Combat System

But giving them the same defensive value would mean that there would be no real difference between say... glass and ebony, since those are on the same tier. The only difference would be that ebony weighs about 8 times more than glass. Perhaps I am misunderstanding though.

(P.S. Netch leather goes under chitin in tiers)

Rainbay wrote:But giving them the same defensive value would mean that there would be no real difference between say... glass and ebony, since those are on the same tier. The only difference would be that ebony weighs about 8 times more than glass. Perhaps I am misunderstanding though.

There would be a huge difference. Glass, being light armor, would modify the to hit roll. Ebony, being heavy armor, would modify the damage roll. Big difference.

Uh, won't they be modifying both? Even light armor does damage reduction, and even heavy armor allows you to move and dodge. They're just on the opposing ends of the spectrum, with light hoping you don't get hit and heavy all but counting on it.

Light does more dodgy dodgy, heavy does more soaky soaky, medium is a compromise between the two.

Slotha Sil wrote:Uh, won't they be modifying both? Even light armor does damage reduction, and even heavy armor allows you to move and dodge. They're just on the opposing ends of the spectrum, with light hoping you don't get hit and heavy all but counting on it.

I don't think they should modify both.

With heavy armor, the ability to 'dodge' would be represented by the ability to reduce the effects on attacks that have connected with you. Having 100 in heavy armor doesn't mean you just stand there like a stone when someone smacks you in the chest with an orcish hammer, it means you know how to move so the smack won't do much of anything.

And with light armor, the ability to absorb damage would represented in your ability to use your armor to have blows slide off of it.

Doing it this way prevents the silliness Rainbay mentioned, while at the same time letting us keep a simple and effective core mechanic.

Meh. Either way would work... light armor does have that "deflect or die" mentality, the way it was fluffed, and heavy armor is about taking hits where it was toughest, not glancing them aside. I now support this motion.

Poor medium armor, the lonely, average bastard.

Actually, I somewhat consider light armor to be in the middle too, with UNARMORED being the one completly about dodging. So light armor is similar to medium, just with more on dodge and less on defence, medium is more on defence and less on dodge, with heavy armor on the far end of the spectrum, almost completely about defence with minimal dodge.

That's how I was viewing it anyways, I could always be wrong.

Rainbay wrote:Actually, I somewhat consider light armor to be in the middle too, with UNARMORED being the one completly about dodging. So light armor is similar to medium, just with more on dodge and less on defence, medium is more on defence and less on dodge, with heavy armor on the far end of the spectrum, almost completely about defence with minimal dodge.

That's how I was viewing it anyways, I could always be wrong.

No, you're right, we've completely forgotten about Unarmored.

I'd like to avoid splitting the skill on the fact that it would require even more tedious maths. How about unarmored/light to dodge and heavy/medium to soak?

We can give medium armor more cost/tier, more difficulty to repair, and less upgrades to make up for the weight loss, so that way it won't be exactly the same thing as heavy. If we do get too stuck up on it, we could just pull an oblivion and nix it altogether, but I really don't want to do that.

No nixing medium armor! For one, doing that would screw up our synergy tables, which I'm sure Saint Jiub wouldn't appreciate after all his hard work to get them very very nicely done and well balanced. For another, I was planning to play someone specialized in medium armor: Partially just to be difficult, and partially so I can get my hands on that nifty new Porcelain armor that will form the "glass" teir. And of course, if it comes to it, get my hands on the massively powerful and best cuirass in the game ebony mail.

Rainbay wrote:No nixing medium armor! For one, doing that would screw up our synergy tables, which I'm sure Saint Jiub wouldn't appreciate after all his hard work to get them very very nicely done and well balanced. For another, I was planning to play someone specialized in medium armor: Partially just to be difficult, and partially so I can get my hands on that nifty new Porcelain armor that will form the "glass" teir. And of course, if it comes to it, get my hands on the massively powerful and best cuirass in the game ebony mail.

Like I said, I really don't want to. But back to the topic at hand, what does everyone think about the dodge/soak? Split in different armors? Split by category? Either or?

What do you mean "split in different armors" and "split by category"?

DO you mean stat the Dodge/soak of every armor style for different armors, and Just do stats by armor category (light, medium, heavy) for the split by category?

