Don't rationalize it as "wound effect modifier". Coin it as: "PC/Important NPC slowly but steadily running out of luck". If you do, you might want to base the modifier on something different than previous wounds (times hit per scenario, times attacked per combat, whatever).
Just sayin'.
Cheers,
Alex
PS Even then a constant stream of near-misses and grazing shots by plasma weapons are implausible.
No, I really think this is a step backwards. Either make a WOUND system that works, or go back to the old system. In my eyes, the whole point of a system where every wounding hit has an actual effect is to AVOID shoddy explanations like this (which are basically mandatory when you use a numeric HP system).
No, I really think this is a step backwards. Either make a WOUND system that works, or go back to the old system. In my eyes, the whole point of a system where every wounding hit has an actual effect is to AVOID shoddy explanations like this (which are basically mandatory when you use a numeric HP system).
Yeah, but let's not kid ourselves: that's what is exactly what is intended by the wound effect modifier - a special character (PC/NPC) slowly running out of luck.
Alex
Not really. As far as I can tell, it's very much intended to show the gradual (or not so gradual) reduction of a character's ability to stay alive and in the fight. It'd make a lot more sense if it was locational, probably, but the current level of abstraction is acceptable considering the benefits (much less book keeping).
Nah, the only way it makes half-way sense is if it models the extraordinariy luck protagonists and the villains have in movies and novels. Anything else does NOT make any sense
Alex
I think a paragraph or two about how to interpret the damage system would be a really important addition to DH2.
I really love the new wound system.
Such an improvement to the old one.
It has more life and it balances very well "too soft hits" (where characters never died from) and "too hard hits" (where characters died to fast from).
A strong hit can still have a good impact, but being shot by multiple single hits within an automatic shot does not kill outright.
Just add a snoiper rule and I am perfectly fine
Nah, the only way it makes half-way sense is if it models the extraordinariy luck protagonists and the villains have in movies and novels. Anything else does NOT make any sense
Alex
Where are you getting this from? The system is reflecting an idea that someone shot three times is closer to death than someone shot two times, than someone shot one time, etc. While this is not perfectly accurate to reality, it's the expectation that people have of combat from movies and video games. You're not going to design a playable system that reflects all of the modifiers of reality or getting shot (1 inch makes the difference between life and death, physical health, physical build, how the person lands, what staunches blood loss, addrenaline, and a million other things). You are okay with abstracting all of that to a d10 roll but you're not okay with the games assumption that someone shot multiple times is getting closer and closer to death?
There is an argument to be made for the fact that knife wound is equivalent to a sniper wound in terms of how much closer a person is brought to death (but NOT in what effect it has in immediate functioning). People are having that argument. Is a level of abstraction that says any hit can bring you equally close to death acceptable? A lot of people don't seem to think so. On the other hand, I've sent an email to Tim about this and his brief explanation is that he wants combat to be very fast. This is, in effect, a form of scaling that says that the difference in rounds between a knife battle and a sniper battle is roughly equal to the difference in damage between the weapons divided by 5.
A wound effect modifier in the current system is not akin to "a person running out of luck". Your average person sees this and thinks "oh, they get hit more and are closer to dying". It's a simple and intuitive assumption that I feel like you are disingenuously rejecting. The only people who get in arguments over the meaning of hit points are people wanting to waggle their pedants at each other. The rest of pop culture and need culture are fine with the implicit cultural association we already have for hit points meaning "guy is hurt and closer to death".
DH2 is going the route of making every hit possible to bring you closer to death and/or cause an effect. It's the HP system with the latter "cause an effect" added onto it. DH doesn't need an explanation of how its wounds actually mean luck because everyone already knows that "being hit more=closer to dead". This is on the level of wanting video games to explicitly tell you what the health bar or hit points mean; if you're playing the game, you already know. If you want to get in a semantic argument about it, you already know what the intended meaning is!
I get that you don't like the fact that some weapons are not instant death to anyone and that a hit by any weapon brings you the same amount closer to death. I agree with you on the latter. This kind of argument is just smug disingenuousness and unhelpful sniping at the system. And no, it is not helpful to suggest someone add an answer to a question no one else is asking/you are only asking to make a point.
Well put, Nimsim. I completely agree.
Well said Nimsim,
I'm loving the new system and the combat.
Not really. As far as I can tell, it's very much intended to show the gradual (or not so gradual) reduction of a character's ability to stay alive and in the fight. It'd make a lot more sense if it was locational, probably, but the current level of abstraction is acceptable considering the benefits (much less book keeping).
