Josh Sawyer on Miss and Hit

[PrimeJunta]

+1 for pain. Torment is copyrighted, so can't use that.

[Hormalakh]

Self Applied Wounds You'll Eventually Recover -> S.A.W.Y.E.Rs. Damnit Sawyer, stop being so big headed!

[Somna]

+1 for pain. Torment is copyrighted, so can't use that.

Yeah, that's why I dropped that from consideration. 

[Gfted1]

Yes, monks can use any of their abilities through equipped weapons or through their unarmed attacks.

 

How will that be balanced? Making up an example, lets say the monks fists will be treated as +hit or +damage. When combined with a +hit or +damage weapon, will those stack or only the higher of the two will be in effect or something else?

[J.E. Sawyer]

Monk unarmed weapons will grow in power as the monk gains levels, roughly matching the power increase seen by other weapons.  The bonuses received by their unarmed weapons are not applied to standard weapons they wield.  The main limitations of the monks' unarmed attacks are a) unlike standard magical weapons, they don't have branching magical effects unless the monk buys optional abilities for them and b) unless the monk is able to buy alternate damage types for them, the unarmed attacks all do crushing damage, which means those attacks will sometimes be inefficient.

[Lephys]

Awww... I was kinda hoping to see slashing/piercing/crushing glove/gauntlet type weaponry for unarmed attacks.

 

A glove with spikes in the right places (to be utilized by unarmed fighting-style movements/attacks... no just spikes all over a gauntlet), or a glove with blades maybe on the edges and knuckles/back-of-palm would be awesome.

 

It might be unrealistic in the sense that no one really fights with such weapons, but it's not completely infeasible (if you developed martial arts around a well-designed fist/glove weapon.) Or, you could even have a small blade that could lock into place at the base of the palm for combat readiness (sort of like the Hidden Blades in Assasin's Creed, only maybe not quite as "I magically flick my wrist and and they obey my will!"-ish. Haha).

 

I hate how Unarmed combat gets so neglected in the ranks of existing RPGs. It's always "You can fight with cool weapons, or you can fight with nothing," rather than treating "fists/hands" as a completely separate weapon specialization.

 

Not that, from what you've said, you'll be neglecting it. It sounds like you'll be providing a lot of character development options specifically for empty hands, which is splendtastic! I'd just like to see lore in which unarmed fighters actually designed specialized weaponry for the very same Unarmed martial style of combat.

[morrow1nd]

Thanks Mr. Josh, i believe the new system will bring more on the table..

 

 

And i have to admit i really like all the innovations you are bringing to this game even tho we may ask little tweaks for some aspects  

[morrow1nd]

PE will have control-loss effects (stuns/roots/charms), though their durations will probably not be as long as A/D&D counterparts (which are often really, really long).

 

Last week, we implemented a full miss mechanic at the bottom end of graze, as I described earlier in the thread.  It's really an "out of bounds" effect and doesn't occur often unless the difference between the attacker's Accuracy and the target's defense is large.  This would allow you to build a "dodge" or "block" oriented character that boosts avoidance and that was the primary motivating factor in introducing the mechanic (supporting a character concept).  Damage is still pretty heavily normalized since misses are the exception and only start becoming more common as full hits become less likely (which also makes critical hits impossible).  At the other end of the spectrum, if the attacker has a large Accuracy advantage over the target defense, misses become impossible and critical hits become more common.

 

Think of Accuracy vs. defenses as being a sliding window where perfectly matched values result in a small chance to fully miss, a small chance to critically hit, and large chances to hit and graze.  As the Accuracy and defenses move out of alignment, the worst and best cases shift in a directly proportional fashion.  The typical "attacker is outclassed" situation will result in a lot of grazes, some hits, some misses, no crits.  The typical "defender is outlcassed" situation will result in a lot of hits, some crits, some grazes, no misses.

 

 

 

 

Yes, I approve.

 

 

Thanks Mr. Josh, i believe the new system will bring more on the table..

 

 

And i have to admit i really like all the innovations you are bringing to this game even tho we may ask little tweaks for some aspects   

 

-Sorry for the Double Post. Would a mighty moderator can delete the abomination above ? 

