Some miscellaneous questions about combat

[dra]

To put things into place. When you answered "apparently so" it makes you a bad GM. Because you have not read the rules thoroughly, you do not understand basic functions, you juxtapose rules from similar rulesets to your convenience based upon your limited experience (I played few rpgs tros included) and high idea of yourself (desgined
few customs and can see poor rule where I see it).

The honest answer to your player should be that you don't know and you will look it up, the correct one should be that armor is superior to stamina because of its additional properties. So, no, its not an issue of aesthetics. Its an issue of you assuming you know something when you don't.

Funny thing is one ot the things that made me present idea of Bob to my players was armor and weapon properties. So no, my answer does not make me a bad GM. I do grasp the difference. That's why in my 1st post regarding this issue I wrote "armor properties aside".

And here you start running around in circles. Who's cherry-picking data? Does armor properties matter or not? And please, decide what the example is.
1. A SM6 unarmored character?
2. A SM6 toe-to-head clad in maille armor character?
3. A SM6 wearing a proofed plate full suit character?

It's simple.
If you have STA 6 and armor - you are a tank.
If you have STA 6 and no armor - you are more vulernable. At the sime time, if you stand next to STA 2 character without an armor - you have 3 times his damage soak. Worse than in case above.

Btw, there's no such thing as chainmail in the rules. Do your homework.

Ok. In my defence, I kinda took this paragraph from Flower Of Battle to heart. They might be wrong after all. Let's not play in guruus and mindless followers.

Mail armor may be more familiar to
many readers by the name Chain
Mail. In the real world, this is
actually a very modern term for mail armor,
however, and would not have been used in
the medieval period when such armor was
in common use. The terms Chain Mail and
Mail may be seen as interchangeable for all
intents and purposes.

Good example of fallacy: You disregard character creation in its entirety. Priorities.

Fallacy : a failure in reasoning which renders an argument invalid

To have SM6 you must invest 5 ranks in Attributes leaving you 10 ranks for the other Priorities.
To have SM6 and full maille armor you need Attributes 5 and Class 2. 8 ranks left.
To have SM6 and full proofed plate you need Attributes 5 and Class 4. 6 ranks left.

Good example of fallacy is considering only fresh characters straight from factory. Also, ignoring system mechanics like Karma.
So if player A creates character with STA 6 and during game sessions aquire nobility, income and wealth, does it make his STA 6 go lower?
Do you consider rules to be good enough just to run first session or would it be a signature of good rules to be universal.

Claiming that grappling maneuvers are "advanced techniques" when you haven't even read them, or saying that SM6 soaks better than AV3 Metal armor are both fallacies.

Possibly. Or maybe if you read grappling in Tros you might have vauge idea of what it might look like? Anyways, I read them since that time and still want to run first sessions without it. And than increase number of manouvers.

A bad rule is not a fallacy. A bad rule is a flaw that needs to get fixed. A rule is not an arguement, it is a statement. Open up a dictionary to see the difference.

Rules are based on reasoning. For example rules of adding strenght to damage and deducting stamina were put into system not because it was a coin flip, but because there was obvious reasoning, that strong characters should have advantage over weak. This reasoning is correct UP TO A POINT only. Therefore there is a mistake in reasoning here which was put into rules.

How do you know that grappling maneuvers are "advanced mechanics" when you haven't even read them? Not only that, but you continue to pontificate instead of reading the rules,

Explained above.

then simply suggest that "grappling is OP than", just because they render your arguement invalid. Last time I checked they are basic maneuvers, not advanced, and
grappling is an essential part of any game simulating melee combat at any extent.

First of all , writing about grappling being OP was a joke. There was emoticon at the end there. Take a chill pill. I have no idea how they work so I never risked judging their influence on the system.
Second of all, I do not mind grappling in general. As I said, I prefer to learn new system in steps. Not just for my sake, for players too.
Thirdly, I don't think I refered to grappling as advanced manouvers, mearly advanced techniques. As in "first let's learn to fight before we will add magic system to the mix". Magic here being more advanced system.

And here come the rumblings. With all due respect, not only you have zero fighting experience, you pressume that you know too. If you came with an axe upon anyone with average combat experience, the most probable outcome would be you hacking your leg. Or him breaking your arms. The least probable would be you killing him.

First of all, I do have some experience with baton and boxing. Both things are kinda simillar in footwork and attacking patterns. Only difference are tools. I don't think there is so much difference between striking someone with a club of any kind and an axe. Exept for lethality of course. I also did some grappling with friends who needed some practice on mats. Nothing fancy but enough to respect all grappling techniques.

Second of all, I had a player once who was Krav Maga enthusiast. Once , during game we had an argument regarding disarming. After session we decided to run a test. I took a black marker and he wanted to show me that he can take away a knife from me just as in his classess. Well, he did after a short while. He took marker from me. Thing is his entire core, some of his legs and forearms were marked with black markings. He admitted it might be harder than in classes.

Thirdly : there is no fighting in argument provided (st 1 character swinging axe into sta 6 character). It's just your ill reading.

This is represented in the game by CP pools and grappling ruleset.

Wow. Coming from a dude who tried to sell iron abs as game's representatnion of someone fighting experience and zen sense

As someone with STR6 compared to STR2, AGI6 vs AGI2, etc. So what?

So having STR 6 character swinging harded than STR 2 character is not unrealistic.
Having AG 6 chracter swingin faster and better than AG 2 character is not unrealistic.
Having STA 6 character breaking knifes with his abs is however

1/2 ST (rounded down) + DR + MOS - 1/2 SM (rounded down) - AV

1. It's simple

No, it adds another level of calculation.

Well, what can I say... If taking a number from 1 to 6 and halving it is another level of calculation for you... No wonder we can't reach a basic understaning.
Another level of calculation would be for example asking players to roll for his stamina or adding some other attributes or for example checking table 4.14.34 in which we have modifiers of ST-SM differences for damage...
Taking one number instead of second is not another level of calculation.

