From: ramirez@spock.uucp (Andreas Orphanides)
Subject: Re: 'New' way to do attack rolls.
Organization: Choate Rosemary Hall
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 22:15:10 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.185653.3969@choate.edu> kurgan@spock.uucp (Andrew Twyman) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.113703.19098@husc3.harvard.edu> alvalent@husc10.harvard.edu (Alvin Valentine) writes:
>>I can say that Champions is more intuitive, but I can't say that using armor
>>to reduce your chances to hit rather than bouncing damage is bad either.
>>Why?  Well, statistically speaking you probably shouldn't look just at the
>>chance to hit or the chance to do damage.  The process as a whole determines
>>damage every round.  You can thus figure out the probability of actually
>>hitting and doing a certain amount of damage.  So, no, it's not really
>>intuitive necessarily like Champs, but if you take the combined probability
>>into account, then it works out OK anyway.
>>
>>Example: you have a 20 THACO against an AC of 9 -- you hit 50% of the time
>>	 you have a dagger in hand which does 1d4 damage.  You have 
>>	 a 12.5% chance each to do 1, 2, 3, or 4 points of damage along the
>>	 lines of straight probability.  It would thus be possible to turn
>>	 AD&D into a Rolemaster style system all on charts using a % based
>>	 roll.
>>
>>In general, they all can tend to have similar effects, but one is much more
>>intuitive than the other. 
>
>	I don't know exactly how it's done from a game mechanics point of view,
>but I like the loopk of the AC system in the "Wizardry 7" computer RPG.  It
>uses the same AC scale (+10 to -10) as AD&D, but has several seperata AC's.  A
>character has his natural AC, modified only for high Dex, small size, a shield,
>or magical protection.  This AC determines wheter or not an attack hits the
>character.  Then each body part has a seperate AC, based on type of armor worn
>on that body part.  This AC determines whether or not a hit penetrates the
>armor or not.  It would probably also be possible to do this without having
>to determine the body part hit.

Then again, a fourth level character w/24 hp  could get
 a 25 hp hit to his hand and get killed...sort of wierd if you ask me
...or he could get a 23 hp hit directly to the head and still be alive.
I like the way they do it in Mechwarrior, Battletech's role playing system
Each body part (arms, legs, torso, head) has a certain damage threshhold.
 The person as a whole also has Lethal and Bruise hp. When a certain body
part gets a certain amount of lethal damage, it becomes incapacitated or
disabled, ie, an incapacitated arm has the equivalent to a torn
muscle or fractured bone and a disabled arm is seriously broken.
 Incapacitated torso or head means unconciousness, and disabled means 
he/she's in a coma. When all of the person's bruise damage hp are gone,
normal bruise damage weapons will do lethal damage. When all lethal
damage hp are used, the person is dead. The equivalent of AC is determined
by your athletic score, which is determined by subtracting your build and dex 
from 18. Armor slows you down. However armor absorbs damage and depending on 
how much damage it's absorbed, it needs repair before it can absorb its full 
damage potential again. When an armor absorbs as much damage as it can, it 
basically falls apart from wear and tear.

ramirez@choate.edu
I'll .sig if I damn well please
There can be only one.




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