Armour and bonus EP

[carrot]

i have just finished the MP:CE version of FftD, and was lucky enough to be able to purchase a helmet (+2EP) and a chainmail waistcoat (+4EP) whilst in Holmguard (which truly saved my skin against the Helghast in the final fight).

My question is this - is the EP bonus from the armour in addition to your base score? As the start of the book says you can never exceed your base?

I have another question - this is more of a RP thing - if you do add the EP bonus to your base (taking an EP of 29 up to 35), when you lose EP - do you destroy the armour?

[Vadron]

The whole EP adding thing is a poorly thought out game mechanic, I've always thought.

If you discard armor, you should by a strict reading of the rules lose EP, which is unrealistic.

If you do not deduct EP upon discarding armor, you could heal EP by putting on armor and then discarding it, which is also unrealistic.

My solution would be to dispense with the EP bonus entirely, and either add half the bonus to Combat Skill or deduct half the bonus worth of damage from each hit taken. Which do you like better?

[beowuuf]

The armour bonus is added and subtracted from your base score. 'It cannot go above your starting score' is just a way of saying you can't stockpile EP from healing, etc to boost EP to insane amounts.

If you remove armour, don't deduct EP unless you need to reduce it to be in line with your new base bonus.

It's pretty simple in that light.


Vadron, your solution is to introduce a complex mechanic for no reason that also affects how much you damage the enemy, or infinitely increase armour's effectiveness if you keep deducting EP from blows. The whole EP system is a very good abstraction to keep things simple.


RP wise, I've always said endurance - like the name suggests - is a measure of your stamina as much as anything. While you have a lot, you can move aroudn the battle well and minimise crippling blows. Once you tire, a good blow will kill you. Armour is not 'taking damage' so much as providing a cushion from the nicks, scratches, and occasional flesh wounds that would tire you out faster. There is no armour damage assumed.

[askhati]

Hmm. My armour rules from 'The Forests of Ruel' have proved pretty useful thus far - without unbalancing the game. Just ask Gilir Drozh!

[zut]

Has somebody called my name...? ;D

I agree with Beowuuf's logic and I have always played it as he says: Add armour bonus to your base EP and deduct the EP when taking off armour only if you're above your 'un-armoured' (base) EP score. (Thus creating that cushion effect when you can subtract EP, that you're loosing, from the bonus provided by the armour first.)

Coincidentally - Askhati's rules are what you, Vadron, are suggesting: Armour gives you a chance to reduce the damage taken (though the more damage is inflicted the smaller is the chance to reduce; plus the armour can get damaged/destroyed).
It indeed feels more realistic and also makes the item more valuable (plus in/ability to wear armour by some character classes is now a more important factor). Still, the balance is preserved as usually it's 1-2 EP you can save (after passing a test).

Nevertheless, as one of the LW gamebooks' features is the relative simplicity of rules, I think simple EP bonus works quite well in solo-adventures. (And as always any reader can alter the rules any way he likes.)

[askhati]

My rules for handling armour, as per the Ruel game:

Armour Damage Reduction
When a character takes damage while wearing armour, they can make a test to see whether their armour managed to reduce the damage dealt in some way. The sequence works as follows:

1) D = total damage dealt by single opponent during a single round
...if attacked by multiple opponents, this check will be run once per opponent
2) A1,A2,A3,... = ENDURANCE bonus given by each piece of armour the character has
3) Armour Score (AS) = (total A + 1d10) - D

- if AS>=0: each piece of armour reduces the amount of damage dealt by 50% of the ENDURANCE bonus that the armour gives when worn

- if AS<0: two options:
a) each piece of armour reduces the amount of damage dealt by 50% of the ENDURANCE bonus that the armour gives when worn _AND_ one piece of armour permanently reduces its ENDURANCE bonus by 1 point
b) take full damage from attack, but none of the character's armour is damaged

Example:
- wearing a Helmet (+2EP) and Chainmail Waistcoat (+4EP)
- take 9 points damage in single round from single opponent
- A = 2+4 = 6
- D = 9
- AS = (6+1d10) -9

- if AS>=0: damage is reduced by (2/2 + 4/2)= 1+2 = 3 points; only take 6 damage
- if AS<0:
Option a) reduce damage by 3 points, and one of Helmet or Chainmail has its ENDURANCE bonus reduced by 1 point
Option b) take full damage of 9 points, but Helmet or Chainmail not damaged (so both still give +2 and +4 respectively)

[Vadron]

Apr 4, 2011 6:37:26 GMT beowuuf said:

The armour bonus is added and subtracted from your base score. 'It cannot go above your starting score' is just a way of saying you can't stockpile EP from healing, etc to boost EP to insane amounts.

