"naked Dwarf" syndrome and a posible fix

[bergh]

first i wanna say that having a toughness about 6 is not working very good, we tryed to play yesterday, (mock combat), and the T7 character was simply to good, anyway was is the logic in having the toughness to ignore a blow, a unarmored TO7 guy hit with a sword is gonna have a wound, not matter what! his skin is not metal.

From now on i recomend only to have MAX TO6 to start with, im maybe even going to say 5....

but i hope anybody out there will help me.....

[Caz]

That's nearly a universal house rule.  In my games max TO for a normal human is 5.  Mose peoples limit in their games is 5 or 6.

[toli]

This topic seems to come up every so often.  I wouldn't limit TO but I would only let it negate the ST bonus.  Thus ST5 - TO8 = 0 not -3....

[bergh]

That sound like a very easy and realistic way to do it, so far you system that toughness only cancels strength is one of the two method i will try, the other is to roll the the toughness and (TN6), the success are the effective toughness.

Anyway i think your system is better, i will try that first..

[sirogit]

How comparable is this to the rest of the attribuites, anyway?

Say, a guy hitting with a rapier does -5 damage or something in that area, right?

Now, if one character has a Strength of 8(Perfectly possible for a beginning character) is against an opponent with a Toughness of 3, and than aims a Cut at their head with 7 dice, one die to increase damage, 4 dice are successes, the other party fails an evasive move, so the damage dealt is 8-5+5-3, a level 5 wound to the Neck, which decapitates them. It's not realisticly possible to decapitate someone with a rapier, right?

My personal opinion, is that anything above 6 is nearing the fantastical and under the right circumstances, produces results which are not simulated in human nature.

[Ingenious]

[RANT MODE ENGAGED]
Methinks you get ahead of yourself Sirogit..

The one die spent to increase damage only happens in the case of the bash manouver I beleive..
The rapier's stats on a cut are ST - 3. So the negative 5 strength thing is preposterous. If the character in your example had a strength of 8, the total damage would be 5 plus the margin of success. Say four of them are successes.. That's a damage rating of 9.

Minus the toughness of 3, makes it a level 6 wound.. if the victim of the attack has no armor..

You were off on calculating the damage my friend.. even in the methodoligy you used to do so. Take Strength plus weapon damage plus # of offensive successes.. subtract from that the sum of toughness, armor, and defensive successes.
Let me reclarify for purity's sake.. as I am not the most easily understood person on here..
Offense: Strength + weapon modifier +successes
MINUS
Defense: Toughness +armor +successes

I agree that high TO and high strength are bothersome in terms of the way that they 'corrupt' the purity of the system..
In order to combat a high strength, you need a high toughness, in order to defeat a high toughness..you need either more strength or more skill with a blade(ie. more combat pool dice, hence more chance of hitting someone more skillfully).. or a lowered ATN weapon.. such as one with 'fine qualities' to reflect its superior balance, ease of use, etc.

Those are the real variables to this equation, not just strength or toughness. Put more emphasis on skill with a weapon, quality of the weapon, etc.. and show that to your players by beating the shit out of their characters with it. They will soon see the light as I have seen it.

Now from my point of view.. I typically do not like high toughness characters.. especially confronted with high TO and full plate, or fine full plate. The latter of which is the purpose of my new character.. to wear fine full plate, and his original toughness was 8.(7+1TO being from stahl)
In playtesting I saw the faults of this while I was playing in the mini-campaign I am involved in, I had a sorceror who just casted the 'armor of air' spell, giving me full coverage at AV 8. His toughness was 4. This made for a defensive rating of 12, without anything being rolled.
My character for the other tros campaign with the fine plate and TO of 8 had a defensive rating of 14 before anything was rolled for defense..
The armor of air made it so that my sorceror basically did not even have to TRY to defend... hence me leaving only 1 die in my CP after each first exchange.. so that I could declare a 'defense' in the case I lost the initiative in my attack.. and even when defending.. I would supply my character with bonus dice from the acrobatics skill... So, on defense.. I had the potential of a 24-die CP.(Base 12, plus full agility(6) every exchange from the acrobatics skill) I did this little bit of min-maxing to see how extreme the system could be brought and to see just exactly how game-play was destroyed in that fashion.

