Shock and pain questions

[olivera]

I have several questions about how shock and pain works, as the books is very ambiguous in these areas:

1) According to the book if an "area" is hit multiple times then the highest shock penalty applied to that "area" is applied again. Does "area" refer to the same zone (e.g VII) or same exact location (e.g left forearm). The books references to zones, areas and locations are very inconsistent.

2) How does pain accumulate? Do i only keep record of the highest pain value per zone? Do i only keep record of the highest pain value per location? E.g. If i get hit in zone VII the elbow for 5 pain does that add to my total pain? Is it discarded if i have a higher pain wound in the elbow? Is it discarded if i have a higher pain wound in that zone?

A question about armour:

1) The armour table 4.5 does not list what locations each peice of armour covers. I assume that a helm covers the head, but what parts of the head? It is possible in the game to get hit in the face, head, throat, collar, neck etc but it is not stated which of these locations a helm protects. The same can be said for every part of armour.

Also, why is bludgeoning zone V table listed twice in the appendix? Why do the damage tables in the appendix have slightly different names? E.g. cutting damage table, then cutting damage location table, then cutting damage. Similarly bludgeoning damage table, then bludgeoning damage location table,  then bludgeoning damage then, bludgeoning wound damage table. This needs tidied up for the next edition :)

Cheers,
Olivera.

[olivera]

Someone must know how shock and pain works in the game. Anyone ?

[Dain]

...keep posting periodically to keep the item near the top of the list...given forum history someone will get back to you. Things are a bit hectic right now in Jake land so your topic may not get addressed right away...someone will get back to you...great set of guys here.

[ultraviolet]

Even though I'm a hyper-newbie to this game, and have only played it for two short sessions, I do have the book, and am happy to help.

Shock is the immediate effects of the blow, it's the amount of dice you lose in ALL POOLS for the rest of the Exchange.

Pain is the  lasting effects, it subtracts from ALL POOLS in the beginning of a new round.

On p80-81 some things are explained: "Shock & pain s cummulative as long as they are applied to different zones. Should one attack the same area multiple times, the *highest* Shock penalty - new or old - is applied (or re-applied) to the wounded party. It can be beneficial to attack a well-wounded area over-and-over, even with weak attacks - the original Shock penalty will keeop on returning to haunt the wounded."
The area would be the exact body part (eg. shoulder, head or leg etc.) Otherwise IMHO the book would have stated "Zone". Does this help???

Regarding Pain, I would say that all Pain accumulates, even for multiple wounds in the same area (body part). On p81 there is an explanation of how to record wounds where they are, level, shock, pain, blood loss etc. In the next paragraf it says: Make sure to record the Pain rating for each individual wound as well." I read the phrase "individual wound" that one shouldn't just use the highest Pain for every area, but for every single wound...this way multiple lesser wounds wear you down!

Anyway isn't this pretty "academic" don't people keel oevr pretty soon in this combat system, without the ned for recording more than one or two wounds??? :)

About the Armour question...Yes one certainly has to guess to find the exact coverings for armour. My suggestion is that you try and make your own -location table' for armours, go through the locatios on the damage tables and use your common sense. Some armour pieces are a bit difficult to define, especially on the border areas. A Pot helm covers the top of the head, and perhaps the back of the head (a "face hit" from behind. A full helm, does it cover the neck???

I too have found some things I think are typos and design flaws. Or perhaps Locatinj V is very, very important... :)

Hope this helps

[Bob McNamee]

Various errata links can be found here... in case you need them.

http://www.theriddleofsteel.net/support/

[Dain]

...oh, good point. There's an errata sheet for both TROS itself and the Of Beasts and Men supplement on the main TROS site under the "support" icon at the top. The direct URL to the support page is:
http://www.theriddleofsteel.net/support/

The OBAM errata is near the top, and the TROS errata is about 1/3rd of the way up from the bottom.

not saying your specific question is addressed there anywhere but it might be because there's a ton of info in those errata sheets. There's some decent program utilities out there too that might be interesting...namely a character generator (VERY intuitive to use) and a combat simulator. On the charcter generator there are some disturbing easter eggs, but Brian (the author) assures there is nothing harmful despite what messages you may see pop up.

added edit:
boy my typing speed sucks...someone just posted the same information before I could hit submit.

[Brian Leybourne]

There's absolutely nothing harmful in the TROS software, just a few jokes and amusing things, and a competition to win a copy of OBAM that someone long ago won (sorry) which involved creating a new item in the equipment section called "Of Beasts and Men".

Ultraviolet has it right regarding shock and pain. Also, TFOB has armor coverage diagrams (good one too) along with updated armor rules.

Brian.

[olivera]

So let me get this right...

1) Pain from wounds always accumulates regardless of the exact location of those wounds. For example, a 5 pain wound to the neck, an 8 pain wound to the neck and a 3 pain wound to the hip means the character has 16 pain total. (This seems to contradict the sentence in the book "Shock and pain are cumulative as long as they are applied to different zones).

2) If you take a 2nd wound to the same exact location (e.g. neck from zone IV) you take an amount of shock equal to the highest shock value of the 2 wounds. So this means that the attacker must get lucky enough to roll the same location in that zone again?

Cheers,
Olivera.

[Brian Leybourne]

1) Pain from wounds always accumulates regardless of the exact location of those wounds. For example, a 5 pain wound to the neck, an 8 pain wound to the neck and a 3 pain wound to the hip means the character has 16 pain total. (This seems to contradict the sentence in the book "Shock and pain are cumulative as long as they are applied to different zones).

Yes, that's correct, although to be honest, if an attacker hits the exact same spot again, I usually just make it one wound slightly worse than the worst of the two (a Pain 4 and a pain 6 wound to the exact same spot would end up as a pain 7 wound overall). That's just how I play it, YMMV. The shock for the second hit would be the shock result from the first or second hit, whichever was higher.

2) If you take a 2nd wound to the same exact location (e.g. neck from zone IV) you take an amount of shock equal to the highest shock value of the 2 wounds. So this means that the attacker must get lucky enough to roll the same location in that zone again?

Yes, except it's the location that is important, not the zone you attacked. It applies just as much if an attack at a different zone that ends up hitting the same spot anyway (zones VIII and IX can both hit the knee, for example).

Brian.

[ultraviolet]

Brian leybourne Wrote: "Also, TFOB has armor coverage diagrams (good one too) along with updated armor rules. "

What is TFOB???

[Bob McNamee]

The Flower of Battle...

[Bob McNamee]

a TROS supplement on Battle, especially large-scale...

[Brian Leybourne]

a TROS supplement on Battle, especially large-scale...

Well... not really. There's certainly large-scale rules in there, but really it covers a lot of things, new rules, fills some holes in the old rules, and so on. It's going to be one cool book.

Brian.