Sunatet said:

But you're forgetting that in a 1vs1 a good fighter will be able to put up a good defence every round. It's only when facing multiple foes that defending himself becomes harder... which I think is perfectly alright. Against one opponent he can potentially have three challenge dice to put into the opponents dice pool over two rounds. That's not a bad defence. But someone unarmed and without armor he would die quickly in medieval times no matter what his training was, and that's a fact. One of the most important reasons for the superiority of armies back them was equipment... the weapons, armor, horses and of course the famous longbows. Training helped, but equipment meant the world.

And I assure you unless up against complete fools, someone unarmed would find it very hard to defend against someone armed, let alone four of them. Of course he can't block or parry without a shield or weapon.

Those goons you mention with 4 strenght.,.. they are not exactly newbies. A strenght of four is well over the average for a man. 4 Strong men with maces should reduce the unarmed veteran to a bloody pulp... that's fairly logical. I don't know where your normal life is, but I'll tell you right away than an unarmed man facing 4 strong men armed with heavy clubs will be beaten severely unless we're talking a silly hollywood production. But the thugs would also have passive defence according to your rules and as such it wouldn't help him statisticly at all.

Gallows said:

Sorry, Gallows, but I definitely do not agree with You.

I may be not a best fighter in a world, but I have a few years experience in martial arts, and my players (almost all of them) have even more.

The example above was intentional, because it so happens, that one of my players has a bad habit of falling into fights, and it happened more than once, that he defeated 4 people single handedly (he's good, trained in muay thai by ex military commando, and kung fu by an old Chineese master), no matter if they are armed (we are talking melee weapons), or not. If he can do it, then a veteran of many battles can do it too.

I can absolutely assure You, that defeating mentioned above thugs should be in a reach of a many wars veteran, and I'm not talking about any hollywood productions, or van Damme movies (where people stand in front of themselves and exchange blows in turns).

Also, Strength 4 is quite normal strength for a thug, if you are using original rules (strength is his primary stat, so raising it to 4 is not much of a problem, and if you are a dwarf, then you start with 4 strength without the need of raising it).

I agree, that fighting against 4 people is harder than normal, but being defenceless after half life of battles is not right at all.

Where is this veteran experience in such fights?

Passive Defence is my answer.

St 4 is above the human average. It may or may not be average for a human thug, though. Some thugs might be more of a bruiser, while others might stay at St 3 and become more agile or smarter. The only thing that is for sure is that no human thugs are weaker than average (i.e. none are St 2).

I can absolutely assure You, that defeating mentioned above thugs should be in a reach of a many wars veteran, and I'm not talking about any hollywood productions, or van Damme movies (where people stand in front of themselves and exchange blows in turns).

No, but you are talking about veterans with lots of hand-to-hand fighting experience and training, based on your example. Against foes (the thugs) that are probably not as experienced in the same sort of fighting. If your friend fought 4 fellows with as much martial arts training as he has, would he fare as well as against 4 street thugs? Doubtful.

Regardless, this is a fantasy game and only loosely has basis in the real world. Additional things must be considered with a game. Simplicity in rules. Play balance. Enjoyability. Etc.

Where is this veteran experience in such fights?

Passive Defence is my answer.

Except your passive defense has nothing to do with experience, and everything to do with statistics. Your passive defense says that a novice olympic gymnast (Rank 1 0xp who has a Ag 5) who has never seen combat is harder to hit than a veteran Trollslayer/mercenary that has seen many wars yet isn't as nimble (Rank 3 35xp Ag 3). The Mercenary/Trollslayer has 3 trained ranks of Weaponskill, St 5, etc. yet is easier to be hit in melee. Sounds a bit absurd. Ag covers a plethora of concepts, such as hand-eye coordination, flexibility, hand dexterity, etc, that don't necessarily apply to avoiding attacks.

To reflect a more realistic defense, you need to take a lot of things into account, such as experience, training in various skills. Realistically, defense against melee attacks would take into account Strength, weaponskill, agility, coordination, intelligence, etc and so on. It gets to the point where it is too unwieldy and complicated. Just saying Opposed Agility is not as complicated, true, but worse IMO than a static <P> for attack. It breaks game Balance tremendously IMO.