2. It does not affect any math in game

It does, see above.

I can admit. I might have make my case here a bit clouded. What I meant was:
If you for example make a rule that was used in TROS mainly that STA would only soak as much damage as ST you change wounds dynamics. You increase avarage wound level in the system. Therefore you increase lethality. You can either adapt to it by decreasing damage ratings or increasing wound levels capacity and so on.
In case you divide in halfs it just trimms the results. In fact, it's another mistake on my part. It would be -3/+3 (since 1 rounded down would be 0 and 6 rounded down would be 3). So you do not change deadliness of game since as one of more popular arguments here stated : you will mostly encounter ST/SM 3-4 warriors. So what it does is just trimming down range and cutting most extreme examples. So no change in game math as what weapon do what.

4. The only thing it does is make game more realistic in places where it matters...

In your mind maybe.

Well not in my mind since virtually everyone is agreeing that yeah, it is more realistic, but...
Even you if you consider "narrative aspect of stamina" as thinking that yeah, putting a knife into smn's belly is not a nice thing.

5. ... and fix some inbalances.

Some imbalances that also exist in your mind. Go do some testing first, then come up with numbers to prove their existence.

Ok.

example A:
Onan The Barbarian, unarmed, unarmored. STA 6, ST 3. CP 14. Char A armed in a knife. St 2, STA 2, CP 8.
B suprises A in a public bath (1/2 CP = 7). B attacks with a dagger with entire CP. Rolls 5 succesess. A rolls all in his defence. Terrible luck! 0 successes. A whooping MoS 5 succeses. Atack gets into belly and thaaan... 1 wound level. 2 impact. Just a scratch.

He fails to defend himself, got a knife thrust into his belly...iron abs
Other way around? Bloodbath.

example B:
Onan The Barbarian is wearing among other things munition breastplate and attacks Char B that has STA 3, ST3, CP 14 (low rank warrior?) that has a shield and mace (+1b , crushing). Onan rolls 6 dice, Char B activates Deflect and strike with 2 cp, invest everything he has (12) into defence counting on a followup. Onan rolls 2 succeses, Char B rolls whooping 9 succeses. MoS is ok. 7 succesess of followup. Atack straight to torso, crushing ignores rigid so with 4 dice char B rolls 2 successes. Damage resolve ... 3 + 1b + 7 MoS - STA 6 - AV 4 = ... lvl 1 wound to abdomen Bump. Impact 2.

Other way around ? 4 lvl wound to the abdomen. Ruptured internal organs (pancreas 1-3, stomach 4-6) and internal bleeding. BL1, instant KD, KO3 (to not vomit)

Same hit, same armor. World of difference.

In addition it creates an imbalance that is not there: Dead Levels.
I don't care if it affects one roll or every roll in the game. Dead Levels is the easiest way to enforce minmaxing in a game. I want to play a game, not play accountant.

Than don't. What's the point of just 1 dice extra in MoS?

And here we come full-circle to the start. Really? Only Korbel took the time explaining the rules?

Ones that was my issue. I initially said that only thing that's keeping armor in contention was armor properties. Showing me that they do work was not necessary.

In case you haven't noticed, this is not a GM story driven game.

It's the exact opposite.

If you want to narratevily get rid of player assets because it suits your story you can do it, you are the final arbiter as GM after all. But you won't be playing BoB in this case. You'd be playing DnD with BoB's ruleset at best. If you claim though that your version is BoB, that makes you a douchebag of a GM and a douchebag of a person. Because
you'd be discrediting the creators and cheating your players.

I wrote specifically that I do not want to "get rid of player assets". I embrace them. That makes me a cool dude not a duchebag
But specially for you, scene:

Onan, a greater noble with 51 knights at his disposal is in alcove with his new fling. Lady Mellisa is an excellent lover. Onan looses concentration for a few seconds and than ... gets stabbed in stomach by traitorous bitch. She has ST1 (ok?) and rolls to his suprise MoS of 6! Dagger hits his 6pak and ... bends Sorry ,no, Lacerates skin without puncturing it.

Unless you want to call me a douchebag and enter the alcove with 51 knights, in that case, they roll perception roll in order to grab her hand.
Unless you ask them not to look , that's just Cunning roll.

What you fail to understand isn't that YOU can get around SM6. What you fail to understand is that PLAYERS can get around SM6.

Why would they face sth like that?

To put it simply. It's not YOUR game. It's everybody's game. If you don't like it play something else.

[/quote]

By everybody do you refer to:

1. Our group of players?

In this case I have to laugh it off. They keep coming. I have a problem of having to say no to them mostly since with sessions of more than 3 players I tend not to be satisfied with results.

2. By "BoB Community"?

In this case I have to ask: or else?
What are you going to do? Call rpg police on me?
We as a group play in a way we feel like playing and will be playing whatever we want
Relax dude, you got so frustrated over some abstractive atribute on imaginative heroes swining virtual swords. Don't be so serious about it.

[dra]

First off: I can understand bra's concern.

First time I became a bra. Well, I've been called worse I guess

• I don't share bra's opinion that halving attributes is a good idea. Like Korbel and Benedict, I think this is very detrimental to character building, even though it "only" affects one aspect of each attribute (an important one to many players, I would think). D&D is a very good example of the dark side of this approach, and I think it is as bad or even worse than naked dwarves...

As a part of woman's garment, I might fail to grasp this whole "dead result" thing. What's the problem, really?

[*]I first liked 33's proposal of a +1/-1 mod to DR if you have relative higher/lower Str than Sta of the opponent. But this requires that we talk about the attribute values and compare them before being able to calculate the damage, which is interrupting the flow of combat too much. We used a similar system in our hoembrew TRoS/Blade hybrid, and scrapped it quickly. In basic rules, the attacker can calculate his DR independently from the defender, who in turn only needs to subtract a certain amount, with no need to talk about the constituting elements.[/list]

But you do talk about the attribute values and compare them before you are able to calculate damage as it stands, don't you?

