Ahhh, yes. The HP Tree Chopping Contest. Whack Whack Whack. Aren't you dead yet? * Black Knight replies * "It's just a scratch. I've had worse." "But your arm's off". - " Just a flesh wound "
Like the one off dnd where I wrecked a gargyole(?) With at the end ten hp. Helped that dm let me get creative with my staff. Then disgusted when eye gouging came into play.
@@toddnapolitano9428 2 months ago when I commented this I was at work during a slow shift. I COULD have swept around my register, but I was so bored I couldn't help but succumb to curiosity and self induldence 😅
Skyrim logic: wearing steel plate armor or any heavy set, get hit by a sword, see blood spilled out of you IRL logic: A loud metal noise after the strike
@@ArkadiBolschek It's the only fruit we can reach, but our pride demands we still aim for that which is furthest from the ground, also, don't call me a fruit.
i think my favourite system was in fallout 2, where armour had three stats: AC (armour class) DT (damage threshhold) DR (damage reduction) AC states how likely it is for an attack to glance off the armour, implementing this requires no extra steps as the opponent has to make a to hit roll either way, just add the armour class to the to hit difficulty and there you go. DT states how much damage the armour can absorb at a direct hit, so even if a hit solidly connects and does not glance off, the armour can still prevent the wearer from taking damage if the attack is too weak,, this, again, does not require an additional roll of any kind, just compare the armours DT to the attackers damage roll and if that roll is too low the damage is zero and if it is not, you just subtract the armours DR from the damage roll to get the amount of damage you take. it's an elegant system and a quick one if you can do basic maths. if you then just add damage spread to each weapon (with blunt weapons having lower max, but higher minimum damage, piercing weapons having higher max and lower minimum damage, with slashsing weapons somewhere inbetween) you can get a decently quick, but also somewhat realistic gaming experience.
Very much agreed, I really liked this system too. It always made a lot of sense to me, and it allows to include evasion as a damage mitigation technique into the system at the AC stage.
@@Mongward maybe a way to go around that could be using small numbers, like having 10 being the highest AC possible and so on, that way players can make the calculations quickly
@@Mongward it's not slow at all. any rpg i know off has you role to hit and roll for damage and that is all you need for this system, the rest is just comparing two numbers and simple addition/subtraction that any self respecting nerd should be able to do in a heart beat.
I'm working on my own tabletop RPG (which will most likely never be finished, knowing me) and the way I accounted for armour gaps is giving the player the option to specifically target a weak point, letting them deal more damage or just bypass the armour's protection altogether, but making it more difficult to actually land the hit. Nice and simple, and it's optional too, which always helps keeping things simpler for people who like it that way but allowing for some extra complexity for players who don't mind that. This video has given me some more ideas, like separate protection values for each damage type (making textile armours absorb more points of blunt damage than piercing or slashing damage for instance) and the consideration of additional damage types to do more justice to axes, spears warpicks and such. Maybe chopping damage and... penetrating damage? I don't know, and I don't even know if I'll end up going for it since as you said, making a tabletop is a battle between complexity and simplicity. You want complexity to make the game believable and allow for more options and whatnot, but you also want simplicity so that the learning curve isn't insane and the game isn't tedious as hell even once you've learned.
If you haven't already (since this is a pretty old comment), you could check out older editions of Dungeons & Dragons for some inspiration, since what you described is exactly how "Called Shots" and "Weapon Type vs. Armor Modifiers" works in AD&D.
"watching now instead of working." Actually, I'm developing a combat system right now and using this as another resource in that process, so I AM working, haha
Would you like to share your System? Is it a homebrew extension of an existing rpg or is it a completly new System? I am really interested because I am working on a tabletop system of my own for quite a Time.
@@TheFeanor74 It's for a RPG video game so calculations that are normally very tedious to do by hand can be done in an instant on the computer. Each attack takes into account what part of the weapon is being used. So a halberd could use the spikes or the axe head. When a player gets hit the game calculates what the incoming damage type is and to what degree it should be applied. So axes do a mix of bludgeoning and slashing, hammers do bludgeoning, etc. Then the armor class comes in. Each piece of armor has three values, pierce resistance, slash resistance, and bludgeoning resistance. It's still being worked on right now but I tend to start out as realistic as possible and then reel it back so that gameplay isn't super tedious. At the moment it seems like a player might have to shove full-plated opponents to the ground and execute them since they're essentially impervious to damage otherwise. And that's only because the basic combat system is based on For Honor's. Like Skal said, it would be far too much work to allow some trick where players can target the gaps in armor. It just wouldn't work at all in the For Honor system. I suppose you could simulate it with crits? My calculations aren't particularly fancy either. They're just flat damage reduction. If chain mail has a slash resistance of 80, and you deal 50 slashing damage, no damage is taken. Obviously it will need to be tweaked. But for a table top scenario you could probably adapt it relatively simply. Just have three damage categories, and have three armor categories. Then calculate it however you wish. I prefer flat reduction since it's the easiest. There is also just a flat out "armor penetration" stat. Because while a bec de corbin and a rapier might both primarily be piercing weapons, there's clearly a difference in their effectiveness against armor. And on the other hand I am currently working with a flat "armor" stat. Because an unclothed human still has SOME armor value compared to something like a kitten or a bee.
LookItsCollin Just several questions for interest: • Do the attacks have damage spread? If so, how extreme or minute is it? This is pretty important, as an attack that equals the armor’s resistance in damage can deal some or no damage depending the spread. • Does the armor take damage itself? For example, if a suit of chain mail takes 50 slash damage and negates said damage by 80(resulting in the attack being blocked), would the next attack be blocked by the same amount, or would the armor’s durability lower and instead block ~70 or so damage? • What are the combat related stats outside of weapons and armor? Is there energy/stamina to determine if an action can be done, endurance/strength to aid in natural defenses, or even agility or dexterity to determine an attack’s hit chance? • How are shields handled? Do they serve as an extension of armor, do they affect hit rate, or do they add a new damage check altogether?
Christian Cinnabars Damage spread as in a range of damage, like 45-55? Not at the moment. For Honor was a dedicated fighting game so attacks did flat amounts. That could of course change in the future, especially because I'm trying to make an RPG rather than a dedicated fighter, but since I'm very early on attacks deal flat damage. To put it in perspective I'm still working on finishing the parrying system, which works just like For Honor's. Once parrying is done I'll be done with the core combat gameplay which is attacking, blocking, and parrying. That's when I'll start doing more experimentation with numbers. Since I'm so early along I hadn't actually thought about armor durability, which is weird because I've played with the idea of shield/weapon durability. So at the moment, no. From an art standpoint it wouldn't be particularly hard to do this. And from a programming side it would not be particularly hard either. But since I'm still carving out basic gameplay elements I'm not spending too much time looking at expansions on it, but this is definitely in my notes now! Yes, there is a stamina system that works similarly to For Honor's. If it reaches zero then you are exhausted and if you are shoved to the ground while exhausted there's an opportunity for the opponent to execute you, which at the moment I think is the only difference. This is not part of the core combat, which is listed above. But it's in the next tier of combat that I plan on implementing. Shoves, grabs, and very basic grappling. Stats are something I certainly want to add but how much of an impact they'll have is still left to be seen. I've set the system up to accommodate stats but at the moment none are implemented. I'd like stats to influence the amount of gear you can carry, and even affect what equipment you can use in the first place. But of course, that would also be a secondary thing and require a lot of work. I don't particularly like animating, but in my head someone who has proper strength would wield an axe in a different way than someone who did not, which would require two animation sets at least. The last point is one that's just constantly been bugging me because it's part of a larger issue I'm having. For Honor, and therefore my clone of it, uses set animations for attacks. This means that you can't target specific parts of armor like you could with a bow. This essentially means that in melee combat you can't aim your attacks. So how am I going to handle damage? At the moment armor just adds to your defensive stats like bludgeoning resistance. But that means that if you have bare arms and get struck there, you're taking damage as if they'd been padded with armor, assuming you're wearing armor on other parts of the body. OR I could set it so that location damage IS important in melee, but that would mean that certain attacks always hit in the same spot. What would be the point of leg armor at all if most of the animations are targetting the torso? I could split the attack wheel from three sections into five, but then I'm almost doubling the amount of animation work that I need to do. Even games like Mordhau, which allow you to make very accurate melee attacks, don't take into consideration armor on the arms. I think I'll go with the first option and just have shields add to the base armor value. And specifically with shields they factor into the blocking system. When blocking an attack the power of the incoming blow is taken into account. So using a dagger to block a zweihander will not be very effective. But using a shield to do so would mitigate most if not all of the incoming damage, depending on the type of shield. Since the attacks rely on animations hit rate is a guaranteed thing unless the opponent is in I-frames from dodging or rolling.
6:35 in the indie game Kenshi this actually happens, depending on the weapon the damage can be both crush and slash, like oversized swords that tend to be balanced with both
Watched a town guardsmen kill 7 dust bandits with his giant two handed sword in one swing is definetly a highlight of that game lol Promptly looted the bodies ofcourse
Kingdom Come Deliverance has a system where weapons have different blunt, cut, and pierce stats and the damage you deal with cuts thrusts and with force is dependent on that. (The armour also has cut, pierce, and blunt protection.) It seems quite life like and similar to what skall explains.
Kingdom come deliverance is nice, but it seems a bit unfinished. I mean there are still problems with perks, NPCs, combat and other things. I wish it has polearms, crossbows, proper mounted combat and of course better quests (I don't like the idea of being a thief and valiant knight at the same time for example). Also, it's too easy and allows to abuse game mechanics. Literally, you can get almost the best armor and good weapons after few hours in game, same about easy money. For RPG progress is the most enjoyable part, but I miss it in KCD. Though, I still love it after hundreds hours. Hope they will make their next game better, at least I suppose they have better budget for it and experience of previous part.
Have a look at "Blade of the Iron Throne" for an rpg system written by HEMA practitioners. A twenty second combat can take more than twenty minutes and many table look ups however.
I have solved this for my D&D game by describing how attacks hit or miss. A roll of 1-10 the character dodged the attack. 10-AC the character uses his armor or weapon to block the blow Beat the AC and damage a little? You find an opening and manage a cut or a blow but do minimal damage. Beat the AC and do a large amount of damage? You find a gap in his or her defenses and strike true. You see blood start to come from the strike No matter what follow the rule of cool and make your players feel like bad asses
@@oldannyboy37 Likewise, it's less about tanking silly amounts of damage as it is being skilled or downright lucky to avoid a fatal/crippling blow. People forget HP was always intended to be an abstract mechanic.
@@JakeCWolf Exactly HP was meant to represent a multitude of hard to quantify/qualify factors including exhaustion/fatigue, vitality/energy, and (in some games) an element of combat experience, ie why martial combat/tanking characters typically have more HP than say, knowledge based ones like mages or scholars. It also equates to a improvable skill as to why it increases with 'leveling up', with the character getting better at surviving violent or other hostile situations that may result in untimely death.
