Hello my dear 'clavers
i have by now played a lot of INqui games so far since i started it when it was first released and i really like the rules... except for the "armour" rules... the drop dead maths there (just subtracting the given value) ends us with having weapons that more or less just don't care about armour (boltguns of all sorts...) and the most of the standart weapons beiing next to useless when there is some heavy armour rolling in... (inquisitors in servo armour, spacies....)
so i came up with an alternate system for armour which helps in both cases...
give armour as usual... then double the values. when the target location is hit and takes damage just take as much d6 as you have armour on the location (after having doubled!) and roll 'em.
each 4+ is one sucessfully saved damage point.
so armour can now give more protection and guns can possibly do more harm through the same rule...
with my new group we tried this several times... and it worked out just fine...
so now up to you:
what do you think of this idea?
seems like a large mechanical overhead on game time
so
if i have carapace armour (6? I think) and I take 12 damage, I roll 12 x D6, 4+ I save the damage - so that's an awful lot of counting dice throwing and messing about. Not too sure I'd be keen on doing that. Flat absorb of damage is a lot quicker.
But hey, if it works for you guys - knock yourselves out.
-Ben
well you're right on this one... its more dice throwing... but its not that much time... and it varies the damage gap a bit more without having to dig too deep into the game rules...
It's a good idea, the armour system is less than perfect and needs changing. I always thought that it shoud work something like:
Armour reduces damage by 1/2 the Av (rounding down) then stops every other damage point up to it's maximum value.
Obviously this is complex and in need of clarification and some tuning, but the premise is that some damage will always be taken. I think your system of average armour values is much easier. I'd suggest that instead of a 4+ for each point of armour though you just reclassify the Av of amour to:
Robes D3
Flack armour D6
Heavy flack 2D3
Light carapace D10
carapace 2D6
power armour 3D6 or 2D10 (I think the former)
Tactical dreadnaught armour 3D10
If anything force fields should have the constant armor values as they are uniform shields of power rather than overlapping layers of varying thickness.
I was musing over something like this a while back.
Very simply, cut back armour values by 2 or 3 points each, but add D6. (I know it brings up average values, but that's part of the point, armour isn't effective enough.)
This meant that flak armour could stop some less vicious shots (as opposed to being next to useless), but power armour could be potentially harmed by less powerful weapons.
Still more dice to roll though. I've not done much play testing on the idea, but it seems to have some merit.
Quote from: Inquisitor Cade on August 13, 2009, 12:48:24 PMIf anything force fields should have the constant armor values as they are uniform shields of power rather than overlapping layers of varying thickness.
To make a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Force fields are not an exact science".
My favourite explanation is Robey's from the last forum:
Quote from: precinctomegaIn case anyone wanted me to expand on "phased miasma", the radiation of a force field generator is slightly out of phase with normal matter (hence, "phased"). Nothing to do with the Warp - this is strictly higher-level physics stuff. I don't pretend to understand what I'm describing but the miasma (the cloud of radiation) decays rapidly, resolving itself either phasing back into normal matter (harmlessly) or simply vanishing into the higher dimensions, energy dispersing itself ineffectually. Hence, it is perpetually being renewed as the wearer moves. Because it's out of phase with normal matter, it isn't affected by motion, gravity, or any of the other strong or weak universal forces.
It is, however, affected by energy, be it kinetic, heat, chemical or whatever. Passage of energy through the miasma causes it to coalesce - the more the energy, the more rapidly and intensely it coalesces - and resolve its effect.
The effect depends upon the nature of the radiation (it's all quantum) and dictates the type of field in question.
Void shields on titans and space vessels are based on a different application of the same technology in which the miasma is in a perpetual state of activation, so that it actually serves to create a solid energy shield around the source. The size of void shields are only possible because of the sheer scale of energy output from the plasma generators of a titan or warship.
In theory, a whole planet could be encased in a void shield if it possessed a molten core of sufficient energy that could be tapped. Rumours suggest that both Earth and Mars have such planetary shield generators, although it is said that they have never been activated.
Personal forcefield generators aren't uniform shields of power. There's not enough power available for that - the shields constantly fade and have to be constantly replenished and maintained by the circuitry of the generators.
Putting something solid in the way of a bullet is going to be more reliable on a man portable scale.
