Hello

First, sorry for my bad english (i'm better at cooking than learning alien... i mean foreign languages).

I work actually on the "usable" version of an really old game i made nearly 20 years ago. A lot of things changed, a lot of times.

For now, my problem is the diferenciation (i hope this word exist) between piercing, slashing and crushing.

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The combat game system is pretty simple.

You take your Agility characteristic, and roll a dice (ten sides).
If the result is 2 to 5, you add 1 to your char (bonuse).
If the result is 6 to 9, you add nothing.
1 is a critical fail : -1 to the char (maluse), and it's an open roll.
10 is a critical success : 1 to your char, as normal sucess, but it's an open roll.

(Other possibility : 1 crit fail / 10 crit success / 2.4.6.8 success / 3.5.7.9 fail).

Your enemy do the same thing. If the attacking one has a higher result, he win. Else, he lost.

That mean if, with an Agility char of 7, you attack an enemy with an agility of 8, you can hope win 1 on 4 rounds.
And since you can easilly kill someone in one or two rounds if a little lucky, the "less agile" need to maximize his others assets (i hope this word exist) : Outnumbering, outplacing, wounding (wound = malus), objects, powder in the face, special skills, spells if exist, weapon characteristics, etc.

You can also use standard skills.
For example, you can put points in "Slashing" AND in "Sword Mastery". Each point in the used skills are dices you can roll.
Before put points in a skill, you need to buy the level 0. Level 0 don't give math advantage (bonuses...), but let know your character know the subject (don't make stupid errors even if the player don't know the subject at all).
A fighter wanting to use a war flail without have at least Level 0 in Flail Mastery can easilly kill himself and his allies before even hit the enemy, by example.

Skills have no upper limit, but the cost of each point cost more and more in "xp equivalent thingy" : Level 0 cost 1 ; level 1 cost 1+2=3 ; level 2 cost 1+2+3=6, etc.

Here, we go slowly to our destination : The armors.

Armors have a emcombrance : If you don't have the strenght to use it, you have malus to the char.
Armors have a value in Protect. When you receive damages, armor stop as much damages it have Protect (i hope i'm clear).
Armors have also others traits (quality of coverage, for example).

Weapons do damages. By example, a simple medieval sword do 5.
Weapons have also others traits, as for example the efficient length (bigger weapons offer bonuses because the enemy need to cover a bigger distance for hit you), the emcombrance/weight, etc.

The damages are as that :
You take the Weapon damages.
You take the Strengh of the character.
You multiply the first by the second.
Result is the maximum damage the character can give when using this weapon.
Translate that in dice equivalent.

Example :
Marylène use an old medieval sword with a damages of 5. She has a Strength of 7.
5 * 7 = 35
35 => 4d-5

Each time Marylène hit with her sword, she roll 4 dices and remove 5 points from the result (1 being the minimum), and do from 1 to 35 points (there is no HP in this system, only wounds of differents "sizes" : 1 is probably a scratch even for a bunny, and you can suffer a lot of scratchs, but 35 probably kill a non-hardened Human by blowing his only "Fatal wound").

It's understandable, for the moment ?

Trying to make rules that add or remove points by the situations and test that for mimic old movies is really fun. It's a little harder when i try to mimic old REAL stories, but with work it's work pretty well.

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Ok. My problem is here : Piercing, Slashing and Crushing.

I have read a lot of things on my life, and experimented (sometimes stupidly) a lot of things too ; and i consider myself well documented on the things of war, and simple physic.

I know the basic : Pointy things put all their energy on less surface, and then let less of the energy/matter of the armor defend.
That mean if a sword and a hammer have the same weight, the sword can make more damages.

Ok.

But the armors give me a problem : If an armor resist well to the fact to be pierced, how that translate in damages reducing ?

I know piercing/cuting weapons have others disadvantages : Cuting need lot more of work for being made, and are really fragiles (against a crushing one as a hammer, i mean).