Personally, in light of the discussed alternatives, I would stick to the current solution but add a paragraph that explains the reasoning and consequences of fictional realism. Like in the following example:

Sansa Stark attacks the Mountain with a dagger from behind a curtain, hits him with full force, and... after some dice rolling, her damage is mechanically reduced to 0 due to her Str of 2 and his Sta of 6 ...the dagger ends up fully buried into the Mountain's back. Anyways, after a short tense pause that seems to stretch forever, the Mountain just turns around, smirks devilishly and crushs Sansa's head with his bare fist... Afterwards, he pulls out the dagger with no sign of pain and ignores any possible effects such a serious wound would normally be able to inflict.

This is what I understand what "focussing on fiction rather than reality" means: Even though rules-wise, Sansa's dagger would have bounced off the Mountain's skin, in the fictional description it hits its target, but with no gameplay effect. That's the kind of badassdom that you can ask for, if you took attributes at Prio 5 and Sta at 6.

As I said, there is no argument to that. If that's the stories you want in your games, cool. I understand. It's would not be good fiction for me and it would annoy hell out of me as a Sansa player. But I can understand idea of cinematic rpg. I wouldn't pick TROS for that but hey, it's your stories.

Let's not sell it as realisic tho, worse than 50 knights and grappling can save the day after all. So tip for Sansa character : instead of stabbing Mountain into back, go into grapple with him

There is a long and wise tradition in rpg to put optional rules into consideration for players. For example, Tros which tries to be more simulationist in TFOB p51. introduces Cinematic Terrain Rolls. Blade which tries to be more heroic (as I said, mainly in fluff) introduces optional Fatigue which works with equally optional encumberence rules to increase realism.

[Agamemnon]

This discussion is taking a turn away from the constructive, I think.

1). The word fallacy has a very specific meaning. If you're going to google the definition, go to wikipedia. You need to separate out the argument from the conclusion. The conclusion is what you're claiming, the argument is how you get there. A fallacy is a problem with the argument, not the conclusion. It's a problem with the syntax of the argument that renders the underlying logic invalid. You can have a logically correct argument with a conclusion that is objectively false, and you can have a fallacious argument with a conclusion that is objectively true. There is, in fact something known as the Fallacy Fallacy when someone claims that a conclusion must be false because the argument for it is invalid.

By definition, a fallacy requires that someone be proposing a logical argument and a conclusion. A rule cannot be a fallacy. An opinion cannot be a fallacy. A belief cannot be a fallacy. These are all conclusions, not arguments. An argument only exists when someone tries to justify said conclusion. A fallacy only exists when someone's argument breaks a rule of logic.

2) Dra, you made your point several pages ago. We asked for input. You gave it. It was acknowledged and accepted. Run some games and see if it becomes an issue for you once you play the thing in total. Bring that info back and we can look at that, too. Though, you might just stick around until the beginning of the year. There are some overhauls coming anyway.

3) Everyone else - thank you for your input and feedback as well. We tend to have a pretty chill community here. Let's not get our feathers ruffled. Besides. You're going to want to save that debate-vigor up. I'm probably going to post some experimental stuff for feedback here shortly anyway. You'll want to have that energy to tell me why I'm an idiot instead.

[dra]

This discussion is taking a turn away from the constructive, I think.

1). The word fallacy has a very specific meaning. If you're going to google the definition, go to wikipedia. You need to separate out the argument from the conclusion. The conclusion is what you're claiming, the argument is how you get there. A fallacy is a problem with the argument, not the conclusion. It's a problem with the syntax of the argument that renders the underlying logic invalid. You can have a logically correct argument with a conclusion that is objectively false, and you can have a fallacious argument with a conclusion that is objectively true. There is, in fact something known as the Fallacy Fallacy when someone claims that a conclusion must be false because the argument for it is invalid.

By definition, a fallacy requires that someone be proposing a logical argument and a conclusion. A rule cannot be a fallacy. An opinion cannot be a fallacy. A belief cannot be a fallacy. These are all conclusions, not arguments. An argument only exists when someone tries to justify said conclusion. A fallacy only exists when someone's argument breaks a rule of logic.

Ok. As I wrote, english is not my strong suite.

2) Dra, you made your point several pages ago. We asked for input. You gave it. It was acknowledged and accepted. Run some games and see if it becomes an issue for you once you play the thing in total. Bring that info back and we can look at that, too. Though, you might just stick around until the beginning of the year. There are some overhauls coming anyway.

That's the thing. I won't bring any weird feedback since noone made character that breaks the balance. And that would be the case I assume for 99% of beta testing players. Combat pools are great. Way of splitting fight into 2 exchanges, taking risks and rolling for results, manouvers that chagne risk in yours or enemy's favour... It's just pure brilliance. They work fantastic...if you work within margin of "avarage".

Have you ever tried to run a game of Tros (or Bob) with 2 combatants with very low CP fighting in plate armor? It looks like a Charlie Chaplin's movie. What about enormous CPs? 35 vs 38? Weirdest fights ever, completly random. Manouvers and fight planning just fly out the window. So tros is balanced for avarage results. Same went for toughness. Untill you had some PC with really high toughness, you dismissed the idea of iron skin as not important. As you and others said, and I agree completly, 90% of cases DR modifier will be close to 0. Problem arises with those few crazy builds. And I won't notice them unless I wish to run a campaign called "Adventures of Onan the Barbarian". Which I don't. I like to have some laugh and friendly banter but in games, I tend to be more serious.



I tried to edit previous post and couldn't... I just wanted to add a quote from ch13 into the discussion about dagger in mountain's back being within or outside bob's framework of simulating fiction:

Injuries in Band of Bastards are grisly affairs, emphasizing the tried and true principle that avoiding a blow is vastly more important than dealing one. Only the most heavily armored characters can afford to be lax in their defense and risk allowing blows to connect. For everyone else, being struck in combat is a serious matter that can lead to permanent injury or death. Getting hit sucks in real life. It sucks for your characters, too.

