Shield Points Instead of Hitpoints?

[Mr. Mask]

Had a random idea. What if you had say, five "Shields", and a bunch of hitpoints. Every time you get hit, you lose one shield. When you are out of shields, the enemy can attack your lifepoints directly.


The main difference being, you regain Shields at a certain rate (all of them at the start of each round, potentially?). You might also be able to expend them as a resource (waste some shields for a stronger attack, or attempt to knock enemies back to give you some breathing space). You might recover Shields at different rates, depending on how you spent them.


EX:
You get hit twice. You lose two shields, but regain them on the next turn.

You spent three shields for a special ability, you regain one shield each turn.

You took a wound and lost half your hitpoints. You permanently lose two shields, until after the combat ends.



There any system out there that's already like this? Does this seem like an interesting idea to elaborate on?

[Segev]

The issue with this approach is that you've made it so that, for the first few "hits" of a round, it doesn't matter what the damage dealt is. This emphasies small and fast weapons and styles which get numerous hits for little to no damage.

This can be worked with, but it's an issue of which to be aware when designing.

[Mr. Mask]

That is true. My first thoughts for how to get around that is large weapons damaging more shields, or inflicting worse damage on them. Say, taking three hits from three heavy attacks takes three rounds to recover. Whereas four hits from light attacks will recover in one round.

Another possibility would be to design the game all around light and heavy attacks. In much of fiction, people save their heaviest, strongest attack for the last, and even in martial arts and real combat it is a thing that often you set someone up so you can inflict a terrible blow. So having a system that emphasizes attempting to hit with a heavy attack last could be interesting, if done right. If you had the choice between light and heavy weapons, light weapons are better at getting rid of shields, but do less damage to hit points, while heavy weapons are harder to hit with but are much more deadly if you get a chance to attack hitpoints directly.


Partially, I was thinking of a system that works for both minion combat and epic duels, where minions can defeat you by chipping away at your shields and wounding you if you're not careful, but you're fairly invincible if you are. Whereas in a duel, it's all about trying to take out your opponent's shields and hurt them, without the same happening to you.

[sovin_ndore]

I would give shields an HP total and specify that an attack must drop the shield before you will be able to target the person behind (with subsequent attacks).

[CombatBunny]

I think you could review the "breaking objects" rules of the system you are using.

Then house-rule that all attacks are targeted to the shield instead of the wearer, until the shield gets broken, damaged, reduced, discarded or whatever you might think is appropriate depending on the system.

The shield isn’t actually broken, but it has to “rest” or the PCs must spend some time “repairing it” before using it on the next combat.

Another approach I saw in the “Valiant Universe RPG” is to treat the shields and protective items as additional HPs. Thus, you can have 10 shield Points and 30 Hit Points; each time you receive damage, you take those points away from your shield points, if you don’t have shield points left or they aren’t enough to absorb damage, you continue with your HPs. If you didn’t spend any HPs, it means that you got out of the fight unscratched.

Hope this helps =)



I would give shields an HP total and specify that an attack must drop the shield before you will be able to target the person behind (with subsequent attacks).

LOL, we had the same thought

[Jay R]

This is similar to the "Fatigue Points" and "Body Points" in Chivalry and Sorcery, by Fantasy Games Unlimited. They were committed to producing an accurate simulation.

It was the most lush, consistent, reasonable, realistic, detailed glorious unplayable mess I've ever seen.

[shadow_archmagi]

Neat concept! I don't know of anything that uses it (Well, in Rogue Trader, the spaceship shields work exactly like you've described, but that's ship combat and kinda garbage.)

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm not fond of it, but then again my favourite system doesn't let the players know their hp totals (they can instead ask the GM how they feel at any time, and have to gauge from rough answers).

My suggestion would be possibly to use wound levels and 'light' and 'serious' damage. Shields absorb any attack by dropping the damage from serious to light. Any combination of damage that takes you down to 0 takes you out of the fight, but you regain all 'light' damage at the end of the encounter.

[Thrudd]

Isn't this basically the vitality/wounds system from d20 Star Wars? It sounds very similar, except maybe lower numbers.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Each shield you have reduces the damage you take from incoming attacks by a certain value. That value can be static or variable - hit dice/level, for d20 systems, or a fixed value, or a defence/constitution type score. Every attack that hits you takes away one shield, making subsequent attacks that hit you more powerful. At the beginning of your turn, your shields regenerate.

Light weapon flurries take away shields and hit you for full afterwards; heavy weapon barrages break through the shields with their higher damage, but rarely take all shields away.

[Thrudd]

What is this system supposed to be modeling? Personal forcefields in a sci fi setting?

[goto124]

Well, medieval shields can't protect someone's back, while personal forcefields can.

Something something Borderlands

[NichG]

I think some variant of this can be pretty good, but this kind of system risks creating very grindy and slow combat if shield count gets too high or comes back each round, so watch out for that.

The upside is that you've got a system which creates a sort of progression through the fight, starting with one type of strategy dominating and then switching to another type of strategy. So that makes for a bigger space of possible useful characters and abilities, which is nice. Per-round shields help make it so that no one is sitting there for hours as the non-useful character for that phase, but again, you have to manage the risk of grindyness.

I would say that having one 'shield' per round that comes back each round should be the limit for most encounters, with solo boss fights maybe having two shields. Three shields gets to the point where most of the party will be doing things to that don't actually advance the fight (that said, in a system where a character can make multiple attacks per round, this might work better).

I don't think the shields should have their own damage track/pool/etc. For one thing, its a lot more book-keeping to take care of. For another, the main benefit of this kind of system is to add tactical diversity, so its perfectly fine if large damage isn't always the answer for dealing with something.

[Fri]

This is basically Star Wars' Vitality Point/Wound Point system, which to be fair, is my favourite concept of all hit point abstraction.

the VP model your physical readiness I guess, and WP is your actual wound. So if your VP get damaged you don't actually get hit, you managed to dodge slightly. Critical hit and some things, like explosion or falling damage or whatnot, bypass VP and wound WP directly.

