Interesting, looks like a sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on? e.g. Maxed defense means you can't be hit except by someone who has maxed their attack.
Overall...
 
*Defense Guy vs. Defense Guy - no one can hit each other, stalemate.
*Attack Guy vs. Defense Guy - neither have HPs and both can hit each other, evenly matched and quick/brutal combat.
*Attack Guy vs. Attack Guy - both hit each other easily, again fast and messy combat.
*HP Guy vs. Defense Guy - Defense guy dances around slowly poking HP guy (who can't hit him) to death.
*HP Guy vs. Attack Guy - Both hit each other, but HP guy outlasts Attack Guy, who should die first.
*HP Guy vs. HP Guy - slow but messy war of attrition.
 
Counts of Winning Strategies here then is: defense win 1/draw 1, attack 0/draw 2, HP 1/draw 1.
 
(A bit simplistic since I haven't factored in armour or probably other fine details, and since there's a limit on how high HP can be put up).
 
The "normal fighter" who spreads his points around is I think at some disadvantage vs. Defense Guy (still can't hit him), is missed more often by HP guy but hard to say who will win, and vs. Attack Guy squishes him before he runs out of his (bigger pool of) HPs ?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;524823Interesting, looks like a sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on? e.g. Maxed defense means you can't be hit except by someone who has maxed their attack.
Overall...
 
*Defense Guy vs. Defense Guy - no one can hit each other, stalemate.
*Attack Guy vs. Defense Guy - neither have HPs and both can hit each other, evenly matched and quick/brutal combat.
*Attack Guy vs. Attack Guy - both hit each other easily, again fast and messy combat.
*HP Guy vs. Defense Guy - Defense guy dances around slowly poking HP guy (who can't hit him) to death.
*HP Guy vs. Attack Guy - Both hit each other, but HP guy outlasts Attack Guy, who should die first.
*HP Guy vs. HP Guy - slow but messy war of attrition.
 
Counts of Winning Strategies here then is: defense win 1/draw 1, attack 0/draw 2, HP 1/draw 1.
 
(A bit simplistic since I haven't factored in armour or probably other fine details, and since there's a limit on how high HP can be put up).
 
The "normal fighter" who spreads his points around is I think at some disadvantage vs. Defense Guy (still can't hit him), is missed more often by HP guy but hard to say who will win, and vs. Attack Guy squishes him before he runs out of his (bigger pool of) HPs ?

You basically got it.
Rember though HP are just liek D&D HPs except they come into play before REAL damage. so a guy who absorbs a lot from his HP will see his HP rapidly deminish.
If I have 30HP I can absorb 10 from a hit but after doign that 3 times I have no HP left......

It seems like armour is the killer here as it is a constant buffer. I kind of realised that when I designed it but writing it down makes it more obvious.

So 8AR (which by the way is full plate armour) will subtract 8 from every blow.

Now high level guys with weapon style mastery can by pass some of that, but experts in armour also add to it....

Now there are also some weapons , like a military Pick or a crossbow quarrel, that are simply really good at penetrating armour but maybe I need to rejig the relative value of armour and weapons.

Currently Weapons are as per AD&D damage , just becuase that is what I am used to and my brain has 30+ years of indoctrination to overcome

AR is
Padded - AR1
Leather AR2
Studded Leather AR3
Chain AR4
Scale/Banded AR5
Plate Mail AR6
Full Plate AR8

Now whilst I talk about suits of armour in reality you equip with actual armours and they give protection to set locations. So a chain mail hauberk covers you from Knee to Elbow. This means it gives you 4AR on 5 locations (Upper arm x2, Chest x2, abdomen) and 2AR on each leg. So on its own it gives you an average AR of 3 (there are 10 locations. 4x5 +2x2 =24. gives and average AR of 2.4 you round up. If you add an open face helm AR5 for the head it woudl hive you an average of 2.9 still 3AR.
Now in the basic combat you use average AR. However you can dial in more detailed combat and these sorts of man to man combats you give would probably use those rules so fighters could target the forearms with 0AR  etc.

My expectation will be that Half plate becomes the default armour. Basically, a breast/back plate with protection on the upper arms and upper leg and a helmet. It still lets you climb, reduces penalties to other skills and doesn't require too much stamina to move about in. That would probably come in with an Average AR of 6 (Open face helm = 5, breast plate =8, upper arms & legs 6 so (5 + (3x8) +(4x6))/10 = 6)

Now as it stands a sword will deal a wound 1 in 4 with no damage bonus. Damage bonuses will be common so I would expect a long sword to deal damage to this set  up about 50% of the time (assuming a +2 damage bonus due to Strength, skill etc) But remember you only have 6 wounds and they are serious....


All this sounds very complex now I write it down. Its worth noting that 90% of the complexity comes up front, workign out AR etc . It's very simple in actual play.

So I have been thinking the real break between the Warrior and hte Mage seems to be armour.

