uteck
Member
I was just formulating that in my mind while reading Wordman's reply and then saw that he was already at the conclusion I was just arriving at, as usual.
I just added this to my growing list of houserules.
How to fix Soak?
- Thread starter Kyeudo
- Start date
I just added this to my growing list of houserules.
Flyck
Senior Member
Kyeudo does have a damn good point about Piercing. And I've personally felt that what makes it fundamentally a 'broken' system is that it gets exponentially more potent with the higher the soak of the target. Putting a set finite soak reduction (of say 4) would not only make sense, but work well. At the same time, I still agree with Cyl that half the problem is with the massive weapons that really shouldn't have the P tag (as they easily blow through soak values).
But as much as the attacker's Strength wouldn't make sense for the piercing value from a logical perspective, using that stat to affect the P value does put a (little) bit more emphasis on Strength for combat purposes (instead of the Dexterity which is widely viewed as the single most important attribute for combat).
Meh...
The problem I seem to be running into, is I don't want to dump a colossal f-tonne of houserules into the game I'll be running. I think so far, the Hardness stacking and Piercing-amount equal to Strength will be the main houserules I will end up going with.
But as much as the attacker's Strength wouldn't make sense for the piercing value from a logical perspective, using that stat to affect the P value does put a (little) bit more emphasis on Strength for combat purposes (instead of the Dexterity which is widely viewed as the single most important attribute for combat).
Meh...
The problem I seem to be running into, is I don't want to dump a colossal f-tonne of houserules into the game I'll be running. I think so far, the Hardness stacking and Piercing-amount equal to Strength will be the main houserules I will end up going with.
cyl
Creepy smile
And the ping damage problem ? :mrgreen:
wordman
Two Thousand Club
Notice one thing about adding flat values to peircing... consider the following two notions:
Piercing reduces the target's soak by four.
... vs. ...
Piercing adds +4L to the weapon's damage.
Mechanically, these two effects turn out to be almost identical in terms of how much they change damage output. There are only two differences between them: a) the second one has a better chance of getting through hardness and b) the second one deals more damage when the target is not armored.
This is why I kind of liked the last of the suggestions I made at the top of this page: change piercing weapons such that they actually don't deal damage at all. Instead, their damage rating indicates how much they reduce soak (and is used to see if they get around Hardness). This is a harder rule to explain, but does some fun stuff.
With such a rule in place, consider a weapon with damage rating of something insane, like 100Lp. Such a weapon is virtually guaranteed to get past hardness and reduce soak to zero. But it will only deal damage equal to the Strength of the attacker. Note that it would do exactly the same thing to an unarmored opponent; it is much like making a barehanded attack that ignores armor (which, it seems to me, is was piercing is supposed to do).
Piercing reduces the target's soak by four.
... vs. ...
Piercing adds +4L to the weapon's damage.
Mechanically, these two effects turn out to be almost identical in terms of how much they change damage output. There are only two differences between them: a) the second one has a better chance of getting through hardness and b) the second one deals more damage when the target is not armored.
This is why I kind of liked the last of the suggestions I made at the top of this page: change piercing weapons such that they actually don't deal damage at all. Instead, their damage rating indicates how much they reduce soak (and is used to see if they get around Hardness). This is a harder rule to explain, but does some fun stuff.
With such a rule in place, consider a weapon with damage rating of something insane, like 100Lp. Such a weapon is virtually guaranteed to get past hardness and reduce soak to zero. But it will only deal damage equal to the Strength of the attacker. Note that it would do exactly the same thing to an unarmored opponent; it is much like making a barehanded attack that ignores armor (which, it seems to me, is was piercing is supposed to do).
Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
I personaly think that piercing should just apply to hardness and all soak, not just soak from armor. Makes the math quick and easy.