I figured that when this character was capable of taking on what was between a Gol warrior and a Gol captain in terms of strength, combat, attributes, etc.. without really being afraid of 'what if the thing hits me'.. that it was bad for anyone involved with having to play with such a character. This same character, through the fact that I had a much much much larger CP than anyone normally would have.. was successful in buying initiative(with his base 12 dice mind you.. acrobatic bonuses were kept seperate)and then beating the Gol's weapon.

What is the point of allowing a character in your game, that through his sheer 'numbers on paper' destroys game-play? The very fabric of what makes the game interesting compared to others is at stake. TROS is very brutal, realistic to a degree, and most normal characters can die from a single blow..and a very high TO character shatters that. It destroys the common risk-factor that the entire PC party has to contend with.

Essentially you are creating a 'Riddle-master', speaking in terms of the riddle-seekers... Someone that doesnt fear death from the very beginning of play..because if he gets hit, he wont feel it.. save from something huge like a charge in which a lance is used.. a dragon.. an elephant sitting on the guy..etc.

My motto as a player is, 'If it is not a challenge.. there is no point to it.'
Hence, why I decided to re-tool my new character with a TO of 4, granted it is still a defensive rating of 10 when we combine that with full plate.. but it IS full plate after-all...

Solution: If you are the GM of a group which has a high TO character and it comes to be too hard.. simply cheat. Make NPC's with a ST that is the same as the TO. On top of that, have him wield a 'fine' weapon with a lowered ATN number. Combine that with a powerful weapon such as a greatsword or a pole-axe and suddenly that high TO character is in for some trouble. Perhaps that might teach that player a lesson, that his character is FAR from invulnerable...


-Ingenious

[sirogit]

The one die spent to increase damage only happens in the case of the bash manouver I beleive..

I'm pretty damn sure it applies to Cut manuevers as well, Thrust being the only basic-attack it does not apply too.

The rapier's stats on a cut are ST - 3. So the negative 5 strength thing is preposterous. If the character in your example had a strength of 8, the total damage would be 5 plus the margin of success. Say four of them are successes.. That's a damage rating of 9.

That sounds about right. Maybe you could apply the -5 strength to a nail file and my point would be made the stronger.

You were off on calculating the damage my friend.. even in the methodoligy you used to do so. Take Strength plus weapon damage plus # of offensive successes.. subtract from that the sum of toughness, armor, and defensive successes.
Let me reclarify for purity's sake.. as I am not the most easily understood person on here..
Offense: Strength + weapon modifier +successes
MINUS
Defense: Toughness +armor +successes

I assumed no armor or defensive successes, as the result of a failed evasive manuever. I'm pretty sure my math turned out right.

I would agree that yeah, high ST and high TO are the most powerfull attribuites in combat... and there's a good reason. They're not usefull for anything else. Gamebreaking, if the game is dependant on the challenge of combat? Possibly. But if no one else has high profiencies/armor/ST/TO in a game that is dependant on scheduled combats with players who can leisurely strap on Plate mail, than they choose to have skills that have considerable less use in the campaign.

That hits me as a problem that should be settled before proclaiming the game is broken. Either you should instate a rule where characters can't be aimed so much at combat so that they arn't on equal standing with players who don't want to focus on combat, or have everyone focus tightly on combat. Either way I see as the only permanant fix to a semi-fair combat-centered gaming.

[Overdrive]

I probably wouldn't allow ST or TO above 6 in my game. That said, I don't necessarily see hi ST/TO characters as a problem.

First of all, all PCs need a high stat. I consider the high stat to be somewhat special, like the incredibly nimble AG 7 guy, or the MA 7 guy who can pick a new language in a snap. Why couldn't you build your character around hi TO or ST? With ST 7 you'd be the strongest man around, and everyone would notice. TO 7 would mean the character probably has reputation of being the one who was kicked in the head by a horse with almost no effect, and who fell from the roof of a three-story house trying to rescue his girlfriend's cat, and walked away.

It so happens that you are also quite effective in combat. In a mercenary company, your buddies laugh afterwards when you do take two arrows, one in the leg and one in stomach. They buy you drinks and tell war stories of the mighty Ivan, who actually has like 30 scars in his body (no kidding!). When it goes bad for the unit, you find yourself alive after all others have been killed and looted.

