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Author Topic: Weapons and armor idea for ga.e. Feedback request.  (Read 688 times)

Zakier

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Weapons and armor idea for ga.e. Feedback request.
« on: January 15, 2017, 04:31:08 AM »
Warning! The system here within is meant to incite players to being more precise with their attacks. Taking advantage of situations and material to overcome daunting challenges by being Tactical, working together and learning the enemies and materials discussed. This does mean for player characters there is a larger amount of micro managing but also allows for more freedom in customization. The players this system was designed for specifically requested a more in depth and realistic combat. This is my solution. Your feedback is welcome.


Quality:
A measure of various factors of an items makeup from the material used to the skill of the craftsman.

Quality mechanically is the weapons upper condition limit or max health.

Condition:
An items current Condition or health remaining.

Hardness:
How diffaculty it is to damage an item, otherwise a Damage reduction.


Armor:

A players armor consist of multiple peices. Head, L/R arms, Torso, L/R Legs, Hands and Feet.

That's 10 armor peices total.

Each armor peice has its own Quality Hardness and Condition. (Players will have a sheet dedicated to armor to write down the stats for each peice. As well as enough room to draw out their character and armor should they wish)

Each peice of armor can be modified in various ways, adding a layer of leather over a plate or padding underneath, wearing a games on or chain mail for an extra layer of defense. There will be a multitude of options to allow players to create their own personalized armor.

However each peice of armor and modification has its own weight, your armors overall weight may add an Armor penalty to actions.

A player also has a weapon (currently I've made no decisions on if weapons should have multiple peices as well or if I should make it one overall amount. )
I'm playing it the idea of making weapons as customizable as armor for the reasons down in pro's.

Different materials offer different Hardness and base quality increase to the parts. They may also add special details or secrets that are exploitable.

For example, Super heating Iron then rapidly cooling it will cause it to shatter. (Interesting way to completely destroy a Peice of armor without having to whittle it down 1 HP at a time)

Combat:

When fighting an opponent that is wearing external armor or has an exoskeleton of some kind, players have to destroy parts of the armor to be able to apply direct damage. Every attack a player makes is considered a called shot. The smaller an area they try to hit the harder it is to hit.

How this happens:

A Peice of armor has a Hardness rating, to damage the armor your damage must exceed this rating. Every point of damage over this Hardness rating reduces the armors condition by that amount.

How Hardness acts for weapons:
Your weapons Hardness acts as additional damage.

As an example, if the armor peice has a Hardness of 10 and your weapon has a Hardness of 5 plus your 1d6, you have to roll at least a 6 to damage the armor as that would be 1 point higher than the armors hardness.

(I have an entire combat system for special Attacks built to do additional damage so the amounts shown here are just for explanation)

IF your weapons Hardness exceeds the armors Hardness reduce your overall damage by the amount of the armors hardness.

Once an Armor peice is broken it is useless until repaired or replaced and offers no protection, damage is applied directly to the opponent if you continue to hit the same spot.

Obviously not every opponent will have armor.

When not in Combat players will need to repair their armor to keep it in working condition. Repairing an Armor peice requires the associated repair tools (or perhaps a kit that gives a bonus) and the player rolls using the Crafting skill to make such an item. Usually either weapon Smithing, Tailoring or armor Smithing.


Alright on to the discussion.

Cons:
It's more micro managing. Players would have to keep track of the condition of each peice of armor and protect that part from further wear by taking the blows elsewhere. My combat system does account for this and allows such action inherently.

Pros:
Armor isn't just a single number on the page. It's a life line. It's as much a part of the player as the characters they create. This system not only allows players to peice together armor to get exactly what they are wanting including looks but allows players to bond with their gear and be proud of what they have rather than just chasing the next shiny thing.

Pro/con: Players have to be more decisive with their attacks and may have to make decisions like "Do I risk a full defense even knowing they're roll was that good or do I use this held action to adjust position and take the hit somewhere less damaged"


Your feedback is appreciated and welcome. However please remember that this system is designed around the request of more realism and tactical decisions. The play Testers all said they preferred more critical thinking and more tactics needed to fight Monsters.