HowlingCoyote
Junior Member
Agreed. People are already confused at times with what can and can not stack. I'm not a fan of bumping the damage level on something that is piercing just because it needs to get past armor - it should just get a set rating as to how much armor it ignores, with it's damage rating being entirely separate. The 'cut armor in half, and then apply a huge damage rating' concept is seriously flawed. That said, I just chalk a lot of it up to 'magic', ie: a wizard did it.Kyeudo said:
I'd like to see Hardness applied to ping though. If a weapon weren't piercing, and you had a decent hardness, ping wouldn't do anything, eliminating the ping spam option except on select weapons, where they would make sense (at least to me).
cyl
Creepy smile
'T is why I suggested that Hardness could be used as a post soak damage protection instead of a raw damage protection.
If you combine the two mods (hardness + piercing = -str of the attacker to the defender's soak), I think things will get a lot less deadly.
You'd still have huge damage rating (which means you don't have to revise all the damage charts), but they would count less against medium+ armors.
Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
But, in an odd way, I like ping. Ping means that if I'm badass enough, I can kill a Superheavy-Plate wearing Lunar soak monkey using table knives, wind-fire wheels, or even my bare firsts. Ping is what makes it so that no matter what, you have a sliver of a chance at besting your opponent, no matter how much armor he's wrapped himself in.
If we apply Hardness as an after-soak effect, then actually taking ping damage becomes rare, since any amount of Hardness will be at least one or two points and ping damage (using the new formula) will usually be 3 or below. Applied before soak, I can get a wind-fire wheel's pathetic +1L damage through any amount of Hardness as long as I can pump my Strength or my Accuracy pool high enough.
I think the main problem with Hardness is that Hardness values are never high enough to be useful against even a hit from an Extra.
Here's what I'm thinking so far on the whole damage problem:
If we apply Hardness as an after-soak effect, then actually taking ping damage becomes rare, since any amount of Hardness will be at least one or two points and ping damage (using the new formula) will usually be 3 or below. Applied before soak, I can get a wind-fire wheel's pathetic +1L damage through any amount of Hardness as long as I can pump my Strength or my Accuracy pool high enough.
I think the main problem with Hardness is that Hardness values are never high enough to be useful against even a hit from an Extra.
Here's what I'm thinking so far on the whole damage problem:
- Piercing is a flat -4 to Hardness and Soak
- Magical Flurries do not ignore rate.
- Increase the Hardness on all existing armors by 3-5 points at the least.
- Increase the Soak on core's Artifact Armor by alot.
- Ping damage is the greater of your weapon's Overwhelming value or (your Essence - opponent's Essence).
Hm. Well, let's change that around a bit! The first thing I'd think of is adding a little to Hardness- specifically bashing hardness. Alll you really have to do is match it to a Heroic Mortal's- or perhaps an extra's?- average damage with a staff.
It would mean increasing Hardness values across the board- at least, for Bashing- but Armor isn't woorth the dots in Artifact as it stands anyway.
It would mean increasing Hardness values across the board- at least, for Bashing- but Armor isn't woorth the dots in Artifact as it stands anyway.
cyl
Creepy smile
You like Ping damage ?
I thought we had identified it as one of the main problems...
Gather enough raw damage to pierce the ridiculous hardness value of your target, use flurries /extra action charms, and there you go... you can kill someone in medium MM armor with a needle in a serie of blows.
Now I am not saying that it should be impossible, I'm saying it should be difficult.
Now:
# Magical Flurries do not ignore rate; no, simply no. unless you supress the wp cost.
# Increase the Hardness on all existing armors by 3-5 points at the least: well that sounds like a lot of work... but could do.
# Increase the Soak on core's Artifact Armor by alot : seems like even more work.
# Ping damage is the greater of your weapon's Overwhelming value or (your Essence - opponent's Essence): if you apply this, then your armor does not matter, only your essence score... AND it makes mundane armor almost as efficient as MM armor (because even if you do not have Hardness, you still have Ping DMG reducing effect).
I thought we had identified it as one of the main problems...
Gather enough raw damage to pierce the ridiculous hardness value of your target, use flurries /extra action charms, and there you go... you can kill someone in medium MM armor with a needle in a serie of blows.
