Armour house rule

[Falenthal]

You're right, you could lower encumbrance values and make heavier armors more viable, but the problem (from my point of view, anyway) is not just that heavy armor is bad, but that there is an optimal choice. So that even if you shift the point of optimal armor by reducing encumbrance across the board, there is still (statistically) an "optimal" armor. (Stance seems to have the same problem, to some extent.)

Ok, I didn't know that. Thanks.

Regarding the rest of your post, I fully agree. The question that I still can't answer is: why does heavy armour fail to do his job?
I mean, when you look at the numbers of the RAW, they seem to make perfect sense, the heavy armours making you wearier than lighter armor, but protecting you from deadly blows. Why doesn't it work??
Is it too easy to reduce someone's Endurance and/or too difficult to Wound?

Maybe the best choice of armor is also related to the kind of combat? In a one-on-one combat, lighter armor behaves always better (because there's a lesser chance of recieving Wounds), while heavy armour is only optimal for combats against many foes (higher chance of recieving Wounding)? In this case, the heroes would normally travel in light or no armor (like the Grey Company in the books) and use heavy armors only when expecting a large battle (Merry, Legolas and Gimli in the Helm's Deep, Pippin in the Morannon). If this assumption was right, and heavy armors worked better in large battles, then comparing them in the simulator only with one-on-one combats would be unfair.

[Glorelendil]

In this case, the heroes would normally travel in light or no armor (like the Grey Company in the books) and use heavy armors only when expecting a large battle (Merry, Legolas and Gimli in the Helm's Deep, Pippin in the Morannon). If this assumption was right, and heavy armors worked better in large battles, then comparing them in the simulator only with one-on-one combats would be unfair.

I'm not sure you can make the rules do this in terms of "few" vs. "many" opponents. I'm sympathetic to the solutions that make it hard to travel in armor, but easy (or easier) to put it on before a big battle.

EDIT: By the way, I'm also sympathetic to something Rich expressed: the game is so beautiful and elegant, partly because of its simplicity, that I hate to muck with it too much, despite the glaring armor problem. Zedturtle's suggestion, for example, felt like something Francesco would have written.

[Glorelendil]

Update: the simulator now has Yepesnopes' Rule, in the House Rules section, and I broke out a new section called "Tactics" that includes the "Bite Their Kneecaps Off" rule of switching to Forward stance when Weary.

Note: if anybody else has ideas for tactics in 1v1 fights, such as when to try called shots, or other maneuvers, I'll be happy to add them.

I tested out the Kneecaps rule using a Bitter Exile Dwarf in all the heaviest armor and using an axe, and no rewards or virtues, against an Orc Chieftan. Very curious pattern emerged: at weapon skill 1 and 2, and again at weapon skill 5 and 6, the Kneecap rule resulted in significantly more losses to the orc. At weapon skills 3 and 4 there was almost no difference.

The losses at skill 5+ didn't surprise me: we've known for a while that Defensive stance is optimal when you've got enough dice to overcome the high TN.

The low skill result surprised me, though, because I had noticed in general that Forward stance is more effective with low weapon skill.

I didn't feel like spending any more time on it, but I'm wonder if it came out even at 3-4 because that was close to the orc's own weapon skill. I wonder if that holds true when fighting other opponents; e.g. the break even is around 2 when fighting an opponent with weapon skill 2.

[Corvo]

Although I've been following this (and other similar) threads, I think I've missed the "starting point".

Forgive me if I ask for the obvious, but I haven't found in the discussions a clear statement of where the problem lies.

I mean, Elfcrusher's simulator shows that heavy armour is deadlier than no- or light armour. But to be more precise, I have two questions:

1) Are ALL armours flawed (statistically, I know that playing strategies like the one Rich said can compensate for that) or only mail ones? If leather armour statistics are better than no-armour, then they need not be tweaked, don't they?

2) Why do heavy armours fail to help increase the surviving odds? Is it because they are too encumbersome, thus making the character Weary very fast? If that's the case, maybe just by lowering their Encumbrance we could reach a balanced point. If the reason is another, then you'll need a precise diagnosis of where the problem lies, to know what is that needs modifying.

My proposals are pobably very naïv, I know, but I'd like to have a clear idea of WHAT armours are flawed and WHY.

Thanks a lot for the work you're doing, thinking, testing and writing down all this options for the rest of us to read.

Hi Falenthal, I'll try to answer some of your points:
1) About armour effectiveness, I have tried a lot of combinations of skills/stances/etc.
The end result was that:
-against weapons with Edge 12 (Axes): going naked is the optimal way to win. Every die of armour you add, your chances to victory goes down.
-against weapons with Edge 10 (Swords): going naked is the optimal way to win. Every die of armour you add, your chances to victory goes down.
-against weapons with Edge 9 (Spears): the optimal way to win is to don some armour. 2Die armour against Injury 12 (orcish spear). Every more or less die of armour you are donning, your chances to victory goes down.

