Damage types

[williambertram]

After playing this game for about 10 hours total (not all at once), and having played "Song of Blades and Heroes", my personal opinion is that damage types do not work at all.

In concept, at the 10,000 ft. level, sure. A lance is more effective against a human than a skeleton. I get that concept. My opinion, however is that this is a very weak, even faulty perception on how the weapons worked historically, and how they might work in a fantasy world.

So take our lance, which in this game is virtually useless against skeletons. I get the logic, it goes through the holes in the bones. There are several flaws I see in this logic however.

1) Mounted units historically have a secondary weapon for close combat. It's ridiculous to have a unit fight in hand to hand combat with a lance. Mounted units have always had a secondary weapon. I realize that the higher level units have a secondary weapon, but they ALL should, even at first level. Given that everyone in the game seems familiar with undead units, doesn't it seem fairly suicidal for mounted units to not pack some type of secondary weapon that would damage skeletons? Doesn't it seem like a culture with the technology to make lances would be unable to affix some type of blunt object on the end of the lances (as was sometimes done in jousts) to damage skeletons?

2) A sword, in reality, is no less effective at breaking bone than a mace is. Historically, long blades were frequently used in a chopping motion, since the mounted unit was higher than the ground unit. Go down to the pet store, buy a big cow femur they sell for dogs, and chop it with a broadsword. It will splinter into a million pieces.

3) Many of the skeleton units seem to have armor on. Regardless of what you hit the armor pieces with, it's going to be a blunt type damage.

4) If the flagship unit of the human armies is completely useless against skeletons, wouldn't someone have just summoned up an army of skeletons and overran them?

If you doubt that a skirmish game can still be fun without damage types, try "Song of Blades and Heroes". Damage types are not present in the game, and the tactical options do not seem hindered by their absence in any way.

2)

[Dugi]

If you think about it, mace weighs more than a sword, and its center of mass is further of the wielder's hand. It means that a swung mace has much more momentum than a sword. If a sword chops into a body, it cuts through meat and hacks bones. So the damage it does is both cutting and impact. A mace does little cutting damage, but because it is heavier, its bone-breaking impact effect is more important. In fact, the flesh weakens the damage to the bones. So, in the absence of flesh, the sword does only its impact part of the damage and is thus weaker, while the mace's effect is not weakened by flesh and is therefore stronger. So it's perfectly logical why skeletons are somewhat resistant to blade, but weak to impact.

[taptap]

After playing this game for about 10 hours total (not all at once), and having played "Song of Blades and Heroes", my personal opinion is that damage types do not work at all.

...

I get the logic, it goes through the holes in the bones. There are several flaws I see in this logic however.

It is great that you can offer authoritative comments on the flaws of a system you experienced for an astonishing 10 hours. Basically saying, that one unit shouldn't be weak against another for proper realism cum heroism.

Still, your intervention could be much more worthwhile, if you would bother to actually write a line or two about the rules in Song of Blades and Heroes.

[Crow_T]

Well, someone has to write [acronym=]WINR[/acronym]

Technically the mace shoud be the end all be all weapon, as armor developed historically the mace was used more often because it could still break bones under plate mail. How does one defend against that? But part of the fun of Wesnoth is recruiting strategically, and damage types have a lot to do with that.

Anyway, Song of Blades and Heroes looks interesting, thanks for mentioning it. It seems the key selling point of that game is it's simplicity, as those games are generally quite complex.

[iceiceice]

So wait, you are proposing that we scrap the entire system of damage types, because you think it is not realistic? After years and years of careful balancing work on a > 10 year old project? Because, hey this other game manages to be fun without having damage types?

1) WINR (http://wiki.wesnoth.org/FrequentlyProposedIdeas)
2) Wesoth is not (that other game). Maybe you should learn something about the current balance of Wesnoth before suggesting that it be thrown in the trash and made to mimic something else. It is obvious that all balancing would have to start over from scratch if this change were made.
3) There are addons, such as Conquest, which do not have damage types, you might enjoy playing those. However most UMC content does use the system of damage types.

[lipk]

my personal opinion is that damage types do not work at all.

Do not work in what way? Makes the game boring? Unbalanced? Eats up your CPU?

In concept, at the 10,000 ft. level, sure.

Quite the other way around. It might not work at 10 000 ft. (as you, and several others before, have pointed out), but, as a game mechanic, it works very well in practice.