I saw a modified Star Wars d20 system that split HP into vitality and stamina points ( or maybe it was hit points and vitality points ). The first represented actual physical damage and the second was your fatigue level. Hits in normal combat were first taken from your fatigue pool. The rules explanation was instead of actually getting hit, the character had to scramble to barely deflect a blow, or it was a glancing hit that hurt, but didn't really injure the character. After your stamina was gone, hits went to your actual health pool, like you were too tired to properly defend yourself, or dodge out the way of blaster fire. And while your stamina points regenerated quickly, health would take days to come back. The GM/DM could also specify some damage or attacks bypassing stamina and going straight to health. I never played a game or campaign in the rules, but it always seemed like a fun idea.
Complex simulations are bad for table top games, but still, you can add some realism to game compared to D&D and still be able to calculate it quickly.
@@hannessteffenhagen61 Although when people sit down and try to calculate in their own heads how something might play out realistically it can be easy to get it so incredibly wrong. A lot of stuff happening in real time is just intuitive and expected especially without a tainted perspective, without having learned something unrealistic. In computer games all of the complex systems happening behind the scenes are ideally hidden to the player and when things work correctly something as complicated as a computer rendering a piece of cloth interacting both with actors in the game world and in-game wind simulation for example just feels natural and intuitive. The illusion that what the player is experiencing is just simple and obvious isn't broken. If behind the scenes game systems were built so that when a player hits the surface of a car for example and that surface reacted exactly as you would naturally expect I don't think there'd be any complaints about 'not understanding what's happening' or things being too complicated. It's complicated when the player has to do the computer's job. When they have to keep track of things themselves, they have to calculate and mentally simulate that same stupidly complex scenario described above of cloth physics. That's when things can be difficult to keep track of. That happens when there's a lack of complexity or robustness in the engine but the game's still demanding such a gratuitous level of detail.
@@7dayspking You're missing the point. The piece of clothe is a set piece. It's not part of the actual "game" in any meaningful way, as in so far as the behaviour of the piece of cloth is going to be almost entirely irrelevant to the actual gameplay. Here's the sort of thing that's relevant, and where I'm saying it should be easy enough for players to understand: "If my armor score is X, what does that mean for how much damage I take? How much better is X+100 compared to just X? When I score a critical hit, how much more damage do I deal? What about elemental strengths and weaknesses?" Or for non-combat examples: "If my charisma score is 7, and the opposing difficulty for a check is 5, what does that mean for my chances to succeed on it? How do other factors like faction standing affect this?" Etc etc. Now you could try to just play the game for dozens of hours until you develop an intuitive understanding for this, but this not actually going to work for any system that involves lots of undocumented factors affecting things. It is completely irrelevant how realistic your cloth animations look or how pretty your water surface effects are, this is neither a good reason nor an excuse to obscure the actual game mechanics.
*Minecraft logic* Highest damage: sword Medium damage: axe Low damage: pickaxe *real life* Highest damage: pickaxe Medium damage: axe Lowest damage: sword *both* Use bow so you won't get hit
Better: use a pre-loaded crossbow to fire an initial shot faster so that you don't get within hitting range and fire slightly quicker than a bow (via Quick Charge III) and hit multiple targets (Piercing IV for PvE or Multishot for PvP)
I developed a system that disposes of damage types in favor of damage parameters, like sharpness multiplying damage to the opponent (after damage reduction) and penetration reducing the enemy armor's damage reduction. You don't need any tables, only your base damage, the damage parameters and your enemy's damage reduction and you're good to go
"The real reason you're probably watching this right now instead of working" What? haha... why would you think that? I'm totally not watching this at work right now to kill time. **nervous laughter**
Loved the video! I have a few people in my Pathfinder group that want to argue with the Armor Class system, and want to make it more "realistic" So I'm going to show them this video Also I really liked the camera angle changes. It felt very fluid and professional
legacy.aonprd.com/ultimateCombat/variants/armorAsDamageReduction.html Pathfinder's got you handled, boo. Just add a bit extra to the system to factor in the damage types.
pathfinder is still very wierd with how hey decide that many weapons that are usually just a straight double edged sword ike the longsword, cant do piercing personally i reckon that any person who wants to attack using a damage type the weapon doesnt have, like stabbing with a scimitar, cutting with a rapier, should roll damage with the next dice down from the main damage die (D8 becomes d6, D6 becomes D4 etc to represent the fact these weapons are optimised to do one type of damage, and so doing another attack will be less effective.
for the past 4 years ive been working on a homebrew tabletop rpg system that is realistic and complex but not overly so. my friends and i have been getting a lot of our information for mechanics and historical accuracy from you and shadiversity. thank you for making amazing and informative videos, Skall! :)
I recall in baldurs gate armour saving throws would depend on the armour type and what weapon was used. Chainmail had better saving throws vs slashing then leather or padded.
I don't know if it's just Baldur's Gate 1 or whether it came in in Baldur's Gate 2, there was definitely stuff like this floating about, in AD&D. Been a while since I looked at any of that stuff, played the games.
The absolute weapon, armor, and damage system for me was in War of the Roses. Too bad the ultra-realism, steep learning curve, and high skill difference between new and experienced players killed the game. Players who did not keep distance and kept swinging at plate armour with the shaft of their poleaxe instead of the head blamed bad hit detection. Players who didn't know to thrust a stabbing sword at helmet slit or under the arm pit but kept swinging their swords at heavy plate complained about bad damage detection. Players who didn't select bodkin arrow type only to see their arrows bounce off armour blamed that the game had no real ranged component. Experienced players wearing very light armor danced around less experienced foot knights and killed them after many repeated slashes with convex grind swords. Less experienced players did not know that every weapon build came with advantages and disadvantages. Convex grind swords is effective at slashing against plate armour but would usually break in one hit if used to parry a strong blow. Sometimes players with a little more experience makes a heavy footman build with plate armour and barbute, and thought players who one-hit them with a sword slash were hacking. In fact, you can aim well and slash the neck between the barbute and plate. I just reinstalled the game and there are no players.
if the game doesn't communicate that well with the players, then what can "less" experienced players really do? Was it one of these games where you needed to check online wikis to learn the systems? If games are not made to teach players getting into an online game, then I have 0 pity for those devs and games.
Skall, I know you're a GURPSoid like me. In GURPS, while not 100% realistic, you have reasonable rules for going for the armpits/gaps in armor that don't degenerate in endless tables and all that.
I'm a long-time player of the GURPS system, and there my fighters can usually make called strikes at an enemies face, where armour normally doesn't protect. If my fighter goes up against somebody who have a face-plate on their helmet, well, they're at a disadvantage of finding somebody hiding, a handful of caltrops thrown their way, and other things of "situational awareness", and use those to my advantage.
Gurps is good for that. But the problem is that it just gets some important shit wrong. Specially how point attacks are worthless at scaling with strength (and until 4e had only a 2x multiplier in a hit) and that pretty much armor is all the same. The ones I hate the most is how long weapons wich should be more nimble (like a halberd) sometimes need THREE TURNS to attack (it seems to be only based in assumptions, why scimitars require an extra turn but arming swords don't? ) and worse, how the manual say that usually european swords have a blunt point........wtf.... So I still prefer to just use something dumb like DnD and let my description make sense of it. But despite what i said I actually like gurps, just dont use it as much, because it gives the game a very mortal feel wich is cool.
@@ThePhoenixpaw I was a fan of plate helms in GURPS Fantasy with no eye slits and a glass wall spell on it so you could still see, but enemies could no longer aim for your eyes with arrows or bolts and bypass your armor.
Damage types are in correlation to dimension: 0D - Point - Speer, Arrow, Spike 1D - Line - Sword, Blade 2D - Plane - Hammer 3D - Space - Explosion inside the body (outside in front of the body, would be 2D) 4D+ - not really an idea that is how I see it, simplified
that's an interesting simplification. though zero dimensional would mean it's less than a point. I'd argue that piercing weapons have 1D. The area affected is closer to a line, drawn from entrypoint to stopping point.
I may just subscribe! I'm an aspiring metalworker/blacksmith. Most of my research and study goes into historical pieces such as weapons and armor but also metallurgy as well. Your channel has many videos geared almost specifically to those interests and you deliver alot of pertinent facts and theoretical scenarios which challenge the standard mindset on most medieval arms and armor. The combat videos also make me giddy inside. To see a man properly wield: claymores, sword+shield combo, daggers, longsword, short swords etc. is a true delight!! All I want to see now is a comparison of axes vs swords in medieval combat or even a run down of fighting styles associated with different weapons like maces, spears, battleaxes etc.
Dark souls actually does a decent job of representing these aspects of weapons and armor (with some obvious liberties because video games) but armors have all 3 defenses in various ratios and same with weapons
Decent job yet people get confused that physical is different stat from slash/strike/thrust, or how some weapons deal damage type that is completly different from its description, or inconsistent damage type vs weapon moveset. I know it's not perfect, but I don't think that Dark Souls' RPG aspect isn't as decent when you delve down to it especially because of the inconsistencies.
All Hail "RuleMonster"!!! Best RPG system ever, so customisable with house rules and every fight is potentially lethal no matter how badass you are. Also separate skills for pretty much anything (like picking your nose?...) if you so wish.
“Watching this instead of working” 😂 it’s 2am and we’re in lockdown. As for the RPG stuff, I find Rifts/Palladium rules work fairly well. Would love to have you join a game to try it out.
Skall is probably the RUclipsr with the best improvement curve during the years. His video now are extremely accurate on a lot of aspects, especially if compared with the one he made 4 or 5 years ago. This video is another proof! Keep up the good work Skall!
I feel like this is why kingdom come deliverance has the best combat in any game because their are specific combos that you can unlock depending on the characters fighting experience to target certain points on your opponent (wrist, eye, underarm) in attempt to bypass their armour
Now I realize that warhammers will seem OP with this system. But to be fair, in terms of devastating strikes, hammers and maces are kind of OP IRL as well. But different weapons should have different pro's and con's as well, creating a dynamic system with the armour system. For starters: hammers, maces and even axes to some degree should be slower when used. Easier to sidestep, parry and counter attack for the defender. Whereas spears, swords, rapiers and the like would be faster and more agile.
That could work, but while advantage/disadvantage is a wonderful system for streamlining, it's not great for nuance or balance since it's only better odds versus worse odds, compared to numerical modifiers which can impose predictably better or worse results.
@@CylonDorado Agreed. But if I'm going to go to the hassle of making a specific weapon damage system, I want to do it fairly and accurately. It's already something that is inherently going to detract from the flow of the game.
N.M. Dimmick I agree, if you went through the trouble to make your own system. But all I know is, I had a lot less headaches going from Pathfinder to 5e.
One thing that I really like on this video, is that you have an understanding on game design too, so you can actually balance it out, and show why some things are better to keep simple, or balance, and such. This is one thing that really bothers me when I see videos like that. One of the best videos of the genre for sure.
Thank you for using proper physics terms when dealing with force and energy! Im sure it helps releive the cringing with the rest of your scientific audience and science enthusiasts alike. Great information and analysis as always.
