues
with the nonlinearity is no reason not to apply such a simple fix to
this part.
Moreover, I don't see the nonlinearity in other respects as such, or
much of, a problem. Your example, that a fixed amount of added
difficulty to a task will cause more failures from a low-skill person
than from a high-skill one, is IMHO intuitively correct. The skill 16
fighter is better at what he does, and hence one would expect him to be
less encumbered by the added aiming requirements than the skill 12
fighter.
Indeed, IME things that were major problems and could make a sizeable
difference between the number of successes and failures when I was
unskilled were much less of a concern one way or the other when I became
more skilled.
As well, the nonlinearity seems important. Were a skill 12 person to
take a -3 penalty, that would cause 36.6% of total attempts to become
failures. Anyone with a skill of 8 or less already has less than a
36.6% success rate, so a linear system would prevent them from having
any chance of success; as it is, the system allows a small chance which
is likely more reasonable than zero, especially in the chaotic
situations characters so oft find themselves in.
> First, you couldn't very well set a Leather Jacket to PD0, it's
> _supposed_ to have some protective effect (it's "logical" and
Hence the DR 1?... ;)
As always, of course, YMMV. When there isn't even consensus on what's
"simpler" or "more realistic", one can hardly expect universal agreement
on what's "better".
Gregory L. Hansen
Michael <ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>
><ra...@westnet.poe.com> wrote in message
>news:8ls0ak$cti$4...@mycroft.westnet.com...
>> >>> That is to say, in a representative group of 21 people, the ranger is
>> >>> second best. Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way. :)
>> >>
>> >>What the **** are you talking about? What kind of example is that? What
>is
>> >>"representative people" here? Do you think that if you pick 21 random
>> > people
>> >>on the street, that 1 or 2 of them will have sword-16 or above? Get a
>grip!
>>
>> > Doesn't all it mean that in a group of 20 he is the best, in a group
>of
>> > 21 he has a 5% chance of finding an equal, in a group of 22, there is a
>10%
>> > that somone could match him, and so on, so that in a group of 40 he
>almost
>> > certainly has an equal? And _if_ you consider 1 in 40 a good number for
>> > Skill 17 he might just find a better in that group. I probably have the
>> > distribution slightly off but it should be workably explained.
>>
>I always assumed that the skill percentiles applied to people with that
>skill - i.e. in a group of 21 _trained swordsmen_ he has a 5% chance of
>having an equal, ex cetera.
Which trained swordsmen? Musketeers? Roman Centurians? SCA hobbiests?
Paul T.
"Mark K Styles" <mkst...@netcom.ca> wrote in message
news:0Yvh5.42282$qS3....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
> Paul T. wrote in message ...
>
> >necessary--mentioned
> >in the previous post--when you keep the PD.
>
>
> heard, less than page more probably. It avoids rewriting tons of
creatures
> and other rules, etc, and preserves a pretty unique armour system and, of
> course, compatabilty.
I don't think compatibility is a huge issue.
The only way it comes into play is when the game designers had to modify
rules so that the PD would not unbalance defenses... and that's a whole
other problem. The x + skill/2 parry rule covers this pretty well.
That's two rules, each of which fit in one sentence and require no
calculating
in actual gameplay.
>
> >Wouldn't an attack penalty model this just as well (I'm not sure whether
> >attack penalties would be all that practical in gameplay, but for the
sake
> >of debate...)?
>
> Which creates just as many new rules for assessing those penalties.
Not at all. It would only apply to armors that have a huge "slipperiness"
and "toughness" (as you put it) gap. Those are very rare cases.
Generally, the more solid the material, the harder the DR, the higher
the "slipperiness".
>
> >True. I personally don't like how the effect of PD varies with your skill
> >as well.
>
>
> That's the 3d6 mechanic. I personally wonder why people attack it
only
> for PD yet let range modifiers and hit location penalties go? It seems a
> non-argument if you let those go.
That's actually a very good point. I take it back. :)
>
>
> >Also, I do agree that a glancing hit is simply one that did not do enough
> >damage to surpass DR. However, for an armor that is quite brittle but
> >quite likely to deflect objects, you can use a split DR of sorts:
> >
> >For example, Deflector screen: DR 20/5
> >
> >Any attack doing under 20 damage simply "bounces" off.
> >Any attack doing more than 20 damage is a very solid hit, and therefore
> >would not have been deflected--the effect of the deflector here is
minimal,
> >and you only subtract the 5 DR before calculating damage.
>
>
> Which is less complicated than slight changes to PD how? Split DR
adds
> back the number, although I also see where your going with it and it looks
> fine.
It is simpler in that it only comes into play very rarely--such as with
deflector
shields or similar defenses.
I don't think the PD option simulates that effect as well either, but that's
a different argument.
>
> >That has been my opinion as well.
> >It could be argued that things do not get all that much better with PD.
> >But they do get simpler, and it is hard to argue that they get _worse_.
> >I go for simplicity and elegance.
>
>
> I'm still of the opinion PD and DR game model their respective ideas
> fine and that one statistic is not necessarily better than two when two is
> not much more complicated and does a better job. YMObviouslyV :-) . I
> think it would be hard to get across the ideas of "toughness" and
> "slipperiness" (I know the words could be better) with one
"hard-to-damage"
> rating. I think PD plays better that way and while the distinction is not
> needed in most cases but when it is it is nice to have (How would one
model
> PD6DR2 in DR only? DR12/2? Or the DR20/5 Screen? How is that better?).
It avoids all the other problems--like high/low defenses, PD applying to all
sorts
of strange situations like thrown nets and grappling, etc... you only have
to deal
with it in those situations where it applies.
Note that I _do_ like the idea of PD (representing hardness of the material
or surface of the armor) but think it should serve a slightly different
role.
More on that later. Actually, maybe in another post. I'm in a rush at
the moment.
>
>
> >Not to mention that unless he really screws up on his to-hit roll, his
> >attack
> >should land in the middle of the target (he's attacking a stationary
target
> >from behind!) that the soft leather should certainly not make a 10%
> >difference.
>
>
> I delibrately picked an instance of cinematic levels. First the Orc
> would probably get the +4 to hit likely giving him a better critical hit.
> And the Fighter wouldn't see it coming so he'd only have the 3 or 4 roll
to
> have a chance. Yes, realisticly the Orc skewers him dead and it's all
over
> and in GURPS even a Hero dies quick (which is fine with me, _at the level
it
> is now_), it's that 2% chance that makes the game suprising.
That 2% (or whatever the case may be) possibility is already accounted for
by critical successes and failures--do you really want to add another die
roll to every combat situation just so that every hundred rolls or so (that
are otherwise unnecessary) an odd event pops up?
>
> >But everyone to their own.
>
>
> A well they should have choice. But "conflict breeds strength" to
> paraphrase the Shadow, and rational discussion and refining of ideas here
> can only make them better. Divergent, yes, but two now stronger
diverging
> ideas.
I'm glad there is no enmity between us, then.
I see this as a way to test both these approaches and discover good and
bad things about the system.
P.
Mark K Styles
>As always, of course, YMMV. When there isn't even consensus on what's
>"simpler" or "more realistic", one can hardly expect universal agreement
>on what's "better".
I brought that to the top because it beatifully illustrates the whole
discussion going on. As long as some good comes out of it, it's worth it.
>> >YMMV, but I didn't have any problem - I just plain dropped PD and
>> >that was that. No fuss, no muss, and I didn't notice it causing any
>> >problems (after I changed Parry to 4 + skill/2).
That sounds like just as much of a hack as my PD4-break you point out
later. Why 4? What's the logic besides it gives a good game number (which
also is what led me to choose 4)? You replace one game convention, "PD",
with another, "Defense is half Skill plus 4". Admittedly it may cause you
less problems but it is also a convention (hack connotes badly) no better,
no worse.
>> Probably about as much fuss as the three main suggested rules
>IME and IMHO, rather less - the trivial changes to Active Defenses (+4
>instead of +PD, shields count as cover, no parries are 2/3) were all
>that I did to solve the problems assosciated with PD, and no new
>problems cropped up that I noticed.
There are a lot of things that would need to be done to cover the loss
of PD (IMO, creature stats, weapon damage, etc.) and far fewer things with
what I suggest (one Manuever; Armour PD, Shield cover (see below); all
Parries 2/3 to Light, 1/2 Higher).
>While I agree that a Parry maneuver wouldn't be too much work (although
>I still think weapon skill with the -50% "affects parry only" limitation
>would be better priced), what you've suggested doesn't IMHO adequately
>address many problems.
Which is essentially the cost of Manuevers. Why confuse things?
>First, a 2/3 Parry still leaves most unarmoured fighters without an
>effective defense - it takes skill 15 to have even a 50% chance of
>parrying a blow. Moreover, the overly high defenses of the heavily
>armoured are now joined by the overly high defenses of the moderately
>armoured (heavy leather + medium shield + skill 15 --> Parry 15), just
>like Fencing now suffers from.
The unarmoured DO have a low chance to defend, unless they do the RL
equivalent of Retreat, All-Out Defend, or are very good (high Skill) or
practice defending (Parry Manuever). Fights are over real quick if they
don't/aren't. And once you're good (15), have a shield(PD3) and some
armour(PD2) for Parry 15 in Fencing (if you are strong enough) under the
current rules that one hit each every 22 seconds or so (if the other guy is
the same) pretty accurate. Under my suggestions, it's Parry-12, -3 to
Attacker's Skill (assume he's strong and see below), it's one hit every 5 or
so seconds, pretty reasonable (far from what it is now and I like it now see
next paragraph) and shorter to play I suppose. With your option, it's
Parry-11, -3 to Skill, each one hit every 3 or 4 seconds, much quicker to
play but at one second turns no very accurate, to my experience.
Now assuming he started with DX12, to get 15 he had to spend 16 points
if he spent 8 points on skill and 6 points on Parry and 2 points on
something else, he as Skill-14, Parry-18. So give the above guys this and
it's now Parry-14, -3 to Skill and one hit each per 17 seconds much, much
better.
>Counting all PD over 4 as a penalty to
>be hit sounds rather like a hack, a similar and somewhat more elegant
>way of getting which would be to count shields as cover (penalties to
>hit rather than PD).
It is and as such should probably be replaced by what I based it on.
Which was exaclty that, "Armour PD adds to Defense and Shield PD subtracts
from Attack". Since PD4 is the best non-magic fantasty armour and besides
gives a good range of numbers, I choose to split it there rather than make
shield and armour distinct. I think now it does really sound like an
inelegant hack. And is now formally replaced by the above :-).
>Additionally, this only addresses one aspect of the PD problem. Another
>important issue is the question of which attacks it affects. While an
>armour plate could certainly cause a sword to turn in the wielder's hand
>and glance off, it seems intuitive that a mace or club would be much
>less prone to this - it has no edge, and so can't turn, skitter, or be
>deflected in quite the same way. Indeed, since a mace doesn't have an
>edge to bite with, it's arguable that a blow which deflects off armour,
>since it has already transferred pretty much the same momentum and
>energy that it would have without the armour, has done its damage
>already. Are blunt weapons affected less by PD then? How about
>bullets? Or extremely powerful attacks from an Ogre? Or grappling
>attacks by a net, bola, or lasso? Or a flying tackle - with the rules
>as they stand, you are more likely to flat-out miss someone in 100
>pounds of steel than the same person unencumbered (Dodge 6 vs Dodge 5).
Some sacrifices had to be made to the game. But "bite" is necessarily
the word but "attack in a manner that creates the right conditions for the
causing of damage" is a shade cumbersome :-). A hammer has those same
conditions and the magnitude might not even register in GURPS terms.
High-Tech suggested a minus 1PD/3d Damage, but I don't like the added
complication and will allow the Ogre his attack (see Parry vs. High ST,
though). Flying Tackle: Sure why not, he has smooth surfaces not clothes
to grab at. And most armour was apparently not that encumbering if
designed for field combat.
>With armour supplying only DR, however, these questions are resolved.
>The armour makes you easier to tackle by the amount in encumbers you, it
>makes you easier to entangle by the amount it slows you down, it will
>block less of force from the Ogre's tree trunk, and so on.
All handled by very minor tweaks of existing rules and then better.
>Simply removing PD and doing nothing else fixes all of these problems.
>The one problem it _does_ create is that everybody's defenses are as
>pathetic as those of the unarmoured now, necessitating the 4 + skill/2
>modification.
Which is also a hack (convention). And reduces flexibilty for not any
more realism (arguably less, IMHO) than can be tweaked out of an existing
good system.
>I can't think of any real-life armour that would markedly differ in
>these categories, though, and the only fictional armour I can think of
>that fits the bill is Reflec armour. FWIW, I would likely handle Reflec
>as I would handle Deflector Fields - a separate defense roll against
>whatever weapons it affects (something like a 12- roll against lasers,
>for example).
