I've been working on this system to put more emphasis on the individual qualities of armor and weapon pieces ( not for any game, just personal use for some stuff ), by giving every type of armor and weapon piece a series of values to represent different aspects of each piece.
Note that this is also aimed towards a system with critical damages, like crippling, dismemberment, bleeding to death etc. instead of the traditional Hit Points based health. Another aim is to provide more usage with various skills, and a bit of realism. I want to hear what others think, except for saying it's overly complex and a much more simpler system with like only a "condition" and a "rating" would do it
Also I must admit that I'm taking a fairly bit of realism over gameplay and balance here, so I expect you to consider that while giving your opinions ( even though I can't see any reason how it can not be balanced ).
Every armor and weapon has the following stats:
Material: Bronze, Iron, Steel, <made up fictional materials> etc.
Purity: Purity of the material, like high density Iron. I think I can give the example of iron shortage and bad iron in Baldur's Gate, for a comparison
Craftsmanship: Quality of construction and forgery, as it's a very prominent thing in real life, which affects the items dramatically.
Condition: "Worn-out"ness, pretty much self-explanatory, right?
Weight: I imagine that the weight could be an auto-calculated value based on the above stats, but for inventory management purposes, I think it's necessary to keep it in. Besides, other parts of armors & weapons could cause weight as well ( though unlikely ), so I believe that the option to change it manually would be useful anyway.
Additionally, one more stat exclusively for Armors ( and a similar thing for all clothing too );
Equippability (Something like that ) : No more "wear anything you find". You'll have to adjust the pieces to your body, using the appropriate skill. If you can't, you'll need to take it to a blacksmith or someone similar to have it made to fit you. So
wearing and "unadjusted" equipment would bring its penalties.
However, I'm not sure about how to define this. Originally I thought something like giving it 3 values ( 0 = unfit, 1 = fit, 2 = un-adjustable ( amor of a child? of a giant? etc. ) ). But then I started to think about making it something like 0 = unfit, (1 to 10) = level of adjustment, -1 = non-wearable, so the player skill would play a bigger role, by progressing in that skill, making the armor firmer for your body. What do you think?
Value: There wouldn't be a predefined fixed value to any equipment. All characters, including the player, will judge the item based on the related skill. So it's possible to have a character who couldn't tell the difference accurately between two pieces of same type of equipment. Player could see a close but inaccurate description on the item, like "good quality, average, etc.". Player could take the item to a smith/etc., but that NPC will judge the item based on his/her own skills too.
The description the player sees on the item changes only if a more accurate description is made by another NPC, or player itself later when he's better at that skill. Likewise, the price of the item will vary for every NPC, based on those things ( item's stats, NPC's skill, AND of course a "merchantile" type of skill, so NPCs can pull scams on the price they see fit ).
Additionally, even more complexity could be added to pricing system, so some of the so-obviously-very-good-quality items wouldn't be ridiculously under-priced, or some poor quality stuff could be expensive only because they are antique or relics etc. Opinions welcome.
Now, some more details on all of them again. I came up with material / purity / craftsmanship for some purposes. One of them is giving a deeper range of possibilities to "craftsman" characters, making a blacksmith kind of profession something worth the effort, as well as giving a motive to find higher quality minerals / materials for forging weapons & armors.
Another one, and the major point for me, is to have them work as one of the primary modifiers in combat. So, in combat, it's your stuff vs. theirs, secondary to player skills. If your character is a capable fighter, then these stats come into play, causing weapons to break, or amors to get ripped ( depends on armor, of course. I know, it's not an everyday incident where plate mail armors get ripped through, but think more about weapon vs. weapon, and that heavy, especially plate armors aren't that cheap and widely used ).
The reason for the three primary stats ( material / purity / craftsmanship ) is a bit of variety, and that unnecessary bit of realism. The point is, a very high quality, wel built iron could break or cut a poorly made steel, or to be more vague; a very high quality item made out of lesser material could overcome a poorly made greater material, and once the one of them overcomes the other, all that matters is the blow itself.
Sure, simply just one stat could abstract all of that nicely, but some of the points I mentioned exceed the limits of such an abstraction ( skill-based pricing, pricing based on a specific stat of the item, like "oh, what fine piece of art this sword is!", "ooh, what a solid weapon!" etc., ability to have generic reactions from NPCs which produce enough variety of reactions to mimic a non-generic world).