I used to define two kinds of fights, general melee where simplicity ruled supreme, and what I called duels for lack of a better term where the players got to dig into a lot more detail. Then again, the people I played with were often more interested in the system than the game. With board games the war cry was 'there is no game that can't be made more complicated'. Fun times. Now I'm an author and I play these things out in my head.
there was a time when i got annoyed by ads. now i'm always happy when a content creator i like reads a ad message and still gets extra youtube ads. interesting video
Around 6:00 i got interested. The system my group uses (GURPS 4e) actually has an armor bypass rule called chink in the armor. It however implies a -10 to hit penalty when most experienced fighters aim to roll under a 16 on 3d6. Thought it was neat to hear him voice a similar idea
GURPS has a pretty comprehensive but not too complex system for damage: cutting, impaling and crushing damage, which can be swung or thrust. Different armor types are more or less vulnerable to the different types of damage. It also covers how swinging impaling weapons can get stuck, and how heavy-damage, end-heavy weapons are less nimble (unable to parry without becoming “unready”). So basically it covers almost everything mentioned in this video.
Well, with D&D 5e, AC basically works as a number that one must beat between a combination of a d20 roll, Proficiency Bonus, and a Stat Modifier, plus any other additional factors, like if the attacker has a +1, +2, or +3 weapon. That being said, AC works as Armor Defensiveness, Dexterity Modifier (if applicable, and to what degree - Light Armor benefits fully from Dexterity Modifier, Medium Armor can get up to +2 from Modifier, and Heavy Armor gets no benefit), Shield (if applicable) for a standard +2, and then any magic items, and additional factors, like if the Armor or Shield are +1, +2, or +3 versions. But, even if one has a huge AC, there's still a trick or two. Those lovely saving throws, especially ones where if the person fails it, they get hit, or if they succeed, reduced amount, unless they have some ability that further reduces or negates the effects. DM: Let's see - your plate armor and shield grant you 20AC, both shield and armor are +3 versions, making it 26, you have a ring of protection, making it 27, and you have Haste cast upon yourself, making it 29. Do I have all that right? Supreme Fighter: You forgot - I'm a Warforged with Defensive Fighting Style, so it's 31. DM: Uh hu - what's your Wisdom Stat again? S.F.: An 8, so I have a minus on the saving throws there. DM: (Grins.) S.F.: Don't tell me - the BBEG knows Dominate Person, right? DM: Yep. S.F.: (Looks to rest of party.) Are my hit points under that Power Word Stun spell? Bard: No - you got too many for it. I got Hold Person though. DM: (Grins, and jots down notes.) S.F.: I think he just got another idea on how to handle me.
I tried planning a cRPG about custom weapons a few years ago, and I really think the combination of damage types makes the biggest difference. A draw cut is 100% cut, but smacking somebody with your sword adds an element of blunt damage in a way that creates a new, hybrid ‘chop’ damage type. Purely cut-proof or strike-proof armor might not hold up. Then there’s the difference between a soft ‘thrust’ vs hammering the point in. Different moves also scale with damage types. You won’t get much out of chopping with a rapier, and you also won’t get much out of thrusting with a club. You _can_ but the business end you’re hitting with won’t transfer the damage type well. This also explains why you’d do things like punch with the hilt, pummel, or mordhau: you’re changing the strike surface and thus, the damage scaling. I think at its best, rather than chopping through a tree’s worth of HP, a game can focus on landing a _valid_ hit. Armor passively narrows the scope of valid hits, and handling/maneuvering is an active response to the rest.
There is an RPG that i love that’s called Blade of the Iron Throne. It’s the spiritual successor to The Riddle of Steel. I think it does weapon damage really well. Armor has protection against the 3 basic types of damage. The nice part is some armor types are impervious to cuts. So when you strike it with a bladed weapon you must instead use the weapon’s blunt damage value (all weapons have it). And swords have a way lower blunt damage value than axes for example (also greatswords have a good blunt damage value because of their weight etc). In this game if you are wearing fullplate against swords you win if you are any good. Also reach and shields change the game a lot anyway I have a lot to say about this game it’s great and it’s the reason I started watching channels like yours Skallagrim because the game doesn’t do a very good job of contextualising the equipment. Sparks an interest though ;)
This is absolutely invaluable - I've watched a lot of your videos looking for information on how to reasonably differentiate weapons in an RPG format. I got some really good ideas but it's nice to have all the information in one place!
If you haven't heard of it before, as a combat system, I am quite fond of "Hârnmaster". It maintains a very diverse and indepth combat, that still manages to be rather fast paced. It also approaches armour in the basically how you describe it in your video.
Biting and slicing are quite similar, actually: both use speed and mass to increase the energy of the attack, and the blade perpendicular to the surface keeps forcing it open, slicing/tearing it. The thing is, axes have way more mass, and while that makes up in strenght when attacking, the less massive sword either keeps going through due to the less friction (since its contact surface area is smaller) or it can easily glance off or be pulled back after the energy generated by the attack has dissipated, while the more massive axe will probably stop sooner due to increased friction on the bigger surface area, and its mass makes it costly to pull off. That's why swords come and go, while axes (or chopping swords, like the greek Xyphos) tend to bite and stick to the target.
I’m basing my system thusly: There are the armor types you’ve listed. There are damage types which affect the different types of armor to differing degrees of efficiency. A bout of combat is just 2 dice pools rolled to determine who gains an advantage in the fight (the only means to enable striking a Mortal Wound). Each success in both parties’ roll count against their opponent’s armor integrity, with the advantaged party deciding how to assign integrity damage. Any additional or decreased counts depend on how the assigned damages measure against the defendants’ armors. The people in combat also suffer stresses from both fighting and receiving blows, and a Mortal Wound may be dealt when losing party members build too much stress. The action all happens quickly and players only have to keep track of armor damage and accrued stress (as tokens). Descriptions of battle are saved for small blurbs at a bout’s end and heroic or desperate explanations when Mortal Wounds are dealt. No lengthy turns as everyone involved rolls at once. No named attacks with special damages or chances save in Mortal Wounding, and then mostly when dealing with mythical or mystical effects.
7:23 Dude. Weapon has power rating, and a damage type (maybe a damage multiplier as well). Power is straight blunt impact, powered by strength and technique, while damage types have different ways of interpreting power. The optional damage multiplier helps to make swords capable of cutting off limbs, while pliking off of armor, while blunt weapons will be hindered by armors that reduce incoming power by a degree. Sipmle. You just have to think outside the (D&D)box.
Going to argue, on a couple of grounds. First, scope and setting of the game you want to make. I mean it. If you want a longer lasting, characters aren't just dropping like flies game, you don't want to do something that has a serious to extreme threat to characters every combat. I mean it. They, the players need a few wins on the way. If you want a hard core, almost Conan, Robert E Howard story, sure. Yeap, it works. Swords can do the limb cutting, the spears can pin you in place, bring a new character or two every session, so you're never out of a chance to play. The other side of it relates to the setting more so than anything else, but in a different way. If things are so dangerous, what does the world look like and how do people who do have less legs, arms, hands, how does the basic work get done? Does magic allow people to regrow these limbs? What's the answer there. Does this go against a scaling, increasing HP system or a system of wounds and stress? It's not that simple. Not by a long shot.
@@LionofCaliban Your argument is invalid. How did you deduce that this SEGMENT of a system would be volatile? On what grounds did you feel legitimate to make such a claim? ... probably my overexagerrated example. Okay, my fault. Anyway. What I put here is just a benchmark. You can EASILY work with that to make it either realistic or power fantasy, you just need to actually know your stuff, before vomiting on the wording of a phrase.
@@kovi567 Actually, vomiting on the phrasing is the core part of what I do these days. Yes, really. How you explain, present this stuff matters. Seriously matters. How you talk about systems, directly affects a lot of what else you do. The mechanics, support the engine, the engine supports the fluff and the fluff, supports the mechanics. Get one of those elements out of whack for what you're trying to do and things just plain fall apart. They suck, they don't do what they're supposed to do. Everyone can write rules, systems, few can from what I've seen target those rules to really support their setting. Even guys and girls who have been actually published.
The Compendium of Weapons, Aromour, and Castles, by Palladium Games, was an excellent reference during my gaming years. My group and I adapted the rules so that even layers of various armour (plate over chain over cloth) would only defend against so much of a given damage type. Blunt/Impact damage always had the lowest value of damage absorption. We also included SDC (structural damage capacity) in all individual armour types so that a particular piece only could absorb x-amount before failing to provide defense. We kept the AC value to allow for attacks to try and bypass the protection and stab at unprotected places. Such a cool system.
This might be your best video yet! Having read DragonLance, A Wheel of Time, Icewind Dale/Neverwinter, ASOIAF, and Dark Legacy of Shannara, having played Final Fantasies and Suikoden's. and dabbled at AD&D this actually makes me aware of how accurate things were and what ideas I had right and wrong.
@@PACKERMAN2077 I guessed but I took an Arrow to my sense of humor this morning =p But in seriousness "Glass" is a very broad term, and depends on the type of silicate and the pressure it is formed at As an example: there are some cutting tools made of compressed hard silicate glasses
@@bengrogan9710 well try to analyze it with its appearance in the vanilla game, where it has the general feel of a bluish-green slab of sharp ice, like blown stained glass. Also, fantasy magitek notwithstanding, take into account the medieval construction that it would likely if, it was a physical object, be comprised of; stained glass sandwich between frames of brass or bronze _(which are in and of themselves soft metals)._ There are actually mods to alter its appearance to a more realistic medium though, allowing light to pass through and an appearance closer to polycarbonate.
I've been really wanting to make a Skyrim mod that makes combat incorporate some of these aspects, this video really gave me some ideas, thanks a lot Skal!
Can you make a Video about recovering after being struck? Like if you take a hit in armor, what happens, if a strike doesn´t kill you, what will stop you from fighting, what won´t, how fast you will be able to continue fighting etc.
Wow... Really serious question have you ever heard of Y2K? What was your first cell phone? First video game console/video game? First favorite TV show? First music player? What kind of TV/player did you grow up with
@@PACKERMAN2077 Wow, ok, let's see. No, that's not familiar to me, my first phone was the Alcatel OneTouch, my first console was the Wii, I don't remember my first favorite show, first music player was Amazon Music, and I don't remember the TV.
@@trmp3tply3r3 cool thanks. Well long story short Y2K was the global scare that in the year 2000 technology, (Banks hospitals schools the military) would stop because clocks in computers only went up to 1999 because when they were made 70 years ago they didn't program them to go any higher than that. www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-was-the-y2k-scare.html I remember the one touch it was kind of cool like an egg, lol My first phone was a Kyocera it was Hi-Tech cuz it had a built-in flashlight switch. My first console was N64 My first favorite show would have to have been The Simpsons since the first season my favorite music player would have been cassettes, I got a CD player in like 2001. my first TV was a small black Panasonic that was no more than 20 in and had a built-in VCR, Like this www.google.com/search?q=top+mount+VCR+TV&client=ms-android-cricket-us-revc&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTiJuHu-njAhUFmeAKHQXcCK8Q_AUoAnoECA4QAg&biw=320&bih=441#imgrc=1ZF7702V1PE2GM&imgdii=ndRf4_2mDXIz4M
I'm actually working on an rpg right now where armor acts as a second layer of health before you start getting hurt. Each different armor has its own resistances and weaknesses causing the armor to take more or less damage determining how long it can last before you are directly at risk. This video actually helped me figure out what kinds of resistances and weaknesses each basic type of armor should have. In fact, I wish I found it sooner... Would have saved me a lot of headaches.