Also, another neat thing I find from the star wars system (though this is personal), is that VP is also used to fuel force power. So basically using force power exert yourself. Pretty cool, in my opinion.

[Mr. Mask]

Shields: Note that these aren't intended as physical shields. More like the shield from Halo, where it regenerates over time.



CombatBunny: Oh, I hadn't realized there was a Prince Valiant(?) RPG. Will have to look into that one. It's a clever mechanical idea, though I would add in shield breaking and multiple shields as a reference to Viking duels. Thanks for mentioning!



Jay R: Interesting. I hadn't thought it suitable for a realistic system. I'll have to try that one out. What you describe reminds me of Darklands.



Shadow: Thanks! I hope it leads into an interesting idea.



Anonymous: That's a good suggestion. It might be a special ability available to characters.



StarWars: It seems the Star Wars system is similar, with its quickly regenerating second HP bar, also used for certain powers. I guess this system having fewer shields attracts more importance to the idea and is a little simpler.

For Thrudd's question, I was hoping to simulate some of the super-powered combat you see in comics, movies and anime. Where you have to try not to be overwhelmed by minions, and you have epic duels trying to get past each other's defences.



Nich: Playing with regeneration rates is a good idea. It could help to really change up encounters.

Part of the idea was to have some kind of system where you can make multiple attacks per round, possibly as many as you want with each successive attack being weaker.





An idea I thought up. Let's say we represent intact shields as V, shields that've been hit with a light attack with 0, and shields that have been hit by a heavy attack with X. You have five shields to start with: V V V V V


If someone is hit by three light attacks: 0 0 0 V V
They heal the next turn: V V V V V

If you are hit by three heavy attacks: X X X V V
They heal one per turn: X X V V V

And if you get hit by two heavy attacks and two light attacks: X X 0 0 V
Presumably this happens: X V V V V

But what if you're hit by three light attacks and one heavy?: 0 0 0 X V
Perhaps, this happens?: 0 0 0 V V


That could be an interesting point, if ending your combos with a heavy attack was more rewarding, as your opponent couldn't recover from the light attacks until then. It'd also be more challenging, as heavier attacks have trouble hitting, and successive attacks are less likely to hit.

This'd potentially make a hugs and kisses strategy optimal: 0 X 0 X 0 V



Going to think more about this.

[Fri]

Also, Shamus Young of DM of the Rings fame once thought a similar system intended for fencing duel, with the "shield" bar as "focus." Basically you try to lower your opponent's focus/concentration so you can strike him directly, as long as either of you are focused it's assumed that you dodge and parry and such. Can't remember any details though.

[goto124]

Is it this one? (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=188)

[warty goblin]

I've been toying with an idea for a while now where everybody gets a first pool of points to represent their ability to dodge, parry etc in combat, and a second - very much smaller one - representing their actual physical health. Call 'em Combat Endurance and Vitality, if you will. Where this gets potentially interesting is that you could have different rates of recovery for each pool, so CE can (mostly) refresh after a relatively short rest, while Vitality requires some serious R&R or medical treatment. CE could also be spent to fuel particular offensive abilities, or for particularly taxing physical exploits.

As an added benefit, you can pretty easily use this to hedge out a lot of the weirdness involving hitpoints, while still avoiding turning combat into a game of rocket tag. So if you fall into a pool of lava, that's coming straight off of Vitality (although you may be able to spend CE to catch yourself beforehand), and your goose will be cooked forthwith. Same with falling damage, and contact poison would require you to actually do Vitality damage in order to take effect.

[Fri]

Is it this one? (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=188)

Actually yes, I think that's the one I thought of.

[Mr. Mask]

I guess we could take a page out of fighting games' and similar video games' manual, to try and get the combo idea down. The combo breaker attack can probably be used at any time, but it's sort of a gamble that you'll be able to back off and regenerate your shields before you come under attack again by the opponent, and that the opponent was going to succeed bringing you down to zero or really put the hurt on you.


Warty: That is an interesting question of how the shields should work for a last minute-save from falling in lava. If you were attacked immediately, it's easy to justify you being off balance from your last-minute save. If not, then you'd need something like expending magic or injuring yourself in your near-escape penalizing you until the next combat.



What would you think if it cost one shield to perform a heavy attack? So, if you perform the heavy attack, you lose one shield. V --> 0. But the shield will recover on your next turn*. However, if you hit the enemy with the heavy attack, it'll take them one turn to regenerate each hit. V --> X. Of course, if you miss with your heavy attack, you gambled and took a small loss.

I think this makes putting the hurt on your opponent risky enough, without making it too optimal or risky.


*: Presuming you aren't prevented from recovering it, via other special abilities or a heavy attack.

[NichG]

I'd be very careful of any kind of design where you make choices where there's a computable optimum decision. For an example of how this can be a problem, look at what happened with Power Attack in D&D. At the core, it's a math problem, so it gets solved, tabulated, turned into a rule of thumb, and then basically turned into a numerical modifier to the base system.

Also, for this kind of thing, if you're going to have it I think it should be kept fairly far down the build tree for a character rather than being built in at the base level. That way it creates new niches for character builds to fit into. Otherwise, you're sort of wasting that potential. So rather than having a very carefully balanced 'heavy blow' that anyone can execute, why not have something where there are different kinds of heavy blows that do different things with respect to shields, and different character builds have specialized access. So for example, one type of heavy blow might not do extra damage to shields, but it might allow some secondary effects to penetrate the shield; another type of heavy blow might cause half damage through shields but not actually harm the shields; etc.

Basically, if you're paying complexity, what you receive in return is primarily the potential for diversity. The more clear-cut the optimization is, the less diversity you receive in exchange for a certain amount of complexity.