[thirtythr33]

So lets try to break this down to be as simple as possible.

So far, not a single person has disagreed that full stamina and full strength applying to wounds is not realistic. It is true. It is not realistic.

If we were being overly realistic about it we could have different formula based on weapon type as well. Strength affects how much damage a Blunt weapon does much more than how much a Cutting one does.

The question is: is applying 1/2 STR and 1/2 STAM a good solution?

The most obvious reason it isn't a great idea has already been pointed out. It has dead levels. Everyone with any amount of brainpower will realize they should have STR2 or STR4 and never STR3, 5 or 6. Same for STAM. STR5/STM5 which costs 2 attribute points will be a particularly terrible character options. This will drastically truncate diversity in character types. Whats more, paying 3 points to get from 4 to 6 is just not worth the return of getting 1DR or AV. You could make the case that you could throw out the "double cost for 5", but that still wouldn't do anything about getting rid of the dead levels.

Secondly, it would turn STR and STM into dump stats. Here is my reasoning.
Agility and Cunning add 1 to your Combat Pool per phrase. AGI1 = CUN1 = 1CP
Stamina and Strength don't add to your Combat Pool, they add to your MOS. STR1 = STAM1 = 1MOS
Assuming BTN6, 2CP is worth approximately 1MOS
Now, notice that CP is being useful 100% of the time you are rolling dice.
The MOS added by STR and STAM are not always useful; STR is only useful in a successful attack and STAM is only useful in a successful defense.
Assuming your attacks and defenses are successful 50% of the time (ie, your enemy has a similarly sized Combat Pool to you) each we get: STR2 = STAM2 = 1MOS
Do some algebra and you find AGI = CUN = STR = STAM = 1CP
A PERFECTLY BALANCED SYSTEM.

AGI and CUN are already more valuable anyway, since they apply to more skills and checks and CP can be used for non-damage (like preempting or positioning) and STR and STAM cannot.
If you halved the value of STR and STAM, there would be no reason to take them over AGI and CUN.

Now, I already see where your reply is going. Why not roll STR and STAM into 1 stat, BRAWN so that AGI = CUN = BRAWN = 1CP? Well, combined with the dead levels that would make the only viable character builds BRAWN 2 and BRAWN 4. Literally every character will be the current equivalent of STR2, STAM2 or STR4 STAM4. You have truncated the number of viable character builds of Str/Stam from 36 down to 2. At that point you might as well just throw out STR, STAM and BRAWN entirely and instead just use the Edges/Flaws method that Korbel suggested. Not to mention breaking symmetry on 4 physical and 4 mental attributes.

Why can't we just throw out STR/STAM/BRAWN entirely and just use "Tough" and "Weak" edges and flaws? Well, you still need a Strength and Stamina score for you to pair with skills. Who would put valuable character points into Brawn when it is literally only useful for Athletics checks? The only way I can think about making it viable would be to also institute minimum Brawn requirements for weapons and armor (at the dead levels 3 and 5) but that is stupid and unrealistic in it's own right.

The other off the wall solution is to increase Armor and Weapon AV and DR in comparison to STR/STAM. Doubling would result in most hits being level 0 or 5+ unless you also extended the wounds tables out to Level 10 and adjusted them. And at a certain point, the math just becomes unwieldy adding up and subtracting large numbers. A usual sum now is something like 3STR + 3Weapon + 4MOS - 2STAM -6AV = ?. That is already a lot of calculation. doubling weapon and AV to get 3 + 6 + 4 - 2 - 12 = ? is considerably more difficult because you are now working with double digit numbers.

The most reasonable solution to all of this would be to slightly bump up DR and AV ratings. Currently AV ranges from 2 to 6 but could easily be bumped to 3 to 7. Similarly, weapon damage ranges from 0 to 3 could be bumped to 1 to 4.

Good example of fallacy is considering only fresh characters straight from factory. Also, ignoring system mechanics like Karma.
So if player A creates character with STA 6 and during game sessions aquire nobility, income and wealth, does it make his STA 6 go lower?
Do you consider rules to be good enough just to run first session or would it be a signature of good rules to be universal.

After character creation balance is pretty much ignored in BoB. Sure you can get proofed plate by stealing it. You might also get your hand cut off for thievery.

example A:
Onan The Barbarian, unarmed, unarmored. STA 6, ST 3. CP 14. Char A armed in a knife. St 2, STA 2, CP 8.
B suprises A in a public bath (1/2 CP = 7). B attacks with a dagger with entire CP. Rolls 5 succesess. A rolls all in his defence. Terrible luck! 0 successes. A whooping MoS 5 succeses. Atack gets into belly and thaaan... 1 wound level. 2 impact. Just a scratch.

He could have just as easily used a curved dagger with drawcut or a rondel with power swing to deal MOS-2 Level wound (Level 3). What you were describing was a prison shanking, not a concerted effort to gut someone.
Also, you forgot he will have 4 bonus CP for being in ideal range for a dagger.

Instead of assuming successes, here is the MOS breakdown for for 12CP attack (8+4 dagger) against 7CP (14/2) defense
0 or less = 19%
1 = 12%
2 = 15%
3 = 15%
4 = 14%
5 = 10%
6 = 7%
7 = 4%
8 = 3%

Average MOS assuming you hit = 2.9


So the results would look like this:
Miss completely = 19%
Hit, but no damage = 27%
Level 1 Wound = 15%
Level 2 Wound = 14%
Level 3 Wound = 10%
Level 4 Wound = 7%
Level 5 Wound = 7%

Also lets not forget about Bleed and Infection. Looking at those results on the wound table (for thrust to stomach like you chose) that Level 3 results is BL1 and Level 4 results in BL2. If he can't get to a surgeon in a few hours, BL1 will kill him 61% of the time and BL2 will kill him 99% of the time. Luckily his huge stam makes him very unlikely to die to infection otherwise the level 3 would stand a good chance to kill him a week later as well.

