Questions: stealth & thrown dagger, from a recent sessio

[Jaif]

I had a couple situations that came up in my last session that are making me think.  Since thinking is bad, I thought I'd ask for some help here to make the condition go away.

Sneak

I have a bunch of characters in chain sneaking around in light woods at night.  Looking at the rules, they lose 4 dice for their armor.  The problem is when you lose 4 dice, it's quite possible for a person to have no dice to roll, and that feels wrong.  In my head, people should always have a chance (especially when we're talking about mediocre or better agility), but not necessarily a good one.  What that boils down to is making armor a TN modifier rather than a dice modifier.  Anybody have thoughts on this?  In my head, I want the person with 4 agility splitting his 4 dice between a terrain roll (avoid bumping into things at night) and a sneak roll (move quietly).  I don't want him to have 0 dice to roll.

Throwing Daggers

I'm not sure how to put this eloquently...Hmmmm...How 'bout this: throwing daggers suck! :-)  Seriously.  Even worse is that if you make an archetypal [sp?] mousy character with high wits, perception, agility, but sacrifice the strength, then those daggers wouldn't hurt a fly.  Say you wait 2 seconds to aim, after 2 seconds of drawtime, and end up rolling 12 dice.  If you're within 3 yards (note: 4 seconds spent drawing and aiming within 3 yards), you'll average 3-4 successes.  With a mousy str of 3-4, you're looking at 6-8 damage.  This is a good situation: if you make reflex rolls to get the dagger off quicker, and throw from a slightly further range, and your attacker is moving around, you just aren't going to hurt anybody.

Now, I'll grant this - I know next to nothing about throwing daggers.  But still, I can't imagine someone taking a throwing dagger in the game.
Anybody else run into this?

-Jeff

[Ace]

Well for starters its really hard to sneak around in chainmail armor. Not only is the stuff heavy (25lbs for a hauberk) but it is noisy too. -4d makes sense to me. If the charcters need to sneak around tell em to take off the armor, simple as that

ANd as for throwing knives, yep they are pretty worthless. The "deadly thrown dagger" is a genere convention of sword and sorcery and some RPG's. IRL thrown daggers and shurikens are only really dangerous if they hit a really vital spot or are poisoned.

Otherwise a thrown dagger can wound but they rarely do seriously at any distance.

However a decent dagger man (total combat pool of 12 say) can using throwing knives inflict a level 2 wound with an average roll. At least at close range. Thats not too bad

Just remember to give the dagger guy a decent ST- throwing knives are a strength driven weapon. Puny guys do puny damage

[Mokkurkalfe]

I thought the dice penalty of armors was only for the CP's...
And chainmail isn't very noisy unless you rattle it, or so I've heard.

Daggers can be fun if you have the Accuracy gift and special throwing daggers(damage +1).  
The "narraitive" bonus is that they can be hidden more easily than a longbow. If you want them better, you could allow a PC a sneak roll or something to keep the dagger hidden while aiming. That way, he could unleash his entire pool against an unsuspecting opponent.

[Thirsty Viking]

Stealth and thrown Dagger... sounds like a winner to me...
Post is a long one

Of course the charachter has its problems,we all do....

I took up the challenge and made a charachter ....
Priorities are FEDBAC
Major Gift Accuracy(Major)
Thief kit 6 Woodsman 7
St 6 AG 7 To 3 EN 2 HT 2 WP 2 WT 4 MA 2 SO 2 Per 5

Reflex 5 Aim 6 Knockdown 6 Knockout 4 Move 7

Thrown dagger 7 MP 13
Mass Weapon 7 CP 12 (when you have to ambush a guy
in full armor Ring him like a gong) I prefer the mace myself
Remember that full helm stopping your dagers givs -2 on PER
ATN 6 DTN 10 Dtn 8 if 2h

Average all out attack yields 6 succes on 12d  
Does St +2 (swung 2 h) damage 8 dam for 14
mace gives another +1 Damage level for hard armor
assuming Armor Value 6 toughness 7 (knights are stern stuff)
is a dammage level 2 hit remember you have accuracy major
on a vertical attack zone 5 this can ALWAYS hit head (upper)
BL 3 (internal) S 8 + 3(mace is + dl + 1) P 8-wp

CP Defaults
Sword+Shield 6 CP 11
Cut and thrust 5 CP 10
2 hand sword 4 CP 9
Pole arm/axe 4 CP 9
gt/Longsword 4 CP 9
Dager 3 CP 8  (didn't go with dagger for hand to hand
because weakness is guys in FULL armor)



