How to fix Soak?

[cyl]

As an example, consider the case where someone is flurrying and using excellencies for each attack. That's a lot of essence burned that wouldn't be if doing what you propose.

tis why I suggested first that oversuxx be included in the raw damage of the total.
IMO there are 3 problems with flurries:


1- ping damage spamming: your solution means ess 4 x 5 attacks giving a minima of 6 post soak damage instead of 20... 'tis rather acceptable.


2- ping damage sub problem: hardness values too low allowing ping damage spamming


2- ridiculous damage values for a great number of weapons and the P tag.

 

[Flyck]

Hey, it's been awhile for me on here. But I'm looking at running another game soon, so I thought I'd browse a bit and this thread caught my eye. I definitely agree that Ping damage is a bit excessive right now, and armor amounts to a lot less than it should.


I really like the degrading ping damage idea, dropping the core-book artifact armor costs (especially when a 4 or 5 dot artifact armor should be suitably epic), as well as the Hardness stacking. I may end up using both of those when it comes time to run my game, but I might change it if combat suddenly becomes uninteresting problem where nothing ever seems to die.


However, I had a thought. We all know that when it comes to phys stats, Dex has the greatest impact on combat. Strength is the next big one for raw damage boosting, with Stamina doing very little until you need to take a fatigue check or run a marathon. But what if Stamina applied against Ping damage somehow? Say something along the lines of you get your stamina as a 'ping-mitigator'. So for example, a character with Stamina 3 gets hit by an Essence 4 character doing Ping damage, the attacker would get 1 point of ping dice. While this wouldn't directly solve the problems to wearing armor, it would make Stamina a bit more attractive as a stat, as well as giving a 'tank' some way to keep himself from being flurried and suffering 15L. Perhaps making it half your stamina, rounding up, if it would put too much emphasis on larger, slower weapons. However this still wouldn't fix the problems with soak values and those colossal low-rate weapons that dish out large quantities of lethal. But if used in conjunction with lower armor costs, and stacked hardness, do you think it could work without unbalancing the 'tank' idea?

 

[cyl]

Well, stam is usfeul in combat IF you use the rules for knockback and knockdown... but not that much.


Making it act as a ping mitigator only would not make sense, it would have to mitigate also regular damage, and there, you're on a slippery slope.


Wordman's idea with ping reducing reduces the danger of flurries by more than 50%, so to me it's most likely the best way to deal with ping spammers.


Get rid of the P tag for weapons with dmg values of 6+ (they reaaaally don't need it anyway...), and there you go, tanking becomes finally a better option.


You're still going to bleed a lot, but at least, you're not going to be cut in half by a single blow of a grand klave or be cut into little pieces by a short klave landmower.

 

[Tsuranis]

I have to question if people really have a problem with ping damage from flurries. As much as I hear complaints about it here, I also here just as many complaints about raw damage being too high from lower rate weapons such as goremauls or anything with the word "grand". Could the real problem just be that people find Exalted too lethal?


I'm considering just multiplying the number of health levels everybody gets - say 14 instead of 7 as a base and adding a x2 multiplier to any effects that increase health levels. The obious effect is that combat would last longer, but also things like ping damage won't be as big a deal as their values are not scaling to this new level of health totals. If it takes more attacks to drop someone, then soak is having more chance to shave off damage so is effectively having its roll increased. The only thing that this doesn't really seem to benefit is hardness.

 

[Plague of Hats]

Could the real problem just be that people find Exalted too lethal?

Yes and no. I like Exalted just fine the way it is, largely. I would like it better if it were different. Some people can't stand the way in which it is lethal. Others can, or even love it. Some just want it to not be very lethal at all.
It's a multiple choice question with more than one right answer.

 

[uteck]

Could the real problem just be that people find Exalted too lethal?

Yes and no. I like Exalted just fine the way it is' date=' largely. I would like it better if it were different. Some people can't stand the [i']way[/i] in which it is lethal. Others can, or even love it. Some just want it to not be very lethal at all.
It's a multiple choice question with more than one right answer.

There is no one area were the system breaks down, but it's a variety of things that all can be mixed to produce a very lethal system, or one that is not, or balanced just right. It all depends of the armor/weapons/charms used in the given situation, so it makes a comprehensive fix difficult since to many factors are involved.


