Damage

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theancient
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Damage

Post by theancient »

One thing I disliked was amount of damage each weapon gave example:

Katana vs Kilij most "flavors gave both 1D8 wth?
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Solomoriah
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Re: Damage

Post by Solomoriah »

Did you mean to post this in the Equipment thread?
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SmootRK
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Re: Damage

Post by SmootRK »

theancient wrote:One thing I disliked was amount of damage each weapon gave example:

Katana vs Kilij most "flavors gave both 1D8 wth?
I was waiting for some sort of WTF comment before I said anything. I don't understand the comment at all.
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theancient
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Re: Damage

Post by theancient »

With respect wth= what the heck; after all this is a public forum, The General Discussion topic was the damage, either THAC0 or a twenty side die used to represent threshold of damaging the "target" of said attack where as the damage of said weapon seemed to be 1D8 for most weapons regardless of specific sword or specific attack. During my SCA days I associated with people who set out to illustrate how false that was. A friend who made both correct weapons as well as armor donated 20 types for these "test". Since I am Romanian by birth one was the pre-Kilij, first a pig carcass was hug and was easily sliced in two, latter another carcass was hug wearing tight chainmail link "shirt" it still was hacked through other test wear done using pig carcasses with other swords and weapon types "wearing" or static armor. The what the heck was why was the "generic" die 8 used to represent the damage.
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Re: Damage

Post by Solomoriah »

Well, that's a historical thing. Gary first chose the d8 to represent sword damage; as it's exactly the same size as a fighter's hit die, it gives about a 50% chance that a first level fighter hit with a sword will die.

We're not going to get into that sort of discussion here. It falls from "gamist" to "simulationist" thinking, and while I don't precisely subscribe to that theory, the former is better IMO than the latter.

Let's consider this discussion closed.
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theancient
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Re: Damage

Post by theancient »

Actually it's a throw back from the "Hit Die" of the "monster" being a die 8 per level. Dave Arneson took this from many of the miniature games of the era before D&D. As I pointed out to a friend who was designing a role playing game, a balance needs to be made to maintain playablity and detail.

However I would like the damage be based on some other reference point than the "target's" max health.

Thought I would be able to discover this from "the wealth" of others experience or knowledge. My game; I used Attack Factor to "create" a wound type but this is not my game, was only a topic of discussion.

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SmootRK
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Re: Damage

Post by SmootRK »

Sorry that your first post (and some of the following) were not very easily understood. I did not mean to antagonize you, only make a little "funny" about not being able to follow what you were writing about. I completely understand English not being primary language, as my wife is from Philippines and there are often miscommunications because her English usage is not the best. So sorry about that.

That said, Solo was just sharing his take on gaming theory... the difference between being concerned mostly with 'how well the game plays' or fun factor, versus that of whether things are 'dead-on realistic simulations'. Rightly so that he has a strong opinion, as he developed BFRPG. I happen to share his take on this (gameist > simulationist), but that does not mean your opinion is not valid even if it is not shared universally among old-school gamers of the 'classic/basic' caliber... they generally prefer simpler over more realistic or more complex options.

Feel free to continue to share your opinions and your 'tweaks' to how your game is played.
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Joe the Rat
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Re: Damage

Post by Joe the Rat »

First thing, the flat d8 is clearly wrong, since a katana is one of those hand-and-a-half swords. I don't have an answer on how to model that.

The second issue is hit points. They aren't strictly speaking health - they're how well you can take a hit. That includes little things like rolling with blows, flinches, deflections to less vital areas, putting up with the concussion damage from non-penetrating strikes, "luck", etc. The 1 point blow that puts someone down isn't necessarily a light tap - it's a hit that just manages to break/pierce/sever something badly enough to make living a less viable option.

If a weapon can, without modifiers, take down men-at-arms/ 1 hd monsters (let's call them grunts for now) half the time, it's a decent grunt sweeper, but will probably turn into a multistroke battle against more experienced warriors (higher HD). Arguably, if someone was just going to stand there (really just 'take a hit'), most of their hit points shouldn't count - they should stand a good chance of going down in one hit (now you've got me thinking how to model iaijutsu duels). In short, an abstraction of injury against an abstraction of the ability to deal with being hit, and all other weapons weighted by their effectiveness compared to an exemplar. I am hard pressed to think of a system that doesn't at some point base weapon damage on kill probabilities or injury capacity of a baseline target.

...and none of that even begins to address the whole force and penetration issue - which is what the armored pigs demonstrated. That was a really cool demo, by the way. I'd love to see the results. (The noted effectiveness of different weapons vs. flesh vs. armor, I mean. Not pictures of bisected pigs ;) ). That's where you get into the whole AC vs. damage reduction approach, as well as weapon type vs. armor type damage variability. AD&D played with that, but the real king of the approach is probably RoleMaster - also notable for separating 'hits' (concussion) and 'injury' (those wonderful, wonderful critical tables), with different injury tables depending on the type of blow. A different school, but an old one nonetheless.
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Re: Damage

Post by dymondy2k »

Not that I'm adding too much to this convo but I do Katana's with two damage types. 1d8 if its held with one hand, or 1d10 if held with two.

But overall I am agreeance with the others that say keeping it simple and fast is part of the fun. Weighing down attacks with too much simulation is just another way to slow the game down. But that being said what I love about BFRPG is that you can add the rules to your own game and if you think its valuable to others, make a supplement out of it.
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Re: Damage

Post by Dimirag »

I believe originally in the OD&D rules it was a flat d6* damage for every weapon (simulating "attack quality"), then it switched to a "weapon based damage" using the d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12... so the d8 being the "middle" dice its use for "middle/standard" damage, while more or less damaging weapon or bigger/smaller ones get the appropriate dice shift. Then it changed again to incorporate a more variable damage system....

*Funny data: The pre-publish OD&D used only the d20 for ALL an EVERY ROLL, before being published it was asked to Gygax to modify the rules to incorporate the remaining dice.

Lots of GM's used different house rules regarding damage, such as:
-Making the damage dice = the hit dice of the class.
-Use the Attack Bonus to determine the damage range.
-Use the Difference between Attack and AC to determine the damage range.

The rules as they are now are simple and effective, and serve to keep the fighters making greater damage allowing the use of "bigger damage-dice sized" weapons.

Hit Points works as "Battle Stamina and Combat Reflex" to some degree... Sadly it allow some characters to survive some insane situations withoput propper GM's judging... (But this is a matter for another topic)
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