Star Wars: Armour and damage: straw poll

[Simon Smith]

In Star Wars (under my heavily house-ruled version), weapon damage, strength
(used for damage resistance) and armour are all rated in D6s.

Strength codes are usually in the 2D6 - 4D6 region; 2D6 for a typical NPC
(e.g. a stormtrooper), and at the other end of the scale, 5D6 for a PC
Wookiee. Sub-2D Strength codes are rare.


A typical blaster bolt does 4D6 damage. A light blaster bolt does 3D6+1
damage, a heavy blaster bolt 5D6.


Let's also define some things that do 1D6 damage:

Being kicked by C-3P0.
Someone throwing half a brick at you.
A glancing blow from a sword (that is, one that you'd probably expect to
glance off armour if you were wearing any.)
A shower of debris from a nearby explosion. (Nuisance/flavour damage, if
the GM decided to apply it.)


Armour is usually rated at around 1D6. Even 2D6 of armour is rare.

Armour subtracts its rating from the incoming damage, and the remainder, if
any, is applied against Strength.

Even if damage leaks through armour, if the damage roll is less than half
your Strength roll you suffer no game effect. Wookiees can shrug off quite
heavy damage.



So:

There's two ways you could handle the effects of armour;

1. Reduce the incoming damage by the armour rating, one dice cancels out one
dice, and roll the remainder, if any, against strength.

Results:

1D6 armour is 100% reliable at soaking up 1D6 damage. In fact, because
results of less than 1D are ignored, it will also 100% reliably block
incoming damage of up to 1D6+2

Resolving damage is slightly quicker, because you have less dice to roll,
and sometimes no dice to roll at all.

Armoured characters can expose themselves to minor damage with complete
impunity, and it doesn't slow the game down if they do. e.g. They are
immune to 'Nuisance damage' in a dangerous environment.

1D6 armour is 100% certain to allow increasing amounts of damage to leak
through in the case of 2D6 or more of incoming damage.


2. Roll the damage, roll the armour. Subtract one from t'other. If any
damage leaks past the armour, it's applied against strength.

Results:
1D6 armour is on average 50% reliable at soaking up 1D6 damage.

Resolving damage is slowed a bit because damage resolution is now a 2-step
process.

Armoured characters are still better off than non-armoured characters, but
they could theoretically end up having to roll dozens of dice to deal with
'nuisance damage', slowing the game down. And a kick from C-3P0 or a
thrown half-brick could stun, wound or KO an armoured stormtrooper.

1D6 armour could theoretically block up to 6D6 damage without any damage
leakage.

1D6 damage from a kick by C3P0 (or a thrown half-brick, etc.) could
theoretically wound or KO an armoured spacetrooper, who wear armour rated
at 3D6. It fact, it could certainly 'pierce' it and affect the fellow
inside; 1 or more points of damage leaking through is a 21/1,296 = about a
1.6% chance. Think of the Michelin-man-looking diving suit worn by one of
the baddies in one of the James Bond movies for an non-Star Wars example
of 3D6 of armour.



My question is:

Would you prefer to play under option 1 or option 2? Bearing in mind it's
a Space Opera game? 2 may be a bit more realistic, but it is also somewhat
slower. And IS it more realistic? I'm not sure it is. And also, it's Star
Wars; realism isn't really that major a concern. Speed of resolution and
drama are also important. And in Star Wars, damage codes as low as 1D are
rare, so most of the time armour doesn't make much practical difference
anyway. Most of the time, you face 3D6 or 4D6 damage leakage under either
system, and the expected result is a wound.

My preference, as GM, is for option 1, both for the speed benefits, and
also because there are rare occasioans where armour actually is reliably
useful, which it never is under option 2.

I admit I'm stating things in a way that is likely to bias answers in
the direction I personally prefer - so do please allow for that when
answering :-) Nevertheless, what do you rest of you lurking hordes
think?

[gleichman]

Post by Simon Smith
There's two ways you could handle the effects of armour;
1. Reduce the incoming damage by the armour rating, one dice cancels out one
dice, and roll the remainder, if any, against strength.

Go with this one, you like and the advantages you list for the second are
already basically forfeit when you went with a system that allows Wookies to
walk through blaster fire in the first place.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
There's two ways you could handle the effects of armour;
1. Reduce the incoming damage by the armour rating, one dice cancels out one
dice, and roll the remainder, if any, against strength.

Go with this one, you like and the advantages you list for the second
are already basically forfeit when you went with a system that allows
Wookies to walk through blaster fire in the first place.

It seems to me that the real problem is how very *coarsegrained* the
system is, for those situations where plusses don't matter. You end up
having only five or six values, from 1d6 to 5d6, and maybe up to 6d6.

AFAIK the actual WEG system is 3 times as finegrained, with the scale
going 1d6, 1d6+1, 1d6+2, 2d6, 2d6+1, 2d6+2, 3d6...

[Simon Smith]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
There's two ways you could handle the effects of armour;
1. Reduce the incoming damage by the armour rating, one dice cancels out one
dice, and roll the remainder, if any, against strength.

Go with this one, you like and the advantages you list for the second
are already basically forfeit when you went with a system that allows
Wookies to walk through blaster fire in the first place.

It seems to me that the real problem is how very *coarsegrained* the
system is, for those situations where plusses don't matter. You end up
having only five or six values, from 1d6 to 5d6, and maybe up to 6d6.
AFAIK the actual WEG system is 3 times as finegrained, with the scale
going 1d6, 1d6+1, 1d6+2, 2d6, 2d6+1, 2d6+2, 3d6...

Yes, but you're always guaranteed at least 1D6 on each side, or you'd have
nothing to roll, so there's always going to be a die to cancel out. Hence I
omitted mention of the pluses to try to make the explanations a bit shorter.

Funny that the system's considered coarse when a lot of other games never
went beyond using 3-18 stat stat ranges rolled on 3D6.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Peter Knutsen
It seems to me that the real problem is how very *coarsegrained* the
system is, for those situations where plusses don't matter. You end up
having only five or six values, from 1d6 to 5d6, and maybe up to 6d6.
AFAIK the actual WEG system is 3 times as finegrained, with the scale
going 1d6, 1d6+1, 1d6+2, 2d6, 2d6+1, 2d6+2, 3d6...