Edited January 22, 2013 by morrow1nd

[Doppelschwert]

I'd imagine the ability to make fists act like slashing damage would be awesome.

This is already the best game ever, regardless whether slashing fists ends up in the game or not.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Doppelschwert

[rjshae]

Buying the ability to make fists act like slashing damage sounds awesome. This is already the best game ever, regardless whether slashing fists ends up in the game or not.

 

Tiger claw style!

[Doppelschwert]

I'll propably make a run where I'll teach everyone in the party to beat people up with their hands.

Thats going to be awesome.

[Osvir]

* Claws,
* Katars,
* Standard Thug Knuckles,
* More "Cannon" like knuckles that goes around the whole fist.
* What else-knuckles?

Can you dual-wield two different?

[Lephys]

^^ I want to make a Monk who fights entirely with his hands folded behind his back. u_u...

Edited January 22, 2013 by Lephys

[morrow1nd]

It would be cool for monk fans if they could channel their fist power to their weapons ( i mean the + bonuses, if their weapon bonuses lower then their fists + ) 

 

Just an idea for high-level monk mechanics..If u guys didnt already do that   

 

Beware the Trollonks!

Edited January 22, 2013 by morrow1nd

[Hormalakh]

HI Josh. Do monks follow a particular god, as in are the inherently religious, or can they follow a concept/themselves/a religion? I know with priests, they will be religious, so will you have a list of the pantheon at character creation where they will be able to pick their god (like in IWD2)?

[Hormalakh]

Also: "What are your thoughts on loot placement ? A lot of rpgs have the problem where heavily guarded or hard to pick chests yield less than satisfying rewards while easy to access chests yield better results."

[Juneau]

 

 

However, on a personal level, when it comes to being immersed in playing the game. Does the idea of never missing regardless of the maths and dice rolls sound right to you? Would you not like to see your massive beast of a warrior swing and miss completely? Or a fireball go wide and explode on the wall behind the intended victim?

I personally don't have a negative reaction to hitting 100% of the time. Mechanically, the "all-or-nothing" D&D hit/miss system can easily change the outcome of a fight based on a die roll even when the players/DM are performing the most tactically sound action. Our revised crit/hit/graze/miss system still allows for that possibility, but it is much less likely, especially over a series of rolls.

Being more a fan boy then anything (Only games I've ever made were Mobile ones and they used a combination of rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock and top trunks to determine the winners) I'll take your word for it I've no doubt it will work well, however in game, if you roll a 1 and 'miss' visually would this show a miss or would it still show a hit? Or is this still to be decided? This is the area I am worried about, as I've stated, the idea of missing doesn't sound/feel right.

[Jenda]

Monk unarmed weapons will grow in power as the monk gains levels, roughly matching the power increase seen by other weapons.  The bonuses received by their unarmed weapons are not applied to standard weapons they wield.  The main limitations of the monks' unarmed attacks are a) unlike standard magical weapons, they don't have branching magical effects unless the monk buys optional abilities for them and b) unless the monk is able to buy alternate damage types for them, the unarmed attacks all do crushing damage, which means those attacks will sometimes be inefficient.

Hmm, will this not result in monks running up unarmed against ironclad juggernauts and rock golems, only to switch to their trusty bladed weapons when chopping up peasants, zombies and wizards? I'm not saying that's a game-breaker, but perhaps it might benefit from being handled differently, perhaps by adding some overriding effects to unarmed attacks (e.g.,  unarmed is always classified as crushing (e.g. for purposes of immunity), but doesn't bypass DT as other crushing weapons, and isn't classified as the "wrong" attack type against light/no armor)?

 

I realize this is a question of verisimilitude, and the entire idea of expert unarmed attacks being as devastating as expert weapon mastery isn't very believable, so perhaps adding extra efficacy against armored targets isn't such a huge leap from there. When I imagine an unarmed-fighting monk, I don't imagine him/her ripping a foe open with a savage blow, or causing fractures/concussions as a warhammer or mace would - I imagine him/her dominating the armed (or monstrous) enemy by being quicker and more agile, using this advantage to evade incoming blows, sidestep or leap over or behind the enemy, taking advantage of the enemy's momentum to disable/topple/disarm him/her/it and only when they are so disabled, dealing damage with well-aimed critical strikes (e.g., snapping their neck). I guess it would be more believable if unarmed inherently did less damage than armed (and then perhaps DT penetration would make sense), which would be compensated by (much) greater attack speed and a multitude of additional effects (stun, disarm, knock prone, counterattack, evade), and maybe increased chance of extreme critical hits against disabled enemies.  At the same time, I'm not saying this would be more fun gameplay-wise.

