Quote from: ForgottenF on Today at 08:43:48 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 23, 2024, 09:14:17 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2024, 08:37:17 PMOooh... We're touching on a subject which is near and dear to my heart.

For my money, if you want a fairly realistic approach to the way ancient/medieval/early modern weapons and armor interact, the optimum way is to address three factors for weapons:
.....

Admittedly, the level of complexity this requires is possibly too much to be practical. I haven't tried to implement it in my own games, but where I can, I do aim for half-measures that move towards the same effect.

This is useful, thanks. Maybe the problem is that I'm putting maces and rondel dagger in the same "defeat armor" category, but they defeat armor for different reasons...

Another thing I don't even want to consider is swords that cut AND thrust - or worse, swords techniques such as half-swording.

Yeah, the variations quickly get so complicated that you can see why D&D chose to just collapse it into AC and say if you beat their AC you must have wounded them somehow.

I'd even be uncomfortable putting a mace in a general "defeats armor" category. From what I've read on the matter, one-handed maces are actually close to useless against late-period full plate harness. You can bash your target around and maybe stun or tire them, but you're unlikely to kill or even seriously wound the target.

Oddly, I think the cut-and-thrust sword is something you don't really need to go out of your way to represent in a "weapon vs. armor" system. Generally (though not universally), there's a give-and-take in cutting and thrusting effectiveness in sword design, so a better cutter is often a worse thruster and vice versa. It think that means you can keep the penetration scores relatively similar for both. A dedicated thrusting sword will probably always be better at bypassing armor, but on the flip-side, a cutting or cut-and-thrust sword is generally easier to use and better for parrying, so it should have a better "wieldiness" score.

Half-swording gets you into the world of grappling, and that's another huge problem here. You can't really replicate the purpose of a lot of late-medieval weapons like longswords, rondels and poleaxes without a grappling system. If you're not prepared to implement a full set of grappling rules, I think you can get away with presuming the grappling capability into the attack and armor bypass rolls, and handling it through DM narration, but it's not a great solution.

The 2d20 system has an interesting, though poorly implemented, mechanic: If you can "break the opponent's guard", you invert the reach differential, so a dagger suddenly has a "reach" advantage over a spear. There's problems with how it works in the system, but on paper it's not a bad way of representing the utility of certain weapons in extremely close fighting.

Personally, I find that I have to improvise grappling rules for all of my games, just to keep the combat plausible. Grappling is a significant part of every medieval or renaissance fighting system we have evidence for, and it's not hard to see why. Not only is it practically the only way to bypass full armor, but whenever you have two people going at each other with high adrenaline and malice aforethought, there's a very good chance of them getting tangled up and having to wrestle it out.

I think there's two reasons RPGs don't much engage with grappling. The first and most obvious reason is that it's such a pain in the balls to write rules for. The second, though, is that a lot of gamers (and by extension designers) think of RPG combat in battlefield terms. I.e., they're thinking of ranks and formations, and the combat dynamics those produce. Realistically, people fighting in a shield wall or a pike block probably almost never got into grapples with their opposition. The more combatants are involved in a fight, the more you want to stay in ranks and not get tied up with a single opponent. Problem is that RPG combats are rarely at the kind of scale where close-order infantry formations would be relevant. They're much more analogous to a skirmish between light troops or even just a street brawl, and that produces a very different dynamic.

Grappling is another difficult issue indeed, and AD&D's version is very fiddly. I read "Dungeon Grappling" a while ago, found it a worthy replacement.

I wrote my own minimalist version of grappling, which is basically 1d20+AB versus 10+HD to make the enemy disarmed, prone, or to push, etc. I prefer a more abstract take here too.

Quote from: ForgottenF on Today at 09:03:17 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on Today at 08:14:25 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 23, 2024, 11:36:13 PMEDIT: You also have to remember that guards are not necessarily gearing up for life or death single combat. A polearm could easily be a very useful tool for crowd control. When performing more "law enforcement" type activities like breaking up fights or making arrests, they'd probably expect to outnumber their opposition and for the felons to be more likely to surrender or run away rather than stand and fight. Real people are a lot less likely to fight the local authorities to the death over a minor infraction than RPG players are. Plus, if you want to put someone down without killing them, a spear haft is going to do the job better than a sword. 

Plus, frequently a guard's job is not to prevent a concerted attack.  It's to intimidate people who have no intention of attacking but might be causing other trouble, stop an attack by untrained people who have underestimated what that polearm can do, or delay an attack by more serious opposition until help can arrive.  Reach is helpful in all three of those cases.

In game terms, this is another example of what I said earlier.  Does your game have mechanics or encourage situations where any of those things matter?  How frequently?  If not, then such weapons are less useful.

And that right there is the crux of the issue. To my mind, the holy grail of good RPG design is to have it that a player can make decisions entirely based on understanding the game world and in-game situation, without even needing to understand the rules, and the rules will bear out the effectiveness of that decision as it would be in the fiction. The point of all of this weapon and armor realism is not simulation for it's own sake, but to produce the same incentives in equipment and combat choices as would exist if the game world was real.

Agreed... that would be ideal.

Quote from: oggsmash on April 23, 2024, 10:57:27 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 23, 2024, 09:10:50 AM

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on April 23, 2024, 01:11:09 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 22, 2024, 12:02:01 PMGURPS was good at this, but too complex to the point of becoming unrealistic: a 10-second fight between two people has 20 or more sword blows, most being parried.