Hm... Some interesting ideas, here. One thing that's always bothered me is the ability to armour to reduce damage, when real body armour tends to either stop it completely or reduce it not at all.
Having just run a few simple playtests, I'm wondering about something like this:
AV is given as a value plus D6 (roughly as proposed by the ever-illuminating Marco). Then, if the armour absorbs the inflicted damage, the damage is ignored (as currently); but if the armour fails to absorb all the damage, it absorbs only an amount equal to the AV (not the D6) [or, alternatively, for a particularly deadly game, absorbs no damage at all].
This gives characters more of a chance of weathering a hail of even the deadliest small arms fire (whilst flak armour still won't have much effect against a lascannon).
Example:
Major Injree is hit on the chest by a round from Brother Kil's bolter, which does 11 damage. Injree is wearing carapace armour with an AV of 6 and rolls a D6. If he rolls a 5 or 6, he has saved himself from the damage. If he rolls a 1, 2, 3 or 4, then he takes 5 damage from the hit [or 11 damage if you play the "sudden death" rules].
I'm still toying with variations to lower the AV of armour as Marco suggests.
R>
an interesting idea i have to say... i think for the time beeing i'll stick with my version (and i don't like to change rules in ongoing campaignes ;) ) but the idea of precinctomega gives me some hints to think... i'm now toying with the idea of something similar to the AP value in 40k...
I like that suggestion Robey - and I wish I'd managed come up with it myself!
It's a perhaps a bit "Make your armour save", but it's a very workable solution that makes armour able to be effective against more powerful weapons (rifles & shotguns, at least if you're going with my 3D6 theory) without making it impenetrable to less powerful weapons like pistols.
.... and as you said, it stops weak armour overstepping itself against weapons that should treat it like soft butter.
A seriously inspired idea which I think I'll be taking up. I've known that armour really needed something of an adjustment for a while (I think we've all known really), and that seems like what it needed.
Personally, I don't think I'd go with "Sudden death", because putting armour in the way of a bullet will still rob it of some energy, and that basic subtraction represents that nicely.
I think with the "D6 doesn't count towards reduction" idea I'd personally also simply keep the basic AVs the same.
Not entirely sure how/when I managed to become "illuminating" though...
@Darios: I considered ideas around an "AP value" at the same time - but it's a heap more work to integrate it.
I don't much like the idea for that reason.
But iven is the armour isn't compremised the impact is still enough to injure. Major Injree's ribs would not be in a good way iven though his carapace held.
Another raw idea would be that flack armour stops every other point of damage up to a total of the Av, carapace stops 2 out of 3 three and power armour stops 3 out of 4 points up to a maximum of 10.
So Major Injree's armour would stop 6 of the 11 bolt round damage, but would only stop 3 of 4 lasbolt damage.
A flack jacket would stop the first point of damage, the third and the fifth. If there were any more then all the rest would inflict damage. Reinforced fack (Av 4) would also stop the seventh point of dsamage.
But if you do that, a hit from a lasgun will penetrate power armour causing an injury level if it does just 4 points of damage - it makes armour considerably less effective.
Personally I've never had much problem with the armour rules - I always assumed the chance that armour might stop damage completely is abstracted away into the weapon's damage roll. So under the current rules carapace armour has little chance of stopping a bolt round - but when it does that covers all sorts of occurences such as the round being a dud, it being a glancing hit, or the armour stopping the round.
That all said, I think the idea could certainly work with a little tweaking. Adding an extra D6 to the AV to see whether a hit is completely stopped by armour would make it somewhat more difficult to penetrate power armour with lower end weapons, so I think it might be worth lowering AVs slightly.
QuoteBut if you do that, a hit from a lasgun will penetrate power armour causing an injury level if it does just 4 points of damage - it makes armour considerably less effective.
Oh yeah. I run a house rule that the damage done has to reach the base injury value to increace the injure level, and if it doesn't then the secondary effects of the current injury level are repeated instead, thus nullifying the 4 slaps = death problem.
That is a very good point about the damage roll.
Quote from: Inquisitor Cade on August 16, 2009, 10:51:43 AM
I run a house rule that the damage done has to reach the base injury value to increace the injure level, and if it doesn't then the secondary effects of the current injury level are repeated instead, thus nullifying the 4 slaps = death problem.
Ah, I wondered if that might be the case...
