We touched on this a bit on this in beejazz's recent thread, though more in reference to weapons vs. armour types and I think he's going with an absorption system in his game..
 
As I said there, I'm no expert. Perhaps one way to figure this might be to look at the best armour and see what works on that and what doesn't. Just off wikipedia:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour
Condensing that a bit:
"Plate armour was virtually invulnerable to sword slashes. It also protects the wearer well against spear or pike thrusts and provides decent defence against blunt trauma...weak points could be exploited by weapons designed for the purpose such as poleaxes and halberds... Maces, war hammers and the hammer-heads of pollaxes (poleaxes) were used to inflict blunt trauma through armour...longbows and crossbows could pierce plate armour with a lucky shot."
 
Other than that:
 
*it does say 'sword slashes' - I suspect you may still be able to do something useful with stabbing, albeit awkwardly.
 
*I suspect pirate-y type weapons such as cutlasses and so on are popular in part because in ship-to-ship battles, few if any people are going to be wearing armour. Likewise, I imagine scimitars wouldn't have great penetration value [if only because a stabbing action might be more awkward), but in hot climates less armour as well. Rapiers I think came in when crossbows and firearms had made heavier armours more or less obsolete, which I suppose is a bit of a problem with the D&D trope where Rapier Guy and Longsword Guy are together in the same party.
 
*I have seen systems giving bypass bonuses to two-handed swords; Combat and Tactics in 2nd ed. for example gives them a +2 against armoured opponents.
 
k hope this helps...

Good stuff. I like the idea, I think I'll work on it and see what I can come up with, and keep it simple.

One of the problems is that some weapons hate plate and mail, but will turn someone in leather to a corpse real fast, of course this is simulated by the armor ping.

Still I'm trying to work out the math, there are a couple of ways of doing it and one looks better for the people in armor, but messes with the stat+level+d20 element (going roll under)

Which is better for "simulation" of D&D numerically, any ideas?

The basic idea is that Leather Armor is AC 7, and Plate and  mail is AC 3,

To ping on Leather armor you roll higher than a 7.
To ping on Plate and mail  you roll higher than a 3.

Armor Piercing is then added to the value. So a 5th level warrior (AP5) with a Club (NO Natural AP) hits an Orc in Leather (Tough Hide and Leather, total AC 4) The player rolls a 9 or higher to save against the damage. While the same warrior with a Long Sword (Average AP is 4) forces the ORC to roll and get a 13 or higher to save.

Does this make sense?

A bit hard to follow your post sorry - not sure if its roll under/roll over, or who rolls.

I'm gathering that:
*attacker succeeds on attack roll first ?
*defender rolls to see if armour blocks: d20+[opponent warrior level]+[armour piercing of weapon] vs. their armour rating, trying to roll under it?

Which looks awkward due to lots of people having to ask other people for modifiers before rolling, but I'm not sure if I've got it right.

I know the question comes probably a little too late, and I really don't want to come off as a killjoy bastard, but reading the OP, I do not understand why you are not using one of the multiple OGL variants of D&D (such as one of the multiple Swords & Wizardry variants out there if you want simplicity, or even building your own S&W variant from White Box, Core Rules or Complete) instead of building another game from scratch.

Do you have any particular reason?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;555482Which looks awkward due to lots of people having to ask other people for modifiers before rolling, but I'm not sure if I've got it right.

Its problematic and I'm trying to make the math work. Let's see if I can simplify it.

All of this is roll over for the defender.


Level 5 Warrior with sword vs Level 3 Orc with club.

Warrior lands blow.

Orc (GM) rolls damage save. In this case their Armor Save value is Leather Armor+Hide (Value 4)

The base number is 20. We subtract the Armor Save (4) and the Orcs level (3) For a value of 13.

Now if this were a non-warrior type, the armor protects them on a roll of 13+


Since the PC is Warrior he gets his Warrior Level+Weapons AP value. In this case 5 (Level)+3 (Sword) means he has 8 increase to that roll. Pushing the Orcs armor to near uselessness. (The Orc needs a natural 20 to protect him.)


On the other hand. An Orc in plate armor has a base AS is 16 we subtract that from 20 and the orc has to roll a 4 or higher for Plate to bounce the attack. Modifying that by the Warriors bonuses means that he can still ping an attack on 13-20.(or 35% of the time against a well armed foe who is higher level.