Gonna go ahead and say it, Runescape (now old school Runescape, the new version uses a different system I think) had one of the best armor/damage type systems in any RPG I've ever played, including representing the fact that some weapons could deal different damage types depending on what "style" you use for them. So if you're using a battleaxe, you could use it as a slashing weapon or a crushing weapon iirc. They also had different effectiveness vs armored enemies (mainly in pvp), like slashing weapons were usually the least effective against armor but had high general dps vs unarmored enemies, stabbing/piercing was kind of a middle ground, and crushing was generally the best against armor but usually lower damage vs unarmored enemies than a slashing or stabbing weapon.
I had a system in the True20 roleplaying game where basically weapons that were partially bludgeoning did 1 extra damage vs. medium and heavy armor, purely bludgeoning weapons did 2 extra damage against them but one less vs light and unarmored, and non-bludgeoning weapons did 1 extra damage against light and unarmored. It was a lot of fun
When I was doing a manual labor job, I would use a pick whenever I had the option because I was better with it than with other tools. A sharp pick could embed 8" into a thick piece of wood or tree, into a gravel pile, etc. On hard terrain I would use the pick to make foot deep holes so that it was shattered to allow the shovel to function. The pick could also embed the tip into solid rock or shatter said rock. In the few cases I got to hit metal with it it perforated the metal like a bullet through a can. Absolutely this is the best option for piecing through armor.
@@edwardnigma9756 Wouldn't a spear be the ideal weapon against monsters? A bigger body mass means more impaling damage, plus a spear has a far greater reach than most natural weapons like teeth, horns or claws.
@@ArkadiBolschek I was thinking more in the short ranged one handed category. If I had a choice I would use a small polearm for greater range. Give it a spiked head so you can use it like a spear, an axe for cleaving potential, and a hammer for blunt trauma if it's hide is too thick. If it's short enough you could use it with a shield but also use both hands if need be. A whole range of weapons would be ideal but this one would be the swiss army knife of monster hunting.
"If you're the kind of person who likes to puzzle out the fine details, who likes to spend several hours on just one fight, or just one round..." Remind me to tell you about my 6-way Two-Headed Giant Commander Planechase M:TG game. A plane change caused everyone to shuffle their hand and all permanents into their library then draw that many cards back out. We had 100+ simultaneous ETB effects that had to be sorted out. It took us 30 mins and we ended up making a physical stack of the cards to make sense of it.
GURPS. Hit location penalties. Armour gaps are -8 on the torso and -10 on the limbs. Expertly tailored armour gives further penalties. Everyone talks about realism in RPGs and no one talks about GURPS!
So here are 2 systems I really like: *D&D:* your AC is calculated from your armor (which can limit dexterity), your ability to use it well (Dex) and other elements, like magic. The lighter armors don't protect so well while a full plate gets you a lot of AC. There's no damage reduction from armor, you have to bypass it, like you described. The differentiation between weapon damage types is also secondary, because, like you said, you can use a weapon in different ways. But when it comes to using a sword against a treeant, you know that (as bad as it is) it's better than firing arrows at it or thrusting spears. *Morrowind:* all weapons have 3 forms of attack (chop, slash and thrust) and each kind of weapon will have different variations at each stat. Maces do slash and chop motions well, but suck at thrusts. Spears only do thrusts well and so it goes. Skillwise, weapon types are Blunt, Sword, Spear, Marksman, Hand-to-Hand and I might be forgetting one. It doesn't tell much about the armor, because in The Elder Scrolls series armor is just damage reduction, but the weapon part is really cool and makes you think how to handle your combats.
I've actually been developing an RPG system that incorporates some of this. Each weapon has one or two damage types, and the type used is simply whatever happens to be most advantageous at the time. Each weapon also has a special effect, like daggers which ignore armor on a natural 20 or hammers that cave armor on a high enough damage roll. Armor is assigned an absorption value that represents the material as well as the coverage it offers (so an open-faced helmet will offer less protection than one with a visor). Each piece has a damage type listed which it offers full protection against. Versus other types of damage, it only provides half. So for instance, a metal breastplate offers 14 damage reduction against cutting attacks, but only 7 against anything else. It's relatively simple, and I only need one table each for weapons and armor.
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Skall, I've created a TTRPG system that I believe incorporates realistic elements of combat, as well as open play, while at the same time is streamlined, very flexible and versatile, and easy to use. I wonder if you might like to give it a read?
Because of watching primarily your videos I always picture "killing blows" in ttrpgs against plate armor wearing foes to essentially be finally getting in the gap.
The best armor is still gambeson, underneath chainmail, underneath fullplate, behind a castle wall. You are basically invulnerable in that case.
*wild trebuchet appears*
Ye forgot the moat! And the MACHICOLATIONS!!!!! Sorry. Had tae do that.
*Invulnerable Player dies of heat stroke.
*falls in moat and drowns*
*heat stroke has entered the arena*
we all know that dying person with 1 hp can still work like a healthy person
Your live's end is approacing!
Ahhh, yes. The HP Tree Chopping Contest.
Whack Whack Whack. Aren't you dead yet? * Black Knight replies * "It's just a scratch. I've had worse."
"But your arm's off".
- " Just a flesh wound "
Besides, all ye gotta do is hold a weapon and ye’ll back from the brink o death tae full fighting strength in like 3 seconds.
Like the one off dnd where I wrecked a gargyole(?) With at the end ten hp. Helped that dm let me get creative with my staff. Then disgusted when eye gouging came into play.
It's just a flesh wound
"And probably the reason why you're watching this instead of working"
Ouch. Felt that right in the priorities.
Glad to know I wasn't the only person watching this instead of working. XD
@@toddnapolitano9428 2 months ago when I commented this I was at work during a slow shift. I COULD have swept around my register, but I was so bored I couldn't help but succumb to curiosity and self induldence 😅
Jokes on him, I'm watching this precisely because of my work.
Or instead of sleeping.
It’s not 4:20 AM, you’re 4:20 AM!
Skyrim logic: wearing steel plate armor or any heavy set, get hit by a sword, see blood spilled out of you
IRL logic: A loud metal noise after the strike
And then you install Requiem...and the universe returns to sanity...
Must have been the wind
Thats how strong they are in skyrim
@@Bznsin Golden Wind
Then a loud chuckle and a “let’s see its features”
Protip: When going to fight a bunch of Hobbits; don't forget your codpiece.
Same goes for dwarfs!
Duely noted.
@@ArkadiBolschek
Dwarves are too prideful to go for thee balls, if a dwarf does then they're no longer a dwarf.
@@nullpoint3346 Low-hanging fruit?
@@ArkadiBolschek It's the only fruit we can reach, but our pride demands we still aim for that which is furthest from the ground, also, don't call me a fruit.
i think my favourite system was in fallout 2, where armour had three stats:
AC (armour class)
DT (damage threshhold)
DR (damage reduction)
AC states how likely it is for an attack to glance off the armour, implementing this requires no extra steps as the opponent has to make a to hit roll either way, just add the armour class to the to hit difficulty and there you go.
DT states how much damage the armour can absorb at a direct hit, so even if a hit solidly connects and does not glance off, the armour can still prevent the wearer from taking damage if the attack is too weak,, this, again, does not require an additional roll of any kind, just compare the armours DT to the attackers damage roll and if that roll is too low the damage is zero and if it is not, you just subtract the armours DR from the damage roll to get the amount of damage you take.
it's an elegant system and a quick one if you can do basic maths.
if you then just add damage spread to each weapon (with blunt weapons having lower max, but higher minimum damage, piercing weapons having higher max and lower minimum damage, with slashsing weapons somewhere inbetween) you can get a decently quick, but also somewhat realistic gaming experience.
Very much agreed, I really liked this system too. It always made a lot of sense to me, and it allows to include evasion as a damage mitigation technique into the system at the AC stage.
That's fine if you have the PC to do the math, but in a tabletop game it would slow the fight to a crawl. I know, I played Exalted.
That actually sounds very good. Will screenshot your comment to implement that in a homebrew, thanks
@@Mongward maybe a way to go around that could be using small numbers, like having 10 being the highest AC possible and so on, that way players can make the calculations quickly
@@Mongward
it's not slow at all.
any rpg i know off has you role to hit and roll for damage and that is all you need for this system, the rest is just comparing two numbers and simple addition/subtraction that any self respecting nerd should be able to do in a heart beat.
Gorilla tape gambeson. Even helps stop leaking when you get stabbed!
You're thinking of a Flex Tape Faulds
To show you the power of Flex Tape...
*I SAWED THIS KNIGHT IN HALF*
Mixed up gorilla glue and flex tape
Obligatory skallagrim video ruclips.net/video/WgCjm7qL-YY/видео.html
@@mylifeisacomplexpastiche7901 NOW THAT'S A LOTTA DAMAGE!
I'm working on my own tabletop RPG (which will most likely never be finished, knowing me) and the way I accounted for armour gaps is giving the player the option to specifically target a weak point, letting them deal more damage or just bypass the armour's protection altogether, but making it more difficult to actually land the hit. Nice and simple, and it's optional too, which always helps keeping things simpler for people who like it that way but allowing for some extra complexity for players who don't mind that.
This video has given me some more ideas, like separate protection values for each damage type (making textile armours absorb more points of blunt damage than piercing or slashing damage for instance) and the consideration of additional damage types to do more justice to axes, spears warpicks and such. Maybe chopping damage and... penetrating damage? I don't know, and I don't even know if I'll end up going for it since as you said, making a tabletop is a battle between complexity and simplicity. You want complexity to make the game believable and allow for more options and whatnot, but you also want simplicity so that the learning curve isn't insane and the game isn't tedious as hell even once you've learned.
Holy shit you are the Minecraft monster school guy, those videos were my childhood
Sounds like something I might enjoy!
Just... Eh... Just look up GURPS and GURPS addons Martial Arts and Low Tech
Wait... you... YOU'RE WILLCRAFT
THE ORIGINAL MONSTER SCHOOL GUY HOW ARE YOU HERE WHAT THE
If you haven't already (since this is a pretty old comment), you could check out older editions of Dungeons & Dragons for some inspiration, since what you described is exactly how "Called Shots" and "Weapon Type vs. Armor Modifiers" works in AD&D.
"watching now instead of working." Actually, I'm developing a combat system right now and using this as another resource in that process, so I AM working, haha
Would you like to share your System? Is it a homebrew extension of an existing rpg or is it a completly new System? I am really interested because I am working on a tabletop system of my own for quite a Time.
@@TheFeanor74 It's for a RPG video game so calculations that are normally very tedious to do by hand can be done in an instant on the computer. Each attack takes into account what part of the weapon is being used. So a halberd could use the spikes or the axe head. When a player gets hit the game calculates what the incoming damage type is and to what degree it should be applied. So axes do a mix of bludgeoning and slashing, hammers do bludgeoning, etc.
