Thursday, February 18, 2010

Does More Than 1d4

The Lost Fort is one of my favorite non-RPG blogs. Check out these real Roman Daggers. What struck me was how wide the blades were. Hence title, those suckers do more than 1d4 in damage!

9 comments:

  1. Do they have measurements for those things? They look over a foot long, so they must easily be, what, 4 inches wide?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That seems about right, and what I always considered a d4 damage to be. But I guess it depends on how many hitpoints you think the average person should have. In my case I go with 5 body points, meaning a d4 damage (especially with the ease of a strength bonus or critical hit) seems about right. One solid or two average blows, less if the individual is somewhat strong.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The hit point system is a simple way of adding some variety without going into details. It isn't and never was about realism.

    I fail to grasp why players keep coming up with real world comparisons. You don't like something, change it.

    Worse than that idiot talking about how using the 1d6 damage for all weapons system let their fighter carry around a club for flavor (which he otherwise would never do because he always opted for the best weapon). Too damn stupid to just let the fighter carry a club that does 1d8 damage...

    It's all flavor, NOT REALISM! It was NEVER meant to be any sort of REALISM.

    The lack of creative intelligence in the hobby is mind boggling...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Who is to say its not about realism? That is a type of flavor. Its also a way to keep the game grounded. If hitting someone with a stick is just as effective as running them over with a dump truck you have just killed creativity.

    If all the outcomes are the same, its no longer creativity. Creative intelligence does not mean you simply make up whatever you like "Im playing a tuna with a flute who's music does a d6 damage!". That may be creative, but the intelligence part is missing.

    The problem with creative intelligence is that great minds often think alike. Both dolphins and sharks have the same general aerodynamics for a reason, its a good solution.

    If the fighter wants to carry a club, he should deal with the club is less effective than a sword at hurting people. If that is a big hang-up, he has failed creative intelligence. Knowing how to use a club means it would be harder to be caught without a weapon (anything becomes a club), it would mean less money spent on weapons, it would mean all kinds of things. But if you want to charge into battle and have the money to pay for it..pick up a sword.

    Throwing around "creativity" as an excuse to sap creativity out of the game irks me. Creativity isn't ignoring the situation, its making the situation work for you. You want a club to be your thing, think of a reason why. That can be your creative outlet, why does your warrior use a club? Is he a fan of improvisation? Does he want to break limbs to capture live prisoners (ie, Maya and Aztec)? Does he want the weapon to double as a tool capable of being used in many more situations than a sword (breaking doorknobs, smashing chests etc).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anon:
    Perhaps the examples of uncreativity are grabbing too much of your attention. There is a lot of creative intelligence going around.

    In your specific example, he might have made the weapons all 1d6 damage because the characters all use 1d6 for HP rolls. And the Fireballs and Lightning Bolts are all based on d6s. It's a design decision, and whether you bump all the weapons up to d8 or down to d6 is in the end meaningless. It certainly isn't evidence of creativity or its absence.

    Finally, you complain about this little blog post ... it's for fun. It's not some serious appeal to reality for a change in the rules. Of his own game.

    I'm shocked you even care.

    ReplyDelete
  6. In a world where the average human has 4hp, 1d4 isn't that bad. I like the BECMI Weapon Mastery rules because as HP increase, you can also increase damage through training. So a 10th level character might not just shrug at an opponent when he realizes the guy is a Grand Master with the dagger... (4d4, double damage 17-20).

    ReplyDelete
  7. Holy cow! What a bunch of wasted, dickish vitriol over a few-sentence fluff post. 2nd time this week someone's gone off on some tangential smack-talking, bitchfest over my post/comments.

    Dudes, some you all need to get some reading comprehension and esp social interaction skills or at the very least learn to Troll above 5th grade level.

    Well, I suppose my faith in humanity should be buoyed that most commenters understood it for what it was and even bothered to explain it, 1d30.

    Meh, troll, I'm over it.

    ReplyDelete

All Time Most Popular Posts