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PostPosted: Sat Mar 17, 2018 3:35 pm 
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In the past I did suggest terrain effects which I may revisit later. But one thing that I thought should make adventures and combat interesting is how mist, darkness, rain, winds and precipitation in general can effect shooting and concealment. I can imagine an Assassin who can successfully disengage might manage repeated shock attacks. In the same way barbarians should be able to use that to their advantage, having the highest health, I should think in difficult terrain they should have the natural advantage in foraging, ambush and avoiding the effects of lacking shelter.

Think of combat in darkness, or in a mist where an Archer's advantage is nullified by having absolutely no means of seeing in the darkness. Now imagine elves or orcs in that same darkness. Also what about the effect of mist on panoptical vision? How about different degrees of rain and precipitation? How would you shoot if it is raining heavily, or on one of those wind swept coastal areas? Are there easy guidelines to help augment shooting rules ands nullify the advantage of archers? To what extent would this be affected for throwing weapons?

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:31 am 
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Kharille wrote:
In the past I did suggest terrain effects which I may revisit later. But one thing that I thought should make adventures and combat interesting is how mist, darkness, rain, winds and precipitation in general can effect shooting and concealment. I can imagine an Assassin who can successfully disengage might manage repeated shock attacks. In the same way barbarians should be able to use that to their advantage, having the highest health, I should think in difficult terrain they should have the natural advantage in foraging, ambush and avoiding the effects of lacking shelter.

Think of combat in darkness, or in a mist where an Archer's advantage is nullified by having absolutely no means of seeing in the darkness. Now imagine elves or orcs in that same darkness. Also what about the effect of mist on panoptical vision? How about different degrees of rain and precipitation? How would you shoot if it is raining heavily, or on one of those wind swept coastal areas? Are there easy guidelines to help augment shooting rules ands nullify the advantage of archers? To what extent would this be affected for throwing weapons?


For arrows and quarrels, a penalty of 3 and between 5 & 7 for medium and heavy winds respectively - a good Archer should be able to compensate for light winds.

Mist, I think, would affect panoptical vision as darkness does to normal vision (-4 ATTACK, -8 DEFENCE, -7 PERCEPTION), as, while panoptical sees well in all light levels, mist is an actual physical phenomenon getting in the way of the photons.

Thoughts?


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:27 am 
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Yeah, mist. Water droplets. I'd say it bends most electromagnetic radiation. Maybe not gamma rays but most that I can think of. Perhaps if there was one of those 'flags' present that can help indicate the wind speed and direction, which seems impossible.

I do wonder to what extent this might even help disengage in combat. Heavy rain should make unpaved ground hard to walk on.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:31 am 
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I find that weather is extremely variable and difficult to represent with simple rules. With the exception of the side effects of weather (e.g. movement in mud), I have tended to rely on "GM calls"...

Rain
This makes everyone wet, cold and miserable. Proper weatherproof clothing would not be around in Legend, so prolonged exposure would lead to everything not protected by an oilskin, or sealed in a pot, getting wet. Lighting fires and torches (without sorcery) becomes that much more fun...

Visibility will be reduced - depending on how heavy the rain is. For drizzle there's not a great reduction, but a heavy downpour can see visibility reduced to 50m (even less for a real cloudburst).
Noise, wet and cold would affect PERCEPTION, which the GM could reduce by -1, or more (depending on how heavy the rain is).
Maximum missile ranges are limited by visibility... Although it should be noted that water is not kind to bow and crossbow strings - which will stretch if wet. A stretched bowstring reduces range and effectiveness; range could be reduced by 5m/10m/20m, while Armour Bypass and Damage would both be at -1... At least, until the archer finds a dry string.
(This affected the Genoese crossbowmen at the Battle of Crécy 1346)

Hail
Like rain, but worse. Increase the penalties.
Note that hail can (very occasionally) be properly dangerous - with golf-ball sized hailstones that fall killing both men and beasts (as happened to Edward III's army in April 1360 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1360) ). Characters should find shelter quickly, or the GM can start inflicting 0-3 (1d4-1) damage per round!

Wind
This can affect light missile weapons; daggers, rocks and javelins would not be affected. A penalty to ATTACK might be appropriate (see Acoma's suggestion).
Note that wind direction is also important; firing upwind would reduce range, while firing downwind would increase range.
(This had a major effect at the Battle of Towton in 1461)

Fog
This affects visibility (obviously) and, sometimes, muffles sound - making it hard to hear where the noise is coming from. Penalty to PERCEPTION is appropriate (-1 or more depending on the thickness of the fog). Unless it's a supernatural mist, it is rare that fog fully obscures vision below 20m (and even that's quite thick); so an Assassin would have to disengage, move away, then return (presumably from a different direction) unnoticed to get another Shock Attack...
Fog effects would be worse at night, of course. Not to mention that fog is wet, making torches harder to light.
As has been mentioned, fog is a physical effect (water in the air); so it would impede all kinds of vision. It might even (if thick enough) cause trouble for some spells (e.g. Eyes of Night) as the droplets reflect intense light... (That's why driving with full beam headlights in fog is a bad idea!)

Then, for those heading to the Crusades, there are things like dust and sandstorms - which can cause proper damage (even death)...

As for the longer-term effects of climate, page 10 of the Perils download from the Cobwebbed Forest provides some suggestions:
http://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/librar ... Perils.pdf

Unless it's part of the story, I tend to keep weather effects relatively minor (penalties in the order of -1 to -3). It's not necessarily realistic; more a way to bring a bit of "real world" into the game without causing undue frustration and making the scenario unplayable. Really bad weather keeps everyone (man and beast)* under cover and combat is not too likely anyway. ;)
* Ok, maybe not the Undead...