Assuming he can't find a surgeon, this assassination has a 20% chance of killing Onan using only the first attack. Keep in mind that 81% of the time he will have won the attack and will keep initiative for the next round where he will be able to attack his now wounded opponent again. Repeated stabbings will only increase his chance to win. These results seem pretty reasonable to me. With more average combatants, assassinations like this would be very effective.

Reversing it so Onan attacks the weakling, then yeah it's an absolute slaughter but mostly because its CP18 against CP4 and not because of the STR3 against STAM2.

[nemedeus]

I just want to take this opportunity to thank 33 fit the amazing insights presented here. Keep up the good work!

[Korbel]

Why can't we just throw out STR/STAM/BRAWN entirely and just use "Tough" and "Weak" edges and flaws? Well, you still need a Strength and Stamina score for you to pair with skills. Who would put valuable character points into Brawn when it is literally only useful for Athletics checks? The only way I can think about making it viable would be to also institute minimum Brawn requirements for weapons and armor (at the dead levels 3 and 5) but that is stupid and unrealistic in it's own right.

As I've said before, you need good Strength/Stamina (Brawn) to use heavier bows, resist KOs, heal your wounds... And if you incorporate the rule I suggested (Feat of Strength / Brawn affects grappling), these attributes become almost as important as Agility and Cunning (but it's probably still "Brains and skills over the muscle").

(and if you're looking for balance, I suppose the Speed/Agility issue bogs you, too... well. if you make Combat Pools calculated from Speed, Agility becomes less impactful, so people will choose Strength and Stamina even more often)

So the results would look like this:
Miss completely = 19%
Hit, but no damage = 27%
Level 1 Wound = 15%

Well that's 61% chance of doing nothing or almost nothing (Impact 1 or 2). Then the fight continues on equal terms (mostly because of reach advantage).

Level 2 Wound = 14%

This one is better, Onan takes more impact and a TN shift. Now he will probably lose and die, though it's not 100% certain.

Level 3 Wound = 10%
Level 4 Wound = 7%
Level 5 Wound = 7%

Here you can say it is a succesful assasination attempt. 24%.

[thirtythr33]

I just want to take this opportunity to thank 33 fit the amazing insights presented here. Keep up the good work!

Thanks!

(and if you're looking for balance, I suppose the Speed/Agility issue bogs you, too... well. if you make Combat Pools calculated from Speed, Agility becomes less impactful, so people will choose Strength and Stamina even more often)

It does bother me. If there were 8 things I could change about BoB right now*, one of them would be to explicitly make Speed + Athletics the default roll for moving on foot in a Skirmish and to make Positioning rolls calculated as Speed + CP dice.
That way, 1 point of speed will be used at almost 1 per Round;
While you are in a skirmish, you are probably moving (and hence using speed)
and while you are in a melee combat you have the option to force the use of positioning every round
Which nicely brings it into line of 1 attribute = 1 combat dice per round

Acumen and Social have huge use in non-combat situations, so aren't really comparable.

I can't really judge Willpower's usefulness until I see what BoB has in the way of fear rules. If BoB is really insistent on making people take Will+Steel tests (or else freeze in fright) for things like seeing a dead body or magic, willpower might be good. If it just gets ignored all the time like it does in most games, I don't see why I would pick willpower over stamina. It is also really easy to replace with the Steel skill or by taking Fearless or Hardened edges.

Well that's 61% chance of doing nothing or almost nothing (Impact 1 or 2). Then the fight continues on equal terms (mostly because of reach advantage).
...
This one is better, Onan takes more impact and a TN shift. Now he will probably lose and die, though it's not 100% certain.
...
Here you can say it is a succesful assasination attempt. 24%.

Well, yeah. But considering the stat lines (6stam 3str 12CP vs 2stam 2str 8cp) that seems pretty good. If it were any more one-sided, assassinations would just be too powerful. We are only taking about the first round here. If someone jumped out at you on the street and attacked you with a knife, I think it is pretty reasonable to say you have a 50/50 chance to get to react. An 80% chance to survive the first thrust and run away bleeding (to find a doctor) also seems totally reasonable. It is actually very difficult to kill someone near instantly, even with a surprise knife. Most knife attack deaths happen due to bloodloss, not organ trauma.




*If people are wondering, my other 7 changes would be
1) Fix the Karma table to be closer to what I suggested in the advancement thread. Dying shouldn't get you more character points.
2) Add combat penalties to Weapons and Shields, just like there is for armor. Up to 2CP penalty for 2h Flails or Tower Shields.
3) Add a few paragraphs specifically dealing with how Social Skills work against players.
It is dealt with rarely in other games, so I think it needs to be elaborated better than what can fit in the sidebar on p40.
Also, the sidebar doesn't clearly explain other social skills like Command or Intrigue work and gives unclear ruling on how Edges/Flaws work.
It also doesn't explain what a players recourses are if they fail. Can I agree to a manipulation, and then not follow through as soon as I leave the room?
4) Increase cost of Wrap to 2. Wrap is much better than precision thrust (more likely to hit location and ignores Favoring) and costs less.
5) Disengage is too strong. It resests all 3 temporary disadvantages in combat (impact, reach control and initiative).
Add a positioning roll to "Corner" which prevents disengagement, and have disengage force you to roll white if engaged on in the next round.
6) Add a rule or maneuver that lets you ignore armor with a dagger in grapple by jamming it between the layers. Can only be thrust and has very high AC of 3.
7) Fix beat. It doesn't work how it is advertised. Right now its only good for preempting and restraining not setting up followup attacks.
I don't have any suggestions for how it could be fixed though.

[EinBein]

...

Very good, once again

Though, you might just stick around until the beginning of the year. There are some overhauls coming anyway.

We tend to have a pretty chill community here.

Aye. We're on our way back to normality.

First time I became a bra.