Then the armor class comes in. Each piece of armor has three values, pierce resistance, slash resistance, and bludgeoning resistance. It's still being worked on right now but I tend to start out as realistic as possible and then reel it back so that gameplay isn't super tedious. At the moment it seems like a player might have to shove full-plated opponents to the ground and execute them since they're essentially impervious to damage otherwise.
And that's only because the basic combat system is based on For Honor's. Like Skal said, it would be far too much work to allow some trick where players can target the gaps in armor. It just wouldn't work at all in the For Honor system. I suppose you could simulate it with crits?
My calculations aren't particularly fancy either. They're just flat damage reduction. If chain mail has a slash resistance of 80, and you deal 50 slashing damage, no damage is taken. Obviously it will need to be tweaked. But for a table top scenario you could probably adapt it relatively simply. Just have three damage categories, and have three armor categories. Then calculate it however you wish. I prefer flat reduction since it's the easiest.
There is also just a flat out "armor penetration" stat. Because while a bec de corbin and a rapier might both primarily be piercing weapons, there's clearly a difference in their effectiveness against armor. And on the other hand I am currently working with a flat "armor" stat. Because an unclothed human still has SOME armor value compared to something like a kitten or a bee.
@@LookItsCollin Thank you for the great explanation
LookItsCollin Just several questions for interest:
• Do the attacks have damage spread? If so, how extreme or minute is it? This is pretty important, as an attack that equals the armor’s resistance in damage can deal some or no damage depending the spread.
• Does the armor take damage itself? For example, if a suit of chain mail takes 50 slash damage and negates said damage by 80(resulting in the attack being blocked), would the next attack be blocked by the same amount, or would the armor’s durability lower and instead block ~70 or so damage?
• What are the combat related stats outside of weapons and armor? Is there energy/stamina to determine if an action can be done, endurance/strength to aid in natural defenses, or even agility or dexterity to determine an attack’s hit chance?
• How are shields handled? Do they serve as an extension of armor, do they affect hit rate, or do they add a new damage check altogether?
Christian Cinnabars Damage spread as in a range of damage, like 45-55? Not at the moment. For Honor was a dedicated fighting game so attacks did flat amounts. That could of course change in the future, especially because I'm trying to make an RPG rather than a dedicated fighter, but since I'm very early on attacks deal flat damage. To put it in perspective I'm still working on finishing the parrying system, which works just like For Honor's. Once parrying is done I'll be done with the core combat gameplay which is attacking, blocking, and parrying. That's when I'll start doing more experimentation with numbers.
Since I'm so early along I hadn't actually thought about armor durability, which is weird because I've played with the idea of shield/weapon durability. So at the moment, no. From an art standpoint it wouldn't be particularly hard to do this. And from a programming side it would not be particularly hard either. But since I'm still carving out basic gameplay elements I'm not spending too much time looking at expansions on it, but this is definitely in my notes now!
Yes, there is a stamina system that works similarly to For Honor's. If it reaches zero then you are exhausted and if you are shoved to the ground while exhausted there's an opportunity for the opponent to execute you, which at the moment I think is the only difference. This is not part of the core combat, which is listed above. But it's in the next tier of combat that I plan on implementing. Shoves, grabs, and very basic grappling. Stats are something I certainly want to add but how much of an impact they'll have is still left to be seen. I've set the system up to accommodate stats but at the moment none are implemented. I'd like stats to influence the amount of gear you can carry, and even affect what equipment you can use in the first place. But of course, that would also be a secondary thing and require a lot of work. I don't particularly like animating, but in my head someone who has proper strength would wield an axe in a different way than someone who did not, which would require two animation sets at least.
The last point is one that's just constantly been bugging me because it's part of a larger issue I'm having. For Honor, and therefore my clone of it, uses set animations for attacks. This means that you can't target specific parts of armor like you could with a bow. This essentially means that in melee combat you can't aim your attacks. So how am I going to handle damage? At the moment armor just adds to your defensive stats like bludgeoning resistance. But that means that if you have bare arms and get struck there, you're taking damage as if they'd been padded with armor, assuming you're wearing armor on other parts of the body. OR I could set it so that location damage IS important in melee, but that would mean that certain attacks always hit in the same spot. What would be the point of leg armor at all if most of the animations are targetting the torso? I could split the attack wheel from three sections into five, but then I'm almost doubling the amount of animation work that I need to do. Even games like Mordhau, which allow you to make very accurate melee attacks, don't take into consideration armor on the arms.
I think I'll go with the first option and just have shields add to the base armor value. And specifically with shields they factor into the blocking system. When blocking an attack the power of the incoming blow is taken into account. So using a dagger to block a zweihander will not be very effective. But using a shield to do so would mitigate most if not all of the incoming damage, depending on the type of shield.
Since the attacks rely on animations hit rate is a guaranteed thing unless the opponent is in I-frames from dodging or rolling.
6:35 in the indie game Kenshi this actually happens, depending on the weapon the damage can be both crush and slash, like oversized swords that tend to be balanced with both
Watched a town guardsmen kill 7 dust bandits with his giant two handed sword in one swing is definetly a highlight of that game lol
Promptly looted the bodies ofcourse
kenshi is an amazing experiencr
As someone who just got into kenshi this year it is crushing how realistic the game is sometimes
Kingdom Come Deliverance has a system where weapons have different blunt, cut, and pierce stats and the damage you deal with cuts thrusts and with force is dependent on that. (The armour also has cut, pierce, and blunt protection.) It seems quite life like and similar to what skall explains.
F Q That game wanted to be as accurate as possible. Warhorse did a great job!
That was the whole point of the game
Kingdom come deliverance is nice, but it seems a bit unfinished. I mean there are still problems with perks, NPCs, combat and other things. I wish it has polearms, crossbows, proper mounted combat and of course better quests (I don't like the idea of being a thief and valiant knight at the same time for example).
Also, it's too easy and allows to abuse game mechanics. Literally, you can get almost the best armor and good weapons after few hours in game, same about easy money. For RPG progress is the most enjoyable part, but I miss it in KCD.
Though, I still love it after hundreds hours. Hope they will make their next game better, at least I suppose they have better budget for it and experience of previous part.
@@wonniethepoop7856 it does have polearma you just cant keep them in your inventory for some reason, probably realism
@@shekelboob ability to carry tons of goods is for realism too, isn't it? It's just for example, I could provide more, but this is pointless.
I think skalligrim should do an analysis on the thumb tac vs berry b benson duel from the bee movie.
Yes pls
yes
I think you're onto something
But every time he says the letter 'b' it gets faster
That profile picture would be perfect if it wasn't for the laser eyes. It's a bit much.
Joke's on you, I'm watching this instead of SLEEPING!
Someone needs to create an RPG collecting all of Skallagrim's knowledge. Would 100% buy.
There is a legenda.. about "BANNERLORD"
Kcd
@@kirito_0br yeah... about that
Have a look at "Blade of the Iron Throne" for an rpg system written by HEMA practitioners. A twenty second combat can take more than twenty minutes and many table look ups however.
@@RamblingOverHillsAndDowns I'm working on a Rolemaster hack for getting all that Skallagrim knowledge in:)
I have solved this for my D&D game by describing how attacks hit or miss.
A roll of 1-10 the character dodged the attack.
10-AC the character uses his armor or weapon to block the blow
Beat the AC and damage a little? You find an opening and manage a cut or a blow but do minimal damage.
Beat the AC and do a large amount of damage? You find a gap in his or her defenses and strike true. You see blood start to come from the strike
No matter what follow the rule of cool and make your players feel like bad asses
That's how I tried to do it when I DMed.
@@oldannyboy37 Likewise, it's less about tanking silly amounts of damage as it is being skilled or downright lucky to avoid a fatal/crippling blow. People forget HP was always intended to be an abstract mechanic.
@@JakeCWolf Exactly HP was meant to represent a multitude of hard to quantify/qualify factors including exhaustion/fatigue, vitality/energy, and (in some games) an element of combat experience, ie why martial combat/tanking characters typically have more HP than say, knowledge based ones like mages or scholars. It also equates to a improvable skill as to why it increases with 'leveling up', with the character getting better at surviving violent or other hostile situations that may result in untimely death.
I saw a modified Star Wars d20 system that split HP into vitality and stamina points ( or maybe it was hit points and vitality points ). The first represented actual physical damage and the second was your fatigue level. Hits in normal combat were first taken from your fatigue pool. The rules explanation was instead of actually getting hit, the character had to scramble to barely deflect a blow, or it was a glancing hit that hurt, but didn't really injure the character.
After your stamina was gone, hits went to your actual health pool, like you were too tired to properly defend yourself, or dodge out the way of blaster fire. And while your stamina points regenerated quickly, health would take days to come back.
The GM/DM could also specify some damage or attacks bypassing stamina and going straight to health. I never played a game or campaign in the rules, but it always seemed like a fun idea.
@@JaronActual sounds cool but I am learning that when it comes to RPG systems less is usually more.
Complex calculations in RPGs is what computers are for. I am all for complex stats in videogames, but keep it off my tabletop.
I think physics simulation would be best.
Tbh for video games simpler is often better too; people like to understand what is happening in their game
Complex simulations are bad for table top games, but still, you can add some realism to game compared to D&D and still be able to calculate it quickly.
@@hannessteffenhagen61 Although when people sit down and try to calculate in their own heads how something might play out realistically it can be easy to get it so incredibly wrong. A lot of stuff happening in real time is just intuitive and expected especially without a tainted perspective, without having learned something unrealistic.
In computer games all of the complex systems happening behind the scenes are ideally hidden to the player and when things work correctly something as complicated as a computer rendering a piece of cloth interacting both with actors in the game world and in-game wind simulation for example just feels natural and intuitive. The illusion that what the player is experiencing is just simple and obvious isn't broken. If behind the scenes game systems were built so that when a player hits the surface of a car for example and that surface reacted exactly as you would naturally expect I don't think there'd be any complaints about 'not understanding what's happening' or things being too complicated.
It's complicated when the player has to do the computer's job. When they have to keep track of things themselves, they have to calculate and mentally simulate that same stupidly complex scenario described above of cloth physics. That's when things can be difficult to keep track of. That happens when there's a lack of complexity or robustness in the engine but the game's still demanding such a gratuitous level of detail.
@@7dayspking You're missing the point. The piece of clothe is a set piece. It's not part of the actual "game" in any meaningful way, as in so far as the behaviour of the piece of cloth is going to be almost entirely irrelevant to the actual gameplay.
Here's the sort of thing that's relevant, and where I'm saying it should be easy enough for players to understand:
"If my armor score is X, what does that mean for how much damage I take? How much better is X+100 compared to just X? When I score a critical hit, how much more damage do I deal? What about elemental strengths and weaknesses?"
Or for non-combat examples:
"If my charisma score is 7, and the opposing difficulty for a check is 5, what does that mean for my chances to succeed on it? How do other factors like faction standing affect this?"
Etc etc. Now you could try to just play the game for dozens of hours until you develop an intuitive understanding for this, but this not actually going to work for any system that involves lots of undocumented factors affecting things. It is completely irrelevant how realistic your cloth animations look or how pretty your water surface effects are, this is neither a good reason nor an excuse to obscure the actual game mechanics.