[Mr. Mask]

It would be best if a clear FOO strategy could be avoided. I hoped the losing a shield to perform a heavy attack would make it situational enough.

Like, with power attack, there are few situations where you have to deviate from your FOO strategy, as it's chance to hit versus damage inflicted. The instances you'd deviate would be if you're really having trouble hitting the enemy (and not power-attacking seems to make enough of a difference to be worth it), or they're so low on HP that you don't need extra damage.

With the shields, I think there's more confusion to it. If your enemy has no light hits on them ("0"s), then putting on a heavy attack isn't as valuable, whereas if there are a lot of light attacks on them then it's pretty valuable. Your chance to hit may be quite variable, even with the possibility of stances or actions that make it harder to hit you with heavier attacks. And of course, the state of your own shields dictates how dangerous taking a hit to them is. Moreover, whether you expect to be attacked before your next turn or be able to attack the enemy on your next turn will effect how optimal investing in a heavy attack is.


Of course, this doesn't contradict your advise about making sure various character types have different ways they can interact with the shields. Hmm... the question is what kind of abilities and roles you can assign?


Piercers: Characters who are able to attack HP through the shields. If not managed carefully, this could be a terrifyingly powerful ability, or a useless one. They may not be able to attack through too many shields, or their ability might become more effective the less shields there are. In a party make up, they may have less utilities to knock out shields, and need to rely on other party members for that. It might be that their piercing ability takes a lot of action points, or costs shields, so that while they can technically knock out shields, it's risky for them to try to play both games at once.

Wounds: This may just be the piercers. The question is whether the piercers are trying to achieve victory through a separate means, that is, chip away at health through the shields without disabling them, or whether their idea is to cripple and weaken the enemy. That is, wound them by attacking them through their shields, which gives them penalties to roll and might reduce the number of shields they can use for the rest of the battle. Both of these work as a kind of progress for the party dynamic. One moves the party towards their overall goal, that is chipping away the enemies' HP to 0, and one serves to weaken the enemy which makes it easier to hit their HP. There's also the question of temporary de-buffs versus permanent (until the end of the fight) ones.


Shield-Stealing: You might have a character who can debuff other characters, making them lose a shield for soever long. The question is how to keep the system simple. For example, you could have it that a character steals an enemy's shield, and uses it themself. As soon as they lose that shield, from a heavy or light attack, they have to give it back. This would give them a sort of hit and run dynamic, where they can grab an enemy's strength to make themselves temporarily stronger, and can decide whether to use that temporary advantage to be a slightly stronger front-line fighter, or whether to back off and skirmish so that the enemy can't hit them and regain the shield. That would give some nice dynamics of build. Such a character might have less shields to start with, but can repeatedly steal them to act as a sort of risk-taking front-line fighter, or debuffing thief who skirmishes. Stealing shields probably takes a special, heavy-like attack, so that they can't pull it off from a safe distance.

De-Buffs: I'm not sure what Debuffs you really can have. You could have a sort of blood curse like thing going, where someone sacrifices their shields to damage an enemy's shields. Say, the character removes one of their own shields, and as long as they don't return it one of the enemies will also be missing one shield. That seems kind of hard to balance, and it seems like it'd be less fun to play that character as they'd mostly hide.


Berserker: On that blood curse thing, you can go the other way. A reckless character whose abilities damage shields a lot, but they cost many of their shields to use. Making them a great aggressor, but putting themselves at risk. This character might also have great HP and wound resistance.


Swashbuckler: A rather plain character, whose abilities would be based on temporarily disabling a lot of shields, and inflicting light damage on HP.




Those are some of my thoughts on the matter. Anyone else have ideas or counter-thoughts?

[NichG]

I think you're on the right track, though there's overlap between some of your types (piercers and wounds, as you pointed out).

One of the big things that jumps out at me is the consequence of having shields which really negate effects. For example, even a single shield point means that certain kinds of traditional alpha-strike tactics aren't usable until later in the fight. In D&D for example, shut-down tactics are very powerful because you can use them as an alpha strike and prevent the enemy from ever recovering (things like Evard's Tentacles, Stinking Cloud, Glitterdust, Color Spray, save or dies, save or loses, etc are most effect at the start of the fight when enemies are further apart and are at full capacity).

So if shields provide a defense against that kind of debuff/shut-down ability, they strongly nerf such things. You could could then have abilities that in some sense nerf the nerf - this particular ability allows a non-damage effect to pass through a gap in the shields of an enemy who has lost at least one shield, this ability creates a gap that another character's abilities can exploit, this ability can manage to get a reduced amount of damage through an intact shield, allowing you to take out low-hp/high-shield enemies much faster than would otherwise be possible, etc.

You can also play with the idea of baiting enemies. For example, you could have a defensive ability that makes it so that shielded enemies deal less damage to the character - essentially the character uses their attacker's own shield against them. So then the enemy is given the option of lowering their own shields in order to take out the character more effectively. Or you could have an ability that saps an aggressor's shields when they attack the character.

I think also you can get some diversity in the regen mechanism. Rather than shield regeneration being automatic, what if someone can spend an action (full-round action?) to reset their shields? So that makes stun-locking or partial action denial more important, and opens the door to abilities which make partial shield regen a cheaper thing to do, as well as abilities which just shut down someone's ability to regen their shields at all. It also means that shield transfer could be a viable cooperative strategy - you have a support character who spends all their time regenerating their shields and transmitting the shield points to a boss enemy or something like that.

[Mr. Mask]

For non-damaging effects, I figured some of those would pierce shields, so that you can still force a character to move out of an area and have some tactical mobile combat beyond the shields. Of course, certain spells would be blockable by shields, making certain area of effect spells best used when the enemy is low on shields. As you say, many shut-down attacks would not be effective until the enemy was prepared for them.

