Re: Mods (open discussion)

[Wright Frazier <khelek@ns1.cioe.com>]

> OK, so you didn't MAKE HIM try to kill the baddies, he attempted because
> he wanted to ...

And if I would have 'made' him try and kill the big baddie he always
has that thing called free will.  He can always run away.

> Poor wording on my part (Assassination is MIGHTY nice, and who DOESN'T
> have a weapon skill).
> 
> I meant more in the vein of:
> 
> If we want the warrior skills to be what defines the warrior class rather
> than their wonderfully inexpensive combat mod.
> 
> Example, picture Errol Flynn ... better yet, Mandy Potenkin (Indego
> Montoya is a bit more contemporary) battling it out on the top of the
> cliff.  Obviously skilled fantasy swordsman.  Lots of misses because his
> enemy was similarly skilled (not because he wore neat magic armor, or had
> spells, or items of like ability)
> 
> Now picture the plain Vanilla AQ warrior.
> Skilled in only one weapon, dependent on mods, and not much good at
> anything else.
> 
> Wesley advances ...
> Indego smacks him 6 times with his long ... er, greatsword (warriors don't
> USE anything smaller) killing him outright.

Aaron Alexander's warrior, apprx rating 100 or so uses a d8 weapon as
his primary weapon and has no skill in any other kind of weapon that
does higher damage.

The example you give, and the one I gave earlier cannot be done in any
shape form or fashion in AQ.  Its hard to do in AD&D, not too hard in
Rolemaster, (granted i haven't tried this one) fairly possible in
Warhammer, and fairly easy in Elric or Pendragon.  Correction, AD&D
works quite easily if you understand how things are defined.

AQ's combat system simply cannot handle this type of combat with the
4 second round, multi-attack, and DP.  Mods aren't going to be your
problem in trying to simulate something approximating a real or cinamatic
fight.

In combat systems where a hit really is the only 'hit' you make in the
round, and combat rounds are short, then you have to make those hits
mean something.  In Rolemaster, Elric, and Pendragon if you score a
solid hit on someone they know it and the danger isn't of dying of
DP, its of that megawarrior with an axe cutting your ass in half.  These
systems also allow for parrying so that its damn hard for that mega
warrior to cut you in half.  If you are defending, you cannot attack nearly
as well.  Or if you are willing to take the hit, you might just kill the
guy, but he might get you too.  Hopefully you get the point.  In these
systems 'critica' hits are common, and 'damage points' are either kept
purposefully low(Elric and Pendragon) or are not what is going to get
you killed(Rolemaster).

On the other end of the spectrum you have AD&D.  The AD&D combat round is
either 1 min or 15sec depending on alternate rule usage.  In either case
the 'attacks' you get and 'hits' you score are not the only attacks you
make in a round.  Its taken for granted that each attack represents several
traded blows that didn't do dick except for one which stings a bit.  HP
are then defined as the ability to avoid taking serious harm from something.
Parrying is taken for granted, as is dodging, etc...  Further you can do
nothing but parry, and this adds to your AC significantly.

I've played all of these systems fairly extensively(I'm a combat hound and love
to play combats I admit. =) ) and most have some flaws to some degree or
another.  I think my favorite combat system(but as I said before I haven't
played it) is Warhammer.  You have a low number of hits, and once you
take all these you don't die, you just take a critical hit each time
you are hit.  So the warrior can stay in the fight, its just risky as
hell past a certain point.

AQ allows for nothing like those 4 examples, and never will without
some serious re-writes to its combat system, or just a scrapping and
redoing of it.  Not that I don't think it couldn't use it, but just
remember what you are getting into.

>  
> > > IF, we want a warrior skill to be the only non-magical means of elevating
> > > our character's DV's above armor,
> > > (yes, I know Dodging is Marine)
> > 
> > I don't get how this at all relates to Mods.
> > 
> As stated in an earlier post, an opponent with a missle mod of 4-5 pretty
> well negates any benefit from dodging.  (Though the roll to hit IS just
> the base die roll now)

Ahh..true.  But a 1000sp shield(change to most people) will block the
4-5 mod as well.  If you want to get rid of mods, do not forget to
take armor into account.


> 
> > > Should we not reconsider the effect of MODS?
> > 
> > No, I disagree.  It would require a complete reworking of MANY things.
> > Not the least of which are how monsters work.  I personally don't
> > want multi-attacking monsters with a d20 attack since you'd have to
> > give monsters some ability to hit.
> >
> 
> Oooh, hadn't thought of that ... heh, cool.
> 
> Actors (merely humanoid monsters) can have skills, though (goes back to
> being nasty enough to use player tactics against other players, though)

Dragons and intellegent monsters should have skills as well. =)

Wright