Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Isawa Sideshow" data-source="post: 238331" data-attributes="member: 1107">Upper_Krust:The five-level wound system in SWd6 wasn't bad. Not one of my favorites, but not bad. SWd20, on the other hand, uses two tiers of hit points - Wound Points equal to your constitution, and Vitality Points based on class and level. WP stay constant, VP are exactly the same as HP, except that VP "damage" doesn't represent actual injury in most cases. It's luck, stamina, and script immunity that allows for heroic maneuvers. WP damage, on the other hand, is actual bodily harm. NPC classes don't have VP - they're mooks (to borrow a Feng Shui term) that are supposed to drop easily.One change that was made in Revised SWd20 is that all armor offers DR, not a Defense bonus. However, that DR only applies to WP damage, not VP damage. All the armor in the world won't make you any more or less lucky. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> So you'd probably prefer that system. I think it's a good system myself, but I also like D&D3e's system as well. As far as bringing actual physics into the game - Strength being proportional to the cube of the size, Bullets having so many joules of kinetic energy to punch through so many inches of armor, etc - well, things start breaking down when you get into fantasy or sci-fi settings. Giants, for example, aren't physically possible; their frame could not support their massive body. They wouldn't live very long.How many calories of heat are in a fireball? Is it hot enough to flash-fry someone, or does it just singe them? How many joules of concussive force are created by the explosion? How is all this fire and force damage absorbed by metal armor? Wouldn't the characters take more damage from their armor as it was heated?Do lightsabers ignore damage resistance? How many inches of armor can a lightsaber cut through in one second? Does leather armor absorb laser damage, or is it not reflective enough? Wouldn't the laser cut right through the armor and the tender flesh underneath?Eventually, you have to draw a line between realism and abstraction. I tend to find myself erring on the abstraction side, rather that adding too much extra complexity to the game. While a little bit of realism is nice, there's only so much you can do before you're spending more time trying to make rules that accurately model the world than you are playing the game.And as for hit dice and BAB, well, I honestly do prefer skill-based combat, but until someone offers a skill-based attack bonus system that's balanced for all classes, is easy to apply to existing characters/creatures, is easy for new players to pick up,  and maintains the proficiencies set forth in the PHB, I'm fine with BAB. It's another abstraction, and I'm totally fine with that.</blockquote>

Verification