A provoker/defender role is a good idea, one that lures enemies and weakens them. I would get a little concerned if their ability to draw fire was too effective, as you want all characters to feel under some level of threat so they feel more involved. But then, major boss characters will probably have multiple attacks.


An interesting idea to consider, would be having specific-range attacks. Like a special move that only works if the enemy is two squares in front of you. You would have moves to try and manoeuvre the enemy into the correct position, and they would have, "combo-breakers" which they can activate at any time (normally), to try and try to get to safety at the cost of shields. So, if someone was lining you up for a piercer attack that'll kill you, you could spend two shields to leap to another part of the map out of that attack's range, and both you and the enemy are probably weakened from using such moves.


An interesting idea on the note of bosses, is they might have layers of shields. Where the first stage has three shields and such and such abilities, and if you hit it four times you get to the second stage with four shields and so and so abilities, and etc.. The way the mechanics work, this is a bit different from having multiple stages with successively more HP, as the dynamic of strategy does not change if there are simply more HP, only the number of rounds change. But if you have more shields, you need to work out a more efficient combo and how to manage to pull it off even while the boss is attacking you. This can also make an RPG boss fight more like a video game boss fight, with pattern recognition as you get used to the boss's special abilities, and mastering what you learned.



Here are some thoughts on really extreme morphs of the system:

Slime Golem: A creature without shields, just HP. They get hit, and either absorb a huge amount of damage or regenerate over time. It's possible it takes a strong attack or combo to disable this enemy/character, where damage below a certain threshold is shrugged off. This'd be a neat punching bag to encourage going all out on an enemy. Alternatively, it could be a boss enemy, where each stage can only be reached by hitting it hard enough, or you need to get through several shields AND hit it hard for a high level challenge.

HP Sponge: As a playable character, I'm not sure what's engaging about this idea (which doesn't say much for DND's fighter). It doesn't seem to incentivize any kind of play, as no matter what you do you'll be chipped away at till you collapse if you're an HP sponge. It offers you some freedom to go full on zerg, or it gives you a reason to fear any hit and pray for healing before you die, but mechanically it seems kind of dull. It might be neat for a summoned monster, with only a little more HP.

Wisp: All shields, 1 HP. Any hit beyond the shields will kill it. Probably attack in groups, and aren't that strong. Unleash a few good combos and area attacks, and you can take out several of them at once. Also a model for sorcerous bosses who are weak once you get through all their defences, but getting through them all.


Breakable "Steel" Shields and "Wood" Shields: A "Steel" shield can only be removed with a heavy attack. Any hit removes a "Wood" shield. Both steel and wooden shields will not regenerate. Certain bosses may have these, requiring some elaborate combos. It's possible the steel shields and wooden ones will be on separate tracks, so it's possible to take out all the steel or all the wooden ones first, or sometimes they may be mixed together on the same track, so you have to mix heavy attacks in at specific points of your combo. This could also work as a good tutorial puzzle, like for say breaking down a reinforced door.

Knights and Buffs: For a playable character, you could consider using wooden and steel shields as buffs at the start of a battle, like pre-fight blessing and protection spells. You could potentially have a knight class who only has a couple of shields (at the very left of their track, before the breakable ones), and the rest are breakable. This would make them hard to hurt at first, but enemies could chip away at them. They would presumably regain all wood and steel shields at the end of the fight.


Weakpoint: Some bosses can only be hurt by a specific type of attack, or more often at a specific point. This point may move around their body or travel around the map, requiring players to work together to spread out and strike the target point. An alternative way of arranging this is wide, powerful area of effect attacks, that force certain characters to run and others to attack.


Special move ideas.

Baccano!: You can attack as many characters as you want within X squares with a standard or heavy(?) attack, without the penalties of making multiple attacks. However, each enemy you attack also gets a free attack against you, unless rendered unable to attack. The enemy's attack will occur even if you kill them with your attack. You may not attack the same character more than once.

Handy for taking out a lot of weak enemies at risk to yourself. May have some class restrictions, as this would be powerful for a character with a lot of shields--although you can only really inflict one shield of damage per enemy, so maybe not. A high defence would be handy, so that you don't get hit too often while trying this.

Shockwave! Immediate. Combo-Breaker. At any time, spend 2(?) active shields to send a shockwave X squares around you. Everyone caught in the shockwave (must make a saving throw or?) loses their turn.

Counter-Attack: Immediate. Spend a shield to immediately attack a target who is within range and who is attacking you. You may use special abilities, but you must pay their shield cost as well. Any attack used must be instant (no charge time). Your target's attack will still occur against you, even if you kill them.

Hail Mary: Immediate. You may give up your turn to toss a friendly character in an adjacent square up to X squares in a given direction. The chosen character may continue their turn as normal.

The Thousand Cuts: You may make an extra attack at no penalty(or at a reduced penalty?), for each shield you discard. This ability is interruptible(?).



Notably, some of those special attacks are quite possibly too powerful. Still, while they need balancing, I must say they feel like a lot of fun, which is arguably more important. Plus a good sign for the system.

[TheOOB]

OPs system is very similar to a simplified power shield system from a sci-fi setting like fading suns, and I think it works better as such.

[Knaight]

I've actually seen this in video games before (e.g. FTL), and been bouncing it around for a CRPG type idea. The big issue is how someone can be completely invulnerable if their shields recover faster than whoever they are fighting can deplete them, and that it's surprisingly easy for this to happen really quickly unless you bring in some big numbers.

That version had some differences though, starting with three types of shields - light, heavy, and arrow. Heavy works on any melee weapon making any strike, light works on most melee weapons and some strikes of heavy weapons, and arrow represents being able to block projectiles, probably because you have an actual literal shield you can interpose. Then different weapon styles produce different offenses and defenses, and these interact with the shield system and some sort of passive dodge chance.

The CRPG point there is important though, as this is really gamey. Something like GURPS, with its active Block/Parry/Dodge that take penalties for subsequent attacks will probably make more sense.