I mean

GLIPP wrote:I'd like to avoid splitting the skill on the fact that it would require even more tedious maths. How about unarmored/light to dodge and heavy/medium to soak?

We can give medium armor more cost/tier, more difficulty to repair, and less upgrades to make up for the weight loss, so that way it won't be exactly the same thing as heavy.

GLIPP wrote:I mean

GLIPP wrote:I'd like to avoid splitting the skill on the fact that it would require even more tedious maths. How about unarmored/light to dodge and heavy/medium to soak?

We can give medium armor more cost/tier, more difficulty to repair, and less upgrades to make up for the weight loss, so that way it won't be exactly the same thing as heavy.

Wouldn't that make the armor skills all just interchangable with no real reason to pick one over the others?

I think that overall, heavy should be best if you add the bonuses together. It might not be able to dodge as much as light, but it's dodge + defence is higher than light's dodge + defence. This helps make up for the fact that it weighs a metric fuckton, even if we make it have half encumberance when worn.

Seriously, if we don't do the half encumberance thing full daedric armor with a tower shield and long sword would have OVER 400 encumberance.

I do agree that heavier armor should be better than lighter armor and pay for it by being expensive, slow and cumbersome, but we must see to it that lighter armor (and unarmored) remain competitive. Unfortunately, we won't be able to do jack sheise until we agree how armor avoidance is calculated and what kind of damage will weapons deal. I tried compiling an armor list this morning, then remembered that we haven't agreed on anything other that that the game should have armor in it.

I *will* proceed, based on several assumption of my own - that hit points will be equal to Endurance score, that armor avoidance is calculated by a (0.x skill multiplier + tied ability) and caps at 80 for unarmored, and that two-handed bruisers will deal damage in the lines of (2d8+tied ability) for the sake of damage reduction. Damage reduction will be a fixed number instead of a percentage; this will badly hurt anyone incapable of using heavy damage weapons, but I don't want to use anything over basic addition and subtraction for events likely to occur once per round or more. To this end, I'm still looking for a way to elegantly give greater influence to the tied ability, or find some other way around it (crits going straight through DR, for example). If we agree on something else regarding how armor is treated, it won't kill me to rework the table, but so far this is what I'm working with.

I think having a Dodge value is kind of wonky, and seems like the sort of thing that should already be represented by Encumbrance in some way. Why not just roll under your Agility-(YET TO BE DETERMINED ENCUMBRANCE MODIFIER) to dodge a successful hit against you? A dude that specializes in heavy armor is not likely to have all that much agility, and his armor is going to weigh him down enough that dodging won't do him much good. This way, armor can just have a skill modifier (SKILL+50 for Daedric, perhaps, or SKILL-20 for Iron) for damage reduction and the rest resolves itself.

We've been taking care in other areas to keep everything to d10s. Do we really want to suddenly require shit-tonnes of other dice types for weapon damage? I think using xd10+y+[STRENGTH MODIFIER] is probably a better way to go. On that note: Do we want to try to give weapons different chopping, slashing, and stabbing damage?

Outlander wrote:I think having a Dodge value is kind of wonky, and seems like the sort of thing that should already be represented by Encumbrance in some way. Why not just roll under your Agility-(YET TO BE DETERMINED ENCUMBRANCE MODIFIER) to dodge a successful hit against you? A dude that specializes in heavy armor is not likely to have all that much agility, and his armor is going to weigh him down enough that dodging won't do him much good. This way, armor can just have a skill modifier (SKILL+50 for Daedric, perhaps, or SKILL-20 for Iron) for damage reduction and the rest resolves itself.

We've been taking care in other areas to keep everything to d10s. Do we really want to suddenly require shit-tonnes of other dice types for weapon damage? I think using xd10+y+[STRENGTH MODIFIER] is probably a better way to go. On that note: Do we want to try to give weapons different chopping, slashing, and stabbing damage?

That... that actually sounds amazingly good! Lighter armors give better dodge because of their very low encumberance, heavier armors have better defences like in game but thier high encumberance hurts their dodge alot! Unarmored doesn't encumber at all, and thus just uses agility, with no defence bonus!
This also makes it alot simplier, only have to make defence modifier on every armor and encumberance, removing the dodge stat on each armor. And it makes sense too, why should glass armor let you dodge better than chitin? It just has higher defence! Genius!

