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Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firechanter
Well, that's just typical for D&D. Most games implement armour as damage reduction, and more experienced characters are more difficult to hit.
In D&D, armour makes you more difficult to hit, and experience makes you able to take more damage. It's weird, but I guess this "being different" was part of the reason that made D&D so successful back then.
D&D is older than all those other systems, it couldn't have gotten popular just by being different from them.
But armor as DR doesn't work realistically with most games damage rules. A dagger was often carried along side the whopping big warpick or greatsword or halberd or musket. What was the official purpose of this dagger? To have at least one weapon that could ACTUALLY KILL the guy in plate armor!
If Armor is DR then daggers need one of the highest damage values in the game. Because a dagger can fit in through eyeslits or under the shoulder where there a gaps in even the best armor and a dagger wound is more than adequate to kill.
But then a dagger needs a MASSIVE reduction in too hit, it needs to be one of the hardest to use weapons in the universe, because getting a dagger shot in pretty well requires that the foe be nearly helpless, otherwise that big sword is in the way and maybe removing your hand when you try to strike.
Most people won't accept that a halbard is easier to use than a dagger.
It's hard to get a good shot in against armor, a to-hit penalty is fine for representing this.
A skilled fighter will angle his body so as to reduce the force of any blows that do hit, escalating HP isn't a good way to represent this (since D&D has already established that we're only counting damaging blows a boost to defense would be better), but extra HP is simple and it avoids stacking issues with how skill and armor and magic interact.
D&D combat is SIMPLE, and it isn't really that much less accurate than any other simulation of battling superhumans vs. dragons.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by deuxhero
It makes perfect sense. A miss generated by AC=Attack failed to penetrate armor.
So a knife should have the same penetration as a sword?
Edit: And Doug most soldiers didn't carry a dagger as a side arm or secondary weapon, they carried a short sword. And a dagger is something most people can at least use capably, which along with its size made it a common weapon for use as a side arm in situations where a small or long blade would be disrespectful.
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Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by jindra34
So a knife should have the same penetration as a sword?
REphrase: Miss generated by AC means it can't manage to inflict any particular damage due to a combination of dodging, poor skill by opponent, and armor deflecting it. If a dagger hits, it might have managed to find a chink in the armor, or it might have just hit hard enough that it could be felt through the armor.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by jindra34
So a knife should have the same penetration as a sword?
I think AC is better understood as "The protection you have against being hurt during a round of combat against a certain opponent" rather than "The protection you have against being injured by one discrete cut with a sword".
"one attack roll"+"one damage roll" should be understood as "the amount of damage you deal during a round of combat" rather than "the damage one chop of the weapon inflicts".
Seeing both the attacks and the defence mechanisms as abstractions like this helps to make you not lose your mind. :)
Last edited by Thespianus : 09-21-2011 at 03:00 PM.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by jindra34
Edit: And Doug most soldiers didn't carry a dagger as a side arm or secondary weapon, they carried a short sword. And a dagger is something most people can at least use capably, which along with its size made it a common weapon for use as a side arm in situations where a small or long blade would be disrespectful.
He's referring to the poignard, which is significantly more useful against an armoured opponent than a shortsword would be.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kardar233
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Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Bob the commoner can resist a Zone of Truth cast by your standard elite array level 3 cleric 30% of the time. It should be renamed "Zone that Might Make Whoever's in it Tell the Truth, But Likely Not".
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by NNescio
He's referring to the poignard, which is significantly more useful against an armoured opponent than a shortsword would be.
Actually I had the misericorde in mind. The fact is that the real worlds history includes MULTIPLE types of daggers designed specifically for killing people in armor. They were quite common.
If armor is DR then daggers should be the highest damage melee weapon, this isn't seriously arguable IMAO.
And while anyone can use a dagger, using it well enough to threaten a trained swordsman with a sword is VERY VERY HARD. The tip of the sword has far better reach than the tip of the dagger, and it also moves faster, more easily, and hits harder.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Lampert
Actually I had the misericorde in mind. The fact is that the real worlds history includes MULTIPLE types of daggers designed specifically for killing people in armor. They were quite common.
If armor is DR then daggers should be the highest damage melee weapon, this isn't seriously arguable IMAO.
And while anyone can use a dagger, using it well enough to threaten a trained swordsman with a sword is VERY VERY HARD. The tip of the sword has far better reach than the tip of the dagger, and it also moves faster, more easily, and hits harder.