[goto124]

Might have to make a point of not letting the complexity of calculations increase until the maths gets hard, tedious, or both.

[Mr. Mask]

Knaight: One way to get around that is to have a system where you can perform multiple attacks at an increasing penalty. Performing them may also compromise your defences, but it does allow you to take a risk to overcome shields. Also lacing in heavy attacks so your opponent can't recover from all the light attacks would theoretically allow you to take out any number of shields if you can keep hitting with heavy attacks.


Goto: Mm, I like the simplicity of the system, and hope to keep it simple.

[Knaight]

Knaight: One way to get around that is to have a system where you can perform multiple attacks at an increasing penalty. Performing them may also compromise your defences, but it does allow you to take a risk to overcome shields. Also lacing in heavy attacks so your opponent can't recover from all the light attacks would theoretically allow you to take out any number of shields if you can keep hitting with heavy attacks.

Sure, but then you just get to the point where the problem becomes it being technically possible, but possibly a bit too unlikely. Still, it's workable if careful, though damage optimization calculations are all but inevitable at that point.

[Mr. Mask]

I think it's actually doing better in that light than is typical for RPGs. High HP with lots of damage rolls means that the low level guys have little chance of success; winning such encounters relies on getting lucky on a save-or-die spell. If I'm careful with this system, as you point out, it should allow a lot more CR flexibility and skill.

I don't quite see how you can get more damage optimization than systems like DnD. DnD combat is one large damage optimization, trying to reduce the other guys' HP faster than he reduces yours. In this case, you'll want to optimize your combos, but those aren't performed in a vacuum. If you don't start with full shields, if an enemy is ready to attack you if you use shield-spending abilities, if the enemy performs a combo-breakers, how many shields your opponent has and how many they have left, whether they have a lot of light hits ("0"s) on them or heavy hits ("X"s), whether one of your enemies has a powerful ability they can use if they're at full shields, and what order you and your allies are acting in will affect what is the optimal combo. In most systems, the only factor to consider is whether the enemy is so close to death you don't even need a power attack.

That being said, a system with more factors to consider will be harder to balance, so one ability doesn't outpace the rest.



On that note, idea.

Shield Requirement vs. Shield Cost: Sometimes, abilities won't just cost X shields, they'll require you to have Y shields when you use them. Like a powerful piercing attack, which can only be activated when you're at full shields, and costs 2 shields after you've activated it. This would mean certain attacks would need to be used at the start of a combo, or you might hold off certain abilities so you can activate another one.


Thoughts on Stances, Evasive Stance: Stances might be worth using, so that you have more control on the behaviour of your character and can further make the situation dynamic. The question is how to make it engaging and tactical, rather than a simple, when X do Z. A Evasive Stance, for example, might make it harder to get hits on you, or might even only give you a defence bonus against heavy attacks so that you're still vulnerable to certain moves. There's the question of whether it should also penalize you, or whether the "penalty" is not getting the benefit of a different stance.

Now, when low on shields, the obvious choice seems to be to retreat in a Evasive Stance to give you a chance to regenerate. Time you spend regenerating is time your opponent can also spend regenerating, so that's one tactical consideration. Your opponent if they take an aggressive stance also has an advantage in attack which sort of trumps defence (you can't win by defending). Another tactical consideration is whether you can take out the enemy before they can defeat you.

And of course, the more useful you make the Evasive Stance, the more you want to penalize it. If you made it hard to hit someone who was evasive, you might also have a harsh penalty like not allowing them to attack while using the stance. However, that could also make it the problem of when X do Z. If the Evasive Stance is too powerful and specialized, people will always use it when circumstance X comes up, in this case when they don't think they can wipe out the enemy and they're low on shields and want to regenerate. Worse still, in this kind of system, it could cause a gameplay loop that makes the fights drag on for ages. You could counteract that effect through penalties, by say having the Evasive Stance only let you recover one shield per turn. That would make the Evasive Stance handy for a breathier, while also making it that the regeneration rate isn't likely to exceed the number of hits. Of course, if you add on too many penalties, it does become a sort of Second Wind roll, which is only used in desperation--which admittedly can still be interesting.

In general, if you wanted to make Evasive too specific, then you might want another defensive stance. And too many similar stances would seem odd. Oppositely, you don't want the stances to seem trivial, as what stance characters are in should be of interest.


Default Stance: Presumably there will be a default stance. Theoretically, it might be more interesting if there was none, as players would be forced to choose between more interesting stances. Of course, it may also be unnecessarily confusing, as already characters builds will effect what your default stance is actually like in play.

Sturdy Footing: You plant your feet, strengthening your blows and allowing you to regain your balance more quickly. You regenerate 1 extra shield while in this stance, and gain an advantage(?) on attack rolls. However, your movement is halved while in this stance. Possibly you get a defence penalty? Hard to say. Part of the idea of this is that combos will end up move characters around the map, so trying to build a combo while having your movement restricted by Sturdy Footing is hard, and that it makes it harder to avoid area effect attacks. Depends how well that can be balanced.




More ability ideas.

Covering Fire: Constant. Requires line of sight. While this ability is active, the target must stay in Evasive(?) Stance, or they will take one light attack at the start of each of their turns(?). The user can move, but can't act while this ability is in effect. If line is sight is broken, the effect ends.

Challenge: ? You stand in the target's way, preventing them from going past you. [Not sure how to work this mechanically at this stage, as it depends on the mobility system.]

Massive Attack: If your attack hits, the character goes back 4(?) places in initiative order(?).

If your attack misses, roll again. If the second roll hits, the character is pushed back two places in initiative order, or must take one light hit. Your attack is so large or has such a shockwave to it that your target must leap out of the way to escape it, losing precious time.


Scattering: Anyone this attack misses must immediately move X squares away from where they're standing.

Burst of Speed: You can remove 2(?) shields to put yourself 1(?) place up in initiative order(?).