It might even be 'best' to make a new stat called Defense. Base is 2, give players 3 more creation points on generation to balance out adding an additional stat. It can be raised like any other stat during advancement, obviously out of career since no careers have defense as a stat.

Then again, here's a thought. What about the challenge rating is equal to 1+ the Defense of the target, and then don't add for defense (since, in essence, it adds <P>? Most folks, including enemies, have a defense of 0-2. That would put attacks at a 1-3 rating in general. Slightly more difficult on average.

dvang said:

Thats exactly the point

dvang said:

Yes

dvang said:

My passive defence is in pdf now, and has little in common with Agility (except ranged defence), and lots with Weapon Skill, gear, and enemy position

Here, take a look: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/defences.pdf

Its still a draft but I begin to like it

Sunatet,
I am a little lost with you PDF.
Can u explain in details pls.
Seems interesting...


But I do not understand that much...

I also like Dvangs Idea of adding a defence value to characteristics . But u should add that also for npcs.
I feel infact that base difficulty of 1 purple dice in book is weak so thats why I suggested difficulty corresponding to agility.
Question Dvang?

the value u would add to the base dice of 1 would be misfortune dices?

so if defence is = 2 that would mean 1 purple + 2 black dices?

ps: I do not remember who proposed this I think its sunatet I liked the idea of malus on certain types of armours.

geekoo said:

Here is the idea, and new pdf (the old was just a quick scratch made at work to keep the moment idea) - replaced the file, it is under the same link as before.

The basics are:

1. your defence covers a circle, you are in the middle of it, it is best at front arc (90 degree front defence), a bit worse at the sides (two 90 degree flank defence on left and right), and worst behind you (90 degree arc at your rear).

2. defence values are based on different stats:
- Weapon Skill for melee fighting (as a matter of fighting experience)
- Agility for ranged fighting (how mobile you are)

3. Base defence for melee fighting is 2 on the front, 1 on the both flanks, and 0 on the back side, plus
- for each point of Weapon Skill trained you add 1 point of defence on all sides
- if you have shield equipped, you add its defence value on the side it is equipped
- if you are performing Block action, and have shield equipped, you can add its defence value on the front side (notice, that you can only block frontal attacks, or attacks from the side you have shield equipped)
- wearing an armor usually is bad for defence (but good for soak), you just lower the defence on all sides by the value of armor defence (you can find them in pdf).
- if the target is prone (it fell down), then defence on all sides is 0.
- in case of spells using "vs Target defence" lower defence by 2 (spells normally does not use 1<P> rule, so leaving defence as it is makes them harder to cast, than intended).

4. Base defence for ranged fighting is 0 if target is not aware of being a shooting target, or 1 point per every 2 points in Agility (rounded down) equal on each side, if he is aware, that someone tries to shoot him, and knows which side missiles come from, plus:
- if target is moving, add 1 point of defence on every side
- if you have shield equipped, you add its defence value on the side it is equipped
- if you are performing Block action (you can block ranged attacks), and have shield equipped, you can add its defence value on the front side (notice, that you can only block frontal attacks, or attacks from the side you have shield equipped)
- in case of spells using "vs Target defence" lower defence by 2 (spells normally does not use 1<P> rule, so leaving defence as it is makes them harder to cast, than intended).

5. Shield Soak value is only used on case of splash damage (area damage, explosions, etc.)

Defence with all the modifiers is treated same as an attribute in case of counting difficulty.
- defence 0 is difficulty 0
- defence 1 is difficulty 1
- defence 2 is difficulty 1 <P>
- defence 3 is difficulty 1 <P> + 1
- defence 4 is difficulty 2 <P>
- defence 5 is difficulty 2 <P> + 1
- ...

So if you are attacking someone with defence 3 on the front side, then you add 1 <P> and 1 to your pool instead of the static 1 <P> from the original rules.

More or less, thats how it goes right now.

Sunatet said:

Thank you quite clear.
so in your table the basic defence difficulty is this one:
- defence 2 is difficulty 1 <P> (so one purple dice)

so for example an opponent skilled with a shield and no armour:
would be this:
- defence 4 is difficulty 2 <P> (2 purple dices)

Do i understand well?