Yes, but you're always guaranteed at least 1D6 on each side, or you'd have
nothing to roll, so there's always going to be a die to cancel out. Hence I
omitted mention of the pluses to try to make the explanations a bit shorter.

I thought you had made deliberate decision to treat 2d6+1 and 2d6+2 the
same as 2d6, for the purpose of damage and armour penetration?

Post by Simon Smith
Funny that the system's considered coarse when a lot of other games never
went beyond using 3-18 stat stat ranges rolled on 3D6.

It isn't the roll mechanic that is coarsegrained, in the sense of the
outcome range, but rather the trait scale; the scale that is used to
describe and define characters and non-living game world objects.

d20 offers 16 different trait values (actually more, since values higher
than 18 are very possible), whereas 1d6 to 5d6 offers only 5 different
trait values (although you get 13 if you use the intermediate values
1d6+1, 1d6+2 and so forth up to 4d6+2).

I'm not convinced that we need as many 16 different trait values, but I
sincerely believe that we need more than 5, in order to cover all of
human variety.

[Simon Smith]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Peter Knutsen
It seems to me that the real problem is how very *coarsegrained* the
system is, for those situations where plusses don't matter. You end up
having only five or six values, from 1d6 to 5d6, and maybe up to 6d6.
AFAIK the actual WEG system is 3 times as finegrained, with the scale
going 1d6, 1d6+1, 1d6+2, 2d6, 2d6+1, 2d6+2, 3d6...

Yes, but you're always guaranteed at least 1D6 on each side, or you'd have
nothing to roll, so there's always going to be a die to cancel out. Hence I
omitted mention of the pluses to try to make the explanations a bit shorter.

I thought you had made deliberate decision to treat 2d6+1 and 2d6+2 the
same as 2d6, for the purpose of damage and armour penetration?

No, I'd just chosen cases where everybody happened to have whole
numbers of die codes. Pardon me for the misunderstanding. Like strength and
damage, armour can have +1s or +2s as well, but it gets messy for very
little perceptible gain so it's not usually recommended. In practice the
incoming damage is usually far larger than the armour, so there's almost
always some damage leakage. But 1D6 of armour could block 1D6+2 of incoming
damage, +2 armour could block 1D6+1 of damage and +1 could block 1D6, in
each case by reducing it to the point at which there's nothing left to roll.
This does save time comparing a couple of points of damage against a
strength roll that will usually be at least 2D6, and avoids having to make
another damage comparision that has a high likelihood of a no effect result
anyway.

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Simon Smith
Funny that the system's considered coarse when a lot of other games never
went beyond using 3-18 stat stat ranges rolled on 3D6.

It isn't the roll mechanic that is coarsegrained, in the sense of the
outcome range, but rather the trait scale; the scale that is used to
describe and define characters and non-living game world objects.
d20 offers 16 different trait values (actually more, since values higher
than 18 are very possible), whereas 1d6 to 5d6 offers only 5 different
trait values (although you get 13 if you use the intermediate values
1d6+1, 1d6+2 and so forth up to 4d6+2).
I'm not convinced that we need as many 16 different trait values, but I
sincerely believe that we need more than 5, in order to cover all of
human variety.

Well, human range is 1D6 to 4D6, so that's ten granularity steps. I do think
that's reasonable for a broad-brush system like Star Wars.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Peter Knutsen
I thought you had made deliberate decision to treat 2d6+1 and 2d6+2 the
same as 2d6, for the purpose of damage and armour penetration?

No, I'd just chosen cases where everybody happened to have whole
numbers of die codes. Pardon me for the misunderstanding. Like strength and
damage, armour can have +1s or +2s as well, but it gets messy for very
little perceptible gain so it's not usually recommended. In practice the
incoming damage is usually far larger than the armour, so there's almost
always some damage leakage. But 1D6 of armour could block 1D6+2 of incoming
damage, +2 armour could block 1D6+1 of damage and +1 could block 1D6, in
each case by reducing it to the point at which there's nothing left to roll.
This does save time comparing a couple of points of damage against a
strength roll that will usually be at least 2D6, and avoids having to make
another damage comparision that has a high likelihood of a no effect result
anyway.

Well, you need to ask yourself whether you want player characters to
ever wear armour, or not.

I've needed different answers for Sagatafl and for Modern Action RPG.

Sagatafl is intended to model any period, but with particular attention
to medieval technology levels, so I've needed armour to be useful, while
still involving a mobility tradeoff, so that unarmoured fighting styles
are valid choices.

Modern Action RPG differs. It can be used for medieval, but it works
best for periods with firearms, whether they are primitive one-shot guns
or futuristic laser guns, and I'm not particularly interested in seeing
PCs wear armour. If they do, or when NPCs wear armour, it'll almost
always be torso only, and even though the damage/armour mechanic is
primitive, it is well able to model the fact that highly skilled
shooters can hit non-torso body parts, while armour gives very good
protection against low-skill enemies. Also, modern bullet proof vests
are fairly light and so don't slow you down much, leaving little room
for tradeoff mechanics. So it's a very different dynamic from Sagatafl
(which also hasn't yet got a damage model that even tries to model
modern firearms against modern armour).

What kind of dynamic do you want for your Star Wars campaigns?

[...]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Peter Knutsen
I'm not convinced that we need as many 16 different trait values, but I
sincerely believe that we need more than 5, in order to cover all of
human variety.

Well, human range is 1D6 to 4D6, so that's ten granularity steps. I do think
that's reasonable for a broad-brush system like Star Wars.

10 steps can be enough. They just have to cover the *entire* span of
human variety, and not just the kind of largely ordinary people with
whom the designer is personally familiar.

I'm not sure whether a human maximum of 4d6 does that, assuming 2d6 is
the human average.

Sagatafl has 3d as the human average, in attributes, and 8d as the
maximum, although raised to 9d in cinematic worlds.

MA RPG has 2d as the human average, and there's no human maximum,
although I sometimes wonder whether I should impose a high maximum just
to protect players from screwing themselves, e.g. by paying for
Perception 15d or 20d, or Will 15d. A good limit might be 8d for most
characters, but 10d for the character subtype who gets to buy attributes
cheaply.

Another option could be to impose a "double cost after X" rule, but that
might just get some players to assume that extremely values are very
useful, while the fact is that after a certain point, you've already
become a borderline superhero and spending more points is just wasteful.

