Lago's Kickass D&D-Book Marketing Strategy!

[ggroy]

[mean_liar]

There are some folks that consider supply issues in wargaming to be important enough to deserve its own detailed system. Others just want to try and outflank someone and relegate logistical issues to the background.

Depends on the flavor and I wouldn't call either intrinsically "better", since it derives from opinion so heavily.

[Username17]

There are some folks that consider supply issues in wargaming to be important enough to deserve its own detailed system. Others just want to try and outflank someone and relegate logistical issues to the background.

Depends on the flavor and I wouldn't call either intrinsically "better", since it derives from opinion so heavily.

That's true. Sometimes you just want to march the units around. While in terms of actual wars, those who try that kind of crap end up being Ernst Busch instead of Georgy Zhukov, for the purposes of a game, the level of abstraction demanded should simply be the level of abstraction provided.

Where that turns into a complaint about 4e is not that you're a bad person if you don't want to consider blankets and heavy coats during your exploration and invasion of the Frostling lairs in the game - it's that a role playing game that can't provide that level of abstraction is rather limited. Such things should be module, either being fussed over or abstracted as the needs of the group dictate. 4e D&D is very rigid about what it can care about and what it can't within the rules. And while that doesn't make it a bad game, it makes it a bad Role Playing Game.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

Modular abstraction is a great design goal, but its absence doesn't make any particular RPG bad, only less flexible. Obviously including it increases your chance of reaching more audiences and allowing a more agile game (for example, allowing focus on heroic action while a mass combat rages in the background, rather than heroic action AND inescapable intricate mass combat minigame that bores/confounds the narrativist-types). However, I wouldn't say that 4e's faults are from a lack of abstraction/granuality but from lack of scope. You don't get to abstract or zoom in on most things because they just don't exist.

To be fair this complaint can be leveled to a certain extent against pretty much every edition of DnD ever except for the kingdom and mass combat rules from the Green Companion boxed set for basic DnD. I say, "certain extent," because the upper-tier spells provided enough power that you could lean on them to fill in a ton of gaps, but without 3rd party support you really couldn't get into those issues without necessary hand-waving.

[Caedrus]

The answer for why to not drop Intelligence and Wisdom is multipart:

First, Magic in D&D is ridiculously broad and powerful. Maintaining a hard disconnect between half of it and the other half isn't just good for the grognards, it's good for the game.

Second, of all the "NADs" Will is the best. Ref frankly blows, but if it got folded into AC it would be pretty decent. But Willpower is still the one that not only drops you from the fight, but makes you attack your allies as well. Combining it with your "not getting surprised" test (perception) is frankly overpowered. Putting spotting ambushes and seeing through illusions onto a different stat is a good idea. And it's only possible if there are at least two mental stats.

And finally, too much reductionism makes people see the strings and the gears. Part of the purpose of the game is to get people to lose themselves in it. If the rolls become too easy to comprehend, they actually stop being interesting. Deceptively simple only works if the simple is actually deceptive.

---

Constitution doesn't do anything, and Charisma makes you the protagonist. This is a cooperative role playing game, everyone is the fucking protagonist.

-Username17

So then I take it you're suggesting that Intelligence covers Perception-related saves and Wisdom covers Willpower-related saves? Sounds reasonable enough. And then of course Strength gets Fort and Dexterity gets Reflex, and Cha/Con don't exist anymore.

Should strength now raise your hit points? Or does the hit point inflation go away?

[IGTN]

Frank doesn't like hit points, because they don't fit on the exponential curve that levels are supposed to be on.

[souran]

I actually kinda like the idea of getting rid of constituation and charisma.

Your physical and mental resialiance is effectively passive in D&D because basically all your defenses are passive. Now charisma is not actually your defensive mental stat but it somehow sits in the spot where that should be.

As for hp: Don't grant bonus hp based on ability scores. If people want more hp then they can take a feat or speal perk or whatever your game has as other options.