Its very interesting. I think I would simplify a little your system. You have a lot of values involved like (front, side, rear....)
I probably would propose only the front (including the side) value 2 in defence.
and back.
And I would also simply as you add malus for armours add a small bonus for a good agility to the total defence.
AG 2/3 - no bonus
AG 4 and + - add 1 <B>

I checked your table on armours malus not sure I would put a malus for a leather armour.
Now did you check a little the maths?
The % of success seems still a little to high for me.

A = Weapon skill trained 4 + 1 specialisation
B= no armour, no bucler but skilled.

so I look at your table and if the attack comes from front
the difficulty:
- defence 3 is difficulty 1 <P> + 1

say A use conservative stance (2 green dices)
the % of success is 86%


same case but:
If B has a shield the % would be around 71% to hit a skilled guy with shield from front. Is the maths right?
If I calculated right (base 2 defence + 1 for trained skill + 1 for shield + 1 for block = 5 so difficulty 2 <P> + 1 )

@ Sunatet:

I'll look at your pdf and stuff this weekend and see if I can offer suggestions. I am pleased it isn't straight Agility, although from a brief skim of your explanation I think it might be too complicated for the game.

@geekoo

I was winging and speaking out my hindquarters when I posted that. But, in essence, I was thinking that instead of defense adding it adds <P>. Most defense is 0-3, and this includes monsters from the Beastiary.

So, a Defense of 1 means <PP>.

Defense of 2 is <PPP>

Someone unarmored (0 Defense) has a difficulty to be hit of <P>, just like now. Someone with Defense of 1 now, instead of <P> is a <PP> to be hit. You've upped the difficulty slightly, since the challenge die is worse than the misfortune die. It still doesn't reflect the target's stats, and isn't really an opposed roll, so I suppose the suggestion doesn't really fit into the thread. Although, I think it might be a viable alternative to making combat an opposed roll in the first place, while increasing the difficulty that so many seem to think is too low. I'd probably combine it with the house rule for making a Chaos Star a bane+reroll (if no Chaos Star event) similar to the Righteous success which counts as a success+reroll.

Step by step explanation:

Your character:
- no armor
- round shield (D 1, S 1)
- Weapon Skill trained once (1)
- Agility 3

MELEE

Base defence in melee for every character is:
- 2 on the front side
- 1 on the left, and 1 on the right
- 0 on your back

You have Weapon Skill trained once, so it raises the defence on all sides by 1, resulting defence is:
- 3 on the front side
- 2 on the left, and 2 on the right
- 1 on your back

Lets say, that your shield is equipped in the left hand, that would modify defence further:
- 3 on the front side
- 3 on the left (shield), 2 on the right
- 1 on your back

No armor, so nothing else is modified.

Someone attacking you from the front will have difficulty 1 <P> + 1 (because your defence on the front is 3), unless you decide to use Block action, in which case you add your shield defence value on the front side. The difficulty will be then 2 <P> (3 defence + 1 for the shield), and of course don't forget to add black dice for block action (the same as in original rules).

Someone attacking you from the left will have difficulty 1 <P> + 1 (left side with shield equipped resulting in defence 3), blocking from this side does not rise defence (its already counted in).

Someone attacking you from the right will have difficulty 1 <P> (defence on the right side is 2)

Someone attacking you from the back will have difficulty 1 (defence on the back is 1)

If during a fight you fall prone, then your defence on all sides becomes 0 until you manage to stand up.

RANGED

If you are not aware of being a target base ranged defence is 0 on all sides (front, left, right, back).

If you are aware of being a target then you base defence on all sides is based on Agility and in this case equals 1 (Agility 3 divised by 2, and rounded down), so it is 1 on the front, left, right, and back.

You have shield equipped, so you add its defence (1) on the left side (shield is equipped in left hand).
You add shield defence even if you are not aware of being a target.

So, if unaware of the attack, then defence is 0 on the front, 1 on the left (shield), 0 on the right, 0 on the back.
If you are aware of the attack, then defence is 1 on the front, 2 on the left, 1 on the right, 1 on the back.

Lets say, you are aware of the attacker, that tries to shoot you, but do not move.