You obvious play with less magic (or high-tech, "a sufficiently advanced
technology...") where the distiction can be quite obvious. What I argue is
the while in most cases PD/DR correlate nicely, by lumping them together you
reduce flexibility (or need to introduce whole new rules as per Deflector
Screen) for the cases where they don't. Flexibility is very good. Keep
what exists and work to tune that.
>> It does. A Defense Roll made only with PD addes still hits the
>> armour, it just glances off and does no damage, a "grazing hit".
>
>I don't believe the rules say that, except if using the breakable
>shields rule (and then only for shields). Additionally, it's not used
>consistently - a bare-handed attack against hard armour only causes
>damage to the attacker when it hits (B51), not when it misses by the PD
>(although this is clearly for ease of play).
I'll have to find it but if it does not (I really think it's in there
and is implied strongly if it does not) it should be outright, clearly
stated. That way an implied (or stated, I'll look when I can) mechanic
becomes clear rather than retooling the whole thing.
>Moreover, many grazing hits are pretty much as good as the real thing -
>entangling attacks are one example.
I think there was a discussion on Nets earlier I didn't follow (though I
spotted your name) but Nets should have the same PD effects. Maybe a -2 to
Defend like Flail or a +4 to get out if partailly caught? But for game
simplicity it should be like other things with _maybe_ a small note, maybe.
Tangler might be another with similar fixes.
>Finally, this leads to strange problems. An unarmoured swordsman with
>Parry 8 will allow 3/4 of hits past his guard to strike his body. With
>plate armour, his Parry 12 will allow only 1/4 of hits to firmly
>strike. Dodging with plate armour (Dodge 8), 3/4 of hits will strike
>firmly.
My feeling is that Parry's mechanic includes/assumes some amount of
Dodge (moving the weapon and yourself). Consider that you can Dodge as many
attacks as you want.
What would be good, I think, would be to a character allow one Dodge at
2XMove, but then not a Parry or Block (An Active Dodge? not a good name),
which brings the chances back in line, and then allow Dodges after that as
normal (A Passive Dodge? requiring less effort for much less effect.). You
then have your choice of Parry, Block or Active Dodge at about the same
chances, plus a Passive Dodge that is fairly ineffective but effortless,
plus the Passive Defense Roll for things you can't see. I think it's much
more elegant and true to GURPS than eliminating PD.
>Not at all.
>
>Firstly, the argument here is simply that soft leather can have a 12%
>chance of deflecting a bullet, which is absurdly high and suggests a
>flaw in the system.
You mention this as I did, it's as low as GURPS can bring it down. From
what I have heard though maybe armour PDs and sheilds then too should have
been 1 lower than they are now. I'd rather change that if they are broken
enough than eliminate PD.
The nonlinearity exists in Parry=4+Skill/2 as well. Two points in Skill
can have up to a 12.5% effect in the right place (and that's 12 and 14, very
common skill levels, bad to have big differences there in that range, if
that is your problem) just as currently exists with PD. Whether 1 point of
PD equals only 2 points of skill??
>Moreover, I don't see the nonlinearity in other respects as such, or
>much of, a problem. Your example, that a fixed amount of added
>difficulty to a task will cause more failures from a low-skill person
I don't think of this as a problem at all and would never change it.
What I did was attempt to point out PD like nonlinearity effects exist in
the system already.
>Indeed, IME things that were major problems and could make a sizeable
>difference between the number of successes and failures when I was
>unskilled were much less of a concern one way or the other when I became
>more skilled.
Agreed.
>> First, you couldn't very well set a Leather Jacket to PD0, it's
>> _supposed_ to have some protective effect (it's "logical" and
>
>Hence the DR 1?... ;)
HaHa, YMMV....
Paul T.
> > "toughness" and "slipperiness" (I've got to think of a better word :-)
>
> I can't think of any real-life armour that would markedly differ in
> these categories, though, and the only fictional armour I can think of
> that fits the bill is Reflec armour. FWIW, I would likely handle Reflec
> as I would handle Deflector Fields - a separate defense roll against
> whatever weapons it affects (something like a 12- roll against lasers,
> for example).
>
> So, since I don't know and wouldn't use any armour that requires
> different degrees of "toughness" and "slipperiness", I don't see a need
> for each having its own number. Indeed, since they follow pretty much
> the same increasing scale (within low-tech and separately within
> high-tech), it seems like both numbers are trying to represent the same
> thing.
This can be covered through something I thought of for those of us (or
Them) who want more detail. I myself only fit into that category
occasionally.
The idea would be to keep a "PD"-like number to simulate the "hardness"
of armor. This number would be used for a variety of things, including
armor damage--i.e. ablative armor rules--and special cases like
deflector shields.
This number would basically tell you how hard and "slippery" the surface
of the armor is. Any damage under that number could be considered to
have "glanced" off the surface of the armor. It would also be used as a
multiplier to see how the blow damaged the armor. Maybe this is not
very clear--let me give some examples.
This is slightly off-topic, but I'd like to hear what you think.
(Caveat: numbers are totally abstract, only to illustrate the concept)
Example 1
Man with deflector shield-- DR 5, "PD" (for now) 20.
Any damage under 20 is deflected. A strike doing more than 20 damage
is only reduced by the 5 DR and affects the target.
Example 2
High-tech armor being struck by machine gun fire.
Armor: DR 50, "PD" 30
Bullets doing less than 30 damage are bounced by the surface
of the armor. Bullets doing more "bite", damaging the armor. Any damage
doing more than 50 penetrates into target.
This "PD" value also tells you how fast the armor is worn down--let's
say, for instance, that for every "PD" points damage, DR is reduced
by 1 (or maybe a fraction, this would have to be tested).
This makes things like this possible:
Example 3
Man behind a wall of styrofoam:
DR 100 (very thick wall), "PD" 1
It would be difficult to penetrate this thick obstruction but the low "PD"
value means that attacking it would reduce it's DR very quickly, unlike
say a thin but very strong armor.
If such a scheme can be made to work, it would be very elegant and could
be designed so that most calculations would not come into play except
for rare instances. For example, the armor in Ex 2--you would not need
to calculate any armor damage as long as damage dealt was under 20.
Likewise, if an attack penetrates the armor, then the damage it does
to the armor will always be the same, since remaining damage goes to
target. So, the numbers will be the same almost all the time, except for
occasional instances.
Now, I'm not a gearhead enough to desire using a system like this in my
games, but I like the designing, so I'd like to get some feedback.
Mark K Styles
>
>Characters in armor or with shields and magical protection have defenses
>that are ridiculously high. PD makes these defenses unmanageable.
Not unmanageable realistic, but yes harder to play :-). Armour as plus,
Shield as minus helps this.
>Because of this, game designers had to lower defenses so that with
>most armor they would work well enough, but because of that
>unarmored characters have no chance in hell to defend against
>_anything_, so strange fixes like certain skills allowing a 2/3 Parry
>when unencumbered and the like come into play.
So make _all_ skills 2/3 Parry at Light or less (where you can move
easily and what most unarmoured characters without a very heavy pack would
be at, and if they had a heavy they aren't going to defend well). And see a
reply to Preitsma for a Dodge idea I suggested and like.
>For instance, an average soldier with skill 12 and a decent armor
>will successfully defend against as many hits as a master swordsman
>with a high skill in the 20 range. Additionally, his armor's DR makes
>him quite well-off against the swordmaster's attacks, giving him another
>huge advantage. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
So, that sounds fine, the Plate Armour Average versus the
Lightly-Clothed Master? The soldier _is_ way better defended.
Under my suggestions this better. The Average in Parry-6+4=10, and has
DR7 (if he was strong and wearing a Chain Shirt it would be Parry-8+3=11
with DR4); The Master has Parry-13 (better if he was smart and took
Skill-19/SkillParry-24 for the same points, he'd have Parry 16 then). Good
enough and better than DR-only scenarios I've seen here.
>> Agreed wholeheartedly, but I don't think PD is one of those.
>Absolutely not. That's what critical successes and misses are for.
No, that roll, where those could happen, are part of the Attacker's
attempt to hit. Any freakish chance should be his alone. The Passive
Defense Roll, is your (your
armour's) chance to have a freakish thing happen. If you want see near the
bottom of Re: Magic Questions for an example of how the unexpected can be
fun.
>See above.
>It makes no sense to introduce an extra and otherwise unneccessary
>roll just for this effect.
What new roll? It's all there in the rules now, see my other reply to
you.
>Then do you give PD to loose clothing?
None, it's loose and not at all like even a Leather Jacket.
Ahhhh... Wait a sec, I do think I see the point you're trying to sucker
me into making for you. "If clothes are PD0, how do you represent this
freakish chance you like so much?", right? :-) Two ideas, one, it's below
the level of detection in GURPS don't worry about it, or, two, give
everything, PD or none, a Passive Defense Roll. I like the first idea.
>Will this PD magically help against being grappled or hit by a guillotine?
Grappling is a Contest of DX, where does PD enter it? By the very
design of a guillotine (no where for the blade to be deflected to) PD
couldn't possibly help.
Mark K Styles
Really? Having to convert all your 3e stuff to 4e (or buy them again,
the company's choice I'm sure) isn't an issue?
>The only way it comes into play is when the game designers had to modify
>rules so that the PD would not unbalance defenses... and that's a whole
>other problem. The x + skill/2 parry rule covers this pretty well.
Other posts.
>That's two rules, each of which fit in one sentence and require no
>calculating
>in actual gameplay.
Until you add split DR or other patches. I suppose it comes down to a
balance of "what does less harm" and "what play well". Tough call, but you
know where I side :-).
>> Which creates just as many new rules for assessing those penalties.
>Not at all. It would only apply to armors that have a huge "slipperiness"
>and "toughness" (as you put it) gap. Those are very rare cases.
>Generally, the more solid the material, the harder the DR, the higher
>the "slipperiness".
Other posts explain this in my veiw. In summary, I play a lot of TL3
Fantasy where it can be very different with magic involved. And like the
flexibilty of both numbers. And yeah, there must be better words out there,
those were the first two that came to me and they aren't quite right.
>It is simpler in that it only comes into play very rarely--such as with
>deflector
>shields or similar defenses.
Or magic of course. How would those effects (Armour/Fortify,
Shield/Deflect, well they aren't quite perfect pairs) be modelled?
>I don't think the PD option simulates that effect as well either, but
>that's a different argument.
That it is :-).
>It avoids all the other problems--like high/low defenses, PD applying to
>all sorts
>of strange situations like thrown nets and grappling, etc... you only have
>to deal with it in those situations where it applies.
Nets for consistency, mainly, and some reality (the weights might
bounce, etc. I didn't really follow the Net thread. The only Grapple I
think it adds to (or should if it for some reason does) is the Dodge part of
the Flying Body Tackle. The rest is Contests of DX or ST.
>Note that I _do_ like the idea of PD (representing hardness of the material
>or surface of the armor) but think it should serve a slightly different
>role.
I'll have to check it out when it shows up. But I do think it's fine in
it's current role, YMMV :-).
>That 2% (or whatever the case may be) possibility is already accounted for
>by critical successes and failures--do you really want to add another die
>roll to every combat situation just so that every hundred rolls or so (that
>are otherwise unnecessary) an odd event pops up?
It's no other roll at all. The Passive Defense Roll is _instead_ of the
Active Defense Roll. You get the first if you don't notice or don't do
anything about an Attack and the second when you notice and react. Same as
it is now. And yes there is enough rolling in GURPS now.
>I'm glad there is no enmity between us, then.
As am I. I haven't had any interaction remotely, remotely near enough
to cause any enmity, or even negative reaction.
>I see this as a way to test both these approaches and discover good and
>bad things about the system.
Exactly. Especially for me, having had little opprotuniy to actually
play recently :-(.
Paul T.
>
> >It's about 12%, even for Joe Average:
>
> [Snip]
> >This is with a 4-pound soft leather jacket of the kind you could pick up
> >in a department store. DR 1 sounds good; PD 1 does not.
>
>
> I was consider the Passive aspect, it's ~2%. Yes at "normal" Active
> numbers it has quite and effect. If you have Skill-16 and aim for the Arm
> that's a 7.4% penalty, but if you have Skill-12 it's -24.1%. This is
GURPS
> and non-linear. It's almost a non-argument unless you attack every plus
and
> minus in the system.
> Maybe PD values are to high, I don't think so at all, but even if one
> does that has reasons. First, you couldn't very well set a Leather Jacket
> to PD0, it's _supposed_ to have some protective effect (it's "logical" and
> all that :-) ), so you set it as low as you can 1, then the next best is 2
> and so on.
My main problem with PD is this:
Characters in armor or with shields and magical protection have defenses
that are ridiculously high. PD makes these defenses unmanageable.
Because of this, game designers had to lower defenses so that with
most armor they would work well enough, but because of that
unarmored characters have no chance in hell to defend against
_anything_, so strange fixes like certain skills allowing a 2/3 Parry
when unencumbered and the like come into play.