2) So the idea is that wounding blow aren't common enough to warrant the armour's fatigue. Most Enemies got weapons with Edge 12 or 10. Most of the time the Heroes are defeated by endurance loss.
Sure this is an artefact of the fact that Heroes need 2 wounds to be defeated*, too, but armour should be an asset, not a death trap (keep in mind that without armour is really rare to be weary. And being weary is a malus to any roll, even common skills. So armour got an already hefty, all around cost)

*Note: Heroes need 2 wounds to be defeated, but they got more Endurance than NPCs, too. 150% of an NPC, circa. That "artefact" exists on the endurance side, too.

[Corvo]

Well, there is a lot to chew in this thread.

Since Rich commented on something that also bothers me, I will also add my grain of sand.

I said to reduce edge by 1, just as a first wild-untested-uncalculated approach to increase the importance of armour for combat survivability. But it is a flaw reasoning ( ), as the simulator of Elfcrusher shows. This is mainly because only NPCs die from receiving one wound (a PC needs two to be out of combat).

So, either as Rich says, the wounded condition is changed to be more detrimental to PCs, or we really have to lower the edge of weapons in order that the risk of getting two wounds in a combat is higher, but this is going to be tough for NPCs
(...)

On the contrary, I think that your proposed solution is maybe the best one.
Heroes have 2 wounds, yet they got A LOT more Endurance than NPCs, too.
They are already tougher than NPCs.

On the other hand most enemies got pretty good armour: the common Orc soldier got an hefty 3d, common warg got 2d (warg leader 3d), the great bat got 2d, the lowly Attercop 2d... even the Goblin Archer, lowest opponent in the basic game (attribute 2), got 2d.

Let's face it: enemies are already better amored than most Heroes!
Raising the Edge isn't so problematic for the NPCs...

[Falenthal]

And being weary is a malus to any roll, even common skills. So armour got an already hefty, all around cost)

First of all, thanks a lot for your thorough answer!

As a side question: I understand that, Weary state affecting Protection Rolls makes armor still more ineffective, right?

Theoretically, it saves you from wounds at the cost of making you wearier. But if the Weary state diminishes your chance of resisting Wounds, than your only benefit becomes less effective.

Would it have any positive effect if Weary didn't effect Protection Rolls?

I know that Francesco specifically said that they should be affected, but we could reason (if needed) that the roll is not to evade a hit (that comes under your Parry value), but to see if the armor (not the character) resists a blow. The same as if we were rolling to see how well a door resists a blow.

Just an idea.

[Corvo]

And being weary is a malus to any roll, even common skills. So armour got an already hefty, all around cost)

First of all, thanks a lot for your thorough answer!

As a side question: I understand that, Weary state affecting Protection Rolls makes armor still more ineffective, right?

Theoretically, it saves you from wounds at the cost of making you wearier. But if the Weary state diminishes your chance of resisting Wounds, than your only benefit becomes less effective.

Would it have any positive effect if Weary didn't effect Protection Rolls?

I know that Francesco specifically said that they should be affected, but we could reason (if needed) that the roll is not to evade a hit (that comes under your Parry value), but to see if the armor (not the character) resists a blow. The same as if we were rolling to see how well a door resists a blow.

Just an idea.

Ouch, that wasn't what I was meaning.
My reasoning is that Armour is the primary source of wearyness, and being weary is a malus that carry on even OUTSIDE of combat: travel rolls becomes tougher, you can fail social encounters, etc.
This should be factored in the overall cost of armour.

About your proposal: I like weary affecting armour (otherwise the Cave Troll is nigh immortal ) but I can see your reasons.

[Falenthal]

In this case, the heroes would normally travel in light or no armor (like the Grey Company in the books) and use heavy armors only when expecting a large battle (Merry, Legolas and Gimli in the Helm's Deep, Pippin in the Morannon). If this assumption was right, and heavy armors worked better in large battles, then comparing them in the simulator only with one-on-one combats would be unfair.

I'm not sure you can make the rules do this in terms of "few" vs. "many" opponents.

I just meant that I don't know if the probabilities of survival have the same flaws if we increase the number of opponents.

To make an example:
We know what the results are agains 1 attercop.
What if we simulate the same combat against 2 attercops? And against 3? Etc.
Does the probability of winning of the heavy armored hero increase against those of the light or non-armored hero? Against more enemies, the chances of receiving a Wound would increase, and so the usefulness of heavy armor.

That's my logic, without having it tested. If it worked this way, I would suggest not making any tweaks to the RAW.

[Falenthal]

Ouch, that wasn't what I was meaning.
My reasoning is that Armour is the primary source of wearyness, and being weary is a malus that carry on even OUTSIDE of combat: travel rolls becomes tougher, you can fail social encounters, etc.
This should be factored in the overall cost of armour.

About your proposal: I like weary affecting armour (otherwise the Cave Troll is nigh immortal ) but I can see your reasons.

Understood!
Thank you.

[Michebugio]

EDIT: *revision in progress*