Agility in Combat

[Leech]

I'm almost positive this has came up before, but for the life of me I can't find a thread talking about it. On OOC it's been brought up multiple times by new players and old players alike that the current combat system gives little to zero leeway on how characters choose to fight - whether in iron, or leathers. Whether dexterously, or with brute force.

The general consensus that I have gotten is that a lot of the proposed changes over those discussions would unbalance things, or need another lengthy combat rewrite. A lot of people think that it's not a problem at all, arguing that realistically plate didn't weigh people down -that- much.

A cursory search on my part, using Google revealed that medieval armors in the 1400s weighed anywhere from 60 to 110 pounds. In my opinion, that's a huge disadvantage. Not only that, but within the confines of a game, where sometimes realism has to be put aside for entertainment, having different styles to cater to different characters can only solidify their personalities, making RP with them that much clearer.

I think we all love Game of Thrones. In Game of Thrones it's the difference between the Viper's fighting style, and the Mountain's. Or Bron's, versus Jayme's. No one type is better than the other, but each type has its own merits.

Right now, the only choices with merit involve cranking str, con AND dex, getting the best iron armor, and then deciding to use either duel weapons or a shield

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So, the point of all this is to encourage small changes to the combat system to slowly facilitate more variety among our characters. Comments and opinions are as always welcome - this will hopefully turn into a few suggestions, rather than one.

I talked with Az, and the first suggestion I would make would be to have armor types affect how much MV is drained when you make an attack (according to Az it's a flat rate right now, independent of armor type). Unarmored would be the least drained when attacking, with leather and iron following respectively. Talking with Az, it's a relatively small change code-wise that could do wonders for the balance in the game. It doesn't decrease the protection offered by iron armor, and makes the str and con stats that much more important for people who wear it.

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Personally, I would put these changes above the places code, but below the mail changes, and the fixes to sneak - but that's just my opinion, as a player. It seems like it would be a good idea to improve on systems already in place, rather than create new ones.

More suggestions to come, as I think of them! Thanks for reading.

[Dice]

I like this a lot. I DO feel like we could use some sort of downside to armor, as it's so very powerful right now. I'm sympathetic to the argument that armor costs a TON, but I think it's a little problematic to be able to buy a lasting and powerful advantage.

[Jules]

If you ask me, the MV cost of armor is a major deterrent as it is. Even when I could afford all-plate and had max combat stats on Argider, I didn't wear it. The MV penalty made it too much of a hindrance, in my opinion.

I do like the idea of different combat styles, but I disagree that medieval armor was as heavy as Leech says. Those weights are mostly for jousting armor and decorative armor. I did the research when I rejiggered blacksmithing.

I think some of us have been clamoring for some nuance in the system for a while now, though. Happy to see some changes, even small ones, that would allow for some variation in styles.

[Onyxsoulle]

I'm in agreement with Jules on this one. The main reason I never wore armor on Arynon was because it drained MV greatly. This is a huge benefit to mages, and in my opinion always seem unbalanced.

How does it benefit mages for you to wear armor?

1) Armor doesn't block magic attacks, they go right through(unless this has been changed recently). The only thing that minorly blocked magic attacks was Piety, but I think that's still being reworked, I could be wrong.

2) Armor would drain me of MV on Arynon in about 10-15 rooms. For those keeping track, that's about 1 full use of 'travel'.

So I walk up on Henry von Castsalotofpain in my plate, I'm drained, can't do decent damage, can't block the incoming attack, and may be a walking crit zone due to my lack of mv(i'm not 100% about the last one).

So Arynon hardly wore armor because he simply became a walking target, it was easier to defend and attack by going around in clothes and using my skills instead of the armor.

Now if it was 2 people in armor going at it, that would be a different story.

So, I've mentioned this once or twice over the past year, but I have an idea for a 'fix' for this.

Armor skill.

You purchase it to 36 just like any other skill in chargen, to train you have to be in combat probably. But the big benefit would be that depending on your rank, you would lose less MV the higher your skill is. I would guess that it would never go past 75% of the drain(maybe 1% per rank achieved?).

For the realism part of this, like Leech said, plate is HEAVY, so is chainmail. When on Arynon, I'd flip in and out of combat (bardic history ftw!), but I'd never do it in anything more than leather. I did hear that once there was someone that rp'd flipping in full plate, but that's just plain ridiculous. However, as heavy as it is, you do build muscle wearing it, it doesn't get any lighter, but you become stronger, get used to the weight. So while you won't be flipping around from tree branch to tree branch, running from one side of Lithmore to the other and not being totally drained doesn't seem that farfetched.

[Dice]

If you can afford armor, however, you can afford a horse - and an awful lot of people walk around in full plate all the time courtesy of horses. (Rations, too.)

I really don't think armor needs to be BETTER than it is, which is what adding an armor skill to reduce the MV drain would do.

[Leech]

Light armor wearers get drains to their MV when traveling as well, I thought.

