Armor as Damage Reduction vs. Damage Negation

[donbaloo]

For the creators. When designing the armor system what led you in the direction of armor negating successful strikes versus having it reduce the severity of the strike? Does this accurately portray armored combat? I have no idea but figured there was sound reasoning behind it. I ask because the all or nothing aspect of armor protection had me wondering how to narrate combat when armor barely misses its obstacle to deflect the blow and results in a massive strike getting through. Are these gaps in the armor? If armor was used to subtract successes from strikes (damage reduction), what effect would it have on combat as its currently played?

Moderator, move this if it doesn't belong...I couldn't decide on here or the Sea of Abzu.

[stormsweeper]

Armor was mostly an all or nothing deal. Blows were either deflected, or they landed in a gap, or maybe even punched right through. The gap, in my mind, is represented with a normal failure, the puncture by the armor damage rules. Good armor should block most strikes, that's exactly what it is designed to do.

[Ozark Tim]

The armor rules work well, but 'soak' is an interesting mechanic. Put on a football helmet and have someone whack you with a baseball bat and the reason your not dead is 'soak'. Your still unhappy, though. Stab someone through their visor and you have the 'not soak' version.

[luke]

well, if you're interested in developing another mechanic, this is the forum for it. if you just want to rant about mechanics, i'll move this to Sea of Abzu.

To answer your question, Armor and Shields is a compromise between "accuracy," feel and playability.

I don't like soak mechanics because they don't really accomodate for a lot of the accounts you read about in the medieval chronicles. For example, the Arab and Turkish cavalry would charge the knights, firing their bows quite rapidly as they came. The arrows would merely glance off the heavily armored knights having no discernible effect. Sure, every so often a shot would penetrate, but more often, I think, they had to kill the horses from under them and then wear the knights down before they'd drop.

And, though I'm pretty biased, I think these rules play very well. Very smooth, very quick, very dramatic.

-L

[Kublai]

Here's something to reflect the baseball bat to the football helmeted head... Everytime a character gets hit but his armor reflects the blow, give him a +1 Ob for his next action. This gives the feel of being momentarily stunned but not hurt. It will also give the feeling that you hate your players.

[Redoid]

well, if you're interested in developing another mechanic, this is the forum for it. if you just want to rant about mechanics, i'll move this to Sea of Abzu.

Mmm, I thought ranting was appropriate only in the Sea of Kublai...

Here's something to reflect the baseball bat to the football helmeted head... Everytime a character gets hit but his armor reflects the blow, give him a +1 Ob for his next action. This gives the feel of being momentarily stunned but not hurt. It will also give the feeling that you hate your players.

And for once he's happy with the mechanism :) Why do you feel that the +1 ob idea will hamper the players more than their opponents. Statistically, I suppose characters will last through more fights than mooks on average, so I guess that any additionnal penalty will hurt them more, but on the other hand, armour is efficient in BW, and you could pound on someone in heavy armour without him noticing for some time. It's OK to reflect the arrows of the Arab light archers, but still, an armoured knights wasn't THAT happy to have a spear thrust deflected by his armour. It was what changed a lethal wound into a wound that would infect and cause death some times later. Infection rules, now THAT's player hatred :)

[donbaloo]

I had considered something along the lines of what you are saying Kublai. Also considered maybe allowing any successes on a failed armor check subtract from the wound being dealt (i.e. 2 successes on a failed armor check dropping a B10 wound to a B8 wound). But really I'm not sure I want to do anything with it yet. The system to seems to play out rather excitingly and I don't think I want to tinker under the hood with it and sacrifice any of its speed.

[Redoid]

I had considered something along the lines of what you are saying Kublai. Also considered maybe allowing any successes on a failed armor check subtract from the wound being dealt (i.e. 2 successes on a failed armor check dropping a B10 wound to a B8 wound). But really I'm not sure I want to do anything with it yet. The system to seems to play out rather excitingly and I don't think I want to tinker under the hood with it and sacrifice any of its speed.

What do you complain about? That armour is too powerful, so to nerf it, you'd need to change damage negation to damage reduction? Because granting addtionnal effect to a failed armour roll (which would normally mean full blow) is the opposite of adding penalty when an armour check is passed...