As for descriptive terms, they stop at attribute values of 7, with the
description for a 7 in Perception being "Sherlock?", e.g., so any
reasonably thoughtful player should be able to realize that one almost
never needs more than that.

[Simon Smith]

In message <47ae39d2$0$89171$***@dreader1.cybercity.dk>
Peter Knutsen <***@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:

<snip>

Post by Peter Knutsen
Well, you need to ask yourself whether you want player characters to
ever wear armour, or not.
I've needed different answers for Sagatafl and for Modern Action RPG.
Sagatafl is intended to model any period, but with particular attention
to medieval technology levels, so I've needed armour to be useful, while
still involving a mobility tradeoff, so that unarmoured fighting styles
are valid choices.
Modern Action RPG differs. It can be used for medieval, but it works
best for periods with firearms, whether they are primitive one-shot guns
or futuristic laser guns, and I'm not particularly interested in seeing
PCs wear armour. If they do, or when NPCs wear armour, it'll almost
always be torso only, and even though the damage/armour mechanic is
primitive, it is well able to model the fact that highly skilled
shooters can hit non-torso body parts, while armour gives very good
protection against low-skill enemies. Also, modern bullet proof vests
are fairly light and so don't slow you down much, leaving little room
for tradeoff mechanics. So it's a very different dynamic from Sagatafl
(which also hasn't yet got a damage model that even tries to model
modern firearms against modern armour).
What kind of dynamic do you want for your Star Wars campaigns?

Closer to your Modern Action rules, generally. Armour needs to be - and
mostly is - just a bit of flavour. Some player characters - e.g. Bounty
Hunters - have body armour as part of their character schticks. So there
certianly will be the occasional character in armour. But I *don't* want an
entire party of armoured PCs. Players seem to consider the dexterity penalty
for armour to be a minor issue; those that are serious about wearing it
expend the effort to get armour that doesn't reduce dexterity. I'm hoping a
more effective deterrent will be that there's a difficulty penalty for
applying a medpack to an armoured location.

Maybe I could use a rule for degrading armour, but I don't really like the
idea of that...

<snip>

[Indiana Joe]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by Peter Knutsen
What kind of dynamic do you want for your Star Wars campaigns?

Closer to your Modern Action rules, generally. Armour needs to be - and
mostly is - just a bit of flavour. Some player characters - e.g. Bounty
Hunters - have body armour as part of their character schticks. So there
certianly will be the occasional character in armour. But I *don't* want an
entire party of armoured PCs.

I think you're looking at this problem from the wrong angle. If you
don't want the characters wearing armor, then don't penalize them for
not wearing armor. Give them an attribute called, "Miss". Miss functions
identically to armor, but doesn't stack with it.

(This also explains why stormtroopers are great shots when firing at
jawas, but can't hit the heroes - the heroes have high Miss scores.)

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Simon Smith
<snip>

Post by Peter Knutsen
Well, you need to ask yourself whether you want player characters to
ever wear armour, or not.
I've needed different answers for Sagatafl and for Modern Action RPG.
Sagatafl is intended to model any period, but with particular attention
to medieval technology levels, so I've needed armour to be useful, while
still involving a mobility tradeoff, so that unarmoured fighting styles
are valid choices.
Modern Action RPG differs. It can be used for medieval, but it works
best for periods with firearms, whether they are primitive one-shot guns
or futuristic laser guns, and I'm not particularly interested in seeing
PCs wear armour. If they do, or when NPCs wear armour, it'll almost
always be torso only, and even though the damage/armour mechanic is
primitive, it is well able to model the fact that highly skilled
shooters can hit non-torso body parts, while armour gives very good
protection against low-skill enemies. Also, modern bullet proof vests
are fairly light and so don't slow you down much, leaving little room
for tradeoff mechanics. So it's a very different dynamic from Sagatafl
(which also hasn't yet got a damage model that even tries to model
modern firearms against modern armour).
What kind of dynamic do you want for your Star Wars campaigns?

Closer to your Modern Action rules, generally. Armour needs to be - and
mostly is - just a bit of flavour. Some player characters - e.g. Bounty
Hunters - have body armour as part of their character schticks. So there
certianly will be the occasional character in armour. But I *don't* want an
entire party of armoured PCs. Players seem to consider the dexterity penalty
for armour to be a minor issue; those that are serious about wearing it
expend the effort to get armour that doesn't reduce dexterity. I'm hoping a
more effective deterrent will be that there's a difficulty penalty for
applying a medpack to an armoured location.
Maybe I could use a rule for degrading armour, but I don't really like the
idea of that...

In MA RPG, weapon damage is multiplied by the number of un-countered
successes that the attacker gets, and then the target's armour value
(AV) is subtracted once.

An an example, the attacker rolls his attack skill (Longarms or
Shortarms) and gets 4 successes. The defender decides, based on this
knowledge, to spend some Action Points on a Dodge roll, and gets 2
Successes. The remaining 2 Successes, the un-countered ones, are then
multiplied by the weapon's damage factor - which might be 5 or 6 for a
futuristic beam weapon, or perhaps 4 if going for a more cinematic space
operatic feel.

Assuming a damage factor of 5, that gives 10 points of damage. If the
target is wearing armour, it might have an AV of 4, so the final damage
is 6 points, subtracted from the target's Wound Points (although I'll
probably just change the term to Hit Points, since that's what they are.
There's no need to try to fake being more sophisticated than the system
actually is.)


The drawback of wearing armour is that your movement is slowed down, in
terms of how many hexes you can move per Move Action (and with all
characters being allowed a maximum of 2 Move Actions per combat Round,
no matter how many Action Points they have). 2 basic move Actions are
available, Walk and Run, with Run being more efficient in terms of how
many hexes you get per Action Point. Both can be improved with binary
skils, representing the character having learned faster tactical
movement, or faster running. Running doesn't work, at least not well,
over difficult terrain, so mostly characters should opt to Walk in most
cases during combat. There may also be a penalty to Dodge rolls if your
last Move Action was a Run and not a Walk. I'm not sure about that yet.

Characters may also take any number of 1-hex Steps, each costing 1
Action Points, limited only by how many Action Points they have, so
Walking has to always be more efficient than this (this 1:1 ratio). Note
that a Step is not a Move Action, but a (regular) Action instead, since
characters are limited to 2 Move Actions per Round, but can take many Steps.