For instance, an average soldier with skill 12 and a decent armor
will successfully defend against as many hits as a master swordsman
with a high skill in the 20 range. Additionally, his armor's DR makes
him quite well-off against the swordmaster's attacks, giving him another
huge advantage. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
>
>
> >The freakish chance is in whatever cinematic optional rules you're
> >using; core GURPS should be encumbered by as few assumptions and biases
> >as possible.
>
>
> Agreed wholeheartedly, but I don't think PD is one of those.
Absolutely not. That's what critical successes and misses are for.
>
> >Further, that's a very powerful blow - Strength in the 16-18 range for a
> >swinging attack - and, with a stationary target, having this glance off
> >soft leather seems rather bizarre.
> >Also, the character's already screwed up if he doesn't know about the
> >Orc, unless the GM is just being a jerk - either the characters set no
> >guards and failed all their sense rolls, the Orc is _very_ good at
> >stealth, or the GM just wants to whack the character.
>
>
> I know it was powerful (ST13 All-Out Thrusting with VF Broadsword with
> +2 Puissance, for example). Replace the Orc with anything you want an
> Assassin maybe, that would explain the Stealth, or maybe he _was_ the
> Stereotypical Big Dumb Clueless Fighter, etc. It doesn't matter at all,
the
> example was never intended to make too much sense, just point out that
> normally amazing things don't happen (the Hero would likely be dead meat
at
> any amount of realism) but just to say that on 3d6 2% is a close as you
can
> get, in the game, to the random quirkiness that RL seems to exhibit. GM's
> fiat can never ever cover that and the suprise factor is a good thing,
IMHO,
> you might think otherwise.
See above.
It makes no sense to introduce an extra and otherwise unneccessary
roll just for this effect.
>
> >At best the Orc rolls a 17 or 18 and fails to hit; in a situation so
> >stacked against him, that's about the best the character can hope for.
> >Note that, if you want, this failure to hit could be described as the
> >armour freakishly turning the blade, and it's the 1-in-50 chance you
> >mentioned...
>
>
> Agreed, I didn't mention this. That roll, in the game, already
> represents the Orc, or whatever, doing his part in this exchange. Whether
> he fails miserably on a clean shot should be his own fault. The Passive
> Armour roll is the Fighter's very limited part of the exchange. Not being
> hit is his job, or more acurately his armour's job :-).
Then do you give PD to loose clothing?
Will this PD magically help against being grappled or hit by a guillotine?
Gregory L. Hansen
Or... the two points of damage would have bounced off of medieval mail.
It must have hit at a steep angle and deflected.
In some ways, including this argument, I really like the damage system in
Paranoia. Roll dice on a weapon's damage table, shifted downward
according to the target's armor and toughness. Result: no effect,
stunned, wounded, incapacitated, killed, or vaporized. I think two wounds
make an incapacitated, and an incapacitated combined with a wound or
incapacitated makes a dead. No amount of stuns add up to anything more
than lost actions.
What I like about that system is it skips the whole concept of hit points
entirely! Your character gets shot, and it tells you directly what
happens to him! If a damage would normally wound but your character has
two levels of toughness, he just takes it and keeps on going, although he
may be bleeding. No calculations, no abstractions, no arguments about
passive defense or how many hit points real life people can take to the
heart, no blowthrough rules, etc. Whatever the die rolls turns up is what
happens to your character, plain and simple.
It also has no bleeding rules. But Paranoia is meant to go fast, and
drama is more important than tactics -- put on a good show, and Fate will
smile upon you! Bleeding rules just don't work in with that very well.
Xiphias Gladius
> Really? Having to convert all your 3e stuff to 4e (or buy them again,
> the company's choice I'm sure) isn't an issue?
As someone whose used Second Edition Paranoia adventures with THird
Edition Paranoia characters, I have to say, the differences that people
are talking about between Third and Fourth edition GURPS sound just plain
unissuely.
- Ian
--
Marriage, n: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master,
a mistress, and two slaves, making, in all, two. -- Ambrose Bierce
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ian
SSBB Diplomatic Corps; Boston, Massachusetts
Xiphias Gladius
> It also has no bleeding rules. But Paranoia is meant to go fast, and
> drama is more important than tactics -- put on a good show, and Fate will
> smile upon you! Bleeding rules just don't work in with that very well.
Also, bleeding on Alpha Complex property, e.g., one's jumpsuit or the
ground, is wanton destruction of said property, and obviously the work of
a Commie Mutant Traitor Scum.
Paul T.
>
> >That's two rules, each of which fit in one sentence and require no
> >calculating
> >in actual gameplay.
>
>
> balance of "what does less harm" and "what play well". Tough call, but
you
> know where I side :-).
But I find that even without them there is "less harm" and more "plays well"
with a reduced complexity.
The split DR, etc, just serves to add complexity if you really do want it--
also in a way that is simpler than current rules.
>
> >> Which creates just as many new rules for assessing those penalties.
> >Not at all. It would only apply to armors that have a huge "slipperiness"
> >and "toughness" (as you put it) gap. Those are very rare cases.
> >Generally, the more solid the material, the harder the DR, the higher
> >the "slipperiness".
>
>
> Other posts explain this in my veiw. In summary, I play a lot of TL3
> Fantasy where it can be very different with magic involved. And like the
> flexibilty of both numbers. And yeah, there must be better words out
there,
> those were the first two that came to me and they aren't quite right.
I actually liked those words--as silly as they may sound they get the
concept
across effectively.
>
> >It is simpler in that it only comes into play very rarely--such as with
> >deflector
> >shields or similar defenses.
>
> Or magic of course. How would those effects (Armour/Fortify,
> Shield/Deflect, well they aren't quite perfect pairs) be modelled?
Remind me what those are?
> >It avoids all the other problems--like high/low defenses, PD applying to
> >all sorts
> >of strange situations like thrown nets and grappling, etc... you only
have
> >to deal with it in those situations where it applies.
>
>
> Nets for consistency, mainly, and some reality (the weights might
> bounce, etc. I didn't really follow the Net thread. The only Grapple I
> think it adds to (or should if it for some reason does) is the Dodge part
of
> the Flying Body Tackle. The rest is Contests of DX or ST.
A lot of tackles, etc, can be dodged. Rocks falling on you from above...
That sort of thing.
>
> >That 2% (or whatever the case may be) possibility is already accounted
for
> >by critical successes and failures--do you really want to add another die
> >roll to every combat situation just so that every hundred rolls or so
(that
> >are otherwise unnecessary) an odd event pops up?
>
> It's no other roll at all. The Passive Defense Roll is _instead_ of
the
> Active Defense Roll. You get the first if you don't notice or don't do
> anything about an Attack and the second when you notice and react. Same
as
> it is now. And yes there is enough rolling in GURPS now.
The passive defense roll is unnecessary when the chance of success is
only 2% or so.
>
> >I see this as a way to test both these approaches and discover good and
> >bad things about the system.
>
>
> Exactly. Especially for me, having had little opprotuniy to actually
> play recently :-(.
>
You can pretty much know that anyone arguing about rules with such
intensity hasn't played for a while. :-)
P.
Paul T.
> Paul T. wrote in message ...
>
>
> the company's choice I'm sure) isn't an issue?
I'm not talking about a new edition, just a house rule--perhaps it could
be put in to the system eventually--first into something like compendium
and then eventually integrated into the core.
P.
Paul T.
> Paul T. wrote in message ...
> >
> >Characters in armor or with shields and magical protection have defenses
> >that are ridiculously high. PD makes these defenses unmanageable.
>
>
plus,
> Shield as minus helps this.
True, but why (out of curiosity this time) do you make such a distinction
of the shield versus the armor? It seems arbitrary.
>
> >Because of this, game designers had to lower defenses so that with
> >most armor they would work well enough, but because of that
> >unarmored characters have no chance in hell to defend against
> >_anything_, so strange fixes like certain skills allowing a 2/3 Parry
> >when unencumbered and the like come into play.
>
>
> So make _all_ skills 2/3 Parry at Light or less (where you can move
> easily and what most unarmoured characters without a very heavy pack would
> be at, and if they had a heavy they aren't going to defend well). And see
a
> reply to Preitsma for a Dodge idea I suggested and like.
That's part of the fix--indeed, it was the first part of my fix, but then I
realized
that the PD could just go altogether.
Armor could conceivably give you a bonus to parry or dodge because you
can allow certain parts to become exposed, but not only is this a level
of detail that a game like GURPS can't cover, but it is really a function
of DR.
If for example, you think "I don't have to move my foot, his dagger will not
damage me", you are not thinking "his dagger will strike it at an awkward
angle" but rather "his knife can't penetrate the armored boot, so it will
glance off."
I guess what I am getting at is that weapons glancing off armor are really
a function of the attacker's skill and have nothing to do with the
defender's
abilities.
Unless you have a lot of very high-ST characters running around (which
can be the case in a fantasy game, in which it's realistic that your armor
might be completely useless) most hcharacters, even with swords, are
going to be pretty useless against heavy armor just from the DR.
>
> >For instance, an average soldier with skill 12 and a decent armor
> >will successfully defend against as many hits as a master swordsman
> >with a high skill in the 20 range. Additionally, his armor's DR makes
> >him quite well-off against the swordmaster's attacks, giving him another
> >huge advantage. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
>
>
> So, that sounds fine, the Plate Armour Average versus the
> Lightly-Clothed Master? The soldier _is_ way better defended.
Yes, by DR. He shouldn't be parrying as effectively. What I am saying
is that under current rules if he were fighting a master with some
ridiculous
skill--say 40--despite the fact that this master's skill is such that he
should
be able to cut a fly in half, something like 40% of the master's hits are
still clumsily bouncing off the plate.
> Under my suggestions this better. The Average in Parry-6+4=10, and
has
> DR7 (if he was strong and wearing a Chain Shirt it would be Parry-8+3=11
> with DR4);
>The Master has Parry-13 (better if he was smart and took
> Skill-19/SkillParry-24 for the same points, he'd have Parry 16 then).
Good
> enough and better than DR-only scenarios I've seen here.
Are you talking about a Parry maneuver? That is not in the basic rules.
I use a Parry maneuver--and I agree that it helps resolve this issue.
No point arguing about something we agree on, right?
>
> >> Agreed wholeheartedly, but I don't think PD is one of those.
> >Absolutely not. That's what critical successes and misses are for.
>
>
> No, that roll, where those could happen, are part of the Attacker's
> attempt to hit. Any freakish chance should be his alone. The Passive
> Defense Roll, is your (your
> armour's) chance to have a freakish thing happen. If you want see near
the
> bottom of Re: Magic Questions for an example of how the unexpected can be
> fun.
Yes, the unexpected can be fun--so call a "random event" or "hero's luck"
roll, if that's the function you think it serves.
Look at it this way--if you want to stab someone in the back, you are going
to pick a spot in their armor where you weapon will NOT glance off. From
that point it is just a matter of your skill--you must insure that you do
not miss
that spot.
>
> >See above.
> >It makes no sense to introduce an extra and otherwise unneccessary
> >roll just for this effect.
>
> What new roll? It's all there in the rules now, see my other reply to
> you.
True. But don't you agree that it's pretty unnecessary?
>
> >Then do you give PD to loose clothing?
>
>
> None, it's loose and not at all like even a Leather Jacket.
> Ahhhh... Wait a sec, I do think I see the point you're trying to
sucker
> me into making for you. "If clothes are PD0, how do you represent this
> freakish chance you like so much?", right? :-) Two ideas, one, it's below
> the level of detection in GURPS don't worry about it, or, two, give
> everything, PD or none, a Passive Defense Roll. I like the first idea.
The point is that it's harder to see where the "real person" is under
the loose clothing, so you could miss. The treatment of the Blur spell
suggests that this should be treated as PD.
I was bringing this up as an argument to the fact that you said that PD
_does_ make it harder to grapple you. Loose clothing (if it does remain
on your body) makes it much easier to grapple...
>
> >Will this PD magically help against being grappled or hit by a
guillotine?
>
>
> Grappling is a Contest of DX, where does PD enter it? By the very
> design of a guillotine (no where for the blade to be deflected to) PD
> couldn't possibly help.
OK, sorry, change "grappled" to "tackled" and "guillotine" to "falling
rock". I don't see any difference.
P.
Paul T.
"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:8m7pjg$bki$1...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu...
I say "yeay" to hit point-less systems, but it is fairly easy to create an
over-simplified damage system for a cinematic system. People here
want (maybe just for argument's sake) a complex detailed system to
give consistent results. I am not certain that it is possible...
P.
Mark K Styles
again,
>> the company's choice I'm sure) isn't an issue?
>
>I'm not talking about a new edition, just a house rule--perhaps it could
>be put in to the system eventually--first into something like compendium
>and then eventually integrated into the core.
