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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 10:41 am 
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Something in a reference to Dreadnought's manoeuvres in another thread reminded me of something I had experimented with ages ago when I had an active game in play. It's all about making combat more flexible and interesting. I can't remember if I've raised this before so here goes.

The germ of this came from the (to me) clunkily quantised way movement allowances work in the standard rules. Specifically, how in combat you can move 2.5 metres, or if you want to give up your option to attack, you can charge straight in 10m. In itself this seems a bit arbitrary, but it is even more so when you look at the rule which allows you to move half your allowance rather than one-quarter and still Attack if you surprise your enemy. I wondered why this was.

The conclusion I arrived at was that there is an unstated assumption in the list of actions you can do in a combat round (page 71), namely that every action has a built in allowance that you can still defend in that round. When you surprise your enemy, you don't need to be able to defend because your enemy can't attack, so you can use the effort that would normally be required to maintain a defence to move a little further.

Taking this to one possible logical conclusion, if you voluntarily waived your Defence for a round, you would be able to get more done than somebody who kept a defence in reserve.

Before I put down the next part of my thinking, does anybody disagree with the basic hypothesis that all the actions in the list on page 71 will also permit a normal Defence to be offered in the same round? I'm not asking if you think this makes sense, but rather if you think that's what the rules are either stating or at least implicitly allowing.

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:34 pm 
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Personally I think DEFENCE should only apply when the guy's guard is up, and preferably if armed. As it stands a guy who is unarmed still has full defence and I find that inappropriate. I think a guy who is static and drinking a beer should have 0 EVASION and 0 DEFENCE.

There are things that should be kept in mind. A guy who is 'running' is moving quickly so it should be harder to shoot him. I'd say this is a factor to be included for indirect magic attacks, if the guy is running away it should make it harder to hit him with a DRAGONBREATH compared to someone in hand to hand, or someone drinking his beer.

Perhaps we should also include charging attacks for those situations where a guy leaps onto a static target, lancing from horseback and also from the footmans perspective when subject to those attacks. Though I think WFRP was the unholiest form of toilet paper ever issued they did have good weapon initiative rules. Maybe a little more complex than normal but there was an advantage of using spears and also spears vs mounted combatants.

I'd say a guy who runs should have full EVASION and 0 DEFENCE. Maybe we can incorporate rules like +1 damage upon impact. Ideal if you're charging someone from behind. We have 0 DEFENCE for rear and flanking attacks, I think this can also be applied under certain situations. Maybe a guy has 0 EVASION against anything coming up from behind...

I would also consider dodging to be an action. It is in effect a 'move' order.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:39 pm 
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To me, it makes a lot of sens, keep going please. 8-)


@Kharille

Kharille wrote:
As it stands a guy who is unarmed still has full defence and I find that inappropriate.



So you mean that a boxer should have 0 Defense, since he's unarmed. That makes no sens. Think about it, Defense always apply whether your armed or not.


By the way, do you think you'll ever put STATS on the skills of your Sapper profession? (Blasting and Incendiary, but also what kind of Automaton, etc.)

Not that I think that it's a readily playable character as a PC, because most of his skills are slow ones (diverting a river, constructing an automaton, etc.), but as an NPC, It can make an interesting one.

Oh, and while I'm at it, could you please put the Sapper profession in a '.doc' document, so as to be more easily readable by everybody. It's a bit tough as it is in the excel sheet.

Thank you.

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Last edited by Supremacy on Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:48 pm 
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Well, I'm curious what Wodenkrait has in mind, but one situation is a barbarian charging a knight. Knight remains static. He would have full ATTACK and DEFENCE and EVASION... or maybe a slight EVASION penalty whereas the Barbarian would have full ATTACK and EVASION and 0 DEFENCE. I'd suppose without any specific rules for weapon length maybe the Barbarian would have the first strike at full ATTACK. If he connects it could get messy... Under these circumstances, maybe the Knight would have some bonus to DEFENCE, a combination of DEFENCE and EVASION...

Historically cavalry were great at taking down fleeing, routed soldiers whereas infantry expecting a charge offered much resistance.

And if he misses the Knight gets to slash at the Barbarian with full ATTACK vs no DEFENCE. You could consider using EVASION instead of DEFENCE under these circumstances.



I really believe Barbarians and Assassins, with their higher EVASION scores should be the ones who can engage and disengage from combat with the least risk. I've always suggested that in the past. Perhaps, rather than retreat (move) they run (run) and get maybe a bonus of +1 to EVASION vs the ATTACK of the combatant.

Also there must be a limit on the number of attacks you get ... if you're facing off against 3 assassins who run off in the same combat round...

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:57 pm 
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Supremacy wrote:
Kharille wrote:
As it stands a guy who is unarmed still has full defence and I find that inappropriate.

So you mean that a boxer should have 0 Defense, since he's unarmed. That makes no sens. Think about it, Defense always apply whether your armed or not.


Slight tangent, but I'd define Defence as a combination of three things.
1: Dodging
2: Blocking
3: Parrying

A boxer has all of these in a fight with another boxer, but I don't think he'd be able to block or parry against a sword. Maybe against a club he could dodge and parry but not block. If I was GMing a fight between an unarmed man vs and armed one, I'd reduce the former's Defence score to some degree according to the circumstances. Conversely, I'd also have to consider what would happen if his opponent successfully defended against one of his punches; has our pugilist just impaled his hand on his enemy's blade?

Back to my main point shortly...

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 1:22 am 
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Supremacy wrote:
To me, it makes a lot of sens, keep going please. 8-)


@Kharille

Kharille wrote:
As it stands a guy who is unarmed still has full defence and I find that inappropriate.



So you mean that a boxer should have 0 Defense, since he's unarmed. That makes no sens. Think about it, Defense always apply whether your armed or not.


