Partial armor
I'm re-posting this question and my answer from the main forum, where I don't think it belongs:
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It would work in TFT, but would throw off the balance of designs, and the question which would affect balance would be about how much of a DX & MA penalty someone has for various combinations of armor on different body parts. It also would create a level of detail with consequences that I tend to think many TFT players might balk at, given how quickly they tend to balk at anything that increases complexity. i.e. Depending on the answer to the DX & MA penalty question, there might seem to be several cases where fighters have advantages over others IF they pick some peculiar armor mixes, and/or IF they go for aimed shots, which may annoy players who either find some fault with those results, or who simply prefer to be able to make a fully armored character and not think about aiming at body parts, and who don't want to feel at a disadvantage if they don't. Another issue might be not really liking what the Aimed Shots and/or Crippling Blows rules do to TFT combat dynamics. (Not that I necessarily feel that way - but having used those rules a lot, I can see some reasons why some people might not prefer to use them. |
Re: Partial armor
Yup. We did this. Body armour doesn't protect limbs and comes with one less DX minus. Pretty simple.
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Re: Partial armor
First off, thanks Skarg for the forum move.
I have Zero experience with Gurps. MikMod, I guess it's That simple eh' lol To make it clear, I was just talking about a simple option, breastplate or full suit of appropriate armor. No mixing it up, no different pieces here and there, nothing complicated, we're not trying to re-engineer the game. It's a real walk down a slippery slope for the player who chooses this route anyways. It's all hunkie dorie that you are sporting your shiney new chainmail shirt, and still having 3 hits of protection from default general attacks, but... The first goblin that puts an arrow in your neck on a called shot, you are gonna be crying all the way to the physicker , where if you were "fully" armored, you could argue your chain coif n cap offered a reduction. I looked, and this rule basically follows the DX penalty scale for Barding, so it's easily referenced. I think you would have to make reasonable concessions for MA, but really maybe not, it's still gonna add flavor. I'd be thinking about saving throws like swimming related incidents etc.. more than MA. |
Re: Partial armor
MikMod, what did you have the MA effects be?
Unless you ignore encumbrance anyway, you'll also want to know the weight. All of which you can do, at whatever level of detail and customization you want, but there are going to be effects, and those effects can be gamed. Aimed shots in TFT are pretty difficult to make, especially for ordinary fighters without quite high DX. But then for the people with enough DX to pull it off frequently, it's not so hard, and if they can do enough damage, the effects are pretty severe. I'm not saying that's unwanted, but it is what it is, is different from not using those rules, and some people may be surprised or chafe if they're used to not doing that. For balance purposes, I would tend to use the optional rule for random chance of hits to specific locations, if people are using this rule, (minus (or modified) the part about being automatically knocked unconscious, unless people want that). That gives more of a down-side to partial armor that doesn't require your foes to sacrifice a chunk of DX to take advantage of it. I'd point out too that any options that end up costing no DX and no MA penalty start to look like freebies everyone or most people should take, especially if ignoring encumbrance from weight. |
Re: Partial armor
What about a simple rule like this:
Any hit made against a figure wearing partial armour, in which all three dice show the same number, ignores armour completely. Example. If your Orc opponent has DX 9, the armour will be bypassed on 1.1.1 (3 and auto hit and triple damage), 2.2.2 (6 total) and 3.3.3 (9 total). If the Orc had 12 DX 4.4.4 would also bypass armour. |
Re: Partial armor
Mechanics where you look at certain die-roll values like "triples" introduce a side-effect where certain adjDX values have more or less chance to get that effect.
Some may not mind that, but I'd rather just use the existing optional rule for random hit location in TFT, since it doesn't have that issue and would have some logical cause/effect (i.e. the specific locations with armor would be protected and the others not, and the chances of hitting each one are already considered, and have rules for damage effects). Although, the part about your suggestion where the armored parts are more likely to be hit, regardless of where they are, could represent that a fighter would try to put their armored parts in harm's way... though it doesn't take into account skill level, positions, situation, etc. I'm thinking of gladiator armor where someone has a heavily armored arm and puts that toward a foe, for example... but then attacks from other directions probably would not hit that arm. |
Re: Partial armor
I like that Skarg brought up the armored gladiator arm, I always envisioned a scenario like that of just valuing the arm as a small shield. Not affecting game play greatly but adding flavor.