Similarly if they want to have exectional looks (either good or bad) or to have some super spark of leadership they take that as a feat/perk/special as well.

This doesn't mean you have to toss your social system. Shift most of the diplomancy stuff to some resouce set available to all players. That way whoever wants to be a party face can be it and be whatever other type of thing they want. Instead of having certain classes be good at it just because you pegged their combat stat to talkie stat.

[Caedrus]

Frank doesn't like hit points, because they don't fit on the exponential curve that levels are supposed to be on.

So what replaces hit points?

[Lago PARANOIA]

A fixed hit point track. A lot of people have said that that track should be adjusted for by size so that a medium character gets 10 damage boxes, a large character gets 20, etc. I agree.

Damage boxes are awesome for two reasons:

1- It allows you to eliminate critical existence failure. Which means that the more damage someone takes, the less able they are to fight. You can't do this with the current hit point system; you either have to have something you take a -1 penalty to attack rolls per 20 hit points you lose, which punishes high-level characters and fucks the RNG or you have to require characters to continually recalculate the thresholds for when they suffer penalties. You know, division. Which is just too inconvenient. It's a pain in the butt as it is to have to calculate healing surges, but could you imagine having to calculate 4-10 different penalty values every time you made a monster? It's a pain in the butt.

It's easier for medium-sized people to just count four boxes and go 'oh, gee, I'm at a -2 penalty to attack rolls and saves until I get healed'.

2- It makes scaling attack and damage very easy. In 4E, all characters have basically two defense scores against being dropped by hit points. Hit points themselves and their defense scores. The problem is that while they increase linearly the slopes are different. The hit point curve is much steeper than the defense slope, which leads to padded sumo.

Now while it's possible to have hit points and defense scores scale at the same rate, I don't know a single system that actually succeeds in doing it. 3E tried doing it and ended up with rocket-launcher tag (and in far epic, like level 40 or so, ends up with padded sumo but you don't even care because people are playing with 1500+ hit points by then and the game is already unplayable). In 4E, hit points scales more steeply than defense which ends up with padded sumo.

The closest system I've seen that comes to succeeding (or not fucking up) with scaling hit points and scaling defenses is Shadowrun and it still doesn't work right.

It's better to just stick to one because it's much easier to balance it.

Of course, if you really want to go whole-hog, you also have fixed or nearly-fixed damage (fixed damage speeds up play, nearly-fixed adds excitement--the point is that it doesn't change much on its own) and have the threshold by which your attack exceeds your target's defense be your extra damage. There's, again, two reasons why you want to do this.

A) It allows you to have weapons that trade off accuracy and damage. In 4E it's a fool's game to use a +2 proficiency weapon after a certain without a good reason (for example, your dexterity sucks) because even at low levels the damage bonus is comparable, at higher levels the damage you add doesn't make up for the -1 to attack rolls. So that's why nearly every ranger uses bastard swords. In a fixed damage system they will never fall behind.

B) It lets the DM introduce 'one hit point' enemies without doing stupid shit like minions. If your attack threshold exceeds the goblin's defense by, say, 15 points or something you can drop the goblin you fought 6 levels ago in one hit. Scaling hit points AND defense systems either make it so you can never drop the goblin in one hit without special rules (like 4E does) or also make monsters of your level go down like chumps in one hit, like 3E does.

[Caedrus]

A fixed hit point track. A lot of people have said that that track should be adjusted for by size so that a medium character gets 10 damage boxes, a large character gets 20, etc. I agree.

Damage boxes are awesome for two reasons:

1- It allows you to eliminate critical existence failure. Which means that the more damage someone takes, the less able they are to fight. You can't do this with the current hit point system; you either have to have something you take a -1 penalty to attack rolls per 20 hit points you lose, which punishes high-level characters and fucks the RNG or you have to require characters to continually recalculate the thresholds for when they suffer penalties. You know, division. Which is just too inconvenient. It's a pain in the butt as it is to have to calculate healing surges, but could you imagine having to calculate 4-10 different penalty values every time you made a monster? It's a pain in the butt.

