harpy
2011-03-03, 11:27 PM
This is something I've tried on occasion, but never found streamlined enough to pull off, so I'm putting it out to the community to see if there is a better way.
What I've tried to do is basically just use the existing system to generate just a bit of flavor data to help tone down the abstract nature of combat. The idea is that the to hit roll that someone makes actually can tell you a bit about what happened in that round of combat if you pay attention to the specific roll.
Basically you just take the AC modifiers that the PC/NPC has and break them out and map them compare them to the roll.
A sword and board fighter's AC spread might look like this:
Attack Roll [plus modifiers]
1 (auto-miss)
2 [base] (miss)
3 [base] (miss)
4 [base] (miss)
5 [base] (miss)
6 [base] (miss)
7 [base] (miss)
8 [base] (miss)
9 [base] (miss)
10 [base] (miss)
11 [Dex 14] (ducks out of way)
12 [Dex 14] (ducks out of way)
13 [Large Shield] (hit, but shield deflects attack)
14 [Large Shield] (hit, but shield deflects attack)
15 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
16 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
17 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
18 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
19 Hit!
20 Hit! (maybe a crit)
21 Hit!
22 Hit!
Etc.
The idea is that the roll is able to explain what happens on a miss roll. It doesn't have any actual impact on the game, but it's just a way of seeing some flavor information get outputted by the dice, rather than just leaving it as a hit/miss binary.
Basically each creatures AC would be broken down into all of its parts, and would be organized in a particular order:
Base AC
Dex Bonus
Dodge Bonus
Deflection Bonus
Shield Bonus
Armor Bonus
Natural Armor Bonus
Enchantment Bonus
Misc. Bonus
By organizing the bonuses in that way, it represents how you start off with the base AC that simply means a pure miss, then moves into those bonuses that involve avoiding the attack all together, such as Dex and Dodge meaning that you move out of the way. Lastly, you have the bonuses that would represent an actual connection, but the shield/armor/etc. Bonuses end up deflecting the hit in such a way that it doesn't cause any damage.
I've tinkered with having these spreads on a character sheet, and it works fine, giving a bit of detail on how the PC is absorbing blows, but in order to have this for monsters means making these little tables for every monster out there, or just tediously do the math in your head as you play.
So the overall problem is that it's just a minor bit of fluff, but it is fun when you do it, however the effort in setting it up isn't really worth the fuss.
Does anyone have any ideas on making this work so it is easy to implement on a larger scale in the system?
What I've tried to do is basically just use the existing system to generate just a bit of flavor data to help tone down the abstract nature of combat. The idea is that the to hit roll that someone makes actually can tell you a bit about what happened in that round of combat if you pay attention to the specific roll.
Basically you just take the AC modifiers that the PC/NPC has and break them out and map them compare them to the roll.
A sword and board fighter's AC spread might look like this:
Attack Roll [plus modifiers]
1 (auto-miss)
2 [base] (miss)
3 [base] (miss)
4 [base] (miss)
5 [base] (miss)
6 [base] (miss)
7 [base] (miss)
8 [base] (miss)
9 [base] (miss)
10 [base] (miss)
11 [Dex 14] (ducks out of way)
12 [Dex 14] (ducks out of way)
13 [Large Shield] (hit, but shield deflects attack)
14 [Large Shield] (hit, but shield deflects attack)
15 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
16 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
17 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
18 [Chain Shirt] (hit, but chain shirt absorbs the blow)
19 Hit!
20 Hit! (maybe a crit)
21 Hit!
22 Hit!
Etc.
The idea is that the roll is able to explain what happens on a miss roll. It doesn't have any actual impact on the game, but it's just a way of seeing some flavor information get outputted by the dice, rather than just leaving it as a hit/miss binary.
Basically each creatures AC would be broken down into all of its parts, and would be organized in a particular order:
Base AC
Dex Bonus
Dodge Bonus
Deflection Bonus
Shield Bonus
Armor Bonus
Natural Armor Bonus
Enchantment Bonus
Misc. Bonus
By organizing the bonuses in that way, it represents how you start off with the base AC that simply means a pure miss, then moves into those bonuses that involve avoiding the attack all together, such as Dex and Dodge meaning that you move out of the way. Lastly, you have the bonuses that would represent an actual connection, but the shield/armor/etc. Bonuses end up deflecting the hit in such a way that it doesn't cause any damage.
I've tinkered with having these spreads on a character sheet, and it works fine, giving a bit of detail on how the PC is absorbing blows, but in order to have this for monsters means making these little tables for every monster out there, or just tediously do the math in your head as you play.
So the overall problem is that it's just a minor bit of fluff, but it is fun when you do it, however the effort in setting it up isn't really worth the fuss.
Does anyone have any ideas on making this work so it is easy to implement on a larger scale in the system?