It occurs to me that if I allow mages to use medium armour. In fact if i allow anyone that wants to to don a chain mail hauberk I can fix that.

So I have made that change now a mage can wear chain and get an average AR of 3 or 4

They can then drop armour once they have magical protection.

Armour Skill will be just as hard to master but I will give some benefit for being a novice rank and I will remove some of the limitations of being unskilled in armour.

Alternatively they can go for a high initiative option (you get +2 init if you are unarmoured) and try to beat their foes before they get hit.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;524729super-boring-to-play ultratank

More generally, what type of players would want to play a tank?

(Besides a player that dozes off all the time, in the middle of the game).

Quote from: ggroy;526116More generally, what type of players would want to play a tank?

(Besides a player that dozes off all the time, in the middle of the game).

One of the problems I have encountered when trying to break the character options is that you build a guy who was a grand master in plate armour and knife fighting.

Knife fighting is a dex bases (finese) combat style. You stike as you would expect often for low damage. At the top end you can weild 2 knives without penalty so you get a lot of attacks in addtion you can make called shots to help bypass some armour, this represents sticking your knives in the gaps, like the visor, the inside of the elbow etc etc.

Now Grand Mastery of Heavy armour removes some of its penalties, trying to be as realistic as possible a trained knight in a suit of footmans armour is infact pretty quick on his feet and pretty mobile. A Grand Master Knife Figther gets a good initiative bonuses.

The result here is that you get a really effective fighter, not that effective against other heavy armoured knights as a specialist shield & wepaons guy who can use a military pick or similar, if you use some of the advanced combat options , but still a very effective force against just about everyone else.
Yet in the real this combination never happened

Quote from: ggroy;526116More generally, what type of players would want to play a tank?
 
(Besides a player that dozes off all the time, in the middle of the game).

I've had GMs that did that (the snoozing) Also, I've had characters that were nigh-unkillable (if useless) after bad runs where I've lost a few characters (i.e. Return to Temple of Elemental Evil).
 
 

Quote from: jibbajibba;526200The result here is that you get a really effective fighter, not that effective against other heavy armoured knights as a specialist shield & wepaons guy who can use a military pick or similar, if you use some of the advanced combat options , but still a very effective force against just about everyone else.
Yet in the real this combination never happened

Well, something must be up with the model.
I don't have enough fighting training to really render a good opinion of this, but I wouldn't really expect a knife to do to much against heavy armour. While you could stab against weak points with it, you could do the same with the tip of a sword and with better reach. (and someone trained in heavy armour will be trying to cover its weak spots, too: a mace or warhammer would be much more handy). Dunno if parrying a big sword with a dagger would be awkward as well.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;526216I've had GMs that did that (the snoozing) Also, I've had characters that were nigh-unkillable (if useless) after bad runs where I've lost a few characters (i.e. Return to Temple of Elemental Evil).
 
Well, something must be up with the model.
I don't have enough fighting training to really render a good opinion of this, but I wouldn't really expect a knife to do to much against heavy armour. While you could stab against weak points with it, you could do the same with the tip of a sword and with better reach. (and someone trained in heavy armour will be trying to cover its weak spots, too: a mace or warhammer would be much more handy). Dunno if parrying a big sword with a dagger would be awkward as well.

Yeah I agree which is why I raised it.

The thing is do you want a Grandmaster knife fighter to take on an armoured knight and have any chance? Now to me the answer would be yes to a degree. As you can see from the system I syspect he would get butchered but he should be able to get a 6 -8" blade through chinks in armour. A shorter blade is actually better for this than a sword, try cuttling a slice of bread with a 3 foot blade.
But the combination isn;t really for fighting other knights its for fighting everyone else. The armoured guy with knives can bowl into a crowd of bandits in chain or leather armour and cause destruction. Their blows largely bounce off and he can strike often and deal some damage.

So as it stands against an armoured knight with AR8 the d6 dagger looks weak, but add the damage bonus for dex and for grand mastery and you are looking at d6 +5 at the very top end. Now to get to the level of grand mastery in Knives and Heavy armour a fighter would need to be 12th level well actualy mathematically they could be 8th but that would mean they had maybe 3d10 HP +3 to Hit and +3 Defense. compared to a possible 8d10 +8/+8

So should a 12th level fighter set up that way be as sucessful?

Well, I can see the knife fighting dude (who wears light armour) and the knight adventuring together in the same fantasy party, even though that might not be particularly historical? But the armour/knife-guy is a bit weird.
 
If you want knife-fighting to be very effective but don't think that [heavy armour + knife] is a realistic combination, try to make just the combination not work? For instance, by having armour cap the Dexterity bonus?
Or, alternatively, have STR reduce armour penalties with characters having to choose between putting points in Str/Dex at character generation?
 
The D&D approach would probably be to directly code armour/weapon preferences into specific classes, in which case the knife fighting abilities probably go to the "rogue" class which wouldn't get heavy armour. (workable if not elegant fix).