DougL
Or have daggers that ignore part of armor, combined with techniques that further reduce armor. And/or have more than a minor plus of the damage be determined by how strong some one is.
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Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by holywhippet
That pretty much sums up most of the monk special abilities - niche. Most of them are pretty good, but they are very situational and can often be copied using a spell or item. For example, their poison and disease immunity (except to supernatural diseases IIRC) seems great on paper, but how often does the average PC actually encounter poison or disease? Unless the DM decides to run the players through a gauntlet of snakes, spiders and scorpions you generally won't get much use out of poision immunity.
Oh really? Poison immunity works against alcohol. How often does the average PC go into a tavern?
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by jindra34
Or have daggers that ignore part of armor, combined with techniques that further reduce armor. And/or have more than a minor plus of the damage be determined by how strong some one is.
Or admit that except for the best full suits of gothic plate the usual way of dealing with metal armor was to try to hit where it isn't (and full gothic plate is one of the main reasons people carried little thin bladed knives to fit through chinks once you had someone down).
And that an AC boost is a fine way to represent this.
Escallating HP are still goofy, but they're needed for superheroes who take on dragons and win. But armor as making you harder to hit is simply admitting that most armor did what it was supposed to, it stopped almost all hits that impacted armor.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Lampert
Or admit that except for the best full suits of gothic plate the usual way of dealing with metal armor was to try to hit where it isn't (and full gothic plate is one of the main reasons people carried little thin bladed knives to fit through chinks once you had someone down).
And that an AC boost is a fine way to represent this.
Escallating HP are still goofy, but they're needed for superheroes who take on dragons and win. But armor as making you harder to hit is simply admitting that most armor did what it was supposed to, it stopped almost all hits that impacted armor.
The best way to deal with plate is to use a heavy impact weapon and simply hit the person really hard. And if you use anything less than 1 1/2' in length when slipping under armor you won't have enough blade length to do anything other than a surface laceration to a person unless your also supporting it with solid grappling skills at which point you can break the joints (including neck joint) and cripple your opponent. The biggest problem I have with the AC system is that it adds a lack of granularity to blows and treats swords, kitchen knives, and flails the same.
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Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
The best d20-based swords-an'-armor combat system I've seen is from the old Game of Thrones d20.
Armor provides DR rather than AC - basically a straight-up conversion of D&D AC value to DR. AC comes from Dex bonus, from shields (which provide much more AC than in D&D... +6 for medium and +8 for large, IIRC), and from a Defense Bonus, which increases with level like BAB... half progression for the noncombatants, 3/4 for the combat classes, and full for the dodgy rogue and duelist types. And a 1d20 roll that replaces the 10 base AC in D&D (and allows eliminating 1/20 auto-miss/hit).
HP increase with level, but not nearly as quickly as in D&D, and there's a wound system where blows that do more damage than your wound threshold (half your Con, by default, IIRC) can cause a wound that causes you to bleed HP until you get medical attention (which takes time and doesn't always work) and may knock you unconscious.
The setting is very low-magic, and it uses 3.0 Power Attack without all the multipliers you can stack on in 3.5, so it's difficult to reliably do enough damage to hurt someone through good armor DR, especially with a one-handed weapon. And shields are effective enough that ditching it for a two-hander is not the no-brainer that it is in 3.x. And smashing through the shield rather than trying to go around it is frequently a sensible strategy, too.
The primary melee classes get class features that increase their armor DR, too, which reflects the ability of someone experienced with armor to use it to turn solid blows into harmless glances.
And the ability to coup-de-grace someone with a dagger is reflected simply by a rule that says that if you have someone at your mercy, you can kill them. No messing about with attack rolls and DR and damage and hit points... just, "I stick my dagger in his eye. He's dead."
It still keeps Dex caps from armor, though, which are a pretty dysfunctional mechanic in and of themselves. If you want to reflect armor slowing people down in their AC (and, as someone with a lot of armored combat experience, I'm not convinced that that's something that we should want - see "turning solid blows into harmless glances", above), implementing it as a simple penalty makes a lot more sense than doing it as a cap.
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Play your character, not your alignment.
Gentlefolk, learn from Zaq's example, and his suffering. Remember, seven out of eleven players who use truenamer lose their ability to taste ice cream.
When you ask a question, and I respond with something about the Truenamer, it might be because I think it's the best answer. More likely, though, is that I'm saying it because no one else will.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Oh, boy, I can't believe I missed this. In Pathfinder, you have to make a DC 15 Knowledge (the planes) check in order to know what plane you're standing on. And you have to be trained to even attempt that check.
