Spartan wrote (http://www.shadowharn.net/viewtopic.php?t=741): My main beef with the system is the TOUGHNESS stat. It functions the same as armour reduction, and I find that to be a bit unrealistic. If your character has a TOUGHNESS of say 6, that reduces damage as much as plate does. Kind of weird. It's a simple enough thing to put a limit on the stat by race... say a limit of 4 or 5 for a human.

Durgil wrote:

Spartan wrote (http://www.shadowharn.net/viewtopic.php?t=741): My main beef with the system is the TOUGHNESS stat. It functions the same as armour reduction, and I find that to be a bit unrealistic. If your character has a TOUGHNESS of say 6, that reduces damage as much as plate does. Kind of weird. It's a simple enough thing to put a limit on the stat by race... say a limit of 4 or 5 for a human.

Jake, what is the reasoning behind this point?

That's still better than wearing a full suit of mail (AV4) and a TO of 2. That just seems quite a big difference to me. A character with a TO of 2 would have to wear armour with an AV of 5 to withstand the same strike that a character with an TO of 7 could withstand.

It should be a big difference. Someone with TO 2 is *very* weak. I would imagine very, very old people as having TO 2.
Anything less than 3 is either not human or disease or old age.
In my book, humans range from 3 to 6 or 7.

Toughness in a real and only real campaign shouldn't pass 5 or maybe 6. It's in there as-is to protect dnd types. That's really it. It just depends on what you're going for.

TO of 2 is really frail. If you got hit with a sword in full plate and had a TO of 2 you'd judt get all banged around and would still be hurtin'.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: TO of 2 is really frail. If you got hit with a sword in full plate and had a TO of 2 you'd judt get all banged around and would still be hurtin'.

I don't know about this "limiting toughness" stuff. I don't think it's quite... in line with The Riddle of Steel. My take on it is as such:

You want to spend all your Spiritual Attribute points in being tough? Is it your lifelong goal to become a Shaolin monk, who can bend spears with his throat? Go ahead. That's precisely what you'll become.

The way I see it is that after a point, it isn't worth it to spend anything on becoming tougher unless that is part of your character's life, drive, goals and such.

BTW, the average Gol has a TO of 6. I don't think that should be off-limits to higher-end humans. 7 or 8 seems to be a good cap to me, because it represents being as tough as a normal person wearing chain mail. Six is as tough as a normal person wearing leather, and 5 would be a silly cap, IMO, because that's the average Stahlner, not even the extra-tough ones.

And don't look at it as "TO of 6 is like wearing plate armor" because that's TO of 10 (remember that most people are TO 4). And a TO of 10 is just insane. No human would ever have enough desire to get toughness that high, unless maybe they've already achieved enlightenment through sword skill and are really bored.

Lyrax wrote: I don't know about this "limiting toughness" stuff. I don't think it's quite... in line with The Riddle of Steel. My take on it is as such:

You want to spend all your Spiritual Attribute points in being tough? Is it your lifelong goal to become a Shaolin monk, who can bend spears with his throat? Go ahead. That's precisely what you'll become.

The way I see it is that after a point, it isn't worth it to spend anything on becoming tougher unless that is part of your character's life, drive, goals and such.

BTW, the average Gol has a TO of 6. I don't think that should be off-limits to higher-end humans. 7 or 8 seems to be a good cap to me, because it represents being as tough as a normal person wearing chain mail. Six is as tough as a normal person wearing leather, and 5 would be a silly cap, IMO, because that's the average Stahlner, not even the extra-tough ones.

And don't look at it as "TO of 6 is like wearing plate armor" because that's TO of 10 (remember that most people are TO 4). And a TO of 10 is just insane. No human would ever have enough desire to get toughness that high, unless maybe they've already achieved enlightenment through sword skill and are really bored.

My take on it is that if I got swung at by a sword and it hit me, my toughness would not have very little to do with how far it penitrated into my flesh. Just trying to imagine this in a real world setting, a really tough character might continue fighting like nothing happened, only to find out after winning the fight that he is in danger of bleeding to death, where the wimpy guy falls to the ground after the same hit screaming in agony. I might have an idea, Jake, that would be tide into those house rules conserning armour that I brought up in that Armour Question thread. I'll start to hammer a rough draft out at work today and try to get it to you by the end of the week.

I don't think a linear toughness that subtracts from all types of damage equally is necessarily realistic. However, I don't think you're going to come up with a better system, where 'better' includes ease-of-use.

On the subject of how high to let toughness go, I do know this: people are capable of far greater acts of strength then toughness. In otherwords, they can do amazing feats of strength, but ruin their bodies in the process. We see this over and over again with steroids & other drugs.

In my head, a strength of 10 represents lifting roughly 1000lbs, which is the world record. This is simply yanking something off the ground and establishing control for a few seconds. Now, if that's the max strength, then I hold my thumb to the air and say...hmmm, let's call '7' max toughness and deal with that. Sure, someone from stahl will manage and 8, but it's a fantasy game afterall.

-Jeff

Maybe a possible solution is to move the damage reduction quality of toughness into a derived stat based on toughness and endurance. I just had someone make a character with a TO 8 and EN 2. In armor he will be a tank (for the few rounds he can fight before passing out but that is usually enough).

My reasoning for combining them and making it a derived stat (TO+EN)/2 is that a combined toughness/endurance can represent not only the characters innate toughness but also his ability to keep on fighting as the damage wears him down.

Just my 2 coppers.

-Bogie

I can see points on both side of the argument, but without going into the extremes, I think that TO works as a good counterbalance to ST. Two guys with average ST and TO are dueling... 4 ST and 4 TO on both sides, and it all comes down to the weapons, the armor, and the skills of the two opponents... Which is where it ought to be.