That I have now problem with it whatsoever :-). Here I thought we were
trying to implement a 4e rule system straight away, silly me :-).
Well in that case some variation on what you propose being in a
Compendium II Revised (or something) plus conversion guidelines is great, as
an option for those people who continually find PD problematical. I do
think the PD system should be retained in a 4e as the major Basic system
(with most Compendia material optional), I've never encountered it elsewhere
in quite the same form, and would hate to see go. But it does need retuning
as shown here :-).
Mark K Styles
>well" with a reduced complexity.
>The split DR, etc, just serves to add complexity if you really do want it--
>also in a way that is simpler than current rules.
Yes but I don't think it is complex at all (and once tuned up I don't
think it would ever appear too complex to someone new to the system, it's
the problems some people find that makes it feel complex and stand out). I
like the flexibilty of two numbers that are not necessarily correlated. I
haven't more than skimmed your Alternate Role yet so I can't comment on it
directly. But I think it is better to have to two numbers at the start,
with bugs smoothed out than to start with one and later tack on a new system
to introduce a new number.
>I actually liked those words--as silly as they may sound they get the
>concept
>across effectively.
They do get the point across, which is I suppose why they cam to me
first, but they are just a little silly sounding. Oh well I suppose, if
thye get the point across...
>> Or magic of course. How would those effects (Armour/Fortify,
>> Shield/Deflect, well they aren't quite perfect pairs) be modelled?
>Remind me what those are?
Ahh, that might explain why you rarely encounter armour with "weird"
combos of PD/DR. The Armour Spell adds DR to the Subject up to 5 more,
Shield does the same for PD, it is never specified whether the armour,
clothes or skin of the subject becomes harder or if it is a force field (a
GM could play it either way to get the effect on Defense he wanted).
Fortify and Deflect are the respective Enchantments for those Spells. So it
would be perfeclty possible to have a PD6DR1 Leather Jacket (there are
durability and monetary reasons to not do that but it is possible). Or
PD7DR4 Heavy Leather with a PD8 Medium Sheild (very expensive but possible).
It is possible for a mage in a Heavy Robe, say PD0DR1, to give himself
PD5DR1 (at likely 9FT the first minute and 4/min after that, though). Or
creatures with PD1DR50 (a huge fluffy bird?) or PD6DR2. And so on... but of
most are still normal range (PCs and their Foes can rarely afford the money
or Fatigue).
>A lot of tackles, etc, can be dodged. Rocks falling on you from above...
>That sort of thing.
I think PD is fine there, it represents smooth metal bits not loose
clothes to grab. Once grabbed, armour doesn't affect anything (except
weight for Contest of ST). As for the rock, for consistency and because
they are not to differnent from a mace's head (in fact free falling and
easier to bounce). A really big boulder in a narrow canyon with less than a
PC width space to spare would have nowwhere to go so unless the PC could
move forward or back (patries memeber on either side for example) PD
couldn't count it has no where to deflect the boulder to.
>The passive defense roll is unnecessary when the chance of success is
>only 2% or so.
Nope, as written anything with even One PD gets a Roll where a Critical
Success (3 or 4) deflects the blow.
>> Exactly. Especially for me, having had little opprotuniy to actually
>> play recently :-(.
>You can pretty much know that anyone arguing about rules with such
>intensity hasn't played for a while. :-)
Oh yeah, my GMing style is nowhere this strict. While the rules I
proposed will probably get implemented in the some form the next time I
change campaigns, I'll be lucky to follow all of them myself in play (luckly
they're mostly out of play). The only major reason I was half this intense
is I thought we were talking 4e Core rules, and of course the fact I know
it'll be Monday at the earliest I can possibly play (Talk to me again after
a few RPG fixes :-) ). Exam month is always bad and this summer the group's
schedules don't mesh at all well, oh well things'll settle down in the fall.
Mark K Styles
>of the shield versus the armor? It seems arbitrary.
Well it comes form the Shield as cover argument, basically that a Shield
makes less of the body available to attack so can be represented as minused
to skill. Prietsma pointed out my original "PD to 4 adds to Defense, PD
over 4 subtracts from Skill" sounded like (well he used "was") a hack. It
sort of was but with a very good reason, keeping things closer to the 10-ish
range of 3d6. To that effect I agreed and since Shield PD and Armour PD
tend to be half the total and it IS easier (to do and to explain) to
seperate them one to plus one to minus than to specify an arbitrary number
like a beak point at 4. Since it makes more sense to me, and others, that
Shields are the Minus, Armour would have to be Plus even if it didn't make
RL sense (which it does :-) ). So this discussion has already retooled a
part of my thinking.
Reply to the rest later, I'm doing the sleepy head bob and it's only a
matter of time 'til my forehead meets keyboard :-). Hope the above explains
some things.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> For instance, an average soldier with skill 12 and a decent armor
> will successfully defend against as many hits as a master swordsman
> with a high skill in the 20 range. Additionally, his armor's DR makes
> him quite well-off against the swordmaster's attacks, giving him another
> huge advantage. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
Well, did swordmasters actually wander around without armor? No, so a
middling mope in armor *does* have quite the advantage against an
unarmored master swordsman. I don;t see the problem, unless you want
things to go more like swashbuckler movies: In the real world, people wore
armor to fight in, becuase it gave them a tremendus advantage over those
that didn't.
John
--
Remove the dead poet to e-mail, tho CC'd posts are unwelcome.
Ask me about joining the NRA.
Paul T.
<ra...@westnet.poe.com> wrote in message
news:8m98ad$hgs$4...@mycroft.westnet.com...
> Paul T. <danielha...@home.com> wrote:
> > For instance, an average soldier with skill 12 and a decent armor
> > will successfully defend against as many hits as a master swordsman
> > with a high skill in the 20 range. Additionally, his armor's DR makes
> > him quite well-off against the swordmaster's attacks, giving him another
> > huge advantage. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
>
> Well, did swordmasters actually wander around without armor? No, so a
> middling mope in armor *does* have quite the advantage against an
> unarmored master swordsman. I don;t see the problem, unless you want
> things to go more like swashbuckler movies: In the real world, people wore
> armor to fight in, becuase it gave them a tremendus advantage over those
> that didn't.
Well, the DR allows the armored man to shrug off most of the swordsman's
hits, which gives him a huge advantage and allows
him to try daring attacks in combat, so he'll have a fair chance
to defeat someone much more skilled than him. But by the current
rules it actually makes him a better fighter.
For some reason, he can parry as effectively as someone with
five or six times more training AND more talent to begin with.
Also, if he is fighting a super-swordsman with ridiculous skill, his
armor is still going to deflect something like a third of his hits...
Why is this ridiculously amazing swordmaster making so many
awkward hits that bounce off this guy's armor? What if he was
using an armor-piercing weapon?
The end result may be close to being correct, but the current
mechanics of PD suggest a lot of strange effects along the way,
which can lead to improbable cicumstances and players shaking
their heads wondering what the world is going on.
P.
Mark K Styles
not
>damage me", you are not thinking "his dagger will strike it at an awkward
>angle" but rather "his knife can't penetrate the armored boot, so it will
>glance off."
I still see it as two different funtions, as person could think both
statements and both would be valid depending on the armour. Most of the
time people would think "he can't penetrate the armour, so I don't need to
move", mainly because it is the more sure thing, you "know" your DR realtive
to a weapon PD is chancy and less reliable, and people don't like to get
hit. A person who had enough experience and skill to quickly reckon things
might go "Weapons slide well off my armour, so I don't have to move my sword
as much to defend and still have a great chance of not being damaged, this
way my sword is easier to bring in line for a quick counter-attack". Or, to
postulate, a PD12DR0 Deflector with a 75% chance to deflect things passively
one might just ignore the attack that has a 75% chance of missing and
simultaneously strike to kill (I doubt 75% is high enough for most people
unless desperate, people don't like to get hurt, so a PD16 Deflector would
be a lot surer).
>I guess what I am getting at is that weapons glancing off armor are really
>a function of the attacker's skill and have nothing to do with the
>defender's
>abilities.
Well, I just don't see it that way :-). Attacking to me means putting
the weapon were you want it to go, a rule I really liked that was used in a
tournement was (-1 to Defend per 2 the Attack was made by (I might use it
but I'd ignore/forget about it so often when actually GMing it's probably
not worth it) this would cover the above. Defense rolls cover the
Defender's and his Armour's work.
>Unless you have a lot of very high-ST characters running around (which
>can be the case in a fantasy game, in which it's realistic that your armor
>might be completely useless) most hcharacters, even with swords, are
>going to be pretty useless against heavy armor just from the DR.
But that's true PD or no PD. A sword is just more useless vs. PD4DR6
Armour than PD4DR3 Armour.
>> So, that sounds fine, the Plate Armour Average versus the
>> Lightly-Clothed Master? The soldier _is_ way better defended.
>
>Yes, by DR. He shouldn't be parrying as effectively.
And why not? Not only does he have a tough layer Steel that Steel is
"slippery", it's smooth and rounded and has lot better chance to deflect
things. He Parrys only at 6 under the current rolls his armour covers the
other 4 points. The Master Parries at 10 but doesn't have the aid of any
armour whatsoever.
> What I am saying
>is that under current rules if he were fighting a master with some
>ridiculous
>skill--say 40--despite the fact that this master's skill is such that he
>should
>be able to cut a fly in half, something like 40% of the master's hits are
>still clumsily bouncing off the plate.
See the -1/2 Rule above. If those kind of levels showed up I'd use it.
What the master could do is Disarm, then Feint and Cleave (it's not Hack at
Skill-40 :-) ) the Average Guy Rigth Arm off, then his Legs, then his Left
Pinky To The First Knuckle But Not The Fingernail (still at Skill-25). This
guy is too good to play a "First you, then me" hack fest.
>Are you talking about a Parry maneuver? That is not in the basic rules.
>I use a Parry maneuver--and I agree that it helps resolve this issue.
>No point arguing about something we agree on, right?
Yes, yes I am, one of my suggestions that is so obvious it's been done a
lot. So no argument here.
>Yes, the unexpected can be fun--so call a "random event" or "hero's luck"
>roll, if that's the function you think it serves.
But it IS a Passive Defense Roll, it is nothing else. The fact it
appears to be Hero's Luck is the fact it is a 1 in 50 chance of happening.
>Look at it this way--if you want to stab someone in the back, you are going
>to pick a spot in their armor where you weapon will NOT glance off. From
>that point it is just a matter of your skill--you must insure that you do
>not miss that spot.
True but things do happen. The -1/2 Rule (I think it's in CII but
developed independently elsewhere man times) solves this if you apply it
(which I probably would as this would likely be played out slowly as the
mood implies). It would only take a success by 2 to reduce that Leather
Jacket's(PD1) Target Number to 0 from 1 and the Hero doesn't gte to roll at
all if you sneak up and All-Out +4 to Skill it's not that hard even if your
not that good.
>True. But don't you agree that it's pretty unnecessary?
Not at all. It just seems to me that armour should have even that
miniscule chance to defend you. All it doe is replace the Active Defense.
>The point is that it's harder to see where the "real person" is under
>the loose clothing, so you could miss. The treatment of the Blur spell
>suggests that this should be treated as PD.
If one wanted to give an aditional -1 to an Aimed Hit at a specific
location or, less good I think a -1 to Hit, one could justifiably , if the
clothes were really that big maybe -2 or more in a ballon-like outfit. It
not PD though it can't turn a weapon. And Blur is treated similarily
a -1/lvl to Attacker's Effective Skill.
>I was bringing this up as an argument to the fact that you said that PD
>_does_ make it harder to grapple you. Loose clothing (if it does remain
>on your body) makes it much easier to grapple...
PD makes it easier for you to Dodge a Grapple Attempt and only some of
them as in the description (semantics maybe but an important distinction for
where bonuses and penalties should go). Perhaps loose clothing gives the
Attacker +1 to Grapple for the hand holds he has available. It's not
exaclty PD because it isn't solid enough to turn a weapon.
>OK, sorry, change "grappled" to "tackled" and "guillotine" to "falling
>rock". I don't see any difference.
See other replies.
Paul T.
I won't have access to a computer for the next few weeks (I can almost
hear the gasping), so I'm out of this argument.
I'm still not convinced, however. Though you should know that I do still use
PD--but only for as long as it takes me to work out the kinks in an
alternate solution. I haven't had the time so far.
So, cheers.
P.
Paul T.
Hmmm... this sounds like a case for those rules that modify damage based
on how well the attacker and defender make their rolls. So that, for
example,
a bad attack or a good but failed defense could still reduce the efficiency
of the attack enough for the armor's _DR_ to stop it. What you say here
makes some sense, however.
It is just the GURPS currently does not allow for "degrees of success" in
combat--it's a simple yes or no deal--you hit or you missed/he parried
or he let it through. The only variable is the damage roll, and this to me
abstracts all the glancing hit/solid hit details. To attempt to get
something
like PD to address this in such a granular system brings up all sorts of
problems.
