Oppinion Time: Why I Think Most Systems Should Ditch Plate Armor
Please hear me out on this one, because lots of people have a knee jerk reaction to what I am about to say. But I honestly believe that Metal* Plate Armor has no place in combat systems that have a hard skill element.
I know what you are thinking, what a stupid comment. Plate looks awesome, you feel super bad ass when you wear it, and the increased difficulty of fighting in it normally offsets the stats bonuses. It tends to be a staple in medieval systems.
But there is one serious problem with plate. You can not feel your hits. A solid hit which will register in any other type of armor often goes unfelt in plate. It’s not your fault, plate is designed to be like that. And if you can’t feel your hits then this is going to cause problems. Other players might accuse you of cheating, and obviously your fights wont be fair in the strictest sense. When wearing plate I have been told you deal with this by listening for the blows, but in a big melee chances are you won’t be able to hear every blow against you (I certainly struggled).
This is going to have problematic knock on effects as well. Because the logical way to deal with this is not to pull your blows when fighting someone in plate. But once you have adjusted your blow strength, you must remember to change it back when fighting unarmored opponents. Many people forget. Its difficult to adjust in a melee when adrenaline is pumping. Speaking as someone who has suffered several concussions due to unsafe fighting, I feel that anything that encourages people not to pull their blows is problematic.
Of course in more soft skill systems, with telegraphed blows this isn’t a problem, you can see hits coming so you can take note of them. But with any system that has a hard skill component, not being able to feel your hits is disastrous.
*Fake/plastic plate doesn’t seem to have these issues.
TL:DR
Metal plate armor makes it very difficult to feel your hits, which makes it unsuitable for hard skill combat systems.
Blood for the Blood Gods: Threat Level, Lethality and Basic Fight Rules
Every system will have different combat systems, so its hard to say anything specific. I am not here to tell you how to stat. This is partly because I have no idea how to stat, and partly because its obviously going to vary depending on what you are running. But there are some questions you should be asking yourself when you design combat encounters for your game, and likewise some rules of the fight which in my experience almost always hold true*
Questions you should ask yourself when designing combat systems and encounters. As before this is a jumping off point, not an exhaustive list:
What do you want your combat to feel like? Cinematic? Big and Epic? Desperate and Dirty? Dangerous and Fast? Risky? The number of hit points I think is one of the key factors for feel. Lots of hit points means characters can take alot of damage and keep going, which feels big and epic, while a lower number of hit points is likely to feel desperate or pressed. In terms of cinematic combat you might want to think about how combat functions narrativly and how its going to look.
How lethal do you want it to be? Best way to control for lethality is bleed times. The longer the bleed time, the less likely characters are to die. Unless your system is designed around long fights, most battles are over fairly quickly. Take into account how your healing system works with this one as well. Instant healing that can happen anywhere means you can have shorter bleed times, while if characters can only be healed in a certain place or the method takes awhile you need slightly longer bleed times.
How easy do you want PvP to be? There design features that can change the challenge level of PvP quite drastically. Can characters make noise as they bleed out? Is there a way to stop them making noise if so? (Mute spell or the like). Is there a way of bypassing bleed times with more damage? Is there a resurrection mechanic? If so can this be bypassed?
How tactical do you want fighting to be? Locational hits provide more tactic based fights than global. Similarly special calls can change how much strategy goes into fighting. Encounter set up is important here too, if every fight is a line fight there wont be much tactical variation.
Do you want your system to be more hard skill based or soft skill based?Soft skills are based on stats while hard skill systems are based off peoples OC ability to use weapons/stealth/whatever. Most larp combat systems combine the two, but the degree to which you do this changes the feel of the system. Soft skill systems tend to impose long times between hits, telegraphed blows and large stat disparities. Hard skill systems tend to have smaller time limits between blows and small stat disparities.
What sort of environment will you be fighting in? Point and click systems work badly in the dark where you can’t see where people are pointing or looking, or any features to mark who you are aiming at. Similarly, line fights work poorly in wooded areas, and ambushes in wide open fields.
What is the cost of fighting? Most systems have some sort of resource management game, even if it is just healing. How available things like healing, ammunition or any sort of special call are will change the feel of your system.
Threat Levels How dangerous you want your game to feel can be a difficult line to walk. Afterall, you don’t want all your players dead at encounter one, but generally some sort of tension is desirable.
Low hits but longish bleed time is a strategy I have seen work well for creating a high threat environment. Every time a character starts a bleed count it is a reminder of their mortality and there is a real chance that they might die. But equally there is a chance they won’t
Back loading threat is also big and clever: Make people afraid, talk up the threats, and make the final parts of the event the hardest.
Resource management can also play a large part in this. If resources are scarce fights will be more damaging and feel more desperate. However you want to be careful, if resources are too scarce the players might start to seek ways around fights, which is a valid choice, but may change how you have set up your plot.
Some things to keep in mind when thinking about melee based systems:
Always do an OC safety briefing of some sort with new players. This is just a good general rule. Players need to know who on site knows OC first aid, what the “I am hurt in an OC fashion” call is (normally Man Down at UK systems), and how to fight without injuring people (dont stab with cored weapons, pull your blows ect.)
Numbers are king. It doesn’t matter how highly stated your lone monster is, if it gets mobbed it will go down. No matter how good you are, or how epic your stats, you can’t fight every angle at every point.
Half speed monsters are always less dangerous that full speed monsters no matter their stats.
If you want to make a fight harder, its generally better to increase the monsters hits not its damage output. Players will be understandably hesitant to fight things that can down them with one hit. Which is not to say you shouldn't have them, but make it a deliberate choice, not an accident of up-stating. More hits mean longer fights, more attrition, but lower damage output makes it accessible for a larger number of players.
Keep it simple. If your players have to pull out a flow chart to do combat, they are not going to have a great time. being able to do complex maths in your head should not be a pre-rec for having fun. Similarly, calls that are what they say on the tin are better when you can have them (Strikedown as opposed to eathquake or mudslick)
TLDR:
Think about what you want from your systems combat and how to achieve it
Remember that Stats and general combat interact. Just because a monster has very high stats doesn’t guaranty it will be a hard fight and vice versa.
*My experiencing is limited. Most systems I have been involved in have been melee based rather than gun based, so I don’t have alot to say on gun combat.