Now I am not saying that it should be impossible, I'm saying it should be difficult.
Now:
# Magical Flurries do not ignore rate; no, simply no. unless you supress the wp cost.
# Increase the Hardness on all existing armors by 3-5 points at the least: well that sounds like a lot of work... but could do.
# Increase the Soak on core's Artifact Armor by alot : seems like even more work.
# Ping damage is the greater of your weapon's Overwhelming value or (your Essence - opponent's Essence): if you apply this, then your armor does not matter, only your essence score... AND it makes mundane armor almost as efficient as MM armor (because even if you do not have Hardness, you still have Ping DMG reducing effect).
Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
I should say that I like the IDEA of ping damage. It means there is no invulnerability short of Charms or other magic.cyl said:
With your system, anything soaked down to ping in a normal fight (i.e. not a freshly Exalted Solar vs the Mask of Winters) would be comparing only 1-3 dice of ping damage to Hardness. Barely a scratch ever on a hit, whether we're using Hardness as Post-Soak Soak or as it currently stands.
Why? This would just mean "Don't use magical flurries while wielding a Grand Goremaul". As things stand, Rate isn't a major factor. Either you are only making one or two normal attacks (more would be suicidal on your DV) or are making a magical flurry of whatever the maximum allowed by the Charm is.
I was only talking about Core's artifact armor. There's only about seven types there.
Mundane armor is already almost as efficient as MM armor. MM armor (stat-wise) is perfect mundane armor with +1L/+1B Soak and the appropriate MM bonus. Do the math yourself if you don't believe me. There's even a few suits of perfect mundane armor that can exceed the bonuses of artifact armor, especially for particular niche builds (such as having fatigue canceling Charms or being a Parry DV only character).
cyl
Creepy smile
Uh... I wouldn't call loosing a single HL a scratch, considering you only have 7 of them without charms.
Plus Ping can go as high as 5 with the O tag.
You can kill someone wearing normal armor, that's the point of normal armor, it does not protect very efficiently.
While you're wearing a MM armor, you can at least expect to be protected from those.
I mean okay, you have found the least fair way to deal with ping spamming: nerfing extra actions charms. But even so, you do not deal with the Ping Spamming problem. Weapons with a Rate of 3 are still able to make you loose between 1.2 (ping 1) and 6 (ping 5) HLs per flurry.
And that would be because Hardness is a non existant factor in the current system.
Now IMO the most simple and efficient way to deal with this double problem (hardness non applicable and ping spamming) is to have hardness reduce post soak damage between 1 & 3 dice. Takes care of both problems with a simple fix, and there are still ways around a super heavy armor (artifact weapons such as a simple goremaul).
Flyck
Senior Member
Since hardness typically bottoms out at 10 (for superheavy, unless I'm mistaken), what if we say that the 'Hardness Soak' is the 1/3rd the Hardness value of the armor, rounding down (specifically against the standard Exalted's method of "Round up for Exalts"). Standard Hardness rules apply, and can stack. And then for ping-mitigation you have 1/3rd the Hardness of your armor to reduce incoming ping-damage. If your attack ISN'T doing ping damage because you blew through the soak value (i.e. 25L dice against 17L soak), then the 1/3rd hardness soak vs ping doesn't apply.cyl said:
This way we're only adding our own house-rule tag to the armor (which is figured by a quick formula). And we can still apply things like Hardness stacking. And then fix piercing by making it lower armor soak and hardness by 4. Thoughts?
cyl
Creepy smile
In the corebook, hardness values are listed from 2 (nothing does 2L/B raw damag, except a 3yo throwing a fruit) to 10 / 11 (orichalcum super heavy plate).
While 10 can be an acceptable value, with simple conditions (min str to wield the weapon + dmg + 1 suxx to by pass DV) I counted at least 6 mundane weapons that automatically bypass a hardness of 10, and 8 which are close to it (meaning with +1/2 suxx they bypass it).
