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Elfcrusher wrote: Including an injury that heals immediately after a battle? What sort of injury is that?

It's called blunt force trauma and you recover a pittance of endurance after battle because you get your 'second wind' or you 'walk it off' or you 'man up' and ignore it.

Evening wrote:

Elfcrusher wrote: Including an injury that heals immediately after a battle? What sort of injury is that?

It's called blunt force trauma and you recover a pittance of endurance after battle because you get your 'second wind' or you 'walk it off' or you 'man up' and ignore it.

Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. (So you are excluding minor cuts, abrasions, and lacerations from endurance loss?)

I'll ask again: if immediately after the battle you recover all the damage you took during the battle (entirely possible) then how was any of that damage "injury"? Unless under the heading of "injury" (or blunt force trauma, if you prefer) you are including anything that's mildly uncomfortable.

In my book, if I "walk it off" and there's no residual effects, then it wasn't an injury.

Elfcrusher wrote:
Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. (So you are excluding minor cuts, abrasions, and lacerations from endurance loss?)

I will be pedantic and point out that abrasions comes under blunt force trauma And well, so does lacerations depending on the circumstances. For example, I could hit you with a hammer (not the nail puller) or mallet and cause minor lacerations.

I'll ask again: if immediately after the battle you recover all the damage you took during the battle (entirely possible) then how was any of that damage "injury"? In my book, if I "walk it off" and there's no residual effects, then it wasn't an injury.

I see what you're saying. I guess we're just hashing up in-game word definitions.

Elfcrusher wrote:

Stormcrow wrote:Endurance loss IS injury, among other things, but it's non-life-threatening injury.

Including an injury that heals immediately after a battle? What sort of injury is that?

"Among other things."

It's a matter of fact that Endurance loss can't be simply an injury, otherwise it wouldn't be based on Heart: instead it would be based on Body, or be a fixed value. On the other hand, it CAN be a small injury: if it "heals" completely after combat, in my game it simply means that, retroactively, it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Maybe the trauma or a minor bloody cut will remain, but that won't be enough to be represented as an Endurance loss: the character is at his fullest potential. But please: let's move forward from this debate, it's a bit OT.

Corvo wrote:3 leather armours, with 2-3-4 d6 protection; and 3 chain armour, with 2-3-4 d6 protection AND 1-2-3 damage reduction
It makes sense to you? How would you assign Travel TN# malus?

Corvo, i would not go this way. This would mean that leather armours and chainmails would have the same statistical chance to resist a Wound, which cannot be.

tomfish wrote:In any other test, something really good will happen when you roll 6s, but in the case of protection tests, there is only one result : "defender avoids wound". Here maybe could lie an opportunity, since heavy armour has more chance of rolling 6s (about 50% with 4D).

So here's a try at a simple house rule for protection rolls (to be playtested soon), statistically increasing the value of heavy armour :

- When rolling Superior Success on a protection test, the piercing blow is blocked a particularly thick piece of armour : the endurance loss inflicted by the blow is reduced by half, rounded up.

- When rolling an Extraordinary Success on a protection test, the piercing blow goes through the small space right between the armour and the body, and yields no damage.

Instead of linking this to Piercing Blows, which may have the paradoxical effect of reducing Endurance loss exactly when the blow would have its greater efficiency, maybe you can link this effect to Knockback. You can check out the rule I proposed earlier (scroll down until the end of the page) in this topic, that allows you to further reduce damage during a Knockback making a Protection test roll.


Another consideration about house ruling armor: remember that monsters have no drawbacks from wearing one, so any substantial change that also applies to them is not mitigated by anything. On the other hand, an effect which can be too good if applied to players only may alter combat difficulty a bit too much.

That's why I focused on applying armor benefit to Knockback, since it's a (relatively) rare instance that does not apply to monsters, and yet doesn't favour players too much.

Michebugio wrote:

Corvo wrote:3 leather armours, with 2-3-4 d6 protection; and 3 chain armour, with 2-3-4 d6 protection AND 1-2-3 damage reduction
It makes sense to you? How would you assign Travel TN# malus?

Corvo, i would not go this way. This would mean that leather armours and chainmails would have the same statistical chance to resist a Wound, which cannot be.

I understand your point. But maybe I can sway you, if we keep in mind that the different "levels" of armour are related to coverage: chain shirt only covers torso, hauberk covers torso and limbs, etc (going from memory, I hope you understand what I'm saying). So the biggest leather armours can cover a greater surface than the smallest mail armour.

(By the way, I read pretty impressive accounts of the protection offered by so called "soft" armours, like lynothorax or quilted cloth. But it's sure that mail armour is superior)

Michebugio wrote: Instead of linking this to Piercing Blows, which may have the paradoxical effect of reducing Endurance loss exactly when the blow would have its greater efficiency, maybe you can link this effect to Knockback. You can check out the rule I proposed earlier (scroll down until the end of the page) in this topic, that allows you to further reduce damage during a Knockback making a Protection test roll.


Another consideration about house ruling armor: remember that monsters have no drawbacks from wearing one, so any substantial change that also applies to them is not mitigated by anything. On the other hand, an effect which can be too good if applied to players only may alter combat difficulty a bit too much.

That's why I focused on applying armor benefit to Knockback, since it's a (relatively) rare instance that does not apply to monsters, and yet doesn't favour players too much.

Well, that one is a pretty compelling argument. Not my cup of tea, so to say, but an interesting perspective.

I just got a bit of inspiration that might spina new line of thought about armor.
As we know there's already a option to avoid damage which is Knockback. Now knockback's big drawback is that if you do it you lose your next round.

Now, my idea is that a character going knockback may make a Armor roll (TN 10+damage received) to avoid losing the next round. Obviously after the first failed roll it's impossible to do this again during the current round.

