VP/WP Difficult Issues, Ideas Wanted

[hong]

I want weapons to do double damage for several reasons:

1) everyone's got the extra WP (stated abvoe)

2) it makes combat go faster- i like to get combat over with to move on to the next part

3) if someone has full plate it's nearly impossible to injure them with a weapon unless you do this

4) it puts the weapons and armor on a very similar scale as the star wars weapons, which is the system i got the rest of the rules from, so it may take care of a few hidden balance issues i'm not considering

5) an average longsword shot should just about kill the average peasant- at 9 average damage + str mod, i think it does that rather nicely

If what you want is to reduce the impact of that extra WP at the low end, just halve the amount gained. Weapons are only one source of damage in D&D (and likely a relatively minor source, in some adventures). If you wanted to tinker the damage dealt, you should also be looking at all those damage-dealing spells, poison, disease and so on. Only adjusting weapons throws the balance out of whack.

I think it would be easier just to say that mooks drop when they reach 0 VP. Most DMs probably do this already anyway under the current setup; only PCs and significant characters get to linger on to -10 before dying.

 

[Dalamar]

Two-handed weapons will deal double strength damage.

If you do this, you should also allow full Str mod on off-hand attacks when fighting with two weapons. Otherwise you propably won't be seeing any dual-wielders except for concept.

 

[DonAdam]

Dalamar- point taken.

Hong- I actually don't use VP for mooks. I go by Star Wars, NPC classes only have VP.

I've increased the die type by 1 on all spells. That, combined, with their resistance to damage reduction, should make them work pretty well.