[zookeeper]

It's a core feature of the combat mechanics, it's not going to change. The purpose is to make the combat more interesting and nuanced by having units have different resistances against each other, not to be "realistic" except in an extremely simplified manner (fire good vs trees, pierce bad vs skeletons, blade bad vs armor, and so on).

[williambertram]

After playing this game for about 10 hours total (not all at once), and having played "Song of Blades and Heroes", my personal opinion is that damage types do not work at all.

...

I get the logic, it goes through the holes in the bones. There are several flaws I see in this logic however.

It is great that you can offer authoritative comments on the flaws of a system you experienced for an astonishing 10 hours. Basically saying, that one unit shouldn't be weak against another for proper realism cum heroism.

Still, your intervention could be much more worthwhile, if you would bother to actually write a line or two about the rules in Song of Blades and Heroes.

If you would bother to read my post, I said "In my opinion" several times. It's great that you can offer authoritative flames without even reading the posts. If you were interested, you could bother to go read a few lines of the Song of Blades and Heroes book. It's like $10.00. Or you could bother to go read one of the free reviews online. Your unnecessarily hot headed response could also have been much more worthwhile. You contributed nothing to the conversation.

[williambertram]

It's a core feature of the combat mechanics, it's not going to change. The purpose is to make the combat more interesting and nuanced by having units have different resistances against each other, not to be "realistic" except in an extremely simplified manner (fire good vs trees, pierce bad vs skeletons, blade bad vs armor, and so on).

I'm not demanding that anyone change anything, or even suggesting that they do so. The game has the rules baked in, of course nobody is going to yank out the core mechanic and change it because someone said in a post It's a fun game, and I'm still playing it, but having played two similar skirmish games, it was more fun to me to leave it off entirely, since it really doesn't make much sense to me. It's a game though, and a fun one. When I wrote that I was somewhat pi$$ed because 2 skeletons completely wiped out my Calvary rush, WHILE STANDING IN THE WATER, but the dice can roll good and bad I guess. I really would like to see the SB&H rules ported to a game like this though, I think it would both play better than the existing rule set, and it would be easier to play SB&H since there would be no setup time. Although playing SB&H on Roll20 is pretty good.

[Elfarion]

When I wrote that I was somewhat pi$$ed because 2 skeletons completely wiped out my Calvary rush, WHILE STANDING IN THE WATER, but the dice can roll good and bad I guess.

Correct me, if I'm wrong. It seems as you experienced a bad dice roll and decided that the whole system needs to be fixed. Well, this happens to almost everyone who's new to BfW, except that you seem to be the first one who goes for the damage type instead of the RNG.
I tried some ecosia research to figure out, how Song of Blades & Heroes works exactly, but I did not find detailed information.

I really would like to see the SB&H rules ported to a game like this though, I think it would both play better than the existing rule set, and it would be easier to play SB&H since there would be no setup time. Although playing SB&H on Roll20 is pretty good.

Do I get it right that you somehow want to turn BfW into SB&H? I got this impression but it's kinda hard to tell from what you've written. Anyway, I'd suggest you play some more, finish the beginner's campaigns and make your peace with the gameplay, so that you eventually can enjoy the game. (You will go mad because of unfortunate dice rolls though.)

[williambertram]

A broad sword could snap a femur just as quickly as a mace. It's a big, heavy chunk of metal, and contrary to what most people believed, most blades from this period were not sharp from tip to hilt. The top 1/4 or so was sharp, and the rest of the blade was commonly left dull so that it could be grabbed with the hand and used as a lever. Not to mention most 1 handed blades are longer than a mace, so you get more leverage and power with the strike. One might argue that some blunt weapons, such as a Lucern Hammer have more reach... BUT the head of these types of weapons were smaller to reduce weight. So if your swing was off, you'd be striking with a rounded off or squared haft. I'd also refer anyone who debates the effect of a spear on the human skull to look at a spartan spear. The head is not slim at all. You can see what it does to a human skull on Deadliest Warrior episode 103, Spartan Vs. Ninja. If that goes into the mouth, the skull is ruined whether there is skin and tendon or not.

Sure, a mace will shatter a skull pretty good, but how about a skull with a helmet? Many of the skeletons in these games wear helmets. Even without the helmet, it depends on a well placed blow. Maces being generally shorter weapons, there would also be some footwork involved in getting past the guard to land a killing blow to the top or side of the head.

When we're talking, essentially, about a pile of bones that some necromancer had has pulled out of a who knows how old grave, it even seems like a baseball bat would be enough to bash them to bits. After all, the raise dead spells (or at least any I've ever seen) don't provide any additional armor to the units, it simply animates them.