Still, though... It does bear thought, and better yet, testing. I think, once I get the Gladiators project fleshed out enough, I think that it would be an excellent method for putting the system through it's paces in more than simple duels. Dueling is fun, but it can get dull if repeated the same way every time, so the Gladiators idea can stimulate the fun aspect, as well as creating really new and interesting situations in which the system's breaking points can be determined.

Which isn't to say the system is broken, of course. Not in the least. But all systems have their breaking points, no matter how well put together, and it is a good idea to fully recognize where those points are, and how they can be minimized and patched over, if not fixed entirely. ST -vs- TO may very well be one of those points.

One last point, something that struck me as wrong for no discernable reason:

Jaif wrote: On the subject of how high to let toughness go, I do know this: people are capable of far greater acts of strength then toughness.

One thing I would like to throw in:

TO reduces the wound level, not the effects of a wound level taken. For example, it's harder to decapitate a guy with TO 6 than TO 3, but if his head comes off, he's dead.

IRL, people get stabbed 57 times and live. Others get stabbed once and dice.

Perhaps we're interpereting what TO is wrongly...

Just a thought.

Jake

Maybe WP dives a character onward instead of succumbing to Shock and TO would be a character's ability to withstand pain. I can see Arnold Swartzenager (sp?), in one of his tough guy movies referring to an open wound on his huge shoulder as "it's just a scratch."

Durgil wrote: Maybe WP dives a character onward instead of succumbing to Shock and TO would be a character's ability to withstand pain. I can see Arnold Swartzenager (sp?), in one of his tough guy movies referring to an open wound on his huge shoulder as "it's just a scratch."

Jake Norwood wrote: TO prevents bigger wounds--it doesn't dull the ones you have. That's what we're missing. TO is metaphysical, in a sense. It isn't like more hit points, it just makes you harder to kill. It increase the chance that you're simily grazed and not swewered without increasing your CP. It does not dull-down the effects of a skewer, though! Think about it.

I haven't thought about relating TO to size. I can picture that a lot better. A strike that would probably kill a man may only serve to piss off a really big bear such as a kodiak, grizzly, or polar bear. Thanks ;)

Durgil wrote: I haven't thought about relating TO to size. I can picture that a lot better. A strike that would probably kill a man may only serve to piss off a really big bear such as a kodiak, grizzly, or polar bear. Thanks ;)

Forgive me, but how do you know this? Feats of strength are more common, that is true.. But that is, I believe, because strength is more glorious to demonstrate, easier to develop, and easier to observe and measure. Human toughness rarely ever gets a spotlight, though.

- A person high on PCP puts his fist through a car window, but he breaks numerous bones in his hand in the process. He can exert more strength than his body can bear.

- Numerous football injuries, all related to the individual's strength overcoming tendons and joints. This became prevalent in the age of steroids, where it became easy to grow strong individuals. It continues still w/o steroids, because we know other ways to make people strong.

One last point - you can train yourself to make certain lifts, break objects, and so on, all of which would seem to defy this point. However, these are specific, engineered motions; they are not things you could do in the chaos of a battlefield.

Hi - new member, and I'll first make the obligatory genuflection to Mr Norwood for creating such a fine game!

On the subject of Toughness, I think I see it kind of like Jake does - to some extent a physical thing (i.e. not too many octogenarians have TO of 7, and relating TO to size makes sense up to a point), but also a metaphysical/luck thing, where the character with high TO just gets away with a flesh wound on a regular basis. Durgil used Arnie as an example, but I can't help thinking of John McLane in Die Hard - an ordinary joe who's just very difficult to kill.

As ever, YMMV.

Martin

People have a maximum strength that they can project, and they do so very infrequently. Because when they do so, they tend to hurt themselves. PCP does not make you any stronger, it just makes you operate at this highest of levels for long periods, and ignore any negative repercussions before or after the fact.

Thus, the act of a martial artist breaking bricks is this maximum strength projected in a carefully engineered method designed to cause maximum damage to the bricks while leaving the MA unharmed. Note that when it is done improperly, that they do get hurt, and that even the best hurt themselves occasionally. Some people do train in the toughness of these body parts (some claim that a few actually break and heal their hands repaeatedly to form them into calcium clubs, essentially; possibly apocryphal). But this toughness is not nearly as important as doing the maneuver correctly. Bone and flesh are simply more fragile than brick, and unless directed correctly the brick will bite back. Any martial artist swinging his arm like a club at a brick is much more likely to break his arm than the brick.

The human framework is limited in size and strength. Your skelleton will never get any bigger after reaching maturity. Yet substances like steroids can make your muscle mass outstrip the skelleton's ability to withstand the forces that such muscles can generate. Or, rather, they can do this more often; anyone can hurt themselves applying force in the wrong manner (ask a guy with a herniated disk in his back). But this does explain the higher rates of injury that you see these days in sports (despite better training methods). Stronger opponents, and stronger people hurting themselves and each other. OTOH, I think that steroids are not available in Wyerth. Their cognates would raise ST to potentials higher than 7 or 8. As one poster said, probably around 10.

This all said, there is no way to accurately compare these things to each other statistically using the system. A person with a 4 ST can punch a person with a 4 TO and do damage. He just has to hit well enough. Given the vagaries of the resolution system, I think that we can just assume that the range given is as it is described. It works in play, and is fun. If it turns out that it is somewhat unrealistic, well then, that wouldn't be the only unrealistic thing we can find, and probably amongst the least glaring. Certainly something that we can ignore.

At least I will.

Mike

I imagine it is perfectly possible, with the right training and exercises, to accomplish all of the same feats of toughness under duress and stress as not; Albeit, the chances of making a mistake, and thereby injuring yourself is still greater.

I think that we can just assume that the range given is as it is described. It works in play, and is fun. If it turns out that it is somewhat unrealistic, well then, that wouldn't be the only unrealistic thing we can find, and probably amongst the least glaring. Certainly something that we can ignore.