There's nothing unrealistic in this, ten seconds are an eternity in a close combat fight. Same goes for the parries, the absolute majority of fighting styles emphasize defense for a reason; what's totally unrealistic, instead, is being hit (good hit, not a glancing blow) more than once or twice by a sword and not dying.

I disagree.

No 10-second fight has 20 blows. Maybe you can find a 10-second period in a 5-minute fight with such a frantic pace, or a fight that ended in 10 seconds with a single punch, but I never seem such a frantic pace of attacking in fencing, UFC, larping, or medieval fighting simulations. If you have, send me the YouTube link

10-second combats only make sense if weapons are present and armor absent, but then they'll probably be finished before 20 blows.

Other than that, a duel (not to mention a skirmish) of say, people in swords and armor, will definitely last more than 10-seconds - in fact one might take a few seconds just to find an opening before approaching.

Same for people with no weapons and no armor. - even boxing matches do not have two punches per second, and punching is faster than swinging an axe!

GURPS kinda recognized this by publishing the "lull" supplement I mentioned but unfortunately can't find.

Without armor, I agree that taking a couple of sword blows would lead to death.

  This assumption means both parties choose to attack every turn.  Evaluate, all out defense, stepping back to disengage, etc make that stretch out quite a bit IME. Deceptive attacks and feints also cut down greatly on the number of attacks parried.   You can see lots of fights that during a flurry of activity it will approach what you describe, but they are rare as most parties involved in that frenetic pace lack the defense to avoid real damage or the durability to absorb it solely for the sake of throwing a shot. 
 
   I do wish GURPS used a 5 second round/turn as it would make a good deal more sense overall with regard to melee (the 1 second turns make a lot more sense with regard to gunfights) but using the things I mentioned also tends to slow the pace down a good deal and allows characters with a skill disadvantage to take measures to not get overwhelmed.

Yeah, good point, if you use all the maneuvers it could make sense (and definitely makes sense for gunfights), especially with 5-second turns.

Quote from: Aglondir on Today at 12:38:31 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 23, 2024, 09:10:50 AMGURPS kinda recognized this by publishing the "lull" supplement I mentioned but unfortunately can't find.

Eric,

IIRC, it's in 3E Compendium 2. Sold it years ago. I don't think that rule made it into 4E.

Thanks!

Quote from: tenbones on Today at 05:33:37 PM

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on Today at 10:37:01 AMThis looks extremely interesting, pretty curious to see how much of this could mix and match with the other Companions...

It is 100% compatible with all the other Companions (which should be no surprise). All of the Savage Worlds subsystems are meant to be dropped into play as needed.

Yeah I'm salivating at this. I can see a lot of potential legwork already done for converting their favorite crunchier RPG to Savage Worlds, or better, creating a SW version of their favorite IP.

First and foremost - WH40k where you're actually playing Space Marines, could *easily* be done using the Sci-Fi Companion and dropping in elements from Savage Rifts. One could *easily* create a more tactical and kinetic skirmish mission-based game or fullblown 40k campaign with a little bit of time.

I will be interested to see what they have regarding creating walkers.  Didnt feel the rules in the original companion were clear or full enough to really do anything.

Quote from: Corolinth on Today at 03:26:14 PMThey have Jell-O people from the planet Cosby.

If they offer you something to drink, just don't accept.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on Today at 05:50:17 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on Today at 04:33:23 PMI think that's a fair critique. There's thousands and thousands of Middle Earth rip-offs, but only one Nyambe and it's not even supported anymore.

Then what the Hell is stopping you from writing one? Chop, chop. Put up or shut up.

I wouldn't know the first place to start

I discovered rowing machines at the hotel where we attended an author's conference.

I like the water based ones the best.

Quote from: jeff37923 on Today at 01:16:44 PMAnd this conversation just disappeared up its own ass.

Sorry, but Karl Marx and his teachings have nothing to do with how Tolkien was a major influence on early D&D. I give benefit of the doubt to young college socialists in the early 70s playing D&D and being horrified by the game's capitalist basis, but Tolkien was the author to read at that moment in time on college campuses if you liked fantasy.

Dragging Marx into this is like dragging Heinlein into this and declaring that Glory Road had less of an influence on early D&D than Stranger in a Strange Land.

Didn't say it did. Tangentially, I pointed out that Marxism agrees with Eirikrautha where "...the "progressives" want to assert that there is no human condition, nor is there anything within us other than the product of culture and politics."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on Today at 04:33:23 PMI think that's a fair critique. There's thousands and thousands of Middle Earth rip-offs, but only one Nyambe and it's not even supported anymore.

Then what the Hell is stopping you from writing one? Chop, chop. Put up or shut up.

Starting in about an hour: I'm the guest star for Diversity & Dragons! Don't miss it.
#dnd #ttrpg #osr 

The final book is going to clock in (according to Pinnacle) over *300-pages*. I don't think I read that wrong. That's *fucking huge* for a Savage Worlds book.

It looks like the beta is a tiny bit. Last Parsec is naturally designed to fold into the Companion (they have a small section for it). But they're going hard on other Sci-fi tropes I'm sure you'll all recognize...


They have a free Walkers preview.

Aliens vs. Starship Troopers...


The Companions are designed to go hog on all the tropes we want and let us go wild with them. Should be really interesting.