by PolyesterHomes » Fri May 01, 2020 11:59 pm
The simplification was more so to the health system, however, I will explain myself in regards to your statements on Concussions and dizziness.
These systems all require you to still land a hit. This isn't an automatic saving throw they need to make just because you decided to go for these actions. In every scenario where you would have the target make a saving throw, you'd be in a situation where you could have dealt damage instead. Yes, you could try to go the Dizziness -> Concussion -> Unconsciousness route in theory. However, at a minimum, it would take three turns to do so. This may not seem like much, but in that time period, you could have also taken 3 points of bleed from somebody already without bothering to rely on saving throws. Keep in mind, Dizziness is a relatively easy check. Most of the time, the enemy only needs to get about 11-15. If your enemy has a high vitality score, let's say +2, they're going to get that about 50% of the time. Should this occur, you'd need to try again, this time against an enemy that has a decent idea of what strategy you're going for.
If you go for the Dizziness 4 times, you'll need a minimum of 5 turns, any time of which your enemy could retreat, feint, go for an all-in attack, tackle you, or maybe even land a hit on you.
However, even so, this is a problem. Shutting a person down like this shouldn't be so easy. I'm going to make it so the penalty applies to Strength/Dexterity/Cunning checks. That way, that Vitality check doesn't get any harder for them to pass. This will significantly increase the amount of time this strategy takes, and thus make it non-viable in comparison to say, just attacking them.
I'll probably have some sort of move priority determined by the move + Dex. If we put retreating at the top, followed by attacks and maneuvers, this should prevent stun locking from happening.
Also to be fair if you're fighting more than one person, you should lose. A real-life knight with only their longsword would lose to 2-4+ peasants with pitchforks if the peasants put forward even a modicum of teamwork. The only thing stopping peasants in real life is resolved checks, and frankly, that's a big can of worms I'd rather design around not needing.
On the usefulness of first aid:
Simple. An hour of roaming is quite a while. Imagine if somebody sneak attacked you in your weakened state. Extending the time it takes for pain to heal is probably a good idea though. Maybe at the end of the phase.
Turtling up:
+2 to +10 on your defense test isn't anything to sniff at. If you're a killing role, that's probably going to be a total of a +6-8. Plus, shields would have their own bonus associated with it, given that it's an item, so a total of +10. This is good to mitigate the suffering felt by failing a feint.
Current Changelog:
Nerfed Concussion and Dizziness to no longer affect non-tangible things like fate itself, and to not decrease the enemy's ability to deal with getting hurt. They will also no longer stack, meaning you need to go for the harder check.
Nerfed knock out the wind to have priority on the turn order but allow the enemy to take a nonoffensive action on the following turn, preventing stun locking.
Nerfed Disorient with a blanket weapon-based penalty to prevent unarmed people from stun locking an ax-wielding maniac.
"Whisper in the dark. The battle may yet be won."