But in damage vs armor ?

I have though of some ideas, but none really satisfy me.

If is in Plate armor and :mad: hit him with a sword, the edge give nearly no advantage to the sword. Better have an heavier (and less costly) hammer, then.
Yes, the sword CAN hope to find a "hole" in the armor the hammer can't use, but still.

If has no armor, better use the sword : For the same weight, :mad: can deal a lot more damages.

And if is in Chainmail armor ?
A chainmail without plates is a few use against crushing weapons.
A vigorously hit with a sword can give damages to just by overcoming the Protect.
But a REALLY hard hit can even cut the armor.

How can make that working ?


My first idea was simple for DM, but a little harsh for players :
A Weapon has a type : Slashing, Piercing or Crushing.
A weapon can have more than one type, but then each type has it's own damages (Piercing for the Point, Slashing for the Edge, by example).
An Armor have a Protect against each weapon type : Rigid and solid armor have a really high Protect against Slashing, for example.

My second idea was to made weapons with one type, but to add a "Sealing" char to the Armor (how good it is to resist to breaching) and an Edginess to the Weapon (how his edge/point can aggravating damages).
Work as that :
:mad: make damage.
Damages are decreased by the Protect of the armor.
If the decreased Damages are Higher than the Sealing of the armor, the armor is "breached" : The decreased damages are multiplied by the Edgniness of the weapon.

With that, it's up to you to decide to use an heavy crushing weapon, or a more costly, less heavy slashing/piercind one that make less damage if stopped by an armor, but more if it pierce it.

Additional problem : What with specifically piercing weapons (i think to bullets, here), that always make less damage ?

Adding damage dices that count for the damage count against the armor, but are removed against the character ?


What you do in this situation ? What are the existing really good systems for that ? There is good texts explaining (even "out-of-RPG") this problem somewhere ?

>You take your Agility characteristic, and roll a dice (ten sides).
>If the result is 2 to 5, you add 1 to your char (bonuse).
>If the result is 6 to 9, you add nothing.
>1 is a critical fail : -1 to the char (maluse), and it's an open roll.
>10 is a critical success : 1 to your char, as normal sucess, but it's an open roll.

If 1 is bad and 10 is good, then 2 to 5 should be add nothing and 6-9 add something because if 10 is good, rolling high should be good.

BTW, if Agility = All Combat then you just made Agility the most important stat in the game.   That's fine for games with 3 stats.   Not so good if there are 5 stats and utter crap with 8 stats.  


>Your enemy do the same thing. If the attacking one has a higher result, he win. Else, he lost.

Look at the Spite rules in Tunnels & Trolls.  You can find them in 5.5 / 7e and probably on the web.   It discusses the problem (and one solution) to this kind of game design.

>And since you can easilly kill someone in one or two rounds if a little lucky, the "less agile" need to maximize his others assets

Ouch!   You better have a very fast chargen since PC death is a main issue in your game.  

>Skills have no upper limit, but the cost of each point cost more and more in "xp equivalent thingy" : Level 0 cost 1 ; level 1 cost 1+2=3 ; level 2 cost 1+2+3=6, etc.

This system makes players create widely skilled but shallow characters.  It makes characters with Skill-4 very rare.  Is this what you want?

>Translate that in dice equivalent.

Nobody likes subtracting from their damage.   35 is better as 3D10 + 5 so the damage ranges from 8-35 instead of 4D10-5 with the range of -1 to 35.   Players like adding.  Subtracting makes them feel they are being penalized.

>What you do in this situation ?

I personally like to abstract things to make combat happen faster.   The D&D method works best for me because I want combat to be about life, death and blood in a short messy combat.   Tunnels & Trolls works well too.

Consider the Traveller tables.  Many people broke Attacks into three rolls To Hit and To Penetrate and What Damage like in Twilight 2000.