I like the diminishing ping damage as that seems to solve ping spamming and still allows ping flurries, but that still leaves a number of other factors to address otherwise the overall problem still remains.


Each of these ideas solves one problem, but introduces another.


Part of problem with armor is with the way damage is determined. It either gets through the armor or it does not but the armor itself is never damaged. I like the idea of allowing the armor to take the damage for you, but I am hesitant to introduce another damage track, but it does add a bit of a buffer before the death spiral begins.


What if Hardness were like a perfect Soak usable so many times per scene or per day? That might justify the high cost of it and reduce the lethality of combat, but at other times it makes combat not a threat at all. I like the image of a gore-maul hitting you square in the breastplate and you get back up again unhurt, but you know you can't afford to that again since you only have 1 Hardness left, but swap in super-heavy plate and it gets ridicules, but at that point it is a 5 dot artifact so it might work?

 

[wordman]

In a similar vein, I've toyed with the idea that Hardness (probably with different numbers) should be changed to do something totally different, manipulating damage after it is rolled. Couldn't ever find something I liked though.


Also, a twist on the degrading ping idea: flurries granted by Extra Action charms should not suffer from degraded ping (just as they do not suffer from multiple action penalties). This does a couple of things (making Extra Action charms more attractive, for example, which I think they could use) but also offers an anti-tank strategy, assuming that tanking becomes more viable.

 

[cyl]

Well I toyed with the idea myself a few months ago, here's what came out:

Hardness now acts as a post soak reducing effect, Light armors giving a hardness of 1, medium 2, and heavy 3.


For this simulation, we will consider the following:


Attacker:


- has strength meeting the minimum demanded by the weapon


- hits by +2 suxx (a regular blow)


- has essence 3


Defender;


- use the mod to hardness described above


- has Stamina 3 (+1L /+ 3B)


Armor:


- Light = Breastplate (+6L/4B, Hardness 1) with no MM bonus


- Medium = Lamellar with no MM bonus (+8L/ 9B, Hardness 2)


- Heavy = Super Heavy Plate with no MM bonus (+15L/15B, Hardness 3)


And here we go:


Daiklave vs L: (2+8+2) 12L vs 7L = 5 -1H -> 4 dice of damage


Daiklave vs M: (2+8+2) 12L vs 9L = 3 -2H -> 1 dice of damage


Daiklave vs H: (2+8+2) 12L vs 15L = PING 3 -3H -> 0 dice of damage


Grand Daiklave vs L: (3+12+2) 17L vs 4L = 13 -1H -> 12 dice of damage


Grand Daiklave vs M: (3+12+2) 17L vs 5L = 12 -2H -> 10 dice of damage


Grand Daiklave vs H: (3+12+2) 17L vs 9L = 8 -3H -> 5 dice of damage


Reaper Daiklave vs L: (2+4+2) 8L vs 7L = PING 3 -1H -> 2 dice of damage


Reaper Daiklave vs M: (2+4+2) 8L vs 9L = PING 3 -2H -> 1 dice of damage


Reaper Daiklave vs H: (2+4+2) 8L vs 15L = PING 3 -3H -> 0 dice of damage


Reaver Daiklave vs L: (2+9+2) 13L vs 7L = 6L -1H -> 5 dice of damage


Reaver Daiklave vs M: (2+9+2) 13L vs 9L = 4 -2H -> 2 dice of damage


Reaver Daiklave vs H: (2+9+2) 13L vs 15L = PING 3 -3H -> 0 dice of damage


Short Daiklave = same results as Reaper Daiklave.


Wavecleaver Daiklave = same results as Daiklave -1 die of damage to L & M.