Make a little more sense? Does the math work better this way. Remember, this is AFTER the person has already landed a strike on their armored foe. So we want it to be useful, but not too useful.

The same Orc (in Leather) attacking the warrior in Chain, would hit then the Warrior would need to roll  (20-15-5) would need a 10 or higher before the Orc's abilities are applied. The club has NO AP, but Orc counts as a Warrior, so he pushes that up to 13 for the Chain to protect him.



If the the Orc instead of a club had a warhammer (Ap 4) He'd make the Chain armor only ping his attack on a 18,19, or 20)

Quote from: Benoist;555495I know the question comes probably a little too late, and I really don't want to come off as a killjoy bastard, but reading the OP, I do not understand why you are not using one of the multiple OGL variants of D&D (such as one of the multiple Swords & Wizardry variants out there if you want simplicity, or even building your own S&W variant from White Box, Core Rules or Complete) instead of building another game from scratch.

Do you have any particular reason?

Complexity, vs simplicity. Lets be honest a Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric all need a page or so description of their abilities, sometimes more.

In this case I'm trying to make the game so simple for everyone's class that it takes a paragraph to describe the classes abilities. (Mind you Magic, Combat, etc will be separate, but they typically are in clones.)

I also want to do a few things differently--such as the Class Paths, and Class stacking which isn't multi/dual classing in the traditional sense. Its stacking all "sensible" levels of a given path to let the person have an effectivness in the PATH, higher than the single class they're on right now.

In addition to that I may want to tweak magic a bit, to make Vancian, well, either truly Vancian, or more flexible, and possibly both.

I also want to keep some of the elegance of BECMI D&D, while keeping a streamlined rule-set.

Most D&D derivatives make level unimportant except to physical combat and ability "unlocks," I want class level to impact every roll that relates to a given class.

Example: An 8th Level Fighter gets +8 to Armor Penetration/Piercing, +8 to care for weapons, +8 for tactics/strategy,+8 for Leadership in war, and so on. Anything which basically relates to his class is done at his classes level.

Most games only use level as a marker for abstract "gimmies," in this case its the number we use for nearly everything (with perhaps exceptions for Movement Rates, and Hit points--even then 8th level warrior has 8HD.)

Want to Ambush a warrior? Beat his +8 Warrior Class bonus, Want to make him run away? +8 morale bonus...and so on and so forth.

Simplest math version:

You roll to strike your target. You get DC Number of Armor Class? You hit and puncture armor.

You roll within 5 less of the DC? You hit but fail to puncture armor, any secondary effects may still effect the target.


Same idea, simplest mechanics. Armor Penetration goes to 5 anymore than that and you'd have failed anyway to even strike the target.

No feedback? No ideas?

Quote from: Silverlion;556117No feedback? No ideas?

I'm still not sure if I've understood what your combat procedure is, so that's difficult.

From context, I'm now guessing you don't have an attack roll, just armour bypass ? (like D&D)?   (in which case I'd say its simple which is what you're aiming for, but much less awesome than having a separate bypass roll...).

It might be easier to comment on bits like this if the rules were written up as text excerpts rather than descriptions of ideas, if you're up to that stage.


Other than that, on the subject of classes, just wondering if you've ever considered the Talislanta model - where a class is a package of skills with bonus = level, but a character can also buy and improve skills individually.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;556164Other than that, on the subject of classes, just wondering if you've ever considered the Talislanta model - where a class is a package of skills with bonus = level, but a character can also buy and improve skills individually.

Not a bad idea, but I think it breaks the role of "Level" being the  the major important number, to keep things fast and easy to reference. I want a character sheet to be something like

Name: Tharik                   Class(es): Warrior 4/Rogue 2/Ranger 1  Total: 7
Alignment: Neutral Good
Str +1   Dex +2   Con +1  Int 0  Wis  +2  Cha +1      
Defense: 15  (Dex+Level+10)  Armor Save: 5 (Chainmail)     Hit Points: 38
Avoid: +5
Deny:  +2
Resist: +6

Sword (Strike: +8 AP: 5 )
Longbow (Strike: 9 AP: 6)
Gear: Armor, Sword, Bow, Etc.



Or something very close.

I'm going to take a break on the AC for now, I think I've got a solid idea for it but it needs testing of course.

What I'm working on now are the "Feat" rules, no not D&D3E Feats, but your classic Tunnels & Trolls stunts, "Roll under stat" to do something interesting type rules.


Feats come in different forms for the different classes.

