Dragon Age RPG - More Deadly/Faster Combat

[tordenskjold]

Hey guys, I hope there are some Dragon Age fans here who might help me as the question is very much a mechanical one. I'm running a campaign set i Orlais at the moment, and having played through a number of combat encounters by now I think the system runs relatively smoothly. I have one problem though: IMO combat tends to drag out not due to any fault with the system but due to the very large pool of hit points players have available at even low levels. The fighters in my level 2 group have 40+ hitpoints and wear heavy (8 armor points) armor. A fight against a single opponent with a sword (2d6+5 damage in this case) turned pretty much into a slugfest where the opponent was very slowly worn down and the group members took negliable damage. I understand that AGE is put together as a coherent mechanical system and the large number of hp make sense in context - this is heroic fantasy after all. But I'd like to run a campaign that's more "gritty" in the sense that death should be much more of a threat than it is now as far as I see it - a deadly hack if you will.

I've been thinking about ways of going about this and can't really come up with an easy way. Could hp simply be halved? This would make the threat of combat very real, instead of taking 10 hits with a longsword youl'll only be able to take 2-3 even in armor, placing (in my view) greater importance on individual encounters and planning strategies for when to fight and when to find other solutions.

Thoughts and comments are appreciated!

[Alejandro]

How about some enemy rogues that specialize in stunts that reduce armor? That would put a dent in the warriors.

[Dienekes]

Hey guys, I hope there are some Dragon Age fans here who might help me as the question is very much a mechanical one. I'm running a campaign set i Orlais at the moment, and having played through a number of combat encounters by now I think the system runs relatively smoothly. I have one problem though: IMO combat tends to drag out not due to any fault with the system but due to the very large pool of hit points players have available at even low levels. The fighters in my level 2 group have 40+ hitpoints and wear heavy (8 armor points) armor. A fight against a single opponent with a sword (2d6+5 damage in this case) turned pretty much into a slugfest where the opponent was very slowly worn down and the group members took negliable damage. I understand that AGE is put together as a coherent mechanical system and the large number of hp make sense in context - this is heroic fantasy after all. But I'd like to run a campaign that's more "gritty" in the sense that death should be much more of a threat than it is now as far as I see it - a deadly hack if you will.

I've been thinking about ways of going about this and can't really come up with an easy way. Could hp simply be halved? This would make the threat of combat very real, instead of taking 10 hits with a longsword youl'll only be able to take 2-3 even in armor, placing (in my view) greater importance on individual encounters and planning strategies for when to fight and when to find other solutions.

Thoughts and comments are appreciated!

Halving the hit points seems like it should work. Honestly, hit point bloat was one of my larger complaints with the video games. So I'm not sure if this problem being carried over is just bad design or if it's trying to recreate the game too well.

[Orich Starkhart]

What about penetrating damage, ignoring the effect of armor, though not the possibly overly generous health statistic?

N.B: I've only gone through the QuickStart for DragonAge, so it could be that there are ways to inflict more damage, or bypass armor and shield protection in the more complete Set 1 and Set 2 rules that I have not seen. In the Quickstart penetrating damage can increase and can reduce armor protection, reducing those generous health points sooner than without that penetrating damage.

Your question seemed to posit a singular opponent to the party; in such a case relative level usually matters a lot - if the single opponent is of analogous level to one individual of a party of multiple adventurers of similar level, I would expect the party to triumph easily, with minor damage, in any system. (DragonAge, Pathfinder, AD&D1e, etc, assuming the party can have an idea of the capability of their opponent and range of action to counteract. (so they'll avoid clustering to manage not to all get damaged by an offensive area affect spell such as a fireball))

One way to generate challenging encounters is to increase the number of opponents. In DragonAge, I think a PC gets to count their shield against one opponent, so simply adding aggressors active in the encounter may make things significantly more challenging for your players.

[Orich Starkhart]

What about penetrating damage, which ignores the effect of armor, though not the possibly overly generous health statistic?

N.B: I've only gone through the QuickStart for DragonAge, so it could be that there are ways to inflict more damage, or bypass armor and shield protection in the more complete Set 1 and Set 2 rules that I have not seen. In the Quickstart penetrating damage can increase and can reduce armor protection, reducing those generous health points sooner than without that penetrating damage, but most of the effects are through magic; one stunt does allow partial reduction of armor protection.

Your question seemed to posit a singular opponent to the party; in such a case relative level usually matters a lot - if the single opponent is of analogous level to one individual of a party of multiple adventurers of similar level, I would expect the party to triumph easily, with minor damage, in any system. (DragonAge, Pathfinder, AD&D1e, etc, assuming the party can have an idea of the capability of their opponent and range of action to counteract. (so they'll avoid clustering to manage not to all get damaged by an offensive area affect spell such as a fireball))

One way to generate challenging encounters is to increase the number of opponents. In DragonAge, I think a PC gets to count their shield against one opponent, so simply adding aggressors active in the encounter may make things significantly more challenging for your players.

[Knaight]

I'm pretty sure just halving HP would work decently.