Actually, I saw 'Last Samurai' (or whatever the name, where Tom Cruise is the last samurai) last week and it struck me that perhaps Tom had TO 7 or so.

It's just not right in my opinion that people can have almost superhuman attributes and hide them, no way. Others will be interested in them, in good or bad. And when an evil nobleman wants to kill or capture the notorious veteran of 30 battles who 'cannot be killed', he sends enough of his guards, and then some. Perhaps hires a strongman. Adventure possibilities are endless. Besides, nobody in this game is invulnerable..

[Andrew Mure]

It's just not right in my opinion that people can have almost superhuman attributes and hide them, no way. Others will be interested in them, in good or bad. And when an evil nobleman wants to kill or capture the notorious veteran of 30 battles who 'cannot be killed', he sends enough of his guards, and then some. Perhaps hires a strongman. Adventure possibilities are endless. Besides, nobody in this game is invulnerable..

I agree. The same should apply to stats which are painfully low. My take on this is that attributes that at least 2 away from the average either way tend to attract attention unless the character actively attempts to hide them, requiring relevent skills checks. Thus equally as the strongman will have to dodge every recruiting sargeant in the city, the uneducated man becomes the target of various folks who have 'a hundred and one answers to all his problems... for a price of course...'

High tough guys in full plate can be easy dealt with by a character with a higher CP (not hard to find after you put on full plate) and an anti armour weapon (I suggest a greatsword if only for the half-sword manoverve). There is also the option of hooking or grappling the character while another baddy raises his visor and dirks him in the eye. Ganging up was the usual answer to knights.  

And if nothing else works have the character annoy a sorceror...

[toli]

I'm partial to the, "TO negates ST but no more" approach because it is simple.  It also allows high TO characters to fight that big gol where others flee....blah...blah...blah.

However, another approach would be to use a RuneQuest like approach where damage and damage reduction would be derived traits.   In this case you would replace TO with size.  The damage bonus would be (ST+Size)/2.  Large and strong characters do more damage because they have more mass behind the force of the blow.  Damage reduction would be (Size+HT)/2 or something like that.  WP would be the measure of "toughness" indicating how well a character can ignore pain....

Just a thought...NT

[Lance D. Allen]

I'm partial to the "It ain't broken damnit, so stop trying to fix it" approach.

I think Overdrive's comments about having a high stat character hit it fairly well on the head. If I had to limit it in one way, I'd say that the high stat is for the life of the character.. No other attribute can ever be equal or greater than the high stat. That is where the character shines.

But really.. High TO and ST are perfectly fine if you ask me. Give me any legal character, and I can kill him legally if I so choose. Let 'em have their strengths.

[toli]

I'm partial to the "It ain't broken damnit, so stop trying to fix it" approach.

Oh, I would generally agree.  My first option above is a simple fix for people who think TO is too powerful.  THe second option tends to smooth out stuff so that everyone is almost equal...not really all that good.  

I play a Stahlnish genrty guy with high TO.  While he is a bit of a combat machine, he's spent a few luck points on not dying.  He also ain't too educated, which provides a completely different set of problems...

[bergh]

The Riddle of Steel is: Toughness 10

[Jaif]

I don't have a problem with high strength.  Over and over again, we see that with modern day chemicals/techniques we can create people with amazing strength.

I do have a problem with amazing toughness; flesh and bone will always have the same material strength.  I'm fine with WP modifying things like shock; that's supported by the historical record.  But I don't accept a toughness of higher than 6/7 (7 because I don't mind stretching things for fantasy a little).

-Jeff

P.S. It would be interesting to work out a system where you made toughness rolls to reduce damage rather than subtracting directly: then a toughness of 7 wouldn't always be -7, but only sometimes -7 and mostly less.  Then armor would be nice and linear, and toughness would be variable: sometimes the tough guy takes the hit well, others the hit is clean and no amount of toughness can save the day.

[Ingenious]

Yes, but the key issue is did they have those modern techniques and steroids back in the day? No.. but that still doesn't mean exceptional strength can be had via constant stress and exercise.

The toughness being variable compared to static finally interests me...
though I would not know how to model such a thing in game mechanics terms. Should the number of the opponent's margin of success be the target number? Should it be a fixed number +successes?

*shrug*
That one someone else will have to sort out.
-Ingenious