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 11:07 am 
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Interesting link. I figure maybe there are two ways to interpret weather effects, by combat round and overland travel. The system touches on this. Hate to make it too complex, but perhaps just brainstorming might inspire GM's to include it. I figure the environments in Ereworn involve a lot of windswept or ice cold artic environments that may hinder combat or even just efforts to travel.

I think original book 3 had something about people getting lost. Or was that book 2? About how easy it is to get lost and lose direction especially if you wander off the path.

I did create a 'terrain' excel which touched on how terrain, vegetation, water impeded movement but also offered opportunities to conceal oneself. Might be something I can expand upon.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:01 pm 
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Regarding darkness (as its in the title), DW Book 4, pages 230, 231, 237 and 238 provide a clue as to the effects of total darkness.

Fighting an invisible opponent (pages 237 and 238) cause -4 ATTACK and -8 DEFENCE. Moving to a chamber where there it total darkness (pages 230 and 231) means the characters are on a level footing with the invisible creature - suggesting the penalties are the same.

Near total darkness (i.e. impaired vision, but still able to see vague shapes) might give a lesser penalty, but using the same ratio. Thus, you cold have -2 ATTACK, -4 DEFENCE in deepest gloom...*
* This is where different kinds of vision (e.g. gloomsight, darksight, panoptic) would make a difference.

Quote:
I think original book 3 had something about people getting lost. Or was that book 2? About how easy it is to get lost and lose direction especially if you wander off the path.

Not that I could see. There was a reference to rolling for a random encounter if the characters left the path in the first adventure (and extra time elapsed), but these weren't really rules for getting lost.

I have borrowed rules for "Lost in the Woods" from King Arthur Pendragon for my game (modified for DW, of course), but a GM could simply make something up...*
* If a character is "lost", they have no idea where they are. The GM can simply have them wander around in circles, encountering random things, before turning up somewhere relevant.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 8:10 am 
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Acoma wrote:
For arrows and quarrels, a penalty of 3 and between 5 & 7 for medium and heavy winds respectively - a good Archer should be able to compensate for light winds.


I reckon the effects of wind increase with range too. At point blank, wind has minimal effect but at extreme range the effect of wind (particularly gusty wind) may well be impossible to compensate for.

Also different projectiles are affected to different degrees. A heavy sling stone is less affected by wind than an arrow, for instance.

Time for a chart!

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 8:16 am 
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Kharille wrote:
Yeah, mist. Water droplets. I'd say it bends most electromagnetic radiation. Maybe not gamma rays but most that I can think of. Perhaps if there was one of those 'flags' present that can help indicate the wind speed and direction, which seems impossible.

I do wonder to what extent this might even help disengage in combat. Heavy rain should make unpaved ground hard to walk on.

Right. What we need is a formula incorporating the luminosity and EM frequencies of each light source, the optical properties of the medium, the Lambertian and glossy properties of each object in the area, and then apply Rayleigh scattering in order to arrive at the appropriate modifier. Shouldn't be too hard.

Cheers,

-Kyle


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 11:55 am 
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Old book 2 p121, 'Thick fog' visibility is 30m, and you can only see clearly for 10m. Wights vision is not impeded by this fog.

theres guidelines on getting lost and impeded movement. I need to put this into the 'terrain rules'. Interesting, 40m a combat round running.

Old book 3 has info on getting trapped in a bog.


I have some experience with warhammer 40k rogue trader. There was this concept of soft cover and hard cover. Soft obscures but doesn't obstruct missiles. Would be nice to have revised shooting rules.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:37 pm 
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Quote:
Old book 2 p121

I find the rules for rough terrain interesting:
"Characters can move at normal speed on the path. That is, 10m per Combat Round normally, and up to 40m/CR when running. If they stray from the path onto the uneven, muddy terrain of the inner Dell, movement rates are halved. Any character running on the rough has a 20% chance each Round of catching is foot in a hole and falling."

I probably wouldn't use this for every walk in the woods, but it might add a little interest to the odd encounter in very rough terrain. Wandering around on moors, for example (ever tried running across heather? It's an experience)...

Quote:
Old book 3 has info on getting trapped in a bog.

Yes, on page 18:
"Here the leading members of the party will be sucked in automatically. Match the Strength of anyone sucked in against the Strength of the bog of 18. If anyone is helping to pull the victim out, add their Strength to the victim's Strength. If the victim fails to roll under the difference between the swamp's Strength and their friends' Strength THREE times, the victim is assumed to have been sucked under and drowned."

I think these are rules for quicksand, rather than ordinary bogs...

You could use the rules for the Gnome spell Embog (DW book 1, page 95) to give terrain for a deep, muddy bog:
"Characters caught in (the boggy mire) have their movement rates reduced to one-tenth normal (i.e. to 1m per Combat Round in the case of a Human)..."

If anyone's looking for ideas for a nasty encounter, I once had a couple of characters (both about Rank 6) ambushed by a few zombies in a deep swamp/bog. Zombies don't need to breathe, you see, and they simply approached/emerged underwater, grappled the characters and attempted to drag them down. The characters survived, but it proved a tense encounter for characters who would otherwise have made mincemeat out of these undead.
(Incidentally, swords and maces aren't much good striking at foes underwater - you need spears and other stabbing weapons to be fully effective.)


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