GM: The earth elementals are charging the army of air elementals at this moment. You have two rounds to act.
Fighter: Well, we're on the Elemental Plane of Air, so they'll be weakened. Cleric-
GM: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't know that you're on that plane.
Fighter: Uh... that's sort of where we've been this whole campaign.
GM: Make a Knowledge (the planes) check.
Fighter: I have no ranks.
Wizard: Let me. *roll* 11.
GM: Nope. None of you have any idea where you are.
And, of course, you don't even know when you're on the Material Plane. That's right.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by legomaster00156
Oh, boy, I can't believe I missed this. In Pathfinder, you have to make a DC 15 Knowledge (the planes) check in order to know what plane you're standing on. And you have to be trained to even attempt that check.
GM: The earth elementals are charging the army of air elementals at this moment. You have two rounds to act.
Fighter: Well, we're on the Elemental Plane of Air, so they'll be weakened. Cleric-
GM: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't know that you're on that plane.
Fighter: Uh... that's sort of where we've been this whole campaign.
GM: Make a Knowledge (the planes) check.
Fighter: I have no ranks.
Wizard: Let me. *roll* 11.
GM: Nope. None of you have any idea where you are.
And, of course, you don't even know when you're on the Material Plane. That's right.
I would interpret that as someone not making a dc 15 check doesn't fully understand planes at all. Though it is a stupid rule I agree.
Doesn't 4 Edition have something similar with bears? Like a dc20 check to know if they attack with their claws?
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by legomaster00156
Oh, boy, I can't believe I missed this. In Pathfinder, you have to make a DC 15 Knowledge (the planes) check in order to know what plane you're standing on. And you have to be trained to even attempt that check.
GM: The earth elementals are charging the army of air elementals at this moment. You have two rounds to act.
Fighter: Well, we're on the Elemental Plane of Air, so they'll be weakened. Cleric-
GM: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't know that you're on that plane.
Fighter: Uh... that's sort of where we've been this whole campaign.
GM: Make a Knowledge (the planes) check.
Fighter: I have no ranks.
Wizard: Let me. *roll* 11.
GM: Nope. None of you have any idea where you are.
And, of course, you don't even know when you're on the Material Plane. That's right.
If you don't have 16 INT (+3, on top of 1 rank for trained), you're a terrible wizard and deserve to fail that check.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by Qwertystop
Similarly, any caster who doesn't have to use an implement or ritual for preparing spells or getting slots back, and who has lots of Silent Still spells.
Actually... take a 20th lvl wizard with a Silent, Still Polymorph prepared. Said wizard gets killed, knocked to -10HP. By RAW, there's nothing preventing him from taking non-physical actions, so he burns that MM'd Polymorph to change into something with a nice, high Constitution. Immediately he gains back HP as if he had rested for the night, and then gains bonus temporary HP based on his new Con score, putting him back into the postives (potentially even from far lower HP totals, especially with MM-cheese and higher level polymorph effects).
“Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction or a curse,” I said, sounding calm, probably inaudible in the midst of the screaming. “Inevitable. Wasn’t that how she put it? I told them. Warned them.”
-Taylor Hebert. Yes, I'm a proud Skittle.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
The drunken master says alcohol affects him differently...It acts as a buff/heal potion for him. It's never really clear on whether he still gets drunk of it.
Gentlefolk, learn from Zaq's example, and his suffering. Remember, seven out of eleven players who use truenamer lose their ability to taste ice cream.
When you ask a question, and I respond with something about the Truenamer, it might be because I think it's the best answer. More likely, though, is that I'm saying it because no one else will.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by deuxhero
If you don't have 16 INT (+3, on top of 1 rank for trained), you're a terrible wizard and deserve to fail that check.
I meant he rolled an 11 total...
Oh, yes, and History: the DC15 check that makes Divination useless. Specifically: "Determine approximate date of a specific event". Note that it does NOT say that the event has to have already happened.
Last edited by legomaster00156 : 09-22-2011 at 10:31 AM.
Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Quote:
Originally Posted by legomaster00156
I meant he rolled an 11 total...
Oh, yes, and History: the DC15 check that makes Divination useless. Specifically: "Determine approximate date of a specific event". Note that it does NOT say that the event has to have already happened.
You are so knowledgeable in the social sciences that you are able to extrapolate from history what events are going to occur in the future!
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Re: "Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection
