Testing Revised Armor and Wound Tolerances

[Bill Cook]

I had the chance to sit down yesterday evening and take a look at these. I like getting to pick my armor location, as a defender. And I like paying to grade and really appreciate the distinctive approach. (TROS has the attacker declare a zone and something analogous to a DOF to fine grade. Also, the Accuracy Gift allows a degree of adjustment.) However, I found it to be a little on the cheap side. In most cases (i.e. Add of two), you don't need the extra success to keep your IMS, anyway.

Keeping the DN fixed at four locks the dice into being coin flips. That's all well and good. Between two and five dice reflecting armor types felt right. Called shots are priced accessibly. I just realized: I forgot to raise the Ob for my armor protection rolls against sword Strikes! But I they were having an easy time of it, so that's a welcome challenge.

When I first looked at the variant wound tolerances, I didn't like the +1 Ob at the bottom. But when I tested it, I wanted more Ob raises. Dice are cheap, actually. That +1 Ob really hurts.

Two important disclosures: (1) I use a fixed PTGS of two to twelve pips, stepped by two. (2) I prefer to support incomplete suits of armor, worn more as a concession to safety. To the first, in a black shade world, it's a modest loss of granularity to suppress conversion. For the second, I so tire of walking tanks.

I'm probably going to adjust the pricing very slightly to support my agenda. Instead of ..



Su Li Mi Se Tr Mo
===== === === === === =====
+1 Ob -1D -2D -3D -4D Slain


.. I'll use ..



Su Li Mi Se Tr Mo
===== ========= === === === =====
+1 Ob +1 Ob,-1D -2D -3D -4D Slain


Also, I price grading by the weapon's Add.

[Angaros]

I have to say Luke convinced me that -1D was far more pricey than +1Ob. The Ob hurts in die rolls, but losing Reflexes and Steel just isn't much fun. That hurts.

Defender's choice is something we've tested as well and it feels corny to me. One of the PCs has a really neat plate helmet and always chooses head as hit location and that feels so counter-intuitive. I don't know how to interpret that rule so that it doesn't feel all wrong. There's just no chance in hell anyone would make his head the primary target in combat. I can justify the rule by saying marginal hits favor the defender somewhat but I'm still left with that strange feeling...

I tested a DoF variant as well and that was also unimpressive. There are too few hit locations and, most importantly, too little effect variance between hit locations to make any of the systems exciting. I've thought about secondary effects of wounds (or rather secondary effects from the Steel test after losing a die) that depends on hit location, but so far I've been busy doing other things. Effects I've listed are dropping weapon, knockdown, knockout etc. Only thing I've implemented is making limbs unusable after taking -3D (in total). This hasn't had too much effect so far though. Only one character has suffered from it.

I don't know what Jake Norwood had to say about Defender's Choice (if anything), but an ARMA friend of mine claimed he always aims for the hands and arms -- killing a foe isn't a priority, keeping him from fighting is. But fighting is also a lot about tactics and forcing your foe to open up and exploiting that temporary weakness. That's what combinations is all about right? The arms comment is what made me implement the 3D limit on arms and legs.

[Viper]

A simple fix would be to simple not allow your players to choose their head as a default location. If they can avoid it, people will not take blows to the head. A big reason for this is that a head shots are extremely disorienting. Your head has your eyes and ears, as well as your brain inside of it, even a slight blow can be quite jarring, even if it does not cause any lasting damage.

If you don't want to just bar them from doing it out of hand, you can enforce it mechanically in a number of ways- force your players to take a steel test every time they take a shot to the head- or, make them take the wound penalty for their next action as a result of their disorientation (example: the knight takes a midi wound to the head, but his armor saves him. he is still at -2D for his next action because his ears are ringing and he's disoriented from the blow)

Of course, these rules should apply to all head shots, not just the ones your players decide to take as default hits. By making headshots fundamentally more dangerous to take than body shots, things will fall into place nicely- with defenders guarding their heads as much as possible, and attackers having that extra bit of incentive to spend successes to move their hits.

This borders on location-specific damage, which I know Luke is not a fan of, but I would argue that it's more an effect from a specific type of hit, like forcing a steel test to avoid dropping your weapon on a shot to the arm.