“Watching this instead of working.” Hands up, you got me :P
I feel like Skalligram is literally a blacksmith from the past that came to the future LOL
Fox's Apprentice armourer*
And *michaelcthulhu* is the blacksmith/armourer from the myths and legends.
He's got some quality badass weapons, that's for sure.
Whom is this "Skalligram" thou speaketh of?
Shhhhhhhh!!!!! Are you trying to blow his cover!?!
*Minecraft logic*
Highest damage: sword
Medium damage: axe
Low damage: pickaxe
*real life*
Highest damage: pickaxe
Medium damage: axe
Lowest damage: sword
*both*
Use bow so you won't get hit
Better: use a pre-loaded crossbow to fire an initial shot faster so that you don't get within hitting range and fire slightly quicker than a bow (via Quick Charge III) and hit multiple targets (Piercing IV for PvE or Multishot for PvP)
The axe does the most damage
@@RoundBaguette not against armor. Pickaxe is pretty much big heavy axe with nasty spike, should go through any armor.
@@outandabout259 axes have higher damage than swords in Minecraft
@@FlameFlash123 oh, didn't know that.
I developed a system that disposes of damage types in favor of damage parameters, like sharpness multiplying damage to the opponent (after damage reduction) and penetration reducing the enemy armor's damage reduction. You don't need any tables, only your base damage, the damage parameters and your enemy's damage reduction and you're good to go
"We are squishy, but we can only stretch so far" - Skallagrim
"The real reason you're probably watching this right now instead of working"
What? haha... why would you think that? I'm totally not watching this at work right now to kill time.
**nervous laughter**
Skal is the only guy who can make a sponsor ad entertaining
Went back to watch it in response to this comment after FFing at first. Now I'll try it. Thanks!
But no, caffeine tablets are better than booze.
Loved the video! I have a few people in my Pathfinder group that want to argue with the Armor Class system, and want to make it more "realistic"
So I'm going to show them this video
Also I really liked the camera angle changes. It felt very fluid and professional
legacy.aonprd.com/ultimateCombat/variants/armorAsDamageReduction.html Pathfinder's got you handled, boo. Just add a bit extra to the system to factor in the damage types.
pathfinder is still very wierd with how hey decide that many weapons that are usually just a straight double edged sword ike the longsword, cant do piercing
personally i reckon that any person who wants to attack using a damage type the weapon doesnt have, like stabbing with a scimitar, cutting with a rapier, should roll damage with the next dice down from the main damage die (D8 becomes d6, D6 becomes D4 etc to represent the fact these weapons are optimised to do one type of damage, and so doing another attack will be less effective.
Only retards play pathfinder, it should have been a good warning to play anything else
@@Szgerle Pathfinder is literally a optimized version of D&D 3.5
For some reason, I have a feeling your profile picture is the face you make at them when they do that. XD
for the past 4 years ive been working on a homebrew tabletop rpg system that is realistic and complex but not overly so. my friends and i have been getting a lot of our information for mechanics and historical accuracy from you and shadiversity. thank you for making amazing and informative videos, Skall! :)
That's dope, are you going to go open source? If so U'd love to check it out and help if I can!
I always enjoyed the GURPS-system and felt it strikes a good midwaypoint. 😊
Thanks!
I recall in baldurs gate armour saving throws would depend on the armour type and what weapon was used. Chainmail had better saving throws vs slashing then leather or padded.
I don't know if it's just Baldur's Gate 1 or whether it came in in Baldur's Gate 2, there was definitely stuff like this floating about, in AD&D.
Been a while since I looked at any of that stuff, played the games.
Also have something like this in my mind. Haven't played BaldursGate for ages!
It's like that in both BG and SoA. I've not seen it beyond AD&D. I think they kind of dumbed it down.
There Be Game Baldur’s Gate was modelled after AD&D 2nd edition. THAC0 and all.
I don't remember that being in BG but Pillars of Eternity's system works like that and that game is inspired by BG. Are you maybe misremembering?
I rate this video 8 decapitated pheasants out of 10.
Did you mean to say peasants?
Peasant, Pheasant... same thing, rich people used to kill both of them.
(Quite fun to hunt both, you should try it some time😈)
@@sionsoschwalts2762 That made me laugh more than it should.
The absolute weapon, armor, and damage system for me was in War of the Roses. Too bad the ultra-realism, steep learning curve, and high skill difference between new and experienced players killed the game.
Players who did not keep distance and kept swinging at plate armour with the shaft of their poleaxe instead of the head blamed bad hit detection.
Players who didn't know to thrust a stabbing sword at helmet slit or under the arm pit but kept swinging their swords at heavy plate complained about bad damage detection.
Players who didn't select bodkin arrow type only to see their arrows bounce off armour blamed that the game had no real ranged component.
Experienced players wearing very light armor danced around less experienced foot knights and killed them after many repeated slashes with convex grind swords. Less experienced players did not know that every weapon build came with advantages and disadvantages. Convex grind swords is effective at slashing against plate armour but would usually break in one hit if used to parry a strong blow.
Sometimes players with a little more experience makes a heavy footman build with plate armour and barbute, and thought players who one-hit them with a sword slash were hacking. In fact, you can aim well and slash the neck between the barbute and plate.
I just reinstalled the game and there are no players.
How do I get the game?
if the game doesn't communicate that well with the players, then what can "less" experienced players really do? Was it one of these games where you needed to check online wikis to learn the systems?
If games are not made to teach players getting into an online game, then I have 0 pity for those devs and games.
Wait that's how it worked? I thought it was just some PVP Mount and Blade Clone
"We are squishy but things can always stretch up before they start to tear." - Skall 2019.
Are we still talking about armor skall?
Your profile picture matches the comment
Skall, I know you're a GURPSoid like me. In GURPS, while not 100% realistic, you have reasonable rules for going for the armpits/gaps in armor that don't degenerate in endless tables and all that.
I'm a long-time player of the GURPS system, and there my fighters can usually make called strikes at an enemies face, where armour normally doesn't protect. If my fighter goes up against somebody who have a face-plate on their helmet, well, they're at a disadvantage of finding somebody hiding, a handful of caltrops thrown their way, and other things of "situational awareness", and use those to my advantage.
Targeted attack: Thrust to the armpit!
Gurps is good for that. But the problem is that it just gets some important shit wrong. Specially how point attacks are worthless at scaling with strength (and until 4e had only a 2x multiplier in a hit) and that pretty much armor is all the same. The ones I hate the most is how long weapons wich should be more nimble (like a halberd) sometimes need THREE TURNS to attack (it seems to be only based in assumptions, why scimitars require an extra turn but arming swords don't? ) and worse, how the manual say that usually european swords have a blunt point........wtf.... So I still prefer to just use something dumb like DnD and let my description make sense of it. But despite what i said I actually like gurps, just dont use it as much, because it gives the game a very mortal feel wich is cool.
@@ThePhoenixpaw I was a fan of plate helms in GURPS Fantasy with no eye slits and a glass wall spell on it so you could still see, but enemies could no longer aim for your eyes with arrows or bolts and bypass your armor.
"Would just be a mess of tables and charts."
*Side eyes Second Edition AD&D*
Well ya ain't wrong.
Edward Burke maybe but once it’s written on your sheet it’s simple enough
Damage types are in correlation to dimension:
0D - Point - Speer, Arrow, Spike
1D - Line - Sword, Blade
2D - Plane - Hammer
3D - Space - Explosion inside the body (outside in front of the body, would be 2D)
4D+ - not really an idea
that is how I see it, simplified
that's an interesting simplification. though zero dimensional would mean it's less than a point.
I'd argue that piercing weapons have 1D. The area affected is closer to a line, drawn from entrypoint to stopping point.
4D would be Dormamu vs Doctor Strange
@@PrimordialNightmare yea, but i mean with the diminsion not the way the weapon make, but the area the weapon contact with the armor
4D would be a poison or infection of some sort
In fact 4D would be anything that can inflict direct damage to anything apart from the actuall armor. For Example Mindcontroll or timepiercing weapons
"Thats why you're watching this instead of working...." well ouch, felt that right in the paycheck.
0:43 Hey! I just got off from a 9-5 shift.
Damn that call-out at 0:45 felt personal cause I'm literally watching this at work
Kingdom come actually is the closest I've seen to this its hard as hell to do damage to a guy in plate with a sword.
I may just subscribe! I'm an aspiring metalworker/blacksmith. Most of my research and study goes into historical pieces such as weapons and armor but also metallurgy as well. Your channel has many videos geared almost specifically to those interests and you deliver alot of pertinent facts and theoretical scenarios which challenge the standard mindset on most medieval arms and armor. The combat videos also make me giddy inside. To see a man properly wield: claymores, sword+shield combo, daggers, longsword, short swords etc. is a true delight!! All I want to see now is a comparison of axes vs swords in medieval combat or even a run down of fighting styles associated with different weapons like maces, spears, battleaxes etc.
Dark souls actually does a decent job of representing these aspects of weapons and armor (with some obvious liberties because video games) but armors have all 3 defenses in various ratios and same with weapons
It's easy to implement that in computer games because the computer does all the work. Tabletop RPGs, on the other hand...
Wear fashion souls u casul
Decent job yet people get confused that physical is different stat from slash/strike/thrust, or how some weapons deal damage type that is completly different from its description, or inconsistent damage type vs weapon moveset.
I know it's not perfect, but I don't think that Dark Souls' RPG aspect isn't as decent when you delve down to it especially because of the inconsistencies.
4:52 You pulled off that 80's pivot like a true blademaster!
The poster child of attempted realism = tedium in RPGs is definitely Rolemaster.
I see your Rolemaster and raise you Phoenix Command!
It is actually a lot of fun. The critical hit tables make every battle a dangerous affair. I like D&D too, it is just a different vibe.
Then just play MERP. Though I still favor Hârnmaster.
All Hail "RuleMonster"!!!
Best RPG system ever, so customisable with house rules and every fight is potentially lethal no matter how badass you are.
Also separate skills for pretty much anything (like picking your nose?...) if you so wish.
@@alkar9266 MERP is fine, but it limits you to Tolkienesque worlds whereas Rolemaster has great variety.
No one:
RUclipsrs: raid, shadow legends
it's kind of a shitty game too
@@frogman4700 yea I only played it for a bit and just got bored after 3 days.
@@frogman4700 I think it's fun, I've played it before. But you start to notice a paywall after awhile, which is why I stopped playing
Mobile games will never touch my phone
Only reason they'd accept to advertise it is 'cause they payed youtubers a huge amount, so I'm barely tolerating it
“Watching this instead of working” 😂 it’s 2am and we’re in lockdown. As for the RPG stuff, I find Rifts/Palladium rules work fairly well. Would love to have you join a game to try it out.
Skall is probably the RUclipsr with the best improvement curve during the years. His video now are extremely accurate on a lot of aspects, especially if compared with the one he made 4 or 5 years ago.
This video is another proof!
Keep up the good work Skall!