I think this could work!

Yes! An entirely new approach! And just when I was finishing my "d&d" armor table. It sucks, but still.

Big numbers for DR just won't work. And defense is a fixed number that an attacker rolls under, we don't make rolls to dodge. Not at present, at any rate. I do like how simple it is, though; I wish I could come up with something similar for DR.

Small issue: Unarmored wouldn't be much more dodge than a suit of Glass, and yet Glass would be miles more defence since unarmored would most likely have none (outside of a possible skill perk, that is). Unarmored also wouldn't allow for as much enchantment and you wouldn't be able to upgrade it with armorer.

Actually, It might balance out. Give some defence to it via skill perk, and the fact that is would get ungodly dodge at max agility and skill would make it valuable. Throw in the fact that it costs nothing and doesn't require repairs, and it balances out pretty well. The fact that outside of combat you wouldn't have any encumberance at all works out too.

Rainbay wrote:Small issue: Unarmored wouldn't be much more dodge than a suit of Glass, and yet Glass would be miles more defence since unarmored would most likely have none (outside of a possible skill perk, that is). Unarmored also wouldn't allow for as much enchantment and you wouldn't be able to upgrade it with armorer.

Actually, It might balance out. Give some defence to it via skill perk, and the fact that is would get ungodly dodge at max agility and skill would make it valuable. Throw in the fact that it costs nothing and doesn't require repairs, and it balances out pretty well. The fact that outside of combat you wouldn't have any encumberance at all works out too.

Don't forget, Unarmored is the skill that gets trained when you get hit while wearing no protection. It should bloody well be worth it, especially considering that you get no enchant slots and no DR ever.

Haha, thanks for the ideas on the unarmored skill perk!

One issue with this admitably awesome system... where does armor skill come into effect? Since unarmed doesn't really get much of a chance to use it's skill in the field of defence, just dodge, in that formula of agility- encumberance there would be no room for the armor skill to come into effect. Perhaps have it be (agility+armor skill)/2 - encumberance?

Or if there is the perk that allows unarmored a second roll as Hexx suggested, perhaps have that one use armor skill instead of just agility. That would work as well.

I was just over to UESPWiki. While my suspicions about armor and weapons using byzantine mathematics to run were true, it turns out that armor does not give you any defense value at all, it merely acts as damage reduction (and there I was wondering how did rats manage to bite me through my 360 AR protection). Defense is part of the attack roll and consists of pitting your agility and luck against the opponent's. Here are the formulas:

Attack roll: Chance to hit = Attacker's weapon skill * 1.25 + Attacker's Attack (e.g. Warrior = 10) - Defender's Sanctuary (e.g. Thief = 10) + (Attacker's Agility - Defender's Agility) * 0.25 + (Attacker's Luck - Defender's Luck) * 0.125

Armor rating (AR): BaseAR * ( ArmorSkill / 30 )

Unarmored: UnarmoredSkill * UnarmoredSkill * 0.0065

Damage reduction: (Damage * Damage) / (Damage + Opponent Armor Rating)

Do we follow this (in spirit), or stay with present defense+DR system?

Also, there is no random element to weapon damage, it depends entirely on how far you "pull" the weapon back before attacking, paying fatigue for greater damage gain. Maybe we have a new purpose for our fatigue system?

regarding heavy armor totally screwing people with light weapons, why not set a minimum damage cap? Like maybe 1+ half your Str bonus or something? Just so that daggr-wielding speedy mcgee doesn't dead end on anybody wearing Steel plate just 'cause his dagger is a bit tiny.

I like Encumbrance determining dodge modifier. Let's roll with that and see where it takes us.

Good lord that thing is labyrinthian. I can feel my eyes crossing just looking at it.

And I dunno, I'm kind of partial to the system we set up, even though it might not be as true to the game as it could be. That one does have the bonus of working in luck however.

And for daggers, there are always enchantments and poisons and sneak attacks.
Although you are right, if you hit, there needs to be base amount of damage you should do.