Is this a good idea to make combat a little easier?

[Mainboard]

To make comabt less deadly take their AGL + PRS divided by 2 to create a Body (BDY) stat. Body give the characters a few extra "levels" to absorb damage. These levels are subtracted from the damage first before the final wounds are applied. Think of them as "Wound Levels" if the damage exceeds BDY then it is reduced by current BDY amount  then the "new" level is applied. And I ONLY use the body stat for PCs and main Villains.

Would this work or is this new rule and stat usless? Just looking for opinions...

[Spartan]

To make comabt less deadly take their AGL + PRS divided by 2 to create a Body (BDY) stat.

What's PRS (asides from Paul Reed Smith guitars)?  Is that in the Quickstart?

Anywho, I think it might be easier to allow them easier access to armour, rather than create another stat that functions as AV.  Or raise the cap on spiritual attributes to 7 or something to give players more dice to save their own butts with.

A lethal blow is still going to be a lethal blow... I've found that most Lvl 5 wounds occur when the victim is completely outclassed (has lost CP due to pain or shock) and the victor puts say 10 dice into offence, resulting in a wound that could have been termed level 7 or 8, if you get my drift.  Taking a couple of levels off that still results in a level 5.

However, I have no idea on how you like to run games.  If it works for you, playtest it and run with it!  As Jake always says:  "It's your game, you paid for it". :)

-Mark

[spunky]

The easiest way to make combats less deadly for your PCs is to have their opponents use poor strategies: guards that are too scared to attack, or unskilled fighters who attempt maneuvers that deplete their combat pools.  Just think of all the dumb things a character could do to get themselves killed -- and then have the NPCs do those things.  It keeps your PCs alive, and educates the players on the perils of the system, keeping them focused on fighting smart.

JMHO.

Philip[/code]

[Jake Norwood]

I'll second Spunky's tip.

Jake

[Callan S.]

I'm not sure. Part of the charm of TROS for me is how your character isn't 'pillowed', for example, in games with hitpoints you start to get the mentalitly that before anything in the game world really matters to you, they have to get through X amount of hitpoints first. In TROS, it starts mattering to you straight away. There aren't any 'pillows' between you and the real world, so to speak.

Personally I'd go the other way. A lot of people seem to rave about other systems mook rules...ie rules for making weaklings the players can knock off at their leasure, by the dozen. Try this out.

One reason for doing this is that I'd suspect you'd still end up with PC or master villain dieing nastily, it would just take a lot longer in game and in real life.

[Mainboard]

Spunky I like your idea a lot! Far better than changing the game, you suggest altering the way they react to certain situations? That would be great. Now if only there was a list of examples and reactions.....

Maybe some could be put in the "The Flower of Battle" book. Or if Driftwood were interested in such examples and reactions perhaps some could be created for it?

Just some thoughts..

[Judd]

The best tip for making games less deadly that I've heard here so far is to make the limits on SA's much higher or do away with limits all together.

Suddenly driven heroes can do ANYTHING.

But a dagger to the head is still going to seriously cramp their style.

[Valamir]

Bottom line on deadlyness in TROS is that the odds of dieing if you're fighting smart drop DRAMATICALLY with just a couple of dice difference in the CP.  If you have 4 dice superiority you have to try REAL hard to get yourself killed (or the GM has to be trying real hard to kill you).  If you have 6 dice superiority you can pretty much treat them as your bitch.  

How hard is it to get 4 dice superiorty?  Well, the single best a starting character (with no insight or racial mods) can get is 14 dice.  Its not too hard to get 12.  Its pretty easy to get 10.

Now if you take an opponent with Attributes B and Proficiencies C you get 43 points and 6 proficiency.  43 points is basically 4 in every thing with 3 at 5.  Its therefor not too hard to take a typical guardsman type opponent and figure reflexes of 4 and proficiency of 4 (with 2 proficiency spent in other areas) or reflex 5 and proficiency 3.  This gives a typical mid level guard type guy a combat pool of 8.

