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Development Process & non-technical / Re: a question regarding balance
« on: November 13, 2015, 03:47:06 PM »I for one welcome any attempts at rethinking basics like combat. Rolling the dice can add suspense to a tabletop rpg, but in traditional RLs, there's a lot of uninteresting windshield fighting because of how similar systems are often incorporated. Concerning this bit:1) i have a dagger that does 10 damage for 1 turn and a great sword that does 20 damage in 2 turns (dps - the same ) ( in what cases dagger will be better than sword , and in what cases sword will be better ? )it strikes me that the dagger will probably be a better weapon against weak enemies, say your proverbial giant rat, who themselves act quickly but with little force. Using a sword here might give your opponent a free attack, whilst the dagger might dispatch of it in a single turn. But something like an ogre may be better to fight with the sword: let's say such an enemy resists 5 damage for each hit. With the dagger you'll have inflicted 10 damage in two turns, with the sword you'll have inflicted 15 damage.
Having said that, I intuitively think that heavy weapons should be scaled so that the increased damage makes up for having to in effect pass one turn. So maybe the sword should deal 25 damage per 2 turns if the dagger deals 10 damage per 1 turn. One could also imagine some kind of penalty to defense when you are queued to perform an attack, or maybe even the possibility that creatures dodge by moving to an adjacent square during the turn it takes you to initiate.
When it comes to defense vs. protection (your second example), that's always been a difficult nut to crack. My impression is that in most systems, it's sounder to go for low defense and high protection (ie. lots of hit points) since it makes your strategy more reliable. Let's say a character with heavy armor may expect to get hit for 5% of their total hp every turn, whilst a character with good defenses might get hit on average for 50% of their hp every ten turns. In the long run, that amounts to the same, but the defense-based character will never know exactly when he's going to get hit, and sometimes he won't even know what hit him, since each wound is much more grievous. I guess a high-defense character could be a viable option if the surrounding system allows for strategies like dispatching of enemies quite quickly, retreating from melee etc. to avoid getting hit at all. Then, the tank would have to live with getting his hp whittled down, whilst the rogue could hope to escape most battles without a graze. That could be especially effective in a game without natural regeneration, ie. where healing is a commodity in itself.
As always,
Minotauros
great explanation, thanx!. what can you say about dodge vs armor?