Mirror Image: Remove 3 Shields. You create X identical copies of the user and place them around the map as tokens. One of the tokens should be marked on the bottom side to be different from the others, and represents the real user of this technique. You may place the real user token anywhere within movement range of where the user was at the start of his turn. When one of the images is attacked, they disappear from the board. You and your mirror images can be moved around as normal, though you can place the false images anywhere you'd like without movement restrictions. You can make it look like the mirror images are performing any action you could, including attack targets, but it's only an illusion. If you are hit by an attack, you flip over your token, revealing yourself. If you are able to break line of sight along with one or more mirror images, you may flip the user's token again and try to hide among your copies.

Using this ability a second time will only let you restore the number of copies to X. It won't hide your character or let you have more than X images.



Remove, Flip, Break?: There's the question of what words to use for the different ways you can lose shield tokens. When you're hit by a light attack, you would probably flip the token, with one side being a different colour from the other. When hit by a heavy attack, you'd probably remove the token from the shield track. But what word do you use to represent having lost a shield for the rest of the encounter? Break? As long as people don't get confused and snap the tokens (you can have a note about that in the rules, but still).

[Thrudd]

I think it's actually doing better in that light than is typical for RPGs. High HP with lots of damage rolls means that the low level guys have little chance of success; winning such encounters relies on getting lucky on a save-or-die spell. If I'm careful with this system, as you point out, it should allow a lot more CR flexibility and skill.

I don't quite see how you can get more damage optimization than systems like DnD. DnD combat is one large damage optimization, trying to reduce the other guys' HP faster than he reduces yours. In this case, you'll want to optimize your combos, but those aren't performed in a vacuum. If you don't start with full shields, if an enemy is ready to attack you if you use shield-spending abilities, if the enemy performs a combo-breakers, how many shields your opponent has and how many they have left, whether they have a lot of light hits ("0"s) on them or heavy hits ("X"s), whether one of your enemies has a powerful ability they can use if they're at full shields, and what order you and your allies are acting in will affect what is the optimal combo. In most systems, the only factor to consider is whether the enemy is so close to death you don't even need a power attack.

That being said, a system with more factors to consider will be harder to balance, so one ability doesn't outpace the rest.



On that note, idea.

Shield Requirement vs. Shield Cost: Sometimes, abilities won't just cost X shields, they'll require you to have Y shields when you use them. Like a powerful piercing attack, which can only be activated when you're at full shields, and costs 2 shields after you've activated it. This would mean certain attacks would need to be used at the start of a combo, or you might hold off certain abilities so you can activate another one.


Thoughts on Stances, Evasive Stance: Stances might be worth using, so that you have more control on the behaviour of your character and can further make the situation dynamic. The question is how to make it engaging and tactical, rather than a simple, when X do Z. A Evasive Stance, for example, might make it harder to get hits on you, or might even only give you a defence bonus against heavy attacks so that you're still vulnerable to certain moves. There's the question of whether it should also penalize you, or whether the "penalty" is not getting the benefit of a different stance.

Now, when low on shields, the obvious choice seems to be to retreat in a Evasive Stance to give you a chance to regenerate. Time you spend regenerating is time your opponent can also spend regenerating, so that's one tactical consideration. Your opponent if they take an aggressive stance also has an advantage in attack which sort of trumps defence (you can't win by defending). Another tactical consideration is whether you can take out the enemy before they can defeat you.

And of course, the more useful you make the Evasive Stance, the more you want to penalize it. If you made it hard to hit someone who was evasive, you might also have a harsh penalty like not allowing them to attack while using the stance. However, that could also make it the problem of when X do Z. If the Evasive Stance is too powerful and specialized, people will always use it when circumstance X comes up, in this case when they don't think they can wipe out the enemy and they're low on shields and want to regenerate. Worse still, in this kind of system, it could cause a gameplay loop that makes the fights drag on for ages. You could counteract that effect through penalties, by say having the Evasive Stance only let you recover one shield per turn. That would make the Evasive Stance handy for a breathier, while also making it that the regeneration rate isn't likely to exceed the number of hits. Of course, if you add on too many penalties, it does become a sort of Second Wind roll, which is only used in desperation--which admittedly can still be interesting.

In general, if you wanted to make Evasive too specific, then you might want another defensive stance. And too many similar stances would seem odd. Oppositely, you don't want the stances to seem trivial, as what stance characters are in should be of interest.


Default Stance: Presumably there will be a default stance. Theoretically, it might be more interesting if there was none, as players would be forced to choose between more interesting stances. Of course, it may also be unnecessarily confusing, as already characters builds will effect what your default stance is actually like in play.

Sturdy Footing: You plant your feet, strengthening your blows and allowing you to regain your balance more quickly. You regenerate 1 extra shield while in this stance, and gain an advantage(?) on attack rolls. However, your movement is halved while in this stance. Possibly you get a defence penalty? Hard to say. Part of the idea of this is that combos will end up move characters around the map, so trying to build a combo while having your movement restricted by Sturdy Footing is hard, and that it makes it harder to avoid area effect attacks. Depends how well that can be balanced.




More ability ideas.

Covering Fire: Constant. Requires line of sight. While this ability is active, the target must stay in Evasive(?) Stance, or they will take one light attack at the start of each of their turns(?). The user can move, but can't act while this ability is in effect. If line is sight is broken, the effect ends.

Challenge: ? You stand in the target's way, preventing them from going past you. [Not sure how to work this mechanically at this stage, as it depends on the mobility system.]

Massive Attack: If your attack hits, the character goes back 4(?) places in initiative order(?).

If your attack misses, roll again. If the second roll hits, the character is pushed back two places in initiative order, or must take one light hit. Your attack is so large or has such a shockwave to it that your target must leap out of the way to escape it, losing precious time.


Scattering: Anyone this attack misses must immediately move X squares away from where they're standing.

