Combat: Possible improvements and chances?

[Surf Solar]

Some semi-minor question - how do you feel the Armor Class function worked in the original Fallouts? If, for example, the player had a small guns skill of 150% and the enemy has an AC of 30 - the to hitchance was 120 minus the modifiers of Perception, Day/Night Time and if s/he had crippled limps. Did you ever feel AC had a major impact? I did not. It did decrease the enemies to-hit-chance by a few degrees or vice versa, but was never directly noticable. This should change. In order to make something fun, it should be directly noticable when you raise/lower stat XY. IMO, there should be vests, armors etc giving MUCH higher AC. This goes for the enemy aswell. Pumping up a single combat skill and then laying back to watch a simple battle unfold is boring. Do you think the AC system needs to be retconned?

 

[felipepepe]

It did lead to some heavy abuse...The armor of a Enclave Trooper made regular pistol shots useless, but what's the point if I could spend just one more AP and blow his eyes off with 99% hit chance?

BTW, the reverse of this was something that made the game really easier. Even playing on "rough", I can't remeber of dying a lot because of aimed shots...

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I hate the armour AC. There's already DR and DT for that armour protection. Also, I think that it was way too easy to become super-competent with weapons.

 

[DragoFireheart]

It did lead to some heavy abuse...The armor of a Enclave Trooper made regular pistol shots useless, but what's the point if I could spend just one more AP and blow his eyes off with 99% hit chance?

For some armors this would make sense. Leather armor for example, one would expect the eyes to be exposed, thus aimed shots at the eyes would be a viable way to bypass the damage reduction of the armor. For power armor, making eye shots less effective would be expected since even the head of someone with power armor is heavily protected.

To balance this out, making aimed shots at the eyes should be EXTREMELY difficult short of point blank range or being a Super-Grand-Master with pistols. I think too often designers (for RPGs) have the main body do 1X damage and then set the head to do 2X with only a moderate penalty when it would make sense for the head to have either as instant death or a very large amount of damage for most shots... but with a extremely high penalty to do so.

As far as armor and AC being useless per previous post, armor should protect individual parts of the body. Perhaps the chest area has 10 DT while the legs/arms have only 5 and the head only has 1. Hitting limbs and head should have a much larger penalty to hit since they are smaller areas. Similar to what Fallout1/2 did but with more refinement.

 

[felipepepe]

Since you resurected the thread, I enjoyed very much some things in AoD regarding the matter.

Making skillpoint cost double after 50 was great, I hope it get's even tripled above 75, to avoid "Super-Grand-Masters". This way, getting to permanent 95% chance of hit aimed attacks to the head will take tons of points, and leave your character lacking in everything else.

As far as armor and AC being useless per previous post, armor should protect individual parts of the body. Perhaps the chest area has 10 DT while the legs/arms have only 5 and the head only has 1. Hitting limbs and head should have a much larger penalty to hit since they are smaller areas. Similar to what Fallout1/2 did but with more refinement.

Here, perhaps the specific body part armor provides protectiong against critical attacks. Not like in Baldur's Gate, where any shitty helmet makes you immune to critical hits, but with a "ac vs critical hit" stat. This way, a heat shot on a leather armor guy have 95% hit chance and ~20% critical chance, and on a Enclave Trooper 95% hit chance also (since the target is the same size, but ~5% critical chance, or something like that.

 

[Grunker]

or, you know, you could just use GURPS

just sayin

 

[DragoFireheart]

or, you know, you could just use GURPS

just sayin

What is this GURPS you speak of. Is it a system that was going to be used in a rpg but was later scraped due to licensing issues, causing SPECIAL to be made in its place?

 

[Grunker]

Yes indeed, it is one of the most sorrowful stories in this world of RPGs.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Yes indeed, it is one of the most sorrowful stories in this world of RPGs.

But every system has it's flaws. I know little of GURPS, but tell me about them.

There is no greater complement than knowing something or someone has flaws: it means you can become better than what you are. Within time and even flaws to improve, you can become better than anything.

 

[Grunker]

what is this trickery

GURPS and flaw are antonyms

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

But every system has it's flaws. I know little of GURPS, but tell me about them.

There is no greater complement than knowing something or someone has flaws: it means you can become better than what you are. Within time and even flaws to improve, you can become better than anything.

I heard that the amount of calculations when playing it PnP can get pretty high. Heard of fights lasing an entire session.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I heard that the amount of calculations when playing it PnP can get pretty high. Heard of fights lasing an entire session.

That shouldn't be an issue for a video game.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

That shouldn't be an issue for a video game.

That's why it's a shame that there's no GURPS cRPG.

 

[Grunker]

But every system has it's flaws. I know little of GURPS, but tell me about them.

There is no greater complement than knowing something or someone has flaws: it means you can become better than what you are. Within time and even flaws to improve, you can become better than anything.

I heard that the amount of calculations when playing it PnP can get pretty high. Heard of fights lasing an entire session.

98% of all mathematical calculations during a GURPS fight is "roll 3d6 - by how much are you below/above you skill?" Of the last 2%, 1,9% are damage rolls, which is simple addition and subtraction (2d6+1 - targets DR for example), somtimes with a multiplier. The last 0,1% I grant can be a little messy until you know the system by heart - we're talking bull-rush rolls, splash damage and so on. But that's only because you have to look the shit up if you don't know it. And even then most of it is optional.

GURPS gets a bad rep for being overly complicated, but this is mostly because it is very hard to learn. Once learned it is fairly simple.

 

[felipepepe]

GURPS gets a bad rep for being overly complicated, but this is mostly because it is very hard to learn. Once learned it is fairly simple.

Agreed, GURPS system bad rep is just like OMG, THAC0! TEH MOST COMPLICATED STUFF EVER!, just people that never actually tried playing going on stories that they read around.

 

[Grunker]

The difference is that although THAC0 isn't really that complex it is actually overly complicated for what it's trying to achieve

 

[Surf Solar]

I took some of DraQ 's and @Awor Szurkraz 's ideas regarding different combat stances out of a different thread and edited the interface accordingly. It's ofcourse still Work In Progress, especially the prone/crouch animations (I am slowly learning fragmotion...), but I hope one day they will be ready. The other stances are the "Aggressive" etc ones - I planned to do it so that you can choose such a stance when out of combat, if you have "neutral" nothing is changed in your character stats, choosing "Aggressive" lowers your AC, Damage Reduction and Treshold a wee bit, but you can aim a bit better and attacks cost one AP less. Defensive would be the opposite.

Any suggestions for changes towards this system, or additional stances?

 

[Destroid]

A stance that lets you move faster?

 

[KickAss]

Does changing between Stand/Crouch/Prone costs AP? I think it should...