While 10 can be an acceptable value, with simple conditions (min str to wield the weapon + dmg + 1 suxx to by pass DV) I counted at least 6 mundane weapons that automatically bypass a hardness of 10, and 8 which are close to it (meaning with +1/2 suxx they bypass it).
Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
I think you are missing my point. The answer to super heavy armor should not ONLY be artifact weapons. There should always be a chance to get through.cyl said:
Let's take a hypothetical fight fight between a Solar with a knife and a Lunar in Moonsilver Superheavy Plate. The Lunar puts on his scene long soak boosters and now has a soak so high the Solar can only do ping damage. Their Essence scores are matched, so the Solar only gets 1 die of ping damage on a hit.
If we use your system, that 1 die now hits the 3 Hardness from the Lunar's superheavy plate. 1 - 3 = less than nothing, so the Lunar takes no damage on a hit, every time. The Solar has no chance to win this fight.
Now, with the normal way Hardness works, the Solar can roll high enough to bypass Hardness, then gets soaked to ping. The Lunar only takes 1 die of damage and likely gets no successes on it, but over time the Solar can gradually wear the Lunar down.
cyl
Creepy smile
Let me do this again:
Do not use this ping damage reduction with essence (because it does not make any sense as noted above), but use it via MM armor and fixed valors !
So in this case if Ping is lesser than 4, then 0 dice of damage are rolled BUT the solar can still use post soak damage boosters to get through.
It will give you a serie of effects:
1- MM armore become more than what they are now
2- fights will last a bit longer
3- mundane armor now sucks as much as a knife compared to a short klave.
4- post soak damage enhancers are much more useful than before (I mean who needs Fire and Stone Strike when all you need is either a great klave or essence 3 + flurry ?!)
Do not use this ping damage reduction with essence (because it does not make any sense as noted above), but use it via MM armor and fixed valors !
So in this case if Ping is lesser than 4, then 0 dice of damage are rolled BUT the solar can still use post soak damage boosters to get through.
It will give you a serie of effects:
1- MM armore become more than what they are now
2- fights will last a bit longer
3- mundane armor now sucks as much as a knife compared to a short klave.
4- post soak damage enhancers are much more useful than before (I mean who needs Fire and Stone Strike when all you need is either a great klave or essence 3 + flurry ?!)
Flyck
Senior Member
Ok Cyl... could please run everything by us again? The whole system?
cyl
Creepy smile
Well up to now we have gathered a serie of propositions to fix soak and damage problems.
Mine focuses on 2 key points:
- erasing the actual hardness values to replace them by -1 (for light armors) -2 (medium) and -3 (heavy and super heavy). These values being directly substracted to the Post Soak damage before it is rolled (i.e. Ping is systematically reduced)
Meaning if you want to roll any die of damage against a guy wearing a heavy armor, you need to gather more than 3 post soak damage.
- erasing / replacing the P tag, and a satisfying proposition has been ignoring (character's strength) points of armor instead of halving soak values (but that did not come from me).
I think with both you take care of most problems, and you generate the additional benefits above mentioned.
Mine focuses on 2 key points:
- erasing the actual hardness values to replace them by -1 (for light armors) -2 (medium) and -3 (heavy and super heavy). These values being directly substracted to the Post Soak damage before it is rolled (i.e. Ping is systematically reduced)
Meaning if you want to roll any die of damage against a guy wearing a heavy armor, you need to gather more than 3 post soak damage.
- erasing / replacing the P tag, and a satisfying proposition has been ignoring (character's strength) points of armor instead of halving soak values (but that did not come from me).
I think with both you take care of most problems, and you generate the additional benefits above mentioned.
Flyck
Senior Member
Alright. Much obliged, Cyl! I think I'll be using those houserules.
Now here's a quick question. What about charms/Sorcery with a Hardness value on them? Would you recommend just ignoring the Hardness, or would you recommend using it purely as it is in the charm (i.e. if pre-soak damage doesn't ignore Hardness, then it's mitigated)?