In reference to all the other comments above, they are all playable, but I'd like to get back to simplicity, it's either armored and subject to an easier strike, or it's not, and going to be more guarded, and although vulnerable to trauma, a more difficult target to hit. I think in average gaming, it won't be an imbalancer, especially in the early days of a 30-34 pt. character's adventuring life. I mean other than the sniper, how many 32 pt. bad guys are taking aimed shots ? Probably not any more than beginning adventurers' and those who do feel lucky and give it a heroic attempt, usually can't wield large damaging weapons as well so damage tends to be less. I like to see armor in a game, I just don't like the party looking like a detail of Knights on their way to slay a dragon, when partial armored styles are very popular, and fun to play. Mix it up, lets see some studded leather, some scalemail, a bronze breast plate. Some will argue that a half platemail armored character that only receives a -3 to DX instead of a -4 is gaming the system, I don't think we will see much impact on who lives or dies in a campaign. |
Re: Partial armor
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Partial armour is really helpful for beginning characters because they're not really facing people who can take advantage of the poorer protection. Sure, you might take a javelin in the leg or arm sometimes and that's really bad, but then you would at least have had the chance to hit someone first. Yes, crippling hits get worse, but again beginning characters don't tend to be wearing heavy armour if they want to be able to hit, so the 'loss' isn't as big a deal. When characters are up against more deadly foes, then it gives them a choice of a delay to avoid armour, or not. So older characters tend to go full something-or-other. Plus partial armour gives the high-DX weedy snipers in the party a little more fun when it is on the bad guys :) Quote:
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It added some flavour and helped early PCs (with added risk) but it was hardly a game-changer. |
Re: Partial armor
yeah, I'm totally good with Leaving MA the same.
you wanna run fast, stay away from armor, armor is heavy, armor restricts movement. and doubly so for swimming, you wanna try and swim in your chain shirt...good luck. |
Re: Partial armor
I have a system for partial and mixed armor in my house rules, based on the conceit that not only does armor on a location protect against called shots to that location, but also provides lesser protection against generic attacks, due to
(a) sometimes the generic attack will hit the protected location (b) if the attacker tries to avoid the protected location, his attacks will be clumsier and do less damage. and (c) I really do not want the complication of rolling random hit locations. The core is short enough to post here: The formula for the overall protection provided by partial or mixed armor is the sum of the armor protection on each arm, each leg, the head, and three times the torso armor, divided by eight and rounded to the nearest whole number. E.g. a character wearing a breast- and backplate plus light leather everywhere else would have overall armor of (1+1+1+1+1+3×6)/8 = (23/8) = 3 points after rounding, with called shots against the torso having 6 points and called shots everywhere else having 1 point of armor protection. |
Re: Partial armor
A truly over-simplistic suggestion, intended only for those who want partial armor to add color to descriptions and narrations:
A partial suit is identical in all respects to a full suit of the next lowest armor type: Treat partial leather as = cloth, & partial chain as = leather. The snag being there is already a partial plate armor (Half-Plate) with it's own stats, so you wouldn't wanna say "partial Half-Plate". Fixable by adding one more type to the list -- call it Scale -- that stops 4/a. Then drop half-plate altogether, and let partial plate = scale. Again, not a solution for anyone who wants hit location effects, just for someone to be able to say "this character is in partial chain male" or the like. |
Re: Partial armor
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I also like the idea of a 1 MA penalty for every point of armour, and a +1 MA for moving first, to get rid of magic numbers. Quote:
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Re: Partial armor
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Thinking about my post afterwards I decided I like it so much I amended my personal rules to include it, with a tiny modification: I now assume the helmet in a partial suit is as good as the helmet in the full suit, seeing that's what PCs would probably buy. So my partial chainmail (for example) that only stops 2 hits would, for a blow to the head, still stop 3. (Head blows are the only specific hit attempt I allow anyway, so no need for exceptions for any other parts of the armour.) I already use only -1 MA for each level of armour for greater mobility. I have no problem with rounding up when calculating 1/2 MA where MA is an odd number. |
Re: Partial armor
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And I don't see it's needed. A man who has decided to go in with less armour on his arms for speed and fatigue reasons may well also decide to have less armour on his head, for vision and breathing reasons. There should be a modifier to perception tasks for armour, either -1 per level or -2 per level, not sure which. Quote:
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Re: Partial armor
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The other rare contingency could be a PC who eagerly wants to buy plate for example, but has only half the money -- I might want to be magnanimous and let them buy partial plate (including the helmet) for half price, and let them upgrade to the full suit later when they have the rest of the money (if they get back alive). I might. I might not <evil grin>. |
Re: Partial armor
Another option would be to modify the "Using Up your armor and shield" optional rule ITL108. Example: someone wearing a partial set of Full Plate might be treated as having suffered 10 or 20 hits to the armor set and therefor lose 1 or 2 points of damage absorption. Lets you do the partial armor thing and avoids the called shot issue.
You could assign a point value to each piece, for Full Plate perhaps: Helmet 10 Main chest 10 Both arms 10 or 5 per arm. Each leg 10 So someone that owns a set of Full Plate but was caught sleeping might put on her helmet and grab a shield. Helmet worth 10 points of a 50 point(5 hit) total so absorbs 1 hit and the shield works normally. If you want to get really detailed, assign a point value to each small piece and total. Round accordingly. But all the math bits are done before the game session so it shouldn't slow things down much. |
Re: Partial armor
I'm not sure I see the gameplay advantage of a 'partial armor' model.
I would agree that more armor options with more variation is desirable (one such revised framework can be found in my Armor Up! thread), but beyond the obvious question "what kind of helm are you wearing?" I don't know why you would want to keep track of different protection values for different parts of the body. |
Re: Partial armor
We don't have partial armor because we're avoiding complexity in armor enchantment.
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Re: Partial armor
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Re: Partial armor
They'll get a benefit against attackers making called shots to the locations protected by those three total points of extra armor. And no, I don't care about players gaming the system to squeeze out that small advantage.
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