When you Suffer Harm, roll +Armor...(S&S combat)

  • 2 Replies
  • 3423 Views
When you Suffer Harm, roll +Armor...(S&S combat)
« on: April 26, 2013, 03:14:52 PM »
After a long hiatus I'm back into working on my Conan hack. Tell me if I can do this and what problems you may foresee:

Light Armor 1-armor
Heavy Armor 2-armor
Shield +1-armor

Grappling 1-harm
Knives, Daggers, Arrows 2-harm
Swords, Axes, Spears 3-harm
Two-handed weapons 4-harm

(will have tags for different weapons and armor of course)

When you Wade into Battle, roll+ Wrath. On a hit, exchange harm. On a 7-9, choose 1. On a 10+, you get all 3.
- Break their defense (deal +1 harm)
- Parry and evade (Enemy deals -1 harm)
- Seize something important (their position, weapon, courage, etc.)

(exchange harm: PC's do not subtract their armor from NPC's harm. However they do subtract NPC's armor from PC harm. A Gang's Armor does not increase with size difference).

When you Suffer Harm roll+ Armor (0 to +3). On a 10+ your armor, or luck, negates all harm and saves you. On a 7-9, your armor negates 1 harm and the MC chooses 1:
-You miss something important
-You drop something important (weapon, shield, piece of armor)
-You stumble, fall, or became dazed
-Your fatigued, take -1 ongoing until you can recover

I was thinking of giving characters Harm Wheels (countdown clocks) of four 'pie slices' instead of 6. Gangs still have 6 levels to their Harm Wheels, but their armor does not increase with each size difference. Combined with these new moves I think it will make combat results more granular than vanilla AW.

Perhaps my new 'Seize' move should only grant a 'pick 2' on a 10+ instead of getting all 3?

The potential wrinkle that comes to my mind is gangs. If PCs aren't subtracting their armor from a gang's harm, that could be messy. But 10+ for my Suffer Harm move negates all harm inflicted. Still, maybe I shouldn't do this or do something different with Gangs.

I imagine unarmed combat being more of a series of defying danger, seizing limbs, or seizing throats then seizing breath. Or seizing a body and slamming it into something (+harm).

Anyways, I really prefer a player-facing 'roll+armor' move. I saw another poster's roll+armor move but they cut out damage ratings entirely and it was a little too abstract for me.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2013, 06:39:59 PM by Gavinwulf »

Re: When you Suffer Harm, roll +Armor...(S&S combat)
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2013, 06:28:29 PM »
Updated my post above
« Last Edit: April 26, 2013, 06:35:58 PM by Gavinwulf »

Re: When you Suffer Harm, roll +Armor...(S&S combat)
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2013, 08:57:55 AM »
You know, the more I try to tweak AW (even for a Sword & Sorcery games with swords and armor and shit), the more I find that AW works really well as is.

I was just re-reading through the book and saw that there is 3-armor but it's very rare. It's also in the Quarantine playbook.
I'm thinking Hyborian Age adventurer's would rarely wear 3-armor. I'm thinking it's usually 2 (light armor+ a shield) in most cases. I think I will make heavy armor available to the Sell-sword but it's got some penalties to it, like 'noisy' and 'cumbersome' tags.

I think my hacking of AW for medieval combat will boil down to new tags.