I think capping it at 5 (Jake's earlier suggestion) is perfectly acceptable for a more gritty campaign and allowing it to range up from there is acceptable for a more cinematic campaign (where ribs seem to be made of admantium anyway).

Bear in mind though that survivability will plummet. Reducing a Toughness of 7 to a Toughness of 5 just turned that level 3 wound into a level 5 "you are now dead" wound.

In the demos I ran with Jake 11 points of damage were common, 14 happened on occassion, and I think there was at least one 18 or 19.

11 points will kill an unarmored TO 4-5 character in one blow and cripple the TO 7 guy.
14 points will kill a chainmailed TO 4-5 character in one blow
18 points will kill a platemailed TO 7 character in one blow.

11 points is not all that hard to get. STR 6 Pole Axe with 2 successes against naked flesh.

14 points is not all that hard to get. STR 6 Pole Axe with 3 successes against chain mail (+2 vs hard armor).

18 points is not impossible to get. STR 6 Pole Axe with 7 successes agains plate mail (+2 vs hard armor).

Now thats a pole axe. Lets take a lighter weapon, say with one that the STR plus weapon damage comes out to 5.

Light weapons are generally intended to be used against unarmored or lightly armored opponents. If the opponent is lightly armored (say 2 points of leather) your goal would be to hit an unarmored location.

A damage 5 weapon will exactly cancel out TO 5 meaning you need 5 successes to get a fatal level 5 wound. Against a TO 7 character hitting a location with 2 points of armor, 5 successes will get you a level 1 wound.

The key here is how to get 5+ successes in a roll. Its not really that hard. Your CP is normally going to be 10-12 even with a beginning character. Most light weapons have ATNs of 6 so your looking at 5-6 successes for a typical hit, a couple more if you get lucky. The goal here is make sure your opponents defensive successes are minimal. Which with adequate use of Counters, Feints, Binds, Beats, and of course Shock and Pain, is an achievable situation. Once you've drained your opponents CP with Shock or Beats, prevented his parry with binds, tricked him into too low of a defense with a Feint, or Nailed him hard when he has few dice left in his pool on a Counter where you get a good number of bonus dice...you're in position to succeed with that killing blow.

Yes it is noticeably more difficult against a TO7 opponent than a TO5 opponent, but that is as it should be. Its not, however, unreasonably difficult.

In practice TO5 and TO7 characters are just about as mortal as you would expect a particular swordsman to be. The scores are not outrageously high.

Higher than that and your get into the realm of professional wrestling where characters can be hit square on the head with a metal chair and shrug it off...

That returns us to Jake's original (and IMO best) solution. Cap toughness at 5 (6 with a modifier) for a gritty campaign, and let it go up for a cinemagraphic one.

It all works out well in play.

I don't think we should limit toughness.

::gets bombarded by "realists"::

Hey! Hear this out, first.

Okay, so here we are basing all of our speculations on "what-if." What if the players decide that they want to make a character with 10 toughness? Would it really unbalance the game? I don't think so, because the spiritual attribute costs necessary to get a 10 in any stat are insane. A munchkin with any sense will spend more time getting combat pool instead, because it can be used for offense AND defense, in addition to being cheaper. The game has built in it's own mechanism to fend off munchkins. There are NO toughness restrictions that are proper or even necessary!

Okay, you say, but what if a munchkin makes an 8-TO stahlner (actually happened in my game). Here, you have several options.

1) Point out that the player might want another attribute to have actual value, particularly one like Wit, Per or Soc. If the player refuses, simply capitalize on that weakness throughout the game.

2) Arbitrarily limit the toughness of the character because the player is being a munchkin.

3) Kill that character with a Gol Captain.

4) Play with it, and see how it goes, using one of the other methods if he gets out of hand (which I doubt will happen).

I think you'll find that #4 is actually a valid option because these players will get way too cocky for their own good. Sure, you'll be capitalizing a little on the weakness of the players, but that happens to everyone. Sooner or later, the 8-TO stahlner will either attack a raging horde of 10,000 celtic berzerks or pick his battles wisely (much like the other fighters). Even if you start out with it, an 8 toughness doesn't come free.

Lyrax wrote: I don't think we should limit toughness.

::gets bombarded by "realists"::

Well, it is a fantasy game. If all else fails, just fall back on that old standard, "F^%$ you, i'ts magic!" if you have to explain the phenomenon. As far as balance goes, I see no problem with it. Each point of TO is just one more success I need to roll. If I can contemplate fighting Hef, I can contemplate fighting the TO 8 guy.

Mike

How about this:

TO 1-2: Fairies, small Siehe and extremely frail people(because of age, disease, curses etc.)

TO 3: Weaker people or average smaller Siehe.

TO 4: Average human and tougher(small) Siehe.

TO 5: Tougher people(muscle-guys).

TO 6: Really tough people, as in really big thugs and Carrot from the Discworld novels. Anyone that has the shape of a body-builder, including Gol grunts.

TO 7: Absolute, definite maximum for human beings. Shaolin monks and people that eat airplanes.

TO 8: Supernatural(i.e. either sorcery or Siehe or trollspawn)

I let you decide how cinematic it is.

I've noticed that there are some quite strange TO values in the little beastiary. A dwarf warrior has TO 7? That's almost twice the TO of a normal horse(4).
The biggest and baddest of all warhorses have a TO of 6, about the same as a little-tougher-than-average-Stahner.

"The only thing tougher than the Stahlnish warhorse is the Stahlners themselves."

It wouldn't be completely unreasonable in lieu of caps which can be restrictive to simply subtract 1/2 Toughness from damage instead of full Toughness.

That would make the "average" TO4 character have -2 to damage a below average character have -1, A tough TO 6-7 character have -3 and the super nasty Stahl brick a -4.