I am not saying that PD has no place in a combat system. Weapons certainly
do glance off armor. It's just that I don't like the implementation in the
GURPS
system--it causes too many problems for me.
I also don't think that this is something that is scientific enough to be
handled
by such simple rules, and probably doesn't need to be handled...
>
> >I guess what I am getting at is that weapons glancing off armor are
really
> >a function of the attacker's skill and have nothing to do with the
> >defender's
> >abilities.
>
>
> Well, I just don't see it that way :-). Attacking to me means putting
> the weapon were you want it to go, a rule I really liked that was used in
a
> tournement was (-1 to Defend per 2 the Attack was made by (I might use it
> but I'd ignore/forget about it so often when actually GMing it's probably
> not worth it) this would cover the above. Defense rolls cover the
> Defender's and his Armour's work.
Well, I prefer -2 to attack roll equals -1 to defense roll. It may be less
realistic, but more playable. And you could have high-skill characters
buy it off as a maneuver, so that their attacks would always be hard
to defend against.
>
> >Unless you have a lot of very high-ST characters running around (which
> >can be the case in a fantasy game, in which it's realistic that your
armor
> >might be completely useless) most hcharacters, even with swords, are
> >going to be pretty useless against heavy armor just from the DR.
>
>
> But that's true PD or no PD.
Precisely. That's the point I'm trying to make.
> A sword is just more useless vs. PD4DR6
> Armour than PD4DR3 Armour.
I disagree. A sword can attack DR 3 armor with a chance
of damage, but against DR 6 the attacker had better think things
over first or choose his targets very carefully.
The PD is just there to balance things out. That's why creatures
who cannot wear armor have to buy special advantages to increase
their defenses.
People without armor can still defend themselves well. The difference
is that if they get hit they don't get hurt as much, so they're more likely
to come out on top.
>
> >> So, that sounds fine, the Plate Armour Average versus the
> >> Lightly-Clothed Master? The soldier _is_ way better defended.
> >
> >Yes, by DR. He shouldn't be parrying as effectively.
>
> And why not? Not only does he have a tough layer Steel that Steel is
> "slippery", it's smooth and rounded and has lot better chance to deflect
> things. He Parrys only at 6 under the current rolls his armour covers the
> other 4 points. The Master Parries at 10 but doesn't have the aid of any
> armour whatsoever.
I don't think the master is going to be attacking so sloppily as to have
his attacks bounce off the armor. He's going to hit when he hits. And
the average fellow is not going to be able to parry 50% of his attacks.
The master's problem will be that he can't do any damage through
the armor, meaning it's just a matter of time before joe average
gets in a lucky hit.
But these rules put their defensive skill on equal ground!!! That's
not right...
>
> > What I am saying
> >is that under current rules if he were fighting a master with some
> >ridiculous
> >skill--say 40--despite the fact that this master's skill is such that he
> >should
> >be able to cut a fly in half, something like 40% of the master's hits are
> >still clumsily bouncing off the plate.
>
>
> See the -1/2 Rule above. If those kind of levels showed up I'd use
it.
> What the master could do is Disarm, then Feint and Cleave (it's not Hack
at
> Skill-40 :-) ) the Average Guy Rigth Arm off, then his Legs, then his
Left
> Pinky To The First Knuckle But Not The Fingernail (still at Skill-25).
This
> guy is too good to play a "First you, then me" hack fest.
By avoiding my example, are you admitting that I am right and just saying
that there is a way around it? Sorry, but this sounds like the "well, you
just
need to buy the Player's Option book" argument...
>
> >Are you talking about a Parry maneuver? That is not in the basic rules.
> >I use a Parry maneuver--and I agree that it helps resolve this issue.
> >No point arguing about something we agree on, right?
>
>
> Yes, yes I am, one of my suggestions that is so obvious it's been done
a
> lot. So no argument here.
I find it very helpful. Perhaps it could make the direct contest version of
combat
work correctly.(?--see another, more recent thread where this is being
discussed)
>
>
> >Yes, the unexpected can be fun--so call a "random event" or "hero's luck"
> >roll, if that's the function you think it serves.
>
>
> But it IS a Passive Defense Roll, it is nothing else. The fact it
> appears to be Hero's Luck is the fact it is a 1 in 50 chance of happening.
Well, you'd just stated that the reason you liked it was only because it
brought
in the unexpected, which was fun. That was your argument.
I'm saying that the "unexpected" is already present in the chance of a
failure on the part of the attacker and the fact that he has to roll for
damage
despite the fact that he has his strike perfectly lined up.
>
> >Look at it this way--if you want to stab someone in the back, you are
going
> >to pick a spot in their armor where you weapon will NOT glance off. From
> >that point it is just a matter of your skill--you must insure that you do
> >not miss that spot.
>
>
> True but things do happen.
That's why you can miss your attack roll.
> The -1/2 Rule (I think it's in CII but
> developed independently elsewhere man times) solves this if you apply it
> (which I probably would as this would likely be played out slowly as the
> mood implies). It would only take a success by 2 to reduce that Leather
> Jacket's(PD1) Target Number to 0 from 1 and the Hero doesn't gte to roll
at
> all if you sneak up and All-Out +4 to Skill it's not that hard even if
your
> not that good.
It does help. But this is only reducing the symptoms of the problem...
>
> >True. But don't you agree that it's pretty unnecessary?
>
>
> Not at all. It just seems to me that armour should have even that
> miniscule chance to defend you. All it doe is replace the Active Defense.
It DOES have a "chance". When he hits you, your armor "defends" you
to the utmost of its ability by subtracting its DR from the attack.
There is _no_ reason that armor should have a "miniscule chance to
defend you" unless it's alive and moving or somehow deceptive to
the eye (like the loose clothing). It's already protecting you--with its
DR.
>
> >The point is that it's harder to see where the "real person" is under
> >the loose clothing, so you could miss. The treatment of the Blur spell
> >suggests that this should be treated as PD.
>
>
> If one wanted to give an aditional -1 to an Aimed Hit at a specific
> location or, less good I think a -1 to Hit, one could justifiably , if the
> clothes were really that big maybe -2 or more in a ballon-like outfit. It
> not PD though it can't turn a weapon. And Blur is treated similarily
> a -1/lvl to Attacker's Effective Skill.
Interesting.
I am not sure I agree with your logic, but it is off-topic and I don't have
too much time.
>
> >I was bringing this up as an argument to the fact that you said that PD
> >_does_ make it harder to grapple you. Loose clothing (if it does remain
> >on your body) makes it much easier to grapple...
>
>
> PD makes it easier for you to Dodge a Grapple Attempt and only some of
> them as in the description (semantics maybe but an important distinction
for
> where bonuses and penalties should go). Perhaps loose clothing gives the
> Attacker +1 to Grapple for the hand holds he has available. It's not
> exaclty PD because it isn't solid enough to turn a weapon.
You really don't think loose clothing could turn a weapon?
What about the cloak and dagger fighting style? Duellists used cloaks
to turn away attacks all the time--and it was effective enough to become
quite popular in its own time.
A heavy cloak could also deflect arrows... hmmm, this might actually
be a legitimate use for PD, since a cloak that could be penetrated by
a weapon but could still deflect that weapon if swung across the body...
>
> >OK, sorry, change "grappled" to "tackled" and "guillotine" to "falling
> >rock". I don't see any difference.
>
>
> See other replies.
I can't remember what it was I was saying this in answer to--you would have
to look up the earlier post(s), but you still haven't answered this (in my
opinion).
Anyhow, for many reasons I am going to have to step out of this argument.
You've made two arguments that have made me stop an ponder:
1. The non-linearity of PD is not inherent to PD but rather to the 3d6
system.
True.
2. Wearing armor can actually improve your parrying since you can parry
less efficiently and use your armor to "bounce" the attack.
I, however, see this completely the other way around. Someone in armor
can afford to parry less efficiently, trusting his armor to protect him. I
see
that as separate from the act of defending--his defensive ability is
actually
reducing (or staying the same), but the armor allows him to do that and
come out of the fight alive.
Oh, and one more thing I forgot to bring up: PD causes big problems
in future settings.
Let us assume an armor X, designed to protect wearer from a gun Z.
Let us say a TL10-ish armor with PD 6.
If someone wearing armor X is shot at by gun Z, he knows that it has
been designed to withstand that sort of damage and is therefore safe.
However, if he gets shot at by a gun that twice as much damage, we
get a little problem... wouldn't you agree that the armor should be rendered
obsolete by this more powerful weapon? After all, that is what has happened
throughout history.
But, our armored soldier can dodge (assuming light or powered armor
and a trained, very fit soldier--so a Dodge score of about 6 or 7). With the
PD added in, this armor makes him (6+6=12 out of 3d6, approx. 60%)
mostly immune to any weapon, regardless of how easily it can penetrate
the armor's surface. If he retreats in addition... even a light saber will
somehow magically bounce off the shiny metal.
This is my problem. Lots of odd situations like the one above.
Armored character have ridiculously high defenses (I have heard
that one so many times from people here...), never mind that no
one could hurt them even without their defenses because of the DR.
And, more importantly for my games, this means that the game
designers had to adjust levels so that unarmored (even if highly
skilled) characters have no chance in hell of parrying anything.
If all this can be solved in a simple manner (delete PD, up parries
a little), I think it worthwhile.
Well, that's my closing argument. I gotta go. I don't have the time
to keep this up anymore.
P.
prei...@my-deja.com
> >As always, of course, YMMV. When there isn't even consensus on
> >what's "simpler" or "more realistic", one can hardly expect universal
> >agreement on what's "better".
>
> I brought that to the top because it beatifully illustrates the
> whole discussion going on. As long as some good comes out of it, it's
> worth it.
Yup. Online forums are notoriously bad for generating misunderstanding
and heated disagreements out of seemingly innocuous discussions (I blame
the slow turnaround time and lack of body language), so I figure
periodically sprinkling "it's all good" is rarely a bad idea.
> That sounds like just as much of a hack as my PD4-break you point
> out later. Why 4? What's the logic besides it gives a good game
> number (which also is what led me to choose 4)? You replace one game
> convention, "PD", with another, "Defense is half Skill plus 4".
Why 4? Why *4*?? Do you not Know the *Significance* of the Great
*4*???
Yeah, it makes for good numbers - that's pretty much why all of this is
chosen. Hackity hack hack...
That and it's sort of a simplification and generalization of typical
defense/PD values the system seems to have been designed for - PD 4 or 5
represents moderate armour (leather and shield) and is sorta the happy
area of the rules, so it makes a reasonable base for a PDless approach.
> There are a lot of things that would need to be done to cover the
> loss of PD (IMO, creature stats, weapon damage, etc.)
Just looking at it, I don't think those would have to change. Heavy
armour would still be heavy armour and offer good protection, whether it
be steel plate or dragonscale. Were I to drop this into normal GURPS, I
wouldn't bother changing any of those (as it was, I used this in a
rather...modified...version of GURPS).
OTOH, there is some suggestion that DR should go up anyway (Bryan posted
some stuff about this a while back, and the plate armours do seem a
little too heavy for a little light protection), some weapon damage
should be modified for realism (two-handed weapons go up, martial arts
weapons go down), and AFAICT damage goes up too quickly with Strength
(it's starting to seem that if the range of human stats was 6-15 rather
than 1-20, GURPS would work out more smoothly).
> >I still think weapon skill with the -50% "affects parry only"
> >limitation would be better priced)
>
> Which is essentially the cost of Manuevers. Why confuse things?
It's 4 points per level, rather than 2, which prices +1 to Parry at 8
points rather than 4 (which is, IMHO, too low, although YMMV). And it
also moves over to non-plateauing skill costs nicely, which is, well,
nice.
> The unarmoured DO have a low chance to defend, unless they do the
> RL equivalent of Retreat, All-Out Defend, or are very good (high
FWIW, the Retreat maneuver gives, realistically, no more defensive
benefit than the normal sort of footwork one would expect - people can't
move back fast enough to make it more than 6 inches, much less a yard,
before the blow would strike. It works as a variant of All-Out Defense,
though, where you get the extra +1 in exchange for moving back _before_
the opponent strikes so you've got more time to react.
> practice defending (Parry Manuever). Fights are over real quick if
> they don't/aren't. And once you're good (15), have a shield(PD3) and
> some armour(PD2) for Parry 15 in Fencing (if you are strong enough)
> under the current rules that one hit each every 22 seconds or so (if
> the other guy is the same) pretty accurate. Under my suggestions,
> it's Parry-12, -3 to Attacker's Skill (assume he's strong and see
> below), it's one hit every 5 or so seconds, pretty reasonable (far
> from what it is now and I like it now see next paragraph) and shorter
> to play I suppose. With your option, it's Parry-11, -3 to Skill,
> each one hit every 3 or 4 seconds, much quicker to play but at one
> second turns no very accurate, to my experience.