Mechanically, on the other hand, the "successes on a failed armour check" is an awkward formulation (I didn't get it the first time) but is good, because it will give a bonus for being armoured when fighiting opponents with VA (the only case a single success is not sufficent).

[luke]

ya know, being injured in BW really sucks. the weapons mechanics, armor and injury mechanics are all tied together. Tightly.

the frequency you get hit, balanced with the severity of damage, balanced with the amount your armor could potentially block -- it's all one mechanic.

If you change armor to soak in BW, you have characters being injured more often than the system was built to handle. It might work, but it also might get really unpleasant.

Remember, one injury is usually enough to put a character out of a fight.

-L

[Redoid]

Yeah, but dunbaloo's proposal was only to improve armour by lowering the severity of the injury in case of failed armour dice (instead of taking a full injury). From what I have understood, he's pleading for less dangerous fights.

[donbaloo]

What do you complain about? That armour is too powerful, so to nerf it, you'd need to change damage negation to damage reduction? Because granting addtionnal effect to a failed armour roll (which would normally mean full blow) is the opposite of adding penalty when an armour check is passed...

I'm not actually complaining so much as merely curious about the motivations behind implementing an all-or-nothing armor system versus a damage reduction system. I've always imagined armor as reducing wound severity but I have no basis for this notion. Perhaps armor really works that way. Beyond that, I do realize that adding protection on failed armor checks is technically the opposite of adding penalties to passed ones, but they do both serve the same purpose...reducing the extreme ends of armor's effects.

Imagine adding this level of complexity. Whenever a character fails an armor test, count any individual die successes towards reducing the incoming wound (from B10 to B8 in my above example). That helps pad the bottom end of armor failure. Add in something like Kublai was talking about for the upper end. You could apply a +1 Obstacle on an character's next action when they deflect a blow with their armor to represent the concussion or shock effect. You could get more specific and say that though the strike was deflected it still applies an Obstacle penalty to the defenders next action equal to the number of die they would have lost had the armor not turned it. That way you've incorporated the power of the blow that was deflected. You could even allow the defender to make a Forte or Health test to reduce those obstacle penalties from the concussion if you wanted to be even more compex with it. With those two additions you remove the extreme ends that armor now provides.

I'm not gonna incorporate any changes like that yet, I merely wanted to discuss the possibility of them working. For one thing, I'm not looking to sacrafice the speed and flow of combat just yet. And I believe Abzu when he says the combat mechanics are all tightly interwoven and monkeying with one aspect changes the whole. I just wanted to put the idea out there.

On a side note, my Monster Burner just arrived today!

[donbaloo]

Yeah, but dunbaloo's proposal was only to improve armour by lowering the severity of the injury in case of failed armour dice (instead of taking a full injury). From what I have understood, he's pleading for less dangerous fights.

No, not just the lowering of severity in failed armor tests but also raising the penalty in passed ones as I outlined above. And I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm pleading for anything. Its not like I'm lobbying for another revision, just brainstorming interesting ideas to see what others thought.

[Durgil]

The armor rules work well, but 'soak' is an interesting mechanic. Put on a football helmet and have someone whack you with a baseball bat and the reason your not dead is 'soak'. Your still unhappy, though. Stab someone through their visor and you have the 'not soak' version.
This soak is really a function of the padding underneath. The hard outer shell primarily acts to deflect the blow. Therefore the blow needs to hit within a certain angle or it does very little, if any damage. It does soak some of the force by destributing some of it accross most of its surface; even though it's flexible, mail acts in a very similar way.

I guess the most realistic way of modeling this would be to add some sort of soak value to the different armour materials, but I would think that would take away from game play with just a little benefit added, IMO. Before BW, I was a big fan of HârnMaster, which uses soak values for each type of protective material against each type of attack (Bash, Edge, and Point). It could be done if you and your players are willing to take the time to do it.

[Thor Olavsrud]

I think incidental wounds adequately cover the bruising, stunning blows that come from a solid hit that fails to penetrate armor.

Remember, the system is fairly abstracted at this level. If your armor gets damaged, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's been punctured. It could be dented, hampering your movement. Straps could break so that it's not sitting quite right and a small gap or two is available.

Likewise, a wound doesn't necessarily mean a cut. Severe bruising, hairline fractures, cracked ribs, and so forth are all part of it. That's what Incidental/Light wounds are all about.