Saturday, November 02, 2013

How's this look? (Possible Weapon/Armor Alternative for Five by Five)

Rolling Damage
A Damage Roll tells a player how much potential injury their attack can inflict.
Weapons have a Rank and Target Number that a player tests when doing damage.
Damage works like this:
Roll Target Number Exactly (Critical Success) Inflict 4 damage.
Roll Under Target Number (Weapon passes the Damage test.) Inflict 3 damage.
Roll Over Target Number (Weapon fails the Damage test.) Inflict 2 damage.
Roll Doubles (Automatic Fail / Fumble) Inflict 1 damage.

Soak Rolls
A Soak Roll is a roll to absorb damage enabling your character to ignore some of its effect. Armor has a Rank and Target Number that a player tests to "soak" damage.
Armor works like this:
Roll Target Number Exactly (Critical Success) stop 3 damage.
Roll Under Target Number (Armor passes the Soak test.) stop 2 damage.
Roll Over Target Number (Armor fails the Soak test.) stop 1 damage.
Roll Doubles (Automatic Fail / Fumble) stop 0 damage.

Notice that the soak range for armor is one point weaker across the board than the damage range for weapons. This is because once a character has successfully passed their attack test to hit the target, I want them to be able to do some damage.

***
A general rule to cover both Weapons and Armor equally could look like this.

Resolving a Successful Attack

If you successfully Hit with an Attack Test, your attack inflicts 1 Wound + the result of your DAMAGE TEST.

If you are the target of a successful attack that you did not eliminate with a Dodge Action, your Armor will absorb damage equal to the result of your SOAK TEST.

Damage and Soak Tests

Damage Tests are made to inflict wounds based on the TN of the Weapon used.

Soak Tests are made to stop (soak) wounds based on the TN of the Armor worn by the target of the attack.

A successful test (based on the TN of the associated Weapon or Armor) inflicts/soaks 2 wounds.
A failed test (based on the TN of the associated Weapon or Armor) inflicts/soaks 1 wound.

If the test is a critical success (TN is rolled exactly) add +1 to this result.
If the test is a fumble (player rolled doubles) subtract -1 from this result.

***

The weapon and armor ranks from THIS POST work just fine here. I have eliminated the clunky process of comparing weapons and armor by adding the Soak Roll.

Thoughts?

Regards,


Jeff


5 comments:

  1. Now THIS is much more in the spirit of 5x5. Simple, quick, and yet still allowing for differentiation between weapon and armor types. The only thing I'll personally change is how I'll notate the weapons and armor. Rather than using "Short Sword (JoW)" I'll note it as "Short Sword (4)". Armor will be "Chain Mail [6]". This way the target number is easily referenced.

    I'm quite excited by this change.

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  2. Thanks! I will be playtesting this with my group tonight. I think it's going to work and work well ... yeah ... I am not really using the descriptors myself. My group just writes down the numbers. I thought the descriptors would help, but they aren't really needed. The next version of Five by Five will probably just do away with them all together.

    Jeff

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  3. Hi Jeff
    Haven't games in a month due to baby and one of my gamers finding love. (Apparently better than RPing!)
    I am running the next session of Drakkeil tomorrow so will send thru my notes after that.

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  4. Great! Let me know what you think of the soak roll!

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