Those of you who remember my previous article, Dusting Off the Books, will have noted that it ended with an unresolved question: how to handle non-combat skills using a game system designed almost solely to resolve physical conflict. I have given this more thought, and now have a proposal that may resolve the question. However, I'm saving that for the next article. This article offers my thoughts on a completely different aspect of the Dragon Warriors game system: doing and taking damage.
For those of you unfamiliar with Dragon Warriors, combat results are resolved as follows:
The To Hit roll is equal to or less than your Attack minus the target's Defence; the Armour Bypass roll is greater than the Armour Factor of the target's armour. Each weapon has its own Armour Bypass roll and Damage value. As you can see, it's a reasonably abstract game mechanic and makes the game somewhat distinctive from other fantasy role-playing games. So, why change it? Well, it's an additional dice roll that slows play down, plus it's not consistently used throughout the game system. Most importantly, it doesn't model the sort of combat outcomes I want. I'll get the first two lesser reasons out of the way first.
In my opinion, reducing the number of dice rolls needed to get a result is a good thing. If you disagree, I doubt I can convince you otherwise, so just accept it as a personal preference and we'll move along. Likewise, having more than one way that armour interacts with damage irks me. Armour Bypass rolls aren't the only game mechanic for seeing if an attack wounds the target: other parts of the system (e.g. hitting the ground after falling down, being burned by fire) resolve damage by subtracting the target's Armour Factor from the damage rolled or by reducing the damage by a set amount for wearing any armour. If you don't mind, good for you, but I prefer a more internally coherent game system.
Checking Dragon Warriors websites and past messages on the Dragon Warriors mailing list shows that other people have experienced the same dissatisfaction and come up with their own proposed solutions. In most cases, they recommend dropping the Armour Bypass roll, converting the Damage value into a die roll by treating the value as the average result (i.e. a Damage value of 4 is close to the average result for 1d8, so the Damage Roll is 1d8) and subtracting the Armour Factor from the die roll. Nobody has proposed adding Armour Bypass rolls to things like fire or electricity: it seems everyone favours fewer dice rolls.
This is a perfectly workable solution, but it seems too coarse to me. It blurs together all the weapons that do the same amount of damage, and ignores the differences in outcomes envisaged by the game designers. For example, both the morningstar and the two-handed sword inflict 5 Damage with a successful hit: however, the morningstar has 1d6 Armour Bypass, and the sword 1d10. Under the old system, the sword has a 50% chance of penetrating plate armour, and the morningstar 16%: the new system gives both a 50% chance. Why would anyone use a two-handed sword when they could use a morningstar and shield? Clearly more complexity is required.
My preferred solution is to add the Armour Bypass roll and the Damage roll as calculated above into one roll before subtracting the target's Armour Factor. This creates a more detailed gradiant of weapon Damage rolls, and obviously has far-reaching consequences for non-weapon damage, armour and Health Points: they all have to increase in roughly the same proportion to keep the system balanced.
Armour is the simplest to manage: double the existing Armour Factor. Thus, leather is worth 4 AF, chain 8 AF, and plate 10 AF. For Health Points, I'd double the bonus added to the 1d6 roll, but not roll 2d6. This is because I favour making weapons more dangerous, and not doubling Health Points is one way to do so. It makes it possible to kill an ordinary human on maximum Health Points and wearing no armour with one sword blow, which is always a good test of a game system in my opinion. Finally, damage from things other than weapons (spells, fire, falling, etc) needs to be increased as well.
There are some other things I'd add to the game system to make the bookkeeping easier or combat more realistic (for a highly abstract set of game mechanics). These include: changing the unconsciousness and death thresholds so that 0 Health Points equal death, not unconsciousness; player-set limits on damage to reduce the likelihood of killing the target; standard Health Point recovery rates for all humans, not recovery based on Rank; a different mechanic for using a shield; and the option of fighting defensively. For the details, read on!
Health Points (HP) measure how physically robust a character is. All adult humans begin with 1d6+9 HP. Characters begin with additional HP according to their Profession: Barbarians have 1d6+21 HP, Knights 1d6+17 HP, Mystics and Thieves 1d6+13 HP, and Sorcerers 1d6+11 HP.
Characters who are wounded lose Health Points. A wound that reduces a character to 3 HP or less will briefly render the character unconscious, as will losing HP when on 3 or fewer HP. An unconscious character rolls 1d6 after every minute (10 Combat Rounds) of game time. If the roll is a 1, the character regains consciousness; otherwise, the character remains unconscious. Any character reduced to 0 HP dies.
Injured characters regain Health Points slowly without medical or magical treatment. Without effective treatment, a character will regain 1 HP after one week, another 2 HP after the following week, a further 4 HP after the third week, and 8 HP for every week from that point onwards. Proper medical treatment will halve the amount of time needed to regain HP: thus, a character will regain 3 HP after one week, a further 12 HP the second week, and 16 HP per week from that point onwards.