I would then be tempted to up the armor values by 2 on all pieces of armor to compensate so a Leather Wearing average guy still reduces damage by 6. It would just be 2+4 instead of 4+2.

In the end it would have virtually no effect on 80% of game play, but it would address the odd extreme situations. It would also help with attributes in general I think. When I'm making up characters, knowing how important TO is to survivability its very hard for me to NOT put a 7 into TO. The difference of 7 to 4 is 3 levels worth of wound or 3 enemy successes shrugged off. Its significant.

But if the effect is halved. The difference between 7 and 4 is only 1 level worth of wound. I'd be much more comfortable with a TO of 4 under this situation than the way it exists currently...freeing up 3 attribute points for other things.

Hmmm....I kind of like that solution...although it does mean unarmored rapier types will be eating the dirt alot more often...

Alternatively...instead of jacking up the armor by 2 to compensate...halving STR would have a similiar effect.

Here's my experience with high toughness characters (TO 8). Last night, we all built characters and sparred with them. One guy created a massively tough, and massively strong character. Not only that he was very fast. But, the character only used his hands. We'll call him Andre.

Now, we have him fighting a sword and shield user in leather. We'll call him Bob.

Andre also wears leather armor.

Ok, so the fight started out normal enough for first time players. They both attacked at the same time. Bob easily defended against Andre by using Simo. Block & Strike. In fact Andre could not get pass his shield for most of the combat. Bob hit Andre quite a few times with his sword. Averaging about 2 to 3 MoS. His strength was around 5 I believe, plus the two for the weapon. So every time Bob hit Andre he did a Level 0 wound. Andre was immensely strong, and Bob knew it, so he tried not to overcommit himself, but eventually Andre got the better of him and smashed Bob's face in with his fist. Instant death.

Now, I'm not really complaining about Toughness since this was the first time we played so we didn't have a strong grasp on all of the manuevers. Still, it was difficult to explain what happened when Andre was hit. I just explained them as flesh wounds and the like. It felt kind of strange.

-Joshua

Valamir wrote: It wouldn't be completely unreasonable in lieu of caps which can be restrictive to simply subtract 1/2 Toughness from damage instead of full Toughness.

I would then be tempted to up the armor values by 2 on all pieces of armor to compensate so a Leather Wearing average guy still reduces damage by 6. It would just be 2+4 instead of 4+2.

While I agree that the toughness rules are a little weird in places I don't think I would change them for the simple reason TROS combat is deadly enough as it is

uh, can we say, uh, dead horse here?

TO 6 is the absolute max for a very "mortal" character.

TO 7-8 is for "heroic" types, and even then only at the expense of all else.

TO 9-10 is out of the question unless you're running high fantasy.

Horses have a low TO because they are incredibly frail. I lived on a ranch for 6 years, and a horse can kill itself on a wire fence. I've seen it. Big one, too.

Hef and the like have a high TO because of natural armors and the like.

Instead of whining about TO is too high and alternately "there aren't enough points for attributes" limit TO to 4 or 5 and use the leftover points elsewhere.

Jake,
who recently noticed that hot orange gatorade tastes just like orange spice tea

Enoch wrote: Here's my experience with high toughness characters (TO 8). Last night, we all built characters and sparred with them. One guy created a massively tough, and massively strong character. Not only that he was very fast. But, the character only used his hands. We'll call him Andre.

Now, we have him fighting a sword and shield user in leather. We'll call him Bob.

-Joshua

svenlein wrote:

Enoch wrote: Here's my experience with high toughness characters (TO 8). Last night, we all built characters and sparred with them. One guy created a massively tough, and massively strong character. Not only that he was very fast. But, the character only used his hands. We'll call him Andre.

Now, we have him fighting a sword and shield user in leather. We'll call him Bob.

-Joshua

If a guy with a sword parries a punch can he do damage?

Jake Norwood wrote:

svenlein wrote:

Enoch wrote: Here's my experience with high toughness characters (TO 8). Last night, we all built characters and sparred with them. One guy created a massively tough, and massively strong character. Not only that he was very fast. But, the character only used his hands. We'll call him Andre.

Now, we have him fighting a sword and shield user in leather. We'll call him Bob.

-Joshua

If a guy with a sword parries a punch can he do damage?

This is a good question. It is certainly possible to deflect (we'll say "parry") many kinds of blows with a bare hand, but hard to do and very risky for some of them. I would say that there is a great possibility for taking damage to the arm on even a "successful" parry. How to do that mechanically, though...?

Jake

It is certainly possible to deflect (we'll say "parry") many kinds of blows with a bare hand, but hard to do and very risky for some of them. I would say that there is a great possibility for taking damage to the arm on even a "successful" parry. How to do that mechanically, though...?

Oh, yes.. One last thing on the definition of Toughness that I meant to post before, but kept getting distracted from. I think that Toughness isn't only how physically capable you are of taking a hit and not being injured, but is also a measure of how well trained you are at reducing the effect of a hit, by rolling with it, or turning your body in such a way that it is not a direct hit, or what have you. As people have said, there is no way that a human hand has a higher TO than a brick, yet as I've pointed out, people can and do shatter them with their bare hands without taking an injury. So, let's see here...

TO 10: 4 points of "average, and;
3 points of exceptional Toughness, and;
2 points of knowing how to minimize the effects of a hit, and;
1 point of "Metaphysical Protection", just 'cause.

Admittedly, very few people are going to get there... but it is humanly possible in TRoS, as well as mostly possible in the real world. The fact that it takes extreme dedication is reflected by the extreme SA costs required. Remember, to get to 10, that's 25 points. That's all 5 SAs at maximum level... gone in an instant. I think a TO of 10 isn't asking too much for that.

Wolfen wrote: Tiberius swings on Julianos with his shortsword. Julianos is currently unarmed because he's a yutz, but he attempts to block with his hand to keep from getting his head severed.