> Now assuming he started with DX12, to get 15 he had to spend 16
> points if he spent 8 points on skill and 6 points on Parry and 2
> points on something else, he as Skill-14, Parry-18. So give the above
> guys this and it's now Parry-14, -3 to Skill and one hit each per 17
> seconds much, much better.
On what are you basing your judgements of the ability of unarmoured
people to defend against an attack and the frequency of hits scored
between combatants in various levels of armour?
You say that, in your experience, a skilled fencer in armour and shield
will be hit by a similar foe every 15-20 seconds of hard fighting; what
experience would this be?
It's also worth noting that DR will cancel many strikes that hit too
weakly. A Str 11 man with a broadsword whacking at cloth-backed half
plate (DR 6) will do 1d-4 damage, meaning that a two thirds of his hits
will not penetrate.
If a hit comes only every 20 seconds, that'll be an entire minute before
one combatant damages the other, and even then it'll be only 2 points.
It'll take _five minutes_ - 300 combat rounds - of bashing away at each
other before one of them takes enough damage to go down.
That may or may not be realistic - it doesn't sound it, but I don't know
for sure - but it sure sounds like a pain in the neck to game out. Over
a thousand rolls, just for those two guys bashing on each other...
> though). Flying Tackle: Sure why not, he has smooth surfaces not
> clothes to grab at.
Then why aren't NFL football players clad in smooth plastic plates to
help them shrug off tackles? A dodged flying tackle is one where the
tackler misses and falls to the ground without affecting the target, not
one where he impacts (Slams) but doesn't get a good grip (that's
success by less than 4).
> >I can't think of any real-life armour that would markedly differ in
> >these categories, though, and the only fictional armour I can think
> >of that fits the bill is Reflec armour.
>
> You obvious play with less magic (or high-tech, "a sufficiently
> advanced technology...") where the distiction can be quite obvious.
Yeah, I do. What sorts of high-tech armour (other than Reflec) have
highly unusual bite vs. absorb capabilities? The ones I remember are
either soft armour (PD 2, high DR) or hard suits (PD 4-6, high DR).
With magic, though, Shield/Deflect seems to be simply a case of "here's
a number in the rules we can make a spell to increase" rather than
"here's a spell we want, what's a good way to represent it?" I would
cheerfully, and perhaps by preference, use separate rolls for a Shield
spell, something like 10-, 11-, 12-, 13-, 14- for the different levels.
Alternatively, one could simply add them onto Parry just like they do
now - it's magic, so it's rather harder to argue "this doesn't give
realistic results"...
And, if one remove Quick-and-Dirty enchantment, it should be harder to
get such armour, and hence harder to cause problems. (For amusement, I
made up a character one time who used about 10 points to get 10 months
of craftsman money for his armour, and ended up with something like a PD
11 DR 11 75-pound heavy plate and large shield combo, just using stuff
in the Basic Set. Needless to say, this guy never saw play...)
> the while in most cases PD/DR correlate nicely, by lumping them
> together you reduce flexibility (or need to introduce whole new rules
> as per Deflector Screen) for the cases where they don't. Flexibility
> is very good. Keep what exists and work to tune that.
I never see the flexibility used, and unnecessary flexibility is often
unnecessary complexity. While adding an additional Passive Defense roll
for Deflectors or Shield spells is also complexity, it's complexity only
where it's needed, rather than in every single combat.
And, even better, it's complexity I'm not likely to see much of...
> >Moreover, many grazing hits are pretty much as good as the real thing
> >- entangling attacks are one example.
>
> I think there was a discussion on Nets earlier I didn't follow
> (though I spotted your name) but Nets should have the same PD effects.
As what, swords? I don't really see why armour would have much of any
effect against contact attacks (entangling, touch spells, etc.). Of
course, this is easy to do - "entangling attacks ignore PD".
(FWIW, I think it was the Net thread that soon turned into a discussion
on early firearms and crossbows. The other main contributor had lots of
neat info on those - it seems steel cuirasses might be pretty good
protection against modern handgun bullets - in case you're curious about
that sort of stuff.)
> >Finally, this leads to strange problems. An unarmoured swordsman
> >with Parry 8 will allow 3/4 of hits past his guard to strike his
> >body. With plate armour, his Parry 12 will allow only 1/4 of hits to
> >firmly strike. Dodging with plate armour (Dodge 8), 3/4 of hits will
> >strike firmly.
>
> My feeling is that Parry's mechanic includes/assumes some amount
> of Dodge (moving the weapon and yourself). Consider that you can
> Dodge as many attacks as you want.
Of course - I view Dodge as largely reflective of the character's
ongoing defensive footwork, rather than an explicit activity. This
suggests an explicit Dodge should be better, as you suggest, but I'm not
sure doubling it is a good idea (it's easy to get quite high defenses
that way, and you are severely hampered by not having something to
contact the opposing weapon with, much like an unarmed Parry is
hampered). Generally speaking, though, I think a typical Active Dodge
might reasonably be called staying away from the danger area. Once
you're in range and mixing it up, full-body movements generally aren't
fast enough to avoid a blow all on their own (but are, of course,
invaluable as part of a parry).
> >Firstly, the argument here is simply that soft leather can have a 12%
> >chance of deflecting a bullet, which is absurdly high and suggests a
> >flaw in the system.
>
> You mention this as I did, it's as low as GURPS can bring it down.
Not at all - if you remove PD, it's brought down to 0%... ;)
> The nonlinearity exists in Parry=4+Skill/2 as well. Two points in
> Skill can have up to a 12.5% effect in the right place (and that's 12
> and 14, very common skill levels, bad to have big differences there in
> that range, if that is your problem) just as currently exists with PD.
> Whether 1 point of PD equals only 2 points of skill??
Indeed there is nonlinearity; the difference is that there's a sizeable
skill difference, which can reasonably explain it. With layering PD and
Parry, there's no skill difference, just a body-covering difference,
which means one can't pull out the "yeah, well he's just a lot better"
card to explain it. Intuitively, it appears that the armour/sword
combination offers far greater defense than you would expect from
observing either individually. That's the nonlinearity I don't like, and
the nonlinearity that IMHO causes problems.
YM, of course, MV. Apt to, I suspect...
Jared Thaler - PCG ~
>> The unarmoured DO have a low chance to defend, unless they do the
>> RL equivalent of Retreat, All-Out Defend, or are very good (high
> FWIW, the Retreat maneuver gives, realistically, no more defensive
> benefit than the normal sort of footwork one would expect - people can't
> move back fast enough to make it more than 6 inches, much less a yard,
> before the blow would strike. It works as a variant of All-Out Defense,
> though, where you get the extra +1 in exchange for moving back _before_
> the opponent strikes so you've got more time to react.
Actually, there are fencing manuvers that wait for the oppentent to start
their strike, then back up rapidly so the opponent falls short, or back
up just enough to give you a little extra time to get the block in place,
etc. and I have seen people clear a good couple feet with a backward
jump (of course you then have to cover that distance forward again,
effectively giving your opponent and equivalent bonus....) in less
time then it takes to land a fencing blow, which is arguably one of the
fastest strikes out there. I know from experience in several styles
that it is much easier to defend if you are retreating. It gives
you that extra time edge that can make all the difference in the world.
Now granted, you don't go back a yard, but easily at least a foot with
each block.
> On what are you basing your judgements of the ability of unarmoured
> people to defend against an attack and the frequency of hits scored
> between combatants in various levels of armour?
> You say that, in your experience, a skilled fencer in armour and shield
> will be hit by a similar foe every 15-20 seconds of hard fighting; what
> experience would this be?
I can't say anything about armor, but unarmored, the normal fencing bout
is about 5 seconds of manuvers and feints, and about 2 seconds or less
of actual attacks before a blow lands.
Mark K Styles
>Yup. Online forums are notoriously bad for generating misunderstanding
>and heated disagreements out of seemingly innocuous discussions (I blame
>the slow turnaround time and lack of body language), so I figure
>periodically sprinkling "it's all good" is rarely a bad idea.
Seems reasonable. Most human communication is built on more subilties
of body language and the immediate feedback than one probably thinks.
Removing both of those can't not have an effect.
>Why 4? Why *4*?? Do you not Know the *Significance* of the Great
>*4*???
You're a Follower of FOUR?!?! Didn't we get you all the last time? Die,
FIVE RULES!
>Yeah, it makes for good numbers - that's pretty much why all of this is
>chosen. Hackity hack hack...
>That and it's sort of a simplification and generalization of typical
>defense/PD values the system seems to have been designed for - PD 4 or 5
>represents moderate armour (leather and shield) and is sorta the happy
>area of the rules, so it makes a reasonable base for a PDless approach.
Completely agreed the numbers work best around 4ish, just felt someone
had to point out it was also a "convention" :-)
>Just looking at it, I don't think those would have to change. Heavy
>armour would still be heavy armour and offer good protection, whether it
>be steel plate or dragonscale. Were I to drop this into normal GURPS, I
>wouldn't bother changing any of those (as it was, I used this in a
>rather...modified...version of GURPS).
Well, my only complaint (if you can call it even that) is that combat
would be a little deadlier (not so much adding 4 though). I like the
balance they way it is and found it to work fine (I find very little, if any
most of the time, GM fudging to get the feel right). Of course, my
experience colours my views (as is inevitable).
>OTOH, there is some suggestion that DR should go up anyway (Bryan posted
>some stuff about this a while back, and the plate armours do seem a
>little too heavy for a little light protection), some weapon damage
>should be modified for realism (two-handed weapons go up, martial arts
>weapons go down), and AFAICT damage goes up too quickly with Strength
>(it's starting to seem that if the range of human stats was 6-15 rather
>than 1-20, GURPS would work out more smoothly).
Well for a Young Adult Human, anything outside those is pretty unusual
already. For example, I've only known two people who would qualify at DX16,
IMO (both of whom will be mentioned later, and one might be only 15 with
more experience, I haven't known him for years, the other might be a "high"
16). But yes, GURPS does seem to be built on the Human Scale, which is fine
for almost everything so makes sense.
>> Which is essentially the cost of Manuevers. Why confuse things?
>It's 4 points per level, rather than 2, which prices +1 to Parry at 8
>points rather than 4 (which is, IMHO, too low, although YMMV). And it
>also moves over to non-plateauing skill costs nicely, which is, well,
>nice.
The other thing to consider is your -50% Only for Defense. Does that
then cost Offense at 50%, what about Disarms and Feints, to mention a
couple. If one takes the costs now of those 2 Manuevers (right or wrong in
one's own opinion), they are 25% of the Skill each, rounded a fair bit that
way for a good number I'm sure. So placing Attack and Defend equally puts
Defend (a Parry Manuver) at 25% which is Manuver costs. Whether that "game
logic" holds or not? But that is why I'd cost it as a Manuver in GURPS.
>FWIW, the Retreat maneuver gives, realistically, no more defensive
>benefit than the normal sort of footwork one would expect - people can't
>move back fast enough to make it more than 6 inches, much less a yard,
>before the blow would strike. It works as a variant of All-Out Defense,
>though, where you get the extra +1 in exchange for moving back _before_
>the opponent strikes so you've got more time to react.
Well, unless GURPS starts working in 1/6s of a hex.... you're stuck
with the smallest unit of GURPS combat measurement. That said my suggestion
for Retreat is to allow the move back a hex for +3, but to not allow a Step
the next turn and give a -3 to Attack that turn. Possibly "or" instead of
"and". That would be the kind of penalty jumping back near a yard should
give (especially since +3 is pretty big in GURPS).
>On what are you basing your judgements of the ability of unarmoured
>people to defend against an attack and the frequency of hits scored
>between combatants in various levels of armour?
>You say that, in your experience, a skilled fencer in armour and shield
>will be hit by a similar foe every 15-20 seconds of hard fighting; what
>experience would this be?
Well, I've fenced, a couple kinds of unarmed combat, and other armed
combat, unfortunatly my coordination at the whole body level (DX) is not
great, and I prefer intellectual pursuits (that is to more accurately say
classes take up a _lot_ of time I can't "waste" on the above) oh yeah and
I'm what would be in GURPS an SDPacifist (which does interfer even though I
know there is little chance to hurt someone under controlled condtions).
But when fencing, a match to 5 of 8 total points could last 3 or 4 minutes,
with half or so of that resetting, so 13-18 seconds a point. Similar to
what Jared mentioned but while I did win a fair amount versus same level
students, we were beginners and I tend to not attack aggresively most times.