Other Move Actions are Charge and Jump, and moving stealthily (2 speeds)
and crawling when you are Prone - Crawl Steps are 2 APs per hex, and do
not count as Move Actions.

Actions that are not Move Actions are either Reactions (these are always
taken in response to outside stimuli, such as Dodging, and are the only
Actions that can be taken out of Initiative order) or (regular) Actions.

Armour then needs to impair movement somewhat, probably by reducing the
number of hexes covered by each Walk Move Action, although I'm limited
by the fact that Walking always needs to be more efficient than a series
of Steps (1:1). I can't have armour making Steps inefficient, except in
the case of actual medieval plate armour, where perhaps normal plate
armour can make each 1-hex Step cost 2 APs, and where heavier tournament
plate armour can make the first Step each Round cost 3 APs. So it's okay
for very heavy armour to penalize Walk movement allowances severely (in
addition to making Running impossible), but for regular armour such as
chainmail or bulletproof vests, I can't do that.

Oh, and characters can also get 1 or 2 free Steps per Round, via binary
skills. These cost no APs. Sufficiently heavy armour could cause
characters to lose these free Steps too, but of course that isn't
penalizing those characters who have not bought those binary skills in
the first place, and characters with those binary skills would be
disinclined to wear very heary armour in the first place, since they'd
tend to be "swift flavour" character concepts.

Finally, there needs to be binary skills representing acquired
familiarity with armour. For medieval armour I'll just do like Sagatafl
and have Wear Light Armour and Wear Medium Armou, and then Wear Heavy
Armour for later period plate armour (which wasn't invented in the 10th
century, the era of my Sagatafl-driven Ärth historical fantasy setting).

For modern armour, I'll probably go with Wear Vest, Wear Heavy Vest, and
Wear Suit, the later referring to hazmat suits, radiation suits and
similar, with Wear Space Suit for coping with the present day's
relatively primitive and bulky space suits.

If one doesn't have the necessary binary skill, to indicate familiarity
with the armour type worn, the armour penalty is heavier. I've figure I
can just double it in almost all cases, although on second thought (I
haven't actually made a lot of combat rules yet; I'm still doing
character creation), I need to be careful about the balance between
Walking and Stepping (again: I can't drop below 1:1 efficiency).


I think that the fact that Sagatafl and MA RPG both have tactical
movement as an important game factor, in the sense that different
characters can move different amounts of hexes per combat Round, solves
a lot of problems when it comes to armour tradeoffs.

On top of that, MA RPG uses Action Points, with different actions not
necessarily costing the same amount of Action Points for different
characters, whereas Sagatafl goes with a much less sophisticated "one
action per character per Round" model, or maybe "one defensive action
and one offensive action, or one move action" instead, although there
are ways (Martial arts, as well as Enchanted items) for characters to
get more actions, such as being able to attack twice or parry twice, or
dodge twice.

I imagine that Star Wars is much like Sagatafl in this regard, which
again is less mecanically flexible, when it comes to room and
opportunity for penalties (and bonuses). Also, of course, MA RPG isn't
just something I'd like to do because I'm fascinated with the modern
genre and with action adventure. It is also a huge "testing ground",
when it comes to RPG rules design, playtesting procedures, and how to
actually write down rules. I'm going to test out lots of "strangely
shaped" rules in MA RPG, and so when I resume design of Sagatafl (years
from now), it would surprise me if none of the MA RPG rules ideas make
it into Sagatafl.

A few of them, such as the primitive damage/armour model, and of course
each character being assined a "subtype" (effectively a RoleMaster style
character class), aren't suitable for Sagatafl at all. But a lot of
others, such as the use of Action Points, may very well be. I just need
to see how well they work in actual play.


As for Star Wars, why not do something radical: Move away from the
"dice" system in one specific regard. Don't give armour dice ratings at
all. Instead, give it Damage Thresholds, DTs.

Each attack damage result that is equal to or lower than the target's DT
results in no damage whatsoever, whereas any attack that exceeds the DT
causes full damage - the DT is not subtracted from the damage.

Light armour might give a DT of 2, medium armour a DT of 3, heavy armour
a DT of 4.

Heavy clothing (Hoth suits) might be DT 1, and special armour might have
different DT values against different attack types, such as metal armour
having DT 6 against melee weapons but only DT 2 against beams and
needles, or reflective armour having DT 8 against lasers but only DT 2
agaist blasters, and no DT against any other attack form.

Any damage that a character takes is then resisted with a Strength roll,
as usual.

The effect is somewhat similar to in MA RPG, because armour lets you
ignore low-damage attacks (Stormtroopers will love this), whereas
attacks from highly skilled foes, such as master shooters, as well as
attacks from very heavy weapons such as Heavy Blaste Rifles or Sniper
Blasters, effectively ignore armour, so that in those cases it makes no
difference whether you've worn armour or not.

If you want things a bit more complicated, you can have a rule that if a
character is hit by an attack whose damage is equal to the DT, then the
character suffers some minor effect for a very short period of time,
such as being stunned, or being unable for 1 combat Round to do anything
other than take defensive actions. You could then have an exemption to
this rule, in the form of a species trait (Wookies, or other species
famous for toughness, might have that trait), or an inborn Gift-like trait.

As for how to penalize armour, so as to make wearing it a no-brainer, I
don't think I can help you, based on the assumption that tactical
movement is not a part of the Star Wars system. One gains so much when
one makes movement speed a vital part of the rules.

[Simon Smith]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Simon Smith
<snip>

The drawback of wearing armour is that your movement is slowed down, in
terms of how many hexes you can move per Move Action (and with all
characters being allowed a maximum of 2 Move Actions per combat Round,
no matter how many Action Points they have). 2 basic move Actions are
available, Walk and Run, with Run being more efficient in terms of how
many hexes you get per Action Point. Both can be improved with binary
skils, representing the character having learned faster tactical
movement, or faster running. Running doesn't work, at least not well,
over difficult terrain, so mostly characters should opt to Walk in most
cases during combat. There may also be a penalty to Dodge rolls if your
last Move Action was a Run and not a Walk. I'm not sure about that yet.

No indeed; sometimes rapid movement is just what you need for a good dodge.

