Half Armour

[Jujitsudave]

Ya know what I think would be a great addition to Runequest in general?



Often many warriors do not wear armour that covers them completely. Chain mail without shoulders, open faced helms, Vambraces without armour on the upper arms. The benefit to this would be armour that weighs only half of normal and only half the penalties, yet offers the same AR of protection.



Of course, there would be drawbacks. Such a thing would be that it's far easier to get past since it's not covering as much. Bypass armour could be used against it, but it would not require a critical to pull it off.



I didn't want to fool with the AR ratings for the sake of bookeeping but I think this does nicely. What do you think?

 

[danskmacabre]

You could just further break down the D20 hit location.
It wouldn't really complicate things much, there's room in the D20 roll to expand it further in each location.

 

[Jujitsudave]

Not a bad idea, say, use the Harn hit location tables. You need them for creatures too so it would take a bit more planning.

 

[danskmacabre]

Well I probably wouldn't bother doing it for creatures.
The purpose of doing a reworked hit location would be to accommodate more detailed armor.
You don't really need to bother with that for creatures (unless you want to of course)

 

[Richard]

Check out RQ3 for detail on how to do this. Separate missile and melee locations and armour ENC values for each location. Fiddly but gave it a gritty realistic feel. Most PCs went around with a personal favouraite combination of different armours and layers. Unfortunately the armour values don't translate directly. This is the system that develops into/from BasicRolePlaying (BRP). Each type of armour had a location rating and you you could ad up and layer wht you were wearing. The info is probably available online somewhere. If my wee boy wasn't leaping about on my lap I'd try and give you the basisccs..

 

[soltakss]

Hit locations for half armour would be very easy to do. Use a percentile hit location, multiply every D20 location by 5 and fill in the gaps. Arms would probably be split with hand taking up 10%, forearm 45% and upper arm 45%, legs would be split into foot 10%, lower leg 40%, knee 5% and upper leg 45%.

You'd probably want front and back locations, though, as a helmet would cover the whole of the back of the head but might leave the face open.

It makes things complex but still fairly easy.

It also allows targeted blows to certain parts of the body, e.g. hands, faces and genitalia.

 

[Jujitsudave]

Would genitalia take up more space on a higher percentage on certain adventurers?

 

[Jujitsudave]

Seriously though, thanks. I think that would work on the fly for most creatures, while using the Harn tables for your mundane humanoids.

 

[tarkhan bey]

Don't forget about the effect on strike rank. Would suggest, to keep it fairly simple, that hit locations should be doubled to 14 potential locations and that the total number of AP worn should be divided by 10 and rounded up.
Consider full plate on 7 locations= 42/5=-9SR
Whereas full plate on 14 locations= 74/5=-15SR
Whereas full plate on 14 locations=74/10=-8SR

Not exact, but close enough.

 

[Jujitsudave]

That's true. That is how Harn does and makes a big calculation headache.

 

[Mixster]

So divide legs & arms into lower and upper parts, Abdomen & Torso into right and left side. And head into face and skull (or Neck and head)? Seems perfectly legit to me, although explaining how somebody survived a dagger stab to the neck might be hard.
You could then also differentiate HPs even more.

Seems like a good idea for PCs, but for NPCs it might be a lot of work.

 

[Jujitsudave]

The problem when you subdivide hit locations is that Tarkhan Bey said is trying to calculate strike rank. That ends up being a complicated mess.

 

[Dan True]

You could also keep everything as it is, and give partial armour a "coverage rating" = xx %. Say, if you have half the arm covered in plate it has 50% coverage. Instead of subdividing the hit locations, you simply roll a d% and see what it hits.

Yes, it has more dice rolls... but compared to the trouble of making new hit locations charts, forgetting which one is used, new strike rank calculations etc... then I would surely go with this.

- Dan

 

[danskmacabre]

You could just extrapolate it for the most part.
Like I said expand the D20 location roll for each loation, but say for leg, (is it 1-3 I can't remember, I don't have the book) make 1-2 the upper leg and 3 the lower.
Don't split the HPs anymore tho just apply the whole leg as HPs.
The APs are more complicated tho as already pointed out it complicates SRs.
I guess you could halve the SR calculation or something.

As a GM if someone really wanted to hit a spoecific location like a hand, then if they can manage to hit the correct arm, make somesort of opposed roll to hit the hand (depending on what they're trying to achive by hitting the hand).

I think expnading the locations will make things unnecessarily complicated for not really much improvement in the game (IMO if any)

 

[Deleriad]

Actually I reckon the original idea of simulating partial armour by allowing it to be bypassed on a normal (rather than critical) is a good one. You could then say that its normal armour penalty is halved to represent its lightness. Note that despite the artwork in the Core book, the armour values in RQII are based on armour that leaves a fair few gaps.

It's a nasty drawback but would be ideal for high skill, high CA characters who will see their SR remain relatively high and can defend their exposed flesh.