If attack is from the front, its difficulty is 1 (defence 1 on the front), unless you decide to use Block action, in which case you add your shield defence value on the front side. The difficulty will be then 1 <P> (1 defence + 1 for the shield), and of course don't forget to add black dice for block action (the same as in original rules).

If attack is from the left, its difficulty is 1 <P> (defence 1 + 1 for the shield).

If attack is from the right, its difficulty is 1 (defence 1).

If attack is from the back, its difficulty is 1 (defence 1).

If you decide to move (lets say, your last action was move), you add 1 point of defence on every side, as a moving target.

Then attack from the front, right, and back has difficulty 1 <P> (defence 2), and on the left 1 <P> + 1 .

Hope this helps.

dvang said:

ok good for the defence idea. But remind me the defence corresponds to what? where do you get this defence stats. Is this only for armours?
so as u say 0 is unarmored = 1 purple
Or is the defence a more generic idea including armour and defensive "skills"?
Hope you follow me....
so what a PPP would correspond to in your scale?

geekoo said:

I checked it only briefly, didn't have the time to make some serious testing (you know it's todays sudden idea, and I was at work back then ).

It still requires smoothing, and picking the right numbers, but thats for another day, I'm going to bed right now (1:30 in the night here).

Any suggestions are welcome.

Sunatet said:

Thanks understood but a fe w remarks.
I quite like the general idea of this but it seems that the% of hitting someone are still high and do not take in account basic characteristic of a character. I mean say a character has 4 in strengh and is a skilled swordman.
We could assume that with 4 in strengh he is more than competant (+ weapon trained and specialisation) so in a way he should be able to have a higher level of defence. It is partly reflected in your sytem becasue u add 1 level for a specialisation.
In your system a guy with say stats of 2 or 6 in strengh are on the same level.

now 2 examples:

1: frontal atatck

A attacker - Strengh 4 + skill trained and one specialisation
B defender - Strengh 2 + 1 skill trained = no armour no shield so his basic front defence would be 1 purple + 1 black + 1 black (normal parry)

so dices for active player are in conservative stance 2: 2 blue + 2 green + 1 yellow + 1 white - 1 purple - 2 blacks = 80% success and 37% for 3 success

2: frontal attack

A attacker - Strengh 4 + skill trained and one specialisation
B defender - Strengh 5 + 1 skill trained + 1 specialisation = no armour no shield so his basic front defence would be 1 purple + 1 black + 1 black (normal parry) = same result...

do you not think we should somehow take into account the strengh value of the defender? or the agility? Also for me I think the % of success in case 2 is too high as u try to hit a mor skillful adversary.

And even with a shield the success chances are to high.

I like a lot your idea but you should perhapas take in account agility or strengh as a bonus for the defender according to your basic stats.

Now perhaps I misscalculated its late here
http://www.jaj22.org.uk/wfrp/diceroller_compact.html

Can you please check and tell me what are the results you have with a few simulations.

For me the success rate is too high and you do not take enough into account the basic characteristic of a character.
Also u would give an armour to those guys and they are dead meat... cause your defence value would drop dramaticaly...
I would also simplify the directions to frontal and back. Giving when its possible a modifier on dice roll if you are flanked.
i would have 2 values of defences front 2 or 3? and back 1? as a base.

Just finished some tests.

Test subjects are:

Klaus rank 1
Strength: 3
Toughness: 4
Weapons Skill 1

Johann rank 3
Strength: 4
Toughness: 4
Weapons Skill 3

For simplicitys sake I assumed, that they use only basic attack, no active defence, and no shields, both have the same equipment, and attack from the front side (no flanks or rears).
Both are 2 in reckless stance (% do not change that much to present tests on both, conservative have a bit higher hit chance).

You can check them here in an .ods (opened by OpenOffice) file: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/defence_chances.ods

One find of this test is, that Soak is much more powerfull than defence value (something like 1 soak offers better protection from being damaged, than 2 points of defence).

But the other results are... strange...

I put in the file something that I called in short a "potential" (something like average damage output that puts your damage, and chance to hit into one number). This potential value should decrease from top to the bottom (worst armors at the top, best at the bottom), but there are some strange irregularities, that do not fit into that.

At first I thought that I made some kind of mistake (and I'm still not sure if I didn't), but I put the original rules to the test (last entry in the file, at the end, green one), and it confirmed those strange irregularities.