It's easier for medium-sized people to just count four boxes and go 'oh, gee, I'm at a -2 penalty to attack rolls and saves until I get healed'.

2- It makes scaling attack and damage very easy. In 4E, all characters have basically two defense scores against being dropped by hit points. Hit points themselves and their defense scores. The problem is that while they increase linearly the slopes are different. The hit point curve is much steeper than the defense slope, which leads to padded sumo.

Now while it's possible to have hit points and defense scores scale at the same rate, I don't know a single system that actually succeeds in doing it. 3E tried doing it and ended up with rocket-launcher tag (and in far epic, like level 40 or so, ends up with padded sumo but you don't even care because people are playing with 1500+ hit points by then and the game is already unplayable). In 4E, hit points scales more steeply than defense which ends up with padded sumo.

The closest system I've seen that comes to succeeding (or not fucking up) with scaling hit points and scaling defenses is Shadowrun and it still doesn't work right.

It's better to just stick to one because it's much easier to balance it.

Of course, if you really want to go whole-hog, you also have fixed or nearly-fixed damage (fixed damage speeds up play, nearly-fixed adds excitement--the point is that it doesn't change much on its own) and have the threshold by which your attack exceeds your target's defense be your extra damage. There's, again, two reasons why you want to do this.

A) It allows you to have weapons that trade off accuracy and damage. In 4E it's a fool's game to use a +2 proficiency weapon after a certain without a good reason (for example, your dexterity sucks) because even at low levels the damage bonus is comparable, at higher levels the damage you add doesn't make up for the -1 to attack rolls. So that's why nearly every ranger uses bastard swords. In a fixed damage system they will never fall behind.

B) It lets the DM introduce 'one hit point' enemies without doing stupid shit like minions. If your attack threshold exceeds the goblin's defense by, say, 15 points or something you can drop the goblin you fought 6 levels ago in one hit. Scaling hit points AND defense systems either make it so you can never drop the goblin in one hit without special rules (like 4E does) or also make monsters of your level go down like chumps in one hit, like 3E does.

Thanks for the summary.

Is there a thread I can read where this is elaborated on?

[Username17]

Hit Points don't work like a lot of people think they do. Functionally, when you do damage against hit points, your damage is being divided into the target's hit points, not subtracted from them. You don't actually care if your opponent took 13 damage or 24, you care how many such attacks are required to make it hit critical existence failure. And that's an equation of (damage) / (total hit points). That means that when you scale damage or hit points, the scaling factor is an exponent. It doesn't have to be "double" or anything, but even a scaling factor of +50% is going to end up multiplying nearly fifty eight times if you apply it ten times.

Contrast this to some other opposition factors: Attack Roles vs. Defense for example scales the same at all levels with simple addition. If all you're doing is scaling damage vs. DR it scales at all levels with simple addition a well. This is because in those cases your concern truly is the absolute difference between two numbers and not the ratio of one divided into the other.

So if everyone does the same damage and has the same hit points regardless of level, but their ACs and to-hit bonuses rise with every level, then being "four levels ahead" means that your attacks are +4 and their attacks are -4. It doesn't matter if you're level 12 to their level 8 or level 6 to their level 2. That change in to-hit bonus and AC are essentially level constants and can be removed from both sides of the equation when they are equal.

Similarly, if to-hit and ACs are constant and hit points are constant, but you do linearly more damage and have linearly more DR, then the number of hits it takes to drop someone of your level doesn't change, and the number of hits it takes to drop or be dropped by someones N levels higher or lower level than you also doesn't change no matter what level you specifically are.

And you can run both those systems together so that when you have two more levels on someone you hit more often, do a greater percentage of their health bar with each hit, take less damage and get hit less often. The effects of being 2 levels higher would be predictable and static.

