[LoL] Strength or Prowess

[dindenver]

Hi!
  There are two skills I am not very confident on: Melee and Slashing.
Slashing is any slashing or cutting weapon that relies on the edge of a blade to do damage (e.g., long swords, axes and halberds)
Melee is every other hand weapon including Rapiers, Maces, spears and tridents

  The problem I am having is that I want to tie each of these to a single attribute and the attributes I have to decide from are Prowess and Strength

Prowess represents speed, hand/eye coordination and full body agility.
Strength represwnts physical strenghth, endurance and athleticism (jumping, etc.)

  Currently I have Melle tied to Prowess and Slashing tied to Strength. And everytime I think about changing it, after some mental deliberation, I decide to leave it as it. The gaff is, of the two damage models, I think slashing would benefit more from strength and leverage than melee attacks. But the archetypical swordsman is lithe and fast, which indicates that maybe Prowess would make more sense for slashing.

  However, I would like to call for advice/preferences from other experienced game designers: Which would benefit more from sheer force and which would benefit more from swiftness and accuracy?

[Josh Roby]

You sound like you're approaching this from a relatively realistic tack, Dave.  If that is not the case, disregard, well, everything that follows.

I'll skip my standard rant about weapons of war not always being appropriate to every battle.

Do you have any experience fighting with these weapons yourself?  If you haven't, you might want to look up your local SCA, show up at their heavy weapons fighting practice, and ask a few questions.  Your two categories are not very reflective of how the weapons are actually used -- halberds, spears, and tridents work on far more similar terms than swords, axes, and halberds do.

As far as your 'archetypal swordsman' that you reference, I would submit that you are thinking of a fencer, who'd be using a rapier -- so they'd be using Melee and Prowess, as it is.  "Long Swords" -- by which I'm assuming you mean broadswords -- have precious little to do with being lithe and fast.

[Nathan P.]

In case you haven't been pointed to it yet: Mikes Standard Rant #3. It's worth reading for every designer.

More specifically, I would say this - your decisions on these kinds of matters will structure the in-game reality. So if it takes bulk and muscle to slash, and skill and agility to do everything else, then the slashers will be (in general) the muscly guys, and everyone else will be skillful and agile. So, one way to think about it is, what kinds of characters do you want being good at different areas of capability, and reverse engineering from that.

Note that I'm not talking about which is better or more realistic - I'm talking about which you want for the experience you want playing your game to produce.

I hope that's helpful.

[Mark Johnson]

Definitely check out The Riddle of Steel... http://www.theriddleofsteel.net/  Is this the level of detail you want or are you looking for something lighter than that?   The thing is, if you really want to gritty, realistic combat well, you really need to understand gritty, realistic combat which may or may not be what your game is about.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Well...

I don't quite know what to say. The thing is, your post doesn't make sense vis-a-vis real world martial arts at all, but I can't figure out what kind of fictional aesthetic would require something like this, either. So the only conclusion I have is that you've hung yourself on some pretty problematic basic assumptions about your system. To wit:
- Why two different skills? Why not only one, or three or four?
- Why separate the skills based on weapon edginess? Is it some variant of religious "clerics do not spill blood" thing of the game world, or what? Why not one-handed vs. two-handed, heavy weapon vs. light weapon, long weapon vs. short weapon, slashing vs. stabbing? Why separate based on weapon type at all, actually? Could be technique vs. force, instead, for instance.
- Why only those two attributes? Couldn't you remove one, or invent more?
- Why couldn't each player or GM or whatever choose which skill goes with which attribute? Or have it be character culture related? Or, more sensibly, related to the martial art he practices? Barbarians use strength, cultured folks use Prowess, that kind of thing.
- Why do you want to tie the skills to attributes? That's what we call layered resources and should probably be avoided unless you have a good reason, as it's pretty prone to bugs.
- Why do you have to model archetypal swordsmen in your game?
- Why do you think archetypal swordsmen are lithe and fast?
- Why do you think archetypal swordsmen use Slashing?

If I may speculate, LoL seems to suffer from you trying too hard to satisfy too many concerns. Namely, you're trying to emulate D&D, be realistic and be streamlined at the same time. Drop one of those three, and you'll find design much easier.

I should probably answer your question as well: in real life, both slashing and thrusting weapon techniques benefit from both strength and coordination. The former provides speed and better handling, the latter ensures correct arcs of movement. The thing is, strength and coordination are not separate phenomenons in martial arts; with greater strength you have easier time handling your body and weapon, and can thus position both more accurately. Likewise, coordination allows you to make only the necessary movements, lessening the need for strength. In practice both qualities develop hand in hand, there's no such thing as "clumsy but strong", only unskilled and strong. So if you're asking which of slashing and "melee" weapons "would" (indicating a concern for realism) benefit more from swiftness, I'll have to say both.

