More questions from a newbie

[Eamon Voss]

Last night we made up characters for tomorrow night's playtest in the fictional European fief of 'Generica'.  And we noticed that to have full plate armor, including the helm, causes a problem.  The problem is, however, is the 5(!) CP penalty for all that gear!  That means a 13 CP fighter is now a 8 CP loser.  Is this correct?

Also, I was wondering what would make good knightly tournament rules?  Jousting is simple (skill vs. skill checks), but melee fights are different.  I don't want people killing each other in pas de arms.  I was thinking that each match was decided by '3 strong blows' or a 'call of yield'.  Being knocked down would be considered a 'strong blow'.  In heavy armor this means that hopefully people will get banged and bruised at worst, with serious injuries being rare.  Does this sound like a smart idea?

Anyway, the basic concept for tomorrow night is to have a tournament, but throw in the murder of a prominent member of the local clergy.  One of the players will be related to the guy, and so will take a personal interest in solving the problem, giving us a chance to test out the skill system while we are also toying with the combat system.

Yes, I have been looking at Wyerth.  It is a neat world, but I always make my own, with the exception of the Iron Kingdoms.  A setting which just begs to be converted to TROS.   Hmmm...

[Thor Olavsrud]

Last night we made up characters for tomorrow night's playtest in the fictional European fief of 'Generica'.  And we noticed that to have full plate armor, including the helm, causes a problem.  The problem is, however, is the 5(!) CP penalty for all that gear!  That means a 13 CP fighter is now a 8 CP loser.  Is this correct?

Yes, this is correct. So now, what you want to do is put that plate mail-wearing knight on a horse, allowing you to remove all CP penalties for wearing armor on your legs. Then give him a lance so that he can use his horse's strength score to deal damage, rather than his own.

The thing about wearing that much armor is that while you do have to deal with a CP reduction, most weapons simply won't be able to hack through your armor. Consider that if you have an AV of 5, and your TO is the average of 4, your opponent has to achieve 10 damage levels simply to deal you a Level 1 wound. And that doesn't even take into account any active defense on your part or a shield for that matter.

[Valamir]

Actually for the tournament Eamon, I would highly recommend putting the players in the same armor and weapons they're likely to be using and go full bore attempt to kill each other, then just pretend after the fact that the blows had been pulled and no real injury was done.

You'll need to get the players on board with this, of course, but a real combat with all the danger will serve as a much better educational experience of how the system will kill you if you don't use it right than attempting to nerf it.

[Mike Holmes]

And as has been noted repeatedly, I think, TFOB is supposed to have stuff on jousting and such when it comes out.

Mike

[Eamon Voss]

And as has been noted repeatedly, I think, TFOB is supposed to have stuff on jousting and such when it comes out.

Alas, that doesn't do me much good tomorrow night!  No biggie though.  I'll manage.  :)

[Thor Olavsrud]

Personally, I think I would do the jousting with the normal combat rules, but stipulate that there is only one exchange per round as the characters pass each other on their chargers. Simultaneous Block/Strikes would probably be the order of the day.

As for the melee, I wouldn't be too worried about letting them go all out, especially in full harness. Make it clear to them that killing your opponent is frowned upon, and that chivalry demands that they accept a yield (and that there is no shame attached to yielding to a superior opponent).

In my (admittedly limited so far) experience, it is not that easy to kill in TRoS unless you are deliberately trying to do so -- though exceptional rolls do happen, so it is a possibility. You're not likely to kill with strikes to the arms and legs, head and neck strikes are much more likely to do the job.

If you're really worried about it, after damage is calculated, give them the option of declaring that they pulled their blows and let them drop damage by one or two levels.

[Brian Leybourne]

Mike, Of Beasts and Men has jousting rules, not TFOB.

As for the heavy armor reducing CP so much... all I can say is "try it out and you'll get it". Download the Combat Sim and pit two identical fighters against each other, one in heavy armor and one "naked". Although the first guy loses a lot of CP, I'll bet you pounds to pennies he wins the fight more often.

Or look at it this way... -5CP per round for +6CP (defensively) per exchange is a pretty good tradeoff...

Brian.

[Eamon Voss]

As for the heavy armor reducing CP so much... all I can say is "try it out and you'll get it". Download the Combat Sim and pit two identical fighters against each other, one in heavy armor and one "naked". Although the first guy loses a lot of CP, I'll bet you pounds to pennies he wins the fight more often.

Okay, I'll give it a try.  But I refuse to use the free rules.  Instead, I insist I use the complete rules I purchased at my FBGS.  :)

[Valamir]

Actually Eamon, Brian wasnt' talking about the free quickstart rules.  There is an excellent piece of PC software available on the site that allows you to play out battles with moves and have the program take care of the rules.  An excellent learning aid, and alot of fun to play with.

Another excellent use would be to pit PCs up against your planned NPC opponents ahead of time, so you know how dangerous the opponents you're using are.

[Eamon Voss]

Doh!  Upon carefully reading his post, I see my error.  Thanks!

[Brian Leybourne]

Another excellent use would be to pit PCs up against your planned NPC opponents ahead of time, so you know how dangerous the opponents you're using are.

Huh, you know that never occurred to me before.

Bloody good idea.

Brian.

[Eamon Voss]

Brian, last night I downloaded and played with the simulator.  GREAT JOB!  Thanks, this saves me oodles of work and pre-planning.

[Dave Turner]

I've also just finished downloading the combat simulator and mucking around with it.  It is an absolutely superb program, Brian, and you deserve tremendous credit for it.  Extremely well done.  :)

[Lance D. Allen]

One thing I noted about the combat simulator..

First, I tend to like to play around with the C&T Kid against Max Steele. Normally it goes to a standstill, where I get incredibly bored, and quit. There are only two places that it makes any sense whatsoever to attack in the simulator, and that's the head and lower legs. As the simulator doesn't have a sword-side/shield-side option, almost every hit in between has to deal with the passive defense of the shield as well. Likewise, it has no way to determine (nor should it, really...) that a shield might not be in a position to passively defend a given location. As an example..

In the SCA, a hit below the knee is not legal, for safety reasons. Therefore, a hit to the upper thigh is a good thing to try for.. except that a shield covers it, most times. So the idea is a feint to the head, then a strike to the upper leg. Works if you can convince them to raise the shield to block their head. Or vice versa. Make them lower their shield by striking at the leg, then following up with a quick strike to the head. (not necessarily a feint..)

Not necessarily a criticism of the combat simulator. It is not designed to totally simulate all the nuances of combat, but instead to give a good idea of how combat works. This is a note to keep in mind about shields, though.

[Brian Leybourne]

Very true.

What the simulator actually does (for side attacks) is give a 50/50 chance of the shield offering protection if it's an area that the shield would cover. This represents an attack to a random side. Actually letting the attacker choose a side would be a bastard to code in, and would mean restricting attacks to logical locations following the location of your weapon after the previous attack, or else shields would be totally useless, and so on...

Too much work :-)

Actually, while playing TROS, I have a little house rule for shield location that I kind of like (we sometimes use it and sometimes dont). Basically, when someone with a shield is attacked, they can spend/gamble up to 2 dice in an attemot to second-guess where the attack is coming. This die/these dice are put on a specific location on the TROSman on their character sheet. If the attack comes at that location, they get those dice back, doubled, for the block (and passive defense counts at that location). If the attack lands somewhere else they simply lose those dice and don't have as many to block with (and no passive defense) because they had put the shield in the wrong place. For larger shields, adjacent areas will get the dice back (not doubled) because larger shields cover more area.

Works for us, anyway.

Brian.