I also thought about having a few degrees of a hit. Even if weapon X cuts through armor Y or breaks through weapon Y towards the opponents throat, how much or how efficiently it cuts varies. It could turn out to be total dismembering blow, a cutting bleeding blow or just a shocking one. So, the nature, the effects of the blow are all calculated by character & item stats.
More or less the same with the armors as well. An armor skill can not have an affect on the aforementioned stats, but since an armor skill also means knowing the weak sides and exploits of the armor better and being able to move and fight better, wearing higher quality probably won't bring a great deal of change to a weak character against stronger opponents. No more "I have uber shit now I can go back and teach them a lesson!". So, like I said, while I believe these stats add a lot in terms of realism and a nitpicking level of depth -probably overly and unnecesarilly complexy to some of you -, it's secondary to character skills.
With all these stats, I also came up with the idea of being able to judge a piece of equipment correctly, like I briefly explained above. Higher the weapon or craftsman skill, more accurately the player judges a piece, unless the player takes the piece to a smith, who may not be the expert as well and just misinform player. The price of the piece would also vary from one NPC to another, as some NPCs could know better to recognize a piece's quality and price it accordingly as oposed to other NPCs. I imagine that while this would put more emphasis on qualities of equipment, it would also put less emphasis, or at least less "motive" to "looting". The major reasons for this are that even if a weak character finds a uber-quality weapon, (s)he more than likely won't be able to take advantage of it, because "better weapon != higher damage".
There it is. Just a part of system on damage/defense ratings, regarding the equipment. Ideas and insults are welcome. And for some of the ESF immigrants; no, this is not related to Oblivion.
edit: I forgot to mention some specifications about weapons, which aren't a big or new thing, but I'll mention them briefly anyway;
Well of course weapons have their own modifiers based on what type of weapon they are, like crushing, thrusting, cutting, slashing, etc. in addition to the stats mentioned above, but they are more like minor modifiers. I've made up varying conditions regarding bluınt vs. sharp, crushing vs. cutting etc. when parrying / blocking or when receiving these hits on armor / shield / flesh, but there's not much place for them here. So I haven't gone into them like the other aspects I explained here.
Note that this is also aimed towards a system with critical damages, like crippling, dismemberment, bleeding to death etc. instead of the traditional Hit Points based health. Another aim is to provide more usage with various skills, and a bit of realism. I want to hear what others think, except for saying it's overly complex and a much more simpler system with like only a "condition" and a "rating" would do it
Also I must admit that I'm taking a fairly bit of realism over gameplay and balance here, so I expect you to consider that while giving your opinions ( even though I can't see any reason how it can not be balanced ).Every armor and weapon has the following stats:
Material: Bronze, Iron, Steel, <made up fictional materials> etc.
Purity: Purity of the material, like high density Iron. I think I can give the example of iron shortage and bad iron in Baldur's Gate, for a comparison
Craftsmanship: Quality of construction and forgery, as it's a very prominent thing in real life, which affects the items dramatically.
Condition: "Worn-out"ness, pretty much self-explanatory, right?
Weight: I imagine that the weight could be an auto-calculated value based on the above stats, but for inventory management purposes, I think it's necessary to keep it in. Besides, other parts of armors & weapons could cause weight as well ( though unlikely ), so I believe that the option to change it manually would be useful anyway.
Additionally, one more stat exclusively for Armors ( and a similar thing for all clothing too );
Equippability (Something like that ) : No more "wear anything you find". You'll have to adjust the pieces to your body, using the appropriate skill. If you can't, you'll need to take it to a blacksmith or someone similar to have it made to fit you. So
wearing and "unadjusted" equipment would bring its penalties.
However, I'm not sure about how to define this. Originally I thought something like giving it 3 values ( 0 = unfit, 1 = fit, 2 = un-adjustable ( amor of a child? of a giant? etc. ) ). But then I started to think about making it something like 0 = unfit, (1 to 10) = level of adjustment, -1 = non-wearable, so the player skill would play a bigger role, by progressing in that skill, making the armor firmer for your body. What do you think?
Value: There wouldn't be a predefined fixed value to any equipment. All characters, including the player, will judge the item based on the related skill. So it's possible to have a character who couldn't tell the difference accurately between two pieces of same type of equipment. Player could see a close but inaccurate description on the item, like "good quality, average, etc.". Player could take the item to a smith/etc., but that NPC will judge the item based on his/her own skills too.