Spartan wrote:

Wolfen wrote: Tiberius swings on Julianos with his shortsword. Julianos is currently unarmed because he's a yutz, but he attempts to block with his hand to keep from getting his head severed.

True. However, wouldn't it be more prudent to parry the arm of the attacker rather than the blade? How would we take that into account? I guess that's more of a grapple, but I think it's a viable option. I know this has nothing to do with Toughness per se, but anyway, I thought it was worth bringing up.

-Mark

Wouldn't that simply be covered by a defensive grapple, then? And definitely, you would need to close range, so you would have the range penalties from whatever the weapon is to hand. If that happens to be a greatsword, you're best off getting the hell out of the way, rather than trying to parry or grapple.

Wolfen wrote: Wouldn't that simply be covered by a defensive grapple, then? And definitely, you would need to close range, so you would have the range penalties from whatever the weapon is to hand. If that happens to be a greatsword, you're best off getting the hell out of the way, rather than trying to parry or grapple.

Wolfen wrote: Oh, yes.. One last thing on the definition of Toughness that I meant to post before, but kept getting distracted from. I think that Toughness isn't only how physically capable you are of taking a hit and not being injured, but is also a measure of how well trained you are at reducing the effect of a hit, by rolling with it, or turning your body in such a way that it is not a direct hit, or what have you. As people have said, there is no way that a human hand has a higher TO than a brick, yet as I've pointed out, people can and do shatter them with their bare hands without taking an injury. So, let's see here...

TO 10: 4 points of "average, and;
3 points of exceptional Toughness, and;
2 points of knowing how to minimize the effects of a hit, and;
1 point of "Metaphysical Protection", just 'cause.

Admittedly, very few people are going to get there... but it is humanly possible in TRoS, as well as mostly possible in the real world. The fact that it takes extreme dedication is reflected by the extreme SA costs required. Remember, to get to 10, that's 25 points. That's all 5 SAs at maximum level... gone in an instant. I think a TO of 10 isn't asking too much for that.

Jake Norwood wrote:

svenlein wrote:

Enoch wrote: Here's my experience with high toughness characters (TO 8). Last night, we all built characters and sparred with them. One guy created a massively tough, and massively strong character. Not only that he was very fast. But, the character only used his hands. We'll call him Andre.

Now, we have him fighting a sword and shield user in leather. We'll call him Bob.

-Joshua

If a guy with a sword parries a punch can he do damage?

This is a good question. It is certainly possible to deflect (we'll say "parry") many kinds of blows with a bare hand, but hard to do and very risky for some of them. I would say that there is a great possibility for taking damage to the arm on even a "successful" parry. How to do that mechanically, though...?

Jake

This hasn't been mentioned yet, although I'm sure many are aware of it: in the Renaissance, it was an excepted tactic to do deflect a blow with the hand. And it was done -- and taught -- with the full understanding that a puncturing of the hand was very likely. However, better to have a hole in the hand than a hole in the face.

It's also not a terrible move, because something like a rapiuer would be momentarily held there in your hand (as apposed to a longsword which would just cut through and keep going) -- thus giving you, if you're not too shocked by the injury, a moment to attack your opponent while he's defendeless.

In game terms, this is basically a block and strike, but with damage to the hand a given. Maybe a special maneuver is called for? High-ish activation cost, but if successful, the attack is redirected at your hand, you get initiative, and your opponent's weapons is effectively beaten away (can't be used in defense). Thoughts?

I found this an amazing post, I'm glad someone actually brought up the amount of SA's needed to to achieve a TO of 10.

On a Different note, I NEVER saw TO 10 as a problem. Pro wrestling aside.. lets look at boxers... no not mike tyson, back a bit further... did anyone ever see the hagler/hearns fight? The damage those two did to each other was incredible... the fact that they made into the third round is a huge statement about toughness.

When I was at West Point we had the privledge of getting a lecture from a Medal of Honor Winner. In Vietnam this man had been shot 4 times in the torso while fighting a retreat against many enemy. He was captured after he ran out of ammo, because they followed the blood trail of the sergent he was dragging into the bushes to hide. After 9 months in a prison camp he became IIRC the Only officer to escape during the war. He was shot again while escaping, but made it 10 miles through the swamp where he found friendly units. I don't know what this mans toughness and will power were, but they were far in excess of what most people would consider reasonable maximums.

Reading the citations for the CMoH can give whole new upper range for your concepts on these abilities.

If your still worried about high TO then average the Damage reduction between TO and AG. In a dedicated fighter type, it can still be high. but you then Double(at least) the incrdible amount of SA's required to reduce the dage by 10. Personally i don't think the system needs to be tweaked here. Noone complained that a ST 10 guy barehanded does MORE damage than the average st 4 guy swinging a pole axe. Unless the vicitm is in Full platemail with full helm, in which case he hits as hard as a maul.

Disregard

In the game system, a person with a high toughness doesn't take damage. In the game system, a person with a high willpower takes damage, but ignores the effects. Your officer sounds like the latter to me; he took plenty of damage, but went on despite their effects.

In regards to boxing, everbody seems to ignore the large amount of armor -padding- people wear on their fists. Take that armor off, and they kill each other very fast. Even with that armor, they still get hurt. Boxers aren't 'tough 10' in the sense of the game; they are 'will 10' in that they do take large amounts of damage, but fight on anyway.

I stand by my statements - in game system terms, people can train their strength far higher than their toughness.

-Jeff

P.S. I keep stressing 'in the game system' because words in english have far broader meaning. The game uses the word 'toughness' in a very narrow sense. Take away the game, and of course I describe boxers and that officer as 'tough'.

In regards to boxing, everbody seems to ignore the large amount of armor -padding- people wear on their fists. Take that armor off, and they kill each other very fast.

Good points Ed.

