Talk:Armour

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Examples

Hard Leather Armour provides 4 points of Worn FT Protection.

Fire Armour provides 4+4/rank Aura Ablative Damage Reduction vs Magical Fire.

Rk 11 Armour of Earth provides 1 point of Natural Damage Reduction.

Funky shield when Wielded provides 1 FT Protection to attacks from front two hexes.

Funky magical armour is Worn and provides 10 FT prot, 5 EN prot, 3 Magical DR, 3 DR vs Undead Draining.

Funky cloak is Worn and provides 5 FT Protection.

Magic Ring provides a daily Aura of 10 Ablative DR vs Magic & Physical

Our Hero with Funky Amour, Shield & Cloak, Magic Ring, rk 5 Fire Armour, rk 11 AoE has:

  • 20 ablative vs fire (Fire Armour)
  • 10 ablative vs all (ring)
  • 11 or 12 off FT blows (1 from AoE + 10 from armour (greater than 5 from cloak) + sometimes 1 from shield)
  • 6 off EN blows (AoE + Armour)
  • 3 off all magical damage (Armour)

When hit by 40 points of Dragon Flames, the Aura applies first, 20 vs Fire is more than 10 vs All so it applies reducing damage by 20. Then the spell is resisted reducing damage by half to 10. The Wielded shield doesn't help. Worn armour reduces by 3. No Natural protection from magic so net damage applied is 7.


Discussion

I am not sure where this is going. Much of this is not a standard part of the game (Endurance Armour, Damage Reduction, Spell Armour. Abilities/itemry of this kind are only to be found on adventure.
This is what we do not want
A game where every ability conforms to some universal game syntax and for which there are no exceptions.

because this is dry and sterile and boring and stifles the imagination and reduces the gaming experience to calculation and economics.

This is what we do want

non-standard abilities/itemry which, while cool, are unambiguous and easy to administer to a sensible reader.

What we need to crush out of players until their screams fade to whimpers

questions like "Where it says <enter text player would like changed> do you mean <ludicrous interpretation that only a flatworm might consider> or do you mean <ludicrous interpretation, which is marginally less ridiculous than the previous one and which is the player's preference>?"

I have four types of damage avoidance:

  1. Protection - works vs physical damage that is not armour defeating (includes Ice Projectiles, Ice Bolt, Diamond Javelins and similar magic).
  2. Endurance Armour - works vs physical damage which is armour defeating but does not affect the special damage of Specific Grievious Injuries. Does not stack with Protection.
  3. Spell Armour - works vs magical damage (but not Ice Projectiles, Ice Bolt, Diamond Javelins, or similar magic)
  4. Damage Reduction - works vs all damage of any kind unless specifically ruled out (E.g. does not apply vs A Class damage, does not apply vs Lightning damage, etc) but beyond that stacks with Protection or Spell Armour. It does not stack with Endurance Armour, the greatest defense applies.

I use the idea of tiers that Stephen has set out, although I don't think that anything is added by saying that there is no benefit to an aura on resisting. It is pointlessly exceptional, and in any cause players would simply seek to have its effectiveness doubled to counter the nerf.
Jim Arona


From what I understand the basics of the game is Armour is protection, and should be the baseline. Within the rules their is no other protection except for specific things, like Natural Armour which does not stack with normal, you take the better of. Armour of Earth prevents 1 point of damage from each attack and that's a little open to interpretation if it works on spells or not. Most people assume it is only physical damage.

In essence what I'm trying to say is we have a scaling problem, 20 years ago protection was all we needed. GM's made things exciting by effects that reduced armour or spells that ignored it which seemed fair enough, and as a reward for surviving, players received items that helped negate such effects. Time and years later it's a neccesity to have endurance armour and spell armour and gods knows what else to stay alive at high levels. If we look at why we started playing this game, and what we enjoyed about it, it was a simple system that allowed interesting interpretations of the rules and that set it apart from other games. Too many types of damage and thus protection can confuse the issue.

Endurance hits were always meant to be scary BECAUSE they bypassed armour, and anyone with a lucky blow could do huge damage. By adding endurance armour we're negating a fundamental part of the game and risking taking the whole level of the game to another tier. As for spell armour, due to high games and the potential of spells to wreak havoc so quickly players needed a counter to mitigate the effects, so they have fatigue to strike back. Again this is a scale problem that high level players and their GM's have to deal with. Spells either hit so hard its obscene (falling star) or are used to strip fatigue (Dragon Flames). When these are used on both sides and GM's need to make it survivable without making NPC's stupid and players need a survival tactic as well. With spell armour this works for both sides as long as you have some. The only feasable options I see from here really are returning to the games roots and scaling down high games in some effect, so players have a chance, or setting up an uncomplicated armour system so the game is not bogged down with questions to do with individual items and situations. A quick suggestion I haven't thought through: Armour = normal Endurance = 1/3 Armour Spell = 1/2 Normal At low levels every bit will help, and high levels you'll get the spell and endurance protection you want, while still focusing on the base armour of the game. Ablative like fire armour would work, and would provide the best protection, Damage reduction like Armour of Earth would affect everything, and as a GM and a player one value is all you need to work with.

