Optional Rules for Companion

[The Undying]

Previous game master guide, companion, or compendium (can't remember at the moment) had suggestion block / example about how to convert a single enemy into a swarm enemy (seem to remember the enemy being a blood monkey). Anyways, this isn't an optional rule, really, just a custom enemy, and the GMG should have guidance on making custom enemies. I'll check later, see if I can relocate the example.

[The Undying]

It's not that it's unclear, or a systematic problem with math education and the state of the world today. It's that it is very intuitive for 30 damage to cause more wounds than 12. On a quick read, lots people assume that's what it means.

It may be intuitive TO YOU. Not to everyone. Certainly not me. A wound is a wound, all wounds are handled the same - wound A doesn't have a higher penalty than wound B. If I cut you deeply, I inflict a wound - one cut. If I cut you super deeply, my sword doesn't magically come out and cut you again, which would be a second wound. Still only one wound. And wounds are created equal. You ALREADY get a big benefit from inflicting 30 damage rather than 15 - you've moved the enemy much closer to unconsciousness.

[The Undying]

We've kind of gone off the rails. The original discussion was about trying to make it clear that this house/optional rule would cause some specific problems with specific spells/abilities/etc that rely on the fact the Rules As Written expect 1 Wound Per Damage. It morphed into debating the efficacy of the rule. I don't think that belongs her personally. There are enough people that like the rule that it's a perfectly valid request for a published Optional Rule in the Companion. Mataxes also has the power to say he disagrees with it sufficiently that he doesn't want to put it in print - that doesn't mean anyone is wrong to use it, play Earthdawn the way you like, but it means that a conscious decision was made to exclude it (and honestly I actually like to see that kind of stuff, like "the community feels strongly about X, we strongly disagree about it, do what you like, but here is why we aren't sanctioning it by putting it in print"). Not trying to put words in his mouth, just assuming that his note suggests he isn't personally a fan of that optional rule.

[Slimcreeper]

I'm actually not starting my 4th ed game with a rule like this, because of armor defeating hits going away. Plus, I'd like this game to go to a higher circle than I've ever played with, frankly, and I'm a little wary of messing with stuff like this. It's definitely a YMMV situation.

[The Undying]

I'd like to see a return of the "No LP for spells" optional rules, either one of or both of the following:

OPTIONAL RULE: Magicians receive one free spell (no LP, no silver) of their new Circle during advancement.

OPTIONAL RULE: Spells do not cost LP. Silver cost, when applicable, remain.

I can see the motivation for getting rid of this optional rule: (i) magicians get two free matrices to help offset the cost, and (ii) LP cost forces each magician to make hard decisions rather than "gotta catch 'em all" where every magician knows every spell. However, magicians still essentially have a Talent (Spellcasting) that does nothing on its own - there is absolutely no use for this Talent without Spells - with matrices falling into the same boat (although two of them are free) so it'd be fitting for magicians to at least get one new "use" for it with each Circle rather than having to buy a "use" for it at each Circle.

It starts getting a bit janky, but I'd also be down with a third option:

OPTIONAL RULE: Magicians receive one free spell (no LP, no silver) of their new Circle during advancement for Circles below Warden tier.

IIRC, at Warden, spells essentially become truly arcane knowledge, things that are either heavily coveted or essentially require a lot of personal investment to research or develop them. So, I could see where they may not be free at that point. It doesn't negate my earlier point about it being nice to receive a new "use" at each Circle, but it's much easier to argue against it with this flavor mechanic.

I'm not necessarily advocating for ALL THREE to appear, but it'd be nice for one to appear.

[Lys]

\More examples can be found in the Nethermancer spells "Pain" and "Bone Pudding." These are the only sub-Master abilities that produce multiple Wound effects. These are unique to Nethermancer, cool because they side step the restriction, and have some nice other effects in the case of Bone Pudding. Allowing normal damage to inflict multiple Wounds effectively nueters these spells, in the very least making them over costed in Threads, potentially LP/Circle. You're watering down a cool iconic UNIQUE niche of the Nethermancer.

Multi-Wounds barely affect Blood Pudding because that makes that power so dangerous is not the wounds it inflicts but rather that it completely incapacitates the target. In fact in most combats the target isn't going to live long enough for those wounds to matter. Nothing got watered down, the ability of blood pudding to just take someone out of the fight is just as strong as before. For its own part, Pain doesn't even cause real wounds, they vanish as soon as the duration ends. It would be exactly the same spell if it only inflicted a -3 penalty to all tests for the duration of the spell. In fact it should be a penalty so that it's clear you an use Nethermancer 5th Circile Karma ability on it.

Separately, I would argue that combat dynamics are NEGATIVELY impacted by allowing multiple wounds. That system HEAVILY favors Disciplines, Talents, & weapons that inflict more damage in a single hit. Multiple hits in a round have to make their way trough armor for each hit; one incredibly hard hit only has to get through once. Somewhere recently, either Mataxes or Panda noted the balance they had to try to maintain between the pros and cons of two handed weapons, versus weapon and shield, versus dual wielding weapons. This change greatly improves two handed weapons. The end result is driving the party more to that realm, and potentially players that can't do it effectively feeling cheated because, in essence, their niche (the other two) got made less effective (in comparison).

