second class super combattants

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Have any of you used werewolves as SC's? The ones you get from call of the wild. Since they start with super-human stats, natural protection, regeneration, an extra attack, size 3, and stealthy, I always tried to use them as a chassis... I think the HP are just too low, though, since it never worked.

I used them as good assassins, with a black heart and a copper armor (I was fighting Caelum). It worked fairly well, and forced the player to bodyguard many of his mages.

And dont forget : you can loose 3 in a row, when you draw the jackpot, it win big time (the jackpot being a mage scripted for spells which are not useful in assassination attempts, and have items and gems for big battle spells).

[PvK]

Originally posted by Pocus:
...

My proposal would not be to tweak them down (because when not used as SC, they would perform even less efficiently), but renforce the mechanisms which lead to the demise of a strong isolated unit versus a hord of weaker units. This could fix some of the problem with combatting pretender too. Some quick examples:

- bypassing defence always incur one hit, even if prot is not passed.
- being attacked has a random chance of increasing your fatigue by one.

That would tone down the whole 'I start with a combat pretender and take the world with him' issue too.

I think Pocus' proposal is a very good one.

In general, it would help a lot if super-combattants needed some friends around to keep them from getting overwhelmed.

Such an added mechanic could also help to improve the usefulness of cheaper units.

Charging a little fatigue for a defense seems like a good one.

I wouldn't always inflict a point of damage for every hit, but some tweak to the chance of taking some damage even with high PROT would help.

It would also make sense if defense skill was reduced by the number of incoming attacks per turn - say a cumulative -2 to defense for each attack after the first.

PvK

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by PvK:

It would also make sense if defense skill was reduced by the number of incoming attacks per turn - say a cumulative -2 to defense for each attack after the first.

PvK

There is allready a cumulative -1 def per additional attack. Perhaps something more could be added.

[ November 02, 2003, 23:43: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:

It would also make sense if defense skill was reduced by the number of incoming attacks per turn - say a cumulative -2 to defense for each attack after the first.

PvK

There is allready a cumulative -1 def per additional attack. Perhaps something more could be added.

---

Without a critical strike rule or stun (ie fatigue) damage for attacks that don't get through armor (both suggestions from the Heavy vs. Light thread), this won't help damage an invulnerable supercombatant (although it will help damage one that "only" has 30 def and mediocre protection).

Fatigue obviously would add to the chance of a free AP hit (which has a much better chance of causing damage against 30 prot).

Actually, some of the heavy vs. light issues are the same problems that any unit has vs. supercombatants. So one change could affect both places.

I'd like to see what happened if half of all damage that was blocked by armor was applied as stun damage (in addition to the hp damage if any). I'd expect to see supercombatants going down much faster if they don't have some decent troops around them, and heavy units in general being somewhat less dominant (although they would probably still beat light troops in a straight-up fight, they might take more casualties).

I.e.
DamageRoll = attacker.Strength + weapon.Damage + OpenEndedDice(2);
ProtectionRoll = defender.Protection + OpenEndedDice(2);
HealthDamage = max(0,DamageRoll - ProtectionRoll);
StunDamage = min(DamageRoll, ProtectionRoll) / 2;

[Saber Cherry]

There's also the possiblity of cumulative armor damage. As in... every hit that lands, regardless of whether it penetrates, has a chance of reducing the opponent's protection by 1. This should be proportional to the strength of the damage roll (str+weapon+2d6). So neither a damage roll of 10 nor a damage roll of 20 would damage a unit with a protection roll of 22, but the damage roll of 20 would be twice as likely to degrade the victim's armor. An attack would probably have (damage roll)% of damaging the armor by 1 point.

The protection reduction would stay for the length of the turn (but be repaired each month). So heavy infantry peppered with slings would take no damage at first, but after 10 rounds of being hit by 5 rocks per person per round, their armor would be badly degraded, and they'd start taking HP damage. Entropy should eventually cause the demise of any highly armored supercombatant=)

Well, that's just a little suggestion I have.

[PvK]

Chris: Oh, I agree. I mentioned the original leaky armor suggestion, but I prefer your Version. I just didn't exactly like the specific mechanic of the minimum 1-point damage per hit, since it would penalize mortal fighters more than giants and seemed to certain and not quite "right". I prefer the small chance of a critical hit, either by small chances of armor-piercing or armor-negating, and/or the open-ended damage you just posted.

For the already -1 per subsequent attack, maybe just tweak it to -2 or even -3 (though unable to reduce below the effect of armor-only). Because the problem is for folks who get up to 30 or so, and become able to parry even 5 or 6 guys easily.

PvK

[ November 03, 2003, 02:03: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Sammual]

I think that any changes in this direction should be made slowly.

As stated by Chris Byler - "Actually, some of the heavy vs. light issues are the same problems that any unit has vs. supercombatants. So one change could affect both places."

In addition to the cumulative -1 def per additional attack I would like to see an increase in the defenders fatigue by one for every hit that bypasses Defense but not Protection.

And if that change shows to be too little add 1 fatigue per attack made on a unit. That WILL have an effect.

Sammual