Burst of Speed: You can remove 2(?) shields to put yourself 1(?) place up in initiative order(?).

Mirror Image: Remove 3 Shields. You create X identical copies of the user and place them around the map as tokens. One of the tokens should be marked on the bottom side to be different from the others, and represents the real user of this technique. You may place the real user token anywhere within movement range of where the user was at the start of his turn. When one of the images is attacked, they disappear from the board. You and your mirror images can be moved around as normal, though you can place the false images anywhere you'd like without movement restrictions. You can make it look like the mirror images are performing any action you could, including attack targets, but it's only an illusion. If you are hit by an attack, you flip over your token, revealing yourself. If you are able to break line of sight along with one or more mirror images, you may flip the user's token again and try to hide among your copies.

Using this ability a second time will only let you restore the number of copies to X. It won't hide your character or let you have more than X images.



Remove, Flip, Break?: There's the question of what words to use for the different ways you can lose shield tokens. When you're hit by a light attack, you would probably flip the token, with one side being a different colour from the other. When hit by a heavy attack, you'd probably remove the token from the shield track. But what word do you use to represent having lost a shield for the rest of the encounter? Break? As long as people don't get confused and snap the tokens (you can have a note about that in the rules, but still).

You could use cards, a light attack turns them horizontal, a heavy attack flips them. An attack that breaks the shield removes it from the table.

I know you wanted to keep this simple, but it's getting to be pretty complex. This is seeming like a lot for each player to keep track of, all the abilities and stances that modify things and many different states to keep track of. It could still be a fun tactical game, but I feel like it's moving out of RPG territory.

[mikeejimbo]

GURPS could model this with semi-ablative DR. Probably with IT (Diffuse) with a limitation (only while DR holds). There's probably a cleaner way, but still. GURPS.

[Mr. Mask]

Thrudd: That's a good point, that if the tokens are standard playing cards you can just put them sideways. Saves having two discard piles. Thanks Thrudd.

I'm not sure if it's too complex in concept compared to most RPGs, so far. Like, the stances and special abilities (AKA: Spells) are standard for DnD. Having diverse abilities characters can use does potentially give it a lot of tactical depth, but might be a bit intimidating as it offers a lot of tactical complexity too. Still, that seems to be one of the best sorts of complexity, where you know what to do from the start, but get increasingly good at doing it with practice and work out more options from the tools you originally had. Some enemies with special abilities you haven't encountered before would need to be learned, and could serve to make encounters interesting.

One thing in particular I'd like, is if the abilities could get to feel intuitive. If you get a sense of the scene, that someone is shooting at you so you need to break line of sight or stay in the evasive stance, then it's much easier to remember than contrived number bonuses. Of course, that'd require elements like the stances to get to feel intuitive.



Mike: Afraid my GURPS knowledge isn't enough to properly understand that.

[Thrudd]

Thrudd: That's a good point, that if the tokens are standard playing cards you can just put them sideways. Saves having two discard piles. Thanks Thrudd.

I'm not sure if it's too complex in concept compared to most RPGs, so far. Like, the stances and special abilities (AKA: Spells) are standard for DnD. Having diverse abilities characters can use does potentially give it a lot of tactical depth, but might be a bit intimidating as it offers a lot of tactical complexity too. Still, that seems to be one of the best sorts of complexity, where you know what to do from the start, but get increasingly good at doing it with practice and work out more options from the tools you originally had. Some enemies with special abilities you haven't encountered before would need to be learned, and could serve to make encounters interesting.

One thing in particular I'd like, is if the abilities could get to feel intuitive. If you get a sense of the scene, that someone is shooting at you so you need to break line of sight or stay in the evasive stance, then it's much easier to remember than contrived number bonuses. Of course, that'd require elements like the stances to get to feel intuitive.



Mike: Afraid my GURPS knowledge isn't enough to properly understand that.

Yes, being intuitive is important. Making good common sense decisions should yield good results for the character.

[mikeejimbo]

Ablative DR in GURPS works similarly to HP. Damage reduces it by the amount of damage dealt, and you don't take HP damage until the DR is gone. (Unless something bypasses DR or has an armor divisor.) Semi-ablative DR is something like "Reduce it by 1 for every 5 points of damage."

Injury Tolerance (Diffuse) caps most damage to 1, so each point of DR would work like the shields you're proposing. In hindsight you probably wouldn't use semi-ablative DR.

The key here would be to have an Energy Reserve (ER). So to pay for the privilege of having “shields” you’d take the following:

Damage Resistance 2 (Costs 2 ER -10%) [9]
Injury Tolerance (Diffuse) (Costs 2 ER -10%) [27]

Then each “shield” is 4 ER, for 12 points.

ER 4 [12]

Then you can construct other abilities that cost ER in multiples of 4 to cost a certain number of “shields” to use. Granted this wouldn’t protect against area attacks - or rather it would only reduce the damage by 2. I also only made these 2 ER each because otherwise rounding would occur and you wouldn’t actually get anything out of the limitation. Another way to do it - or something similar at least - would be to base it off Insubstantial with an ER cost/second, but at that point it’s more like “One of my cool powers I can pay for with ER happens to be becoming a ghost.”

Sorry, you asked if other systems did this and so I wanted to build it in GURPS.

[Mr. Mask]

That wouldn't work out for this system. The idea of the shields was to tank a hit, not to tank a certain amount of damage.


Thrudd: Precisely.




I'm wondering how to work movement in such a system. The idea is great mobility, so you can bounce your enemy around with attacks and follow after them. What I'm figuring is, a pretty reasonable movement range, probably with some simple jumping mechanics so you can jump between buildings or whichever. The other point I figure, is you aren't restricted to making a move action then an attack action, like DnD. Rather, you have movement points, and can move whenever you want during your turn until they're all used up. There's the possibility of being able to use movement points during other characters' turns, but that might only be allowed as a combo-breaker move.