I feel like this is why kingdom come deliverance has the best combat in any game because their are specific combos that you can unlock depending on the characters fighting experience to target certain points on your opponent (wrist, eye, underarm) in attempt to bypass their armour
Quick somewhat realistic RPG armour system:
"Naked" (unarmored, lightly clothed): Blunt, piercing, cutting = 100 % damage.
Mail: Blunt = 95 % damage. Piercing = 95 % dmg. Cutting = 10% dmg
Full plate: Blunt = 75 % dmg. Piercing = 10% dmg. Cutting = 0 % dmg
Skill buffs can be used to modify the damage, like "Expert swordsman" skill let's you find gaps in full plate so your piercinf strikes can bypass it.
Now I realize that warhammers will seem OP with this system. But to be fair, in terms of devastating strikes, hammers and maces are kind of OP IRL as well.
But different weapons should have different pro's and con's as well, creating a dynamic system with the armour system. For starters: hammers, maces and even axes to some degree should be slower when used. Easier to sidestep, parry and counter attack for the defender. Whereas spears, swords, rapiers and the like would be faster and more agile.
I assume if the DM was knowledgeable with weapons they might be able to just apply advantage/disadvantage to the attack rolls or something, anyway.
That could work, but while advantage/disadvantage is a wonderful system for streamlining, it's not great for nuance or balance since it's only better odds versus worse odds, compared to numerical modifiers which can impose predictably better or worse results.
@@n.m.dimmick194 Not to mention that they're functionally unequal in results, can be a bit messy to work with.
N.M. Dimmick Yeah, but in my experience, it’s WAY more important to just keep things moving.
@@CylonDorado Agreed. But if I'm going to go to the hassle of making a specific weapon damage system, I want to do it fairly and accurately. It's already something that is inherently going to detract from the flow of the game.
N.M. Dimmick I agree, if you went through the trouble to make your own system. But all I know is, I had a lot less headaches going from Pathfinder to 5e.
One thing that I really like on this video, is that you have an understanding on game design too, so you can actually balance it out, and show why some things are better to keep simple, or balance, and such. This is one thing that really bothers me when I see videos like that. One of the best videos of the genre for sure.
Regards from Brazil, partner. I watch your videos every week when is possible
SAVOIA!
Já estava me perguntando se eu serio o único aqui.
@@brunomachado894 Homens de cultura eu vejo
No offense, but strange to see a Brazilian speaking English in a foreign environment, why is that?
Não são os únicos BRs hehehe
@Butterfly I'd say that it's because good content in Portuguese is very scarce.
That and, y'know, youtube algorithms, word of mouth...
Seeing Skall get all these big sponsors makes me happy 🖤🤘🏻💯
Thank you for using proper physics terms when dealing with force and energy! Im sure it helps releive the cringing with the rest of your scientific audience and science enthusiasts alike. Great information and analysis as always.
I used to define two kinds of fights, general melee where simplicity ruled supreme, and what I called duels for lack of a better term where the players got to dig into a lot more detail. Then again, the people I played with were often more interested in the system than the game. With board games the war cry was 'there is no game that can't be made more complicated'. Fun times. Now I'm an author and I play these things out in my head.
8:23 Lmao "we are squishy" skall 2019 😂
there was a time when i got annoyed by ads. now i'm always happy when a content creator i like reads a ad message and still gets extra youtube ads. interesting video
Around 6:00 i got interested. The system my group uses (GURPS 4e) actually has an armor bypass rule called chink in the armor. It however implies a -10 to hit penalty when most experienced fighters aim to roll under a 16 on 3d6. Thought it was neat to hear him voice a similar idea
"The reason why you are watching this instead of working" I am crying because it is true!
2nd edition D&D had things done with damage types vs armor types, if you wanted to get that complex. It just slowed things down so much.
GURPS has a pretty comprehensive but not too complex system for damage: cutting, impaling and crushing damage, which can be swung or thrust. Different armor types are more or less vulnerable to the different types of damage. It also covers how swinging impaling weapons can get stuck, and how heavy-damage, end-heavy weapons are less nimble (unable to parry without becoming “unready”). So basically it covers almost everything mentioned in this video.
This reminds me of the old Rolemaster RPG, where every weapon had its own chart, broken into 20 columns for 20 armor types.
And most weapons could do different kinds of damage. Rolemaster came to my mind almost instantly!
Well, with D&D 5e, AC basically works as a number that one must beat between a combination of a d20 roll, Proficiency Bonus, and a Stat Modifier, plus any other additional factors, like if the attacker has a +1, +2, or +3 weapon. That being said, AC works as Armor Defensiveness, Dexterity Modifier (if applicable, and to what degree - Light Armor benefits fully from Dexterity Modifier, Medium Armor can get up to +2 from Modifier, and Heavy Armor gets no benefit), Shield (if applicable) for a standard +2, and then any magic items, and additional factors, like if the Armor or Shield are +1, +2, or +3 versions.
But, even if one has a huge AC, there's still a trick or two. Those lovely saving throws, especially ones where if the person fails it, they get hit, or if they succeed, reduced amount, unless they have some ability that further reduces or negates the effects.
DM: Let's see - your plate armor and shield grant you 20AC, both shield and armor are +3 versions, making it 26, you have a ring of protection, making it 27, and you have Haste cast upon yourself, making it 29. Do I have all that right?
Supreme Fighter: You forgot - I'm a Warforged with Defensive Fighting Style, so it's 31.
DM: Uh hu - what's your Wisdom Stat again?
S.F.: An 8, so I have a minus on the saving throws there.
DM: (Grins.)
S.F.: Don't tell me - the BBEG knows Dominate Person, right?
DM: Yep.
S.F.: (Looks to rest of party.) Are my hit points under that Power Word Stun spell?
Bard: No - you got too many for it. I got Hold Person though.
DM: (Grins, and jots down notes.)
S.F.: I think he just got another idea on how to handle me.
No mention of heavier armors being noisy when you move around, ensuring that heavily armored persons can't sneak around.
I tried planning a cRPG about custom weapons a few years ago, and I really think the combination of damage types makes the biggest difference. A draw cut is 100% cut, but smacking somebody with your sword adds an element of blunt damage in a way that creates a new, hybrid ‘chop’ damage type. Purely cut-proof or strike-proof armor might not hold up. Then there’s the difference between a soft ‘thrust’ vs hammering the point in.
Different moves also scale with damage types. You won’t get much out of chopping with a rapier, and you also won’t get much out of thrusting with a club. You _can_ but the business end you’re hitting with won’t transfer the damage type well. This also explains why you’d do things like punch with the hilt, pummel, or mordhau: you’re changing the strike surface and thus, the damage scaling.
I think at its best, rather than chopping through a tree’s worth of HP, a game can focus on landing a _valid_ hit. Armor passively narrows the scope of valid hits, and handling/maneuvering is an active response to the rest.
Look at that beard, it's even more manly than a pommel
Did you know it's attached to his chin with velcro...?
He can easily remove it and End Men rightly
That's blasphemy.
YOU TAKE THAT BACK HERATIC
His beard *is* a pommel.
Okay kyle
There is an RPG that i love that’s called Blade of the Iron Throne. It’s the spiritual successor to The Riddle of Steel. I think it does weapon damage really well. Armor has protection against the 3 basic types of damage.
The nice part is some armor types are impervious to cuts. So when you strike it with a bladed weapon you must instead use the weapon’s blunt damage value (all weapons have it). And swords have a way lower blunt damage value than axes for example (also greatswords have a good blunt damage value because of their weight etc).
In this game if you are wearing fullplate against swords you win if you are any good. Also reach and shields change the game a lot anyway I have a lot to say about this game it’s great and it’s the reason I started watching channels like yours Skallagrim because the game doesn’t do a very good job of contextualising the equipment. Sparks an interest though ;)
Make a video about the quality of plot armor
99.9999% protection. Weak against parallel timelines/universes and gritty/dark stories.
This is absolutely invaluable - I've watched a lot of your videos looking for information on how to reasonably differentiate weapons in an RPG format. I got some really good ideas but it's nice to have all the information in one place!
Just wear everything you can and you will be fine
_Fast travel has left the chat_
If you haven't heard of it before, as a combat system, I am quite fond of "Hârnmaster".
It maintains a very diverse and indepth combat, that still manages to be rather fast paced.
It also approaches armour in the basically how you describe it in your video.
Always thought there should be a 'hacking' or 'hewing' damage for axes.
Biting and slicing are quite similar, actually: both use speed and mass to increase the energy of the attack, and the blade perpendicular to the surface keeps forcing it open, slicing/tearing it. The thing is, axes have way more mass, and while that makes up in strenght when attacking, the less massive sword either keeps going through due to the less friction (since its contact surface area is smaller) or it can easily glance off or be pulled back after the energy generated by the attack has dissipated, while the more massive axe will probably stop sooner due to increased friction on the bigger surface area, and its mass makes it costly to pull off.
That's why swords come and go, while axes (or chopping swords, like the greek Xyphos) tend to bite and stick to the target.
I’m basing my system thusly:
There are the armor types you’ve listed.
There are damage types which affect the different types of armor to differing degrees of efficiency.
A bout of combat is just 2 dice pools rolled to determine who gains an advantage in the fight (the only means to enable striking a Mortal Wound).
Each success in both parties’ roll count against their opponent’s armor integrity, with the advantaged party deciding how to assign integrity damage.
Any additional or decreased counts depend on how the assigned damages measure against the defendants’ armors.
The people in combat also suffer stresses from both fighting and receiving blows, and a Mortal Wound may be dealt when losing party members build too much stress.
The action all happens quickly and players only have to keep track of armor damage and accrued stress (as tokens). Descriptions of battle are saved for small blurbs at a bout’s end and heroic or desperate explanations when Mortal Wounds are dealt. No lengthy turns as everyone involved rolls at once. No named attacks with special damages or chances save in Mortal Wounding, and then mostly when dealing with mythical or mystical effects.
"We're squishy" - HEMA practitioner's perspective on human beings ^_^
00:40 DAMN! How did you know i'm at work?! (starts running away form the PC)
7:23
Dude. Weapon has power rating, and a damage type (maybe a damage multiplier as well). Power is straight blunt impact, powered by strength and technique, while damage types have different ways of interpreting power. The optional damage multiplier helps to make swords capable of cutting off limbs, while pliking off of armor, while blunt weapons will be hindered by armors that reduce incoming power by a degree.
Sipmle. You just have to think outside the (D&D)box.
Going to argue, on a couple of grounds.
First, scope and setting of the game you want to make. I mean it. If you want a longer lasting, characters aren't just dropping like flies game, you don't want to do something that has a serious to extreme threat to characters every combat. I mean it. They, the players need a few wins on the way.
If you want a hard core, almost Conan, Robert E Howard story, sure. Yeap, it works. Swords can do the limb cutting, the spears can pin you in place, bring a new character or two every session, so you're never out of a chance to play.
The other side of it relates to the setting more so than anything else, but in a different way. If things are so dangerous, what does the world look like and how do people who do have less legs, arms, hands, how does the basic work get done? Does magic allow people to regrow these limbs? What's the answer there.
Does this go against a scaling, increasing HP system or a system of wounds and stress?
