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Cold Water and Brass Tacks
 
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| EDIT [ point covered by previous psoter]
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Knight
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My experience is that the important factor is what you mean by "swiftly" repairable armour. Whether it's locational or global matters a lot less.
Do you consider the LT's system swift? (locational, up to 4 points of armour per location, repair takes 1 minute per point per location with no special tools required, or 30 seconds with an OSP skill.)
Or Maelstrom? (Global hits, up to 5 points of armour, normal repair takes 5 minutes per point by a skilled armourer or 30 seconds per point with a sorcery cantrip.)
Compared to real-world repairing armour, all of these are fairly swift. Ignoring Maelstrom's non-sorcerous repairs, both are fast enough that you can pretty much guarantee to repair armour between fights, but neither method is really fast enough to make much difference in a single fight.
The thing about locational hits that encourages charging in is that you can spread the damage over several armoured locations allowing you to continue fighting longer. The thing that encourages caution is that each location can't take much damage once the armour is gone (or if somebody is calling through) which means that you can be put out of the fight very quickly.
With global hits, the position is reversed. You can't spread the damage, but you usually have more hit points so it's harder for a single blow to drop you once the armour has gone.
The tipping point is when armour repair is fast enough to actually affect a single fight. For example, several years ago, we had a couple of items that could be invoked to mend armour (10 seconds, all armour on all locations repaired). This had a huge impact on the combat style. The warriors would charge in, fight for less than a minute then drop back to get all armour repaired. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Meanwhile, the opposition has no breathing space to repair armour, so you wear them down quite quickly.
Interestingly, the new LT version 3 rules now include a "Mend Armour" spell. One spell card and about 2 seconds to repair all of the armour on a location - definitely swift and fairly cheap. Will be interesting to see how big an effect this has once it is widely available (it's not on a starting list). Personally, I'm expecting to see Enchanter-Tanks become quite popular since they have other combat useful spells as well.
As the time to repair armour drops, you get closer and closer to having effectively reductive armour rather than ablative. If you can't penetrate it in one or two hits, you can't penetrate it at all. And invulnerability certainly encourages people to wade in.
I may be at the same event as you, but that does not mean I am playing the same game.
LT: Aries (Vipers)
PD: Dorian Bowchard (Sacuza)
I am hereby placing all original, unquoted text in the above post in the public domain.
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and Minimeister
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| Mmm.. crunchy. I should have specified that I was thinking of melée combat and for large ( x > 200) numbers of people (where, IMnsHO) rules have to be correspondingly a bit simpler. I shall certainly remember the bits on firearms and rotating systems, that sounds handy. Niggle (5/24/2007)
My experience is that the important factor is what you mean by "swiftly" repairable armour.
Do you consider the LT's system swift? (locational, up to 4 points of armour per location, repair takes 1 minute per point per location with no special tools required, or 30 seconds with an OSP skill.)So, 6*4 = 24 minutes to do the whole lot, in the worst case, or 12 minutes with this OSP thing? Sooo..... most people wear 2 points of armour? Which would make it 6-12 minutes depending? Is that correct? But you could cut this down by having more than one person working on it, because anyone can do it? So... if you had a "pit crew" you could knock this down to: 4 minutes in the worst case? Or even 2?
Or Maelstrom? (Global hits, up to 5 points of armour, normal repair takes 5 minutes per point by a skilled armourer or 30 seconds per point with a sorcery cantrip.)
Ignoring Maelstrom's non-sorcerous repairs, both are fast enough that you can pretty much guarantee to repair armour between fights, but neither method is really fast enough to make much difference in a single fight. 25 minutes or 150 seconds = 2 1/2 minutes. But requires a specialist and presumably consumption of resources for the spell?
The thing about locational hits that encourages charging in is that you can spread the damage over several armoured locations allowing you to continue fighting longer. The thing that encourages caution is that each location can't take much damage once the armour is gone (or if somebody is calling through) which means that you can be put out of the fight very quickly.
With global hits, the position is reversed. You can't spread the damage, but you usually have more hit points so it's harder for a single blow to drop you once the armour has gone.True, when your global is high enough you wade in more.