Joe Parker (Eltan / SSRC) (mostly in reply to Jim's comment)


I have never heard anyone rule that natural armour does not stack with Protection. Some people rule that it also works like Endurance armour, I don't believe anyone has suggested it should work your way.

20 years ago, we did not have a scaling problem. Instead, we had a Defense problem - characters would prefer not to have Protection so long as they could reduce their opponent's chance to hit them across the board. We only ever saw one kind of fighter, and they danced around the place in next to nothing. Since fortified armour has been placed, the demand for defense has diminished, in fact the trend to be reasonably heavily armoured. Mind you, there are still a few that are lightly armoured. This is a good thing.

Stephen hasn't come out and said that he believes there is a scaling problem although, at root, I think that is what is behind this. Not only do I not believe scaling to be the problem, I don't think it can be the problem. I mean, damage and damage mitigation are simply numbers. If there is a problem, it is where a few of the party are so resilient that they cannot be threatened unless it would likely kill those not so tough.

20 years ago, the game was a different beast. It was, observably, a worse beast. Interesting interpretations of the rules were rarely seen if they were seen at all. It is less of an issue nowadays.

As for Joe's position on spell armour...At a time when the game did not offer any kind of spell protection, I saw DMs use magic like Rank 20 Necrosis on every single member of the party. On one memorable occasion, I recall seeing one roll consecutively two triples and a double all on damage. The party survived because of a stupid rule finesse. The thesis that contends that magical attacks have become more savage because of spell armour is not sustainable. DMs have always been savage. It follows that spell armour is desirable but not essential. Blast magic simply hasn't changed very much over the years. Arguably, it should have.

Inevitably, returning to the game's roots would be a stultifying move. At root, the game was poorly conceived, administered like a politburo but without the benefit of a central committee. Even were it some golden age, it is lost to us now (thank God) and there is no way in hell high level characters will agree to have their abilities pared down just so lower level characters can play in high level games. Nor should they.
Jim Arona


I feel that this is a significant change to the stacking rules which allows considerably more stacking than we currently have, rather than a clarification. --Bernard (talk) 19:15, 20 February 2014 (MST)


Really.

Would you care to clarify your position or are you stacking objections?
Jim Arona


The proposal sets up four layers of 'same bonus' stacking which currently isn't possible by default, obviously special exceptions can apply.
So this makes it a significant change to what currently exists, rather than simply clarifying things.
--Bernard (talk) 04:05, 21 February 2014 (MST)


Stephen is talking about non-standard defenses. Protection in the rule book comes from only two sources, Armour and spells. Damage Reduction is discussed only for Shapechangers and Wraithcloak. Endurance armour cannot be found there, nor can Spell Armour. There is some mention of Damage Absorption, but it is unclear whether this means anything different to Protection. Natural Armour is a racial ability which we have, by convention, allowed to stack with Protection and some people also allow it to apply vs Endurance damage, treating it like Endurance armour (not that I do, however).


I would like to know what the motivating force for this is; is it

  1. to reduce pc defences by stealth (i.e. nerfing)?
  2. to make DMs create items which adhere to conventions?
  3. to make it easier to administer as a DM?

I'm opposed to 1 & 2. I'm not even particularly for 3.
1) Nerfing is, at best, a temporary measure until imaginative players come up with alternatives. If regularly stymied, however many take it in their stride, some will become frustrated and leave the game.
2) Enforcing loot conventions on DMs may frustrate our most imaginative DMS, who may take the opportunity to go elsewhere. I would feel encouraged to do this, anyway.
3) I can sympathise with DMs who really don't need the hassle of adjudicating unclear write ups in moments of high drama. On the other hand, interesting games inevitably create these situation so I guess that's just part of the deal.
I won't be bound by any convention, really. If I want to give a character an eyebrow of protection which provides a point of Damage Reduction stacking with everything including a nasal hair of protection that does the same thing, weil, I will.
With respect to difficult write ups, I used to contact DMs about them but I don't do that any more; it seems to cause offense. Instead, if I don't understand a write up I administer it to the best of my ability or I just don't honour it at all. In addition, there are some things I don't want in my game - chain mail bikinis will never work and I withdraw any benefit of the doubt for write ups that I think are unreasonable or even out and out rorts. And if a write up demands behaviour of me that I find unenjoyable or boring, I am simply not doing it and I don't give a damn how congruent it is with the rules.
So,I guess my two-penn'orth is this: I prefer that a write up be clear, easy to understand and respect the next DM who will have to administer it. On the other hand, I like write ups that are interesting and weird if appropriate. If Stephen's syntax helps formalise people's ideas and makes things easier, then I'm fine with it, as far as it goes. I am not interested in an approach which supports ennui.
Jim Arona