Sneak ability is at 5 (for AG test .6 X 7 = 4.2 success avg)
Herbalist is at 8 (Poisons? with luck they will be per to find
wit tests to concoct)
Either of these skills may be lowered by up to 2 from MA I'd
lower sneak personally to a 3 for .8 x 7 = 5.6 success on avg

Strategy, sneak up on people with two daggers drawn, one flipped
From surprise aim 3 seconds, Throw dagger at max missle pool
from 20' (7 yards) away Special throwing daggers. TN 8
13d x .3 = 3.9 sucesses either a level 9 or level 10 hit on average.
assume toughness 5 level 4 hit... if it's only a level 3 hit
in throat that would be Bl 7 S 13 P 15-wp
Level 4 crushes larynx ... no sound but airbubbles gurgling.

if situation permits 3 yard range TN7 yields 13d x .4 = 5.2
success level 5 hit instant death...

If your still worried about dl, bite the bullet on the stats
St 7 Ag 6 SO 1 (but everyone knows your guilty) Per 6
Adding one more level to all damages

Ok the guys is kinda anemic on the Attributes, but this is
partially balanced by low skill Target #'s

Obviously he doesn't want hand to hand either, but has
enough dice to evade well praying for team to help.
If not engaged in group fight he would seek a flanking
position and then chose unarmored bodyparts.

Survive a few sessions and pump your low attributes to level 3

Very playable from an ambush perspective. play without
armor, run away rather than engage in hand to hand unless
foe is wounded. Avoid guys in full Plate. As a solo guy, talking
strictly assassin, in a group he is scout, ambush, decoy,
and possibly Lure..... STATEGY .... TEAMWORK these are the key.

All these ambushes improve if you have a +3 Passion (Hatred?)
or drive causing you to do these ambushes....
8 succes average sneak role with bonus, and an extra DL
on average.

What motivated you to spend your life crawling through woods
taking out soldiers on sentry duty.... Freedom fighter? ....
Vengence on evil lord who kiled your parents/wife/child ....
pursuing these aims earns bonus Spiritual

Survive a few sessions and pump your low attributes to level 3
at a cost of 2 points each for total cost of 10 (11 if you dropped
your SO to 1) thats only 2-3 sessions of good roleplaying. You
already have 5 points to spend but try not to dip into them you
need the bonus dice.

[Lyrax]

I thought that 4 dice was for plate armor (really heavy stuff!).  For a sleeveless chain shirt, I'd probably only give a -3, a -2 if they smeared cork grease all over it.

Remember, sneak is staying out of sight as well as not being heard.  Reflective chainmail armor is probably not the best thing to wear if you wish to stay out of sight.

[Jaif]

Ok, let me try again.  I'm not arguing against metal armors being tough.  I'm arguing about a principle of rpgs which states "the player always has a chance".  When you remove dice, you can remove that chance.  If you add to TNs, then you leave in a possibility, however remote.

I figure what I'm going to do is add double the penalty to the TN.  That way a penalty of 4 for heavy armor is a +8 to TN, which ends up being a ridiculous number under most situations.

But there's always that chance.

-Jeff

P.S. Double may not even be enough.  It's my first reaction only.

[Thirsty Viking]

hmmm  ok   for each die he would lose past one  add 4 to the target number. so if he has agility three and loses 4 dice...   his taget number is his sneak + 8  and he rolls  one die.   Then again there are times for a DM to say there is no chance.  the rule book says -4d for plate,  -2d or -3d for chain  (perhaps the -3 is for full chain) did you say that it was also non sneaky terain? leaves and branches scattered across the ground maybe? according to the book heavey clothing is enough for a -1d i assume this includes leather armor.   didn't know that.

Remember Sneak is an opposed role,  an opption would be to give 2 extra dice to the person making a perception role for every one die the sneaker doesn't lose that he is supposed to.

not NO chance...  but gosh darn little.  there is a chance I can single handedly slay an entire gol company as they pass through an opening one at a time...   not much of one since i'm not a wizard,  but a chance.

Other factors,  bonus dice from his spiritual attributes....  he'd have more dice to loce thus the negative for running out might not kick in.
Having the party create a diversion on other side of camp....
Have the player take off the armor.  He is the one that built a charachter with 4 or less agility.   My sneaky guys usually don't even wear leather armor.   Now that i know leather gives -d on sneak...   it will be for more than just psychological reasons.