Its interesting to note that many are coming to the conclusion that the boxing gloves that ar worn today are more lethal than bare fists. Seems odd, don't it? But the cuts and damage caused by bare fists (and to the fists) apparently led to fights usually ending quite a bit earlier. The boxing gloves serve to allow the fighters to deliver many more blows to the head. Which means that the brain is squished around a lot more. This combined with the need for fighters to dehydrate themselves to get into weight classes has been attributed as the sole cause of most of the boxing deaths this century.

That said, obvoiusly, this brain punishment isn't slowing anyone down. Thus, it is TO, and not WP that's keeping them going as long as they do. Whereas formerly, bareknuckled, it was probably more WP trying to ignore pain effects to keep going.

Mass does relate strongly to the ability to absorb damage IRL. See Gulliver for a very indepth treatment.

Yes, a point of ST might represent a 25% increase in strength. That could take several years.

Mike

Northcott wrote:

I've always figured that this kind of thing should be linked to strength in a game, factoring in overall muscle mass and body density... serving as protection when wearing armour as natural padding beneath, but doing little to stop the bite of a sword -- though a thicker, denser limb would, theoretically, be harder to cut off than a thin, less dense one. I rather like the idea of toughness representing size

I agree. The ability to withstand (or shrug off) trauma is definately a function of body mass.

That said, obvoiusly, this brain punishment isn't slowing anyone down. Thus, it is TO, and not WP that's keeping them going as long as they do.

take i think it was an SAS guy had his leg/s ? blown off not in a way that lelft open femoral arteries for bleedout, now by staying calm and focused he managed to keep it together till help arrived,
(WP over TO in that case, he was harmed)


but then some people have taken less injurus wounds but died from the sheer Shock and trauma despite it being less serious in a medical view.
(now here TO over WP but they die due to a mental effect of shock not coded in system)

The thing is although one case works in a system way (the sas guy would have damn high health to make all the BL rolls pass) the people going out to shock from less serious wounds dosnt work because in the real world a person cannot be described as 10 seperate quantifiable numbers.

Strength and toughness and health meld and intermingle so much improving one usually means improving a collection

toughness and health and endurance can also blurr between each other etc

Agility and strength/toughness can be in opposition (people with huge muscles dont always move faster, Arnie in the old super bodybuilder days would be somewhat slower than a small lithe sprinter)

Also Agility and Endurance can be mutually exlcusive.

or any of these can not apply,

the mental side, well,

WE dont know why the brain works or the details of how we know it works and can describe processes but

know what is going on and what set of values and names can be atributed no chance.



Though on the Officer with the medal of honour, (from a TRoS view)

Average good toughness to not take as much damage
Great Willpower to keep going regardless
Great Health and Endurance to keep physcially functioning despite blood loss pain etc,

also on another system vs life note, ive been in situations where Adrenaline has been a key factor,

while engaged in strenous, tense, emotional situations(LARP mass battles) ive gone on doing exertion thats pretty tough for my unfit body and done it for extended periods of time ,

Course later, when i come down off the pumping adrenaline ive been tired and slow (fora while)

THen the day after the event (or hours after) ive been near paralysed due to the drain and pain ive caused myself,

People have been known in adrenaline pumpng situations to take a lethal blow, not notice and keep going, then afterwards when theyve clmed, fall over dead

its not coded for but it happens


But then hey the combat system is COOL and MUCH MORE REALISTIC im willing to take it as is as it works better than the DnD fighter, who goes on uncarring for many a fell blow from many a mighty foe then reaches 0hp falls over unconcious, from fully fit and fine to seconds from death in a heartbeat. and my personal favourite stupidity the fihter who simply cant be killed in a single blow no matter how good a blow.

Accept TRoS as it is, i have rarely seen such a good system AND setting, nor a game set up to reward ROLEPLAYING a PERSON not a CLASS

Jake Norwood wrote: uh, can we say, uh, dead horse here?.....

....Instead of whining about TO is too high and alternately "there aren't enough points for attributes" limit TO to 4 or 5 and use the leftover points elsewhere.

A friend of mine got hit by a car driving 70 km/h. He got a bruise on the knee. *Thats* Toughness, as opposed to get completely mashed and then ignore it, which is Willpower.

If toughness is stunted in it's capacity to reduce damage, then a lot more players are going to lose characters that otherwise might have lived.

A friend of mine got hit by a car driving 70 km/h. He got a bruise on the knee. *Thats* Toughness, as opposed to get completely mashed and then ignore it, which is Willpower.

I have had my players almost die on a few occasions. The one with the highest Toughness being the one with the greatest wounds... Not every character puts points in Luck either. So Toughness in gameplay, doesn't make players unkillable.

Jaif wrote:
Huh? How many players have died in your campaign? I've had 0. It's very hard for a player to die unless they do stupid things. With the Luck spiritual attribute, it's almost impossible.
My fear isn't players falling down dead due to toughness 5, it's the system losing integrity when a player realizes he's invincible with toughness 10.

Ok, a few things;

1) I never said every character had luck. I said it's tough to die, and that adding luck made it virtually impossible. I said all this in response to the person who said that low toughnesses would bring about more deaths.

2) Holt, I'm one of the people who initially suggested limiting toughness for humans to 7.

3) As for the difference between invincible and virtually invincible; yes, I'm quite aware that there exists numbers greater than 10, and thus a character with a 10 in toughness is not invincible. As a GM (and player), I hate the process of ever-escalating dangers to keep ahead of players with ever-escalating abilities. It ends up feeling wrong to me, and I believe to players too.

-Jeff

If you have problems with a toughness 10 charachter... he's spent a minimum of 41 points on advancing toughness.