<mode="digression">Dodge mechanics are a pest, really. For gamist reasons
one often doesn't want to have to worry about dodging until one knows an
attack is incoming. But I would have thought that particularly against
modern weapons, if you aren't already dodging by the time the shot is fired,
it's probably too late. Wasn't there something Evil-Overlord-related that
complained that Heroes can even dodge speed-of-light weapons such as lasers?

Modern soldiers don't dodge much, do they? They use cover, or they get hit.
Sometimes they get hit anyway, even though they'd done everything right,
which tends to be Totally Unaccaptable for player characters unless you're
playing a game like Aftermath.

But in a game like Star Wars, which does have the dodge skill, I do get the
feeling that it's really more of a Magic Shield that stops characters
getting hit - provided they can roll dice better than their opponents -
rather than anything really related their actions. It's a bit like the Rambo
films, I suspect; Rambo stands there, surrounded by mooks blasting away at
him from point-blank range, and all missing, while in game terms, he's
rolling inordinate amounts on his dodge skill every time an attack comes in,
and the mooks can't connect. Presumably the bullets either change course in
mid-air or become intangible as they pass through him. The Tales From the
Floating Vagabond game lampoons this with painful accuracy; the Rambo Effect
is a schtick that ensures that all ranged attacks fired at a character from
within Close range automatically miss.

But most games do seem to need a dodge skill to allow PCs a last-ditch
chance to avoid incoming damage. If the chance of being hit is just based on
the attacker's skill, they will occasionally secure a hit, and the
consequences of a hit - or at least, too many hits - is too high in many
games.</mode>

[Ben Finney]

Dodge mechanics are a pest, really. For gamist reasons one often
doesn't want to have to worry about dodging until one knows an
attack is incoming. But I would have thought that particularly
against modern weapons, if you aren't already dodging by the time
the shot is fired, it's probably too late.

Even GURPS, which prides itself on the ability to simulate reality
close enough for gaming, has a related wart.

T. Bone has addressed it in the optional rule "DECIDE"
<URL:http://www.gamesdiner.com/decide>, which preserves "They attempt
to do this, but you don't know yet if they'll succeed. What do you
do?" that is the norm throughout the rest of the system.

[gleichman]

Post by Ben Finney
Even GURPS, which prides itself on the ability to simulate reality
close enough for gaming, has a related wart.

Really? GURPS prides itself on that?

Does it pride itself on solving world hunger too? It would make as much
sense.

[gleichman]

Post by Simon Smith
But most games do seem to need a dodge skill to allow PCs a last-ditch
chance to avoid incoming damage. If the chance of being hit is just based on
the attacker's skill, they will occasionally secure a hit, and the
consequences of a hit - or at least, too many hits - is too high in many
games.</mode>

I agree with this.

Be it hit points, unreasonable damage resists, or dodge mechanics.
Something questionable from the PoV of realism nearly has to be part
of a rpg design if it's reflecting a fictional setting or genre.

Personnally I find dodge is the most acceptible of these because it
doesn't invoke the mental image of bullets striking characters for no
effect.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
It seems to me that the real problem is how very *coarsegrained* the
system is, for those situations where plusses don't matter. You end up
having only five or six values, from 1d6 to 5d6, and maybe up to 6d6.

Five or Six values is about half what I see for the typical human
range in the more popular rpg designs (athough it about equals the
typical above average 'bonus' range), so I agree it's rather coarse.
That degree of lumping is generally only found in systems attempting
to be very simple and general.

But I don't consider this to be the "real problem'. Star Wars
shouldn't be ran on the details IMO or it will fail to be Star Wars.
It how that range is used that causes problems for the genre IMO.

[Simon Smith]

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
There's two ways you could handle the effects of armour;
1. Reduce the incoming damage by the armour rating, one dice cancels out one
dice, and roll the remainder, if any, against strength.

Go with this one, you like and the advantages you list for the second are
already basically forfeit when you went with a system that allows Wookies to
walk through blaster fire in the first place.

While I don't disagree with the sentiment, this is a slight exaggeration.

A Wookiee with 5D6 strength taking 5D6 damage has a 50-50 chance of taking a
wound or worse.

The chances of 5D6 strength rolling more than double a 5D6 damage roll are
about 3.1%, so even for Wookiees, there's a 97% chance that if hit they'll
lose their actions for the rest of the round, and that's even if they avoid
the 50-50 chance of taking a wound or worse.

Now 5D6 versus a standard 4D6 blaster does give an 18% chance of no effect,
but there's still an 82% chance they'll lose all their actions, and within
that 82% there's a 28% chance of a wound or worse.

So Wookies can only walk through blaster fire for one hit in five; and the
other four times, it downs them - even if only temporarily.


One of my other house rules is that stuns leave pips of wound behind when
they wear off, so it's easier for me to wear Wookiees down by attrition.
Star Wars is unusual - and better-than-average - in that wounded characters
do suffer noticeable impairment almost immediately. Compare with the
opposite extreme; a D20 character who would still be 100% combat-effective
on 1 hit point even if he originally had more than 100. The original medpack
rules are a far bigger contributor to turning characters into Weebles - but
I *think* I've succesfully house-ruled them too.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by Simon Smith
Star Wars is unusual - and better-than-average - in that wounded characters
do suffer noticeable impairment almost immediately. Compare with the
opposite extreme; a D20 character who would still be 100% combat-effective
on 1 hit point even if he originally had more than 100.

People on this list have pointed out that "no impairment until the end
of combat" more accurately reflects reality (or possibly, until a
signficant pause in combat): there is no "death spiral" where you get
less and less effective as combat proceeds and thus take more and more
damage. Unless you take disabling levels of damage, of course, like
having body parts destroyed. And even then there were reportedly these
berserker guys...

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by David Alex Lamb

Post by Simon Smith
Star Wars is unusual - and better-than-average - in that wounded characters
do suffer noticeable impairment almost immediately. Compare with the
opposite extreme; a D20 character who would still be 100%
combat-effective
on 1 hit point even if he originally had more than 100.

People on this list have pointed out that "no impairment until the end
of combat" more accurately reflects reality (or possibly, until a
signficant pause in combat): there is no "death spiral" where you get
less and less effective as combat proceeds and thus take more and more
damage. Unless you take disabling levels of damage, of course, like
having body parts destroyed. And even then there were reportedly these
berserker guys...

That "no death spiral" assumption is justified only by firearm injury
statistical data, whereas much RPG combat involves weapons that function
very differently, and wound very differently, from present day firearms.