Direlance = same results as Daiklave


Goremaul vs L: (2+16+2) 20B vs 5B = 15 -1H -> 15 dice of damage


Goremaul vs M: (2+16+2) 20B vs 8B = 12 -2H -> 10 dice of damage


Goremaul vs H: (2+16+2) 20B vs 11B = 9 -3H -> 6 dice of damage


Grand Goremaul = same stats as Grand Daiklave +3 to all damage dice (STR 4 +2 dmg)


Grimcleaver = same stats as Grand Daiklave +2 to all damage dice


Grand Scythe / Cleaver vs L: (3+14+2) 19L vs 4L = 15 -1H -> 14 dice of damage


Grand Scythe / Cleaver vs M: (3+14+2) 19L vs 5L = 14 -2H -> 12 dice of damage


Grand Scythe / Cleaver vs H: (3+14+2) 19L vs 9L = 10 -3H -> 7 dice of damage

My conclusions obviously pointed towards the P tag problem :roll:


And there were some interesting side effects:


- Low ping spamming characters (Yeah I'm talking about you, the DB with a daiklave spd 3 !!!) are no longer a problem... so no exalt shall fall before a mortal unless said mortal bypass his soak with his raw damage.


- Martial artists still get a piece of the action, since their damage is no longer blocked at raw damage (some charms can kick in).


- the O tag comes in handy now


If you get rid of the piercing tag, things change a bit, especially for heavy damage weapons, but here's what makes it up for them: the Overwhelming tag.


Now it ensures that weapons with O values (namely 3 - 4 - 5) above the hardness values still got to roll a min damage of O - H if the attack connect.


If you apply the following:


- ping spamming reduction for natural flurries


- hardness as a post soak damage reducing agent (even for ping spamming with magical flurries)


- no more P tag


You got yourself a nice system giving epic fights that will last probably more than 25 ticks.


sidenote: ping spamming reduction might be redundant with the hardness mod.

 

[wordman]

Hardness now acts as a post soak reducing effect, Light armors giving a hardness of 1, medium 2, and heavy 3.
Daiklave vs L: (2+8+2) 12L vs 7L = 5 -1H -> 4 dice of damage


Daiklave vs M: (2+8+2) 12L vs 9L = 3 -2H -> 1 dice of damage


Daiklave vs H: (2+8+2) 12L vs 15L = PING 3 -3H -> 0 dice of damage

If I'm reading this right, then what you've done is just turned Hardness into soak. Ah, except it is post-ping soak. I see.


Suppose you took the same Hardness numbers and, instead, had them reduce successes on the damage roll (i.e. they reduce the wound you take)? In the last third example above, the difference would be that three dice would be rolled, but the hardness would cancel three successes from that roll. No difference in that case, but it would matter with higher pings.

 

[cyl]

I made hardness to work as a post soak soak (wow... that sounds dumb).


So, it takes out dice of post soak damage to be rolled, which in most cases is slightly more efficient than just raising normal soak... mainly because of the O tag and ping damage.


So daiklave dude would have to accumulate a raw damage of 19L to actually roll 1 dice of damage on super heavy plate guy... while goremaul pal just needs to hit with 2 oversuxx in order to roll 6 dice of damage.


That's the great injustice of the P tag...


I could also have considered a minimum die of damage for every attack connecting... but it didn't feel right.


I like armors when they can suppress damage totally, just like we like DVs when they cancel out successes on attacks.

 

[Flyck]

Hmm... Your system is indeed very interesting, Cyl. I like the idea that it makes the O tag more applicable (instead of being worthless on artifacts after Essence 3 or 4). But instead of the wholesale removal of the P tag, what if it just dropped the Hardness by 1? Just a thought I had... It doesn't do anything against mundane armor, though.


I may end up just adopting Wordman's ping-detraction system for non-magic flurries, while dropping armor artifact ratings by 1 dot (to a minimum of 1). While that doesn't fix the P tag problem on the big weapons, it does give plenty of room for what I'd consider a true artifact-5 suit of armor.

 

[Tsuranis]

I don't think the problem is with the P tag itself, the problem is with how liberally its splashed onto weapons. Ideally I'd leave it in the province of a) charms and b) specially enchanted weapons to deal with armour. I don't really think its appropriate on base weapons.

 

[cyl]

I don't think the problem is with the P tag itself, the problem is with how liberally its splashed onto weapons. Ideally I'd leave it in the province of a) charms and b) specially enchanted weapons to deal with armour. I don't really think its appropriate on base weapons.

I humbly disagree.


Something that can cut soak in half while maintaining a regular or high damage is completely broken.


I mean I would have understood artifact with the P tag IF the P tag only applied to the regular armors... but it also applies to magical armor.


