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Post by Zipp on Oct 17, 2004 4:09:25 GMT
I have to admit, I haven't played many RPG's and have never GM'd. So, along those lines I had a question pertaining to specific damage in LWRPG.
How does one deal with area specific damage (ie. arrow in head, bor gun to heart, sword chopping off legs)? I have to assume that every hit isn't dealt, over and over, to the same spot until a creature is dead (ie. Final Fantasy, though I love em).
And from playing other RPG's I know that players always say things like: I jump off the tree and try to land on his back and slit his throat. It would be pretty lame, not to mention bizarre, to then say: Okay, you land on his back and slit his throat for 15 damage. Now it's his turn to attack.
I've been assuming that in specific attacks, a critical damage lands the hit, for instance in the above scenario, if Aleixa scores a critical hit on the brigand, then I would say, "yeah... he's dead." Otherwise, she just deals normal damage.
But, would a Dragon need a critical hit to bite you in half? How are these things worked out?
I know in Vampire: the Masquerade and other White Wolf games, there is a sucess roll which determines how damaging your attack is, but I don't think this exists in D and D or LW.
help, please!
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Post by KaiLord on Oct 17, 2004 4:45:24 GMT
A quick imagination and dramatic flair certainly help in drawn-out combats where damage is dealt over and over. I've even heard of having 2 DMs at once: one handles mechanics, one handles narration. I always imagined the attacker's weapon, the defender's armor, and the damage roll itself. Sword vs. chain mail with damage of 2 isn't too severe. Maybe a hard slash to the ribs. Damage of 9 is more like a thrust into the lower ribs or shoulder, piercing the links. Truth be told, I always had a tough time coming up with something "new" to say. I fell into the bland trap of just saying "he's taken 9 damage, but he draws his own sword back to strike". An interjection here: I've fallen in love with rpol.net, because you can have your players roll 4 or 5 rounds of attacks in advance if they plan to just use melee. Then you can do the same, determine what happened when, and take time to create some really good descriptions. On critical hits: Here is my addendum to the standard "core rules". If a single hit does more than 25% damage to a creature, there is a chance it lost something vital, causing it to thereby become debilitated in some fashion. For example: A Vordak has an AC of 18, and let's say 48 EP max. If a single attack from a level 5 character did 15 damage, I'd say 31% (amount of damage) + 5% (character level) = 36% chance it did some sort of truly critical effect. In this example, the Vordak's arm is severed. Now, it's AC becomes 16 because it can't defend itself aptly with only one arm. To me, that's just more realistic than doing 15 damage and having it act as if you only nicked it for 1 damage. Again, these mechanics are a LOT easier to run in an online game than they are on the fly. In the scenario where the PC wanted to jump, land, and slit: If they truly roll a critical on the attack (I'd throw a penalty on it for wanting to do so much), then let them have fun with it. Give 'em some gore to remember. "Your jump is perfectly timed, and the poor brigand stands perfectly still. You land on top of him, and the two of you crash to the ground. Before he can cry out, your dagger has already neatly pierced his throat. One quick yank is all it takes to do the job." If they just do regular damage, the person moved unexpectedly after they had jumped, and they managed to drive the dagger into their shoulder instead of their neck or spine. But if the brigand only had 16 EP to begin with, and they did 15 damage in one attack, go ahead and kill him off. It might make you have to think a bit more and rearrange a bit behind the scenes, but they'll love you for it.
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Post by Zipp on Oct 17, 2004 5:12:01 GMT
Thank you. I think one of the major differences between White Wolf and D and D systems is that, in White Wolf, the character describes what they do, and the DM checks it. In D and D systems, the character rolls, and the DM describes what happens. I guess in the end it just depends on who's playing.
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Post by Zipp on Oct 17, 2004 6:08:56 GMT
Hey, by the by... are there any combat skill detriments for, say, getting injured enough you're bleeding heavily, in combat?
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Post by Lazy KaiLord on Oct 17, 2004 6:49:10 GMT
That's up to you. There's no set system that I've heard of, but you could justifiably penalize rolls and checks based on the character's current HP.
I can't imagine why a character at 3/87 HP would be as formidable as one at 85/87 HP.
I've never played White Wolf, but the concept sounds interesting (and odd) at the same time. But you're right in your summation--in the long run, one person is telling the story while another merely interacts to move it along.
LKL
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Post by Zipp on Oct 17, 2004 7:14:51 GMT
I guess what I meant was if a character gets hit really bad early on, but still has 34/40 EP, does it make sense to start penalizing him. I'm begining to think no, in LWRPG, simply because the abstract nature of EP is supposed to somehow simulate this.