[IndiraLightfoot]

As a sidenote: Josh's basic setup of misses being very rare and the concept "glancing blow" etc actually is quite similar to what can be found in the Pummeling Table for deciding the outcome of non-lethal and weaponless combat in my DM Guide from 1979! 

[Ieo]

Awww... I was kinda hoping to see slashing/piercing/crushing glove/gauntlet type weaponry for unarmed attacks.

 

A glove with spikes in the right places (to be utilized by unarmed fighting-style movements/attacks... no just spikes all over a gauntlet), or a glove with blades maybe on the edges and knuckles/back-of-palm would be awesome.

 

It might be unrealistic in the sense that no one really fights with such weapons, but it's not completely infeasible (if you developed martial arts around a well-designed fist/glove weapon.) Or, you could even have a small blade that could lock into place at the base of the palm for combat readiness (sort of like the Hidden Blades in Assasin's Creed, only maybe not quite as "I magically flick my wrist and and they obey my will!"-ish. Haha).

 

I hate how Unarmed combat gets so neglected in the ranks of existing RPGs. It's always "You can fight with cool weapons, or you can fight with nothing," rather than treating "fists/hands" as a completely separate weapon specialization.

 

Not that, from what you've said, you'll be neglecting it. It sounds like you'll be providing a lot of character development options specifically for empty hands, which is splendtastic! I'd just like to see lore in which unarmed fighters actually designed specialized weaponry for the very same Unarmed martial style of combat.

 

I hope there will be interesting things for "unarmed" combat such that players would be willing to roll the monk class, honestly, and maybe fighter if there's the ability to specialize toward that end to a lesser degree. Maybe every class should have overlapping bell curves of favored weapons? I wouldn't be opposed to specific outright exclusions, I suppose.

 

Reminds me of Morte's teeth. "How lame, he has a biting attack. I mean, he can't even use cool weap---oh, what the heck is this? Dude, no fair, only Morte can use this!"

 

For fist as an actual weapon specialization path, how about doing something with fingers too? Maybe equipping different rings? (Wait, how many rings would we be able to equip? )

[J.E. Sawyer]

I realize this is a question of verisimilitude, and the entire idea of expert unarmed attacks being as devastating as expert weapon mastery isn't very believable

 

Monks are a character concept inspired more by supernatural fantasy than reality.  One of the general fantasies of the class (in A/D&D and elsewhere) is that they are unarmed dudes and ladies who at some point in their career can run at Mach 2 up to a bad guy in plate armor and quivering palm his internal organs.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yup!

 

But don't forget the Human Stun Gun who knocks his opponents without even touching them:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R__XluUdd_k

 

EDIT: Multi-classed human: monk/cipher?

Edited February 4, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[LadyCrimson]

Just remember, there is no Vulcan death grip.

[Tsuga C]

 

I realize this is a question of verisimilitude, and the entire idea of expert unarmed attacks being as devastating as expert weapon mastery isn't very believable

 

Monks are a character concept inspired more by supernatural fantasy than reality.  One of the general fantasies of the class (in A/D&D and elsewhere) is that they are unarmed dudes and ladies who at some point in their career can run at Mach 2 up to a bad guy in plate armor and quivering palm his internal organs.

Never cared for them because of just those sorts of "general fantasies". 

[Lephys]

Never cared for them because of just those sorts of "general fantasies". 

 

We could always downgrade them to Lieutenant Colonel fantasies. *shrug*

 

For fist as an actual weapon specialization path, how about doing something with fingers too? Maybe equipping different rings? (Wait, how many rings would we be able to equip? )

 

TALON rings!!! 8D

Edited February 4, 2013 by Lephys