(This was after multiple sessions where the players ganged up on a solo monster and plowed it to death with a Witter shins beatdown. )

Skarg

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Weapons and armor idea for ga.e. Feedback request.
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2017, 01:18:48 PM »
Maybe you didn't explain something or I missed it, but:

1) It sounds like you can't hurt someone at all by hitting an armored location until/unless you completely destroy the armor at that location? That sounds wrong/unrealistic - it's certainly possible to penetrate armor or batter someone and hurt them without coming close to destroying the armor. If you mean that damage over hardness damages both the armor and the person wearing it, which would make more sense to me. For more realism, the damage resistance of the armor and of the person wearing the armor might be different numbers and depend on the attack type, as some hits might hurt the person without really hurting the armor, and so on.

2) The system for aiming at and protecting hit locations also becomes important of course, as well as having different effects for hitting different targets on a person.

Also, what you're describing sounds quite similar to what GURPS does, except GURPS is thoroughly developed/playtested/expanded. The hit locations, layering armor types and quality levels (see GURPS Low Tech), and weapons and shields which can also break in various ways, are all pretty well done there. However damage to armor itself doesn't have a great comprehensive damage system that I know of (though I expect there are some attempts on the GURPS forums).

But still, I'd try playing some GURPS. Probably 4E with 4E Low Tech. They've already done a lot of thinking and work about armor and hit locations and damaging stuff, which at the very least you could use as a reference.

I have tried tracking armor damage in detail in GURPS using various systems, and usually found it to be a whole lot of work, though I have still done it and liked the benefits even if I didn't like the work. And I'm the guy who thinks large GURPS combats on hex maps are fun and relatively easy to manage. But I don't think a realistic effect of armor damage is going to result in a major effect on tactics within one fight, because for the most part, armor tends to be more durable than the wearers. It's much easier to get around armor or pin or crush or disarm someone than it is to destroy their armor while they're wearing it, in general. Or at least, cut straps on the armor, pull it off them, get it twisted or something rather than physically destroying it.

Zakier

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Weapons and armor idea for ga.e. Feedback request.
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2017, 11:54:19 PM »
That list bit is part of the tactics I'm expecting from players. Sometimes it's going to be nearly impossible to get through armor with normal attacks so alternatives have to be managed.

Zakier

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Weapons and armor idea for ga.e. Feedback request.
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2017, 11:57:38 PM »
As far as your first point goes. Your right. That was the initial thinking when I posted this but it's been pointed out elsewhere that I should at the least make it so armor works against different types of damage and the types it doesn't work against get through to attack directly. Still others sure exactly what to do there but the overall idea is good.

If a character attacks an opponent whose armor is NOT resistant to their attacks type

Should it

A) have to Bypass Hardness and apply damage directly to opponent or armor or both

B) be considered a full armor bypass and do full Damage to opponent or armor or both


How would you do it?

Skarg

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Weapons and armor idea for ga.e. Feedback request.
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2017, 01:01:54 AM »
I do it like GURPS does it, or sometimes with more complexity. I try to simulate my best understanding of the situation. The only time something completely bypasses armor is when it completely would, which is very rare. So... x-ray lasers might ignore most/all armor. Lightning bolts and electric shocks generally ignore the conductive part of armor (like many metals) but not the padding. Otherwise, it's usually just a different damage resistance amount per damage type (i.e. use a lower Hardness when armor is less resistant to a type, but rarely zero).

Also sometimes it can make sense to have damage maximums and/or multipliers and divisors. GURPS uses those quite a bit to represent the differences between weapons that are good at penetrating or that do particularly large or small wounds when they penetrate greatly. I've played with various tweaks to that, but it can be useful for modeling something like a bodkin arrowhead that helps penetration but makes a small hole, so it might penetrate through your armor and flesh but if it just hits meat, it's not necessarily a deadly wound (hit a vital area though and you get a damage multiplier and/or special effects). Meanwhile a big sword blow that would slash apart and immediately kill an unarmored man, might bounce off a metal breastplate.

In the armor damage systems I've used, I tend to score little or no damage to armor from blows that don't penetrate (or from crushing blows against flexible armor), but increasingly more for cutting/chopping damage that does penetrate, so the really powerful hits are significant but the smaller ones not much. And I ended up usually not even tracking it except when I felt like it for PCs and their companions.

If you want a non-GURPS source with a little more detail in terms of armor types than GURPS Low Tech, you could check out The Palladium Book of Weapons & Armor (there's a little edition and a huge edition, maybe more), but basically they tend to give different numbers for cut and/or chop, impaling/thrusting/piercing and/or bullet, and crushing/impact damage. Rigid metal (and the best chainmail) tends to be full or near-full protection against most cut/chop.