Combat System

This is for figuring out how to kill shit. No point in adventuring without home-invasion, murder, and robbery, right? We'll figure this out yet, just you wait!

I was reading the first post in the origional thread over again and I noticed a small issue. In the combat, you said you must roll within your skill to hit. You also said that characters start with 0 in skills they don't have as Major or Minor skills. This together means that any character who tries to attack with a weapon they aren't specialized in, regardless of the circumstances, automatically fails. This might be a bit of an issue.

Wouldn't people start with their race bonuses and the base (I think it's 5) in all skills anyways?

Also, seeing as how max skills in Morrowind are 100 I'm guessing it uses the same roll system that Dark Heresy does. Rolling out of 100 and if you get a number under your skill level you succeed.

Just an idea for melee combat.

Skill level - target agility/10
So if your skill is 100 and your target has 100 agility you'd still not have a 100% chance to hit.

Alternately, target agility/5 + your agility/10. So with 100 skill and 100 agility, if your target has 100, you'd have 90% chance just like the other suggestion.

Good ideas. Great infact. I was thinking most abilities should start at at least 5, but completely forgot about racial bonuses. And let us not forget about bonuses that may come from specialization. I think that should give a +10 in each of the affected skills. This very good, because the odds of hitting anything, even before you work in their bonuses, are absolutely terrible at 5 anything. Bad news if a character gets disarmed and only focused on one combat skill.

This is probably a terrible idea with no way to be implemented, but it would be nice if raising one weapon skill could carry over slightly to another. If you're really good with an axe you probably know the basics of parrying with a sword even if you're not terribly proficient, just due to overlap.

Of course any synergy bonus would have a pretty low hard cap for how high it could get so that having 100 in axes didn't make you an expert at everything else.

Perhaps it could be that all melee combat skills operate like a fourth of the highest one, if that is higher than what they ? This would mean if you were at 100 in long blades and 5 in short, short blades would act like you had 25, until you actually reached 25 in the skill. This would still be quite low for endgame considering enemy armors and such, but much, much, MUCH less crippling than trying to do it with 5.

Here's something I've been mulling over in my head for a while. Still a bit wonky, though.

An attack roll is made at (Weapon skill)+(Weapon accuracy bonus)-(Opponents light armor or unarmored), and damage rolls are made at (Strength)+(Weapon damage bonus)-(Opponents heavy armor or medium armor).

To hit would be meet or roll under = hit, roll over = miss, damage would be equal to the amount by which you rolled under.

Armor skills would be modified by the armor used. So, someone with 40 in heavy armor, but very poor quality armor (such as iron) would only subtract, say, 20 from the opponents damage.

This system (in theory anyway), would do several things for the game. First off, it would give a meaningful separation between lighter and heavier armors. Also, it would make different weapons more useful against different opponents, thus giving us the separation between weapon types the game always lacked (an axe or hammer would work much better against an armored knight than a dagger, but a shortsword would then be a much better choice against a quick and nimble theif). Finaly, it would neutralize the need for hard-capping stats, which is something I don't advocate.

Admittedly, this system is a little to complex for my tastes at present, but I think if we can refine it there is quite a bit of potential here.

Interesting. But does this mean that you get no chance to avoid getting smacked at all when you wear heavy or medium armor, only reducing how back it smacks you?

I think it would be better to have it be a sliding scale, with all unarmored with high unarmored skill giving great dodge but no defence to actual damage, and the heaviest of heavy armors giving very low chances of avoiding the hit, but very good defences against actual damage. Light and medium would fall somewhere in between, with light being more focused on avoiding blows but still have some defence against damage and medium more into defence against damage, but still not terrible hit avoidance.

Thoughts?

Here's my thoughts on armor:
Since we're including Apprentice, Journeyman, etc. skill perks, here's how we do it:
Each armor has a Dodge Value and a Resist Value. You multiply Dodge value by 1 + your skill perk level (so 0-24 you'd multiply by 1, 25-49 you'd multiply by 2, etc. up to 100 where you multiply by 5). You add 1 + your skill perk level to your Resist Value. That way, let's say you've got some Iron armor. For this super-simple example, it's got a Dodge value of 1 and a Resist Value of 3. Your Heavy Armor skill is at 100 (don't ask me why a heavy armor master is wearing iron). He would take that Dodge value of 1 and multiply it by 5, getting a modified value of 5. Whenever someone attacks him, we reduce their range of success by 5 - add 5 to their roll, subtract 5 from the skill, whatever. When you hit that guy, he subtracts 8 from the damage he takes.

A Journeyman with a skill of 50, by comparison, would reduce enemy chance to hit by 3 and would take 6 less damage from incoming hits.

By contrast, let's say we've got a Light Armor master wearing Leather. Now, Leather is easy to dodge in but does diddly for damage resist, so we'll give it values of dodge 3 and resist 0. When you swing at the light armor master, you subtract 15 from your to hit roll. Once she gets hit, you subtract 5 from the damage dealt to her.

I'm not quite sure how to handle shields, but I'm thinking maybe we just give them a Block Range and reduce the chance to hit by a flat amount (not by too much - I'm thinking maybe 10% maximum for tower shields and the like).


This system is, of course, dependent on having damage that averages in the two-digit range. Otherwise, you're gonna have people wearing steel plate just shrugging off thousands of arrows while the people in glass are dodging them like it's The Matrix.