Give him opponents that have spent the same number of SA's on advancement.
8 + 9 + 10 + 11 profiecency 11 and 3 more SA's -
If the Charachter started at 7 instead of 8, proficency 12 and 7 more SA's

Or Give him a swordsman enemy with an 10 Points in STR who has heard that the charachter is unstoppable ... sorta like the Western Gunslinger who hears someone is the fastest gun... then seeks him out to prove otherwise.

Not to mention the effects of VENGENCE SA's on children/Borthers of past victims if the player is slaying wantonly... there is also the posse scenario if the charachter becomes public enemy.

Jaif wrote: As a GM (and player), I hate the process of ever-escalating dangers to keep ahead of players with ever-escalating abilities. It ends up feeling wrong to me, and I believe to players too.

-Jeff

You know, there is some really interesting Gamist contrasted to Simulationist thought going on in this thread, that keeps me reading it long after the topic ceased to be of interest to me.

On the one hand you have players hastening to point out that even a 10 Toughness doesn't make a character invincible and if a player has such a character there are numerous ways to bring him to heel so allowing the attribute to get that high isn't really all that unbalanced.

On the other hand you have people who don't really care whether a character with 10 Toughness is invincible or unbalancing or what not. They just don't like the idea that difference between TO 4 and TO 10 is the equivelent of a suit of plate mail, and that it's a little silly to assume that an average person can increase his imperviousness to weapon damage the equivelent of a sheet of metal simply by working on his Toughness.

I love the dichotomy of perspectives.

Unfair question time:

Do you have a preference of one side over the other, specifically for TROS?

Interestingly...I don't know if I care.

What I mean by that is this. When sitting around talking about the game, I'd fall firmly on the Simulationist, 10 TO is just silly side of things.

But having actually played...TO is such a trivial factor in the overall intensity and had so little impact in the enjoyment of the game...not a big deal. The "Balance" folks are right that there are enough checks and balances to prevent "abusing" TO in a way that ruins the games enjoyment for others...but for me...don't know that it really matters.

Valamir wrote: They just don't like the idea that difference between TO 4 and TO 10 is the equivelent of a suit of plate mail, and that it's a little silly to assume that an average person can increase his imperviousness to weapon damage the equivelent of a sheet of metal simply by working on his Toughness.

I love the dichotomy of perspectives.

What I mean by that is this. When sitting around talking about the game, I'd fall firmly on the Simulationist, 10 TO is just silly side of things.

Does this mean that the characters in your game never advance and get better...or do they face the same level of challenge all the time?

Valamir wrote: Interestingly...I don't know if I care.

Jaif wrote:
Last, I really hate the style of gaming I'm reading here, this from a player's perspective. I decide I want to be the toughest guy in the world (in the real world sense of 'tough', not restricted to game language), so I spend tons of points on toughness. After one fight where I do great, every single attacker we face is now using poison weapons, bypassing my toughness to strike at health. Fine, I toss points into health too, only to find that poison is no longer on the menu, but fireballs are. Blech, if the GM wants to beat me, all he has to do is say so and he's won already.

No thanks.

-Jeff

I think you're missing his point Vik.

If I read him correctly, he's talking about, what we on the Forge call "niche protection". In other words he's stakeing a claim to the facet of his character that he wants illustrated as being "heroic" in the game.

If I were playing Hercules, I'd expect that my character would in fact have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his enormous strength, and use it to get out of his bad situations. The occassional event where my strength proved futile would serve as an interesting contrast, but by and large my character is about being enormously strong, and I expect that to be featured in a good way...not to let me run rough shod over the game rules...but because that's my schtick.

Similiarly if Jaif wanted a character whose schtick was being "the tough guy", than the GM should make sure that he has plenty of opportunities to illustrate just how tough he is...including manufacturing a few opponents who serve no other purpose than to highlight his toughness. In other words...give him the opportunity to shine in his chosen area of uniqueness...his niche.

But if instead what happens is that the GM thwarts every attempt to demonstrate his toughness by making it standard proceedure to circumvent it at every turn...Jaif is right...that's poor GMing. That's not playing intellegent enemies who learn to circumvent a character's strengths...that's taking the protagonist of the story and deemphasizing his importance in a way that leaves the player wondering "why did I even bother...I might as well have created Joe nobody".

Jaif wrote:

Does this mean that the characters in your game never advance and get better...or do they face the same level of challenge all the time?

Good question, and my fault for phrasing things poorly. Let me try this - I don't raise the 'level' (in classic D&D terms) of an opponent simply to give the players a challenge. If the players are running around knocking off bandit camps in the western half of the kingdom, I don't make each camp stronger and stronger as the characters build. I may make different challenges - maybe the next camp is well hidden, or maybe the local town is actually a bandit town and not the friendlies the player's thought - but I won't add a ton of bandits, or make each bandit a superman, just because the players over-match them. I believe it trivializes the advances the players made - what's the point of bettering your character if the GM is just going to make everybody you run into more powerful.

yes the one with To10 Should have to wade past blows from a hundered sides though to try and start a plot hook let there be this

Someone wanting to be evil and not stupid

He researches those heroes likly to stop him,

He works out what their thing is,

He learns their weaknesses,

He sends out assassins and goons to kill them all,

Beigns the plan


So the archer is ambushed by a guy in a foxhole in the sort of place he always snipes from

The Toughguy gets hit with a bow lots with nasty poison (contact of course, probably wont get through the skin otherwise)


etc


Now hopefully the party manage to beat their way through,
highjinxs ensues as party find out who tried to off them why and what to do about it

Obviously I haven't seen enough of his adventures to know. I did hear that he survived the poison, and the fireballs I think. I know nothing about his group. Not even the # of player charachters. The Hercules and Zena campaigns are an awful lot like Buffy. Where the whole campaign centers on one charachter, and the bit parts get moments in the sun at different points.