Whatever the cost for artifacts are, I can't accept that a basic magic weapon such as a goremaul can inflict as much as 9 dice of damage (an average loss of 3.6 BHLs) PER BLOW on the heaviest armor of the game.


Even with my hardness mod, there's still an average loss of 2.4 BHLs... tis just unacceptable.


My problem is, I don't know how to fix the P tag problem without ending up lowering the damage rating of the weapons who have it / suppressing it.


A closer analysis of what weapons carry the P tag and why could give me a better insight on the problem.


From what I've seen at least 50% of the weapons with the P tag also have the O tag... which is stupid.

 

[Virjigorm]

In 1st ed Exalted, ping damage was always an automatic 1 die if the attack was soaked completely. I continue to use this rule rather than Essence ping damage because I like it better. It works fine this way and makes extra action charms useful since you can get a die per attack even if you only just hit.


When the Essence damage minimum was first introduced it was an optional rule called "power combat" and I hated it. I am less inclined to hate it since switching to 2nd ed, but I suggest the following change.


Min. Damage=(attacker's Essence-target's Essence) with a minimum of 1 die


If the sheer metaphysical weight of your soul can make your sword hit harder, it only stands to reason that it can protect you from equivalent effects.

 

[Kyeudo]

I do like that idea on ping damage. Mortals explode when pinged, Exalts feel a bee sting.


One thing that occurs to me is that one of the problems, that of Magical Flurries being too damaging, could be solved by removing the "This Charm is a magical flurriy that ignores rate" line from Extra Action charms. Then you can no longer flurry 5 attacks with a Grand Goremaul.

 

[Tsuranis]

Min. Damage=(attacker's Essence-target's Essence) with a minimum of 1 die

I'm not normally one to laden by games with houserules, so I thought I was going to ignore most of the changes presented here if just for the sake of simplicity. This though... this I like. I might even remove the "minimum 1 die" clause - it really takes me back to the days when I actually liked bleach and weaklings (*cough* the main characters *cough*) could pound on their betters all day long and not leave a scratch.


Edit: How would the O tag interact with this? My gut instinct is that it should also be reduced by the target's essence... also I just realised that two people of equal essence have no ping if I change the clause I said about above.


I think I'm going to run:


Ping = attacker's Essence - target's [essence -1]


The O tag would straight-out replace "attacker's" essence, but I'll still apply the reduction based on the target's essence.

 

[Dracogryff]

I think I'm going to run:
Ping = attacker's Essence - target's [essence -1]


The O tag would straight-out replace "attacker's" essence, but I'll still apply the reduction based on the target's essence.

I would hope that this would only be in the case that whatever the Overwhelming amount on the weapon was was actually HIGHER than the attacker's essence...considering a lot of weapons have a mighty 2 Overwhelming...I wouldn't want to see them made absolutely useless.


Either that, or I assume you're one of the sorts that has a houserule about how Overwhelming works.


And as a side-note...this would make a Twilight's caste power positively sick and wrong once again. u.u Even with the fix as I recall to it.

 

[Tsuranis]

I would hope that this would only be in the case that whatever the Overwhelming amount on the weapon was was actually HIGHER than the attacker's essence

Sorry yes - the above is correct.

 

[cyl]

Well... I just need to make one slight note of disapproval.


If you use your essence for reducing ping damage... what's the use of armor ?


What makes a super heavy armor more interesting than a breastplate if you use Essence as a ping mitigator.

 

[Virjigorm]

Well... I just need to make one slight note of disapproval.
If you use your essence for reducing ping damage... what's the use of armor ?


What makes a super heavy armor more interesting than a breastplate if you use Essence as a ping mitigator.

Mostly, armor is soak, and if you don't have enough soak, all the talk of minimum damage doesn't mean a thing. I'm not suggesting that everyone gets the Twilight anima power, just that when Essence is used to pump minimum (post soak) damage, using it to mitigate that damage in turn seems reasonable.


Also...


If you use the "min. damage=(attacker's Essence-target's Essence), minimum 1die", then there is no reduction to the ping delivered by unenlightened mortals anyway.


I would state, to clarify, that Overwhelming damage should be considered separate from this rule and the higher final total be used when figuring minimum damage. Essence score should not be applied against Overwhelming damage. So, if hardness is overcome, but soak reduces the raw damage to zero, you figure Essence based minimum damage based on the above math. Then compare that to the weapon's Overwhelming damage(if any), and use the higher of the two. This actually makes Overwhelming weapons worth using after Essence 3.

