Tabletop gaming guilty pleasures: what are yours?

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

I like Warhammer's d6 system, the way the odds are easy to calculate and how certain numbers reoccur.

Like "weaponskill 4" immediately tells me that's an elite trained warrior. "Toughness 4" tells me that's something beyond normal human toughness, "3+ armor save" is power armor.

Since the whole scale of the game is just numbering stats from 1 to 10, having caps to it gives it context. Like "strength 10" on a rail gun when Tau first came out was a big dang deal.

D&D (any edition) though, hitpoints and attack values and damage is all abstract and arbitrary. Like whatever amount of damage a ballista does in D&D doesn't really have any 'context' to me, while if I see a strength 6 ballista bolt in Warhammer Fantasy I know "that's double the toughness of a human and can wound a dragon 50% of the time (odds equivalent to shooting a human with a regular arrow)"

Now the actual implementation of warhammer numbers itself has its problems, but I like having 'context' to all those numbers.

Every once in a while I add a bit to my "D6 RPG based off of Warhammer" heartbreaker project.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Sat Nov 08, 2014 4:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Foxwarrior
Duke
Posts: 1626
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:54 am
Location: RPG City, USA

Post by Foxwarrior »

There are static HP, AC, and Damage values in D&D though. Wall healths, objects have AC 5, and the much reviled falling and lava not always killing instantly numbers.
User avatar
tussock
Prince
Posts: 2937
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:28 am
Location: Online
Contact:

Post by tussock »

There's some stuff in OD&D and the first splats about what the D&D numbers originally represented.

[*] 6 HD is as "tough" as a human can possibly be, in terms of soaking damage and rolling with punches. Everything above that includes greater mixes of supernatural resilience. So maybe as tough as a Troll. But if someone catches you sleeping, you're just dead, so not really.
[*] AC 0 is a solid steel block, better than that is pure magic.
[*] Creatures with low HP per HD are young or sick or frail. High HP per HD are warriors. That's still found explicitly in the AD&D Monster Manual (1978) and is behind the change to different HD sizes per class. 8 HP per HD is the standard for ancient Dragons and Orc Captains. Warriors about 6, Thieves 4, Wizards 3.

[*] 50 hit points of damage is thus a huge deal. It's a bigger hit than the greatest possible elite warrior can really soak, without her magical awesomeness to protect her. 6 HD x 8 HP/HD = 48 HP. A 15 HD fireball is devastating (52.5 damage), and the 30 HD fireball a Death Knight hurls gets that even if you save.

[*] When you hit name level; Lord, Wizard, Matriarch, Master Thief, Paladin, Ranger Lord, Druid, etc, you're well beyond superhuman. Fighting a Lord is like chipping at a 12' high steel block from the wrong side of a force field, as they rains blows like boulders from an unerring trebuchet on you at blinding speed.
PC, SJW, anti-fascist, not being a dick, or working on it, he/him.
Post Reply