Knaight
2014-03-14, 12:12 AM
Introduction
So, I'm a rules tinker. I like to mess around with them, poke holes in them, etc. WR&M is also a game I quite like, but there have been a few points where it just seems odd. For instance, HP seems kind of arbitrary for monsters, as does damage, and the way large creatures are threatening often seems a bit iffy. Then there's armor - it works best as damage reduction, but that gets into odd situations wherein two handed weapons punch through it really, really easily (way more than doubling damage), and big creatures often have an odd sort of difficulty with it. I've tried to resolve this a few different ways, but they tended to be messy.
That is, until I settled on this one. This one works quite cleanly.
Scale
Another stat is added to characters, which is their scale. Basically, this is D&D style size categories, though the exact terms, numbers, etc. attached to them don't actually matter all that much. What's needed is an ordered list, wherein each size is exponentially bigger than the one before it - how much bigger depends on the extent to which you want size to matter. Here's one example below, in both imperial and metric units - though they don't line up exactly, as clean numbers were chosen for both. The x4 mass was selected to deliberately get all player characters at the same scale, while also making it reasonably feasible to fight just about any real land animal, with monsters getting big enough to be more difficult.
Scale
Tiny (-2): 5-20 pounds (2-10 kg)
Small (-1): 20-75 pounds (10-35 kg)
Medium (0): 75-300 pounds (35-125 kg)
Large (1): 300-1200 pounds (125-500 kg)
Huge (2): 1,200-5,000 pounds (500-2000 kg)
Gargantuan (3): 5,000-20,000 pounds (2000-8000 kg)
Melee Attacks: Scale makes no difference. Sure, it's technically harder to hit smaller targets, but more reach and more strength help against defense.
Ranged Attacks: -2 penalty per size category smaller than you, +2 bonus per size category bigger than you.
Damage: Roll damage as normal. If the target is smaller than you, multiply by 2 per size category smaller than you. For instance, if an ogre (Size 1) attacks a leprechaun (size -2), they would multiply their damage by 8. If the target is larger, divide by 2 per size category larger than you. For example, that leprechaun would divide their damage by 8 when attacking the ogre. Round down. Armor is applied after multiplying or dividing.
Stealth: -2 to notice things per size difference smaller than you, assuming they are actually hiding.
Attributes: Attributes are not changed to account for size. 6 Rogue is a capable sneak and reasonable archer, regardless of how large the creature is. 6 Warrior is a good warrior, even for massive dragons and the like.
HP, Defense, Armor: None of these are altered to account for size. This does mean that something like a titanic dragon (size 3) probably only has 2-3 armor for its scales. Against a size 0 creature, that's roughly equivalent to 16-24, which is really hard to punch through.
Armor II: Those wanting to make armor less effective can have it only work well against those slightly smaller or however much larger. There's a case to be made that some tiny creature can probably just attack right through a gap in most armor, or better target vitals, or whatever else.
Weapons (Optional): Weapons are also not changed to account for size. However, I find it helps to make a small change to two handed weapons - both dice are rolled individually, with armor applying to both of them. This is actually largely unrelated to the scale system, and does have the effect of leaving the halberd, long bow, and cross bow as unusually good at punching through armor, which is a happy side effect.
New Stuff
Talent - Giant Slayer: When attacking larger creatures, they are treated as one size category smaller than they actually are.
Weapon Feature - Armor Piercing: Armor Piercing weapons effectively ignore 1 layer of scale for the purposes of armor. When attacking creatures calculate damage as if they were one scale smaller than they actually are, subtract armor, then divide the damage done by 2. Optionally, this can be given to all blunt weapons, in exchange for monsters of higher scale counting as being twice as many steps above (this is only applicable if the goal is realism).
Spell - Enlarge Person: Level 3. One touched person increases by 1 scale. This can only be applied once.
So, I'm a rules tinker. I like to mess around with them, poke holes in them, etc. WR&M is also a game I quite like, but there have been a few points where it just seems odd. For instance, HP seems kind of arbitrary for monsters, as does damage, and the way large creatures are threatening often seems a bit iffy. Then there's armor - it works best as damage reduction, but that gets into odd situations wherein two handed weapons punch through it really, really easily (way more than doubling damage), and big creatures often have an odd sort of difficulty with it. I've tried to resolve this a few different ways, but they tended to be messy.
That is, until I settled on this one. This one works quite cleanly.
Scale
Another stat is added to characters, which is their scale. Basically, this is D&D style size categories, though the exact terms, numbers, etc. attached to them don't actually matter all that much. What's needed is an ordered list, wherein each size is exponentially bigger than the one before it - how much bigger depends on the extent to which you want size to matter. Here's one example below, in both imperial and metric units - though they don't line up exactly, as clean numbers were chosen for both. The x4 mass was selected to deliberately get all player characters at the same scale, while also making it reasonably feasible to fight just about any real land animal, with monsters getting big enough to be more difficult.
Scale
Tiny (-2): 5-20 pounds (2-10 kg)
Small (-1): 20-75 pounds (10-35 kg)
Medium (0): 75-300 pounds (35-125 kg)
Large (1): 300-1200 pounds (125-500 kg)
Huge (2): 1,200-5,000 pounds (500-2000 kg)
Gargantuan (3): 5,000-20,000 pounds (2000-8000 kg)
Melee Attacks: Scale makes no difference. Sure, it's technically harder to hit smaller targets, but more reach and more strength help against defense.
Ranged Attacks: -2 penalty per size category smaller than you, +2 bonus per size category bigger than you.
Damage: Roll damage as normal. If the target is smaller than you, multiply by 2 per size category smaller than you. For instance, if an ogre (Size 1) attacks a leprechaun (size -2), they would multiply their damage by 8. If the target is larger, divide by 2 per size category larger than you. For example, that leprechaun would divide their damage by 8 when attacking the ogre. Round down. Armor is applied after multiplying or dividing.
Stealth: -2 to notice things per size difference smaller than you, assuming they are actually hiding.
Attributes: Attributes are not changed to account for size. 6 Rogue is a capable sneak and reasonable archer, regardless of how large the creature is. 6 Warrior is a good warrior, even for massive dragons and the like.
HP, Defense, Armor: None of these are altered to account for size. This does mean that something like a titanic dragon (size 3) probably only has 2-3 armor for its scales. Against a size 0 creature, that's roughly equivalent to 16-24, which is really hard to punch through.
Armor II: Those wanting to make armor less effective can have it only work well against those slightly smaller or however much larger. There's a case to be made that some tiny creature can probably just attack right through a gap in most armor, or better target vitals, or whatever else.
Weapons (Optional): Weapons are also not changed to account for size. However, I find it helps to make a small change to two handed weapons - both dice are rolled individually, with armor applying to both of them. This is actually largely unrelated to the scale system, and does have the effect of leaving the halberd, long bow, and cross bow as unusually good at punching through armor, which is a happy side effect.
New Stuff
Talent - Giant Slayer: When attacking larger creatures, they are treated as one size category smaller than they actually are.
Weapon Feature - Armor Piercing: Armor Piercing weapons effectively ignore 1 layer of scale for the purposes of armor. When attacking creatures calculate damage as if they were one scale smaller than they actually are, subtract armor, then divide the damage done by 2. Optionally, this can be given to all blunt weapons, in exchange for monsters of higher scale counting as being twice as many steps above (this is only applicable if the goal is realism).
Spell - Enlarge Person: Level 3. One touched person increases by 1 scale. This can only be applied once.