No, I really think this is a step backwards. Either make a WOUND system that works, or go back to the old system. In my eyes, the whole point of a system where every wounding hit has an actual effect is to AVOID shoddy explanations like this (which are basically mandatory when you use a numeric HP system).
Not really. As far as I can tell, it's very much intended to show the gradual (or not so gradual) reduction of a character's ability to stay alive and in the fight. It'd make a lot more sense if it was locational, probably, but the current level of abstraction is acceptable considering the benefits (much less book keeping).
Tom Cruise said it fine above. Really just posting to add my "vote" to what he said. I'm not having a problem with the damage system - it is dangerous, contains a good level of realism for a role-playing game and has a tiny buffer level built in to prevent "he wins initiative wins the fight" issues.
with this system it s impossible to be killed by a single hit even froma powerful weapon as the plasma rifle (using stats from the update 1).
thi is WRONG!
with this system it s impossible to be killed by a single hit even froma powerful weapon as the plasma rifle (using stats from the update 1).
thi is WRONG!
Not true (for TB 4 and lower), but it is very unlikely (you would have to roll 26+TB on 3 dice and hit the body). For instant kills, anyway - if you count death by blood loss (and you should) or general incapacitation (is that a word?), it's not that unlikely at all.
Also, it's not objectively "wrong", even if it doesn't fit your ideal version of the game.
Where are you getting this from?
"First, to answer ak-73, I'd like for combat to be fast and brutal against the NPCs. I feel like the current system reflects this fairly well with Novices, Elites, and Masters who are essentially given "plot armor" based on how important they are to the encounter"
Your own words. While your terming is wrong (it is technically "mechanics armour" and not "plot armour"), you are basically implying that yourself.
And I am claiming the following: The DH 2.0 beta wound effect modifier tries to model the effect of slowly running out of luck. And that it hides that intention behind the cumulative effect of wounds, which in its present form is kinda unrealistic because a minimal damage attack to a heavily wounded person won't make his head explode. It's an incorrect abstraction which leads to certain artifacts, as described in various complaints by various posters here.
The system is reflecting an idea that someone shot three times is closer to death than someone shot two times, than someone shot one time, etc. While this is not perfectly accurate to reality, it's the expectation that people have of combat from movies and video games. You're not going to design a playable system that reflects all of the modifiers of reality or getting shot (1 inch makes the difference between life and death, physical health, physical build, how the person lands, what staunches blood loss, addrenaline, and a million other things). You are okay with abstracting all of that to a d10 roll but you're not okay with the games assumption that someone shot multiple times is getting closer and closer to death?
Nah, it's an inaccurate reflection of reality. Other systems have modeled aspect that much better. Instead, previous wounds influence the severity of a current hit. If you have been hit before, it makes a catastrophic hit (bullet in the brain) more likely.
What you are claiming the system does is what it actually tries to hide its real intent behind.
There is an argument to be made for the fact that knife wound is equivalent to a sniper wound in terms of how much closer a person is brought to death (but NOT in what effect it has in immediate functioning). People are having that argument. Is a level of abstraction that says any hit can bring you equally close to death acceptable? A lot of people don't seem to think so. On the other hand, I've sent an email to Tim about this and his brief explanation is that he wants combat to be very fast. This is, in effect, a form of scaling that says that the difference in rounds between a knife battle and a sniper battle is roughly equal to the difference in damage between the weapons divided by 5.
If anybody was to claim that DH 2.0 tries to model the effect of multiple wounds bringing one closer to death through the wound effect modifier, I'd say that this was marketing speech. The system would do that if the target would collapse due to stress, bleeding, etc. It would NOT make a hit in the head 5 or 10 or 15 damage points worse leading to the target's brain being scattered over the floor. His getting shot 3 times in the foot before has nothing to do with that.
You know that and I know that too. Let's not kid ourselves here.
A wound effect modifier in the current system is not akin to "a person running out of luck". Your average person sees this and thinks "oh, they get hit more and are closer to dying". It's a simple and intuitive assumption that I feel like you are disingenuously rejecting. The only people who get in arguments over the meaning of hit points are people wanting to waggle their pedants at each other. The rest of pop culture and need culture are fine with the implicit cultural association we already have for hit points meaning "guy is hurt and closer to death".
Yeah and hit points work for one reason only: they are a sufficient abstraction so that it leaves every enough room for coming up with a plausible enough interpretation. It's up to everyone's own fantasy to fill in the blanks. Normal HP-based system do not state: you have received 3 medium wounds in the wound, your next wound is 1damage point to the head, your head explodes.