I like the idea of creating a common set of descriptors for Armour.
The game is evolving and items/abilities are not limited by the Rulebook, so the descriptors shouldn't be either.
I would however prefer to retain as many existing descriptors as possible, amalgamating if required.

  • FT PROT rather than FP
  • EN PROT rather than EP, which is already used for Experience Points
  • I don't like 'Damage Reduction', feels too much like Space Opera, but i cannot think of a better term.

I like the clarity of Bernard's example, my main concern is that it will take so long at run time to resolve every blow and spell, which is boring.
--Ian Wood (talk) 18:42, 22 February 2014 (MST)


Moved discussion here from main page, added dividers between comments for better attribution of opinion/ideas.

Motivation

Sorry, there's no secret plan, dark and twisted ulterior motives, nor hidden meaning. Boring, I know. But I will monolog for a while and read into that what you will. }-)

I am not intending to introduce anything new here, just introduce common terms of reference for the various items and abilities that are already in play. The goal is the same as that for all new jargon - confusion to our enemies and more importantly so we can encapsulate a paragraph of meaning into a couple of words.

This has primarily come about from discussions of the Opposed Rolling Combat proposal which refers to endurance armour which doesn't exist in the base rules - only in exceptional items and abilities awarded by GMs. And one of the issues that came up in play-testing with characters with some of these exceptional items is which were affected by this new standard rule and which weren't. With no agreed conventions or standards to reference it became time consuming and tedious to work out.

The aim is not to restrict what GMs do - a futile exercise. But to provide common terms we can all use and a standard that can be assumed if no exceptions to it are specified. Hopefully leading to GMs being able to describe the effect they want with less words and less ambiguity.

As discussed, the game has gone through phases and styles. Partly as we change the rules, partly due to one-up-manship between players and GMs, partly as the new ideas by some GMs propagate to other GMs, and no doubt many other causes. What we have currently in play is what the game has evolved into, not much point in raging against it or trying to change the past, just adapt and try to make it work as well as we can.

Stacking

Currently we have stacking rules for magic but nothing else. This is not replacing or overriding the Magical Stacking restrictions. This is defining standard behaviour for non-standard stuff and I have based it on the most common types of effects and permitted protection stacking I have seen awarded by GMs.

In terms of standard rules, it changes nothing because there is only one type of defined armour protection and a couple of spells that use undefined terms. In terms of non-standard items - if the intent of the GM is unclear or ambiguous or is based on assumptions which don't match these terms then a simple amendment to the write-up will resolve it. Not a big deal and something that could be resolved ahead of time with the original GM or as it comes up with another GM.

Terms

I don't like 'FT Prot' and 'EN Prot' - they're descriptive of their effect but boring. Someone came up with some much nicer terms when we were first discussing this but nobody can remember what they were.

I would prefer that FT Prot remain as AP (Armour Protection) not because I like the term but to be consistent with the existing term for the same effect.

But a nicer meaningful phrase for Endurance Armour would be appreciated if someone would be so kind as to re-invent that particular light bulb.

Obviously not using 'Resistance' to avoid confusion with Magic Resistance. Hard or Hardened armour is used by other systems but we use it already to refer to more rigid armour. We could call them Armour (protecting FT) and Protection (protecting EN) but that means not keeping AP extant.

Resolution Time

The aim is that with these pre-defined terms and effects that resolution will become simpler. Provided that players are prepared and have read and organised their items/abilities. Personally (for my higher level and overly complicated characters) I was thinking of a summary table and a couple of notes something like this and most of the time I just apply the total line:

Tier FT FT-Ab EN EN-Ab Magic Magic-Ab Fire-Ab
Aura 10 100
Wield
Worn 15 5 12
Innate 2 2
Total 17 10 7 12 100
  • Ablative FT Prot is per pulse.
  • FT Prot is reduced to 8 vs A-Class
  • Extra 5 FT & EN Prot vs Non-magical weapons.

-- Stephen (talk) 14:15, 23 February 2014 (MST)