Either I'm doing something wrong, or the values on Leather Armor, Brigandine, Scale and Ulthuan Scale are... well, not as you would suppose them to be (still talking about original rules, the core box ones)...

It looks like Leather armor that costs 5s and is plentiful to get offers better protection, than Brigandine that costs 4 times as much, and is of common rarity.

Same is with Scale and Ulthuan Scale.

Was this intended??

Can someone confirm my calculations (I did not slept much lately, I may be wrong)?

EDIT:

Looks like I forgot to change 2 numbers in the last test (on the original rules). New file uploaded.

Now it looks like Cloth and Robes follow the Leather - Brigandine, and Scale - Ulthuan Scale path.

Cloth costing 12b offers better protection than Robes that cost 5s.

I'm doing some preliminary tests. Can you tell me how you arrived at the Chance values?

From my brief rolls using Sunatet's tool ...

If I read this right, Klaus has (to hit himself)
<B>(RR)[Y], and then either a <P> or <P> depending on whether the Defense is 2 or 3.

I ran a thousand rolls on Sunatet's dice roller with <B>(RR)[Y]<P> (against Defense of 2) and came up with about a 79% success rate to hit overall.
From 100 rolls (b/c it was easier) with a result of 77 passed tests, it broke down into:
0 successes = 23
1 or 2 successes = 40
3+ successes = 37

<B>(RR)[Y]<P> (i.e. against Defense of 3)
From 100 rolls (b/c it was easier) with a result of 71 passed tests, it broke down into:
0 successes = 29
1 or 2 successes = 52
3+ successes = 19

So, why does 1 success get .7011 or .7755 chance of occurring on your spreadsheet? It seems to me like you might be using a value for "at least 1 success" (i.e, this percentage includes hits that cause 3+ successes). In actuality, the total number of successes should be broken apart into 1&2 successes vs 3+ success rolls. I think this is where you miscalculation lies.

So, if you use my values, what we seem to see is that the higher the defense, the lower the chance of 3-success hits, which increases both misses and 1-2 success hits. (This is because hits that would have 3-successes are generally downgraded into 2-success hits because of the additional , and thereby fall into the 1-success category).

A few quick numbers:

So, your spreadsheet would show, instead:

vs Cloth (def 3)...
1 success potential = 2.08
3 success potential = 1.33

Avg potential: 1.705

vs Robes (def 2)...
1 success potential = 1.20
3 success potential = 2.22

Avg potential: 1.71

vs Leather (def 2)...
1 success potential = 0.80
3 success potential = 1.85

Avg potential: 1.325

vs Brigandine (def 3)...
1 success potential = 1.56
3 success potential = 1.14

Avg potential: 1.35

vs Mail Shirt (def 3)...
1 success potential = 1.04
3 success potential = 0.95

Avg potential: 0.995

Cloth and robes are pretty comparable overall, for example, as are Leather and Brigandine.

dvang said:

Im using this: www.jaj22.org.uk/wfrp/diceprob.html to check the chance of success, and yes, it is "at least 1", and "at least 3" success chance.

But I see, that Your numbers lead us to the same conclusion, mainly: there is something wrong with armor system.

I agree, that in presented values the numbers are comparable, but unfortunately they scale when you change hit chance, or damage and can get to bigger differences.

And still, even being comparable, they are not as they supposed to be, cloth still seems better than robes, leather better then brigandine (especially if you take the costs and availability into consideration).

Guess I would have to fix the armor system in my rules, before I get to "vs Target Defence"...

Need more testing... awwww my head

Well, I think it's because the 1+ successes has a higher percentage, and therefore the Soak difference for 1+ successes makes a large impact.

Unfortunately, you can't really use that for your purposes for the "1 success" line. The reason being, that 3 success hits will do more damage than your assuming on the "1 success line". You are already including those hits, and their potential, in the "3 success" line. You are double counting the 3+ success hits in both groups. For example, for Cloth you have 4 damage being done .7011 of the time. This is not true, because .2611 of the time it is 7 damage, not 4.