I sincerely apology for the Freudian slip...

"dead result" thing

I think 33 made it pretty clear now.

But you do talk about the attribute values and compare them before you are able to calculate damage as it stands, don't you?

Not necessarily. Current situation:
Player 1 rolls 5 successes, player 2 rolls 3.

• Player 1 quickly calculates in his head 3 MoS + 3 Str + 1 DR = 7 and says aloud "7 total".
• Player 2 calculates in his head Sta 3 + AV 2 = 5 and says aloud "wound level 2 then".

Optional situation:
Player 1 rolls 5 successes, player 2 rolls 3.

• Player 1 asks aloud "what's your Sta Player 2? My Str is 3"
• Player 2 replies "my Sta is 3"
• Player 1 quickly calculates in his head 3 MoS + 0 Str/Sta-Bonus + 1 DR = 4 and says aloud "4 total".
• Player 2 deducts his AV 2 and says aloud "wound level 2 then".

That's what I meant with "an additional step that slows down flow of combat". Every unnecessary communication about game values takes away from the narrative. That's at least what we in our gaming group decided.

The most reasonable solution to all of this would be to slightly bump up DR and AV ratings. Currently AV ranges from 2 to 6 but could easily be bumped to 3 to 7. Similarly, weapon damage ranges from 0 to 3 could be bumped to 1 to 4.

For my personal taste, BoB keeps the balance between realism and fiction in its current state just right. With the proposed adjustment, you slightly increase the necessity to run around in armor and make suprise fights in backalleys more deadly. Anyways, I think this can easily be applied as a lever by anyone interested. Good idea.

As I said, there is no argument to that. If that's the stories you want in your games, cool. I understand.

So here we are at the root of the problem. We can't discuss about taste. But let's take a step back, think about the power of narration and compare two similar "wounds":

• A noblewoman (Str 2) slaps her husband (Sta 2) in the face with the back of her hand (she rolled two successes, he rolled none). The man flinches and covers his face in order to avoid further punishing (level 1 "wound").
• A hulk of a man (Str 5) slams his similarly built opponent (Sta 5) in the face, swinging his gargantuan fist in a powerful wide arc (he rolled six successes with Striking emphasis, the opponent rolled five). The hit brute takes the blow unflinching, but has to take a step back in order to not lose his footing (level 1 "wound").

If we take a step back from the unduly pictures of blades bending at the contact with steeled muscles on the one side and blades fully immersing in the flesh of brutes without effect on the other, we all agree that we apply double standards when describing the circumstances and outcomes of a hit, like in my above two examples, right?
You have experience as a GM as it seems, so you can describe different outcomes than bent daggers, I believe. Even if you say that the dagger got stuck within two ribs and failed to immerse any deeper than a finger's width, I think that's enough narration for the attack and can easily be ignored with superhuman Sta of 6...

[...]and it would annoy hell out of me as a Sansa player.

Why would Sansa's player be disappointed when the character he made failed at something he never inted her to succeed with? Would it "annoy hell out of you" when your brute with Soc 2 and no Manipulation failed to sweet-talk a noble lady?

To sum it up: Everyone draws the line of narration somewhere. Based on the general tone of the campaign, the taste of the players at the table and some other constituting elements. If authentic fiction weighs more than heroic fiction at your table, I think you can easily skip the choice to create characters with attributes of six altogether, because this is described as "Superhuman!" anyways. And in an instant, you have only +/- 2 in fighting context (attributes of 3 of trained fighters against max. 5 with super-athletes).

Your argument that a professionally published RPG rulebook shouldn't be released with built-in naked dwarf syndrome is understandable, but at least the community on this forum has now explained, why they think that the proposed alternatives are either as bad or worse than the problem itself. The final say for the printed version is with the designers anyways, and the final say in actual play is with the players as always:

Ultimately, this is your game, not ours. What you choose to do with it is more important than any suggestions we might make and we’ve designed it that way from the ground up. The division of the rules above supports a modular approach, and many systems can be tweaked or replaced entirely without damaging others in the game.

[dra]

1. Please, leave margin of succesess alone

Yes, they are not statistically correct but they are viable. Dice rolls are different than probability curve in this aspect, that they do not always respond to each another. That's why I wrote about huge combat pools. At first glance CPs of 38:36 are simillar to 19:18, yet in game they produce a lot more freaky results with double digit MoSes and complete randomness in who wins with whom. So treat those staged examples as it really happened in game. Respond to results that are possible in game rules. Same goes for Onan's response. We do know that CP 18 > CP 4. It's quality of thrust vs bare skin that's an issue here. One of most memorable fight one of my player had was when he got wounded twice , broken arm and bleeding all over the place with half of his CP. Other dudes at the table prompted him to give up to save his character, yet he continued. And than miracle happened, he countered with all his CP , got 1 succes over 6 or 7 succeses of his oponnent and in second exchange he rolled something close to 100% his CP whereas his enemy got unluckiest roll ever. In consequence he killed him with 1 swing to the head. 3 freakish rolls one after another but that's something the player reminescented for ages.

2. I forgot about extra band range for daggers. Let's pretend than that Onan has silverware candlestick he tried to nick when bath-keeper got furious and attacked with only thing he had at his disposal. Let's pretend bath-keeper did not have curved blade, nor his trusted field cannon anywhere handy when he went bereserk.

3. Analysis of ST/STA/AG/CG is top notch. I have few things to add though:

- it's arguable if 1 cp is worth the same amount as 1 automatic success in combat (which is ST/STA).
- indeed I think that having ST/STA as one attribute would be better
- many attributes are useless or close to useless in combat, I do not see it being a problem that some other attribute would not be. For instance, if we put ST+STA into BRAWN, we could use WP as this tough-as-nails stat in combat. Half of WP lowers TN penelty from wounds...I know, I know, dead results

4. Dead results aversion is kind of suprise for me. So you will have ST and STA in 2 and 4s. Is it really that much difference in grand scheme of things? When players make characters, does it bog you that they have 4/2 instead of 3/3? The way I see it most characters have one or two strong stats and they lead contests of team in those instances. And rest is kind of meeeh. Than speaking of 36 builds is kinda overrated. The way I see it at this moment we have 3 warrior builds in attributes: swift and agile, very strong, bulletproof. The rest is just hybrids of above. Wheter hybrid has ST 4 and STA 3 or other way around does not make it completly different build.