If you remove armour, don't deduct EP unless you need to reduce it to be in line with your new base bonus.

It's pretty simple in that light.

No, I disagree. Say I have 20 base EP and 4 current EP. Now say I find a Chainmail Waistcoat and take it. My base EP is now 24 and my current EP is 8. Now I discard my waistcoat- my base EP is 20 again but my current EP is still 8!

Vadron, your solution is to introduce a complex mechanic for no reason that also affects how much you damage the enemy, or infinitely increase armour's effectiveness if you keep deducting EP from blows. The whole EP system is a very good abstraction to keep things simple.

I'll accept the criticism of the combat skill thing, so let's look at the EP loss, taking the aforementioned Helghast combat as an example. I haven't played the Mongoose FFtD, but I'll assume the helghast has 22 CS, as usual for Helghasts. I don't know carrots CS, so the combat ratio could be anything between -12 or -3 (or greater than that if carrot is using CS-enchancing items). Carrots armour gives him a total +6 EP, which amounts to a -3 deduction from damage dealt under the new rules.

If the CR is -12, carrot has a 20% chance per round of taking no damage. If it is -3, carrot has a 50% chance per round of taking no damage. If it is -7, she has a 30% chance per round... hmm, maybe this is a bit overpowered, especially considering most fights have a lower CR than that.

So let's look at askhatis system. Obviously it's too complex to implement the whole thing in a casual playthrough, but let's look at the armor strength deduction in particular. Suppose we add a rule that states that whenever armour reduces damage (so not when Lone Wolf would have taken no damage anyway) we deduct 1 from the EP gain from armour. (If Lone Wolf is wearing more than one peice of armour, he chooses which to deduct from.) Remember that it takes 2 deductions from EP gained to make one deduction from damage reduction. The only problem is, this might make armour a bit undrpowered... I'd appreciate suggestions here.

[carrot]

When encountering the Helghast, I originally was at full health. However I lost 5 EP in 2 mental assaults as I had not chosen Mindshield as 1 of my disciplines. I was at least offered the extra bonus from the Helmet (+2) and the Chainmail Waistcoat (+4).

So when I finally entered combat my EP was 30(24+6)/35(29+6)

In the battle for the Monastery, I managed to collect a "Finely Crafted Sword (+1CS)" and a "Finely Crafted Axe (+1CS)", infact they had a "Finely Crafted" version of each weapon available. However, I had to swap my weapon for the Helghasts magical dagger, as this was the only thing that would harm it. Thereby not only losing the weapon bonus but also my 2CS bonus for Weaponskill in swords. Also the Helghast is immune to Mindblast so no bonus was available there (not that I had Mindblast as a discipline anyway)

So when I finally entered combat I was back to my base CS of 18.

SO combat:

LW CS:18 EP:30 - E CS:22 EP 30

Combat Ratio: -4

Roll 1: 8 - LW:-1(29) E:-8(22)
Roll 2: 2 - LW:-5(24) E:-2(20)
Roll 3: 5 - LW:-4(20) E:-5(15)
Roll 4: 6 - LW:-3(17) E:-6(_9)
Roll 5: 2 - LW:-5(12) E:-2(_7)
Roll 6: 5 - LW:-4(_8) E:-5(_2)
Roll 7: 8 - LW:-1(_7) E:-8(_0)

I would have won the combat without the Helmet or Chainmail Waistcoat, but would only have had 1 EP left !!!

[beowuuf]

You would never put on then take off the armour like that in a gamebook though. Sure, there might be an edge case where when you might need to remove all or a portion of the current EP. Since the issue goes away the moment you take damage in combat, or elsewhere, explicitly ruling for it or creating a new system for it seems overkill. Just notice if you are removing armour that hasn't been 'used'. You can track armour like constantly refreshing temp EP if it helps, but even that seems like, mostly, it's unneccessary.

[ramthelinefeed]

To be honest, whilst I can see the logical inconsistencies in the armour rules,
the only time it's gonna practical problem is if you have like 2EP left, and are forced to "remove your chainmail waistcoat or risk drowning", as happens for instance in Fire on the Water - you'd then have -2EP and be dead. But hell, you were never gonna survive with 2EP anyways!

[johntfs]

My take on the "armor EP" is that you lose it first. So, if you somehow had 4 EP remaining when you were knocked into the sea in that FotW bit where you lose the Waistcoat, you'd still have it. The waistcoat (and helmet, if you had it in book 1) add EP on the front end and you lose that EP first in battle, etc. It's still restored with healing and the like, but if you started with 28 EP that was raised to 34 EP from a helmet and waistcoat, dropped to, say 30 EP from damage (perhaps from the fire and mast) then lost the chainmail to the water and the helmet to to the fishermen, you'd still have 28 EP.