On the other hand, if Hit Points are moving around, the relative difference of two levels between 6 and 8 are going to likely be very different from the difference between 10 and 12. No matter what algebraic equation you throw at it, hit points are going to be growing slower at high levels than at lower levels in the way that actually matters. You can have the number of hit points you gain every level rise, but unless you pull out actual exponents the relative increase is always falling.

---

Now if you're making a new edition of D&D, that is not necessarily a problem. Indeed, having the difference between two levels shrink as characters got into the higher levels appears to have been original design intent. Indeed, in the days of AD&D characters just plain stopped getting new hit dice altogether by the time they got to 10th.

So if you abandon the idea of having a level difference have any consistent meaning, then hit point variances are a salvageable concept. And specifically for 5E D&D, that might be a good plan.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

So if you abandon the idea of having a level difference have any consistent meaning, then hit point variances are a salvageable concept. And specifically for 5E D&D, that might be a good plan.

But at that point, why even bother with a level system?

[Username17]

So if you abandon the idea of having a level difference have any consistent meaning, then hit point variances are a salvageable concept. And specifically for 5E D&D, that might be a good plan.

But at that point, why even bother with a level system?

As long as "14th level" still means something, the level system serves a purpose.

14th level doesn't have to be the same amount better than 13th level as 4th level is better than 3rd level for the level system to matter. Imagine if instead you wanted to do a linear system - where level 4 meant that you were as good as 4 level 1s and level 9 meant as good as 9 level 1s. The level difference would be a meaningless number, but the absolute value would still matter.

-Username17

[souran]

Lago,

There are some things to consider on the other side of your poitns.

First: hit boxes are in general more of a pain in the ass than just a number for hit points. Espeically if you intend to get cutsie with them like OWOD/NWOD.

Now you can pretty much eleminate this by having damage boxes just be truely fixed "wound numbers" or whatever, however, in general a system that is mostly graphical or is best expressed grahically is going to be a pain in the ass on the dm's side of the screen.

second: As you probably know quite well the problem for with assessing penalties based on being hit/damaged is that it turns most fights into runaway fights. If people are accumulating considerable penalties for being hit they are quickly going to become irrelevant to the fight. This will be especially true for those who were already having trouble scoring hits. They take a wound they might as well go home.

Now there is an appeal to this mechanic but in the end its going to hurt players more than the monsters becasue the monsters are rarley going to go into a battle with a little damage on themsevles already. PC's are likely going to be contending with this alot.

Also on your fixed and nearly fixed damage comments.

Your point A is basically untrue without a lot of tinkering. If you use a system where bonus damage is awarded based on the amount you exceed a targets defense by accuaracy and damage become the same thing. Assuming that low accuracy weapons do more damage and high accuracy weapons do less damage, it really doesn't matter to the attacker because if they go high accuracy they will except to recoup lost damage from stronger hits. If weapons cannot make up the damage differance with strong hits you drive everybody to using low accruarcy weapons. If its equal everybody will look for the weapon that sits atop the bell curve because it will be the one that gives them the most consistantly high damage.

Its not that this is bad, its just its not a real tradeoff between accuracy and damage.

The system you are talking about sounds ALOT like dream pod 9's silouhette engine rpgs. Thats a really good system. That game even manages to do all the things you are talking about here. It uses damage boxes (called system shock for people) and as you get hurt you become both less effective offensively and defensively. Damage is a multiplier of the attack roll and you divide damage by shock+armor. If damage is 3 times or larger you die, 2-3 you take 2 wounds 1-2 you take 1 wound. As I said wounds reduce both defense and armor/shock so you become both easier to hit and easier to hit harder.

Its a good game, but it makes people feel really fragile and runaway combat is the law.

[Murtak]

First: hit boxes are in general more of a pain in the ass than just a number for hit points. Espeically if you intend to get cutsie with them like OWOD/NWOD.