By adding more hits into the "1 success" line, you are increasing the value of the soak, because the soak difference is more effective at the lower damage value. The difference between 4 damage and 3 damage is a 25% reduction in damage. The difference between a 7 damage and 6 damage is @ 14% reduction, as an example. Soak is less effective the higher the damage being dealt, and defense (which completely avoids the damage) becomes more useful.

I'll play with your numbers some more, but this feels correct. It doesn't seem wrong to me, although it might not be the outcome for armor that you are looking for. You really need to have better armor have more soak.

Do keep in mind, that wizards cannot wear armor with soak according to the rules. Hence, robes were given +1 Defense and 0 soak, as the 'standard' armor for wizards (and the only armor they can wear). Wizards cannot wear cloth, since it has a soak of 1 ( in the rulebook).

Hmm.. I had a minor revelation. So, what you need to do with your numbers, for "1 success", is subtract the "3 success" Chance from what you currently have for the "1 success". That should give you an approximate Chance for 1-2 success results, and better results for the 1-success line.

Regardless of that, it comes down to the fact that 1 defense and 1 soak are not equal.

So armor A that has 0 Defense and 0 Soak, does not work the same as armor B that has -1 defense and 1 soak.

-1 Defense and 2 soak armor does not have the same protection as one with 0 defense and 1 soak.

The flaw is in your thinking. Defense avoids all damage, while soak mitigates damage. The higher the damage, the less of an impact soak applies on the hit. The higher the damage, the more impact that the lower Chance value for armors with better Defense will have.

So, take a look at how the armors scale as the damage increases (using my Chance numbers for "1 success"):

Cloth, 3 Defense, 0 soak, Chance .7011

Robes, 2 Defense, 1 soak, Chance .7755

(Damage value in parenthesis). Difference in Chances is .0744 more for Robes

Cloth - (4) 2.8044 (5) 3.5055 (6) 4.2066 (7) 4.9077 (8) 5.6088 (9) 6.3099 (10) 7.011 (11) 7.7121 (12) 8.4132 (13) 9.1143

Robes - (3) 2.3265 (4) 3.1020 (5) 3.8775 (6) 4.6530 (7) 5.4285 (8) 6.2040 (9) 6.9795 (10) 7.7550 (11) 8.5305 (12) 10.0815

Now, looking at them matched up, you can totally see how the Robes start off better, but as the damage gets higher the gap between cloth and robes shrinks. Until, finally, at 11 damage (10 after robe soak) the cloth's defense is better (provides more benefit) than the measly 1 soak of the robes.

If we do the same with the "3 success" data, where the damage starts higher, and the percentages are lower:

Cloth, 3 Defense, 0 soak, Chance .2611

Robes, 2 Defense, 1 soak, Chance .3194

(Damage value in parenthesis). Difference in Chances is .0834 more for robes

Cloth - (7) 1.8277 (8) 2.0888 (9) 2.3499 (10) 2.6110 (11) 2.8721 (12) 3.1332 (13) 3.3943

Robes - (6) 1.9164 (7) 2.2358 (8) 2.5552 (9) 2.8746 (10) 3.1940 (11) 3.5134 (12) 3.8328

So, the increased Chance of the Robes, and the lower Chance values overall, put the robes to the point where at 7 damage (6 for robes after soak) the robes are already beyond the break even point with the cloth's defense.

I can live with Cloth, and Robes being close to each other, but there seems to be more of a problem, when you take a closer look at the Leather-Brigandine, and Scale-Ulthuan Scale.

I made some more tests on the original armor values and hit rules (core box rules both for armor values, and difficulty: 1 <p> default difficulty + 1 per point of armor defence).

Here is the file: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/defence_orig.ods

No miscalculations this time (only "1 or more success" used).

Checked the Toughnes from 2 to 6, attacker Strenght/Agility from 2 to 6, weapon damage from 3 to 7, and all armors.

Yeah, that means, that there are 1250 results.

I split them on 5 tabs, each tab corresponding to one Toughness value.

On each tab there are 10 armor tables, each table with 25 damage potential entries.

Leather-Brigandine pair, Scale-Ulthuan Scale pair speak for themselves. And the higher the Toughness, the more problems with Cloth-Robe pair (and not only, as the "minimum 1 wound rule" hits more often making the damage potantial equal to hit chance - values are then the same on plate, mail, and other armors).