Examples not mine, actually one from just Tuesday night, the two guys
mentioned above were padded sword fighting (they're both really good) and in
8-10 minutes there were only 2 points scored (main body, hard but pulled)
each when they decided it was boring and broke it off, that's 2-2.5 minutes
a hit. Also, when low (me) versus high (them) it's over on their 3 or 4
attack on average depending on whether I can give ground. Low (me) versus
Medium (other students) lasts longer in the 20-30 second/point range. Which
seems to my experience to fit GURPS. FWIW, the one guy who built himself a
shield (small to medium in GURPS terms at a guess by size) received numerous
comments/complaints on how hard he was to hit.
>It's also worth noting that DR will cancel many strikes that hit too
>weakly. A Str 11 man with a broadsword whacking at cloth-backed half
>plate (DR 6) will do 1d-4 damage, meaning that a two thirds of his hits
>will not penetrate.
>If a hit comes only every 20 seconds, that'll be an entire minute before
>one combatant damages the other, and even then it'll be only 2 points.
>It'll take _five minutes_ - 300 combat rounds - of bashing away at each
>other before one of them takes enough damage to go down.
True, combat is typically over in seconds or takes minutes. Never
having seen heavily armoured guys with pointy, sharp weapons try to kill
each other I can only think it harder than what I have seen. That would
make it about the above numbers curiously....
>That may or may not be realistic - it doesn't sound it, but I don't know
>for sure - but it sure sounds like a pain in the neck to game out. Over
>a thousand rolls, just for those two guys bashing on each other...
I'm pretty sure it is. But the only option there is to go for say 6
second turns, eliminating PD and maybe instead using a target number of some
sort that changes with armour type and you need to roll above it to hit
(we'll call it Armour Class, yeah that's a good name for it).......... no
wait been done. (Just extremely, extremely kidding here :-) ). I happen to
like the combat the way it is (I've explained why I don't mind the time) and
think there is occasion to make use of the Quick Contest Combat if it
doesn't really matter and the outcome is a forgone conclusion anyway (the PC
fails a Stealth Roll and has to kill a Generic Guard or two before going on
his merry way, for a relevant, yet formulaic, example). Your opinions
obviuosly lie the other way.
>Then why aren't NFL football players clad in smooth plastic plates to
>help them shrug off tackles? A dodged flying tackle is one where the
>tackler misses and falls to the ground without affecting the target, not
>one where he impacts (Slams) but doesn't get a good grip (that's
>success by less than 4).
Probably because it would reduce the amount of tackles and then blow the
whole feel of the game away. I recall a huge debate about hockey jerseys in
a similar light but can't recall most of the details. In game term the
Success by 4 is the Attacker the Dodge is the Defender to different things,
same results perhaps but two different things.
>> You obvious play with less magic (or high-tech, "a sufficiently
>> advanced technology...") where the distiction can be quite obvious.
>Yeah, I do. What sorts of high-tech armour (other than Reflec) have
>highly unusual bite vs. absorb capabilities? The ones I remember are
>either soft armour (PD 2, high DR) or hard suits (PD 4-6, high DR).
Well high-tech has Deflector Screens as the big one, plus the soft suits
you recall. You'd already mentioned your ideas for Deflectors, the cases
are there in Fantasy and High-Tech though.
>With magic, though, Shield/Deflect seems to be simply a case of "here's
>a number in the rules we can make a spell to increase" rather than
>"here's a spell we want, what's a good way to represent it?" I would
>cheerfully, and perhaps by preference, use separate rolls for a Shield
>spell, something like 10-, 11-, 12-, 13-, 14- for the different levels.
>Alternatively, one could simply add them onto Parry just like they do
>now - it's magic, so it's rather harder to argue "this doesn't give
>realistic results"...
:-) Which is why I won't bother. Besides say for the development bit,
what if the process went "I want more deflective armour. That's represented
by PD. So Deflect adds PD." I find that more likely.
>And, if one remove Quick-and-Dirty enchantment, it should be harder to
>get such armour, and hence harder to cause problems. (For amusement, I
>made up a character one time who used about 10 points to get 10 months
>of craftsman money for his armour, and ended up with something like a PD
>11 DR 11 75-pound heavy plate and large shield combo, just using stuff
>in the Basic Set. Needless to say, this guy never saw play...)
First, I like Q&D, but that's another case. But not nearly as bad as,
(oh what was my worst guy for that again?), it was PD8DR17 Layered Armour,
+3 for the Non-Magic Medium Shield, total weight about 100-120 lbs. It was
either Skull Spirits, Deathtouch Mage, or a Knife While Taking A Nighttime
Bathroom Break that happened to him. Probably all three :-) once the
Adversaries learned just what they were up against.
>I never see the flexibility used, and unnecessary flexibility is often
>unnecessary complexity. While adding an additional Passive Defense roll
>for Deflectors or Shield spells is also complexity, it's complexity only
>where it's needed, rather than in every single combat.
Well there is no rolls added normally, unless the character had no
armour to start with, but even a weak mage, or characters is town, typically
wears a Leather Jacket, plus possibly, depending on cash PD1DR3 Heavy Robes
which are prtty cheap, in most campaigns I play of course. Passive Defense
of Sheild or Deflectors only adds to what is already there. No new rolls
just existing modifications to existing ones.
>And, even better, it's complexity I'm not likely to see much of...
HaHa, that is always the case, is it not :-)?
>> I think there was a discussion on Nets earlier I didn't follow
>> (though I spotted your name) but Nets should have the same PD effects.
>As what, swords? I don't really see why armour would have much of any
>effect against contact attacks (entangling, touch spells, etc.). Of
>course, this is easy to do - "entangling attacks ignore PD".
Bingo, you just stated one solution there, probably the best of the
possiblities, too.
>Of course - I view Dodge as largely reflective of the character's
>ongoing defensive footwork, rather than an explicit activity. This
>suggests an explicit Dodge should be better, as you suggest, but I'm not
>sure doubling it is a good idea (it's easy to get quite high defenses
>that way, and you are severely hampered by not having something to
>contact the opposing weapon with, much like an unarmed Parry is
>hampered). Generally speaking, though, I think a typical Active Dodge
>might reasonably be called staying away from the danger area. Once
>you're in range and mixing it up, full-body movements generally aren't
>fast enough to avoid a blow all on their own (but are, of course,
>invaluable as part of a parry).
True enough, but 3/2 Dodge while maybe "better", just doesn't work out
with so little math (a consideration today sadly). The same effect could be
had by Dodge and Retreat (avoiding the danger area), but the way I think
Retreat would work better, restricts it too much. So... 2xMove it is, as a
convention (this might be hack range but with a good game reason).
>Indeed there is nonlinearity; the difference is that there's a sizeable
>skill difference, which can reasonably explain it. With layering PD and
>Parry, there's no skill difference, just a body-covering difference,
>which means one can't pull out the "yeah, well he's just a lot better"
>card to explain it. Intuitively, it appears that the armour/sword
>combination offers far greater defense than you would expect from
>observing either individually. That's the nonlinearity I don't like, and
>the nonlinearity that IMHO causes problems.
You can pull the "He _is_ a whole lot better armoured card" :-). I have
tried to follow the course of thought that led you to the armour/sword
adding strangely but could not. What I get was the GURPS bell does it, and
that, for me, the sword and armour is a good combo that does work exteremely
well together (one could say there is synergy to use a now trendy phrase)
and a shield and you have combo that worked for a very long time until
armour got too good.
>YM, of course, MV. Apt to, I suspect...
Darn right :-).
Mark K Styles
Paul T. wrote in message ...
For completenesses sake I'll reply to what I can knowing a response is
extremely unlikely.
>Hmmm... this sounds like a case for those rules that modify damage based
>on how well the attacker and defender make their rolls. So that, for
>example,
>a bad attack or a good but failed defense could still reduce the efficiency
>of the attack enough for the armor's _DR_ to stop it. What you say here
>makes some sense, however.
I don't think I've ever heard these rules stated, if I have I don't
remember now. An Armour Penetration Manuver or a +1Damage/4 Made By Rule
(for rather than 2 because damage probably should be harder to increase)
that could alternate as chosen beforehand with a -1Defend/2 Made By Rule
(giving the choice between hard to defend and lots of punch) might a good
option.
>It is just the GURPS currently does not allow for "degrees of success" in
>combat--it's a simple yes or no deal--you hit or you missed/he parried
>or he let it through. The only variable is the damage roll, and this to me
>abstracts all the glancing hit/solid hit details. To attempt to get
>something
>like PD to address this in such a granular system brings up all sorts of
>problems.
Hence the development independently of the -1/2 Rule in many places,
which is a "degree of success" modifier.
>I also don't think that this is something that is scientific enough to be
>handled
>by such simple rules, and probably doesn't need to be handled...
I don't know if GURPS treatment is "scientific" and certainly not 100%
accurrate but I've found it to play well, other have had differing
experiences, obviously :-).
>Well, I prefer -2 to attack roll equals -1 to defense roll. It may be less
>realistic, but more playable. And you could have high-skill characters
>buy it off as a maneuver, so that their attacks would always be hard
>to defend against.
Six of one, half a dozen of another, the modifiers go to different
places. One could also postulate an Attack Manuver to go with Parry, Disarm
and Feint the other major generics.
>I disagree. A sword can attack DR 3 armor with a chance
>of damage, but against DR 6 the attacker had better think things
>over first or choose his targets very carefully.
Which is true of RL combat.
>The PD is just there to balance things out. That's why creatures
>who cannot wear armor have to buy special advantages to increase
>their defenses.
>
>People without armor can still defend themselves well. The difference
>is that if they get hit they don't get hurt as much, so they're more likely
>to come out on top.
Which is true to a point and led to the 2/3 Skill suggestion. Armour
does help a whole heck of a lot and people just kept wearing more and more
of better and better armour unitl it was made largely irrelavent.
>I don't think the master is going to be attacking so sloppily as to have
>his attacks bounce off the armor. He's going to hit when he hits. And
>the average fellow is not going to be able to parry 50% of his attacks.
The Master also has a greater chance of critcal success and can Feint.
See the Ali fight.
>The master's problem will be that he can't do any damage through
>the armor, meaning it's just a matter of time before joe average
>gets in a lucky hit.
A Master can aim for hands, eyes, etc or critcal success. A guy in Plate
_is_ well protected. Maybe a +1/4 Rule for Damage Rule or an Armour
Penetration Manuver to find chinks in armour might do. But a reasonalby
competent armoured person is tough and unless an unarmoured guy is really,
really good it's lopsided most of the time in the armoured guys favour.
>But these rules put their defensive skill on equal ground!!! That's
>not right...
>> > What I am saying
>> >is that under current rules if he were fighting a master with some
>> >ridiculous
>> >skill--say 40--despite the fact that this master's skill is such that he
>> >should
>> >be able to cut a fly in half, something like 40% of the master's hits
are
>> >still clumsily bouncing off the plate.
>By avoiding my example, are you admitting that I am right and just saying
>that there is a way around it? Sorry, but this sounds like the "well, you
>just
>need to buy the Player's Option book" argument...
Okay, not avoiding the example by using strategy and using only Basic,
first find a guy with Skill-40 (Wow!). He has 40 to hit Main Body centre,
so a 9% chance of critcal success and 0.5% critical failure. So of the
other 90.5%, and only PD4 is considered only 1.7% of the Attacks bounce off
the Plate. If the guy wearing it has some Defense of 6 then 45% of the
Attacks miss, but this is a guy in Plate Armour doing something about being
hit. Feints and Hit Locations are in Basic as are Disarms so they are
available as my first response used. No additional books required unless
you want to.
>Well, you'd just stated that the reason you liked it was only because it
>brought
>in the unexpected, which was fun. That was your argument.
I have been arguing the fun aspect a lot, yes. But, RL does offer the
chance of strange things happening fun or not. And the unexpected is not
always fun in a game. The argument for the little chance is that that 2% is
a close as you get on 1 3d6 roll, to bullets bouncing off paper, etc. That
that can be fun is just a bonus.
>I'm saying that the "unexpected" is already present in the chance of a
>failure on the part of the attacker and the fact that he has to roll for
>damage
>despite the fact that he has his strike perfectly lined up.
But the attacker and defender are already each rolling, most of the
time, each with their part. PD just modifies the one roll.
>That's why you can miss your attack roll.
Attacker part vs. Defender part.
>It DOES have a "chance". When he hits you, your armor "defends" you
>to the utmost of its ability by subtracting its DR from the attack.
>
>There is _no_ reason that armor should have a "miniscule chance to
>defend you" unless it's alive and moving or somehow deceptive to
>the eye (like the loose clothing). It's already protecting you--with its
>DR.
But the very shape and material of the armour do have the chance of
deflecting a blow moving or not! I suppose it depends on one's
interpretation of just why that deflection takes place, I see PD, some see
only DR. To each their own.
>You really don't think loose clothing could turn a weapon?
>
>What about the cloak and dagger fighting style? Duellists used cloaks
>to turn away attacks all the time--and it was effective enough to become
>quite popular in its own time.