Lower numbers, a fixed meaning for what lost HPs mean, a fixed scale for healing spells - all I can think of points towards fixed HPs being easier to manage than scaling HPs.

second: As you probably know quite well the problem for with assessing penalties based on being hit/damaged is that it turns most fights into runaway fights. If people are accumulating considerable penalties for being hit they are quickly going to become irrelevant to the fight.

The penalties can be as big or as small as you would like them to be. In SR3 you got dicepool penalties which indeed quickly removed characters from fights. in SR4 you get dicepool penalties, which do not.

Now there is an appeal to this mechanic but in the end its going to hurt players more than the monsters becasue the monsters are rarley going to go into a battle with a little damage on themsevles already. PC's are likely going to be contending with this alot.

And of course compensating for a known number when designing monsters is impossible ... oh wait. It is not.

Your point A is basically untrue without a lot of tinkering. If you use a system where bonus damage is awarded based on the amount you exceed a targets defense by accuaracy and damage become the same thing.

Not at all. Even taking the most simple setup possible, where damage taken = base damage - toughness + net hits you can still have these weapons:
Rapier: damage 1, accuracy +1
Broadsword: damage 3, accuracy +0

Which weapon is better will depend on your opponent.

[souran]

Lower numbers, a fixed meaning for what lost HPs mean, a fixed scale for healing spells - all I can think of points towards fixed HPs being easier to manage than scaling HPs.

Actually I think we agree here. if you read the next couple of sentences this is basically what I was saying. It really depends on what Lago means by hit boxes. If he just means "small fixed hit points" thats one thing, but again, if we are talking about damage boxes like old mechwarrior or wod thats something else again.

The penalties can be as big or as small as you would like them to be. In SR3 you got dicepool penalties which indeed quickly removed characters from fights. in SR4 you get dicepool penalties, which do not.

The arguement for having damage penalties is because of critical existance failure. The problem is that all you have done is shift the target from "reduce foes to 0 hp" to "reduce foes to 0 chance to be effective in combat"

If that is easier to do through penalties accumulated then players will fight to that condition (The SR3 model). If the penalties don't do enough to knock people out, they just contribute to runaway but the victory conditions don't change (everybody ko, or the SR4 model).

Look, even in real life, soldiers/combants fight until one side is unable to put up effective resistance. It doesn't matter what conditions cause this effect. IF you penalize people for getting hurt you create the possibility that a person is rendered ineffective but not killed/koed. This is neither bad or good it just IS. Now yeah there is something in dnd that feels wrong about characters not suffering any kind of performance hit for being at 1 hp. However, I dont' wonder if that isn't better represented by status conditions than direct effectiveness penalities. If your building a new game do whatever obviosuly.

The thing is you probably want to be a little closer to something like the 4th edtiion shadow run because having people who are kocked out of the fight but still wandering around the battlefield is mostly annoying. Also punching bag badguys are really just not that interesting.

And of course compensating for a known number when designing monsters is impossible ... oh wait. It is not.

Well this is crap because you wont' know that number before hand. Unless you design all of your encounters right after the completion of the last one so you know the current condition of the group.

Anyway, thats all besides the point anyway. Of course you are going to tune the games monsters to the way the game plays. Its just how do you make the choice of how monsters are tuned in general? Are monsters a challenge for parties with some damage on them? Are they tuned assuming no standing penatlies when the fight begins? If the monsters assume some damage but not a lot then the frist fight of the day will be even easier than soemthing like dnd where players have all their powers to command. The later fights, on the other hand, could be much tougher even if they consist of basically the same baddies. This is probably going to take table tuning to figure out. That takes real time, and real time has value.

Not at all. Even taking the most simple setup possible, where damage taken = base damage - toughness + net hits you can still have these weapons:
Rapier: damage 1, accuracy +1
Broadsword: damage 3, accuracy +0

Which weapon is better will depend on your opponent.

lets break this down. One of your weapons can provide 3 damage and the other one can provide 2 damage. Assuming the wielders have the same offensive capability otherwise why would you ever pick the rapier?