Not taking this into account is problematic.
So let me repeat: A wound effect modifier in the current system is (bold, fat and italics, if necessary I can also increase font size) akin to "a person running out of luck". Because there is no other cause-and-effect chain that links previous wounds in the knees to exploding heads. (Just using this example because it is the clearest.)
It's the HP system with the latter "cause an effect" added onto it. DH doesn't need an explanation of how its wounds actually mean luck because everyone already knows that "being hit more=closer to dead". This is on the level of wanting video games to explicitly tell you what the health bar or hit points mean; if you're playing the game, you already know. If you want to get in a semantic argument about it, you already know what the intended meaning is!
You portraying in patently false. Here is the issue you are not getting: If you build a system that is less abstract than hit points, then you must try to minimize the inconsistencies. DH 2.0 does not try to do that.
I get that you don't like the fact that some weapons are not instant death to anyone and that a hit by any weapon brings you the same amount closer to death. I agree with you on the latter. This kind of argument is just smug disingenuousness and unhelpful sniping at the system. And no, it is not helpful to suggest someone add an answer to a question no one else is asking/you are only asking to make a point.
I have no idea what you are getting at. What I do understand is that you are trying to sell me that DH 2.0 beta is trying to model the effect of cumulative wounds. I am telling you that you not even have a foothold in making that claim. In fact, it is very obvious that it is not so. If you stand next to a green Mercedes and try to sell that as a red Mercedes, you'll only invite head-scratching (at best). Alright?
Tom Cruise said it fine above. Really just posting to add my "vote" to what he said. I'm not having a problem with the damage system - it is dangerous, contains a good level of realism for a role-playing game and has a tiny buffer level built in to prevent "he wins initiative wins the fight" issues.
Your statement contains the implication that other modern firearms RPG systems which dont have this buffer are "he wins initiative wins the fight". If that was your intentions, then I, indeed, would question your credentials. Other RPG system which contain lethal weaponry are not like that. Instead they are at least as much about what weapons? what armour? what skills? what cover? what tactics? (and yes, often enough: what special abilities?).
Alex
I'm interested to hear what these other systems have done to de-abstract hitpoints without having own their weird anomalies, or being ridiculously lethal. I imagine the rulebooks would be incredibly dense.
Edited by Tom Cruise
Where are you getting this from?
"First, to answer ak-73, I'd like for combat to be fast and brutal against the NPCs. I feel like the current system reflects this fairly well with Novices, Elites, and Masters who are essentially given "plot armor" based on how important they are to the encounter"
Your own words. While your terming is wrong (it is technically "mechanics armour" and not "plot armour"), you are basically implying that yourself.
And I am claiming the following: The DH 2.0 beta wound effect modifier tries to model the effect of slowly running out of luck. And that it hides that intention behind the cumulative effect of wounds, which in its present form is kinda unrealistic because a minimal damage attack to a heavily wounded person won't make his head explode. It's an incorrect abstraction which leads to certain artifacts, as described in various complaints by various posters here.
That is "plot armour" in reference to the classes of NPCs, not the wound system. Different NPCs use the wound system differently, and those different uses are plot armour. Given that Master status tends to go to NPCs who are either exceptionally powerful or meant to stay alive and Novice status goes to those meant to be unimportant, that seems to me to be reflecting the idea of plot armour more than "mechanics armour" (did you make that word up?).
I gave you a long post explaining how the DH system reflects the general rule of HP (you take more damage, each hit brings you closer to death) and adds on a narrative/mechanical effect for each blow. It's not a luck countdown anymore than HP is.
I already mentioned the fact that I don't like small wounds having the same additive effect as large ones, which gets at the problem of minimal damage making someone's head explode. That is a matter of taste, though, since I'm not sure what kind of experience you want out of GRIMDARKNESS THERE IS ONLY WAR WARHAMMER 40,000 if you don't think exploding someone's head with a punch is hilarious and keeping in the theme of the source material.
The system is reflecting an idea that someone shot three times is closer to death than someone shot two times, than someone shot one time, etc. While this is not perfectly accurate to reality, it's the expectation that people have of combat from movies and video games. You're not going to design a playable system that reflects all of the modifiers of reality or getting shot (1 inch makes the difference between life and death, physical health, physical build, how the person lands, what staunches blood loss, addrenaline, and a million other things). You are okay with abstracting all of that to a d10 roll but you're not okay with the games assumption that someone shot multiple times is getting closer and closer to death?
Nah, it's an inaccurate reflection of reality. Other systems have modeled aspect that much better. Instead, previous wounds influence the severity of a current hit. If you have been hit before, it makes a catastrophic hit (bullet in the brain) more likely.
