From Stone To Steel - Variant Rule Questions

[Azure Trance]

In Monkey Gods Enterprise "From Stone To Steel," (a fabulous book) there are variant rules which I thought looked interesting and would like to share with you to anaylze it better.

• Variant Armor & Damage #1
• An armors AC bonus is now its DR bonus
• A shield bonus is a true 'deflecting' bonus, and adds to your AC
  
  Variant Armor & Damage #2
• To increase AC other then armor in conjunction with the rule above, your primary base attack bonus is now your new defense bonus (ie, +11/+6/+1 = AC 21).
  
  Variant Armor & Damage #3
• Damage which surpasses the armors hardness will be translated into subdual damage for the wearer, with blunt the most effective, slashing the second most, and piercing the least.

I like these because it's novel, but am unsure on the ramifications of it. It will make fighters much better at melee with #2, but they always were the best at melee so that's not anything new. The DR system though makes me pause. I recall reading about how in history a warrior decked out in full plate or plate was a very real threat since his armor was so difficult to penetrate. Full plate at DR 8 would defintely translate this well, even chain mail at DR 5.

But such heavily armored men would totally negate small weapons like daggers (d4) and almost negate d6 weapons like the quaterstaff or light mace. I suppose the solution would be to bash him into unconciousness or simply use larger weapons (great axe, great sword). Will the middle men - bards and rogues, be affected too much since they can't wear heavy armor and wield light-medium (d4-d6) weapons? I would love to implement it, as long as its fair (enough).

 

[Azure Trance]

Also:

I'm confused on the weapon charts. There's a column for "M" and "Subset." I thought I had a moment of eureka when M could mean materials, but some have letters and numbers and I don't know anymore.

 

[Gnarlo]

It's one of two things I was disappointed with in this (very good) book; 1) no explanation on the tables that I can find for those letters and categories, and 2) no rules in the variant section for bows wearing out and breaking (other than from direct damage, seems like strings should still break on occasion).

I had your eureka, M is material (W wood, S stone, B bone, L leather, C cord, F fabric, M metal). The subsets are Far East weapons, and are listed at the end of the master tables in the rear of the book, G Guang Hu, N ninja, S samurai. The small d on the subsets are duellist weapons maybe? That's the only thing they seem to fit, and maybe they are the ones that are able to be used in the off hand for the off-hand parry feat (must use a knife or duelling weapon). Still doesn't explain why a horseman's pick has a d....

 

[Azure Trance]

Horsemans pick must be a mistake. I don't see it anywhere in the duelists class. But:

Thank you so much for clearing that all up for me You saved me countless hours of undoubtedly exhaustive, intensive research. I can sleep now On a tangent, another book is coming out from Monkey God Enterprises under the "Explorer Guide" series. "Fur & Frost" and "Sylvan Settings." If their as exhaustive as FSTS is, I can't wait to see what I'll learn from there.

 

[Azure Trance]

Thump.

 

[Havilor]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner, guys. I've been trying to pop in and answer questions on my book when I see them.

Answers:

1) horseman's pick shouldn't have been listed as a duelist item.
2) M stands for materials. In the rewrite of the Durability system this was un-clarified. We should have seen the glaring omission. My apologies.
3) The variant armor rules were intended to allow people to mix and match what they liked and did not like. When I was writing the book a great many people kept asking me if I was going to do an armor as DR rather than AC rule. When I looked at it, I figured it wouldn't hurt as an optional rule.

The other thing I really wanted to do was to make an optional blunt force trauma rule. Blunt force trauma was a silent killer on the tournament and battle field, where men could die of internal injuries from strikes that never made it past the armor. Charles Martel favored the warhammer because of the bones it could break beneath the otherwise seemingly impenetrable chainmail common on the battlefield. Arab infantry were trained to use their curved, slashing swords to cause as much impact as they could against an armored foe, because it would eventually stun and disable them.

You don't have to use them together. I've tried the blunt force trauma rules with the regular AC system, and quite enjoy them that way, actually. And I did, in fact, see the blunt force trauma system as a way to beat tanks into unconciousness. Using this concept, the guy you can normally only hit on a natural 20 is no longer the impossible battle. Now you just want to keep him off balance and keep at him until he drops from exhaustion. And that, my friends, is perfectly realistic.

Oh, and don't forget the benefit of critical hits or other kinds of attacks like trips and the like.

 

[Azure Trance]

Are you Mr. Stimson?

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Havilor:

The other thing I really wanted to do was to make an optional blunt force trauma rule. Blunt force trauma was a silent killer on the tournament and battle field, where men could die of internal injuries from strikes that never made it past the armor. Charles Martel favored the warhammer because of the bones it could break beneath the otherwise seemingly impenetrable chainmail common on the battlefield. Arab infantry were trained to use their curved, slashing swords to cause as much impact as they could against an armored foe, because it would eventually stun and disable them.

You don't have to use them together. I've tried the blunt force trauma rules with the regular AC system, and quite enjoy them that way, actually. And I did, in fact, see the blunt force trauma system as a way to beat tanks into unconciousness. Using this concept, the guy you can normally only hit on a natural 20 is no longer the impossible battle. Now you just want to keep him off balance and keep at him until he drops from exhaustion. And that, my friends, is perfectly realistic.

I'm intrigued by this idea. How did you think it might be implemented?

 

[Azure Trance]

That would be #3:

Variant Armor & Damage #3

• Damage which surpasses the armors hardness will be translated into subdual damage for the wearer, with blunt the most effective, slashing the second most, and piercing the least.

 

[Havilor]

Yes, I'm Aaron Stimson. If you're coming to GenCon, feel free to drop by the MonkeyGod booth on Thursday or Friday, when I'll be there.

To Gothmog: The Variant Armor & Damage #3 as listed above is my Blunt Force Trauma ruleset.

If you use my strike table system, you'll find that although a roll may not indicate you have bypassed your opponent's defenses, you'll still be scoring hits to his armor, shield (or alternate off-hand item), or weapon most of the time. As items take damage, they deteriorate. In the case of armor strikes, damage caused to armor can be transfered to the wearer as blunt force trauma, namely subdual damage. This isn't in a direct 1 to 1 ratio, and is determined based on the type of damage (bludgeoning being the most effective and piercing being the least). Obviously as characters get better and are more effective at doing damage, it's easier to beat a foe into unconsciousness. Not to mention the likelyhood of destroying his shield or weapon in the midst of combat.

I find that using the above system with the Power Attack Feat is particularly enjoyable.