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Old January 22nd, 2008
Gnarsh Gnarsh is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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Certainly, and I even tossed in an example of an opposing priest using shield 4 and protection 8 to defend against the guy with the bladesharp and the truesword.


I think that my original point has kinda been lost in all of this. Assuming you use a "dodge subtracts success off attack" system (which most people do use, and I believe is the default "standard" in the BRP rules), then all of those things actually increase the utility of dodge, rather then the other way around.

IIRC, runemetal by default is 150% ap and 50% weight, right? This means that it's less restrictive on dodging then normal armor (assuming I'm remembering the weight thing correctly. I know we've always played it that way). So a successful dodge skill will always ensure that you get that armor on every single attack, no matter what. You can't be criticalled unless you fail your dodge skill. As the worn armor value increases, this makes dodge more valuable.

Add in armor enchanting of locations and/or armor and this gets even bigger. A shield is nice, but if we're assuming someone with lots of time/power on his hands, he's going to have significant worn armor points even before casting spells (which add even more). His parry becomes pretty small in comparison. When we add in runemetal armor into the equation, my point becomes stronger.

So, Joe the orlanthi runepriest can walk around in his rune iron platemail, giving him 12ap on every location. Add to that his shield 4 and his protection 8, and he's sitting at 28ap everywhere. Note, that this is before armor enchantment is even considered. In our campaign, we restrict this to double the normal AP of an item, or the HPs of a location (for armoring skin for example). Some campaigns don't place such restrictions, so it's hard to say what's "typical". If he's facing the guy with a truesword and a bladesharp 8, he could parry and probably do just fine. Average damage with say a broadsword would be sitting at 11+7+8=26. Easily stopped. Even before the parry. Max damage is 36+12+8=56. Not so easy. Even with a parry (but hopefully, not that common either).

Note, however, that if Joe makes his dodge (assuming the "level subtracts" system), he can reduce an impale to a normal hit, putting the damage level back into the "I can take this with my worn armor" range. An average impale would do 22+7+8=37 damage. Parried, that'll be stopped. Dodged, that will be stopped. An average critical will do the same damage, but the armor will be avoided (so you just get the parry). Even with a hoplite, he's still taking 19 points of damage to a location (which will probably sever it). Same critical if dodged will result in only 9 points of damage being taken. That will likely put a location under, but not sever it.


The point I'm trying to get here is that if you play where dodges subtract the level of success, the whole "critial kills a dodge" concept falls apart. What we find is that as worn armor increases in proportion to parry, dodge actually gets *better* against criticals.
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