Look at the hardest possible "to hit" condition. That would be where after toughness, it was only possible for the broadsword to score 1 hit. In this case with the same wielder, the rapier could score 1 extra hit. The broadsword would do 3 damage and the rapier would do at max 2.

Now if we make the bad guy so hard to hit that the broadsword can score 0 hits then the rapier finally becomes a better choice. However, its a false choice, using anything EXCEPT the rapier renders you ineffective.

Your games accuracy is effectively fake. Its just "possible damage" instead of "guanteed damage"

If players have no way of increasing the likelyhood of a "hit" they will gravitate to weapons to do lots of guanteed damage. If they can get to a point where they have a high likelyhood of converting "possible hits" into acutal hits they will gravitate to 1 damage/100 accuracy weapons. The only other weapon even worth considering is the weapon that sits right in the middle of the curve of accuarcy/damage and that is only if that weapon has some other attractive property.

[mean_liar]

Trading off accuracy for damage, attack for defense, power for resilience is precisely what can make combat interesting.

Simply assuming a mathematical flaw in a system that doesn't exist isn't productive.

[souran]

Trading off accuracy for damage, attack for defense, power for resilience is precisely what can make combat interesting.

Simply assuming a mathematical flaw in a system that doesn't exist isn't productive.

Yeah but only if they are real trades. Any system that converts accuracy to damage really doesn't have the ability to make a real trade. They become the same thing.

You can trade damage for accuracy, or really any other quality you measure in your game, but it has to be a real trade otherwise its just an exercise is reading the chart and finding the not bs weapon.

[mean_liar]

You're assuming that damage over time is somehow not calculable by the designer?

Not only that, but the main thing I think of to make +damage interesting is STUNNING, where damage such that X>N results in the subject being hampered significantly enough that damage over time is not the only consideration.

[souran]

NO,

I am saying one thing and its quite obviously true.

If your game uses the margin of success from scoring a "hit" in the damage calcuation formula, then "accuracy" is effectively a fake term in your game.

You can go on to design the rest of the system however you want, but if you think you have made weapons that trade accuracy for damage then your fooling yourself. If margin of success becomes bonus damage then accuracy is approximatly equal to damage.

You have to trade against a different property otherwise its just a matter of figuring out the math as to which side of the trade is definetively superior.

Also Mean,

You can make your weapons do whatever you want, i think stunning and dots are interesting effects as well.

However, if you are forcing people to trade those things for raw damage you have to remember that there are some people who won't do it. That damage is, in a fashion, is its own side effect. If you just cause a lot of damage and take things out of the fight fast that can be as appealing as all the debuffs you want to stack for some people.

[mean_liar]

You're assuming that damage over time is somehow not calculable by the designer?

You still don't get it. If Accuracy influences Damage (crit-based systems do this, for example) then this is only another variable.

Maybe after you work out the baseline probabilities +1 Accuracy averages to +0.5 Damage. Okay then, you make the tradeoff -3 Accuracy for +5 Damage. Or some other value such that if f(Accuracy)=N damage added to a damage Z result, then -X Accuracy gains +Y Damage such that X*(N+Z) < (Y+Z).

There's no reason this relationship can be balanced if it's simply examined. I imagine the only trouble would come from where you get to marginal differences and the +/- 1 might swing things too heavily, in which case you need to get a larger RNG spread to accommodate that swing.

[Username17]

I'm going to assume that you, Souran, are sincerely confused, and not just a math troll.

If your game uses the margin of success from scoring a "hit" in the damage calcuation formula, then "accuracy" is effectively a fake term in your game.

You can go on to design the rest of the system however you want, but if you think you have made weapons that trade accuracy for damage then your fooling yourself. If margin of success becomes bonus damage then accuracy is approximatly equal to damage.

