Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 8766369" data-attributes="member: 6680772">Sword World Combat. A method to the madness?So, the first thing to consider is that while yes, martials (and damage-using spells, for that matter) have two chances to auto-fail (to-hit roll and damage roll), the fact that Sword World is a 2d6 system does mitigate that. The chance of rolling an 1-zoro in the first place is 2.7%, so the chance of rolling it in two tries is 5.5%, slightly higher but on par with the 5% chance of a critical miss in D&D. But of course, in D&D, you're going to critical miss about once every 20 attacks. In Sword World, you're going to critical miss on the to-hit roll about once every 37 attacks.  Then, you're going to critical miss on damage once every 37 successful attacks. Which is to say, while the probability of critically failing your attack is roughly the same, it's probably not going to feel the same. It's going to feel less frequent for Sword World players. And then 50 XP whenever your roll an 1-zoro is going to take the bite out of those rare times when you do roll an auto-fail.Then we can think about dice mechanic aesthetics. In D&D, for example, you roll your attack. You hit. You know you're going to do damage; you just hope that it is high. In Sword World, you roll your attack. You hit. Now, you know there's a small chance of an 1-zoro negating your attack. But you also know there's now a chance (typically a better chance) of a critical hit. I think it can fairly said that this might even feel more exciting than D&D's straight damage roll. The probability of a critical hit in D&D? 1 in 20 attacks. Probability of a critical hit in Sword World? If we use the most common weapon crit range of 10-12, that means you're critting (exploding crits!) on 16.6% of your successful attacks! That's 1 in 6! Holy crap. Okay, I'm convinced of Sword World's implementation of the Power Tables for martial damage. D&D's method has simplicity and elegance on its side, but Sword World's method does have a little extra excitement.Okay, so let's look at armor protection. Having successfully hit, now the armor could possibly ablate an entire damage result? In theory, yes. In practice? Probably not. Armor is generally going to countered by the character's bonus damage (Warrior level + STR bonus). Remember that players will generally start out with 2 levels in their main Skill Package. And it's unlikely that a front line melee character will have a strength bonus of less than 2. So starting bonus damage at level one is 4, maybe even 5. Of the 50 some monsters included in the book, only 11 monsters have armor protection of 5 or greater, and with the exception of one (the Level 3 Shield Hood), all are quite high-level monsters. All the monsters our starting characters will be facing have armor protection of 1 or 2, maybe 3. And keep in mind that bonus damage scales pretty fast. It goes up 1 every time you increase in Warrior level, it goes up when you increase your STR bonus, and some weapons can add to it.Okay, a successful hit completely negated by armor is not likely enough to be a problem. "But Iosue", you say, "why the extra step? Why not remove armor protection in the first place, and reduce bonus damage to compensate?" And I think the answer here is that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Yes, having part, or even all, of your successful attack blunted by the enemy's armor protection does suck. But it is equally as awesome when your armor blunts your opponent's successful attack. This does have the effect of somewhat drawing out the battle, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective. It (along with using 2d6 for all rolls) also reduces the "swingy-ness" of combat."But what about magic? The casters get to cast their damage spells and do good damage, and even if they miss, they get to do half-damage! And their damage is not reduced by armor protection!" True. However, there are tradeoffs. Magic cannot be cast on the same turn as any movement by the character, so this reduces mobility, or else creates an opportunity cost. Magic is a limited resource. Spells are limited by the number of mana points (MP) the caster has. If we look at the Tabbit Magic-user, he's got 28 MP. Damage spells are expensive. He could use Energy Bolt, which costs 5 MP, or Spark, which costs 6. So he's got 5 castings available, at the most. A typical fight can take about three rounds. A typical session (adventure) as suggested by the book is at least 1 preliminary fight (up to 3) and then the final climax fight. And a spell that does half-damage still uses up the same number of MP. So there's always at least some rationing of magic."I dunno. Still doesn't sound very anime," you might say. And that's entirely true. Particularly in the Rulebook I, SW 2.5 somewhat wears its D&D heart on its sleeve. There are what we might call "legacy tropes." In Rulebook II will come the Enhancer skill package, a table B skill package that revolves around the use of "trained techniques" (powered by mana): essentially self-buffs for the Warrior Skill Packages. But in Rulebook I, if you want to see what an anime character in Sword World looks like, you look at the Nightmare sample character. Fighter 2, Conjurer 1, emo as all get out. The game as intended is for there to be builds and skill package combos of all kinds. I suspect that because of that, its fanbase has had less of an issue over the years with the LFQW problem, and accordingly fewer steps have been taken address it.This deeper look at the system has been very illuminating to me. I had some doubts when I first read the rules, but now I'm actually on-board with it. I have a copy of the first replay to be released for SW 2.5: "Brave Dreamers of the City of Water." What I think I want to do for the next installment is translate the part of the book where the party has their first combat, both to give an example of the combat rules in action, but also a taste of what Japanese replay books are like.</blockquote>

Verification