Re: Star Wars: Armour and damage: straw poll

On Feb 13, 10:26=A0am, DougL <lampert.d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The big problem I have with HP is that they encourage excessive
> concentration of fire to an extent that violates both realism and
> genre.

In my case I control the tendency to concentrate attacks by use of the
map and tactical modifiers. Yes one can gang up on a single target,
but you have to be able to move there first, doing while taking into
account zones of control and terrain. Along the way you have to worry
about your own flank/rear hexsides.

So in Age of Heroes, it's a great idea to concentrate your attacks-
but actually getting it done is rather difficult.

In HERO Systems, it's generally not especially effective to combine
attacks on to a single target. This is due to many of the same
tactical elements as above. In addition, for the more realistic
settings- a single attack can easily take somone down. It's best
therefore to individually select best target instead of concentrating
upon one.


Hit Point systems by nature lessen the control of the above approach
by lowering the Pace of Decision. They make it possible to make
tactical errors and still have time to recovery. For example it may be
quite acceptible to have flank attacks made against three of your
party (spreading the damage between them) in return for concentration
of four attacks (3 + the original) on a single foe and taking him
down. Meanwhile there is more than enough time to heal your injured
members and press the attack onward.

Remove the maps and the tactical modifiers (something common in
practice in today's gaming world it seems- at least for those who post
online), and the whole method of course fails.


> A big bonus to attack if you are not attacked at all in a
> round is the best I've come up with, but it requires too much tracking
> of who's been attacked when.

Both Age of Heroes and HERO System offer combat maneuvers that provide
significant bonuses at the cost of significant loss in defense. The
result is that one's opponents have a reason to 'engage' or at least
hold a threat of engagement over them in order to encourage them not
to use those maneuvers.

The fact that these are maneuvers (Haymaker, Full Swing, Braced Fire,
etc) chosen in initiative order by individual character instead of a
situational combat modifier makes it easy for me to track. Instead of
remembering if Joe had been fired on by anyone, I just have to
remember what he did last or even ask the player.


> Thinking about this today: An ability to "cover someone" and take some
> of their damage if within some relatively short range might work to
> reduce the advantage of unrealistic concentration of fire regardless
> of whether or not people still do it.

Interestingly enough 'Lord of the Rings Online' (a MMORPG) just
introduced this exact mechanic to its Guardian class in today's patch.

I don't expect it to see much use.