Rainbay wrote:Interesting. But does this mean that you get no chance to avoid getting smacked at all when you wear heavy or medium armor, only reducing how back it smacks you?
Thoughts?

Not necessarily, only that the armor wouldn't modify the opponents to-hit roll. The opponents would still need to roll under his (weapon)+(skill) roll. So, let's say the opponent has a short blade skill of 65 and a dagger that has +30 accuracy. Against an opponent in heavy or medium armor, he would need to roll under a 95. Almost a guaranteed hit, and with another 5 points in short blade it would be. Now let's change his weapon out for a hammer, and give him 65 points in blunt. Let's say this hammer modifies to hit by -10, it is a big hammer after all. The opponent would then only hit 55% of the time, even with a reasonable degree of skill.

Of course, you'd still have better odds with the hammer, because even if the dagger connected, it probably wouldn't do any damage to the heavily armored opponent.

Against a monk with a massive unarmored skill, however, the opposite it true. You'd have better odds with the dagger, as the hammer would never hit him!

Anyway, that's how I imagined it. I'm not sure if it'll work out in practice, though.

St. Juib's model could also work out. The problem with his is that there is no reward for skill ranks between the benchmarks, and the problem with mine is that it has much more calculation. It's a funny problem we have.**EDIT

**How about this, the skill and the armor are to be constants. i.e. iron would subtract (heavy armor skill-20 or something), while daedric would subtract (heavy armor skill+70 or something). I guess I didn't make that clear. That way it gets less bullshit when you start multiplying high numbers by 4

Also, I was thinking perks should have interesting and utility effects, so a master of heavy armor might double his maximum encumbrance

Perhaps the two of them accidentally spent all their money and training, and forgot to budget for armor?

Sounds pretty good; I figure besides just setting out in the game damage will certainly be in the double digit range, with some big bosses maybe hitting in the low triple digits towards the end of a tough campaign.

This idea could work well with using tickmarks for damage to weapons and armor, which I posted about in the durability thread.

Unless you did it on purpose with maxed heavy armor and unarmored to be a huge troll and dodge nearly all attacks, and then when you do get hit with a critical and it goes somewhere random, it will probably hit a heavily armored body part.

Rainbay brings up a point, how do we handle critical hits? I vote natural roll of 1-5, probably will be modified by skill perks, and requires confirmation.

GLIPP wrote:Rainbay brings up a point

It was an accident, I promise.
That being said, I assume for simplicities sake we are going to combine boots and greaves and paladins and gauntlets for as far as critical hits are calculated?

Rainbay wrote:

GLIPP wrote:Rainbay brings up a point

It was an accident, I promise.
That being said, I assume for simplicities sake we are going to combine boots and greaves and paladins and gauntlets for as far as critical hits are calculated?

Pauldrons?
But yeah, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to just call it "leg armor" and "arm armor" and leave gloves and boots to magical doohickeys (or items for improving unarmed damage, such as weighted/spiked gloves and boots)

Saint Jiub wrote:Pauldrons?

Wow, I really messed up that one. Although I must say I enjoy the idea of there being a 1 in 5 chance that every critical hit will strike some stick-up-his-ass Paladin for no explained reason. Especially if that Paladin happens to be in the party at the time...

So... Head, left arm, torso, right arm, left leg, right leg, d6
or
Head, arms, torso, legs? d4

The d4 could work. I'm not sure how much I like a 1 in 4 chance of a headshot, but I guess if you've already gotten a crit, there's no need to be stingy with the cool effects...

Everyone has 6 sided die. So the d6 sounds like it would work well. That's just what I think, of course.

Yes, but 1-5 works with a d10, which is the key die for the system.

LessRudeScrib wrote:Yes, but 1-5 works with a d10, which is the key die for the system.

I thought d100 was key? NEvermind, I never know the details of these things. I'll trust other people when it comes to dice details.

A d100 is generally represented with 2d10 - either two different colors, or one with 10s and one with 1s. So everyone would have at least one regular d10 sitting right by them in order to play.

Well, if we're doing base 10, then how about
1-2 body
3 legs
4 arms
5 head

(or for those who can't divide by two...)

1-4 body
5-6 legs
7-8 arms
9-10 head

Or, hell, even
1-5 body
5-7 legs
8-9 arms
10 head


There are a few ways you can do this and the choice... is... yours...
I wonder when that joke will wear thin?

Saint Jiub wrote:Well, if we're doing base 10, then how about
1-2 body
3 legs
4 arms
5 head

(or for those who can't divide by two...)

1-4 body
5-6 legs
7-8 arms
9-10 head

Or, hell, even
1-5 body
5-7 legs
8-9 arms
10 head


There are a few ways you can do this and the choice... is... yours...
I wonder when that joke will wear thin?

Hasn't yet! I personally like the last one. Goes best with the size of the body. Although I might argue that arms should have a higher ranking, with 3 like legs instead of only 2 numbers. This is because even though arms are a smaller target, they're right at about the right height to get hit. Just a possiblity. I do like that it lowers the chance of getting a headshot, or recieving one.

with the idea for the last one being that the cuirass absorbs the most damage, balancing out its frequency?

LessRudeScrib wrote:with the idea for the last one being that the cuirass absorbs the most damage, balancing out its frequency?

Well, between that and it being about as big as both your legs put together and then some...