Undead Presidents Press presents a shiny new Soak Design Diary for Summa Fantasia. This design diary gives an overview on how Summa Fantasia handles tracking a character's health.
When first designing SF, we had planned to use the hit point mechanic for tracking a character's health. However, hit points cause some unrealistic phenomena. For instance, a character can rarely be dropped by a sniper of similar level, even with sneak attack. Characters can jump down cliffs and know they will walk away. Hit points lead to a lot of dice rolling and arithmetic. Although it is impressive to throw down a handful of dice as you cast a stunning spell, it is not nearly as impressive to spend the next thirty seconds adding them up.
Hit Points also make some design issues very difficult. For instance, in standard d20 fantasy, it is very difficult to design a lightly armored, agile fighter. There have been several core classes and prestige classes, some of which have been very good. However, all of them require new mechanics to patch holes in the system. Hit points also make some types of world very difficult to run, such as a grim, gritty, deadly game.
One thing we investigated in designing SF was using a damage save system like that found in Mutants & Masterminds. This system, while great, could not be easily adapted to SF. I have designed a similar system, that solves the problems with hit points listed above. This system is called Soak. In SF, there is more to a single attack than whether it hits or misses. The margin of success matters. That is, if I beat an opponents Defense score by 5 with my attack roll then I note the difference. The character struck must then make a Soak check. The difficulty is determined by adding the damage of the weapon, the Strength of the wielder, and the margin of success. The bonus on this check is the character's armor and their Strength bonus. (Constitution is not an ability score in SF, see next week's design diary for more details.) If the check is failed, the character is Hit, suffing a -1 penalty on future Soak checks. If it is failed by 10 or more, the character is Unconscious and Dying. If it is failed by 20 or more the character is instantly killed.
This balances the heavily armored, strong fighter and the lightly armored, agile fighter. The strong fighter will have a high base damage, but a lower average margin of success on his attacks (Strength does not add to attack rolls; more on that next week.) The agile fighter will have a lower base damage, but do almost as much damage on average because of higher margins of success and will hit more often. The heavily armored fighter will be struck more often and with higher margins of success, because armor causes a Defense penalty, but will shrug off the hits better because of the bonus armor grants on Soak checks. The lightly armored fighter will be struck less often and with lower margins of success, but will be in more danger when struck because of the lower Soak bonus.
Also, no character can ever feel completely safe. Even a puny foe can force a very difficult soak check if it rolls a natural 20. Consequently, we were also able to eliminate critical hits in Summa Fantasia.
Finally, Soak allows for another area of customization for DMs to use in their campaign, namely regarding what happens on a failed Soak check. The base rules are rather similar to standard d20 in that wounds have little effect until the character drops, it is difficult to die, and it is impossible to be maimed short of magic. We make that the standard because it plays fast and easy. For a harsher game, the GM can add in additional effects to failure, detailed in a sidebar in the Combat chapter. If the check is failed by 5 or more, the character is Injured and takes a -1 penalty to all physical rolls and Defense. If the check is failed by 15 or more, the character is maimed, and suffers some lasting injury. For a true grim and gritty game, even harsher rules could be used, doing away with Hits altogether and only using Injuries.
Ninjas!
In any game with ninjas there must be hoards of incompetent ninja foes (the effectiveness of a squad of ninjas is inversely proportional to their number). The Foot clan may not be as tough as the main characters, but they attack in large numbers. To add this feel to the game there are two optional templates. There are Minions, who are less durable than other enemies. If they fail a Soak check by 5 or more, they are instantly slain. For the incredibly heroic games where the PCs fight huge armies, where for every foe that falls two more take its place, there is the Horde template. If a member of a horde fails any soak check, it is instantly slain. Of course these enemies are less challenging individually, and thus show up in great numbers.
This also is helpful in modeling other creatures, such as zombies. In SF, zombies have damage reduction, which makes them difficult to harm with physical attacks. However, they also have the minion template, so that they are easy to kill with one powerful attack.