Either medieval weapons, or futuristic beam weapons, with lasers being
one exception, and medieval arrows and crossbow bolts being the other.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
That "no death spiral" assumption is justified only by firearm injury
statistical data, whereas much RPG combat involves weapons that function
very differently, and wound very differently, from present day firearms.
Either medieval weapons, or futuristic beam weapons, with lasers being
one exception, and medieval arrows and crossbow bolts being the other.

The assumption here is that just because there is a lack of evidence
against something, it is therefore reasonable to assume the something
is true despite there being no evidence for it at all. Under certain
conditions, I don't really object to that line of reasoning. After
all, that's the core behind any number of religions.

I do however think this case of it is seriously misplaced as we do
have evidence that should bias the response. We know X does not apply
under condition Y at the very least, so why then would anyone jump to
assume that it exists under conditon Z unless they had something solid
to support that? Doing so reminds me of people who believe in Bigfoot
or Nessie.

In point of fact, we have data points for the likely lack of a death
spiral for medieval and/or primitive weapons. See the boar spear for
example and the reasons for its design. Note that boxers have gone on
to win their matches after broken bones, something a death spiral
would prevent. Any serious consideration results in faith in the death
spiral (outside blood loss and/or the actual loss of mobility from
injury) becoming very questionable.

Projecting onto weapons that don't even exist is even worse. How being
blasted by an high energy particle weapon can both "leave you alive
with all limbs intact" and at the same time inflect a death spiral
unknown to any other type of injury is... an interesting leap if you
ask me. But I guess people have to search for that pot of gold at
rainbow's end.


None of that btw should change if you use or don't use Death Spirals
in game design. They have specifical impacts on play and that my well
be desired. But please don't try to rise any realism cards on its
behalf unless you have some serious evidence to back it up.

[gleichman]

Post by Simon Smith
While I don't disagree with the sentiment, this is a slight exaggeration.

You'll excuse me if I'm not impressed with your details on this
matter. I mean really now, a whole 50% chance of taking a wound from
the heaviest weapon one should reasonably expect to see in common
personal use A wound! gasp!

Like the movies ever showed anyone living through a blaster hit.

And a Death Spiral, like the movies ever showed anyone suffering from
that (never mind the realism questions).

May as well use D&D for it in my mind, they are roughly equal matches
for the genre. Heck, D&D would actually be better IMO.

[DougL]

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
While I don't disagree with the sentiment, this is a slight exaggeration.

You'll excuse me if I'm not impressed with your details on this
matter. I mean really now, a whole 50% chance of taking a wound from
the heaviest weapon one should reasonably expect to see in common
personal use A wound! gasp!
Like the movies ever showed anyone living through a blaster hit.

IIRC: Leia in RotJ, R2D2 twice I think, and if you watch carefully
there are several storm troopers hit in the opening scene who seem to
actually be protected by their otherwise useless armor (presumably
because they are being shot at by NPCs, I don't think it ever helps
against a main character).

Note that these are a heavily biased sample. In most cases 1 hit==1
kill in SW and the weapons should at least come close to doing that. I
HATED how ineffective weapons were when they did hit in SW. A Wookie
in armor would be effectively unkillable.

Post by gleichman
And a Death Spiral, like the movies ever showed anyone suffering from
that (never mind the realism questions).

In A New Hope Leia continues to act quite effectively after being
rigorously interogated, in Return she continues to fight quite
effectively after being shot. While R2D2 simply stops working after
being hit.

Binary states: out completely or no penalty. You can argue for Stunned
based on the immediate aftermath of Leia being shot or Luke having his
hand cut off. But if so then it's stunned or no penalty.

Post by gleichman
May as well use D&D for it in my mind, they are roughly equal matches
for the genre. Heck, D&D would actually be better IMO.

I haven't yet tried SWSE, but it would be my choice for SW if I wanted
to run it now.

D6 had the HUGE advantage for modelling SW that it was fast to resolve
and required little thought. It still wasn't very satisfying for the
genre in the long run.

HP are a surprisingly good mechanism for what they do.

DougL

[gleichman]

Post by DougL
In A New Hope Leia continues to act quite effectively after being
rigorously interogated, in Return she continues to fight quite
effectively after being shot.

Arm/Shoulder hits are basically equal to a paper cut in Hollywood :)

I did completely forget about that scene btw, even through what I was
really after a body shot that someone lived through.


I recall Lucas once saying that the ST armor was intended to protect
from glancing hits (that would I imagine normally produce the effect
seen on Leia), and that it didn't help against direct hits. Since
heroes are more likely to score direct hits, the logic follows. In
HERO terms, ST armor adds a point or two to DCV and very little to
actual armor.

Post by DougL
While R2D2 simply stops working after being hit.

I call him dead, it's just that being a droid allows an easy rez :)

Post by DougL
Binary states: out completely or no penalty. You can argue for Stunned
based on the immediate aftermath of Leia being shot or Luke having his
hand cut off. But if so then it's stunned or no penalty.

Stunned or incapped with significant recover time needed before
getting up again. Other than that, it's heroics till the very end.

Post by DougL
HP are a surprisingly good mechanism for what they do.

While they have their drawbacks, they are indeed good at what they do.

[DougL]

Post by gleichman

Post by DougL
In A New Hope Leia continues to act quite effectively after being
rigorously interogated, in Return she continues to fight quite
effectively after being shot.

Arm/Shoulder hits are basically equal to a paper cut in Hollywood :)

I considered mentioning that it was a shoulder wound. But then I'd
have felt compelled to launch a tirade about what a nasty wound a shot
to the shoulder is likely to be in reality.

Post by gleichman
I recall Lucas once saying that the ST armor was intended to protect
from glancing hits (that would I imagine normally produce the effect
seen on Leia), and that it didn't help against direct hits. Since
heroes are more likely to score direct hits, the logic follows. In
HERO terms, ST armor adds a point or two to DCV and very little to
actual armor.

I don't remember the Lucas quote, but that also matches what I think I
see in the opening scene of A New Hope. A few shots just glance off
the Storm Trooper armor, others score kills, but no sign of any
wounded at all. (Which is still wrong, there can be solid hits to the
arm or leg, but the SW isn't about realistic combat or someone would
be using fragmentation grenades on all those unarmored heroes.)