No. Accuracy in such a setup is better than damage. By a substantial margin. Every point you hit on the Accuracy is identical to a damage point, and on one of the points you wouldn't hit on, the Accuracy is equivalent to your minimal hit worth of damage.

But you'll note, no one was suggesting that people trade one damage for one accuracy. Indeed, the thing you quoted suggested that people take the pick of one accuracy or two damage. One accuracy is certainly better than one damage, but so is two damage. Two damage is in fact twice as good. How much better one accuracy is depends upon how often you hit otherwise and how much base damage you inflict when you do.

In case you're wondering, it's actually been shown that for SAME's damage to accuracy conversion, that accuracy and strength are of equal value when the to-hits are around the 11+ mark.

-Username17

[souran]

You still don't get it. If Accuracy influences Damage (crit-based systems do this, for example) then this is only another variable.

Maybe after you work out the baseline probabilities +1 Accuracy averages to +0.5 Damage. Okay then, you make the tradeoff -3 Accuracy for +5 Damage. Or some other value such that if f(Accuracy)=N damage added to a damage Z result, then -X Accuracy gains +Y Damage such that X*(N+Z) < (Y+Z).

Yes but again accuracy is fake. Its just a different name for damage, or damage that only has a chance to occur as opposed to damage that will always occur.

Yes, there is a least a bit of though that accompanies selecting between a weapon that inclicts X damage or or a weapn that in 1 damage and has x addtional independant chances to inflict damage. Either way, this is simply the mechanics of the system and once you learn to read the systems tables the superior selections will fall out from the way they interact with the rest of the mechanics. However, in the end, accuracy vs. damage is not a TRADE with these weapons. Its the same thing.

There's no reason this relationship can be balanced if it's simply examined. I imagine the only trouble would come from where you get to marginal differences and the +/- 1 might swing things too heavily, in which case you need to get a larger RNG spread to accommodate that swing.

Did you mean to say "there is no reason this relationship cannot be balanced?" Because you have basically just shown that it can. Part of the reason why you can is because your system turns accuracy into damage.

Compare it to dnd (any edition) how much extra damage is a +1 to hit worth? You can't because they are indepant systems. Its possible to have a low damage high accuracy weapon in such a system. Its also possible to have a high damage low accuracy weapon. They each have value.

However, if margin of success influcences damage then "accuracy" is a kind of damage.

Consider our sample weapons the High damage low accuracy (HDLA) and the LDHA. If you do the math and the statistics to determine how much fixed damage is worth a point of accuracy and then design weapons that are approximatley equal then your game has NO distinction between these two weapons. A machine gun and a hand grenade are functionally no different. Or you could set it up such that either there is a slight benefit in random damage or fixed damage. If you do then those weapons will always fall out as superior.

That leads to franks points

No. Accuracy in such a setup is better than damage. By a substantial margin. Every point you hit on the Accuracy is identical to a damage point, and on one of the points you wouldn't hit on, the Accuracy is equivalent to your minimal hit worth of damage.

Actually, this depends on the mathematics of yoru game system. You can make "accuracy" inferior or superior depending on how you write your combat engine.

But you'll note, no one was suggesting that people trade one damage for one accuracy. Indeed, the thing you quoted suggested that people take the pick of one accuracy or two damage. One accuracy is certainly better than one damage, but so is two damage. Two damage is in fact twice as good. How much better one accuracy is depends upon how often you hit otherwise and how much base damage you inflict when you do.

These are not real trade offs and you can figure out which is superior with only a small investment in timer becuase what has really happend is your abstraction has eliminated the level of detail that allowed you to know the differeance anyway.

"accuracy" only has a meaning distinct from "damage" in this setup at the case where the accuracy of one weapon allows for the possibility to score a hit against a foe and using another weapon allows for no possibility of scoring a hit. However, at that point its also no longer a tradeoff its a
necessity. Otherwise what is being called accuracy is just "alternate damage" and its value compared to "standard damage" is whatever the games designers set it to when they wrote the supporting rules.