EDIT: I've never seen the four-slaps thing as a problem. The chances of a character taking 4/5 low damage hits to the same location are very small, and it does at least give characters incapable of inflicting a lot of damage in one go a chance of taking down a very tough/well-armoured foe.
Quote from: Kaled on August 16, 2009, 10:43:45 AMAdding an extra D6 to the AV to see whether a hit is completely stopped by armour would make it somewhat more difficult to penetrate power armour with lower end weapons, so I think it might be worth lowering AVs slightly.
I can see some reason to justify lowering power armour's values, perhaps making it 8, but I'd probably leave the other armours closer to where they are (perhaps no change, or maybe losing a single point).
For an idea, I'd make it so where Reflec and Ceramite armour are involved, the +D6 is the same roll as the "Armour save" (for lack of a simpler name), but in this case counts towards reductions if the weapon is of the appropriate type.
Quote from: Inquisitor Cade on August 16, 2009, 10:28:41 AMBut even if the armour isn't compromised the impact is still enough to injure.
Not necessarily. Truth be told, many people in combat situations can fail to even notice hits that have been stopped by their armour - they simply find bullets lodged in it later on.
It might result in minor bruising, etc - but it's not going to prove enough to qualify as an injury level.
Okay, I stand corrected. In that case I'm with Kaled in that it all comes down to the damage rolled covering the variability in armour protection.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on August 16, 2009, 11:19:38 AM
I can see some reason to justify lowering power armour's values, perhaps making it 8, but I'd probably leave the other armours closer to where they are (perhaps no change, or maybe losing a single point).
Lowering them by one point would be enough I think - injury is less likely, but slightly more damage is done.. However, I'm still not convinced adding an extra roll is necessary for the reason I gave above. Inq2.0 streamlines shooting (and possibly combat) so the overhead is minimal, but if the idea is to streamline things, I wouldn't add in the extra roll here.
If the armour is abstracted away into the roll, that immediately hits problems when a character is wearing no armour.
The problem with abstracting in the wrong places is that you're either compensating for armour when you shouldn't be, or not compensating enough for the armour.
Obviously, it's a matter of taste, but I've wanted to see armour get tougher for a while.
I mean, carapace armour is supposed to be pretty tough - but even the basic armoury's pistols will go through it over half the time.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on August 16, 2009, 11:42:21 AM
If the armour is abstracted away into the roll, that immediately hits problems when a character is wearing no armour.
The problem with abstracting in the wrong places is that you're either compensating for armour when you shouldn't be, or not compensating enough for the armour.
I don't see it as a problem, if the character is not wearing armour then the hit will do damage. The dice tell you the effect of the hit, it's up to players to put it in story terms. A hit that would just have been stopped by armour (for whatever reason) could instead be a glancing hit that causes minimal damage.
Like I said, it's a matter of taste. I don't personally like the idea of abstracting armour in to a roll when that same roll is used for both armoured and unarmoured targets.
Personally, I think that's the most workable of the solutions I've yet seen for making Inq's armour more feasible.
I've actually been wanting the more powerful armour to get weaker, as I always feel bad putting a character in powerful armour (though this might be because the character's I would put in powerful armour are usually the most powerful anyway. I don't know, maybe it's just my penchant for making things difficult for myself), although if power and carapace armour were to stay as they were, I'd prefer flak to be slighly higher. Maybe what's required is a sort of three-dimensional system of working out armour and damage, though that might be to complicated. Well, three-dimensional if we say the current system of damage and armour is two dimensional, but if we say it's one-dimensional maybe increasing it to one and a bit dimsenions.
I'll try to explain myself. At the moment, I think the variety in armour is to much, but the problem I actually have with it isn't the difference between armour values, it's the difference in the damage that gets through and the way that affects the longevity of the characters. This might just be my playing style (and bear in mind that I haven't played for a while and I only tend to play at 'Clave meet-ups) but it's what I dislike about armour. However, raising flak armour, or whatever armour I am giving the character at that point (usually based on the model) an extra point or two wouldn't do it in my opinion. Then again, maybe it would. But what I feel is that if it was simply raised it would either make it to strong or make it too similar to carapace armour.
