Weapons and Damage Types

[Koumei]

I guess this is more or less for New Edition.

How many damage types are really needed? Obviously, we want a finite amount at the start, that does not grow. I think there are too many at the moment.

Frank mentioned making every elemental type "fire" damage - fire burns you, lightning burns you, acid at least feels like it's burning you and has similar effects, sonic is a blue hedgehog so doesn't count, and cold is either a chunk of ice that collides with you, or frostbite which feels like it burns you. Hypothermia tends to be a different thing altogether. One of those "Save or Suck" scenarios.

Dark Heresy just has Rending, Blunt, Explosive and Energy, and that looks about right.

But we really could just lump all the energy types together as "Energy" (or call it "Fire" damage if we really want to).

How about the physical types? If cold and fire are doing the same thing, do we need to spell out the difference between piercing and slashing? They both put holes in people, so that they bleed to death (or deal sharp damage to the internal organs). Really, we could fold all physical damage into the one - physical, whether it's piercing, slashing, ripping, bashing, crushing, chewing or whatever.

What do people think we need?

On a mostly unrelated note, I've been thinking about power weapons (40K). If we were to use current technology, or "It's almost in our grasp" technology, how would they best be made? (Disclaimer: I'm not going to actually make a weapon.) Really sharp electrified blades?

[Cielingcat]

I think that in addition to physical damage (rending and impact, I suppose?) we should have one type per color, for a total of 7 or so damage types ever. Every type of magic/energy is one of those.

[CatharzGodfoot]

What would a color-based damage type represent? Would there ever be abilities that didn't do 'color' damage, or abilities of one color that did damage of another?

So long as characters are based in a single color, I don't see color damage as a good fit. The complete lack of choice in the matter makes it uninteresting, and it weakens monochromatic parties.

I like sharp, blunt, hot, and draining for starters, but I think there's a good case for using just prithvi (earth), agni (fire), vayu (air), jaal (water), and aksha (void).

[Edit] It's fine if each color is tied to an element which it's attacks are primarily of (say aksha::black, vayu::White, jaal::Red, agni::Blue, and prithvi::Green), but exclusivity is bad.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I liked SAME's setup, where all damage had one of two 'types' (Physical and Magical) and one of seven 'flavors' (Fire, Air, Void, etc). I think that would translate fairly well.

On the Power Sword subject, I think you've got it right. Advanced materials, ridiculously sharp, with a taser mechanism in the hilt set to activate on impact, or with a thumb button (probably conducted through strips up the blade that alternate positive and negative). In theory there are some other things that could be tried, but I think they'd all require at least a backpack power source, and none of them would actually mimic the Power Sword's 'destructive energy field.'

[Talisman]

Rending/blunt (or impact or whatever) sounds good for weapons, nonmagical attacks, and the like...

For "energies," let's see...you need enough to describe the major magicks that spellcasters are going to be throwing around, but not so many that it becomes insane. Hmm...

My suggestions:
Fire (fire, lightning)
Cold
Eldritch (raw magical energy...this would be corollate to a warlock's blasts, "force," and the "divine" half of a flame strike spell)
Spirit (this is raw life and death...positive energy, negative energy, the holy burning touch of angels and the life-sucking touch of undead. It bypasses the flesh and attacks the spirit directly)

I think these 6 types will cover 95% of all situations. Falling damage is clearly blunt/impact. An explosion could be half fire, half impact. Most spells and raw-magic attacks would be either fire or eldritch; certain powerful spells and attacks would be spirit.

Acid doesn't really qualify as an energy type - if you get spit on by a black dragon, you just take "damage." Sonic, as has been noted, is no more an energy type than Mila Jovovitch is an element.

[Draco_Argentum]

I'd suggest that sonic do either rending or blunt depending on how the particular attack is being described. Definately doesn't need its own damage type. Same for force effects.

[Cielingcat]

What would a color-based damage type represent? Would there ever be abilities that didn't do 'color' damage, or abilities of one color that did damage of another?