[Username17]

OK, guess not. Souran, you are completely insane!

Yes but again accuracy is fake. Its just a different name for damage, or damage that only has a chance to occur as opposed to damage that will always occur.

Yes, there is a least a bit of though that accompanies selecting between a weapon that inclicts X damage or or a weapn that in 1 damage and has x addtional independant chances to inflict damage. Either way, this is simply the mechanics of the system and once you learn to read the systems tables the superior selections will fall out from the way they interact with the rest of the mechanics. However, in the end, accuracy vs. damage is not a TRADE with these weapons. Its the same thing.

This. Is. FALSE.

What the fucking hell are you going on about? Even if they averaged the same in all cases, they'd still be different because taking a 50% chance to waste a dude in one round is situationally better or worse than a 100% to take the dude out in two rounds. And with chances to hit being different in different circumstances, the break point of conversion between one and the other will likewise be different.

Yes. In any particular circumstance there will be a point in which +x to accuracy will be directly equivalent on average with a +y to damage. And that's why you can make that +x for +y trade available in the game and call it balanced. But if the circumstances change even a little bit, the accuracy or damage boost will be better. That's why it's a trade-off. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it does not.

You are speaking math fail.

-Username17

[souran]

Frank I don't see how you cannot grasp this its not hard.

Yes. In any particular circumstance there will be a point in which +x to accuracy will be directly equivalent on average with a +y to damage. And that's why you can make that +x for +y trade available in the game and call it balanced. But if the circumstances change even a little bit, the accuracy or damage boost will be better. That's why it's a trade-off. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it does not.

THIS IS NOT A TRADE. If you are sitting right on the break even point then weapons there are indistinguishable. If you have a sniper rifle whose damage+accuracy = the equivlance point, it is indistinguishable from a machine gun whose damage + accuracy also equals the equivalnce point.

Now as you move off that equivlance point, you gain either addtional damage or addtional accuracy. However, when you put the weapon to use you are going to be allowed to convert that accuracy back into damage. This means that as you move along your damage vs. accuracy curve you can determine which is better.

I.E. If we have 2 rifles that are in our game system identical except one is accuracy x and damage y and the other is accuracy y and damage x we know that these weapons are not of equal value UNLESS we are at the equivlance point.

Now, assuming the mechanics of our game are not totally foreign to us we can determine which one will have a higher damage/use of the weapon. Once we know which of these two weapons has the higher damage a round we then know which atribute is of greater value under our mechanics. This is compeletly indepdant of all situations except 1. That is the case where the the extra accuracy of the higha accuracy weapons allows you to score a hit that you otherwise could not score at all. In that situation, obviously, high accuracy is better.

However, in all other situations we have found our cutoff point. You can now go through each weapon and determine which ones are good and which are made of fail.

Look, there are games that exist that do exactly what we are talking about.

Consider old wod. It had weapons that had both accuarcy and base damage scores.

We know the mechanic. All the hits except 1 are added to the base damage of the weapon then subtract soak and thats the damage pool.

In that system a rifle that is +2 accurace 4 base damage and one that is 4 accuracy and 2 base damage have the same effective damage cap.

Whats more, in wod its always better to take the higher base damage (you get that even on a single success) than the amount as bonus accuracy. A weapon must actually have a higher damage potential to make giving up the base damage attractive.

Don't you see that in this system (and any equivalent system) that accuracy is just "proto-damage" or "possible damage."

You cannot really trade "accuracy for damage" in OWOD because they become the same thing. Accuracy is not so much accuracy as "luck" so you have some weapons that inflict alot of damage if you get lucky and others that just always inflict a lot of damage.

Now, I am not saying "it is always impossible to trade accuracy for damage" I am saying "in this system you its a false trade"

There are plenty of systems where trading accuracy for damage works. However, the systems we were discussing will obliterate the value of picking between accuracy and damage. Its all the same thing.