Consider a Step 8 Pollaxe vs a Step 5 Broadsword, both wielded by Step 7 Strength Warriors and forged to rank 5. So the Pollaxe does Step 20 damage and the Broadsword Step 17 damage, but let us also suppose that they both spent karma on damage. Against an enemy with armour 10 and wound threshold 10, the Pollaxe will average 15 damage and one wound, while Broadsword 12 damage and one wound. Looking at the spread, it seems that Pollaxe will inflict two or more wounds 25% of the time, and Broadsword will inflict two or more wounds 15% of the time. For three or more wounds it's 6.43% and 2.78%. Speaking as someone who plays a two-weapon Swordmaster, i don't feel even slightly inclined to change. The advantage is just too small to be worth giving up that extra attack.

multiple wounds as a rule makes exploding dice way too powerful; a lucky role on either side can destroy an opponent with penalties, regardless of how much health they have left

As far as i'm concerned, this is a feature, not a bug. It doesn't matter how tough you are, or how much stamina you have left, if someone severs an important tendon you can't fight any more. This also means that i'ts valid tactical option to try to win via wound stacking instead of via wearing out their durability, and i like having multiple tactical options. Not to mention that has it never actually happened to us that a heavily wounded opponent still had plenty of health left.

wounds significantly change the combat dynamic; alowing them to trickle in like the current system hightens drama whereas going from "fine" to "-3 all tests" basically ends the combat

In my experience from actually playing with this rule it was extremely rare for someone to suffer more than 1-2 wounds over the course of an entire combat.

it neuters a viable design element: high health enemies, with or without low armor. The challenge rating and all stats are all "priced" based on the existing system of one wound per attack. Allowing them to roll on faster can and should change any or all those elements

All the high health enemies i know have similarly high wound thresholds, which fixes the problem. They also tend to cause assloads of damage, so if anyone is in danger of getting screwed by multiple wounds in such an encounter, it's the players not the enemy.

VERY few changes are "simple" and "have no down side"...

It might perhaps be more accurate to say that i has no downsides i care about. At most there's a handful of things that would need to be tweaked, but there's already loads of things in the default game that need to be tweaked anyway, so on the whole it doesn't make much of a difference.

[The Undying]

It might perhaps be more accurate to say that i has no downsides i care about.

This pretty much says it all. You have a way you want to play, and you're going to play it, regardless of how it may impact other things. That's fine, go forth and prosper, my friend - may your enemies suffer as you bathe in the blood of their Wounds!!

As I said earlier, though, I think we've really veered off topic - for a thread suggesting optional rules for the Companion, I think this is completely beaten to the Nether and back.

[Lys]

It's not that it's unclear, or a systematic problem with math education and the state of the world today. It's that it is very intuitive for 30 damage to cause more wounds than 12. On a quick read, lots people assume that's what it means.

It may be intuitive TO YOU. Not to everyone. Certainly not me. A wound is a wound, all wounds are handled the same - wound A doesn't have a higher penalty than wound B. If I cut you deeply, I inflict a wound - one cut. If I cut you super deeply, my sword doesn't magically come out and cut you again, which would be a second wound. Still only one wound. And wounds are created equal. You ALREADY get a big benefit from inflicting 30 damage rather than 15 - you've moved the enemy much closer to unconsciousness.

This is an interesting difference of perspective. You see wounds as actual number of severe injuries inflicted. Others, like myself, see them as a measure of the severity of the wounds that have been inflicted. It make sense to us that if an axe splits you open a little that's worth one 1 wound, and if it splits you open a lot then that's worth 2 wounds, because the latter injury is more severe. It's not a count of how many times you've been wounded, but a measure of how wounded you are. This is somewhat supported by the way wound work in conjunctions with various spells. The infamous Skin Shit caused at least five wounds, but it was hardly the case that you were wounded in five discrete places, rather you whole skin had been partially torn off and you are hurt all over, to a severity of five wounds or more.

[The Undying]

Not sure if this would be an "optional rule" or just an expanded list of combat options, but something to address zone of control might be nice. Dougansf already mentioned the desire to see a sticky combat rule, and I'd second the value of having a normalized approach to this provided in the Companion. Separately, though, it'd be nice to have a standardized way of enforcing zone of control to either hinder or halt movement through an area.

My personal suggestion would be something along these lines...

Optional Rule: New Combat Option, "Zone of Control." Creature cannot move this turn. Creatures moving into or through the hexes adjacent to this characters become Harried for the remainder of the turn. Beginning on this creature's turn in initiative, this creature holds its Standard Action to protect its zone of control. For the rest of the round, if another creature would move within a radius to this creature equal to this creature's movement speed (less any intervening terrain movement penalties), this creature may immediately move adjacent to that creature, stopping that creature's movement, and perform a Standard Close Combat action without any other penalties associated with a held action. This creature must perform the action as soon as the other creature would move into the zone of control, not at a later time as the creature continues to move through the zone. Creature's already within this creature's zone of control must similarly be stopped as soon as they attempt to move out of their current location, not at a later time as they continue their move. Once this action is perform, this character's zone of control ends: it cannot move and act again as previously described in this combat option, and creatures moving adjacent to this creature no longer become Harried.

That's really just a rough out with some clunky wording, but you get the idea. Plenty of other ways to skin the cat, too, as described in the relevant threads.

[MetalBoar]

I'd also enjoy seeing something like the "zone of control" as suggested by The Undying.