But if dead results are such a problem than...I guess:

The most reasonable solution to all of this would be to slightly bump up DR and AV ratings. Currently AV ranges from 2 to 6 but could easily be bumped to 3 to 7. Similarly, weapon damage ranges from 0 to 3 could be bumped to 1 to 4.

is an excellent solution. If it does not breach some other system balance like magic and stuff. On the second thought, why stick to 1-4 if we can do 0-4 instead? 0 for bare hands for exmaple? I don't think Stamina is a problem when we refer to hand to hand combat.

[dra]

I sincerely apology for the Freudian slip...

No worries. I like bras. Unless they have some sophisticated opening.

Not necessarily. Current situation:
Player 1 rolls 5 successes, player 2 rolls 3.

• Player 1 quickly calculates in his head 3 MoS + 3 Str + 1 DR = 7 and says aloud "7 total".
• Player 2 calculates in his head Sta 3 + AV 2 = 5 and says aloud "wound level 2 then".

Optional situation:
Player 1 rolls 5 successes, player 2 rolls 3.

• Player 1 asks aloud "what's your Sta Player 2? My Str is 3"
• Player 2 replies "my Sta is 3"
• Player 1 quickly calculates in his head 3 MoS + 0 Str/Sta-Bonus + 1 DR = 4 and says aloud "4 total".
• Player 2 deducts his AV 2 and says aloud "wound level 2 then".

That's what I meant with "an additional step that slows down flow of combat". Every unnecessary communication about game values takes away from the narrative. That's at least what we in our gaming group decided.

Ok, I see.

For my personal taste, BoB keeps the balance between realism and fiction in its current state just right. With the proposed adjustment, you slightly increase the necessity to run around in armor and make suprise fights in backalleys more deadly. Anyways, I think this can easily be applied as a lever by anyone interested. Good idea.

As far as I understood it also affects low tier armors as well, doesn't it? So unless you don't have even simplest leather garment or "winter clothes/thick robes etc" you would not spot the difference.

If we take a step back from the unduly pictures of blades bending at the contact with steeled muscles on the one side and blades fully immersing in the flesh of brutes without effect on the other, we all agree that we apply double standards when describing the circumstances and outcomes of a hit, like in my above two examples, right?
You have experience as a GM as it seems, so you can describe different outcomes than bent daggers, I believe. Even if you say that the dagger got stuck within two ribs and failed to immerse any deeper than a finger's width, I think that's enough narration for the attack and can easily be ignored with superhuman Sta of 6...

OF course I can. It's exactly what I did with naked dwarf syndrome in WFRP. It's working around a problem though, not tackling it which should be aproach at the design stage of game. Just because I worked around it did not make it any better mechanics.

Why would Sansa's player be disappointed when the character he made failed at something he never inted her to succeed with? Would it "annoy hell out of you" when your brute with Soc 2 and no Manipulation failed to sweet-talk a noble lady?

Because as a player I set up a trap, executed it, used common sense to try to make out my strategy to kill this dude and ... I failed. Not through my planning but through poor mechanics. As a player I do not have to know rules. GM told me that it is realistic combat system. I read in beta pdf that wounds are deadly. And than whole world physics shatter.

Imagine one of your players is a sneaky assassin type of dude. And we are not talking here about any particular system, just general fantasy. He sneaks into castle, avoids guards to get into chamber of his target. Target is sleeping. Good. He takes a knife and...

Would you ask him to roll along with game system mechanics? Or just inform him that he sliths target's throat and that's it. If you do ask him to roll, how idiotic is a situation where he fails to do significant damage due to target's natural toughness and knife's poor damage. You spoke about meta game discussions breaking immersion. How about burst of outright laughter from all players except our assassin?

To sum it up: Everyone draws the line of narration somewhere. Based on the general tone of the campaign, the taste of the players at the table and some other constituting elements. If authentic fiction weighs more than heroic fiction at your table, I think you can easily skip the choice to create characters with attributes of six altogether, because this is described as "Superhuman!" anyways. And in an instant, you have only +/- 2 in fighting context (attributes of 3 of trained fighters against max. 5 with super-athletes).
Your argument that a professionally published RPG rulebook shouldn't be released with built-in naked dwarf syndrome is understandable, but at least the community on this forum has now explained, why they think that the proposed alternatives are either as bad or worse than the problem itself. The final say for the printed version is with the designers anyways, and the final say in actual play is with the players as always:

Ultimately, this is your game, not ours. What you choose to do with it is more important than any suggestions we might make and we’ve designed it that way from the ground up. The division of the rules above supports a modular approach, and many systems can be tweaked or replaced entirely without damaging others in the game.

Sure.
And as GM you have responsibility of making your players have fun. As a game designer you have responisbility to make rules as good as possible.

[Korbel]

and to make Positioning rolls calculated as Speed + CP dice.

This way you create a situation where:
Combat Pools = AGILITY + CUNNING
Positioning Rolls = SPEED + dice from CP
Preempting = SPEED + dice from CP

For me it's a natural move to get rid of AGILITY from these equations so it's:
Combat Pools = SPEED + CUNNING
Positioning Rolls = dice from CP
Preempting = dice from CP

Less bookkeeping, especially for the GM. But man, we're drifting further and further away from the topic

[Benedict]

First of all, I apologize to everyone for my outburst. Again.

A big thumbs up to thirty33 for the time required to provide those stats.

If one wants to prove the point that SM is better than armor and that the game suffers from the iron skin dwarf syndrome he should be comparing results between bare skin and armor of similar or equal AVs and CPs against the same attack in the first place.

