Munchkinism

[Ingenious]

Well, I initially started this topic in order to seek an answer as to this question:
Do you think it is munchkinish to have a character with a TO of 7, no armor, and the acrobatics skill at 3..?

This also has to deal with my friend's proposed character who has a TO of 8 and plans on using chain armor of some variant...most likely not a full suit.

So what I propose we do as a possible house-rule to combat these high stat characters, is to make TO never exceed the current ST.. and vice versa. This makes it brutally simple to modify the system in order to combat munchkinism and to keep things on a realistic scale.


I should like to view your thoughts everyone on these issues..
-Ingenious

[Alan]

I believe that in the rules a player has to choose one attribute to be his highest.  You could just require that TO can't be that high stat.

Also, do these guys ignore SAs?  Then a nasty trick wake up call would be to give their opponents high SAs.  And don't forget to attack areas not covered by armor.

[Ingenious]

Well, the problem with my character is, with acrobatics at 3 and rolling 6 dice against it for my agility in a skill test.. means more times than not I will be receiving +6 dice to my combat pool for the evasive move of my choosing. That increased my total combat pool around 25%..and allows me to focus more of my CP towards an attack.. rather than worry about leaving dice behind for a second attack or a defense.. etc. However I can not parry or use a shield or counter with those bonus dice.. so I guess that evens it out...

We don't generally ignore SA's. We don't like doing counterproductive things in session(unless it is part of the plot)..

But the character with the TO of 8 and chain makes for a total defensive rating of 12.. BEFORE successes enter the equation.
I think that is a bit much don't you?

-Ingenious

[The big blue ape]

Ingenious
speaking on the matter of high defense, my character has a defensive rating of 12 and recently took a level 3 wound to the stomach and only survived due to a nice seneschal (thank you very much colby), so I say there is no such thing as to much defense

[Alan]

Well, the problem with my character is, with acrobatics at 3 and rolling 6 dice against it for my agility in a skill test.. means more times than not I will be receiving +6 dice to my combat pool for the evasive move of my choosing. That increased my total combat pool around 25%..and allows me to focus more of my CP towards an attack..

Um.  You did notice that only Full Evasion gets a full AG roll?  (And Full Evasion doesn't give you an attack opportunity on the next Exchange.)  Partial is AG-1 and Duck and Weave AG-2.  Or is the character's AG 8?

Also note that, on the rare occasion of a Acrobatic failure, the character doesn't get to roll his Evasion - all the attacker's successes count.  As one must be unarmored to try this roll to begin with, a failure could well be catastrophic, even with a TO of 7.

----------------------

It just occured to me to ask: how did the character get such good scores?  Has he been played a lot?  I notice that the only skill packet with Acrobatics speficies +1 - so the best skill a starting character could have is 6+1-1 for an MA point = 6. (I used to think that MA points could all be spent on one skill, until I reread the Skills section on page 19-20 carefully.  My interpretaion is that no more than 1 MA point can be spent on an individual skill.)

If he did earn his skill down that low through play, then more power to him.  That's what experience is about.

If this is a starting character something is wrong.  Also keep in mind the attribute tradeoffs the charcter has made.  If he has AG 8 and TO 7, then a number of other scores are going to be 2 or 3.   The game isn't all about combat.  What happens when the character has a problem he can't fight his way out of?

[Lxndr]

If he gets Acrobatics from a skill packet, yeah, it's 6+1 = 7.  If he gets it from putting MA into it DIRECTLY, it's 6.  Period.  Modifiers in skill packets in no way affect direct-MA-skill purchases.

[Morfedel]

I remember seeing a suggestion a few months ago that was met with some warmth, on allowing TO to only be as high as the Strength of the assailant; so if the assailant was attacking with str 5, you could only count TO 5, the rest had to be from armor; the theory being that skin stops a small amount of force, but a sword still cuts pretty well unless stopped by metal.

I haven't played enough to know what is almost too high to be countered, if there is such an animal. I do know that I once did a number of practice combats between a plate-armored person and an identical twin unarmored one (or armoroed only to the point that he had no CP penalties). I wanted to test and see whether losing CP or having weaker armor was more detrimental.

What happened is, most of the time the CP pool of the lightly armored one was so high he easily kept the initiative most of the combat, but didnt seem to be able to penetrate the combination of armor and toughness.