If I just had to pick one, I'd say that while both benefit from coordination, stabbing weapons require significantly less strength, because you're moving less mass for shorter distances. But that doesn't address your confounding idea of handling maces(!) and thrusting weapons in the same category, so I don't know if that's any good. Assuming you're referring to some kind of stabbing maces, however, I'd go with Prowess -> Melee and Strength -> Slashing.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Thanks for your input. I am trying to stay realistic, but with a heroic addon. So the weapons are modeled after how much they would actually wound you, then scaled donw a little so that the fights are not just a constest of who hits first.
  I listed all the weapons in my game and tried to come up with a way to divide them into two relatviely equal categories. Slashing vs. Melee gave me the closest equality in the number of weapons found in each category. I tried 1h vs 2h, hafted vs everything else, piercing vs everything else sharp vs blunt, etc. And this was the best distribution.
  I thought of fencers when I wrote this, but then remembered the classic swrdsmen of Chinese Japanese myth...
  What do you guys think?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Thakns for the good post Tuovinen, here are my answers:
- Why two different skills? Why not only one, or three or four?
  I think that by making the weapon skills broader, it will bring Warrior types more in line with the skill requirements of other types of characters.
- Why separate the skills based on weapon edginess? Is it some variant of religious "clerics do not spill blood" thing of the game world, or what? Why not one-handed vs. two-handed, heavy weapon vs. light weapon, long weapon vs. short weapon, slashing vs. stabbing? Why separate based on weapon type at all, actually? Could be technique vs. force, instead, for instance.
  This was answered in my previous post, but to recap, the weapons distributed more evenly with this setup.
- Why only those two attributes? Couldn't you remove one, or invent more?
  There are other attributes, but I do not feel they are apprpriate for the two skills in question and I wanted to try and keep the conversation focused on the question I had
- Why couldn't each player or GM or whatever choose which skill goes with which attribute? Or have it be character culture related? Or, more sensibly, related to the martial art he practices? Barbarians use strength, cultured folks use Prowess, that kind of thing.
  I address cultural preferences with skill bonuses.
- Why do you want to tie the skills to attributes? That's what we call layered resources and should probably be avoided unless you have a good reason, as it's pretty prone to bugs.
  Well, I think I am aware of the pitfalls you are referring to and have come up with a pretty good solution that provides for a simple system to play that is fairly accurate to the game world I am creating.
- Why do you have to model archetypal swordsmen in your game?
  I don't have to, but I think it makes sense to understand why it may be different
- Why do you think archetypal swordsmen are lithe and fast?
  Wuxia and samurai legends all point to people that are not particularly bulky, just wanted to see if that was a commoin comparison or not.
- Why do you think archetypal swordsmen use Slashing?
  Most (not all) swords fall in the Slashing category, including the katana.

  And, for the record, I am not trying to emultate D&D. So if I can do 2 out of 3, I am set.

[JarrodHenry]

Hi!
  Thanks for your input. I am trying to stay realistic, but with a heroic addon. So the weapons are modeled after how much they would actually wound you, then scaled donw a little so that the fights are not just a constest of who hits first.
  I listed all the weapons in my game and tried to come up with a way to divide them into two relatviely equal categories. Slashing vs. Melee gave me the closest equality in the number of weapons found in each category. I tried 1h vs 2h, hafted vs everything else, piercing vs everything else sharp vs blunt, etc. And this was the best distribution.
  I thought of fencers when I wrote this, but then remembered the classic swrdsmen of Chinese Japanese myth...
  What do you guys think?

I'd like to point out that much of what you see in TV and movies does not reflect how the weapons were really used or what weapons were really used.  There is a vast misconception with regards to ancient weapons, and in fact, the type of swords you see in sword fights in movies are not and were not commonly used for that purpose in real life.

I suggest that if you want strict realism, and not Hollywood realism, that you consult the SCA and other such foam weapon/dull steel organizations.

Jarrod

[Josh Roby]

So the weapons are modeled after how much they would actually wound you...

Dave, this assumption is -- to put it delicately -- not at all realistic and heavily steeped in gaming tropes.  As strange as it may seem, a weapon is not a tool of wounding; it is a tool of control.  A weapon helps you control your immediate situation, it helps you control the perceptions of others.  It performs this control by its threat of wounding, yes, but in 90% of the actions a weapon is used for, it does not actually do the wounding.  The threat is far more powerful than the wound.

Were I you, I'd choose between realism and heroism, and then take a good hard look -- with research -- on the one you pick.  If you really want to hybridize the two of them, then I'd heavily suggest that you take that good hard look with research at both of them.

[Josh Roby]

Here's some links:

Golden Lyon Companie - a specifically Gothic Europe themed group in the Denver area
Canton of Hawk's Hollow - this is a canton within Caethe Barony (ie, Denver); I can't find Caethe's webpage.
College of the Three Spires - a collegium based out of Denver Metropolitan State College.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Well, I think I have learned all I can from weilding foam weapons. Thanks for the tip though. If it was your game and you had this decision to make, what would you do?

[JarrodHenry]

Hi!
  Well, I think I have learned all I can from weilding foam weapons. Thanks for the tip though. If it was your game and you had this decision to make, what would you do?

That depends.

Are you interested in making a game realistic with regards to Medieval Europe weaponry?  Or are you interested in making a game that is realistic with regards to how Hollywood portrays Medieval Europe weaponry?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Gritty fantasy or heroic fantasy? Why not give me your answer to both?
  I understand the question you asked and I'll answer. I started with a very realistic combat system. After some playtesting I realized that it was not fun. The quick and bloody battles of well trained fighters wer so fast and so perilous as to discourage combat. Not wanting to actually discourage combat, I took that basic system and scaled back the damage so that a good hit would not always kill you. From this process I would have to answer that I am leaning towards more of a hollywood feel, but I would REALLY appreciate what the realistic answer is, if for no other reason than curiosity.
  Which type of weapon benefits more from strength and less from speed and accuracy? Slashing or melee?
  What would you do?

[Adam Dray]

Friendly reminder: "Opinion poll" posts are discouraged here.

This isn't a game design decision, so we can't really help you. This isn't even a modeling decision. This is an decision and a "how you want your game to feel" decision. Pick something and make it make sense in your game. That's all you can do.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I feel that this is a design quesrtion. What influences the damage done by a Slashing weapon more, Force or accuracy? and Melee weapons?
  If it was your game, which would you chose? All other things being equal, which do you feel has more influence on the lthality of slashing weapons, which for melee?