First, you roll to Hit based on Weapon vs. Range.  Melee had Close and Short. Close was nearly grappling in tight space and Short meant there was manuevering room.

Second, you roll to Penetrate based on Weapon vs. Armor type.  AKA, your dagger got a bonus versus No Armor and various penalties against tougher armors.

Third, you roll Damage based on the Weapon.   In my variant, if a Sword does 3D6 damage, any hit that did not penetrate did 3 points (aka min damage was always 1 per D6).

Thank you for your answer.

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If 1 is bad and 10 is good, then 2 to 5 should be add nothing and 6-9 add something because if 10 is good, rolling high should be good.
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Well, i choose the other order for break the "rolling high is good". Adding some tension and breaking the cheating dices.

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BTW, if Agility = All Combat then you just made Agility the most important stat in the game. That's fine for games with 3 stats. Not so good if there are 5 stats and utter crap with 8 stats.
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Woops !
My bad. In fact, the defensive char is Reflex !

At this hour, the game has 11 chars, but it's still on the table. I try to modelize animals for see if they are good and right, then there is a lot of work... a re-work

The base char are :
- Agility : Base char for attack.
- Reflex : Base char for defense.

But others chars can affect also the fight :

- strength : Damages, reduce/remove maluses from heavy weapons/armors.
- Balancing : When fighting in hazardous situations (i think demote that in skill since nimbles beings are also well balanced).
- Intelligence : Without it, forgot using spells.
- Determination (will power ?) : Protect from breaking when the fight goes bad (heavy wounds automatically test against Determination, for example), when wounded by things as fire or acid, fear magic, etc.
- Vitality : More the character has, less serious the wound for a hit.
- Constitution : Remove maluses from wound effect, faster auto-healing, number of wounds he can sustain, etc.
- Socializing : Give bonuses when fighting in numbers or/and in formations. Char still on the work.

And skills reduce their weight.

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Look at the Spite rules in Tunnels & Trolls. You can find them in 5.5 / 7e and probably on the web. It discusses the problem (and one solution) to this kind of game design.
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I fear and found nothing :-(

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Ouch! You better have a very fast chargen since PC death is a main issue in your game.
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That's why you need to *think* before going to fight. The rules try to give the players a lot of possibilities. I wanted rules where players don't have the possibility to be thoses unbearables Marvel characters (you know, all thoses who look down "normals" beings because THEY are invincibles by default and are NEVER in danger).
I wanted rules where players, even experienced, CAN be killed by the city guards after they break the local bank if they fight stupidly. Forcing them to think before act against peoples that don't necessarily use "proportionate strenght" and "fair fight".

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This system makes players create widely skilled but shallow characters. It makes characters with Skill-4 very rare. Is this what you want?
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Well, a Skill-4 character is already 4 dices ahead from an inexperienced one.
And...since you can use more than one skill at a time.

Imagine a character with 4 in Sword Mastery and 4 in Parades : That mean 8 dices !
It's already a lot of dices.

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Nobody likes subtracting from their damage. 35 is better as 3D10 + 5 so the damage ranges from 8-35 instead of 4D10-5 with the range of -1 to 35. Players like adding. Subtracting makes them feel they are being penalized.
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The problem is with the ADD system, xd+9 is WAY superior to x+1d...



For your proposition, if i understand well, you think to add a test for see the hit pierce the armor more than including the test that in the damage roll.

Well, since I only know english, you're way ahead of me in the 'learning foriegn languages' area.

Sounds like your system is detailed and lethal.

For that, I would suggest going with the different effects for slashing, bashing and piercing, versus soft, medium and hard armor. The simple reason for this is, if your system is detailed to the extent I'm guessing it is, then it will be played by people who like detailed systems.

And if your weapon vs. armor subsystem is too simple, they may well be dissapointed.

But, it is your game - So in the end, it's best to make it in the way that feels 'Right' to you. Advice is good, but it's still only advice.