Post by gleichman

Post by DougL
While R2D2 simply stops working after being hit.

I call him dead, it's just that being a droid allows an easy rez :)

I could go for that. He's definitely out.

DougL

[gleichman]

Post by DougL
I considered mentioning that it was a shoulder wound. But then I'd
have felt compelled to launch a tirade about what a nasty wound a shot
to the shoulder is likely to be in reality.

Especially if done by any sort of 'energy' weapon. From what I've seen
lasers and particle weapons tend to cause explosions when they reach
high enough power levels to immediately and seriously damage a person,
let alone to do so after getting through armor. A shoulder hit should
remove the entire limb and much of the body if done by an effective
military class weapon.

Oddly enough I always thought old show Star Trek did a reasonable job
at times with their weapons. In the first aired show, a miss by a hand
laser causes a grenade like secondary explosion upon impacting a stone
column. Another time a phaser is fired at a piece of equipment someone
was working on with the result that said person took a significant (if
still vastly unstated) injury from the resulting flare of energy
released from the destroyed equipment. Treating stone walls as if they
were pre-warmed butter, Star Trek weapons are the master of one-shot
kills (or one shot disable if set for stun).

But I can't really call Star Wars' poor injury modeling a fault with
the movie, it's more fun if things work the way they show it. It is
Space Opera afterall. And I think a game one way or the other should
mirror it if it's call a Star Wars RPG.

I don't think I've near seen a good genre based reason provided for
the death spiral. That always comes from people wanting to be
realistic without really understanding the subject.

I have seen game play reasons. Those can make sense depending upon the
goals of the game.

[DougL]

Post by gleichman
I don't think I've near seen a good genre based reason provided for
the death spiral. That always comes from people wanting to be
realistic without really understanding the subject.

Maybe we just need to produce "The Rockford Files: The RPG." Although
to be honest I'm not sure how badly hindered Jim Rockford ever
actually is by his injuries and I haven't seen that show for years.
But that might have it in Genre to include a death-spiral....

In most cases I've concluded over the years that I DON'T WANT
realistic damage mechanisms in my games.

I want reasonably fast and very reliable recovery: "You need a cane to
walk for the rest of your life" isn't a good result for a PC in a
game. Lingering death after the battle is BAD in a game, especially
bad are most mechanisms for wounds that don't put you down immediately
but that do kill you later: Recovery rolls for people who don't go
down are bad. Berserkers who take mortal damage and keep coming for a
round or two are fine as a special case, but this shouldn't happen to
most PCs.

I want the damage mechanism to tell me functional or non-functional
without much work or wound tracking and to not include too many
intermediate states involving injury penalties or continuing bleeding:
If it doesn't remove the limb don't sweat the details. If there is a
death spiral type effect then the first penalty SHOULD NOT START until
the level of damage reaches the point that you need to hit the players
over the head with the need to run away (i.e. at a minimum half damage
or more).

I want a mechanism that keeps PCs from getting seriously hurt by a
mook with a single lucky shot. I want that mechanism to be ablative
because I will not plan in advance to systematically fudge and I do
expect the PCs to be at risk in a prolonged combat against lots of
mooks. Only an Ablative defense makes individual hits incapable of
"really" hurting the character but leaves the character in danger.
Having just reinvented HP I don't really if they refresh very fast
(i.e. instantly after every battle) or take weeks to come back. That
just changes the pacing, and I'm perfectly capable of saying "three
weeks later after you've all recovered". Having reinvented the wheel
(aka HP) I'm VERY reluctant to let anything bypass it. HP are general
mojo, they don't model anything "real", my mojo that protects me ought
to protect me. Bypassing HP should only exist for things that I want
to have be a potential single shot kills and there aren't many of
those because "mook" is a relative term and this sessions BBEG may be
a mook class character ten sessions from now. And yes "Dominate
Person" is a single shot kill and thus should IMAO be resistable with
HP (something like "spend X HP to break-free by an extream act of
will" is fine with me; it's no less sensible than the HP protecting
you from axe hits and probably more in genre for most fantasy where
breaking controls is possible but exhausting and stressing).

DougL

[gleichman]

Post by DougL
In most cases I've concluded over the years that I DON'T WANT
realistic damage mechanisms in my games.

You state your reasons well, and I note they match much of what E.G.G.
listed as the reasoning behind HP years back.

From my own PoV, I have few different desires and a few of the same
that in total produce different requirments. I could never use a D&D
style HP system again.

[DougL]

Post by gleichman

Post by DougL
In most cases I've concluded over the years that I DON'T WANT
realistic damage mechanisms in my games.

You state your reasons well, and I note they match much of what E.G.G.
listed as the reasoning behind HP years back.
From my own PoV, I have few different desires and a few of the same
that in total produce different requirments. I could never use a D&D
style HP system again.

The big problem I have with HP is that they encourage excessive
concentration of fire to an extent that violates both realism and
genre. I have various other minor problems related to realism
(especially of recovery) but good game trumps realistic in this case.

But I'd like some way to fix the concentration of fire effect and
encourage people to spread out their attacks while still providing the
ablative defense and ease of use of HP, but I haven't yet come up with
one yet. A big bonus to attack if you are not attacked at all in a
round is the best I've come up with, but it requires too much tracking
of who's been attacked when.

Thinking about this today: An ability to "cover someone" and take some
of their damage if within some relatively short range might work to
reduce the advantage of unrealistic concentration of fire regardless
of whether or not people still do it. This probably increases the
tendancy to hit the soft targets first, but that's fine, especially if
there are dodge, cover, or all out defend options they can use. This
also possibly provides an advantage to groups that fight in formation
by allowing more/easier transfers and an advantage to a single hero
leading a bunch of mooks.

Hmm, why didn't I ever think of that one before, needs some thought,
but I can probably make it work.

DougL

[gleichman]

Post by DougL
The big problem I have with HP is that they encourage excessive
concentration of fire to an extent that violates both realism and
genre.

In my case I control the tendency to concentrate attacks by use of the
map and tactical modifiers. Yes one can gang up on a single target,
but you have to be able to move there first, doing while taking into
account zones of control and terrain. Along the way you have to worry
about your own flank/rear hexsides.

So in Age of Heroes, it's a great idea to concentrate your attacks-
but actually getting it done is rather difficult.