Need to fix the armor issue, before I fix my rules (so I'm withdrawing my armor rules for now, they are broken, and I admit, that the robe soak punishing wizards is my bad).

EDIT

Upgraded the file, added new armor values proposal (original rules for now).

It's still the exact same issue I've been describing. If you look at the To 2 lines for Cloth/Robes, and Leather/Brigandine. You'll see at Damage 7 Robes and Brigandine finally do better than Cloth/Leather.

If you compute out the Damage past 7 ... say up to 12 (which is possible for some hits to do 12 after To+Soak). You'll see the armors with +Defense get better odds. Again, when damage is low, Soak has a greater impact.

For example, +1 Soak that reduces damage from 4 to 3 reduces the damage by 25%. That's pretty good.
+1 Defense, for example, only gives a 5%-9.5% decrease in chance to hit.

So, logically, the damage % needs to enough that it is less than the Defense % change.

Take Leather and Brigandine.

The differences in % to hit (due to Defense) for To 2 are:

2) 9.58%
3) 9.58%
4) 8.55%
5) 7.08%
6) 5.55%

Now, to work out a formula ...

Chance1*Damage1 = Potential1
Chance2*Damage2 = Potential2
Damage2 = Damage1 + 1
Chance2 * (Damage1 + 1) = Potential2
We want Potential2 < Potential1
Chance2 * (Damage1 + 1) < Chance1 * Damage1
Chance1*Damage1 > Chance2 * (Damage1 + 1)
Chance1*Damage1 > Chance2*Damage1 + Chance2
(Chance1-Chance2)*Damage1 > Chance2
Damage1 > Chance2 / (Chance1 - Chance2)

So, if we do a calculation for damage, to get the desired damage to be lower than this %.
As a test, we can see from your chart that at 5 Damage, Robes are close to breaking even with Cloth.
x > .3917 / (.4875 - .3917)
x > .3917 / .0958
x > 4.089

.4875 * 5 = 2.4375
.3917 * 6 = 2.3502

So, this is the first time (with whole numbers) that Potential 2 (Defense armor) exceeds Potential 1, at 6 damage (5 for soak armor).

Now, if we apply this to the Leather/Brigandine issue ...
Let's say using To 6 and WS 6.
Chance1 = .8883 (Leather)
Chance2 = .8328 (Brigandine)
x > .8328 / (.8883 - .8328)
x > .8328 / .0555
x > 15.005, or 16.
If 16 wounds or more could be done, then the defense of the Brigandine outweighs the benefits of the soak of the leather.

The "problem" with armor is due to the fact that the factors in the equations are not linear. Soak has a progressive curve where Wound reduction has more effect at lower damages. On the flip side, Defense has less effect at higher skill levels. Adding a single on a skill 2 check reduces the chance to hit by 9.5%, while a single added to a skill 6 check only reduces the success rate by 5.55%. Neither of these, though, match closely with the other. Soak is better against High skill and/or low damage. Defense is better against low skill and/or high damage. It's not linear, though, as higher skill (especially) alters the effectiveness of Defense, thus requiring an even higher "high damage" threshold to break even with comparable soak armor.

Thanks Dvang, lots of helpful info here.

And I was really happy, and almost convinced, untill I noticed one thing (arghhh ).

That damage in your equation is AFTER you substract the toughness and soak (it is like that in all my tables).

Chance * Damage = Potential

But Damage in the above is:

Damage = Strenght + Weapon damage - Toughness - Soak

The numbers you stated were for Toughness 6 and Brigandine, then amount of damage you need to deal is 16+6+1 = 23.

The question is: how often do you hit for 23+ damage?

Knowing that strongest monster have Strenght of 8, and highest damage weapon is Great Weapon, then we get 8+7=15.

If the giant is using Thunderous Blow, is in reckless stance, and have Weapon Skill trained, then on a lucky hit he can get another +7 to the above: 15+7=22.

We still lack 1 point.

We can use this attack on someone with lower Toughness (on someone with toughness 2 in Brigandine you need to deal 16+2+1=19 damage), but it's still a lucky shot for me.

Yep. So, it seems if you're To 6 and facing a Skill 6 opponent then the Defense armor will practically never reach the same benefit as the soak armor.