[luke]

One of the PCs has a really neat plate helmet and always chooses head as hit location and that feels so counter-intuitive.

And your villains can't generate one extra success to hit him in the arms or chest? or two more to hit him in the legs?

"I offer my head as target."
"That's nice, he gives you a Mark hit to the legs."

-L

[Angaros]

One of the PCs has a really neat plate helmet and always chooses head as hit location and that feels so counter-intuitive.

And your villains can't generate one extra success to hit him in the arms or chest? or two more to hit him in the legs?
Sure they can, but that isn't the problem. Accepting something as counter-intuitive as having the head as first choice for place to be hit in is the problem. Had the PC only been wearing armor on his head I would have understood the choice, but when he's wearing armor all over, with the head being slightly better protected than the rest, I don't buy it.

Viper has some good suggestions for making the head less interesting. Adding hesitation would also be a solution, but that might be too punitive.

[Bill Cook]

.. losing Reflexes and Steel just isn't much fun.

Whoa. That completely slipped my mind. Penalties to Reflexes, especially, would quickly grind the show to a halt. Losing actions is far more costly than shallowing your dice pool.


This reminds me of Incapacitation. For the PC's, I don't care. It's their thing to track. For running NPC's, I assume an average stat of four. If they're soldiers, I up the Po to five. A knight, Po six. A sneaky burglar, Sp and Ag get bumped up; Po and Fo get bumped down, etc. That part's easy. (The Badguys and Monsters section (BW p. 219-27) suits my needs perfectly.)

All that matters is which stat is lowest. Which, low stats typically range between two and five. Well, the irritation, to me, is remembering who's at which penalty level, what's his relevant affected pool and has he hit bottom yet. e.g. A ranger [total wound penalty (+1 Ob, -3D), martial skill (5), lowest stat (4)]. Each value is slightly different. It's sooo much easier to (a) set skill and low stat equal and (b) track dice reduction penalties by removing dice. (The Ob raises are a new wrinkle. My first thought is to use glass beads as counters.)



Accepting something as counter-intuitive as having the head as first choice for place to be hit in is the problem.

This is not a problem for me. Here's why: my priority is to balance absolute potentials and is less concerned with fidelity of martial combat. I sympathize with the player running the character wearing the helmet. "Damn right, I take it on the head; that's why I bought this thing."

[Redoid]

This is not a problem for me. Here's why: my priority is to balance absolute potentials and is less concerned with fidelity of martial combat. I sympathize with the player running the character wearing the helmet. "Damn right, I take it on the head; that's why I bought this thing."

I had a laugh thinking of a player saying "I present my head as target", because I would reply "huh, that's dumb" and then the player would reply "yeah, I know, but how can I be smart with all the head blows I take?".

Seriously, I disagree with the intent of armour. Maybe the player had the intent you ascribe, but the character bought a better armour for his head because he wanted to deflect an occasional (and devastating) blow to the head, rather than to purposely make his head the primary target for incoming blows.Can you imagine someone in his right mind saying "mmm, this man is striking me with a sword, I'll deflect the blow with my head", so my arm isn't affected. It's so... counter-intuitive.

Combat is deadly enough to avoid additionnal penalties for deflected blows... Perhaps it would be great to have two separate mechanisms. The first, reflected lasting wounds, would be the current mechanism, except that its penalty would only kick after the combat has ended and adrenaline has been purged from the body. Thus, less-than-superficial wounds could be ignored totally (they have cicatrised or don't hurt anymore) and that's when you realize that you have received a mortal wound and collapse (numerous accounts of duels tell about duellists continuing to fight despite several mortal wounds...)