The tipping point is when armour repair is fast enough to actually affect a single fight. For example, several years ago, we had a couple of items that could be invoked to mend armour (10 seconds, all armour on all locations repaired). This had a huge impact on the combat style. The warriors would charge in, fight for less than a minute then drop back to get all armour repaired. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Meanwhile, the opposition has no breathing space to repair armour, so you wear them down quite quickly. *stroky beard moment* Hmm.... these magic items were usable by anyone? And could repeat indefinitely? Interestingly, the new LT version 3 rules now include a "Mend Armour" spell. One spell card and about 2 seconds to repair all of the armour on a location - definitely swift and fairly cheap. I don't know how much of a drain that is, an "experienced combat mage" at some systems I've seen could be expected to have 9 level 1 spells and 3 level 2 that could be used to replicate this effect, how does LT compare? The limiting factor is time spent on verbals! Crikey. That's quick. As the time to repair armour drops, you get closer and closer to having effectively reductive armour rather than ablative. If you can't penetrate it in one or two hits, you can't penetrate it at all. And invulnerability certainly encourages people to wade in.  Less wading, more paddling. "In out, in out"  So. Repair time is the tipping point and that's balanced by availability of "armour repair specialists" and "time taken to repair armour". Essentially it can be quick as you like, so long as it's over, say 2m/full locational suit? (I guess the "pit crew effect would be balanced out by queueing for attention). Anything much under that produces cycling ablading doom for the opposition?
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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Wag
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I have to say that in my experience all the above armour repair systems are massively fast (magic notwithstanding) compared to systems I have played/run. The lowest I have seen is 30 minutes per point of armour. Obviously this is a more realistic style. In one fight in Blood Red Roses I lost my armour to previous fights and was left with the one hit per loc that system allows. There were several fights before I managed to get it fully repaired, one of which almost killed me  I've also seen systems where the one and only armourer is being swamped with various random suits to repair and not having enough time to do all of them. Not sure you really have more hits in global. If anything you have the same or less hits, just not spread all over the body. Compare a typical 2 per loc system (thats 10 hits total) to Maelstrom's '3 global hits'. The locational system has 70% more hits than the global. Ok, comparing apples with oranges is not necessarily useful in this case but even if you only have 1 per loc that is still 2 more hits than global (3 if you include the head). The only other global system I have had experience of is Vampire (both the Cam Uk version and the Tyne and Wear version). One had the usual WW 'bruised, hurt, mauled, dead' system which is basically a global hits system with names instead of numbers while the other had 20 hit points. Both were combined with reductive armour. In the case of one you had less than a typical 2 per loc system (but the armour balanced that out a lot) and in the other you had a lot more than the typical (20 points for a vampire). Neither, however, encouraged combat in any shape or form similar to what you may see in most fantasy LRPs. Certainly no mass battles or skirmishes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Champion
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Maelstrom repair time by a crafter is one minute per point, not five.
The books says five but the errata list says one.
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Knight
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coffmeister (5/24/2007) re: LT
So, 6*4 = 24 minutes to do the whole lot, in the worst case, or 12 minutes with this OSP thing? Sooo..... most people wear 2 points of armour? Which would make it 6-12 minutes depending? Is that correct? But you could cut this down by having more than one person working on it, because anyone can do it? So... if you had a "pit crew" you could knock this down to: 4 minutes in the worst case? Or even 2?
I believe you can have multiple people working, but only one per location. Though I doubt anybody would ever need all their armour repaired without them being dropped.
re: Maelstrom
2 1/2 minutes. But requires a specialist and presumably consumption of resources for the spell?
Not so much a specialist as a basic training in sorcery. It's a cantrip so requires no resource expenditure. But I suspect you're more likely to need to do all the armour here than under the LT system.
*stroky beard moment* Hmm.... these magic items were usable by anyone? And could repeat indefinitely?
Could be used by anybody with the Invoke skill (3 of your 17 character points). And used repeatedly. We thought they were broken. The new spell might not be as bad because spell cards are a limited resource.
So. Repair time is the tipping point.
It's a critical parameter. Get it too fast (and too cheap) and you will encourage a wade-in, step-out, repair cycle.
I may be at the same event as you, but that does not mean I am playing the same game.
LT: Aries (Vipers)
PD: Dorian Bowchard (Sacuza)
I am hereby placing all original, unquoted text in the above post in the public domain.
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Knight
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balor (5/24/2007)
Not sure you really have more hits in global. If anything you have the same or less hits, just not spread all over the body.
You probably have less hits in total with the global system, but more per location (since you only have one hit location). For example, a basic LT character has 1 hit/loc while a basic Maelstrom character has 3 global.
Ignoring all special damage calls etc, that gives the global hit character two hits grace to run away once their armour is gone. In comparison, the locational hit character is very vulnerable once the armour is gone on any location. To my mind, that make the global hit character more likely to stay in the fight until their armour is gone.
I may be at the same event as you, but that does not mean I am playing the same game.
LT: Aries (Vipers)
PD: Dorian Bowchard (Sacuza)
I am hereby placing all original, unquoted text in the above post in the public domain.
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and Minimeister
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Niggle (5/24/2007)
Ignoring all special damage calls etc, that gives the global hit character two hits grace to run away once their armour is gone. In comparison, the locational hit character is very vulnerable once the armour is gone on any location. To my mind, that make the global hit character more likely to stay in the fight until their armour is gone.True. My reaction on going from a 1+1 CP character to a 3+1 PD character was "BUAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!! I AM A GOD!!!" But YMMV
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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