Every weapon type has a Damage Roll and every armour type has a given Armour Factor (see tables below for details). The attacker must roll greater than the defender's Armour Factor on the appropriate weapon's Damage Roll to penetrate the armour and wound the defender, causing Damage equal to the difference between the two values.
Characters may choose to limit the maximum amount of Damage a successful hit may inflict before making the Damage Roll. No matter what value is then rolled, an attack that succeeds in penetrating the defender's armour cannot cause more Damage than the amount specified before rolling (though it may cause less, or none at all if it fails to penetrate the armour). The lowest limit on Damage is 3 points: no matter how careful you are, there's always a chance that you'll make contact a bit harder than you intended.
Example: Johannes strikes Alcuin with a sword (2d8 Damage Roll). Johannes limits his maximum Damage to 3 HP, and then rolls 12 Damage. Alcuin is wearing chain mail (Armour Factor 8), reducing the Damage to 4. Johannes' limit on Damage comes into effect, and Alcuin loses only 3 HP. The next round, Johannes hits Alcuin a second time with his sword. A peace-loving man, Johannes continues to limit his maximum Damage to 3 HP. This time, he rolls 9 Damage. Alcuin's armour absorbs most of the force of the blow, and he loses 1 HP.
Strength modifies how much Damage a character can cause with an attack. Above average Strength increases Damage, while below average Strength reduces or even eliminates Damage. If the Damage total is equal to or less than 0 after modifiers have been applied, the attack causes 0 Damage and cannot injure even an unarmoured opponent.
| Value |
3 4 5
|
6 7 8
|
9 10 11 12
|
13 14 15
|
16 17 18
|
19
|
| Strength |
-2
|
-1
|
+0
|
+1
|
+2
|
+4
|
There are five different types of armour that characters can wear. Each offers a different level of protection from injury, represented by the Armour Factor (AF).
|
Armour Type |
AF |
Armour Type |
AF |
|
None |
0
|
Ring Mail |
6
|
|
Padded Leather |
2
|
Chain Mail |
8
|
|
Hardened Leather |
4
|
Plate |
10
|
Weapons vary in the amount of damage they can inflict and thus their ability to penetrate armour.
|
Weapon |
Damage Roll
|
Damage Range
|
|
Battleaxe |
2d10 |
2-20 |
|
Cudgel |
1d8 |
1-8 |
|
Dagger |
1d10 |
1-10 |
|
Flail |
2d7* |
2-14 |
|
Halberd (two hands) |
2d10 |
2-20 |
|
Mace |
2d7* |
2-14 |
|
Morning Star |
2d8 |
2-16 |
|
Short Sword |
2d7* |
2-14 |
|
Spear (two hands) |
2d8 |
2-16 |
|
Staff |
2d6 |
2-12 |
|
Sword |
2d8 |
2-16 |
|
Two-Handed Sword |
2d10 |
2-20 |
|
Unarmed |
1d6 |
1-6 |
* Roll 1d8 + 1d6.
|
Weapon |
Damage Roll |
Damage Range |
|
Bow |
2d7* |
2-14 |
|
Crossbow |
2d9** |
2-18 |
|
Dagger |
1d8 |
1-8 |
|
Javelin |
2d8 |
2-16 |
|
Rock |
1d6 |
1-6 |
|
Sling |
2d6 |
2-12 |
* Roll 1d8 + 1d6.
** Roll 1d10 + 1d8.
A shield increases the bearer's Defence by 1 if the bearer is capable of using it effectively in melee combat (i.e. is not attacked from behind, trapped in a net, etc). Magic shields increase the bonus to Defence; thus, a character using a +3 shield has +4 Defence. Any bonus conferred by a shield is doubled before being added to the attacker's Hit Roll for missile combat.
Characters may choose to fight defensively, concentrating on protecting themselves above hitting their adversary. A character doing so may add +1 to Defence for every -3 to Attack.
Characters capable of going berserk can make more powerful melee attacks at the cost of neglecting their defence. This does not come naturally to most people, and is a special ability of Barbarians. A berserker may add +1 to Attack for every -3 to Defence. Berserks may use a shield, but cannot trade the Defence conferred by a shield for extra Attack. They may stop being berserk at will.
Characters incur penalties if they fight in armour they are not trained to wear. Characters take a cumulative penalty of -2 to Attack and Defence for each type of armour they cannot use effectively, increasing from the lightest armour they cannot use to the heaviest.
|
Profession |
Ring |
Chain |
Plate |
|
Barbarians |
-0 |
-0 |
-2 |
|
Mystics and Thieves |
-0 |
-2 |
-4 |
|
Sorcerers |
-2 |
-4 |
-6 |
Falling: double the protective value of armour (i.e. reduce damage by 4 HP) and the damage taken from a fall.
Fatal Poisons: double the damage taken on a successful roll.
Mystic Spells: