I have seen a couple other fantasy conversion threads on here, and I have some of my own ideas about what I'd like to see in a fantasy system, particularly regarding weapons and armor.

I'm a military history guy, and one thing that has always bothered me about most games is that weapon type and armor type generally don't matter too much (i.e. a sword is just as effective as a warhammer against a guy in plate). You can't fix that in most systems without really complicating the rules, but this system has a really elegant weapon quality that provides a solution: pierce.

The concept I have is giving armor much higher soak values than it normally has (partly because I would not count brawn/body/constitution/whatever I'll call it towards soak), giving melee weapons more damage, and giving weapons varying pierce modifiers as appropriate.

The main reason I'm thinking higher soak and higher damage is to reflect what weapons can do to unarmored/lightly armored targets.

I wanted some feedback though on how this would effect gameplay. My goal is to make certain weapons better against certain targets, without complicating the game too much. (i.e swords would be best against unarmored/lightly armored foes, heavier weapons would be best against heavily armored foes.)

Thoughts?

There's already a double system in the game.

Defense and Soak.

Since Defense really doesn't make much sense in an "avoiding the blow" kind of way, I'd say use Defense as the "bladed/edged" armour and Soak as the Blunt armour.

That way you can have different strengths on the same armour.
Fx, plate might be good against blades, but not so good against blunt.

Still use pierce to indicate things like ranged weapons and piercing weapons (both of which were pretty dang good against most armours, so it kinda works)

EDIT: of course, I'd rename Defense (and maby even Soak) to something else.

Honestly I don't think you can do it without slowing things down considerably. I played games like Chivalry and Sorcery and other games that went into it in great detail, which was fine for "simulation", but it took so much time it left almost nothing for roleplaying. Also, you get into weird anomalies like "arrows do Pierce, and rapiers do Pierce", but while plate will do little against a longbow (assuming that's Pierce), you'd have to be really really good (able to target the joints) to use a rapier to any effect against a plate-armoured opponent.

Still, if you're willing to do it...

Give both armour and weapons the same qualities, such as Bash, Pierce, Slashing, etc. Name them the same so it's easy to track what cancels what. If it's on armour it's resistance (Soak), and if it's on weapons it's added damage above the weapon's base damage. (A weapon should retain its base damage IMHO, otherwise the game will totally bog down.)

A "long sword" might have Slashing 2 and Bash 1, giving 2 points of slashing damage or 1 point of bashing damage (whichever is greater) on top of its normal damage.

A rapier might have Pierce 2.

A warhammer might have Pierce 3

Padded armour might have Bash 3.

Chain mail might have Slashing 2.

Plate might have Slashing 3, Bash 1, Pierce 1.

So a longsword vs padded armour will have its Bash cancelled, but still can slash through.

A warhammer will do well against any of them, but have 1 of its Pierce damage removed by plate.

(Note, the above isn't meant to be specific or accurate...I'm not going to argue about the relative stats and capabilities of all these things here )

I think you make a game where everyone has to be heavily armored as a PC or they get boot stomped.

I think you make a game where everyone has to be heavily armored as a PC or they get boot stomped.

Point taken. If I did this I'd need to include disadvantages for armor use and/or advantages to going light/without. To start with, a character would need a decent strength stat to avoid being encumbered by armor, and the more protective helmets would add setbacks to perception and vigilance checks, but obviously there would need to be more than this.

Whafrog, I see what you're saying, but I want to avoid that kind of complexity. Basically all I'm looking at is giving different weapons varying amounts of pierce to reflect how good they are against armor. A sword might have something like pierce 2, an axe pierce 3-4, and a warhammer pierce 5 (just to throw out a rough example). I'm not looking for a perfect combat simulation, but something that does a better job of it than your typical high fantasy game.

...

(partly because I would not count brawn/body/constitution/whatever I'll call it towards soak)

...

This part bothered me a bunch before starting to play this game. I came somewhat to terms with the fact that everything is balanced around the average character having at least 2 Soak (from Brawn). My one solution was to offer my players a choice of base Soak being derived from Brawn or Willpower, which has made little difference except to calm my own inner military historian.

Like 2P51, I also worry that your house rules may make characters devote all of the money to be clad themselves in Maximilian armors, but that shift in the game's economy (favoring those who can afford custom full plate) would itself be historically appropriate...

Good luck, Kirdan Kenobi.

Trying to reflect real life is a hard thing.

The biggest problem you have: in real life, game breakers are A-OK and sought after. In games, they are a sign of poor design and imbalances in the system.

Increase lethality by adding Vicious, counter Vicious with Spike decent armor, counter decent armor with Piercing weapons that don't have Vicious, counter those with talents and cheap, disposable shields.

I think you make a game where everyone has to be heavily armored as a PC or they get boot stomped.

Point taken. If I did this I'd need to include disadvantages for armor use and/or advantages to going light/without. To start with, a character would need a decent strength stat to avoid being encumbered by armor, and the more protective helmets would add setbacks to perception and vigilance checks, but obviously there would need to be more than this.

Whafrog, I see what you're saying, but I want to avoid that kind of complexity. Basically all I'm looking at is giving different weapons varying amounts of pierce to reflect how good they are against armor. A sword might have something like pierce 2, an axe pierce 3-4, and a warhammer pierce 5 (just to throw out a rough example). I'm not looking for a perfect combat simulation, but something that does a better job of it than your typical high fantasy game.

I think the issue is viewing every use of a weapon in a RPG as a ballistics test against various materials designed to resist it. How and when a weapon is employed is generally as important as what it's actually capable of against materials. I get a sword might not have penetrated certain armor types, so invariably you end up aiming somewhere not armored, point being tactics always trumps specs at some point.

If you try and emphasize conflict/combat as a simple comparison of inherent characteristics of inanimate objects/weapons, the person wielding it becomes almost secondary to the roll/dice pool. PCs are designing weapon and armor load outs at that point and not characters.

The game system was designed to be fast, loose and pulpy. While I don't think there is anything wrong with hacking games, do realize it isn't without risks. One issue is that you are fundamentally changing a core portion that, regardless of how wonky the concept is, has been heavily play tested. The other issue is what behavior will this proposed change cause in your players? Are you are just creating an arms race to get the most armor possible? If so, you may greatly slow combat down.

Before making a major change to a fundamental aspect of the game, there may be something else on the market that will do a better job of doing what you are wanting to do.

In our Conan flavored game, we looked for some of this flavor of 'realism', while still keeping the pulpy feel of both EotE and the Conan books themselves...

We quickly came to the same conclusion - armor becomes the great stopper, and PC's become ATAT's as soon as they can afford it.

This ran counter to both our desire for a fun game, and the spirit of Conan - everyone should be running around in a helmet and a loincloth, or maybe a chain mail shirt... so what to do?

We settled on adding a quality to 'decent' armors:

Bulky (Passive): Adds 1 b per rank to all Agility, Resilience and Vigilance checks while worn. Characters whose Brawn is equal to or less than the Rating are automatically considered Encumbered. Characters carrying multiple items with this quality add the ratings together for a total Bulky Rating.

For example: A Scale Hauberk (Bulky 1) and a Medium Metal Shield (Bulky 1) provide a Bulky Rating of 2. If the Character has a Brawn of 2, they are considered Encumbered, regardless of whatever else they are carrying.

and it's a surprisingly brutal one in game play.

We found it quick and elegant, and it works with the existing game rules.

(Having spent a decent amount of time actually fighting while wearing various types of armor, it also appealed on more 'realistic' levels...)

Adding already existing qualities to various weapons (vicious, concussive, defensive, etc...) also made a big difference, and encouraged choosing specific weapons for specific foes, as well as really upping the Advantage economy, which we're big fans of. We also chose to give most weapons multiple qualities - far more than the weapons in EotE.

I'd encourage you to take a look at the weapons tables in our rule set, and let me know what you think...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o09pnz71ylq9a3r/AADrO-InRbC8QbK3zZoNAokja?dl=0

The concept I have is giving armor much higher soak values than it normally has (partly because I would not count brawn/body/constitution/whatever I'll call it towards soak)

Good!

I play SW like this. Soak is not based on Brawn. It has a base of 2 plus your armour. I rised the soak value of some armours. Though most of my characters wear padded armour which I left at 2, and the game plays nicely.

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is. The One Ring has one of the most elegant armour systems I have seen in a RPG. Check it out.

In our Conan flavored game, we looked for some of this flavor of 'realism', while still keeping the pulpy feel of both EotE and the Conan books themselves...

We quickly came to the same conclusion - armor becomes the great stopper, and PC's become ATAT's as soon as they can afford it.

This ran counter to both our desire for a fun game, and the spirit of Conan - everyone should be running around in a helmet and a loincloth, or maybe a chain mail shirt... so what to do?

We settled on adding a quality to 'decent' armors:

Bulky (Passive): Adds 1 b per rank to all Agility, Resilience and Vigilance checks while worn. Characters whose Brawn is equal to or less than the Rating are automatically considered Encumbered. Characters carrying multiple items with this quality add the ratings together for a total Bulky Rating.

For example: A Scale Hauberk (Bulky 1) and a Medium Metal Shield (Bulky 1) provide a Bulky Rating of 2. If the Character has a Brawn of 2, they are considered Encumbered, regardless of whatever else they are carrying.

and it's a surprisingly brutal one in game play.

We found it quick and elegant, and it works with the existing game rules.

(Having spent a decent amount of time actually fighting while wearing various types of armor, it also appealed on more 'realistic' levels...)

Adding already existing qualities to various weapons (vicious, concussive, defensive, etc...) also made a big difference, and encouraged choosing specific weapons for specific foes, as well as really upping the Advantage economy, which we're big fans of. We also chose to give most weapons multiple qualities - far more than the weapons in EotE.

I'd encourage you to take a look at the weapons tables in our rule set, and let me know what you think...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o09pnz71ylq9a3r/AADrO-InRbC8QbK3zZoNAokja?dl=0

I do like a lot of what you're doing there.

Thanks, Kirdan... given the quality of thoughtfulness I've seen on these boards, that means something.

Give the rule set a browse, and let me know what you think. If you're really keen on the whole weapons/armor dynamic, take a look at the Formation quality, and the interaction with the Range changing rules. I'd love to know your thoughts... (we had a lot of fun with it in test playing, but I feel like we just scratched the surface).