Author: Simon Hibbs

I think I’ve figured out how to do shields and magical armour/weapon magic in my Glorantha Hack, but could use some extra pairs of eyes on it.

It’s based on standard AW conventions for weapons, harm and armour. A decent sword or axe can do 3 harm and a decent set of the best armour gives 2 amour. The premise is that using a shield should effectively give you an extra point of armour in some circumstances. You can also get up to a+1 harm and/or +1 armour from magic. Within those assumptions I need a system where no character is ever completely invulnerable.

Fight in Close Combat

When you fight in close combat, nominate an opponent

within reach with which to exchange Harm as established,

then roll+Might. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7-9, choose 1. On a miss, they choose one against you:

•You inflict terrible harm (+1 harm).

•You suffer less harm (-1 harm, or -2 if you have a protective weapon).

•You ignore armour provided by any protective weapon they are using such as a shield.

•You gain the advantage: take +1 forward, or give +1 forward to an ally.

•You force them where you want them.

•You seize or hold some objective by force.

•You win free and get away

•You force your way through

[weird strikeout fixed]

Shields have the ‘protective’ tag. NPCs with a protective weapon get +1 armour by default, but note a PC can negate that using the move. Conversely PCs must take a pick on a hit to gain the extra protection of a shield.

I think this does what I want. The most armour an NPC will have is 4 armour (2 mail, +1 magic, +1 shield). But a character with a 3 harm sword and no magic can on a 10+ negate the shield and inflict terrible for 4 harm against the 3 remaining armour.

Conversely a PC with 2 armour mail and +1 armour magic is still vulnerable against a 3 harm adversary. On a miss the PC gets no protection from the shield and the opponent can inflict terrible for a total of 4 harm.

Can anyone see any problems? Better ways to do it? The move is a bit of a kitchen sink, but spitting it creates its own problems IMHO but maybe there’s a way?

I’ve been thinking abut about harm and armour recently. This is for a fantasy hack. Conventional armour is either 1 or 2 point. A shield adds 1 point and moderately available magic can add another point. That means when fully topped up a warrior can have a reasonable chance of having 4 armour.

On the usual scale a sword would do 3-harm and something like a pole arm or two handed weapon 4-harm. Neither of those straight can harm a well prepared character.

For PCs attacking NPCs they can choose to inflict more harm for +1 harm, but even so they’d need a two handed to inflict any harm at all. 4 armour seems too much, but I still want shields and magic to matter and be significant and it should at least be possible, if difficult, for a character with a sword to injure such a well defended opponent.

One way would be to increase the harm inflicted by weapons by +1 across the board. Don’t like it, but it’s there.

Another would be to modify the shield rules so it doesn’t always provide +1 armour. Maybe it allows a character choosing to take less harm to take -2 harm instead of -1? Or provides the +1 armour on any hit in combat? Either of those options means our maxed out warrior has 4 armour most of the time, but sometimes only 3. Still proof against 3-harm swords though.

So have you had issues with heavily armoured characters in your games?

I’m working on a fantasy hack and have come up with an alternative way to handle injuries. Comments welcome.

Harm

When you take harm, roll+hard -harm.

On a 10+, it’s a minor wound with no long term consequences. The referee chooses one of:

* Suffer -1 forward.

* You drop something.

* You are momentarily stunned or distracted.

On a 7-9, you are wounded. If already wounded, you are incapacitated per 6- instead. The referee chooses one of:

* Suffer -1 ongoing.

* You are staggered or knocked over.

* You are disarmed

* You are driven back

On a 6-, you are incapacitated, bleeding and dying. You may instead choose to be wounded with effects as above and also take a disability:

* Disfigured, -1Charm.

* Disabled, -1Grace.

* Impaired, -1Wits.

* Enfeebled, -1Might.

So instead of a harm clock or boxes, you just have check boxes to indicate of you are wounded or incapacitated, and what effects you’re suffering. Harm is after armour of course. It’s a little different from most character moves because you have an additional modifier as well as a characteristic. On the other hand it looks much more like a regular move than the regular Apocalypse World harm move which is ‘upside down’.

It’s a little confusing because if you’re already Wounded and take another wound, you bounce down to Incapacitated, but then could choose to take a Disability and bounce back up to Wounded again. I’m not sure how to make that cleaner though.

Thoughts?

Anyone know who I can contact about the Apocalypse World Forums? The account reset doesn’t send anything to my email address, and the same thing happens when I register a new account to a different mail address – nothing comes through.

Looking at the new combat moves. Why would anyone ever choose Single Combat, if they had an option to Seize By Force? (Or assault a secure position)

Both are roll+hard, both allow you to inflict terrible, or take less harm, but SBF gives you 3 hold on 10+ instead of effectively 2, and 2 hold on 7-9 instead of only one. SBF also gives you 1 hold on a miss while Single Combat gives 1 hold to your opponent! The extra free hold could be used to seize someone’s weapon, or them, or gain some positional advantage.

Basically I don’t see any reason anyone would ever voluntarily choose Single Combat if they could somehow finagle the situation into a SBF move, and there are plenty of reasons to want to avoid doing Single Combat like the plague.

Edit: Single Combat also explicitly traps you in a conflict to the death unless you both simultaneously back down. None of the other moves put you in such a position. Basically if you asked me to read the rules for Single Combat and name that move, I’d call it something like ‘when you’re caught off guard in a deadly ambush by an enemy in a superior position, with no tactical options’.