This occurred to me right after I woke up this morning, for some reason, and I'm surprised it took so long.
Up to now, the way I've been doing armor has been on the border of being fiddly without, for me, quite going overboard. At present, it works like this: Armor is rated the same way skills are, and is divided into three categories. Light armor is Fair (+2), Medium armor is Good (+3), and Heavy armor is Great (+4). Although it's outside the skill pyramid, you can choose to defend with armor against most melee or ranged attacks (there are exceptions on a case-by-case basis for those times when armor wouldn't logically be of any help) as if it were a skill, like Melee or Athletics. When defending with armor, you can reroll a number of minus dice up to the value of the armor -- e.g., Good armor would let you reroll up to 3 minus dice. If you do, right afterwards (preferably while the GM is dealing with someone else, so as not to slow things down) roll Endurance against a target number equal to the number of dice you rerolled. If that roll fails, you gain a temporary aspect of "Fatigued" until the end of the scene.
It works fine, but the sheer amount of space alone it takes to explain it makes it feel to fiddly to me. Instead, I'd rather take a page out of the swashbuckling game and let armor add Fudge dice to your Melee or Athletics defense up to the armor's rating: +2dF for Light, +3dF for Medium, and +4dF for Heavy. Take the best four dice, and that's your die roll. If the pool of spare dice you don't use contains at least as many minus dice as your Endurance rating, you're "Fatigued," as above. Done.
I like this first and foremost because it means not having to make a second die roll -- that's a central precept I always try to adhere to -- but also because it gives those spare dice a purpose.
4 comments:
I like your proposal a lot. Here's a slight change that keeps the simplicity but I think addresses the negatives of armor better.
When you roll a defensive skill against an attack that Armor would be effective against (e.g. melee attack, arrows, unarmed attack) you add the Armor's bonus Fudge dice and take the best four.
When you roll a skill that would be negatively impacted by Armor (because of bulk, weight, fatigue, etc) you add the Armor's bonus Fudge dice and take the worst four.
E.g.:
Medium Armor
If dodging a Melee attack using Athletics as a defensive skill, roll 7dF and take the best four (you don't have to dodge much for the armor to take the brunt of the attack).
If rolling Athletics to swim across a river in your armor, roll 7dF and take the worst four (the bulk and weight of the armor drag you down).
You could still grant wearers of Armor an aspect that could be compelled against them (e.g. Fatigued) or just assume that it's another target for enemies to apply Maneuvers to (e.g. Broken Strap, Jammed Gauntlet).
Yes -- awesome -- very good! The keep-the-worst is a natural outgrowth of keep-the-best. I heartily approve and shamelessly steal.
Well done! Both on the writeup and Adam's comment.
I especially like the feel of the armor's modifier can be a bonus or a negative, based upon the player / GMs creativity. Very consistent with aspects.
Love it! I say lock it down and keep moving.
(PS: Hi Mike! Yep, still around and trying to make progress!)
The thing I like about the keep-the-worst thing with armor is that the times when I'd want to tag an armor aspect to make a task harder... well, it doesn't work that way, does it? If you're trying to climb a mountain or swim across a river, there's a set difficulty number you're trying to beat -- I'm not rolling against you, so tagging your aspect in that case kinda goes outside the system in a way I don't like. My other alternative is to compel you to just not climb or swim, or even to fall or sink, but I don't like how heavy-handed that is.
With this, though, there's a concrete, elegant way to reflect armor's drawbacks.
The thing I don't want to do, though, is fall into the typical RPG trap of "armor makes you slow." Armor is made for movement -- what armor makes difficult is sustained physical effort, not mere movement. That's why it mostly interacts with Endurance, not Athletics. I mean, I wouldn't try swimming the Channel in full plate or anything, but most real armor was made to be mobile.
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