In HERO Systems, it's generally not especially effective to combine
attacks on to a single target. This is due to many of the same
tactical elements as above. In addition, for the more realistic
settings- a single attack can easily take somone down. It's best
therefore to individually select best target instead of concentrating
upon one.


Hit Point systems by nature lessen the control of the above approach
by lowering the Pace of Decision. They make it possible to make
tactical errors and still have time to recovery. For example it may be
quite acceptible to have flank attacks made against three of your
party (spreading the damage between them) in return for concentration
of four attacks (3 + the original) on a single foe and taking him
down. Meanwhile there is more than enough time to heal your injured
members and press the attack onward.

Remove the maps and the tactical modifiers (something common in
practice in today's gaming world it seems- at least for those who post
online), and the whole method of course fails.

Post by DougL
A big bonus to attack if you are not attacked at all in a
round is the best I've come up with, but it requires too much tracking
of who's been attacked when.

Both Age of Heroes and HERO System offer combat maneuvers that provide
significant bonuses at the cost of significant loss in defense. The
result is that one's opponents have a reason to 'engage' or at least
hold a threat of engagement over them in order to encourage them not
to use those maneuvers.

The fact that these are maneuvers (Haymaker, Full Swing, Braced Fire,
etc) chosen in initiative order by individual character instead of a
situational combat modifier makes it easy for me to track. Instead of
remembering if Joe had been fired on by anyone, I just have to
remember what he did last or even ask the player.

Post by DougL
Thinking about this today: An ability to "cover someone" and take some
of their damage if within some relatively short range might work to
reduce the advantage of unrealistic concentration of fire regardless
of whether or not people still do it.

Interestingly enough 'Lord of the Rings Online' (a MMORPG) just
introduced this exact mechanic to its Guardian class in today's patch.

I don't expect it to see much use.

[DougL]

  I admit I'm stating things in a way that is likely to bias answers in
  the direction I personally prefer - so do please allow for that when
  answering :-) Nevertheless, what do you rest of you lurking hordes
  think?

What's wrong with the method used by the original d6 Starwars
implementation. Armor adds to Strength for purposes of damage
absorption.

No extra rolls.
Armor is useful against both high end and low end damage.

DougL

[Simon Smith]

Post by DougL

  I admit I'm stating things in a way that is likely to bias answers in
  the direction I personally prefer - so do please allow for that when
  answering :-) Nevertheless, what do you rest of you lurking hordes
  think?

What's wrong with the method used by the original d6 Starwars
implementation. Armor adds to Strength for purposes of damage
absorption.
No extra rolls.
Armor is useful against both high end and low end damage.

Well, the interaction with our house wound rules is ... a little less
harmonious that way, although it does still work. So the original Ed I way
is the second or third choice option.


If you use it, and add armour to strength, a smuggler with 3D6 strength and
1D6 of armour and a tough native with 4D6 strength are both equally likely
to take the same result from incoming damage - stun, wound, whatever.


If you subtract armour first, you find the smuggler takes a greater
proportion of 'no-effect' results from low damage, while the native takes
more stuns. I particularly like that, partly as a flavour effect, and also
because stuns have a slight attrition effect under my rules (a pip of wound
for each die of Stun, ignored until it adds up to a whole 1D.) For higher
damage codes, it doesn't matter which way you do it, of course.

As armour's mostly pretty useless anyway, so I'd like it to have /some/ area
where it makes a perceptible difference. The same mechanism does also make
heavy armour more useful. And as I would like cover to work the same way
('You're have the cover of a nice thick wall; you have 5D of armour; their
4D-rated blasters can't hurt you'), treating protective layers individually
is attractive. But cover's a separate matter with its own balancing issues.


And for consistency, it's nice to be able to say, 'armour subtracts its
rating from incoming damage, anmd the same amount from all your dexterity
skills', rather than 'armour adds to this code, for damage purposes only,
but subtracts from these'.


All minor issues I agree, but then hey, it's only Star Wars. It doesn't pay
to take it too seriously, but there a some things I'd like to improve.

[tussock]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by DougL
What's wrong with the method used by the original d6 Starwars
implementation. Armor adds to Strength for purposes of damage
absorption.

If you use it, and add armour to strength, a smuggler with 3D6 strength
and 1D6 of armour and a tough native with 4D6 strength are both equally
likely to take the same result from incoming damage - stun, wound,
whatever.
If you subtract armour first, you find the smuggler takes a greater
proportion of 'no-effect' results from low damage, while the native
takes more stuns. I particularly like that, partly as a flavour effect,
and also because stuns have a slight attrition effect under my rules (a
pip of wound for each die of Stun, ignored until it adds up to a whole
1D.)

Also more wounds. Say with 2d attacks on 1d armour and 3d Strength,
it's 1d vs 3d rather than 2d vs 4d, and you're much more likely to pick
up a wound with the armour subtracting, nearly six times more likely off
the top of my head.

Post by Simon Smith
For higher damage codes, it doesn't matter which way you do it, of
course.

Sure it does. Less dice in each group with the same differnce between
them is going to throw up more large difference results, enough to be
noticable over time at those low numbers. While you make armour perfect
against trivial attacks, it's also gives more outliers on any other
attack.

Post by Simon Smith
As armour's mostly pretty useless anyway, so I'd like it to have /some/
area where it makes a perceptible difference. The same mechanism does
also make heavy armour more useful. And as I would like cover to work
the same way ('You're have the cover of a nice thick wall; you have 5D
of armour; their 4D-rated blasters can't hurt you'), treating protective
layers individually is attractive. But cover's a separate matter with
its own balancing issues.

If there's one thing in star wars that should work that way, it's the
shields. They're very much perfectly reliable in genre (right up until
they fail). Walls and armour however have stonger and weaker points, so
rolling the dice makes more sense.

Post by Simon Smith
And for consistency, it's nice to be able to say, 'armour subtracts its
rating from incoming damage, anmd the same amount from all your
dexterity skills', rather than 'armour adds to this code, for damage
purposes only, but subtracts from these'.

Hobgoblins, dude.

Post by Simon Smith
All minor issues I agree, but then hey, it's only Star Wars. It doesn't
pay to take it too seriously, but there a some things I'd like to
improve.

Of your first two options, lowering the attack strength is the
better, rolling the armour die seperately is just wrong.

[Simon Smith]

Post by tussock
Hobgoblins, dude.

That's a very gnomic comment.