Jump to content

Variable Armor Idea


Darkholme

Recommended Posts

I've been giving some thought to variable armor.

 

It gives you its best point and worst point via maximums and minimums (representing armor of mixed quality, weaknesses in the armor, and partial overage), but the probabilities vary wildly, often just being a single die.

 

Of course, a single die means it's the odds of hitting somewhere fully armored are just as high as the odds of hitting somewhere with just the minimal padding; and everywhere in between. That seems a bit odd to me. Most of you should be fully armored, and a small portion of you would be less/unarmored (under the arms, etc). But an armor value of a d6, or a d10 seems a little wildly unpredictable to me.

 

So, I was toying with the idea of a different way to do variable armor, using a percentile roll.

 

For instance, if you have plate mail on 50% of your body, and are not wearing any armor at all on the rest of you. it would be armor 6 (50%)  (Static Armor # from Legend). If you were wearing lighter armor on other locations, it could be armor 6 (50%) armor 4 (35%) armor 2 (10%). That could be someone with armor that's made mostly of plate and seondarily hardened leather, with the face uncovered.

 

Just an idea I had.

 

Thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah.

 

I'm familiar with the hit locations rules; my first BRP was MRQII, then Legend.

 

My thought was that the way variable armor is currently handled is a bit too swingy/gradient for my tastes/my logic; but I still like the idea of one pool of hitpoints and major wounds and the like; so I was thinking of other ways to do Variable Armor without going to hit locations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've long had an idea of "flattening the swing" by using a smaller die and a bigger bonus for someone armored head to toe. The wilder swings for someone wearing less armor and more weak points would still be appropriate. Options for plate armor would look something like this:

 

Full plate harness: 1D6+6 (range = 7-12, average = 9-10)
Three-quarter armor: 1D10+2 (range = 3-12, average = 7-8)
Half plate: 1D12 (range = 1-12, average = 6-7)
Cuirass only: 1D10 (range = 1-10, average = 5-6)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah.

 

I'm familiar with the hit locations rules; my first BRP was MRQII, then Legend.

 

My thought was that the way variable armor is currently handled is a bit too swingy/gradient for my tastes/my logic; but I still like the idea of one pool of hitpoints and major wounds and the like; so I was thinking of other ways to do Variable Armor without going to hit locations.

 

If you want to keep a single HP pool and still have hit locations, take a look at the GURPS method. I think it would be rather easy to convert, something to look at anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've long had an idea of "flattening the swing" by using a smaller die and a bigger bonus for someone armored head to toe. The wilder swings for someone wearing less armor and more weak points would still be appropriate. Options for plate armor would look something like this:

 

Full plate harness: 1D6+6 (range = 7-12, average = 9-10)

Three-quarter armor: 1D10+2 (range = 3-12, average = 7-8)

Half plate: 1D12 (range = 1-12, average = 6-7)

Cuirass only: 1D10 (range = 1-10, average = 5-6)

Yeah, that would somewhat do it.

 

I was thinking something along the lines of piecemeal armor without hit locations. Example using the RQ locations.

Head:1

Torso:2

Abdomen:2

Arm L:1

Arm R:1

Leg L:1

Leg R:1

(Added up that gives you a total of 9)

 

So lets say Plate has a (flat) armor value of 10, and leather has a (flat) armor value of 5 (arbitrary numbers) for discussion.

You're wearing a plate helmet (1), chestplate(2), and one arm (1): (4). The rest of you is in leather (5).

 

When you go to soak, you'd roll a d10 (simplifying a d100 roll), it could be done as a d100 to increase the importance of head-armor.

One a roll of 1-4, soak 10. On a roll of 5-9, you soak 5, and on a roll of 0, You either soak 0, or very little, as they hit somewhere that is not well armored (some areas cannot be easily armored while still allowing you to move.

 

If you're fully in plate, 9 times out of 10, it is fully effective. one time in 10, it isn't.

 

The main benefit: your plate armor is equally reliable against attacks and isn't made up of several varying qualities of protectiveness (6 degrees in your reduced example, 10 in the MW book). Most of the time your armor is fully effective. Every once in a while, they hit one of the few weak spots. Secondary benefit: piecemeal armor becomes really easy to do, even without hit locations.

 

 

I'll have to look into that. That might be good for those occasions I want to use hit locations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I'm remembering this correctly.  With Gurps you have a hitpoint system similar to Magic world.  Armor works pretty much the same subtracting straight from damage.  Since Gurps doesn't use hit location hit points, instead certain hit locations deal more damage when struck.  Head shots do the most damage, followed by the chest and abdomen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We were working on a Norse Dark Ages game that took elements from BRP, Pendragon, GURPS/Melee and others. Like GURPS, you didn't have HP per location. There was random hit locations for armor and wounds. The base rules were pendragon, so there is no real concept of a Fumble. If I was using BRP, I'd have a fumbled CON roll mean a permanent injury (or death for head/torso wounds). Not sure if this will make a lot of sense, but here are the rules we used. 

 

Hit location:

1     Head

2     Right arm

3     Left arm

4-8  Torso

9     Right leg

0     Left leg

 

 

Injury

Hit points (HP) represent the state of a character’s health. When a character is injured he will take one or more points of damage and the player immediately lowers the character’s hit points by that amount. If the character takes greater than or equal to his Major Wound level in one blow, additional effects happen.

 

Flesh Wound

Flesh wounds are caused by attacks or other mishaps dealing damage less than the character’s MW. A character can soldier on after receiving a flesh wound and suffers no additional penalties in combat.

 

Major Wound

Damage equal to or exceeding the MW value means the character is badly injured. Minor NPCs will be out of the fight if they take a major wound. Characters who attempt to fight must make an immediate CON roll. The effects of success or failure depending upon where the blow was struck:

 

 

Head or Torso

Critical

The character is stunned and unable to perform any actions next round.

Succeed

The character is stunned next round. On later rounds he may make another CON roll to become un-stunned.

Fail

The character falls unconscious, and begins bleeding out. He loses 1 HP each round unless healing is applied or he succeeds in a CON roll.

Arm

Critical

Any item carried in that hand is dropped. He may pick it up or draw a new weapon next round.

Succeed

Any item carried in that hand is dropped. On later rounds he may make another CON roll to regain use of the arm.

Fail

The arm is rendered useless until the character receives healing. Any item carried in that hand is dropped.

Leg

Critical

The character falls prone. He may stand next round.

Succeed

The character falls prone. He may stand next round, but MV will be at -1.

Fail

The character falls prone. He may stand with a successful DEX roll, but MV will be at -3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The rules in renaissance/ clockwork and chivalry are as follows:

 

Hit points at minus starting level or below: Make a resilience roll each round to avoid dying

 

Character takes double starting hitpoints in damage: automatic death

 

Major Wounds: Two kinds, Serious and Grave.  If the character takes damage over their Major Wound threshold but are still at positive hit points it is Serious.  If the blow drops their hit points to 0 or lower it is grave, and they may die.

 

When the character takes a Major wound check the single digit D10 of the attack roll and compare it to a chart to determine what body part was hit, and what nastiness ensues.  So if you roll a 53 on the attack roll, the character takes the #3 result.  For each result there is both a Serious and Grave section of the table.

 

All in all it is a nice way to include hit location rules into a system like Magic World. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...