If you have any questions, comments, raves, etc... please contact me at:
washington@undeadpresidentspress.com
Undyingly Yours,
When first designing SF, we had planned to use the hit point mechanic for tracking a character's health. However, hit points cause some unrealistic phenomena. For instance, a character can rarely be dropped by a sniper of similar level, even with sneak attack. Characters can jump down cliffs and know they will walk away. Hit points lead to a lot of dice rolling and arithmetic. Although it is impressive to throw down a handful of dice as you cast a stunning spell, it is not nearly as impressive to spend the next thirty seconds adding them up.
Hit Points also make some design issues very difficult. For instance, in standard d20 fantasy, it is very difficult to design a lightly armored, agile fighter. There have been several core classes and prestige classes, some of which have been very good. However, all of them require new mechanics to patch holes in the system. Hit points also make some types of world very difficult to run, such as a grim, gritty, deadly game.
One thing we investigated in designing SF was using a damage save system like that found in Mutants & Masterminds. This system, while great, could not be easily adapted to SF. I have designed a similar system, that solves the problems with hit points listed above. This system is called Soak. In SF, there is more to a single attack than whether it hits or misses. The margin of success matters. That is, if I beat an opponents Defense score by 5 with my attack roll then I note the difference. The character struck must then make a Soak check. The difficulty is determined by adding the damage of the weapon, the Strength of the wielder, and the margin of success. The bonus on this check is the character's armor and their Strength bonus. (Constitution is not an ability score in SF, see next week's design diary for more details.) If the check is failed, the character is Hit, suffing a -1 penalty on future Soak checks. If it is failed by 10 or more, the character is Unconscious and Dying. If it is failed by 20 or more the character is instantly killed.
This balances the heavily armored, strong fighter and the lightly armored, agile fighter. The strong fighter will have a high base damage, but a lower average margin of success on his attacks (Strength does not add to attack rolls; more on that next week.) The agile fighter will have a lower base damage, but do almost as much damage on average because of higher margins of success and will hit more often. The heavily armored fighter will be struck more often and with higher margins of success, because armor causes a Defense penalty, but will shrug off the hits better because of the bonus armor grants on Soak checks. The lightly armored fighter will be struck less often and with lower margins of success, but will be in more danger when struck because of the lower Soak bonus.
Also, no character can ever feel completely safe. Even a puny foe can force a very difficult soak check if it rolls a natural 20. Consequently, we were also able to eliminate critical hits in Summa Fantasia.
Finally, Soak allows for another area of customization for DMs to use in their campaign, namely regarding what happens on a failed Soak check. The base rules are rather similar to standard d20 in that wounds have little effect until the character drops, it is difficult to die, and it is impossible to be maimed short of magic. We make that the standard because it plays fast and easy. For a harsher game, the GM can add in additional effects to failure, detailed in a sidebar in the Combat chapter. If the check is failed by 5 or more, the character is Injured and takes a -1 penalty to all physical rolls and Defense. If the check is failed by 15 or more, the character is maimed, and suffers some lasting injury. For a true grim and gritty game, even harsher rules could be used, doing away with Hits altogether and only using Injuries.
Ninjas!
In any game with ninjas there must be hoards of incompetent ninja foes (the effectiveness of a squad of ninjas is inversely proportional to their number). The Foot clan may not be as tough as the main characters, but they attack in large numbers. To add this feel to the game there are two optional templates. There are Minions, who are less durable than other enemies. If they fail a Soak check by 5 or more, they are instantly slain. For the incredibly heroic games where the PCs fight huge armies, where for every foe that falls two more take its place, there is the Horde template. If a member of a horde fails any soak check, it is instantly slain. Of course these enemies are less challenging individually, and thus show up in great numbers.
This also is helpful in modeling other creatures, such as zombies. In SF, zombies have damage reduction, which makes them difficult to harm with physical attacks. However, they also have the minion template, so that they are easy to kill with one powerful attack.
If you have any questions, comments, raves, etc... please contact me at:
washington@undeadpresidentspress.com
Undyingly Yours,