Another mechanism would reflect the will to fight, and general combat fatigue, and would have penalties applied during the fight. The penalties could be computed differently, especially if one doesn't like a systematic decrease of fighting capacity as one gets wounded (sometime people fight to the death with increased efficiency). For example, every strike would lead to Steel test. The obstacle would depend on its successfulness:

missed strike would be ob 1, since battle hardened soldiers would basically be unaffected, while conscripts or characters without ANY combat experience would be cowering in fear... Statistics made during WWII showed that some soldiers were incapacitated without receiving any actual injury, while other simply shot wildly and ran.
strike deflected by armour would be at a higher ob (2), especially if directed at a vital area (like the head (ob 3), same for less than supie wounds (so children fist-fighting would, after some time, defeat each other, even with their power of 1 or 2 : one will end up losing the will to fight and run towards his parents)
wounds, even supie, would be at increased obstacle, ob 3+wound level... A midi wound would be at ob 6, which is the same as the current Steel test against Hesitation for an average B4 Will character, and a mortal wound would be ob 9, something noone is expected to overcome.

If someone spends more than 3 actions hesitating, he could be subjected to the long-term penalties (he'll have time to assess its wounds, and drop if the added penalties overcome one of his stat...).

Just some random thought, because I think it's overly complicated, to spark discussion on this topic. The Steel-only combat could even be made more worrying for the players if the GM don't tell them exactly the level of the wounds they received so far... "You're wounded, make a Steel test... OK, you keep your wits, but are you sure you want to continue fighting?"

[luke]

"Damn right, I take it on the head; that's why I bought this thing."


bingo.

-L

[luke]

Well, the irritation, to me, is remembering who's at which penalty level, what's his relevant affected pool and has he hit bottom yet. e.g. A ranger [total wound penalty (+1 Ob, -3D), martial skill (5), lowest stat (4)]. Each value is slightly different.

Bill, you have a peculiar and marvelous talent for making the most simple things sound like trigonometry.

Here's how it goes in my game: The party rushes the gates of the palace, four well-trained soldiers bar their way with swords and naginata. I make quick list in my notebook: 1,2,3,4. I assign those numbers to players: Pete, Chris, Danny, Andy.

All the guards have a B11 MW. The first one is hit for a B9. That's a Severe wound. He goes down. No Steel test, no "He's still got one die left in..." -3D and he doesn't want to fight anymore.

Second one is his for a B7. A Midi. He has to make a Steel check. He fails by two. Begs for mercy. Next!

The last two guards remain standing and give as good as they get (for purposes of our example). I note their +1 Obs/Superficials under their respective number. I tell the players -- "He's got a Superficial. Remind me." One of them gets lucky and runs a PC through for a Midi. When I roll for the next guard's Counterstrike, Pete reminds me: "Did you take off a success?" That's cool. Poor sucker ends up taking 6 Superficial wounds, breaking and running.

always seemed easier than tracking hit points or boxes to me. Big wounds take you down immediately. Little wounds get tracked: 1, 2, 3. No endless list of subtractions...

any way...
-L

[luke]

Well, the irritation, to me, is remembering who's at which penalty level, what's his relevant affected pool and has he hit bottom yet. e.g. A ranger [total wound penalty (+1 Ob, -3D), martial skill (5), lowest stat (4)]. Each value is slightly different.

Bill, you have a peculiar and marvelous talent for making the most simple things sound like trigonometry.

Here's how it goes in my game: The party rushes the gates of the palace, four well-trained soldiers bar their way with swords and naginata. I make quick list in my notebook: 1,2,3,4. I assign those numbers to players: Pete, Chris, Danny, Andy.

All the guards have a B11 MW. The first one is hit for a B9. That's a Severe wound. He goes down. No Steel test, no "He's still got one die left in..." -3D and he doesn't want to fight anymore.

Second one is his for a B7. A Midi. He has to make a Steel check. He fails by two. Begs for mercy. Next!

The last two guards remain standing and give as good as they get (for purposes of our example). I note their +1 Obs/Superficials under their respective number. I tell the players -- "He's got a Superficial. Remind me." One of them gets lucky and runs a PC through for a Midi. When I roll for the next guard's Counterstrike, Pete reminds me: "Did you take off a success?" That's cool. Poor sucker ends up taking 6 Superficial wounds, breaking and running.

always seemed easier than tracking hit points or boxes to me. Big wounds take you down immediately. Little wounds get tracked: 1, 2, 3. No endless list of subtractions...

any way...
-L

[Bill Cook]

I heard you. I heard you. I heard you. :)

This is a really interesting post. It looks like you're more interpretative with the numbers. And you use three outcomes: he's out, he's down and (after that last lick) he's running. So your only tracking is additive (i.e. Ob raises), and you never apply die penalties because they exit the target; the degree of penalty is color.

