Damage is too high in this game.

[ArmoredSaint]

Having recently moved into a new house, I rediscovered my pristine, untouched Dungeon Fantasy box while unpacking. I began flipping through the booklets and was enjoying myself until I came to the "Delvers to Go" booklet.

Wow.

The cat person does 16 cutting damage with a rapier. A few pages on, another character does 19 damage with a sword. And so on. Sure, their average damages might be lower, but "2d+7 cut" is still going to be eye-wateringly high.

But none of the characters wear armour with DR greater than the single digits! That's right, your armour is not going to save you from these Mighty Characters.

The armour section of the rules booklet only has armour that goes up to DR 9; even with layering, the best armour in the game will still not keep out the edge of that catperson's rapier, much less save the wearer from that knight's sword, or the barbarian's axe.

What does this game have against the idea that armour might actually work?

I'm so dismayed that I spent money on this product. I used to like GURPS for its greater realism, and am saddened to see that it has evolved in this direction.

[tbone]

The observations about how much armor protects, vs the damage that some Delvers to Go characters can dish out, are spot on. Miao Miao and Yvor and maybe some others would indeed hack through each other's armor with crazy unrealistic ease.

I think they're supposed to be chopping up monsters, though, not each other... : )

Originally Posted by ArmoredSaint

I'm so dismayed that I spent money on this product. I used to like GURPS for its greater realism, and am saddened to see that it has evolved in this direction.

That I don't quite get, as on this matter of weapons vs armor, the game isn't an evolution of GURPS. The mechanics and outcomes you describe are pure, RAW GURPS 4e. Anything wonky in DFRPG is wonky in GURPS too (unless you do have some new twist in mind that I'm not picking up on).

All I see DFRPG doing is purposely applying the parts of GURPS that result in characters dealing outlandish damage (among other cinematic feats). Like the use of Weapon Master in some of those Delvers: it's a decidedly unrealistic advantage, which I think is intended to give that cinematic fantasy feel of heroes' swords hacking through thick orc armor like it was taffeta. And hewing monsters clean in two, like heroes do in so much fantasy fiction.

Unrealistic, outlandish cinematic fantasy isn't for everyone, but tons of gamers still love it, and I think DFRPG does a good job of building it from GURPS. I'd be saddened if GURPS couldn't do that!

[Anthony]

A lot of monsters don't do crazy high damage, so armor still protects fine against them.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ArmoredSaint

The cat person does 16 cutting damage with a rapier. A few pages on, another character does 19 damage with a sword. And so on. Sure, their average damages might be lower, but "2d+7 cut" is still going to be eye-wateringly high.

For what it's worth, I played in a game with swing = thrust + 2 and it helped with a whole host of stuff. Might not be for everyone, but I dug it.

I've got my own set of observations about damage scaling and whatnot, and where I think things should be different, but the thrust of this game was epic slaughter and the feel as much Diablo III as anything else. I know plenty of folks who dig it, whose response to 2d+7 is "not fabulous enough." So it takes all types. My own tastes are somewhat closer to yours, I suspect.

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

For what it's worth, I played in a game with swing = thrust + 2 and it helped with a whole host of stuff. Might not be for everyone, but I dug it.

Does this work out, balance wise? By default, impaling attacks inflict about a third more injury than cutting ones, with the option to accept a fairly low penalty to target the vitals and deal twice as much injury as cutting, but this is balanced out by the fact that impaling attacks tend to be Thrust type, and many cutting attacks are Swing. If Swing attacks do only a few more points of base damage than thrust, rather than roughly twice as much at most relevant ST levels, they would seem to be rather significantly disadvantages. (Of course, in Dungeon Fantasy where a significant portion of foes faced are Unliving or Homogenous, then I suppose cutting attacks may still be able to maintain a niche.)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Does this work out, balance wise?

My experience was very positive.

Armor was more relevant

Martial artists didn’t suck so hard out of the gate (1)

The swing/thrust dynamic was actually a choice.

I’m not arguing right wrong balance errata.

I’m saying it brought the fun and didn’t leave folks behind in a have:have not combatant gap.


(1) there was a TBaM house rule in play as well granting Imbue 2 that helped a ton here too.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Does this work out, balance wise? By default, impaling attacks inflict about a third more injury than cutting ones, with the option to accept a fairly low penalty to target the vitals and deal twice as much injury as cutting, but this is balanced out by the fact that impaling attacks tend to be Thrust type, and many cutting attacks are Swing.

Doing 1/3 more wounding is only ever worthwhile if your base impaling damage is at least 2/3 of your base cutting damage, and because of DR, in practice you want 80% or so. Thrust is half of swing.

[Kalzazz]

Your characters who do high damage are pretty much there to hit things, they don't heal, spot traps, levitate people etc, they hit stuff

So they can hit things good, they will potentially depending on party composition pack a large part of the parties ability to fling damage into a small part of the party

There will be monsters which have lots of HP, monsters with lots of DR, monsters which come in numbers, monsters with good active defenses etc, so the ability to hit them is important to take them down in a timely manner (or at all)

A popular monster the peshkali shows up in two of the intro adventures, you need to hit it at least 6 times with 12 cut, weaker blows are useless, and it has good parry . . . So you really want the parties 'guys who hit' to hit hard


As for armor, these are starting characters, they can only afford garbage armor (And they spent a lot of points doing it), your primary defenses are your active defenses and your friends

[Kalzazz]

I like allowing skill /5 as a player choice potential alternate to normal dice based damage for Weapon Master or Unarmed

Say Fiona has skill 20, ST 17, and a Thr+2/Sw+1 longsword baseline she does 1d+6/3d+6, my rule she does 1d+8/3d+6

So your ST 11 swash type might instead of buying ST think 'I can go for Skill 30 and do +6!'

[Michael Thayne]

Armor in DFRPG is actually somewhat more effective than the armor in 4e's Basic Set, because DFRPG follows Low-Tech on this point. The borderline-ridiculous damage outputs of the specific characters being referenced are a product of Weapon Master, which is in 4e Basic Set.

That said, GURPS handling of how low-tech arms interact with low-tech armor is not ideal. Bret Devereaux has a good overview. If you want to rationalize the GURPS rules here, you could say that except in the specific case of piercing or impaling weapons vs. mail, damage that "penetrates" armor represents any failure to fully protect the wearer from the force of the blow, even if the armor is itself is somewhere between "totally undamaged" and "slightly dented". After all, an axe to the head could well cause a concussion even if your helmet remains intact.