I haven't tested this rule yet, but I fear that it might bring the combat to turtling by making knockback a bit too good.

What do you think?

Woodclaw wrote:As we know there's already a option to avoid damage which is Knockback. Now knockback's big drawback is that if you do it you lose your next round.

Now, my idea is that a character going knockback may make a Armor roll (TN 10+damage received) to avoid losing the next round. Obviously after the first failed roll it's impossible to do this again during the current round.

Woodclaw, that’s interesting but maybe this would make armored characters go Knockback every time they get hit. The most common damage value a character receives is 4, so a TN of 14: it’s a 88% chance of success with a coat of mail (Protection 4d), meaning that 88% of the times the character gets a blow he halves damage without losing his turn, and at worst he just used a Knockback to soak a weak blow.

No, there must be some kind of drawback, otherwise it’s just adding rolls to the combat.


But still, I like this very much! And we can mash it up with my rule and even with the rule proposed by tomfish.

Maybe like this:

Knockback house rule (last rev.): in addition to the effects described in the Adventurer’s Book, page 160, the player may make a Protection roll (TN 10 plus Attribute level of the opponent; it’s better than Damage since it’s a fixed value, implying less book keeping – and it has more symmetry with the RAW).

- On a failure or a Basic success there’s no additional effect, but if a Sauron is rolled the attempt is a fumble: the character loses his footing exposing himself, and the next time he is attacked he loses any bonuses from his attribute, Virtues or equipment to Parry (rationale: letting the armor do the dirty job may be risky, and if something goes really wrong you accidentally expose yourself to a dangerous blow).

Notice that an unarmored character gets no benefit from this rule, even if he rolls a Gandalf.

- On a Great or Extraordinary success, the character doesn’t lose his next turn. He rolls with the blow letting the armor absorb some of the impact, without unbalancing himself doing so.

If LM allows it, on an Extraordinary success the character can choose: either he doesn’t lose his next turn, or he avoids damage completely (but still loses his next turn).

Notice the rule symmetry with Called Shot: it’s like a mirrored, “passive” version of it.
You *can* declare a Called Shot (mirror: you *can* declare a Protection roll), that has effect only with a Great or Extraordinary success (mirror: identical) and that can be a fumble if it’s a failure with a Sauron (mirror: identical), and that grants an additional effect besides the normal Damage (mirror: Protection roll grants an additional effect besides the normal Knockback effects).

Wow, we've developed quite a lot of house rules on armor here...

EDIT: minor changes to match the Called Shot symmetry.

Also, I was thinking that the same chance to improve a Knockback by not losing the next turn can be allowed also with an Athletics roll (player's choice: but Athletics and Protection checks should be mutually exclusive in this case): it makes sense that very agile characters can roll with the blow and quickly regain their balance without losing their turn.

I'll playtest this last version of Knockback in tonight's session (well, I'll ask my players to, at least!).

Elfcrusher wrote:

Evening wrote:

Elfcrusher wrote: Including an injury that heals immediately after a battle? What sort of injury is that?

It's called blunt force trauma and you recover a pittance of endurance after battle because you get your 'second wind' or you 'walk it off' or you 'man up' and ignore it.

Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. (So you are excluding minor cuts, abrasions, and lacerations from endurance loss?)

I'll ask again: if immediately after the battle you recover all the damage you took during the battle (entirely possible) then how was any of that damage "injury"? Unless under the heading of "injury" (or blunt force trauma, if you prefer) you are including anything that's mildly uncomfortable.

In my book, if I "walk it off" and there's no residual effects, then it wasn't an injury.

Elf, I'll try to give you a real-life example of something that happened to me.

On my honeymoon, my wife and I went to Florida and stayed at her condo. One night after eating too much BBQ at this awesome place in Orlando (can't remember the name), I had "to go" in the middle of the night, so I used the guest bathroom so I didn't "wake" my wife (if you know what I mean.)

Coming out of the bathroom in the dark, unfamiliar with the layout of my wife's condo, I fell down the stairs. I don't mean that I slid down the stair, I mean I went head over heels down the stairs. Here is what happened to me physically:

-sprained an ankle
-sprained a thumb
-had a bruise covering my entire ass
-various rug burns on my hands and knees (the stairs were carpeted).
-overall I was pretty dinged up

When I hit the bottom, I was scared. Upside down, and nearly in shock. At that point, I didn't have a good assessment of how bad I was, so I feared the worst, hence the "shock" factor.

After I had a few moments to test all my limbs and joints and investigate for bleeding, external or internal, I began to calm down.

Now I would submit to you, in TOR mechanics, I took an amount of endurance damage that left me weary. I did not suffer a piercing blow. After I had a few minutes to rest, I daresay much of my endurance damage healed. In real life, what that "rest" amounted to was:
-getting a wrap over my ankle and my thumb
-taking some ibuprofen
-but MOSTLY it was the confidence and well-being of noting that I had not done any permanent, really bad damage to myself. It was the alleviation of fear that suppressed going into shock and knowing that, yes, I'm gonna be ok.

After an hour, my wife and I were laughing about it, and in fact the very next day I managed to go to Busch Gardens and ride all the thrill rides and walk about the park despite a sprained ankle and very soar ass and neck.

The "rest" is as much a relief of the concerns of the mind, time to regain disciplined control of one's senses, knowing that "I'm ok, I can go on, no major damage done" as it is any kind of physical healing taking place. It's not so much that "the physical body has completed healing of destroyed soft tissue" as it is a mustering, mentally, of saying "yes, I just broke/gashed my finger/wrist/nose/shin, but I have a splint and aside from some pain, i can function just fine..."