That would be easier.

Another thing I haven't been doing is Ste tests for die penalties. Of course, if the mook passes, then you'd have to apply die penalties. Else, why check?

[Viper]

"Damn right, I take it on the head; that's why I bought this thing."


bingo.

-L

Would never, never, happen, at least not IRL. Not suggesting you try this, but if you went up to a modern day soldier, someone who is wearing a thick kevlar helmet on his head, and no functional armor anywhere else on his body, and you took a swing at his head with a weapon, or even a bare fist, he would do everything possible to block you with his hands. Every time. It's pure instinct to try and defend what is essentially the center of your being. It's also one of the most fundamental things anyone with a modicum of training learns: Keep your guard up!

Willingly taking blows on the head, even with a helmet is stupid behavior that borders on suicidal. If it's written into the character that he's a suicidal moron, then fine, but otherwise, no go.

[Redoid]

Would never, never, happen, at least not IRL. Not suggesting you try this, but if you went up to a modern day soldier, someone who is wearing a thick kevlar helmet on his head, and no functional armor anywhere else on his body, and you took a swing at his head with a weapon, or even a bare fist, he would do everything possible to block you with his hands. Every time.


That's what I thought. Look at people in 3D cinemas, when you have to wear googles. OK, they have no combat training, but EVERYONE tries to catch the various things that fly toward him with hand, not head. Even if we KNOW that nothing can possibly happen and no flying disk, fish or other projectile is coming out of the screen. OK, I am lousy at making comparisons.Err, you mentionned persons with a modicum of training, I will try to illustrate your point: profesionnal boxers fight with their head as the most armoured part of their body. They wear metal helmet, don't they? And you never see them trying to turn their head to take a blow on their helmet, in order to free their arms to strike. They always seem to try to parry the incoming punches with their hands.

However, I enjoy the idea that defenders declares his exposed areas.

[TimP]

I'm in the 'no freaking way someone's going to offer their head as a target' camp. The reason the head has been the most heavily armoured part of the body throughout the history of warfare is that it's the most vulnerable part of the body. Your brains and four out of five of your senses are in/on/around that most precious of appendages.

Tim

[Yagathai]

Three words:

Head butt contest.

[Redoid]

As far as I understand, we are trying to solve two problems, first, that called shots are not giving any advantage, that there is not enough variety in fight if the attacker always strikes the vulnerable parts if the attacker always get to choose (defeating the Naked Achean concept). On the other hand, having the defender choose leads to aberration like the headfirst warrior.Or, even worse, the 10"-thick lead helmet invulnerable warrior.

I like the idea of the defender choosing which part he'll expose, but there should be an incentive to alternate exposed locations. For example, one could have a location be shortly disabled if hit three times in a fight, irrespective of armor. If it's a leg, you collapse, if it's an arm, you drop your weapon, if it's the head or chest, you drop. The defender expose three areas, if the attacked want to bypass this choice, he has to use extra successes. So even if you have a thick helmet, you won't expose your head all the time. Having a shield would allow you to expose only two areas.

Having penalties for exposing always the same area would solve part of the problem.

[TimP]

I think the last thing BW needs is more complication or fiddly exceptions to the rules.

The whole headfirst warrior thing can easily be handled by the GM on a case by case basis. If one of my players was munchkiney enough to lead with his head, when he inevitably rolls that one on his armor check he's going to have some problems: 'your chin strap broke, and now your helmet is rolling around loosely on your head-+1 ob to everything you do. Your helmet goes flying off from the mighty blow.' That sort of thing.

I think the extra die of armor for the torso is enough incentive for the player to use that as his offered location. At least it has been in all of my sessions.

Tim

[Angaros]

I think the last thing BW needs is more complication or fiddly exceptions to the rules.
I agree. I came to BW from more complicated and far more detailed systems and I've grown to like the amount of detal and granularity I get with surprisingly little complexity. I wouldn't mind adding some detail, but I don't want more complication (i.e. I don't want more die rolls, more tables and that sort of things).


