Mechanics weirdnesses

[ignatius]

Hey,

I'm pretty new to TROS. I really like a lot of the ideas behind it, but there are a few issues I've found with the mechanics, and I was wondering if any of the rest of you have found the same issues, or if I'm just misreading the book, or what.

I really like the magic system. I like that they made magic really powerful. I was thrilled, up until I read the section on magic and damage, which threw me for several loops.

The first: Magic does generic damage, and generic damage never causes bloodloss. So magic can never kill anyone. That just seems bizarre to me. The spell in the book, for instance, that causes the target's bone to grow spikes that protrude through the skin, can't inflict any bloodloss.

That doesn't make sense to me. But moreover, the formula for magic damage completely baffled me. It's dependent just on CTN and not spell effect. Why should complexity of the spell have anything to do with how damaging it is? I can think of a number of examples that show why this formula is wholly counterintuitive:

First of all, movement 3 can move something, with instantaneous acceleration, at light speed. I feel that it's pretty self-evident that a simple spell of 1 of movement 3 could kill someone in a number of ways, but simple spells of one don't do much damage by the formula. If I'm GMing a game of TROS, I'm unsure how I would explain to my players, "you send the cannonball hurtling into him at light speed, but it only does 4 damage," or, "you send him into the ground at light speed, but it's just a flesch wound."

Bizarrely, though, the same spell, made into a spell of 3, with another effect added -- for instance, take a spell that searches someone out with Vision and then uses Movement 3 on them -- would do more damage, even though the "damage" portion of the spell is exactly unchanged.

Now imagine a third spell -- first, it uses Vision to hunt down the target; second, it uses Conquer to instill in that target a great desire to go towards the nearest cup of tea and drink it; third, it heats that tea to boiling; fourth, it uses Movement to cause the target to spill the tea all over itself. Because this third spell is so profoundly and asininely complex, it has a much higher CTN than the Drive-You-Into-The-Ground-At-Light-Speed spell, and thus it would be harder to cast, but it would do a great deal more damage.

I understand that the creators didn't want to leave GMs floundering by saying "Figure out what damage scale makes sense," but frankly, basing damage on spell complexity is crazy. Some spells -- ones that involve, say, moving at light speed, etc -- are going to do massive amounts of damage. When you try to take that away, you end up with a magic system that is capable of doing most anything in the world short of taking human life. Think of it this way: With a Spell of One, I can take a ton of steel -- literally, a ton -- and heft it at any target at the speed of light. Because of the colossal amount of heat this would create, this essentially means that I can demolish whole castles. There's a spell right in the book that lets me disintegrate anything I touch. I can make anything I want 100 times bigger or smaller all with a spell of one, but I still only do CTN + successes - TO damage.

Before you tell me; yes, I know, CTN + successes - TO is a decent amount. But "decent amount" != "moving into the ground at light speed." It != "the helmet you're wearing is now 1/10th of its normal size."

Anyway, this obviously doesn't ruin the game or anything -- it's just one rule, I could always play without it -- but I was wondering, am I missing something? Do you guys see the same problem? Are you going to play with the magic damage rule? Why or why not?

The other thing that irked me is this: I played around on the newer combat simulator. I found that in some of situations (when both players are armed for offense, not defense) the only winning strategy is to hit the other hard guy before he hits you. I expected that in these situations the person with the higher reflex score would always win, but found out that the opposite is the case; when both players have large enough combat pools, higher reflex is actually a burden, because the other player can usually steal the initiative from you, but you have no opportunity to steal it from him. Has anyone else run into this?

[nsruf]

The first: Magic does generic damage, and generic damage never causes bloodloss.

Not always. If you use movement to hurl a rock at someone or to shove them into a wall, you could do bludgeoning damage. But generic damage for energy effects is a little weird. While it is true that large scale burns are usually not instantly lethal, the chance of recovery is pretty slim. And the system doesn't take the latter into account.

If this bothers you, you could e.g.

a. Apply blood loss rules for healing, i.e. every time you score no successes on a healing roll vs. Pain, you lose oneHT.

b. Make generic damage an instant kill at level 5.