I haven't read the Inq 2 rules but from what I've heard/read of them I take it that weapons are customizable in that there's a base and then you add abilities to them to change how they work etc. Now, based on this shaky assumption I would propose a similar system for armour, for example, flak armour would protect more against certain types of weapons then others. Thinking about it, I think I'm getting confused about what flak armour actually is, so before I begin to really confuse myself I'm going to stop, and come back when I know what I'm talking about. I do however think that armour should be customizable in a similar way to weapons, however rather then dealing damage and range and the likes, you customize what kind of damage it can take and its encumberance (even though that is a seldom used rule/thing) and its quietude and the likes.
I would see there being types of weapon such as energy and flechette and blunt (maybe inlcuding bullets and the like) and blades. I'm sure there are more, but I think gives the general gist. I'm not sure whether this solution would simply create to much book-keeping though, or simply be to much of a hassle.
if read this now several times... and as i don't know it: what is INQ 2? ist it official? where can i get it?
Quote from: Darios on August 16, 2009, 03:21:43 PMWhat is INQ 2? Is it official? Where can I get it?
1) An update of Inquisitor being written by Precinctomega
2) Not yet, but it may well be. Also, who cares?
3) Nowhere that I know of.
@Magos Exarratus: That sounds horrifically complicated - too many numbers to keep track of. That's more the realm of computer RPGs, not Inq.
Isn't it in beta, as in ask and you might get bits? PO was posting bits for review, pre-crash...
Quote from: DapperAnarchist on August 16, 2009, 11:17:05 PMAsk and you might get bits?
Perhaps. However, there is nowhere you can "just get hold of INQ2"
Quoteputting armour in the way of a bullet will still rob it of some energy
But a reduction in kinetic energy doesn't always equate to a reduction in damage. It's well known in military medical circles that 7.62mm rounds were sometimes
more deadly when it had passed through body armour, as it not only tended to tumble more through the mass but also dragged particles of armour through the wound with it.
However, a complete simulation is impossible and some alteration to "reality" is essential to an entertaining game (actual combat is often surprisingly dull IRL).
The "four slaps" problem can be better solved by simply altering the damage of unarmed attacks. INQ2 allows the possibility for low-lethality attacks (such as unarmed attacks or attacks with improvised weapons) to cause negative damage (which is treated as zero damage, incidentally, not as making a person better).
Finally, progress on INQ2 can be found at http://inquisitorsdiary.blogspot.com. Draft copies are only circulated on a strictly limited basis and a full release (official or otherwise) is anticipated no earlier than 2011.
R.
I seem to remember being the one who proposed a negative damage modifier for strengths lower than 50 on the old, old conclave a while ago. It was a well-received idea.
Quote from: precinctomega on August 17, 2009, 11:39:25 AMBut a reduction in kinetic energy doesn't always equate to a reduction in damage.
True enough. However, making it "all or nothing" would mean that even power armour (particularly with an armour value reduction) would be little proof against bolters (or other powerful weapons) - and that doesn't seem right.
QuoteIt was a well-received idea.
Indeed it was, Charax. But, as you may recall, INQ2 borrows the Strength Bonus and Toughness Bonus concept from Dark Heresy. So an attack's damage is expressed as SBa-TBd+Dam-AV (or, Strength Bonus of the attacker, minus the Toughness Bonus of the defender, plus the attack's damage profile, minus the AV on the location hit).
It's easy for weak characters to fail to cause any damage at all to a tough opponent.
R.
Personally, I'm inclined to think the +D6 armour rule is both an extra roll too far, in terms of complexity, and that it adds a little too much to the ability of light to medium armour against lesser arms fire, even if combined with a small reduction in armour values. From experience, a character in carapace armour already rarely suffers worse than a light wound from 2D6 weapons, and AV10 power armour is practically imperivous to the lesser armaments of the arsenal-I'm not really fond of either getting better. As an alternative means of implementing a similar effect which both avoids rendering small arms even less effective and is less complicated, why not simply give more weapons the rule for boltguns, which have a fixed damage bonus applied only if they penetrate the armour? In effect, this gives each weapon a minimum damage for a wounding hit. On the 'four slaps' issue, I think it's a nice check on really high toughness characters that they do still feel some effect from light wounds, including even being stunned by a lucky hit to the head. Taking four such hits and no other damage is an incredibly unlikely event, and unless they all occur at once you still get a chance to heal some of the injury levels, and quite honestly I'd say an opponent that rolls well enough to manage it has earned the kill.