The whole headfirst warrior thing can easily be handled by the GM on a case by case basis. If one of my players was munchkiney enough to lead with his head, when he inevitably rolls that one on his armor check he's going to have some problems: 'your chin strap broke, and now your helmet is rolling around loosely on your head-+1 ob to everything you do. Your helmet goes flying off from the mighty blow.' That sort of thing.
I don't know. Leaving stuff to GM interpretation isn't my choice of solution, especially not in a system like BW where the GM is intended to be "just another player" (to quote Luke). I'd like a rule everyone involved could follow and fall back on.


I think the extra die of armor for the torso is enough incentive for the player to use that as his offered location. At least it has been in all of my sessions.
That's an interesting idea, but what I feel is lacking is that there is no difference between hit location in terms of wound effects. As you said earlier -- the reason I put a heavy piece of metal on my head is that it's vulnerable. Same goes for the thorax and abdomen -- there are lots of mushy organs there that don't go well with embedded steel and wood.

One solution would be to increase healing times/Ob:s (or use the high end of the scale) for vital locations (chest and head). In the legs and arms, you can still suffer gruesome shattering injuries, but a heavy blow to the head is more likely to leave you with a nasty permanent injury and so on. Treatment and healing are situations where you're not as dependant on game flow and you're probably looking at tables anyway, so adding detail won't add much to the complexity of the game. It also has other benefits: a novice might be cocky and go head-first into battle, but any veteran of a war will rather take a hit to his legs or arms before spilling his guts or brains. He knows fixing those injuries isn't easy and he knows he's gonna be out of action for a long, long time if his helmet fails. It's just not worth it any more. Another idea that can be layered on top of this healing time/Ob stuff is the addition of gaining traits due to bad healing rolls. But it might be a bad move to put that into a regulated system -- better to let group interpretation and voting take care of traits?

[Enlil]

I think part of the problem is visualiazation. I think the idea isn't so much that you are leading with your head, as that you are working at protecting other things harder. So you might crouch with he tip of your blade low. Doesn't sound quite so silly, that way.

If it really bothers you, I guess you could make the chest the default for stabbing attacks, and the arms or legs the default for swinging attacks. Or, as someone said, penalize or ban choosing the head.

Christian

[Angaros]

I think part of the problem is visualiazation. I think the idea isn't so much that you are leading with your head, as that you are working at protecting other things harder. So you might crouch with he tip of your blade low. Doesn't sound quite so silly, that way.
This is what it's all about, I agree with you on that, but I still feel the system lacks incentive for not choosing the head as the location you worry least about given the circumstances. I'm gonna play around a little with healing times and Ob:s and see what I come up with. It has the potential to satisfy me and my players I think.

[Enlil]

I like it! That is a really neat way of handling things without changing any rules - if a head wound always takes max time to heal (or close to it), people aren't going to choose the head nearly so much - 12 weeks for a midi would suck. It also dosen't have the problems associated with discouraging choosing the head by making head shots nastier - if people are staggered by head blows, everyone is alway going to choose them, after all.

You could extend that to all parts of the body - if limbs take less time (within the guidelines given) to heal than the chest, there is more reason to not always block with the chest (if you have uniform armor). And all without distorting combat.

Christian

[Angaros]

Precisely, and by modifying treatment Ob:s you can add to that effect. I mean, fixing a broken arm can be done on the field, but a cracked skull, gouged eye or broken intrails, now that's a bit tougher.

[Bill Cook]

Boy, this thread has really gotten stuck on hitting the head. Location specific damage is so not BW. For called shots or defender elected locations, the system concerns itself with whether there is armor. That is it. It's a (lovely) design constraint. Embrace it and feel your concerns disolve.

It's important to understand that the player choosing the head is driven by the advantage his character's helmet provides and in no way reflects its likeliness as a target. Nor does it simulate the player having his character stick his head forward or pull his chest back.

It's nothing more than letting a player use what he's got as he sees fit.

If you really want a system that supports role-playing what happens when you smack someone in the side of the head with a mace, play TROS; it's utterly disgusting.

[luke]

i'm not going to go into it, because i don't want to repeat myself, but this is all covered in the revision. which is finished.

so just cool your jets, hold your horses and wait until april. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

-L