Weren't most of the Cloaks actively used and made of fairly tough
material? GURPS also gives Heavy Cloaks PD2 and Light Cloaks PD1. I can't
remember the design details of the cloaks but the PDs might be high. It is
a case of 1 is the lowest significant number, though. And they were
introduced in Swashbucklers, I believe, and Cloaks were effective then in
that setting and possibly in RL I have no details, so 1 and 2 it is. Game
logic.
>A heavy cloak could also deflect arrows... hmmm, this might actually
>be a legitimate use for PD, since a cloak that could be penetrated by
>a weapon but could still deflect that weapon if swung across the body...
Possibly.
>Oh, and one more thing I forgot to bring up: PD causes big problems
>in future settings.
>
>Let us assume an armor X, designed to protect wearer from a gun Z.
>Let us say a TL10-ish armor with PD 6.
>
>If someone wearing armor X is shot at by gun Z, he knows that it has
>been designed to withstand that sort of damage and is therefore safe.
>
>However, if he gets shot at by a gun that twice as much damage, we
>get a little problem... wouldn't you agree that the armor should be
rendered
>obsolete by this more powerful weapon? After all, that is what has happened
>throughout history.
No, the PD is still good, but the effects of getting hit square with the
new weapon have now more than doubled than before, and with only the same
chance of Passively Defending or the same amount added to an Active Defense.
This decrease in toughness wiht no increase in deflection is what makes the
armour obselete.
>But, our armored soldier can dodge (assuming light or powered armor
>and a trained, very fit soldier--so a Dodge score of about 6 or 7). With
>the PD added in, this armor makes him (6+6=12 out of 3d6, approx. 60%)
>mostly immune to any weapon, regardless of how easily it can penetrate
>the armor's surface. If he retreats in addition... even a light saber will
>somehow magically bounce off the shiny metal.
But takes twice as much, more than twice as much after DR when he gets
hit. Fire at him enough times at _one second_ for each multiple of RoF and
you'll hit him in a reasonalbe amount of time (game time, longer in play
time).
I don't play with Force Swords much at all. Are they even affected by
the PD of non-energy fields? If they are a simple "force swords are
affected only by the PD of force fields" would probably not be uncalled
for, not removing PD
>This is my problem. Lots of odd situations like the one above.
>Armored character have ridiculously high defenses (I have heard
>that one so many times from people here...), never mind that no
>one could hurt them even without their defenses because of the DR.
>And, more importantly for my games, this means that the game
>designers had to adjust levels so that unarmored (even if highly
>skilled) characters have no chance in hell of parrying anything.
Which might require some adjustments. Mainly for playabilty. The ones
I put forward just keep PD. IMHO, this causes less disruption of the
existing system for a good fix. Having not seen or, more importantly,
played GURPS as DR-only I can only go be the fact I like PD. If a detailed,
logical looking one (I don't think just 4+Skill/2 is enough) and I have the
time and group interest, I can try it (but no "extra" play time 'til
September when most everyone has classes not jobs :-( ).
>If all this can be solved in a simple manner (delete PD, up parries
>a little), I think it worthwhile.
>Well, that's my closing argument. I gotta go. I don't have the time
>to keep this up anymore.
Weeks without a computer??!?! *gasp* :-).
Paul T.
>
> OTOH, there is some suggestion that DR should go up anyway (Bryan posted
> some stuff about this a while back, and the plate armours do seem a
> little too heavy for a little light protection), some weapon damage
> should be modified for realism (two-handed weapons go up, martial arts
> weapons go down), and AFAICT damage goes up too quickly with Strength
> (it's starting to seem that if the range of human stats was 6-15 rather
> than 1-20, GURPS would work out more smoothly).
This I agree with.
It's why I said that in situations where mostly average or above-average
humans are involved, armor makes people mostly invincible as it is.
>
>
> > >Finally, this leads to strange problems. An unarmoured swordsman
> > >with Parry 8 will allow 3/4 of hits past his guard to strike his
> > >body. With plate armour, his Parry 12 will allow only 1/4 of hits to
> > >firmly strike. Dodging with plate armour (Dodge 8), 3/4 of hits will
> > >strike firmly.
> >
> > My feeling is that Parry's mechanic includes/assumes some amount
> > of Dodge (moving the weapon and yourself). Consider that you can
> > Dodge as many attacks as you want.
>
> Of course - I view Dodge as largely reflective of the character's
> ongoing defensive footwork, rather than an explicit activity. This
> suggests an explicit Dodge should be better, as you suggest, but I'm not
> sure doubling it is a good idea (it's easy to get quite high defenses
> that way, and you are severely hampered by not having something to
> contact the opposing weapon with, much like an unarmed Parry is
> hampered). Generally speaking, though, I think a typical Active Dodge
> might reasonably be called staying away from the danger area. Once
> you're in range and mixing it up, full-body movements generally aren't
> fast enough to avoid a blow all on their own (but are, of course,
> invaluable as part of a parry).
I think of an active Dodge as AOD with +2 on one defense and Retreat for an
additional +3. This gives people a reasonable dodge. And on afterthought, it
makes sense that they shouldn't be able to Dodge that well without
retreating (in combat).
P.
Paul T.
> shield (small to medium in GURPS terms at a guess by size) received
numerous
> comments/complaints on how hard he was to hit.
I think shields should retain their PD. But I see shield PD _very_
differently from armor. Armor might be likely to deflect strikes aimed at
the target inside--but no one tries to attack someone through a shield,
unless they have reason to believe that they will be able to penetrate it,
which is unlikely.
On a passive target, the shield acts simply as cover. Penalty to attacker's
roll.
On an active target, well, the size of the shield makes it easier to block,
so instead of PD call it "Bonus to block" and things work.
Shields' efficiency is certainly not over-estimated in GURPS, rather the
opposite may be true. But the jury's still up on that one.
>
> >It's also worth noting that DR will cancel many strikes that hit too
> >weakly. A Str 11 man with a broadsword whacking at cloth-backed half
> >plate (DR 6) will do 1d-4 damage, meaning that a two thirds of his hits
> >will not penetrate.
> >If a hit comes only every 20 seconds, that'll be an entire minute before
> >one combatant damages the other, and even then it'll be only 2 points.
> >It'll take _five minutes_ - 300 combat rounds - of bashing away at each
> >other before one of them takes enough damage to go down.
>
>
> True, combat is typically over in seconds or takes minutes. Never
> having seen heavily armoured guys with pointy, sharp weapons try to kill
> each other I can only think it harder than what I have seen. That would
> make it about the above numbers curiously....
How does DR not handle this situation?
Ok, enough from me.
P.
Mark K Styles
>I think shields should retain their PD. But I see shield PD _very_
>differently from armor. Armor might be likely to deflect strikes aimed at
>the target inside--but no one tries to attack someone through a shield,
>unless they have reason to believe that they will be able to penetrate it,
>which is unlikely.
Well, that may be true, but, in one view, both Deflect shots from where
the Attacker wants to put them (and if one wants to follow the attack path
thing I rambled on about later at night earlier, they function similarily
there), and Passively, they do it whether the Attacker does something or
not. They are much better though when Actively used. The Shield may do
most of it's work by cover, and only some by actually deflecting and armour
is mostly defelction, but the game effect is PD.
>On a passive target, the shield acts simply as cover. Penalty to attacker's
>roll.
>On an active target, well, the size of the shield makes it easier to block,
>so instead of PD call it "Bonus to block" and things work.
Why should a sheild provide cover at one time and blocking bonuses
another time? Yes, it is a possible well-working game mechanic but it's
another arbitrary distinction. Using Shield PD as cover (an Attacker's
minus) and Armour PD (a Defender's plus), is probably just as easy, your
opinion may vary. It is also an arbitrary distinction, but the role of the
Shield stays consistent in both Active and Passive cases, no trying to keep
track of what it should do versus each given Attack (Okay it's not that hard
for most but it is a case where things can change during a heated combat and
that is a consideration for a mechanic).
>Shields' efficiency is certainly not over-estimated in GURPS, rather the
>opposite may be true. But the jury's still up on that one.
Possibly (I haven't used one enough to say, just hearsay), but I suppose
the PD of the sheild is meant to be equal to the armour it is normally used
with? Or, more likely, a Buckler is effective, but the least so, so it is
PD1, Small Shield is next so PD2 and so on.
>> True, combat is typically over in seconds or takes minutes. Never
>> having seen heavily armoured guys with pointy, sharp weapons try to kill
>> each other I can only think it harder than what I have seen. That would
>> make it about the above numbers curiously....
>
>How does DR not handle this situation?
But, old point reiterated, DRs would have to go up or combat would be
quite quicker than it is now.
>Ok, enough from me.
That's what you said last time :-).
prei...@my-deja.com
> > FWIW, the Retreat maneuver gives, realistically, no more defensive
> > benefit than the normal sort of footwork one would expect - people
> > can't move back fast enough to make it more than 6 inches, much less
> > a yard, before the blow would strike.
>
> start their strike, then back up rapidly so the opponent falls short,
> or back up just enough to give you a little extra time to get the
> block in place,
Yup; when you're right at the edge of range, it only takes a few inches
of movement to make the attack miss (which is really rather frustrating
to have happen to one...). I lump this under the term "normal sort of
footwork one would expect".
> etc. and I have seen people clear a good couple feet with a backward
> jump (of course you then have to cover that distance forward again,
> effectively giving your opponent and equivalent bonus....) in less
> time then it takes to land a fencing blow, which is arguably one of
No, you haven't. Bryan tried arguing something similar last time this
came up, until I pulled physics out on him. It takes something like a
sixth of a second for me to throw a punch, from guard to impact, and the
most you can expect any normal human to cover in that time (from a
standstill) is about 6 inches (and most likely less). If you want more
details, I can either give them or you can look them up in Dejanews (if
it works...), but the short version is that people can't really move
that far in reaction to an attack.
(Example: suppose a fencing strike takes a tenth of a second to land,
and you want to move one foot in that time. Even if you can accelerate
the whole time, that's moving 1 foot in 1/10 sec --> 1 = 0.5a(1/10)^2
--> acceleration = 200 ft/s/s = ~6.25 times the force of gravity. Of
course, you've got to apply about the same amount downwards to prevent
your foot from slipping, raising it to ~9 gees, under optimal
conditions. That's enough force to lift about 1600 pounds, with that
one leg...)
Of course, neither do they need to, unless they're way inside the
opponent's reach, which tends to be less common in touch sports like
fencing. In actual fighting, one might expect someone deep inside the
opponent's reach to try moving up or and blocking the arm, or to the
side and blocking the weapon, or slipping to the side, or something
similar rather than trying to zoom all the way out of range.
Movement, obviously, is extremely useful, but the type of movement
possible in reaction to an attack fits, IMHO, under the heading of the
footwork you would expect anyway. Sometimes you do see someone moving
back rapidly to gain time while being pressed, which seems like a decent
use of Retreat-as-AOD (with movement of maybe Move/2 or Move/3).
And, of course, there's all the problems a free +3 to defense causes...
> I know from experience in several styles that it is much easier to
> defend if you are retreating. It gives you that extra time edge that
> can make all the difference in the world.
I don't dispute that in the slightest, just the idea that you've got
time to move far enough as a reactive motion to take you outside the
realm of the kind of footwork that a decent skill/parry represents.
> Now granted, you don't go back a yard, but easily at least a foot with
> each block.
A little less, generally. Typical movement is a shuffle step, which is
fast but doesn't move far, for obvious reasons (speed, flexibility, and
the fact that you can't move your back foot too far away from your front
foot at the beginning of the motion without getting slightly awkward or
risking a hopping motion). I tend to take fairly large shuffle steps,
but most are under a foot (although, of course, they vary based on the
situation; some, doubtless, are over).
> I can't say anything about armor, but unarmored, the normal fencing
> bout is about 5 seconds of manuvers and feints, and about 2 seconds or
> less of actual attacks before a blow lands.
Depending on the weapon, of course (epee is notorious for taking a
relatively long time, while sabre, arguably the closest to a real
weapon, is notorious for having brief bouts), but yeah.
And it's worth noting that real weapons might well lead to longer bouts,
given the greater aversion to getting hit (more jockeying for advantage
at the start), given the greater momentum of the weapons (not as fast as
a whippy little foil), and given the requirement that a blow be useful,
not just a touch.
Still, it might be illustrative to see how long fencing bouts take
between top-ranked fencers, and how much of that is conducted out of
range. I can't find any info right now, but surely someone knows. The
stereotype is that greater skill leads to longer swordfights; it would
be interesting to see whether that's the case (the very small amount of
Olympic fencing I have vague memories of suggests otherwise).
Paul T.
While I missed the original argument, it seems to me that this logic is
incorrect.
Two fighters never stand within striking distance of each other. To launch
an attack your opponent must either lunge or step forward in some way to get
within range and _then_ attack.
The defender sees the attack before it is actually launched and compensates
by stepping back.
Or, isn't that how it works?
P.