The description the player sees on the item changes only if a more accurate description is made by another NPC, or player itself later when he's better at that skill. Likewise, the price of the item will vary for every NPC, based on those things ( item's stats, NPC's skill, AND of course a "merchantile" type of skill, so NPCs can pull scams on the price they see fit ).
Additionally, even more complexity could be added to pricing system, so some of the so-obviously-very-good-quality items wouldn't be ridiculously under-priced, or some poor quality stuff could be expensive only because they are antique or relics etc. Opinions welcome.
Now, some more details on all of them again. I came up with material / purity / craftsmanship for some purposes. One of them is giving a deeper range of possibilities to "craftsman" characters, making a blacksmith kind of profession something worth the effort, as well as giving a motive to find higher quality minerals / materials for forging weapons & armors.
Another one, and the major point for me, is to have them work as one of the primary modifiers in combat. So, in combat, it's your stuff vs. theirs, secondary to player skills. If your character is a capable fighter, then these stats come into play, causing weapons to break, or amors to get ripped ( depends on armor, of course. I know, it's not an everyday incident where plate mail armors get ripped through, but think more about weapon vs. weapon, and that heavy, especially plate armors aren't that cheap and widely used ).
The reason for the three primary stats ( material / purity / craftsmanship ) is a bit of variety, and that unnecessary bit of realism. The point is, a very high quality, wel built iron could break or cut a poorly made steel, or to be more vague; a very high quality item made out of lesser material could overcome a poorly made greater material, and once the one of them overcomes the other, all that matters is the blow itself.
Sure, simply just one stat could abstract all of that nicely, but some of the points I mentioned exceed the limits of such an abstraction ( skill-based pricing, pricing based on a specific stat of the item, like "oh, what fine piece of art this sword is!", "ooh, what a solid weapon!" etc., ability to have generic reactions from NPCs which produce enough variety of reactions to mimic a non-generic world).
I also thought about having a few degrees of a hit. Even if weapon X cuts through armor Y or breaks through weapon Y towards the opponents throat, how much or how efficiently it cuts varies. It could turn out to be total dismembering blow, a cutting bleeding blow or just a shocking one. So, the nature, the effects of the blow are all calculated by character & item stats.
More or less the same with the armors as well. An armor skill can not have an affect on the aforementioned stats, but since an armor skill also means knowing the weak sides and exploits of the armor better and being able to move and fight better, wearing higher quality probably won't bring a great deal of change to a weak character against stronger opponents. No more "I have uber shit now I can go back and teach them a lesson!". So, like I said, while I believe these stats add a lot in terms of realism and a nitpicking level of depth -probably overly and unnecesarilly complexy to some of you -, it's secondary to character skills.
With all these stats, I also came up with the idea of being able to judge a piece of equipment correctly, like I briefly explained above. Higher the weapon or craftsman skill, more accurately the player judges a piece, unless the player takes the piece to a smith, who may not be the expert as well and just misinform player. The price of the piece would also vary from one NPC to another, as some NPCs could know better to recognize a piece's quality and price it accordingly as oposed to other NPCs. I imagine that while this would put more emphasis on qualities of equipment, it would also put less emphasis, or at least less "motive" to "looting". The major reasons for this are that even if a weak character finds a uber-quality weapon, (s)he more than likely won't be able to take advantage of it, because "better weapon != higher damage".
There it is. Just a part of system on damage/defense ratings, regarding the equipment. Ideas and insults are welcome. And for some of the ESF immigrants; no, this is not related to Oblivion.
edit: I forgot to mention some specifications about weapons, which aren't a big or new thing, but I'll mention them briefly anyway;
Well of course weapons have their own modifiers based on what type of weapon they are, like crushing, thrusting, cutting, slashing, etc. in addition to the stats mentioned above, but they are more like minor modifiers. I've made up varying conditions regarding bluınt vs. sharp, crushing vs. cutting etc. when parrying / blocking or when receiving these hits on armor / shield / flesh, but there's not much place for them here. So I haven't gone into them like the other aspects I explained here.
, with plate worn over a layer and making you the tank you should be.
If you are hit in the back of the head, you can calculate what is going to happen according to where, how and how strong you were hit wihout having to throw in some phony "50% blackout".
This is honestly a pathetic system. It has always been one of my major problems with D&D.