I think that's a lot less work and goes with the grain of the game better than subdividing hit locations.

The related issue of wanting to be able to hit people in the eye etc. I personally reckon that's something that can again be done through CMs. E.g. If you get a critical CM then you could choose location (eye). Hit someone on the hand (to make them drop a weapon)? That's basically a disarm CM or choose location (arm) and hope to do enough damage to make them drop the weapon. I do tend to find that nearly all the neat stuff that someone might want to do in combat can be run using either pre-existing CMs or CMs made up on the fly. E.g. If you look at the Devil's Gulch scenario I did in the latest S&P, sliming and poisoning were both done through customised CMs.

 

[Dan True]

The related issue of wanting to be able to hit people in the eye etc. I personally reckon that's something that can again be done through CMs. E.g. If you get a critical CM then you could choose location (eye).

But, isn't this already covered? I mean, if someone hits the head, crits and chooses bypass armour and maximise damage I would obviously take it to mean he pierced his eyeslit.

- Dan

 

[Deleriad]

The related issue of wanting to be able to hit people in the eye etc. I personally reckon that's something that can again be done through CMs. E.g. If you get a critical CM then you could choose location (eye).

But, isn't this already covered? I mean, if someone hits the head, crits and chooses bypass armour and maximise damage I would obviously take it to mean he pierced his eyeslit.

- Dan

Yup, that's another way you could do it. However bypass armour and max damage and happen to roll the head then it might be an eye or it could be a slit neck, spear through the mouth etc. But say there was an ancient prophecy that the man who blinded evil lord Maguffin would receive power beyond counting then the player might want to choose location plus specify eye rather than hoping to hit the head.

 

[Mixster]

The problem when you subdivide hit locations is that Tarkhan Bey said is trying to calculate strike rank. That ends up being a complicated mess.

Yeah, but his numbers are off anyway. (If you double the number of hit locations, and divide by twice as many, you should know that a/b=2a/2b).

14*6 = 84, not 74. If you then divide by 10, you get -9SR, just as you would with 42/5
Only changes would be if you hit armour values of like 81, where you'd normally have 40½. Which wouldn't be possible normally, but work fine under this system

---

By the way, after my anatomy class today, I was thinking, aren't the hit locations a little weirdly sized. The abdomen is about 50cm * 30cm. While the Torso is about 20cm*30cm. But they are the same chance to be hit?

---

I like the option of getting armour that can be bypassed with a normal hit. But don't most people choose the choose location if enemies don't wear armour everywhere anyway? Then this wouldn't change anything over just choosing to subdivide hit categories.

What I'd like would be to combine the Combat style roll and the hit location roll, so you didn't need to roll twice. Possibly do it the way Dark Heresy and WFRP (which are both build off of RQ) does it. Or just using the last digit of your D100 roll. Then you could have:
1: Left Lower Leg.
2: Right Lower Leg.
3: Left Upper Leg.
4: Right Upper Leg.
5: Left Abdomen.
6: Right Abdomen.
7: Left Arm.
8: Right Arm.
9: Torso
0: Head.
Then you'd just have to remember that uneven is left, and you could basically count up from yourself everytime you rolled it.

 

[Dan True]

By the way, after my anatomy class today, I was thinking, aren't the hit locations a little weirdly sized. The abdomen is about 50cm * 30cm. While the Torso is about 20cm*30cm. But they are the same chance to be hit?

Well, I think it's just for simplicity and ease of remembrance. However, the chance to be hit on a location doesn't only count on the size of the location. When you're trying to hit a guy, there are some specific places that are accessible, while others are simply impractical or impossible to hit (speaking from experience here) - depending on your weapon, his weapon, skill etc. For example I think it's much harder to hit an arm with a thrust (say from a spear), than with a sword, but I don't have first-hand experience fighting with spears.

So, if we wanted it to be completely realistic, the hit location should be a function based on your attack roll, the opponents parry roll, the weapon type of both combatants, plus some random element. Waay to complicated, so it's easy just go give a uniform distribution, so as not to make players go "Hm, but there is 5% less chance of getting hit in the abdomen, so I forego armour there..."
Not that a real-world person wouldn't think that way if they didn't have money for enough armour, but they couldn't come to the same conclusion about where you get hit the most, as it is dependant on so many factors.

- Dan

 

[Mixster]

So, if we wanted it to be completely realistic, the hit location should be a function based on your attack roll, the opponents parry roll, the weapon type of both combatants, plus some random element. Waay to complicated, so it's easy just go give a uniform distribution, so as not to make players go "Hm, but there is 5% less chance of getting hit in the abdomen, so I forego armour there..."

Fun, this is usually why I don't spend money on a helmet. There's less chance to be hit there, and a strike to the arm is about as lethal, well as there is only 10% chance to be hit in the head, compared to 15% on every other location, you only get 2/3 on your AP/Gold ratio spend on the head.

This might have something to do with me being a munchkin and all.