What you are claiming the system does is what it actually tries to hide its real intent behind.
Again, I already said that it's reflecting the same thing as the universally acknowledged HP system and adding a mechanical effect to each individual hit. Previous wounds bring you closer to death (HP system) and the closer to death you are, the crazier the effects of your wounds get (mechanical effects for every hit). I'm not sure why you think this game is trying to hide its intent. The game is not trying to bamboozle you by extolling realistic combat.
What are these other systems, for comparison?
There is an argument to be made for the fact that knife wound is equivalent to a sniper wound in terms of how much closer a person is brought to death (but NOT in what effect it has in immediate functioning). People are having that argument. Is a level of abstraction that says any hit can bring you equally close to death acceptable? A lot of people don't seem to think so. On the other hand, I've sent an email to Tim about this and his brief explanation is that he wants combat to be very fast. This is, in effect, a form of scaling that says that the difference in rounds between a knife battle and a sniper battle is roughly equal to the difference in damage between the weapons divided by 5.
If anybody was to claim that DH 2.0 tries to model the effect of multiple wounds bringing one closer to death through the wound effect modifier, I'd say that this was marketing speech. The system would do that if the target would collapse due to stress, bleeding, etc. It would NOT make a hit in the head 5 or 10 or 15 damage points worse leading to the target's brain being scattered over the floor. His getting shot 3 times in the foot before has nothing to do with that.
You know that and I know that too. Let's not kid ourselves here.
How is "making a hit in the head 5 or 10 or 15 damage points worse" NOT modeling the effect of multiple wounds bringing one closer to death? You may not like how it works, but that is exactly what it is doing. It's been mentioned that it seems weird to have different body parts to all add to the same overall wound count, but that's what is done in basically every system I have seen. It's not marketing speech to look at something that says "if you've been wounded before, your next wounds are more likely to kill you" and say it is trying to model the effects of multiple wounds bringing one closer to death. I get that you're saying it incorrectly models this, which is fine, and that is a result of the random way that body parts are targeted and hit. As I said before, though, the entire assumption that multiple wounds ALWAYS lead someone closer to death is on shaky ground anyway, given how many things affect that in reality.
A wound effect modifier in the current system is not akin to "a person running out of luck". Your average person sees this and thinks "oh, they get hit more and are closer to dying". It's a simple and intuitive assumption that I feel like you are disingenuously rejecting. The only people who get in arguments over the meaning of hit points are people wanting to waggle their pedants at each other. The rest of pop culture and need culture are fine with the implicit cultural association we already have for hit points meaning "guy is hurt and closer to death".
Yeah and hit points work for one reason only: they are a sufficient abstraction so that it leaves every enough room for coming up with a plausible enough interpretation. It's up to everyone's own fantasy to fill in the blanks. Normal HP-based system do not state: you have received 3 medium wounds in the wound, your next wound is 1damage point to the head, your head explodes.
Not taking this into account is problematic.
So let me repeat: A wound effect modifier in the current system is (bold, fat and italics, if necessary I can also increase font size) akin to "a person running out of luck". Because there is no other cause-and-effect chain that links previous wounds in the knees to exploding heads. (Just using this example because it is the clearest.)
A hit point system's weakness is that the abstraction is such that it becomes too much of an effort to interpret every hit and thus a simple "he hit you for X damage" becomes the normal explanation. Hence why DH is trying to spice it up by giving an explanation for different hits.
You're using that example, and there is a simple cause-and-effect for any wound where you can just say "the previous wound made them slower/easier to take out/more distracted/etc.". That is the same logic used for abstract HP systems. The person who was shot in the knee three times is now hobbling along/worrying about his knee so much that when a shot goes for his head, he's an easier target. It's a pretty simple explanation. Is it perfect? No, but neither are the explanations that inevitably come up with HP systems.
Again, what are these systems that get around this problem?
Tom Cruise said it fine above. Really just posting to add my "vote" to what he said. I'm not having a problem with the damage system - it is dangerous, contains a good level of realism for a role-playing game and has a tiny buffer level built in to prevent "he wins initiative wins the fight" issues.
Your statement contains the implication that other modern firearms RPG systems which dont have this buffer are "he wins initiative wins the fight". If that was your intentions, then I, indeed, would question your credentials. Other RPG system which contain lethal weaponry are not like that. Instead they are at least as much about what weapons? what armour? what skills? what cover? what tactics? (and yes, often enough: what special abilities?).