Any character who fancies theymselves any kind of swordsman is going to have at least CP 10 which gives them a sizeable advantage.  Any character who fancies themselves a good swordsman is going to have CP 12 and with a 4 die advantage will own this guy.  Any character who fancies himself among the best is going to have a CP of 14 and can smack this guy around like a rag doll.

Now I'm sure that a REALLY skilled master TROS combat *player* (like say Jake) could find a way to humble your 14 die blademaster with an 8 die guardsman...but that's not the purpose of what a GM is going to be trying to do.  A good GM should play an 8 CP guy like an 8 CP guy...not like a 14 CP guy who left 6 dice at home that day.  In other words, pretty straight forward competent fighting without alot of fancy deception and tricks (an 8 die guy isn't a moron after all).

Once you start "leveling up" and buying up proficencies and start hurling around 15 and 16 die pools the difference gets even greater.  Beats, and stop shorts and feints become progressively more and more effective the larger the die advantage you have on your opponent.

[Mike Holmes]

What Ralph said. All his analysis also ignores the fact of SAs. The biggest way to keep heroes alive is to make sure that they believe in what they're fighting for. As long as the GM only puts stuff they care about in front of the characters, it's a sinch. Even against an equal opponent as Ralph points out, 4 dice of SAs give you the day likely, six dice, very likley.

IOW, the rules are not particularly lethal unless the player plays stupidly, or fails to ensure that his character is fighting for what he believes in.

The fact that this makes for great play should not be lost on anyone.

Mike

[Valamir]

Quite.  Another thing to keep in mind is the ability to fight defensively while waiting for help.  By fighting defensively I mean more than just defensive stance and dropping the white die (though that's a good way to get an extra 2 dice).

Consider, you have 10 dice and your opponent has 8 dice.  Lets say your opponent throws 4-5 dice at you in his initial attack.  You defend with all but 1 of your dice.  Your 9 dice against his 4-5 give you a very good chance of defending and taking initiative.  You have only 1 die to attack with but so what.  Your attack does nothing against the 3-4 dice your opponent has left, but you've just delayed an entire round (note you need to keep 1 die to attack with so you don't forfeit initiative).

After a couple rounds of this your opponent gets irritated and throws 7 dice at you.  Ok, a couple possibilities here.  You could continue with the above tactic but 9 dice vs 7 isn't quite as safe (especially if you have a TN disadvantage) but barring a horrible roll or a high damage opponent you should survive without much damage (especially if you have 4 point armor or better).  Or you could play safer and just throw the full evade which gives you a better TN to beat and breaks the action bringing another round to a close.  Or you could go ballsy here and throw a counter (especially if you have a TN advantage or a bunch of luck available).  That makes it 7 dice vs 7 dice but if you win you'll have 3-4 attack dice against his 1 remaining defense die.

TROS makes it pretty easy to play the sit back and wait for your opponent to make a mistake game (no doubt stemming from Jake's actual experience).  You don't really start seeing PC death unless they're trying real hard to look like Conan and kill their enemy instantly in the first couple rounds -- like generally gets me in trouble...;-)

The best way for a GM to keep the casualty level low is just to make sure that if you are going to throw in a "throw-away" fight just to liven things up, or force the characters to deal with a few mooks before getting to the villain, just make very sure that they have AT LEAST 2 dice and preferably 4 dice LESS then the PCs in their pool.  Whether this comes from inferior pools or the presence of applicable SAs for the PCs or some combination doesn't much matter.

Once the players get used to the idea that with a little thought and careful planning they can pretty much kill anybody with 4 dice less than them in relative safety, they'll be that much more scared when they find out the main villain has 4 dice more and the tables are turned.  Course, if you want to really put the fear in 'em make the main baddy 8-12 dice more and watch 'em scramble for SAs just to make things even.

[Mike Holmes]

Fights against guys with low CPs can still be pretty cool in terms of making your character look cool. Throw in an opponent with a huge ST and TO, but little actual proficiency who is feared as a bully about town. Sure, he seems tough until he's got a foot of steel in his chest. At which point it looks like your character just easily felled a half-giant.