That doesn't make sense to me. But moreover, the formula for magic damage completely baffled me. It's dependent just on CTN and not spell effect. Why should complexity of the spell have anything to do with how damaging it is? I can think of a number of examples that show why this formula is wholly counterintuitive:

I wondered about that, too. My solution was to apply the damage formula to spells with Vagary level 2 only and allow level 3 spells to kill outright if successful.

when both players have large enough combat pools, higher reflex is actually a burden, because the other player can usually steal the initiative from you, but you have no opportunity to steal it from him. Has anyone else run into this?

The combat simulator may not allow this, but you can buy initiative back after having it stolen. So the fighter with the higher Reflex still has an advantage, unless he overextends and keeps no CP dice. This is one reason why it is not a good idea to throw everything into the first attack...

[ignatius]

I wondered about that, too. My solution was to apply the damage formula to spells with Vagary level 2 only and allow level 3 spells to kill outright if successful.

That's a good general solution, thanks. I think I'm going to go with that, with the addition that there can be exceptional level 2 and even 1 spells that kill outright if successful. If you shrink a guy's helmet while on his head by 50%, and he doesn't get it off, he's not surviving.

The combat simulator may not allow this, but you can buy initiative back after having it stolen. So the fighter with the higher Reflex still has an advantage, unless he overextends and keeps no CP dice. This is one reason why it is not a good idea to throw everything into the first attack...

Oh, hey! I did not know that. Thanks very much.

[Stephen]

I'm actually working on an alternate magic system that addresses this point...

The damage done by spells is based on the sorcerer's POWER Attribute (a new attribute for this system).  Level 1 spells do (1/2 POW) base damage, improved by Casting Successes and reduced by target Toughness; Level 2 spells do (POW) base damage, and Level 3 spells do (POW x2) base damage.  The average POW is from 6-8, so a Level 3 spell is probably going to kill anything human it hits (but may still be the only thing that can hurt something like a Wyrm or a Troll from OBAM).

You could improvise something very similar by using the sorcerer's KAA attribute in the current system as the base for this.

I'll be posting the complete system when I'm done....

[Caz]

They can't put a damage table in the book for every spell.  It's not up to the book to do it for you, but your own common sense.  BL isn't synonimous with death in tros.  The generic dam. table is generic, and a BASE table to add to.  If a spell would cause BL, add it, if it would kill, you have to add it.  TROS requires minimum creativity on the part of the gm, and it gives you the tools to do it.  At least that's my impression.

[Malechi]

I'm pretty sure that the book states that you should substitute the appropriate damage table according to the implement/object/effect you're trying to use/get.  So if its a "Bones shooting out through my skin" spell.. use piercing.  If its my helmet crushing my head thing.. use bludgeoning.  easy :)

As for the damage ratings being too low.. wow... Thats not a complaint I've ever heard of with the TROS magic system.  Interesting..

JK

[Prince of Thieves]

First of all, movement 3 can move something, with instantaneous acceleration, at light speed. I feel that it's pretty self-evident that a simple spell of 1 of movement 3 could kill someone in a number of ways, but simple spells of one don't do much damage by the formula. If I'm GMing a game of TROS, I'm unsure how I would explain to my players, "you send the cannonball hurtling into him at light speed, but it only does 4 damage," or, "you send him into the ground at light speed, but it's just a flesch wound."

That spell would not do 3 damage because its Casting Target Number would not be 3. The Actually CTN would be: Vagary Level + Target + Range + Volume + Duration; or 3 (Vagary lvl 3) + 3 (Target human) + 2 (Range LOS) + 2 (Size up to 400 lbs) + 0 (Duration Instant) = 10!

So a single success will net 11 damage.
Armor is meaningless and you could opt to treat the damage as fall damage, which would make it random locations but unaffected by toughness. The damage should not be generic but blunt damage to the legs, lower body.

Thats for smashing some sod into the earth

The Cannonball toss "could" be CTN 3+1+2+2+0=8. One success = 9 damage.

As nsruf suggested you can just let these vagary 3 castings kill with a success or two but I would add this: be sure to grin as the sorcerer tries to soak 10 months worth of aging, likely fails and then swoons.