Finally, one of them, I do not recall who, finally got lucky, and the battle ended, but it went on for some time it felt.

[Bob Richter]

Is a concept that has no application to roleplaying (as opposed to wargaming.)

So you're an absurdly acrobatic fellow who can take a solid whack from a shortsword without flinching.

Good for you.

That's just who your character is. Is that who you wanted to play? yes? Good.

I don't really like the current rules for toughness or any of the proposed solutions to it so far, but those aren't really the business of this thread...are they?

[Poleaxe]

I actually came with a set of rules for TO:

No starting human character can have a TO higher than 5.

No human's TO should exceed 6 (maybe you'd allow 7, maybe).

No human's TO should exceed their ST.

No human's TO can exceed their EN or HT by more than 1.  Why should an unhealthy, unfit human get a high ability to shrug off lethal damage?

non human races can exceed each of these limits by their races bonus to TO (think dwarves)

So, any starting dwarf could get a TO of 7, but his STR would have to be 5 and his EN and HT would have to be 4.  Does this make sense?  Is it too complicated?

Thanks,

-Alan

[Silvermane]

No human's TO can exceed their EN or HT by more than 1. Why should an unhealthy, unfit human get a high ability to shrug off lethal damage?

Huge amounts of subcutaneus fat. Think of Falstaff. There's a lot of blubber you have to slash through in order to damage any vitals, and finding a vital organ in such a huge mass of a man isn't that easy.

He won't be fit, and probably not healthy.


Hello to you all, by the way.

-Silvermane

[Poleaxe]

Silvermane,

I honestly had not thought of that (did anyone else?).

Good point, I guess.  But wouldn't such a character be required to take the minor or major flaw of Obesity?  That flaw exists, right?  Going from memory at the moment?  That could be an exception to my suggestion.  But I'd force someone to roleplay all that entails...

-Alan

[Lxndr]

Also remember that "Toughness" is more than just "The Blade Sinks Into My Flesh But I'm Still Fine."  It's also, to some extent, "I Managed To Make The Blade Hit Me Less Harmfully."

Or such has always been my interpretation.

[Anthony I]

I look at Toughness as the "hero factor"- Don't forget that the blow's actual STR isn't determined till after the TO is factored in- you haven't actually hit for damage until you determine what is left over after armour and TO.  So even if you have 6 successes, his TO/armour of 6 can make your blow into a near miss.

[Jake Norwood]

Is a concept that has no application to roleplaying (as opposed to wargaming.)

So you're an absurdly acrobatic fellow who can take a solid whack from a shortsword without flinching.

Good for you.

That's just who your character is. Is that who you wanted to play? yes? Good.

Dammit! I agree with Bob AGAIN!  This has to stop.  ;-)

Seriously, if everbody is having fun and this character allows you to live the story you want to live (in-game, of course), then more power to ya.

I look at Toughness as the "hero factor"- Don't forget that the blow's actual STR isn't determined till after the TO is factored in- you haven't actually hit for damage until you determine what is left over after armour and TO. So even if you have 6 successes, his TO/armour of 6 can make your blow into a near miss.

This is one of the prime bennies to TO as it stands--it allows for less mortal, more "heroic" characters, and is ideal for players (or characters) that want to get hit alot and not die.

Jake

[Jaeger]

Ingenious...

 For your PC's who want to play with TO of 7 or 8...

Take your own advice from this thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9575

And only allow TO to subtract from an opponents ST.  They can have as high of a TO as they want and it still wont stop weapon bonuses and successes... It's a simple solution that doesn't require any extra math or die rolling that's not already part of combat. And it works wonders to reduce munchkinism.

You will probably never have a PC with a TO higher than 6 using that system because it doesn't have the same big payoff.

Also PC's who put everything into TO or ST are missing out on a high, AG, Wit, and Per. All much more useful as ones high stat for a combat based PC's IMHO.

  When players propose characters with stats as part of thier proposal - make them go back and think up a real character, and not a stat sheet they want to "roleplay/fight".

- I disagree on TO being a "hero factor" - that's what SA's are for.

- And I disagree on TO reflecting "I make the blade hit me less harmfully" that's what spending CP dice on defense is for.

And if you ever have to wonder if something is or is not "munchkin" - then it is.