Dodge Skill vs Parry Skill

[Gnarsh]

Yeah. It really does depend on the "flavor" of your game. How much armoring enchantment do you allow? Do you have stacking limits on spells? How strictly do you follow the encumberance rules?

30-40 points isn't really that high, even using "standard" spell rules. Let's assume you're playing in a game (like mine) where spells are capped at 4 points for rune and 8 points for spirit (ok. we use a scaling cap, but whatever). So a priest of humakt is facing you with a broadsword with truesword and bladesharp 8 going. That's hardly even out of the range that a random beginning level priest might have. Let's also say he's got sufficient points of the strength spell to get a 2d6 strength bonus (typically about a strength 4). Again. Nothing is out of the ordinary, nor even requires any houserules (aside from those limiting the possibilities).

Average damage on a regular hit becomes (5.5*2=11)+7+8=26. Against someone with say a 12 point shield (pretty typical) and 6 points of armor (ring+leather, arguably the best ap for the enc in RQ3), he's going to take 8 points of damage to a location every single swing (which will likely take that location down barring significant strengthening enchantment). A special gets "ugly" in this situation, since it bumps the damage up an additional 11 points (now an average of 37) if he chooses to impale, or 5 points if he chooses to just take max damage.

Max damage in that situation is 18+12+8=38 damage on a regular hit, and 36+12+8=56 on an impale. That's pretty brutal.

Ok. But let's pretend that you're also a priest, and you've got 4 points of shield and 8 points of protection. That's an additional 16 points of armor. Note, that this armor "works" whether you parry or not. So your worn armor has jumped to 22. Suddenly, the 12 points of parry from the shield isn't as significant as the worn armor you get. Avoiding a critical matters *more* (since it's worth 22 points) then the parry. Of course, you could pretty safely parry as well, since in this case, your parry gives you 34 points of protection and the other guy has to get a lucky hit (an impale or better) to have much chance of doing any damage to you.

That's an edge case honestly. The two skills are almost a wash. But if we transform that opponent into a Zorak Zoran priest using crush4, wielding a troll maul, and capable of getting a 3d6 damage bonus, suddenly are numbers might not look so great. Dodging starts to look pretty good when the opponents average damage hits 18+10+13.5+8=41.5 damage (yes, that's average for a 3d6 bonus, with a troll maul with truemace, crush4, and bludgeon8).

I'll also point out that the above mentioned troll would only need some spirit spells (which he can pick automatically once he's a priest and spends one power for spellteaching), and 5 points of rune magic (and since he needs 10 to qualify for priest, that shouldn't be a problem, right?). So basically, any random zorak zoran priest can do this without any special items or abilities.


IMO, it's quite common to face foes that can do that kind of damage. And of course, one of the disadvantages that PCs have is that while they're expected to fight and defeat many foes over the course of an adventure, each foe they fight is *only* fighting the PCs. Thus, he's likely to run out of shield before the foes he fights over the course of an adventure run out of stuff like truesword, crush, or slash.

Having a dodge is pretty darn nice in those situations. Yes. It's harder to get the skill up. It starts at a lower base and suffers penalties based on enc. But more experienced characters in my campaign almost always take some time to learn some dodge just so that they have the chance to use it if/when they need it.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by drohem

A damn fine reason to avoid that kind of confrontation, or have massive DR (although, it won't help with the knockback).

We recently had a battle between a Humakti and Yanfil Tarnils rune lords with all their magic up. One interesting artifact of the combat is that when either one hit, the other would go flying through the air for some distance. Each had enough Shield and Protection that they suffered no damage from hit walls, bystanders, etc.

Oh, and I should also point out that we didn't use standard damage bonus. Frankly, we felt it was too crazy. We had our own modified damage bonus chart that was significantly less in potential damage.

I'd be curious to see it. I always wanted to see a more graduated scale, but I actually like that creatures such as dragons, giants, and even trolls get large damage bonuses. That fits what such creatures should do IMO.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

30-40 points isn't really that high, even using "standard" spell rules.

I haven't tradtionally used any kind of stacking limits. We have a Humakti floating around in our game with a Bladesharp 12, enough Strength (2 or 3) to get a 2d6 bonus, and Truesword. Toss all that up on a 2-handed sword and get 4d8+2d6+12 damage, not to mention +60% to skill (to a character with 200%+ before even adding Humakti gifts in). That's an average of 37 points of damage and a maximum of 56. This character regularly goes through shields, full plate, etc. with ease, and unlike a large creature the other side doesn't necessarily realize in advance to dodge rather than parry.

I should note that I use houserules (options from RQII) so that slashing weapons do full damage on a special (though armor works unless a critical is rolled), so the above 56 is a fairly common result for such a skilled character.

If that's not gross enough, it's an iron sword so trolls and elves take double damage from anything getting through, and due to various Humakti gifts several other species suffer a similar fate.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by RMS

I'd be curious to see it.

DAMAGE BONUS CHART
STR + SIZ Damage Bonus
01-04 -1d4
05-08 -1d3
09-12 -1d2
13-16 -1
17-20 +0
21-24 +1
25-28 +1d2
29-32 +1d3
33-36 +1d4
37-40 +1d5
41-44 +1d6
45-48 +1d7
49-52 +1d8
53-56 +1d9
57-60 +1d10
etc… etc…

If you had a +1d9 db, then you'd roll a d10 and reroll any '10' result until you got in the 1-9 range.

Looking at the chart now, I probably would revise it slightly so you would roll one die plus modifier or two dice plus modifier. Basically, it follows the RQ2 -point progression.

[Atgxtg]

I was toying with something similar, but in increments of 2. So +1D2/+1D4/+1D6/+1D8/+1D10/+1D10+1D2 (or 2D6), etc).

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I was toying with something similar, but in increments of 2. So +1D2/+1D4/+1D6/+1D8/+1D10/+1D10+1D2 (or 2D6), etc).

Why not 1D12? Why do people hate that dice so much?

SGL.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

Why not 1D12? Why do people hate that dice so much?

SGL.

Probably because it rolls off the table before you get a result

[The Venomous Pao]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

Why not 1D12? Why do people hate that dice so much?

To quote Rich Burlew, Your d12 Cries Itself To Sleep.

I've never understood the hate, either. I love d12s. They're just so... Platonic.

[drohem]

hehehe...that's a cool shirt!

[threedeesix]

Originally Posted by drohem

DAMAGE BONUS CHART
STR + SIZ Damage Bonus
01-04 -1d4
05-08 -1d3
09-12 -1d2
13-16 -1
17-20 +0
21-24 +1
25-28 +1d2
29-32 +1d3
33-36 +1d4
37-40 +1d5
41-44 +1d6
45-48 +1d7
49-52 +1d8
53-56 +1d9
57-60 +1d10
etc… etc…

I like the chart and could see myself using it in my campaigns. The only problem I would have with it, would be in Super Hero games as now you would need muck greater STR+SIZ to damage tanks and stuff.

Nice balanced spread though and good for 90% of the campaigns I run.

Rod