Make enemies socially fearsome, but poor in combat. Uo until a fight the person with the most will to fight is the more dangerous. In the actual fight, it's the more prepared opponent who'll win almost always. Keep in mind how rare it is to actually be well trained, and the heroes will mow through their very real seeming foes.

Mike

[Brian Leybourne]

Consider, you have 10 dice and your opponent has 8 dice.  Lets say your opponent throws 4-5 dice at you in his initial attack.  You defend with all but 1 of your dice.  Your 9 dice against his 4-5 give you a very good chance of defending and taking initiative.  You have only 1 die to attack with but so what.  Your attack does nothing against the 3-4 dice your opponent has left, but you've just delayed an entire round (note you need to keep 1 die to attack with so you don't forfeit initiative).

Except that what actually happens is he sees your 1-die attack coming and ignores it, using his 3-4 dice to attack you simultaneously. Neither of you have defence, but your 1-die attack is probably going to do nothing to him, while his undefended 3-4 die attack will hurt you, possibly/probably enough to turn the tide in battle...

Brian.

[Valamir]

I don't know about that Brian.  A 1 die attack has a 50/50 shot at a success.  Assumeing my strength is equal to his toughness and I'm using a Str+1 weapon thats a level 2 wound to an unarmored location (fighting fully armored opponents is a whole different nut).  A quick glance through the damage tables shows 3+ shock for virtually every level 2 wound there is.  Far from doing nothing, that 1 die attack just wiped out your 3-4 dice and likely left you with some carry over or small amount of Pain to dink you with next round.  For the opponent to attempt a simultaneous attack like that...especially knowing that if he does I HAVE to spend luck to keep him from getting that attack...is almost suicidal.

I mean, if I have initiative and I declare a 1 die attack on you, and you say "ok, screw defense, I'm hitting him simo with 3 dice", you're right that would be bad for me.  It would force me to permanently burn a point of luck for a free success to guarentee my 1 die attack hits.  Knowing that...I can't think of many people who'd take that risk...let alone a guardsman just trying to do his job for a couple coins.

That's certainly one possible counter, but I don't see it as a very high probability one, and hense would be hard put to justify having ye ole generic bad guy willing to leap to his own death.

[Callan S.]

Consider, you have 10 dice and your opponent has 8 dice.  Lets say your opponent throws 4-5 dice at you in his initial attack.  You defend with all but 1 of your dice.  Your 9 dice against his 4-5 give you a very good chance of defending and taking initiative.  You have only 1 die to attack with but so what.  Your attack does nothing against the 3-4 dice your opponent has left, but you've just delayed an entire round (note you need to keep 1 die to attack with so you don't forfeit initiative).

Except that what actually happens is he sees your 1-die attack coming and ignores it, using his 3-4 dice to attack you simultaneously. Neither of you have defence, but your 1-die attack is probably going to do nothing to him, while his undefended 3-4 die attack will hurt you, possibly/probably enough to turn the tide in battle...

Brian.

Ouch! But how does he do that? If both parties drop red dice, then this 10 CP guy just thinks 'Ah, time to go balistic' and uses all his dice. The only other way is to buy initaitive, which is expensive and tricky to do.

[Brian Leybourne]

I mean, if I have initiative and I declare a 1 die attack on you, and you say "ok, screw defense, I'm hitting him simo with 3 dice", you're right that would be bad for me.  It would force me to permanently burn a point of luck for a free success to guarentee my 1 die attack hits.

Then I also spend a single point of luck for a single defensive success, which means you not only missed, but wasted a luck point :-) I don't even need to permanently burn one, I can just keep rolling them one at a time until I get one success. It's been mentioned many times that Luck can be used for undeclared defensive actions in combat. You can do the same thing, of course, but you'll have to spend that many more luck dice to get around my 3-4 die attack (one hopes).

Frankly, a single die attack is foolish at ANY time, if the opponent still have dice of his own.

Brian.