One other idea is to have certain reactions opponents can take when you target them with attacks. Say you launch a fireball that's going to fry them, and they need to get out of the way. You could have it that if they have X movement points left, they can spend them to move out of the way. That could be interesting, and it could make keeping some movement points left over for certain reaction moves a potentially interesting consideration.



More ability ideas.

Barrier: Reaction. Rotate 1 shield. When hit by Piercing damage, you instead take Shield damage. Flip a shield for every 10 points of damage that would've been inflicted, and Rotate 1 shield if there is less than 10 points left-over.

Escape: Reaction. Rotate 1(?) shield. You may move during another character's turn. You must use your stash of remaining movement points, as normal--so you can't move if you have no movement points left. [Needs balancing. If done wrong, it'll be impossible to hit anyone with an attack with a distance requirement. Of course, as long as you have moment points, you can move along with your target to stop them escaping, but consideration needs to be made.]


There's the possibility some attacks wouldn't allow you to move, or might even cost movement points along with/instead of shields.

[mikeejimbo]

That wouldn't work out for this system. The idea of the shields was to tank a hit, not to tank a certain amount of damage.

Yeah, I got that. That's why it has Injury Tolerance (Diffuse), which caps damage at 1 for most damage types (2 for one damage type, and unfortunately something would still need to be done for AoEs but this is a start.) Then you have 2 DR - and I've changed my mind about the Ablative DR because in this system the ER ablates instead of the DR - so that every time you take a hit it's activated, along with your Injury Tolerance, thus taking away one "Shield". "Behind the scenes" so to speak, yeah, there is more than 1 ER, but if you always build everything in multiples of 4 then it's transparent to your proposal.

[Mr. Mask]

Ah. Sorry, I missed that part. It's possible that with some splatbooks I could also try to test out the high mobility ideas, though at this stage I wonder if the system idea is a bit outside of GURPS' workings.



Dodging Costs Movement?: To make movement even more valuable, it might be possible that every time you're attacked (unless you don't try to dodge) you need to spend one or two movement points. It would be neat if you could have it that if the enemy misses by 5 or more you don't have to move, but if they miss by less than that you need to move your character two spaces away from the attack. But that while interesting would be an extra and unnecessary computation.


Ranged vs. Melee: In a system like this, where often how damaging an attack is doesn't matter. there's the question of how to stop range from being too powerful. One disadvantage to range is that it's easier to take cover by breaking line of sight. You could give ranged attacks attack penalties, potentially. It's possible you could make ranged special attacks generally weaker, where they inflict less shields of damage? They might also do less HP damage, when you get past the shields, making them good for skirmishing and weakening the enemy but ineffective at finishing them off.

Of course, with lots of mobility, there mightn't be much need to weaken ranged attacks as you can probably close with a ranged weapon user much easier. Of course, if they are able to move away from you at the same time, they could be unassailable for a melee weapon user. There probably needs to be some way to prevent people back-pedalling too much while shooting. You could make it cost movement points to use ranged attacks perhaps? Or encourage characters to stay in a certain stance for more sniper-like play?

[mikeejimbo]

Ah. Sorry, I missed that part. It's possible that with some splatbooks I could also try to test out the high mobility ideas, though at this stage I wonder if the system idea is a bit outside of GURPS' workings.

I wouldn't say it's outside the workings, but it probably wouldn't be worth building the whole thing in GURPS unless you already love it. I happen to, so I found it an interesting endeavor. :)

[The Grue]

This homebrew seems relevant to the discussion at hand. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?228380-Armor-Fix-Idea-D-amp-D-3-5)

[Malifice]

If you don't view HP as 'meat' (which by the CRB they're not) what does this add?

[Mr. Mask]

Mike: If it could manage what I described, than GURPS really is an impressive system. I figured stuff like moving during other peoples' turns, multiple actions and combo-breaker interrupts couldn't be modelled in its system, but I guess there's some flexibility in the rules of splat-books beyond what I imagined.


Malifice: Well, it's a very different usage with different involved mechanics of an HP-like system. For example, a simple "HP isn't meat, but balance," conversion would just be to add regeneration to all characters and have all HP recover at the end of encounters instead of after days of rest and healing. This is a more dramatic change, essentially taking out damage RNG and putting the focus on strategic use of abilities and forming combos.


Grue: Interesting. They seem to share some of my thoughts. This'll be worth looking into for considerations of what kind of AC like system you want for hitting shields. In general, this sort of combo-like system wouldn't be suited to highly random results, so the chances of hitting a shield would likely be considerable. There might even be an exploding dice mechanic where you can make another attack on a natural X, allowing for unlikely complications which must be adjusted for.

[Knaight]

If you don't view HP as 'meat' (which by the CRB they're not) what does this add?

It adds a bunch of things. For one thing, it creates a very different dynamic involving numbers, where having two people blowing past your incredibly limited defenses is way nastier than two people eating into your HP totals. It effectively lets you have different pools for different types of attacks, which HP doesn't do. It lets you have an actual defined layer of meat without some real weirdness coming in. To some extent it makes successful defense feel more like the work of a skilled character - instead of some big number going down more slowly, they systematically blocked every incoming attack, got in a couple strikes on their enemies, and returned to defensive readiness, slightly winded but ready to fight more.

[Mr. Mask]

That gave me an interesting revelation. You don't even necessarily need to attack to remove the shields. So, stepping in and to the left into your opponent's weak-spot might remove a shield, grabbing them might remove another, and successfully unbalancing them could remove the last. Something to that effect could be good for a more realistic twist on the system, potentially. You would need elements like the ability to hurt each other even if you have shields left, perhaps the shields acting as an AC bonus against attacking HP. Interestingly, you could have armour add special shields where getting rid of them gives you a chance to attack past the armour (IE: you throw the knight decked in full plate on the ground and get a chance to stab through his visor).

That's worth thinking about, but I'm not sure it's really worth pursuing.