Quote:
Originally Posted by Triff
With variable armor, I like that people in plate armor won't be totally invulnerable to a stab from a dagger. I don't like the extra dice roll, but thinks it might be worth it. How does it work with gameplay though? Is it mainly negative or positive for the players? Mor PC-death or the same? Does it bug down combat when you have to roll it for all the NPCs too?
SGL.
|
It results in more PC death. Do the math- succesfull hits on skill or less, weapon damage stays the same but PC armor does not protect as well. If your fixed point armor is supposed to stop 6 points of damage and it now will only stop that on a 6 on a d6 you are getting pimped 83% of the time.
If you are using specials then you are also making "mini-criticals" out of this. 5% of all succesful hits are crits that bypass armor. If your variable point armor is on the order of 1d6-1 then 16% of all succesfull shots have become crits (but not specials) plus those that would have been crits anyway.
Look at specials-20% of all succesfull hits are such. Now 16% (1 of 6) are also ignoring armor like a critical in addition to the 5% that are crits.
Effectively you are adding (with d6-1 armor) a crit 16% of the time and a crit plus some armor half the time and only getting your full armor value 16% of the time. How can this not kill PCs faster?
Edit: for Badcats example of letting players roll for armor protection even against criticals- You have replaced a 1 to 5 percent chance, depending on the skill of the attacker, of bypassing armor with a flat 16% chance of not having any armor protection for every blow recieved. That is three times as effective as someone with 100% skill getting a crit. The goblins better like it!
Joseph Paul