By the way, do you think you'll ever put STATS on the skills of your Sapper profession? (Blasting and Incendiary, but also what kind of Automaton, etc.)

Not that I think that it's a readily playable character as a PC, because most of his skills are slow ones (diverting a river, constructing an automaton, etc.), but as an NPC, It can make an interesting one.

Oh, and while I'm at it, could you please put the Sapper profession in a '.doc' document, so as to be more easily readable by everybody. It's a bit tough as it is in the excel sheet.

Thank you.



Wodenkrait and I are in agreement about the weapons. A guy with a sword keeps people at bay and has the advantage. Just like Lancelot did in excalibur when he was on horseback with a lance vs king arthur with a sword.

I am thinking of elements of palladium fantasy rpg where a guys action can be a dodge, which would play well with the dragwars system, instead of an attack, you run from that firestorm or dragonbreath.

The sapper reflects historical trends. There were lots of these guys, essential for any worthy conquest. Not sure what the Kurlandic sappers were like when they took the Selentium capital but you needed them to take down fortresses. City war is sappar war.

I think I can give examples of what a sapper can do, based on his environment, what starting materials. Also a big feature would be percentage fail rate which I want to implement... can be comical.... Maybe I'll get v0.50 ready sometime...

Ok, ok.. I'll make a note to myself... buried under all the other things to do... to think I sometimes fantasize about running another forum based rpg... no time with my backlog of video games....

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 2:12 am 
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WodenKrait wrote:
Slight tangent, but I'd define Defence as a combination of three things.
1: Dodging
2: Blocking
3: Parrying



Oh, I understand why we're not on the same page. To me Defense is only 1: Dodging. In my game, Blocking can only be made with a Shield. And Parrying can only be made with a Weapon. That's why I said that a boxer have full Defense, i.e. since he may fully Dodge.

Incidentally, I use Parry as a skill, identical to the Shield Block, which I gave to the Barbarian since he habitually use a 2H-Weapon; he may now 'block' attack with it.

Anyway, thanks for your comment, I understand why we don't see things the same way now.



Have fun!

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 10:34 am 
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Supremacy wrote:
Oh, I understand why we're not on the same page. To me Defense is only 1: Dodging. In my game, Blocking can only be made with a Shield. And Parrying can only be made with a Weapon. That's why I said that a boxer have full Defense, i.e. since he may fully Dodge.

I agree that a good case can be made for this point of view; the rules certainly don't penalise your Defence score if your enter into combat without a weapon (as far as I know, anyway). It also helps explain why a spellcaster or bowman can put up their full defence against an opponent even if they have no melee weapon.

However I think it runs completely counter to common sense for a variety of reasons. Moveover, it's way more boring; it contributes to the aura of arbitrariness and abstractness that the DW combat rules have, which in turn contributes to them eventually becoming a tedious grind.

"OK, I'm about to go into combat against Kurt the Daggerman. I'll be using my fists, thanks for asking. Hmm, those knives look sharp. Perhaps I should have a dagger of my own to catch his blades on. No? Makes no difference? OK then."

Anyway, moving on...

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 10:52 am 
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Anyway, here's my thinking. First, the assumptions:

A1: Every action includes an in-built "Defence" element.
A2: Every action requires the same amount of effort. In particular, it takes the same effort to attack as it does to make a standard move.
A3: The "Attack" action always includes an in-build 1/4 movement, whether you use it or not. For a normal attack this is as far as you can move.
A4: When you move to attack with surprise, you may move one-half of your normal move.
A5: When you move to attack with surprise, you do not need to offer a Defence, because your enemy cannot attack you.
A6: When you move to attack with surprise, your bonus movement amounts to 1/4 of a normal move (i.e. 1/2-1/4=1/4)

So far, nothing controversial. More controversial:

Conclusions:
C1: The reason you can move further when you have surprise is because you are spending the effort normally reserved for Defence on movement instead (follows from A4 and A5)

If we accept that:

C2: The effort involved in maintaining a defence is equivalent to one-quarter of the effort required to conduct an attack or do a standard move. (follows from A6 and C1)

Does this seem plausible so far?

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 11:15 am 
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WodenKrait wrote:
Something in a reference to Dreadnought's manoeuvres in another thread reminded me of something I had experimented with ages ago when I had an active game in play. It's all about making combat more flexible and interesting. I can't remember if I've raised this before so here goes.

The germ of this came from the (to me) clunkily quantised way movement allowances work in the standard rules. Specifically, how in combat you can move 2.5 metres, or if you want to give up your option to attack, you can charge straight in 10m. In itself this seems a bit arbitrary, but it is even more so when you look at the rule which allows you to move half your allowance rather than one-quarter and still Attack if you surprise your enemy. I wondered why this was.

The conclusion I arrived at was that there is an unstated assumption in the list of actions you can do in a combat round (page 71), namely that every action has a built in allowance that you can still defend in that round. When you surprise your enemy, you don't need to be able to defend because your enemy can't attack, so you can use the effort that would normally be required to maintain a defence to move a little further.

Taking this to one possible logical conclusion, if you voluntarily waived your Defence for a round, you would be able to get more done than somebody who kept a defence in reserve.

Before I put down the next part of my thinking, does anybody disagree with the basic hypothesis that all the actions in the list on page 71 will also permit a normal Defence to be offered in the same round? I'm not asking if you think this makes sense, but rather if you think that's what the rules are either stating or at least implicitly allowing.

I'd not read that into the surprise rule before, although I had considered if an odd quirk, I'd just never really given it enough thought to the underpinning principle. However, it does seem to be a fair interpretation of that rule - if you don't defend, you can move further.

I also have a house rule that if you don't move at all, you can add 3 to your Reflexes for the purposes of determining turn order.

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