Basically, if you're going to be a combat person, you want Soak armor.

To 6, Skill 3
Damage1 > Chance2 / (Chance1 - Chance2)
Chance1 = .6312 (Leather vs Skill 3)
Chance2 = .5354 (Brigandine vs Skill 3)
x > .6312 / (.0958)
x > 6.5887

So, Brigandine starts getting better once damage reaches 7(To+Soak)+7 = 14 or more total against a Skill 3 opponent. That's more realistic and doable, but still pretty high.

Now, for example, let's look as To 2 and Skill 6.

Damage1 > Chance2 / (Chance1 - Chance2)
Chance1 = .8883 (Leather vs Skill 6)
Chance2 = .8328 (Brigandine vs Skill 6)
x > .8883 / (.0555)
x > 16.005

This means 17 damage needs to get through. 17+3 = 20 done total. Interesting.

To 6, Skill 6 needs 16+7= 23
To 6, Skill 3 needs 7+7=14 > (9 pts of damage less).
To 2, Skill 6 needs 16+3= 19
To 2, Skill 3 needs 7+3=10 (9 pts less damage)

The simple fact appears to be that Skill vs Defense outpaces Damage vs Soak. Higher skill minimizes the effectiveness of Defense. Thus, against higher skill opponents, where it is significantly more likely that you are going to be hit, Soak is better. This is pretty obvious when you stop and thnik about it, of course. Defense helps you to NOT be hit. As the chance to hit increases, so does the effectiveness of Soak rather than Defense.

To help "fix" this, Defense needs to have more of an impact on the chance to hit at higher skill levels than it currently does. For example, should the chance to hit remain a more constant 9.58% difference (instead of dropping to 5.55%) like it is at the lower skill levels ...

To6, Skill 6
Damage1 > Chance2 / (Chance1 - Chance2)
Chance1 = .8883 (Leather vs Skill 6)
Chance2 = .7925 (Brigandine vs Skill 6) ... (assumes difference between Chance1 and Chance 2 is .0958)
x > .8883 / (.0958)
x > 9.2724

Which leads to 10 damage after soak, i.e. 10+7 = 17 damage total (rather than the 23 previously). Also, it's 17 compared to the 14 needed at skill 3. This is more in line with what you are wanting, I think.

Now, how you would go about changing things so that Defense remains more constant with Skill, I don't know.

Also keep in mind, though. While Defense doesn't help 1-success results much (lumping in both 1-success and 2-success results in there), it does reduce down the frequency/percentage of 3-success results. That is a little bit more of an 'intangible' benefit to defense.

With wall of steel, improved guarded position and improved block/dodge/parry you are looking at very solid defence even against a skilled opponent.

If you want passive defence I'd say that adding dice is an uphill battle because the basic chance to hit is so great at rank 2+

I house ruled to make the purple die more powerful which fixes the high success rate and makes defence more managable.

Even if you add 3 challenge dice with normal rules a rank 2+ PC/NPC will still have a high chance to hit.

Gallows said:

If You are talking about adding another purple on a Chaos Star, then yeah, that seems to be an interesting idea.

And yes, success rates on higher skill, and attribute values are insane.

I just made a change in my dice roller.

Added a possibility to switch the Chaos Star die adding (so if you switch "Chaos Star die add" to ON, every time you roll a Chaos Star, another die of the same type will be automatically added to the pool, and rolled).

Default is to OFF, so you need to switch it every time you load the page.

Don't forget to clear the cache, and reload.

And I think I will make another topic about fixing armor soak and defence values (when I get some more testing, and some idea, how to fix it), we are getting off topic with the armor discussion here.

Sunatet said:

Waiting for new ideas on your proposed based idea. I liked the general idea u proposed, but here a little lost with all your testing...
ill try also to work on my idea of defensive difficulty.

nice one on the die roller, but could you give me the link again. Can't seem to make my current favorite work.

Gallows said:

Here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com

The same as in my sig.

If you have problems running it, make sure that you cleared your browsers cache, and reloaded the page (by clicking Refresh button in your browser).

I changed some files, so if they are in the cache you may experience problems. Just do the above, and it will run again.

@Geekoo

I'll try to do my best, but it may take me some time. Seems like it requires a lot of testing and math.