For example:

Onan the Barbarian, unarmed, unarmored. SM6. CP14. AV6 (naked)

vs

Nary the Mercenary, unarmed, full maille armor and steel arming cap. SM3. CP14. AV6 Metal (7 Metal Rigid head)

For every example below the attacker dedicates full CP to attack and defender full CP to defense: Parry.

Armed with baselard. ST2. CP8. DR2. He attacks from Ambush. Attack is thrust to abdomen (the proverbial knife in the gut). Has Reach Control (+4cp). TN is 6.

vs Onan (7CP)
82% MoS1 no wound
67% MoS2 no wound
50% MoS3 no wound
32% MoS4 no wound
17% MoS5 Lv1 Pierce
08% MoS6 Lv2 Pierce, TN7

vs Nary (7CP)
82% MoS1 no wound
67% MoS2 no wound
50% MoS3 no wound
32% MoS4 no wound
17% MoS5 Lv1 Blunt
08% MoS6 Lv2 Blunt

Almost equal. I say almost because bare skin can suffer TN shift.

Armed with saber. ST3. CP14. DR4. He attacks in duel. Attack is draw cut to ribs (+2 damage vs flesh). Has Reach Control (+2CP). TN is 6.

vs Onan (14CP)
50% MoS1 Lv1 Cut
35% MoS2 Lv2 Cut, TN7
22% MoS3 Lv3 Cut, TN8, KD2
13% MoS4 Lv4 Cut, TN9, BL2, KD3
06% MoS5 Lv5 Cut, TN10, Death is imminent

vs Nary (14CP)
50% MoS1 no wound
35% MoS2 no wound
22% MoS3 Lv1 Blunt
13% MoS4 Lv2 Blunt
06% MoS5 Lv3 Blunt, TN7

Armor outclasses SM. Two "no injury" results and max Lv3 vs every Wound Lv on the table is big.

Armed with zweihander. ST4. CP18. DR7. Attacks in duel. Attack is swing to crown. Has Reach Control (+2CP). TN is 6.

vs Onan (14CP)
80% MoS1 Lv2 Cut, TN7, BL1
69% MoS2 Lv3 Cut, TN8, BL1, KO3
56% MoS3 Lv4 Cut, TN9, BL2, KO3
43% MoS4 Lv5 Cut, TN10, Instant death
30% MoS5 Lv5 Cut, TN10, Instant death

vs Nary (14CP)
80% MoS1 no wound
69% MoS2 Lv1 Blunt
56% MoS3 Lv2 Blunt
43% MoS4 Lv3 Blunt, TN7, KO3
30% MoS5 Lv3 Blunt, TN7, KO3

As above, and then some more. BL from MoS1 for bare skin and two instant deaths vs one no wound result and Lv3 cap at MoS4!

I really fail to see where that iron skinned brute is hidden within the rules.

My calculations came from here. A big thanks to glidias for the calculator.
http://glidias.github.io/Asharena/demos ... ility.html

Imho ST and SM are ok as they are. After all they cancel each other out at a 1:1 ratio.

I have nothing more to say on the subject, the conclusions are yours.

[dra]

Onan, no armor, natural AV6 (no properties), armed with mace +1b

Nary the Mercenary, full maille armor and steel arming cap. SM3. CP14. AV6 Metal (7 Metal Rigid head) armed with mace +1b

Onan attacks Nary right in the balls. Dunno why would he have range control so no range control

MoS 1 no wound
MoS 2 no wound
MoS 3 1 lvl blunt imp 4
MoS 4 2nd lvl blunt imp 6 ko2
MoS 5 3rd level blunt imp 8 ko3

other way around

MoS 1 no wound
MoS 2 no wound
MoS 3 1 lvl blunt imp 4
MoS 4 2nd lvl blunt imp 6 ko2
MoS 5 3rd level blunt imp 8 ko3

same thing? not exactly
Full maille armor = -1,75 CP

Conclusions?

1. Onan can claim he has balls of steel
2. Armor properties aside (that's why we use mace), yes chainmail is worse than Sta6 for Sta3 character.
3. It is better than in WFRP, better than in vanilla tros, worse than blade (as mentioned)
4. STA6 does not exclude using armors (as mentioned)
5. Getting stabbed in the belly with a knife @MoS 5 still should suck.
6. I can see that Boiled Leather Armor being weaker than skin is not an issue anymore for anyone?

What happens with optional rule 33?

Onan gets his nuts crushed
MoS1 no wound
MoS2 lv1 blunt imp 4
MoS3 lv2 blunt imp 6 ko2
MoS4 lv3 blunt imp 8 ko3
MoS5 lv4 blunt imp 10 ko3

[Korbel]

Armed with baselard. ST2. CP8. DR2. He attacks from Ambush. Attack is thrust to abdomen (the proverbial knife in the gut). Has Reach Control (+4cp). TN is 6.

The attacker might be armed with a rondel dagger as well. Rondels ignore the Metal property. So the results will be identical in both cases.

Armed with saber. ST3. CP14. DR4. He attacks in duel. Attack is draw cut to ribs (+2 damage vs flesh). Has Reach Control (+2CP). TN is 6.

Well, attacking the mail with the Draw Cut is a sub-optimal tactic...

Armed with zweihander. ST4. CP18. DR7. Attacks in duel. Attack is swing to crown. Has Reach Control (+2CP). TN is 6.

Technically there is no such a thing as a swing to crown. The blow might land on the face - is it protected with a visor? If not, the high Stamina character is in better position.


The armor will generally protect better, mainly because of Special Properties (though they can be beaten with the right weapon). But it also limits your mobility, draws attention, and so on. From the other hand, STAMINA 6 is really expensive at character creation. But it helps fight infections, chase someone over long distance, resist choking... and you'll never lose this "protection", while your armor might be or might not be present.

PS. Ooops, DRA has already touched the topic of particular weapons beating armor properties.