Was the whole party centered on TOUGHMAN? If so then I can see some of your arguments... If however it was an ensemble cast like FRIENDS then there are times when someone elses abilities are just more useful, and thier stories are more central. That being said, A Hercules type charachter, attracts enemies who think they have an edge through use of something different against him. How often does hercules get challenged to arm wrestle by a deadly foe who seeks him out. In mythology I believe he did die by poison administered by the woman who loved him IIRC.

Obviously there is a dearth of information for an accurate assessment of the events in the "WORLDS TOUGHEST MAN" campaign. There are almost always ways for a player to apply his sticht.... Now a charachter unbalanced with toughness, is harder to apply, toughness is largely a passive stat unless you play secret service on the presidential detail. Any charachter known to shrug off wounds like a warm evening rain, is likely to encounter poison, if people know he's coming up against them and know he's almost immune to normal damage.

There are just too many variables to accurately assess what was going on without hearing complete stories from him, the Seneschal and another player. The player saw his toughness being highlighted in only one battle after he raised it... How Highlighted? enough for a bard to sing of the battle? Enough to garner some local fame? Enough for the fame to spread? how many low end encounters had thier been that the player didn't consider important? What subplots did the Sen. offer that the party didn't chase after? Did they chose not to go after them for a reason? Did the charachter just miss them? ... Did the party do things in previous adventures to bring forth the poison/fireball counter attack? Certainly chosing to attack a ninja clan, or a mage school would mean those adventures faced poison/magic respectivly.

Now if the complaint was that TO didn't affect poison or magic, then saddly that is true. but when you unballance 1 stat in hopes of being the best at something, others sufer.. Playing through the weaknes is the soul of good roleplaying IMO.

We are a bit off track, but valamir got it pretty much, and gave the concept a name in the process <g>. I have no problem with smart enemies who figure out how to overcome me. But when the pattern is that the whole world is altered everytime I advance my character to counter my advancement, that's silly.

Oh, I should add that my toughman character actually did exist in a high-powered ICE campaign, and did not experience this situation. I just used it to illustrate, partly because I loved that character.

-Jeff

ok so the entire situation was a fake, You made it sound to me like something that was on going and happening to you.

The truth is that High powered charachters will change the world with thier actions. It wouldn't have been your stat action that caused the reaction among your enemies... it would have been the failure of other methods. The fact that you listed changing your charchter to addresse failed attacks against you, would be the same thing your enemies would do. In your example you already suvived the poison. Time for your foes to seek a new method. Besides, poison wil not be the first alternative option of everyone... magic usually implies mages.

As for niche-protectection, let us add the concept of niche-projection. This is the responsibility of the PLAYER. The player is responsible for analyzing a situation and finding new ways to apply his abilities. Both as a GM and a player I've seen the entire course of metaplots change because of innovative strategy by a player.
The time I did it, I was playing Captain America... we had been framed, were being hunted by the authorities and getting our buts kicked by the helfire club. I looked through my sheet .... hmmm unearthly popularity... I walked into a local televison station and gave an interview in which I spilled everything. In pre Cable Giant Days.. The story was sat upon by the major networks, but viewers recorded the interview and broadcast it over Ham Radio. Repressed by the bad guys in the major media the story was picked up by the SUPERMARKET TABLOIDS... Didn't entirely solve our problems... but it got Nick Fury(who we hadn't been able to contact directly) kicking buts in SHIELD and rooting out the corruption, and the Army Stopped hunting us while doing it's own internal investigation. This allowed us to go for the bad guys short circuiting weeks of side plots our GM had developed... He wasn't overly happy, In years of running marvel he told me he'd never had anyone use Caps' popularity (or anyone elses' that he could recall) as a weapon before. Let alone turn a whole campaign with it.

The point being... no charachter made super one dimensional should expect to have everything catered to that dimension. Nor should any charachter achieving noteriety expect enemies to be non adaptive. Early charachters staying in the cheap inns are more likely to be dealing with purse snatching and possibly kidnapping than the same charachters staying in high priced inns later in thier career, but far less likely to see political intrigue of the power elite, even if they did witness some of it, they probably weren't in the know enough to piece together the information. Kinda like an FBI field agent seeing three middle easterners in flight training, he didn't have the power to follow up propperly, he reported what he saw and went on, had he seen it as FBI director though ....

If you can't understand that the charachters themselves evolve and change as they progress in the world. That they will be operating on different levels as thier skills, fame, power increase, and that thier opponents will try to exploit untried areas rather than always repeating failed strategies... then we will never agree. The typical PC in my experience relishes in noteriety. Those that operate in the shadows, will have less fame, and fewer effects. But those that DO know of them will still modify thier tactics looking for weakness.

This doesn't mean that every time a stat is raised everything faced by the player changes... noone ever suggested that. We did say that if TOUGHMAN goes arround making a name for himself as the "WORLDs' TOUGHEST MAN" that he will atract people who think they can dethrone him by hook or by crook. If he is a loyal ally and frequent servent of the king, the people who are enemies of king level charachters (this king in particular) will take note and seek to remove him from the kings' side.

I've rambled enough on this issue. IF you baby your PLAYERS, you'll hurt your game far more than your expressed fears IMO.

Valamir wrote:
But if instead what happens is that the GM thwarts every attempt to demonstrate his toughness by making it standard proceedure to circumvent it at every turn...Jaif is right...that's poor GMing. That's not playing intellegent enemies who learn to circumvent a character's strengths...that's taking the protagonist of the story and deemphasizing his importance in a way that leaves the player wondering "why did I even bother...I might as well have created Joe nobody".

If you truly experienced this you have my sympathies, in my quarter century playing D-n-D and other systems, this type of GM is exceedingly rare and their games don't last long. there are to many good games out there for them to hold a group. If not then one of his players will start running durring a break, and out shine him so that he takes over the group. On the other hands, GM that baby players and keep them wrapped in wool, also see thier campains die... with less chance of resurection.