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Originally Posted by Endoperez
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Originally Posted by Omnirizon
In fact, I was looking through the drawings of the old german school manuals on using 2h-swords, and warriors were often depicted using the sword more like a staff! in close combat the swords weight and leverage becomes a liability, and it had to be used differently. In actual combat, the dagger and the sword have a 'threat' separate from the amount of physical damage they could actually do.
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According to ARMA, the grip is changed because armor beats edge, but tip may be used to go through the gaps in armor and pommel strike to the head can give you time to do that. Half-swording uses the sword as a spear/polearm, and "morte-striking" uses it as a hammer and hits with the pommel/handguard:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/Talhoffer/HT-Web.htm
And here's a video in which two guys play it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnqOMbFDEAI
I'm still not sure why you can't just say that stamina acts as a buffer before actual health goes down, but any way...
You need two different threat values, normal and armor. Using 2h-swords the usual way is generally better, but doesn't work against heavy armor. Half-swording makes it easier to thrust through gaps in armor, so it's better against armored opponents. |
This has occured to me, but rather than have all these threat values, I was going to allow for skill in the two handed sword, or whatever weapon, simply to increase the weapons contribution to threat (or 'attack', I may end up calling it for simplicity). This can abstract how the wielder knows _how_ to wield the sword in what situation to extract more effectiveness from the weapon; this at the slight expense that there are some situations in which some weapons should genuinely have a higher or lower attack, depending on the environment and the exact nature of the target. Also, since the target has an independent 'defense' roll and armor value, the quality of the armor is in principle accountable for without needing ad hoc or special formulas.
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So... spirit could affect things like the rate at which you lose your skills when you lose health? Morale, bravery, that kind of thing? There's the problem that players will want to control the character, and can guide a coward to attack a dragon. Would that do anything to the character?
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No. actually spirit is primarily intended for a part of the magic system, and it will be necessary in this respect. However it is useful for vitality too, since 'fear' and 'morale' from dominions are rolled up in this vitality score. at the moment, it influences the initial amount of vitality. Of course, I wouldn't force a player to run away, but there are penalties for having low vitality that might be thought of as Fear, and when a player is getting low on vitality, they are quite likely to want to run away.
most of the stats you are pointing out have their initial considerations in the magic system, which is why they are necessary even if they play only an ancillary role in combat. However, the primary combat stats will play an ancillary role in magic. I like it that way and it helps contribute to my ideal behind using harmonic means (everything works best when in 'harmony'.)
psyche and spirit, or even psyche and cognizance might not seem that separate, but I believe they are. Spirit was originally conceived to represent "spirituality", something that psyche does not. think not of the priest, but of the tribal shaman, or maybe the Buddhist monk. Psyche is that mental strength and brass; I was thinking of the D&D psionics here, which is usually associated with 'intelligence', but I thought that was too blunt. For more 'real life psionics' I might imagine browbeaters and car salesmen, that's not charisma, they arn't charming you, they are just beating you down mentally until you give in; there's a lot of weak minded people out there so this works well. That doesn't take intelligence, it doesn't take spirit, it doesn't take charisma, it just takes mental strength and persistence; that's psyche. cognizance then is your ability to think, abstract, and synthesize; what we most often associate with intelligence.
of course, each stat has a little overlap with others, but that's OK and even desirable. what's important is that they have a well defined center that is necessary and cannot be captured in another stat. Of course, I could go so far as having 'slow twitch strength' and 'fast twitch strength' and such parsings like that too, but I don't think those two things are separate enough from each other that they can't reasonably be represented with just 'strength'.