I'm not looking for more deterrents for heavy armor so much as ways to balance it vs people with lighter armor, giving people reason to actually wear lighter armor. As for mages, their attacks ignore all armor. I don't see how that factors in to the main subject, which is unarmored vs light vs heavy, and there being no reason in COMBAT (not in travel) to use anything but steel armor in game.

Personally, I think the MV deduction for traveling in armor is a bit bonkers and should be lowered as it severely hampers RP, but that's just me. I'd rather see precise and fair nerfs and buffs in combat to promote the pros and cons of light AND heavy armors. That's a lot of ands. >.>

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Little late on my end, but I'll research some more when I get the chance. In the meantime Jules, do you have any of the sources you went to to share? While realism can always be fudged, it can give an awful lot of inspiration and insight.

[Kinaed]

The system does not pit styles off one another, it pits weapon and defense choices off one another, so choose your style to reflect the weapon and defense skills you've chosen, and you will be a better combatant than the guy with poorer skills and strategy against your selections. This was the TI combat paradigm choice, and we chose it precisely because it let the player determine what about their character's combat style THEY wished to emphasize, but still kept the system open and balanced against any other choices other players would make. We COULD stop focusing on weapon skills, and switch the skills to styles that played off each other, but I think that's even more restrictive to people's imaginations than the ability to be a sword master (duelist, samuari, swashbuckler, gladiator, etc, ad nauseum - all different kinds of sword masters).

In our system, the emphasis is all on the weapon and defense combinations chosen to be skilled at. You have just as valid of a scrapy ninja-esque character at 60 dex as you do at 100 dex, similarly either character could be a gladiator and would fare better for higher stats. Dex is taken into account as a part of the related combat calculations, so higher stats are better, regardless of style. Also, some skills require a minimum stat level to be taken. So, basically, I find the original post is just looking at combat in a paradigm that is completely counter to the one we chose.

On a side note: armor was very heavy for clothing, but it wasn't very cumbersome. I watched a documentary that if something is close enough to your center of gravity, like clothing tends to be, your brain maps it into your own movement - knights probably ended up with great cardio over it at the end of the day, but wouldn't FEEL encumbered swinging a weapon or walking around. Also, to avoid that tiredness, just like on TI, people running around with full heavy armor would generally ride a horse.

[Leech]

(1) This was the TI combat paradigm choice, and we chose it precisely because it let the player determine what about their character's combat style THEY wished to emphasize, but still kept the system open and balanced against any other choices other players would make.

(2) So higher stats are better, regardless of style.

(3) I find the original post is just looking at combat in a paradigm that is completely counter to the one we chose.

First, let me clarify that when I say styles, I do mean the skills, defenses and armor a player chooses. That is their character's combat style - decisions like light or heavy armor, dagger or axe, etc. Mainly, my focus is on light vs heavy armor, as that's been brought up the most (from my experience) and also might be the easiest to fix (if it's decided it truly is a problem).

In short, I believe it's a failing and misunderstanding of semantics - I would say TI pits styles against each other, and styles is a meshing of offenses and defenses - than transitive law applies. Otherwise, I'm not sure how my post is counter to the way combat works on TI and might need some further explaining, if able, so I can edit my suggestions to be more acceptable.

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(1) The point of this post was to suggest ideas to improve the balance between different offensive and defensive choices players make, where players thought balancing was an issue, if at all. I chose defensive, because from what I've seen over OOC channel it's the one most commonly brought up (and maybe the most easily addressable). The discrepancies between leather armor and the heavier armors have been a source of discussion on more than one occasion. In combat, there is no reason to wear leather compared to iron or steel - from what I've seen in game. Obviously I don't have the facilities to test this in a sterile environment - but as a quick question/experiment...

Player A wears full leather armor, has footwork, dodge, and parry maxed out (75), and single-wields a sword (also 75). They have 80 dex, 70 con, and 60 str.

Player B wears full steel armor, has footwork, block, and dodge maxed (75), and uses a mace and shield combo. They have 80 str, 70 con, and 60 dex.

Which will win and why, assuming each spends the round using the best defensive option (player A being footwork to dodge the big mace and player B being block to hit aside the sword, I think)? Note that each player will tire from attacks at the same rate, currently, despite their difference in equipment. The biggest factor is who can deal the most damage initially, so that that damage can affect the quality of their enemy's attacks.

My guess is the amount of damage that player B's armor will soak up will easily net him the win, even though player A took the lighter option (in both stats, skills, and armor) to preserve his defensive capability, most likely with the hope of wearing player B out to the point where his MV would become an issue.

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(2) Higher stats are better, and that should remain - but by style, I mean only the choices of WHICH stats you choose to get higher - as exemplified above. Combat prowess should be a factor proportional to both stats in equal measure, to insure that both strong and quick characters have a place in the field.

Personally, I think that stats are balanced right now - but that is from my limited experience dealing with them. I have more first hand accounts with the advantages of armors than of choosing dex over str, so it's that that I choose to make suggestions on.