In the end, they just wanted a simplier combat system, I think. Which, actually, is gonna be really nice when I sit down and start playing.
As for White Wolf...
White Wolf has some very interesting systems. Possibly my two favorites are the system of botching and the damage system.
First off, White Wolf operates off of D10 system, not D20. In fact, i think it only uses D10's. Anyways, White Wolf is all about successes. There is a DC (difficulty check) for many actions, and instead of rolling a modified D20 to try and beat it, you roll a number of D10's and see how many beat it. The number of dice that beat the check are considered your successes. 1's take away from the number of succeses. 10's give you some bonus, I don't remember what it is.
Botching occurs whenever you roll any number of 1's without any succeses. Then your character has failed miserably, catastrophically, and oft times, comically. For instance, a character botching a roll to jump over a building might trip at the last minute and fling themselves head first off the roof. Or a character botching an attempt to shoot an arrow off someone's head may instead hit one of the judges in the groin.
I like the way succesess translate to damage, too. White Wolf uses a health indicator, rather than Hit Points. You can be healthy, hurt, badly injured, incapacitated, etc., travelling down the bar. Each damage sucess generally brings you a half step down the bar (for bashing) or a whole step down (for lethal). Okay, nothing special, right? But it's incredibly helpful when trying to figure out if a player's attack was pulled off.
If a player said they'd try and whack a guy's head off and then only rolls enough successes to put him in injured, you know the attack didn't entirely succeed, although it did do damage. Furthermore, if the success roll was truly dismal, you can assume that it succeeded, but maybe didn't even hit the neck. However, if the successes bring the opponent down to a critical level, you know that head is flying.
It just really helps with Story Telling, and that is what White Wolf was all about. One of their rules tells you to, if you feel like it, completely throw out the rules and just free-for-all describe everything, down to damage in combat.
Along these lines, they even started live action RPG's for their games, where you act out the movements of characters, and tend to roll less.
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Post by Darklord Vashna on Oct 27, 2004 19:39:08 GMT
Zipp to further back up what Kai Lord has told you I'm the dude playing Lone Wolf in his game on rpol.net ABSOLUTELY AWESOME is all I can say and Kai Lord is the greatest GM I know in advance most of the time what the enemy's AC is and their EP. So I therefore roll as many combat rounds that I think my character needs to kill the enemy. Even if I don't know their AC I still roll all the attack and damage rolls and just let the GM use what's relevant. OK, fine I don't know if my psychic attacks are working, but I'll roll at least 3 rounds so that the GM has something to work round. The result is that the GM ends up writing these great narrative posts and its all based around what I've done. I think the most attack rounds I've rolled for Kai Lord were 6, which included a mix of ranged, melee and pyschic attacks - the dice were burning that day baby - especially considering Kai Lord and myself managed to do 6 posts in 1 day! As it stands here's a snip of my attack rolls for latest round of combat we've just had in Fire on the Water, where Lone Wolf fights with psychic combat, mindblast and with a 2-handed melee attack using a mastercrafted sword: The mechanics (as such): R2 PsyCom: 9 using 1d20+6 R2 PsyDam: 3 using 2d6 R2 Attack: 24 using 1d20+9 R2 Damage: 14 using 1d8+6 To which extent was then incorporated with the attack rolls for the NPC and transformed into the following account of the round: "Pelethar's sword ripped through the magician's poor defense and cleaved through his collarbone and uppermost ribs in a spray of blood. Hecturn staggered back into a support post in the common room." To say that I highly enjoyed this combat is an understatment - the sucker had no chance. You can even picture the blood spraying all around the common room! (hey, I am a Darklord remeber) Please Kai Lord feel free to amend or add to this post, but Zipp I hope its another example for you. As for me I'm back to the gory killing spree that only a Kai Lord such as Lone Wolf is renowned for. Good luck for your GMing. D.V
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Post by KaiLord on Oct 28, 2004 0:36:27 GMT
Personally, I liked it when you threw the axe and it bounced off the Gourgaz's snout. KL
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Post by Zipp on Oct 28, 2004 2:23:21 GMT
I've highly enjoyed some of the moments as well, I've especially liked seeing how the books translate. There are times when I'm going: "oh yeah, the crow... here's where it's cursing at him. Ah, he followed it. Okay, the Vordak is turning around, that was, like, section 128 or something..."
Anyways, it's been fun.
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