Color based damage represents damage dealt to you by the color. All I know is that Black is corruption and your flesh falling off, Red is heat, White is "spirit" damage. What Blue and Green could be I'm not sure, but I do know that since the setting is based around colors that damage types would fit perfectly.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I need better names, but I like:

Sharp (axes, swords, arrows)
Blunt (bullets, clubs, hammers)
Elemental (fire, lightning, acid, cold)
Eldritch (to borrow, magic)

Elemental should be broken into the 4 subtypes for secondary effects. For instance, the Acid Spray spell would do 20 points of Elemental damage with a secondary effect of melting all of your armor, while the Polar Ray spell would do 10 points of Elemental damage and causes you to have to make a save or be Slowed. No explicit divisions of damage, but the fact that Fire and Acid are different is represented in secondary effects.

The more I think about it, the less I like Life/Death as a damage type. I don't like taking "life damage" any more than I like taking "light damage". Spirit Bomb techniques should do decent Eldritch damage in addition to something crazy awesome.

[Jacob_Orlove]

For reference, the Strange Synergy board game has four damage types: Sharp, Hard, Energy, and Mental (the Sci-Fi equivalent of Magic).

[SunTzuWarmaster]

heh, nice. I was not aware of that, my RPG experience is fairly limited to Dungeons and Dragons.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Sharp (axes, swords, arrows)
Blunt (bullets, clubs, hammers)

Making bullets and clubs or arrows and axes do the same damage type seems a little odd unless they all do the same damage type.

Keeping bludgeoning (impact, concussive, blunt, force, clubs, maces, staves, flails, rods, slings, boomerangs, bolas, chains), slashing (swords, axes, knives, chakram, naginata, halberds, razor wire), and piercing (hammers, bullets, rapiers, spears, arrows, bayonets, pikes, kama, daggers, shrapnel) like 3e might not be so bad. There's actually a pretty good division there on what kind of wounds they make, and what type of armors should defend against them.


There should probably be some kind of 'venom', which includes most toxins and disease


Also remember that every attacks targets and attribute, and that right there is 6 different damage types. That's nice because it's an excuse for every attack having two damage types. Which leaves me wondering: What is slashing insight? Fire tenacity? Willpower venom? Piercing fortitude? Bludgeoning reflexes? Eldritch logic?

[ckafrica]

I think that one thing we should do away with is certain weapons being better than another. I get annoyed that certain weapons just end up being default because it is the best choice statistically. We should focus on perhaps categories of light, 1 handed and 2 handed and have all weapons in each category being equal on strait out combat effects. Then allow each weapon to have a special trait or 2 to make them unique. Using a halberd or a greatsword should be more a stylistic choice than a game changing decision

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I was talking about damage types... because that's what we are talking about in this thread?

As far as actual damage, a nice, simple solution would be preferred, such as:
- Two-Handed Weapons - 2d6 damage (I like 2d6 more than 1d12 by a significant margin)
- One-Handed Weapons - 1d8 damage
- Light Weapons - 1d6 damage
- Less-than-light weapons - 1d4 damage (see below)

- if(Weapon->ranged || Weapon->throwable || Weapon->reach)
reduce by one category

All weapon multiply by something flat (3?) on a crit.

There, now you have an incentive to use a big sword when using a shield, and a TWF does the same damage as a THF. Whether you fight with 2 rapiers/shortswords/kukris is a thematic choice, whether you fight with a Greatsword/Greataxe is thematic as well.

So a bow+arrow is a 2 handed ranged weapon and does a d8, while a sling is a one-handed ranged weapon and does a d6. A dagger is a Light weapon that is throwable and does a d4. A polearm is a two-handed reach weapon and does a d8. A Bo staff can be used as a two-handed reach weapon, as two light weapons, or as a two-handed weapon and does damage based on how you use it. The Bo staff precedent makes it so that you can easily hit people with your polearm half at close range and not have to take a goddamned FEAT to do so.

This assumes the Martial vs. Simple vs. Exotic argument is going to dry up and die. Also, special weapons may as well break this category, such as the Whip of Gore doing 2d6 base damage because you will likely choose the solid tactical option from your Batcave depending on the type of enemy you are fighting anyways.

I have no issue combining Piercing and Slashing into the Sharp category and having an arrow do the same damage type as a longsword, none whatsoever. Really, it only matters on things that have DR/sharp but not DR/blunt anyways, so now you can totally arrow a zombie to death.

[ckafrica]

I had a thought for Damage reduction that could be used with armor

Why not have DR be a percentage of the damage taken. That way it is always relevant you can quickly write up a chart that allows you to find total damage and then find out how much you actually take. We can then have different DR types for different types of damage.