It's not that simple. Not by a long shot.
@Warlok Cumbersome? Have you played D&D, mate?
@@LionofCaliban
Your argument is invalid.
How did you deduce that this SEGMENT of a system would be volatile? On what grounds did you feel legitimate to make such a claim?
... probably my overexagerrated example. Okay, my fault.
Anyway. What I put here is just a benchmark. You can EASILY work with that to make it either realistic or power fantasy, you just need to actually know your stuff, before vomiting on the wording of a phrase.
@@kovi567 Actually, vomiting on the phrasing is the core part of what I do these days.
Yes, really. How you explain, present this stuff matters. Seriously matters. How you talk about systems, directly affects a lot of what else you do.
The mechanics, support the engine, the engine supports the fluff and the fluff, supports the mechanics. Get one of those elements out of whack for what you're trying to do and things just plain fall apart. They suck, they don't do what they're supposed to do.
Everyone can write rules, systems, few can from what I've seen target those rules to really support their setting.
Even guys and girls who have been actually published.
@@LionofCaliban Ah, a self proclaimed guru of... rpg rules i guess?
Yeah, my 11 pm self doesn't have the patience for you lot. Maybe tomorrow.
The Compendium of Weapons, Aromour, and Castles, by Palladium Games, was an excellent reference during my gaming years. My group and I adapted the rules so that even layers of various armour (plate over chain over cloth) would only defend against so much of a given damage type. Blunt/Impact damage always had the lowest value of damage absorption. We also included SDC (structural damage capacity) in all individual armour types so that a particular piece only could absorb x-amount before failing to provide defense. We kept the AC value to allow for attacks to try and bypass the protection and stab at unprotected places. Such a cool system.
Can you do a video review about how realistic certain characters/militaries armor is in Game of Thrones, and please review The Hound lol.
This might be your best video yet! Having read DragonLance, A Wheel of Time, Icewind Dale/Neverwinter, ASOIAF, and Dark Legacy of Shannara, having played Final Fantasies and Suikoden's. and dabbled at AD&D this actually makes me aware of how accurate things were and what ideas I had right and wrong.
“Instead of working”
*feels targeted*
Thank you for making this video. I have been waiting for a video like this because I am working on a board game and this was very informative
So you're saying glass doesn't provide more ballistic protection then iron?...
Is that what you're saying?
Depends on the glass.
For example there is aluminium silicate glass that is used for vision devices on tanks - they are better than rought iron
@@bengrogan9710 there was a Skyrim reference in there...
But yeah thanks for legit answer.
Well the army try to use it tank armor it was sandwich between two steal plate it was in the 70s I think
@@PACKERMAN2077 I guessed but I took an Arrow to my sense of humor this morning =p
But in seriousness "Glass" is a very broad term, and depends on the type of silicate and the pressure it is formed at
As an example: there are some cutting tools made of compressed hard silicate glasses
@@bengrogan9710 well try to analyze it with its appearance in the vanilla game, where it has the general feel of a bluish-green slab of sharp ice, like blown stained glass. Also, fantasy magitek notwithstanding, take into account the medieval construction that it would likely if, it was a physical object, be comprised of; stained glass sandwich between frames of brass or bronze _(which are in and of themselves soft metals)._
There are actually mods to alter its appearance to a more realistic medium though, allowing light to pass through and an appearance closer to polycarbonate.
"...and the reason you're probably watching this instead of working..."
I feel attacked.
Are you armored?
I've been really wanting to make a Skyrim mod that makes combat incorporate some of these aspects, this video really gave me some ideas, thanks a lot Skal!
Dew it
@@topper4781 still putting my ideas together, but I certainly plan to!
@@nicholasq203 when you do let me know
Armor is an under appreciated subject.
Thank you.
Add raid to the list of products I will never use...
I can tolerate it because skal making money isn't bad. But personally I don't like raid
Add that to the list of things you're not allowed to do at The Foundation.
@@BigManProducciones Afwkebwhebhdbfbdfjbebf
Can you make a Video about recovering after being struck? Like if you take a hit in armor, what happens, if a strike doesn´t kill you, what will stop you from fighting, what won´t, how fast you will be able to continue fighting etc.
I don't work, I'm 13, BUT I love your channel anyhow
Wow... Really serious question have you ever heard of Y2K?
What was your first cell phone?
First video game console/video game?
First favorite TV show?
First music player?
What kind of TV/player did you grow up with
Explosivo 225 cool story bro
@@PACKERMAN2077 Wow, ok, let's see. No, that's not familiar to me, my first phone was the Alcatel OneTouch, my first console was the Wii, I don't remember my first favorite show, first music player was Amazon Music, and I don't remember the TV.
@@trmp3tply3r3 cool thanks.
Well long story short Y2K was the global scare that in the year 2000 technology, (Banks hospitals schools the military) would stop because clocks in computers only went up to 1999 because when they were made 70 years ago they didn't program them to go any higher than that.
www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-was-the-y2k-scare.html
I remember the one touch it was kind of cool like an egg, lol
My first phone was a Kyocera it was Hi-Tech cuz it had a built-in flashlight switch.
My first console was N64
My first favorite show would have to have been The Simpsons since the first season
my favorite music player would have been cassettes, I got a CD player in like 2001.
my first TV was a small black Panasonic that was no more than 20 in and had a built-in VCR, Like this
www.google.com/search?q=top+mount+VCR+TV&client=ms-android-cricket-us-revc&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTiJuHu-njAhUFmeAKHQXcCK8Q_AUoAnoECA4QAg&biw=320&bih=441#imgrc=1ZF7702V1PE2GM&imgdii=ndRf4_2mDXIz4M
I'm actually working on an rpg right now where armor acts as a second layer of health before you start getting hurt. Each different armor has its own resistances and weaknesses causing the armor to take more or less damage determining how long it can last before you are directly at risk. This video actually helped me figure out what kinds of resistances and weaknesses each basic type of armor should have. In fact, I wish I found it sooner... Would have saved me a lot of headaches.
Gonna go ahead and say it, Runescape (now old school Runescape, the new version uses a different system I think) had one of the best armor/damage type systems in any RPG I've ever played, including representing the fact that some weapons could deal different damage types depending on what "style" you use for them. So if you're using a battleaxe, you could use it as a slashing weapon or a crushing weapon iirc. They also had different effectiveness vs armored enemies (mainly in pvp), like slashing weapons were usually the least effective against armor but had high general dps vs unarmored enemies, stabbing/piercing was kind of a middle ground, and crushing was generally the best against armor but usually lower damage vs unarmored enemies than a slashing or stabbing weapon.
I had a system in the True20 roleplaying game where basically weapons that were partially bludgeoning did 1 extra damage vs. medium and heavy armor, purely bludgeoning weapons did 2 extra damage against them but one less vs light and unarmored, and non-bludgeoning weapons did 1 extra damage against light and unarmored.
It was a lot of fun
Pro tip: stuff a bag of pommels down your shirt to rightly protect from piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage
When I was doing a manual labor job, I would use a pick whenever I had the option because I was better with it than with other tools.
A sharp pick could embed 8" into a thick piece of wood or tree, into a gravel pile, etc. On hard terrain I would use the pick to make foot deep holes so that it was shattered to allow the shovel to function.
The pick could also embed the tip into solid rock or shatter said rock. In the few cases I got to hit metal with it it perforated the metal like a bullet through a can.
Absolutely this is the best option for piecing through armor.
Warhammer is highly underpowered in most if not all RPG's
I know! It's the ideal one handed weapon when fighting monsters in a fantasy world.
@@edwardnigma9756 Wouldn't a spear be the ideal weapon against monsters? A bigger body mass means more impaling damage, plus a spear has a far greater reach than most natural weapons like teeth, horns or claws.
@@ArkadiBolschek I was thinking more in the short ranged one handed category. If I had a choice I would use a small polearm for greater range. Give it a spiked head so you can use it like a spear, an axe for cleaving potential, and a hammer for blunt trauma if it's hide is too thick. If it's short enough you could use it with a shield but also use both hands if need be. A whole range of weapons would be ideal but this one would be the swiss army knife of monster hunting.
Great video for Skal to show off some of his armour and weapons collection 👍
12:20 Someone wielding a kukri against someone wearing chainmail? wtf?
Oh yeah, RPG games... Carry on!
"If you're the kind of person who likes to puzzle out the fine details, who likes to spend several hours on just one fight, or just one round..."
Remind me to tell you about my 6-way Two-Headed Giant Commander Planechase M:TG game. A plane change caused everyone to shuffle their hand and all permanents into their library then draw that many cards back out. We had 100+ simultaneous ETB effects that had to be sorted out. It took us 30 mins and we ended up making a physical stack of the cards to make sense of it.
GURPS. Hit location penalties. Armour gaps are -8 on the torso and -10 on the limbs. Expertly tailored armour gives further penalties.
Everyone talks about realism in RPGs and no one talks about GURPS!
Oh my God, literally everything you say "you cant really do in an RPG" GURPS can do
@@juliantrueman6542 Gurps sucks though
@@joshuabacker2363 owned damn
So here are 2 systems I really like:
*D&D:* your AC is calculated from your armor (which can limit dexterity), your ability to use it well (Dex) and other elements, like magic. The lighter armors don't protect so well while a full plate gets you a lot of AC. There's no damage reduction from armor, you have to bypass it, like you described. The differentiation between weapon damage types is also secondary, because, like you said, you can use a weapon in different ways. But when it comes to using a sword against a treeant, you know that (as bad as it is) it's better than firing arrows at it or thrusting spears.
*Morrowind:* all weapons have 3 forms of attack (chop, slash and thrust) and each kind of weapon will have different variations at each stat. Maces do slash and chop motions well, but suck at thrusts. Spears only do thrusts well and so it goes. Skillwise, weapon types are Blunt, Sword, Spear, Marksman, Hand-to-Hand and I might be forgetting one. It doesn't tell much about the armor, because in The Elder Scrolls series armor is just damage reduction, but the weapon part is really cool and makes you think how to handle your combats.
" Their are some weapons that are just objectively better" Yes....
A gun.
I've actually been developing an RPG system that incorporates some of this. Each weapon has one or two damage types, and the type used is simply whatever happens to be most advantageous at the time. Each weapon also has a special effect, like daggers which ignore armor on a natural 20 or hammers that cave armor on a high enough damage roll.
Armor is assigned an absorption value that represents the material as well as the coverage it offers (so an open-faced helmet will offer less protection than one with a visor). Each piece has a damage type listed which it offers full protection against. Versus other types of damage, it only provides half.
So for instance, a metal breastplate offers 14 damage reduction against cutting attacks, but only 7 against anything else.
It's relatively simple, and I only need one table each for weapons and armor.
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Skallagrim mmm, nah
Great video man
Totally agree that coffee is not as good as b**bs ;)
Skall, I've created a TTRPG system that I believe incorporates realistic elements of combat, as well as open play, while at the same time is streamlined, very flexible and versatile, and easy to use. I wonder if you might like to give it a read?
Because of watching primarily your videos I always picture "killing blows" in ttrpgs against plate armor wearing foes to essentially be finally getting in the gap.