Article View: rec.games.design
Article #495Re: FUDGE Damage Proposal
From: John H Kim
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:47
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:47
79 lines
4727 bytes
4727 bytes
"Peter F. Delaney" <pd1x+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: >Set each weapon a "multiplier" for damage. Multiply this by the result >of the combat roll comparison. For example, a knife could be x2, ... >Strength is implemented as a bonus to the multiplier... > >Each time you are hit, WR is reduced by one level for every point that >came out of the multiplication above. Whenever it drops below Poor, it >"wraps" back to its original level, but you take an Actual Wound. I think this messes with the relative difference between the levels, however. There is a *huge* (factor of 2) difference between Terrible and Poor in this system, while there is only a 16% difference between Great and Superb, for example. If you are going to use levels like this, I suggest you do not call them by the same names as the attribute levels, since they work very differently - it is confusing to have to remember that 'Terrible' in Wound Resistance means something different than, say 'Terrible' in Health. > >Advantages: >This allows larger creatures to have a very high (superhuman) score >in Wound Resistance, a normal attribute. Note, however, that this does not allow for beings of sub-Terrible Wound Resistance. You can say, for example, that for Terrible - 1, the being takes two wounds for every hit. Still, the level of detail here is very different than at high WR. > >Armor is easy to implement as a bonus to WR that does not go away >from hit to hit. I assume by this you mean that armor subtracts a certain amount from each hit - so each hit is reduced by two, for example? > >Disadvantages: >c) There are three steps to this. (1) Roll and compare, which is sort >of slow; (2) multiply, which is quick; (3) subtract through your Wound >Resistance, which will be slow unless you translate the Wound Resistance >to a number. The old system has only two steps, roll and compare and >then *simple* subtraction. Note that it also requires additional tracking of WR *and* wounds as separate quantities. This is good for those who want greater detail in their 'hit points', but bad for those who want additional simplicity. I would like to make a comment about this as compared to my suggested 'Wounding-as-a-Contest-between-Damage-and-fixed-Wound-Resistance', where you track wounds separately from WR, which remains constant. This has the same advantages of handling large creatures and armor simply. It also handles small creatures with as much detail as large, and uses *no new mechanics*. Disadvantages are: 1) It is impossible to track these 'small-scratches-to-large-creatures' represented by the sliding WR scale. Instead, if you attack a large creature many times, you have (obviously) an increased chance of causing a light wound. If you want additional detail in your wounds, you can add 'super- light wounds' which would have no immediate effect, but can combine to form light wounds. 2) Another disadvantage is that it does not distinguish between being bigger, being tougher, and having armor. This is just part of the simplicity of FUDGE: WR represents as one quality how tough you are to hurt, representing both size/toughness and hardness of skin. Someone might complain that a large creature can be nickel-and-dimed to death, whereas armor can *completely* negate some attacks: mostly light edged weapons (i.e. razors, etc.). This is to some extent true, but for most purposes I think this is not important, and can be handled on a case-to-case basis for the exceptions. For example, armor does *not* completely negate blunt attacks, heat attacks, etc. It should be possible to nickel-and-dime an armored fighter with these. If you want to try to distinguish between these attacks, that's fine, but I think the system will be a bit too complex for FUDGE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Kim | "ALERT: /Earth is 75% full - please delete jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | all extraneous people." Columbia University |
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<1992Dec11.184759.5171@news.columbia.edu>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!gatech!europa.asd.contel.com!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.columbia.edu!cunixb.cc.columbia.edu!jhk6References:
<0f9rvbe00VpC4HLkp6@andrew.cmu.edu>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Newsgroups: rec.games.design Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!gatech!europa.asd.contel.com!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.columbia.edu!cunixb.cc.columbia.edu!jhk6 From: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) Subject: Re: FUDGE Damage Proposal Message-ID: <1992Dec11.184759.5171@news.columbia.edu> Sender: usenet@news.columbia.edu (The Network News) Nntp-Posting-Host: cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Reply-To: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) Organization: Columbia University References: <0f9rvbe00VpC4HLkp6@andrew.cmu.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:47:59 GMT Lines: 79