 

[wordman]

One thing to notice in all this stuff is that all of the following are almost identical, mechanically:

• Adding an automatic success to the attack.
  
• Adding 1 to raw damage.
  
• Ignoring one point of soak.

In most cases, they all result in one more die of damage being rolled. The only difference between them is which edge cases they interact with. The first one, for example, interacts with DV and the others don't, so will matter in cases where only that extra success allows the attack to hit. The last two differ only in that one might help an attack get past hardness and the other doesn't. The point here is that you can often change damage mechanics in what look like radical ways that don't actually change much. This is good and bad.


Changing gears...

My problem is, I don't know how to fix the P tag problem without ending up lowering the damage rating of the weapons who have it / suppressing it.

Piercing is a form of soak reduction, which is fine. While it follows one rule of good design (it is easy to remember), it bends a few others. In the first place, it has a sensitivity to when it is applied. For example, if a target has a charm that increases soak, you get different results depending on if piercing cuts soak in half before or after that charm takes effect. Such timing is generally pretty obvious, but not always.


Secondly, the rule is such that piercing's effectiveness increases as the strength of the target increases, and depends largely on the target, not the attacker. The amount by which soak is removed by piercing not only depends on the armor (and not the weapon), but increases as the armor gets stronger. The thicker the armor, the more it gets pierced. Exalted isn't really known for realism, but that seems a bid odd. It is possible to build mechanics that scale upward as the target does, but they are rare, hard to build and often fail to work properly.


Lastly, and this is really the source of all of piercing's problems, any rule that multiplies a value by either 2 or more or 0.5 or less almost always doesn't work the way you expect it do, and is easily broken by some other part of the game. It's no accident, for example, that all of the "doubling" effects in early editions of Magic: the Gathering are no longer there; they broke the game.


So, a "fix" to piercing would be a rule that a) applies a linear effect and b) builds on the traits of the attacker, not the target. I suggest the following:


Weapons with the piercing tag reduce the target's soak by the attackers Strength.


or


Weapons with the piercing tag reduce the target's soak by the attackers Essence.


or


Weapons with the piercing tag reduce the target's soak by their damage rating.


or


Weapons with the piercing tag reduce the target's soak by their damage rating; however, this rating is not added to the raw damage of the attack.

 

[cyl]

I'd be in favor of the following:


"Weapons with the piercing tag reduce the target's armored soak by the attackers Strength (for blunt / hacking weapons) and Dexterity (for thrusting weapons), or whichever is the higher for clinches."


On one hand mass & velocity matter for blunt / hacking weapons (goremaul / grand klave), and on the other hand some weapons are specifically designed to pierce armor at a precise point of penetration.


One problem I identified reading throughout the weapons charts (mundane or artifacts) is that the "thrusting weapons" are really sub represented regarding the P tag.


Only Javelins, Needles, and Target arrows seem to have been considered "thrusting weapons", I'd have at least added the spear type weapons (though Lance already has a charge system).


Works pretty good with the hardness mod I suggested above.


I'd have to run some tests again.

 

[wordman]

"Weapons with the piercing tag reduce the target's armored soak by the attackers Strength (for blunt / hacking weapons) and Dexterity (for thrusting weapons), or whichever is the higher for clinches."

Seems like needless complexity added for reasons of being "realistic" (i.e. simulationist for the sake of being simulationist), which is wasted effort in Exalted. But whatever.

 

[cyl]

Well, essence isn't a very good trait to add to damage, and strength either... so either it was an arbitrarily fixed value, or something relying on some trait the character would have.


I may not be inspired today ops:

 

[Kyeudo]

Actually, I'd just go with a flat fixed value for the Piercing tag, like say 4. Look at it from a "realistic" point of view:


Let's say that I've got a target arrow. No matter how strong or fast or magically powerful I am, that arrow is limited in how well it punches through solid steel. It does not get better at punching through solid steel just because I go to the gym. Now, my ability to put that arrow through solid steel improves as I get stronger, but that is already represented by my Strength score, as I can fire that arrow from a stronger bow and put more force behind the arrow.