Alex
Given that you're already on record here as wanting more lethal weapons and a realistic damage system, that would mean that the person shooting first is going to win unless there is overwhelming disparity in weapons and armor. Tactics, cover, and special abilities are all getting at the idea of preventing the other guy from shooting you first. You usually get one chance in real life before you're taken out of a firefight and maybe one more chance before you're just dead. Please elaborate on these modern RPG systems and how they handle having high lethality weapons that model realistic damage.
I'm interested to hear what these other systems have done to de-abstract hitpoints without having own their weird anomalies, or being ridiculously lethal. I imagine the rulebooks would be incredibly dense.
Every RPG has its anomalies, that is in the nature of abstraction. DH 2.0 takes the inconsistencies of crits in Warhammer RPGs expands them to every damaging hit. Anyway, my point was that "he wins initiative wins the fight" is not how other RPGs. Yes, initiative is more important than in a sword fight.
However, I can tell you that it is very rare that the wound state of the target increases the severity of the currently inflicted wound. It's rather that the more or less independent severity of the currently inflicted wound increases the wound state.
Alex
How would you handle things escalating if each wound was individual and not effected by prior wounds, though? You'd get a situation where players are gradually getting crippled but not ever actually dying .
How would you handle things escalating if each wound was individual and not effected by prior wounds, though? You'd get a situation where players are gradually getting crippled but not ever actually dying .
Death by Fatigue.
Isn't that effectively just a return to HP, though, with a different name?
Not really, as you can have Fatigued characteristics. And damage that is indeed high enough on the crit table would still kill a character.
I'm interested to hear what these other systems have done to de-abstract hitpoints without having own their weird anomalies, or being ridiculously lethal. I imagine the rulebooks would be incredibly dense.
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2350169a_m1320029_Inq_Rulebook_part_1.pdf
(pages 40-43)
Edited by LynataI'm interested to hear what these other systems have done to de-abstract hitpoints without having own their weird anomalies, or being ridiculously lethal. I imagine the rulebooks would be incredibly dense.
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2350169a_m1320029_Inq_Rulebook_part_1.pdf
(pages 40-43)
Other than doing away with the lurid descriptions of injuries and adding the bookkeeping of tracking injuries to individual limbs, I'm not sure how much better this is. There is a separate "injury total" that totals all damage you take and kills you when it exceeds toughness. So...an HP system. You stil have the problem of being able to punch someone in the arm several times until they die, with the difference being there's no explicit line about the manner of death, it's just up to the GM to make one up. You also have the issue of shooting someone for a grievous wound in the leg and then killing them by punching them in the arm. So...dark heresy includes lurid descriptions of wound and abstracts damage for all parts of the body to affect all other parts of the body in terms of wound description. Inquisitor doesn't had lurid descriptions but damage to one part of the body contributes to death possible for the whole, and doesn't discriminate on what changes an injury level, just whether it breaches the damage Threshhold.
I actually think the descriptions are the job of the GM - and isn't this what people have already suggested doing with the current DH2 beta rules, just that in case of the latter you'd change and modify them rather than making them up from the start? The injury effects are the most important part, and they simultaneously provide the mechanical basis as well as inspiration for the GM to weave the description around.
Let's take your concern regarding a punch after a shot, for example. It shouldn't be difficult at all to describe the hit in a manner that makes it obvious that the punch was less responsible for the subject's death than the shot, such as by explaining how it aggravated a wound already present from the previous attack, or by describing it like a hit on a weak spot, or by describing the death as an aftereffect of the previous attack, or ... etc.
What matters most is that you craft an enthralling narrative of the battle for players to enjoy, and a somewhat simplified system should help considerably with that. At least then you're not "gaming against the rules", and what's the point behind detailed descriptions when they don't fit to the action half the time?
You'll always have a good deal of abstraction in any game system. The important thing is to find the sweet spot between "too abstract" and "too complex". DH2's current system unfortunately sounds as if it's trying to be the latter, but simultaneously ends up being the former, simply because you have to modify so many things as otherwise they don't make a lot of sense.
As for the Injury Total comparing to hitpoints, I suppose that you've got a point there - although it is a fairly important feature of the system that it does not follow the usual concept of letting hitpoints act like a simple soak (see other posters' comments regarding the weird "jump" from Wounds into Criticals in DH1 and the perceived gap between both sorts of "injuries"), but exists only as a hard cap on how many injuries a body may suffer until it ceases to function.
That being said, in terms of bookkeeping, I would actually remove the Injury Total entirely. I take it you have seen my Inquisitor/DH "hybrid" suggestion in the other thread.