Martial Classes get Combat Maneuvers which they can do to alter the flow of combat, and give them more imaginative options than "Hit, Dodge, Parry.." Examples: A fighter may knock a weapon from an opponents hand, lure them into overextending themselves, strike at an un-helmeted head to draw blood and blind their opponent some, cut arrows from the air, sweep several foes at once, and so on.

Magical classes get access to their feats in another way. Clerics get access to Inspirations, and Wizardly sorts access mysteries. These operate similarly and are feats that interact with a classes spellcasting abilities. A Spellcaster can: Tag a target with a spell sigil, or divine mark, which makes them easier to target by other characters. They use their spells in an un-intended manner such as using arcane arrow/magic missile to blow open a lock, or use Remove fear on a foe and then tricking them into stepping on to a trapped pit trigger. (Now that they're unafraid of it, they lose a bit of reasonable, trepidation.)

Rogue Feats, are similar to Martial ones, and called tricks (or sometimes dirty tricks.) They work by allowing the Rogue to use their maneuverability, deception, and back stab abilities in various ways. A Rogue may roll between a giants legs, and stab them from behind in the back of the thigh (getting critical damage.) A Rogue may feint at foe then fade back into hiding forcing them to pursue the Rogue above others, throw sand in an opponents face, cut the straps on an enemies pants, and otherwise make fighting the Rogue a painful proposition and embarrassing situation.

There is not a big list of these abilities. A GM should keep in mind that these are meant to allow a character on both sides of a fight to keep the fight interesting and change the battlefield in their teams favor, but in small and often limited ways.

A character can enact one of these feats per encounter, per level

I've played about for a while with house ruled D&D (Basic) with the idea that 'the more accurate you are, the more damage you do'.

Weapon damage dice aren't rolled, instead a weapon gives a bonus to damage, up to how accurate your strike was.

Example:

Fighter attacks an Orc (AC6) with a sword.

Let's say Fighter needs to roll more than 13 to hit on 1d20. For every point that she exceeds 13, regard it as 1 point of accuracy. Roll 16, that's 3 points of accuracy. Roll 19, that's 6 points of accuracy.

Match accuracy point for point with a damage bonus of 1 point from the weapon, up to the weapons maximum, as listed here:



The weapons that give the biggest damage bonuses require the character to be more accurate (because they are large weapons, and unwieldy). Another option will be to make the two handed weapon types slower (lose initiative) and reduce accuracy by 1 point, but inflict 2 points of damage per point of accuracy up to the maximum bonus. I've played around with a few options, including a critical hit style system.

If the accuracy exceeds the damage bonus, you 'max out' the weapon and could probably do with a bigger weapon if you're doing it regularly. For instance, a skilled warrior would easily 'max out' a dagger, and find they would be far better served by an Axe or Two handed sword.

In the example above, the Fighter attacks an Orc. She uses a sword and adds Strength (+2) to the Hit roll, getting a total of 17. She exceeds the target number by 4 points and adds 4 points from her Sword for a total of 8 damage.

One roll to hit and damage. Armour reduces damage, but you could inflict a minimum amount of damage equal to your strength bonus (if you have one) if the armour blocks it all, from bruising. I would base Armour (or Defence Class) on speed, intelligence, perception, skill, experience, size of foe and surprise (if any) so its easier to hit slower opponents.

A 20 'explodes' allowing you to roll and add another D20 to your hit roll. Let's say she rolled a 20, then rolled 8 on the next roll. She exceeds the target (roll 28+2 from Strength=30) by 17 points. She adds the maximum (+8) from the sword for 25 damage, chopping the Orcs head clean off in one stroke! She only wishes she could do that to the Dragon waiting at the end of the dungeon!

Having 20s explode could be the critical system (I'd planned a MERP style critical table with a roll bonus of the number of points you exceeded the weapons max by, and a table for each weapon).

With this, even a Thief with a dagger can inflict huge damage by plunging it into an eye, whilst a very skilled/high level Fighter could make a Dagger as deadly as a battle axe in the hands of a barely trained Orc.

Like everything else I do, still in the planning stages, buried somewhere in a pile of unfinished projects on my hard drive

Missile weapons are harder to hit with (range penalties) but multiply accuracy with very high maximum damage bonuses (though you'd have to be Robin Hood to max a bow out, or Bard the Bowman aiming at Smaug)

Any thoughts/opinions, ways to break this/improve it?