Now here's a quick question. What about charms/Sorcery with a Hardness value on them? Would you recommend just ignoring the Hardness, or would you recommend using it purely as it is in the charm (i.e. if pre-soak damage doesn't ignore Hardness, then it's mitigated)?
cyl
Creepy smile
Well, I guess you'd need to mod the charm / spell so it reflects the apropriate post soak hardness value.
Durability of Oak Meditation would therefore give a hardness of -2.
Durability of Oak Meditation would therefore give a hardness of -2.
Flyck
Senior Member
That makes sense.
Thank you, Cyl!
Thank you, Cyl!
cyl
Creepy smile
Glad I could help, most of the time I'm just this jerk cursing specific points of the rules :mrgreen:
Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
Sorry I haven't replied here in a bit. What I was thinking to possibly fix Soak and Hardness was an improvement to the existing artifact armor stats. I was thinking something along the lines of:
Chain Shirt
Soak +5L/+3B, Hardness 5, Mobility -0, Fatigue 0
Breastplate
Soak +6L/+4B, Hardness 5, Mobility -0, Fatigue 0
Lamellar
Soak +10L/+12B, Hardness 8, Mobility -1, Fatigue 0, One Hearthstone Settings
Reinforced Buff Jacket
Soak +9L/+12B, Hardness 8, Mobility -1, Fatigue 0, One Hearthstone Settings
Reinforced Breastplate
Soak +13L/+12B, Hardness 10, Mobility -1, Fatigue 1, Two Hearthstone Settings
Articulated Plate
Soak +16L/+18B, Hardness 10, Mobility -2, Fatigue 1, Two Hearthstone Settings
Superheavy Plate
Soak +20L/+20B, Hardness 13, Mobility -2, Fatigue 2, Three Hearthstone Settings
Combined with the "Ping equals your Essence - opponent's Essence, min 1" rule and the "Piercing reduces Soak and Hardness by 4" rule, I think I'd see fewer dice rolled after soak but still have "Death by a Thousand Cuts" a viable combat option. What do you think?
Chain Shirt
Soak +5L/+3B, Hardness 5, Mobility -0, Fatigue 0
Breastplate
Soak +6L/+4B, Hardness 5, Mobility -0, Fatigue 0
Lamellar
Soak +10L/+12B, Hardness 8, Mobility -1, Fatigue 0, One Hearthstone Settings
Reinforced Buff Jacket
Soak +9L/+12B, Hardness 8, Mobility -1, Fatigue 0, One Hearthstone Settings
Reinforced Breastplate
Soak +13L/+12B, Hardness 10, Mobility -1, Fatigue 1, Two Hearthstone Settings
Articulated Plate
Soak +16L/+18B, Hardness 10, Mobility -2, Fatigue 1, Two Hearthstone Settings
Superheavy Plate
Soak +20L/+20B, Hardness 13, Mobility -2, Fatigue 2, Three Hearthstone Settings
Combined with the "Ping equals your Essence - opponent's Essence, min 1" rule and the "Piercing reduces Soak and Hardness by 4" rule, I think I'd see fewer dice rolled after soak but still have "Death by a Thousand Cuts" a viable combat option. What do you think?
cyl
Creepy smile
Well the hardness values are still useless in this regard.
I mean if you apply the decreasing ping + the soak boost + the Piercing nerf... hardness matters very little, and as we saw before, the values are useless.
A hardness of 5 doesn't stop anything, a hardness of 8-10 will stop a few thing, and a hardness of 13 will stop most normal weapons.
But I guess the combination of the 4 could work fine.
My advice, run a damage interaction test for every mundane and artifcat weapon to see how it interacts with those soak values.
I mean if you apply the decreasing ping + the soak boost + the Piercing nerf... hardness matters very little, and as we saw before, the values are useless.
A hardness of 5 doesn't stop anything, a hardness of 8-10 will stop a few thing, and a hardness of 13 will stop most normal weapons.
But I guess the combination of the 4 could work fine.
My advice, run a damage interaction test for every mundane and artifcat weapon to see how it interacts with those soak values.