So, yes, this rule set is baked in and will never change, but I still say it at least makes more sense to have a secondary blunt weapon from a common sense perspective given that on eof the major factions comes at you with a lot of skeletons.

This conversation has been had for years before there even was a Wesnoth in the old D&D days. I know at one time they experimented with putting them in, but most people agreed it makes more sense to just leave them out. Some of the reasoning here is that they were trying to simplify combat, but they were also disliked from a logical standpoint too.

SB&H did a bang up job of boiling the entire combat mechanic down to one stat, and a few special abilities. They realized what most do not, and that is that tactical depth, and enjoyable game play are not based on rules complexity derived from shaky assumptions about combat mechanics.

If you think about it, mace weighs more than a sword, and its center of mass is further of the wielder's hand. It means that a swung mace has much more momentum than a sword. If a sword chops into a body, it cuts through meat and hacks bones. So the damage it does is both cutting and impact. A mace does little cutting damage, but because it is heavier, its bone-breaking impact effect is more important. In fact, the flesh weakens the damage to the bones. So, in the absence of flesh, the sword does only its impact part of the damage and is thus weaker, while the mace's effect is not weakened by flesh and is therefore stronger. So it's perfectly logical why skeletons are somewhat resistant to blade, but weak to impact.

[williambertram]

According to the D20 rules, a [censored] sword weighs 6 pounds, and a HEAVY mace weighs 8. A light mace weighs 4. That's really irrelevant anyway, watch any episode of Deadliest Warrior with a sword, a and you'll get a great visual of how brittle a human skull is. If you swing a 6 pound sword at any unprotected part of the human skeleton, it's going to shatter. Bone is not harder than steel.

If you think about it, mace weighs more than a sword, and its center of mass is further of the wielder's hand. It means that a swung mace has much more momentum than a sword. If a sword chops into a body, it cuts through meat and hacks bones. So the damage it does is both cutting and impact. A mace does little cutting damage, but because it is heavier, its bone-breaking impact effect is more important. In fact, the flesh weakens the damage to the bones. So, in the absence of flesh, the sword does only its impact part of the damage and is thus weaker, while the mace's effect is not weakened by flesh and is therefore stronger. So it's perfectly logical why skeletons are somewhat resistant to blade, but weak to impact.

[Crow_T]

It could be interesting to add more damage types, and I occasionally think about making units that have weapons with multiple damage types (if this is possible), so an orc with a big cleaver-like sword, or an ability like "cleave," could inflict both impact and blade damage. Currently blade damage ranges from knives to broadswords, but again that's for simplicity. Once you know unit weaknesses this will be less of an issue because you will account for it more often.

Also, since this project has no affiliation with d20, it has the right to make its own rules and world- there is no Standardized Fantasy Game Law as far as I know

Feel free to hack your game to do whatever you want btw, people here can be pretty helpful in that area.

[taptap]

If you would bother to read my post, I said "In my opinion" several times. It's great that you can offer authoritative flames without even reading the posts. If you were interested, you could bother to go read a few lines of the Song of Blades and Heroes book. It's like $10.00. Or you could bother to go read one of the free reviews online. Your unnecessarily hot headed response could also have been much more worthwhile. You contributed nothing to the conversation.

In my opinion, you started the conversation with a post that didn't help your case at all and you keep writing about broadswords and bones instead of the rules you set out to promote. In case you noticed, Wesnoth is an abstract fantasy wargame without any pretense to be realistic. That is why you fight skeletons to begin with. As a computer game it can handle a bit more complexity than the ruleset for a boardgame, although the damage and armour types are imo not the best part of the otherwise lean and sleek Wesnoth rules. But when you start criticism of the Wesnoth ruleset with whining about your horsemen not being able to kill skeletons, your case is already lost (try mages? try heavy infantry?).

I mean, I don't go to a chess forum and write "the queen is overpowered, the rules are broken, play Go instead, it is better, but I won't even tell you how" and expect a friendly reception.

And why did the skeletons not conquer Wesnoth? They met a few trolls on their way.

[JaMiT]

4) If the flagship unit of the human armies is completely useless against skeletons, wouldn't someone have just summoned up an army of skeletons and overran them?

This is a wonderful question in that it can be readily tested. Go ahead and challenge someone reasonably competent with the human armies to a game. You play the undead. Summon your army of skeletons and see how that plays out.

(If you can consistently win by spamming skeletons, then the multiplayer balance needs to be adjusted. If you cannot, you might learn some new strategies from your opponent.)