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Prodigal
 
Group: System Moderators
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It appears that ablative armour is all the rage at the moment, probably as a reaction to the Old Skool 'subtract 1/6 of a single for each point of armour' type systems which seem to be rather unwieldy (from the prevalance of battleboarding in them, if nothing else).
However, both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I fear that subtractive armour may be being unfairly sidelined.
Ablative armour:
Pro:
Generally requires less maths, as you can just treat it like 'extra HP'
Con:
Generally requires 'field repair of armour' which is a complete pain
Artificial 'getting through plate mail with your fists' effects
Subtractive armour:
Pro:
More 'realistic'
No need for field repair of armour, which is unrealistic and awkward to physrep
Con:
Often people feel forced to have a much finer-grained damage system (so that you take, for instance, six points from a single, and your armour brings that number down - allowing even more realistic things like having a minimum of one so you can get knocked out by bruising) which gets hard to count
If your subtractive armour system lets you become immune to a certain level of damage (which is likely if you have a 'half/single/double are 1/2, 1, 2 points' damage system), you get the 'ten thousand peasents can't knock you down' effect, which often leads to OOC unsafety as people get frustrated and do actual damage
What are people's experiences of this? Do your favourite LARPs use ablative or subtractive armour? Which do you prefer? What are the benefits and disadvantages of each style from your perspective?
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Heroic Knight
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ChessyPig (7/6/2006)
However, both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I fear that subtractive armour may be being unfairly sidelined.I agree.
Con:
Often people feel forced to have a much finer-grained damage system (so that you take, for instance, six points from a single, and your armour brings that number down - allowing even more realistic things like having a minimum of one so you can get knocked out by bruising) which gets hard to count
That's interesting, I would put having a much finer-grained damage system as a pro... If your subtractive armour system lets you become immune to a certain level of damage (which is likely if you have a 'half/single/double are 1/2, 1, 2 points' damage system), you get the 'ten thousand peasents can't knock you down' effect, which often leads to OOC unsafety as people get frustrated and do actual damage I think its probably best to have a minimum damage of 1 (bruising) to avoid this effect. (or some other mechanism that allows for this..)
What are people's experiences of this? Do your favourite LARPs use ablative or subtractive armour? Which do you prefer? What are the benefits and disadvantages of each style from your perspective? from personal experience I much prefer subtractive armour over ablative. The subtractive feels less 'real' If I'm in full plate, three wimpy dagger blows shouldn't destroy my armour! I also found as a side-effect the games really slowed down, and got into the rhythm of '5 minute Fight, then fifteen minutes of armour fixing' and repeat ad nauseum. If you have subtractive, you put your armour on, and you're good all day! It gets more complex if your armour varies throughout the game (say from armouring spells), but I still think its worth it.
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Prodigal
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| >Skool 'subtract 1/6 of a single for each point of armour' type systems A way to include deductive armour and avoid this problem was developed years ago. Summer kingdoms uses it (and I think brit rex use to). Basicly, you grade the persons armour globally, and scale they only take every other hit, of every third hit, or every fourth hit and so on). Another approach is the riftworld system, which is deductive armour and seems to work fine. (a stub pistol or sowrd does 2 damage, a flak jacket reduces damage by two, so bounces this ideally. A bolter does 4, so puts two points of through, which puts humans down since all humans have 2 hits per loc)
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Heroic Knight
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IIn My Pet System, armour multiplies your hits (eg by 1,5, 2, 2.5, 3)
This combines the 'makes more sense' factors of subtractive with the 'less maths' factor of ablativve - you only calculate when donning or doffing armour.
It wouldn't work well with 'though' damage, but I'm not planning to include that.
(chris)
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Knight
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ChessyPig (7/6/2006)
If your subtractive armour system lets you become immune to a certain level of damage (which is likely if you have a 'half/single/double are 1/2, 1, 2 points' damage system), you get the 'ten thousand peasents can't knock you down' effect, which often leads to OOC unsafety as people get frustrated and do actual damage
I do not see the 10000 peasants effect as a problem. If you are wearing heavy armour, then peasants armed with sticks or knives shouldn't be able to hurt you. Peasants should resort to better weapons (e.g. bows do through damage in many systems) or better tactics (pin the knight down, open his visor and stab him in the face - probably not an option in any system that bans grappling) if they want to defeat armour. Or they should actually have to hit you somewhere the armour doesn't cover (many LRPers are rubbish at covering things like the back of their legs).
There is no excuse for OOC frustration - poorly armed characters should know IC that they have little chance of getting through armour and adjust behaviour (IC and OOC) accordingly. Even if that means always running away from heavily armoured opponents.
Another downside to ablative armour is that it can be a bit pointless to buy anything but the most basic level of protection. To use LT's ablative armour as an example:
- Light armour stops 1 hit, heavy stops 3.
- Both are taken out completely by a single "crush" damage call.
- Both are ignored by "through" damage calls.
Now, in most combat situations, I seem to take either one or two hits or get mobbed and take lots. Back when I wore heavy armour, I found that the extra hits it provided were rarely useful to me. Light armour is very useful because it stops stray hits and crushes as well as heavy armour. Neither is useful if you get mobbed or attacked with through damage. But light armour costs 2 character points compared to 4 for heavy armour (out of 17 total).
However, the linear system I played many years ago used subtractive armour and used "single = 6 points of damage". That was horrible. Especially when you added to that the massive difference in ability between low level and high level characters.
However, I would vote for subtractive armour every time. No system I currently play uses it. Just keep the damage system simple.
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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May I putforward the 'Threshold system' devised for System Override. The mechanics are comparitvly simple.
Armour has an AV
Weapons have a Penetration Value (PV)
If AV is less than PV, take the damage.
If AV is equal to or higher than the PV, get 'tagged' (Tagged means - step back or go down)
Some weapons can be used to 'Sunder' (lower the AV) of an armour
Most weapons can be 'aimed' or 'called' or somesuch (take twice as long to deliver a blow and increase the PV)
Works well. Guy in Full Plate and sword vs Guy with sword = Plate Guy wins.
Guy in Plate vs a Lots of people = Plate Guys loses
Perdo Vim 200?
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Heroic Knight
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Curses. I realised after posting that this comment was bloody stupid, but it doesn't seem to let me delete the post. Feel free to ignore/mock this.
No spoken or written word can ever be a substitute for one's own practical experience. No-one too can convince another who does not wish to believe what he is told - only the doubter loses by his incredulity - T.C. Lethbridge
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Heroic Knight
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I agree with Niggle's views on ablative 'light' and 'heavy' armour - and there's the additional phys rep factor that you can sprint at full speed in leather, but it's a bugger to do in plate. In fact, plate almost never seems worthwhile at fest events - it's normally given the same armour points as chain, despite being far more restrictive to movement - the only real benefit is looking all shiny (and feeling like a tank).
I hate ablative armour with a passion - it's horrible. I like the sound of Simon Marks' system, that seems pretty cool. Roleplaying taking the blow whether or not it's damaging is a good rule. Armour covers where it covers is also a good rule - if a blow strikes off the armour, then the armour shouldn't do anything to protect against it.
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