The Efficiency Paradox
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 5:35 pm
Disclaimer: By trade, I am an engineer. My mind has been tooled into a device for solving problems by deconstruction, analysis, and experiment. I inherently look for reasoning and logical consistency and this has colored my various interactions with several dozen RPG systems.
Potentially the largest issue that my play group ran into with 7th Sea is the combat system and its implementation of swordsman knacks. The crux of the argument essentially boils down to the fact that the swordsman knacks are not as efficient at removing opponents from combat as straight Attack(Weapon) rolls.
When I say efficient, I'm looking broadly across the dice mechanics required for the multitude of "additional effects" exposed by the swordsman knacks themselves. One specific catch point is TNs to hit, but I'll probably make an entire thread simply for that mechanical discussion on its own. Due to the risks of not hitting, the skill level of the opponent invalidating most Active Defense options at higher levels, and various gotchas in the numbers, we were never able to consistently look at the Swordsman knacks as viable combat options.
On top of that, the idea of "death isn't default" crept in to make Dramatic Wounds ending a character's resistance a far more accessible option. "Oh, well, if just stabbing the guy isn't going to out right kill him, then we'll just start stabbing." No need to mess around with keeping someone alive, just Attack(Weapon) until they can't stand.
In the other direction were the character points being expended to gain access to Swordsman schools. If you were looking to simply have a large Attack/Parry/Footwork pool, your character points were better spent padding out your combat skills while also leaving you more points to populate other skills and knacks at a greater degree, and to throw in another Trait point.
The flavor of the world says that we SHOULD be Tagging people but my play group never found the mechanical reason to do so. This will end up being the repeated theme of any of my posts dealing with the system... We love the world, but the mechanics aren't firing right. We love the Role Playing but we're not sold on the Game.
Thoughts?
Potentially the largest issue that my play group ran into with 7th Sea is the combat system and its implementation of swordsman knacks. The crux of the argument essentially boils down to the fact that the swordsman knacks are not as efficient at removing opponents from combat as straight Attack(Weapon) rolls.
When I say efficient, I'm looking broadly across the dice mechanics required for the multitude of "additional effects" exposed by the swordsman knacks themselves. One specific catch point is TNs to hit, but I'll probably make an entire thread simply for that mechanical discussion on its own. Due to the risks of not hitting, the skill level of the opponent invalidating most Active Defense options at higher levels, and various gotchas in the numbers, we were never able to consistently look at the Swordsman knacks as viable combat options.
On top of that, the idea of "death isn't default" crept in to make Dramatic Wounds ending a character's resistance a far more accessible option. "Oh, well, if just stabbing the guy isn't going to out right kill him, then we'll just start stabbing." No need to mess around with keeping someone alive, just Attack(Weapon) until they can't stand.
In the other direction were the character points being expended to gain access to Swordsman schools. If you were looking to simply have a large Attack/Parry/Footwork pool, your character points were better spent padding out your combat skills while also leaving you more points to populate other skills and knacks at a greater degree, and to throw in another Trait point.
The flavor of the world says that we SHOULD be Tagging people but my play group never found the mechanical reason to do so. This will end up being the repeated theme of any of my posts dealing with the system... We love the world, but the mechanics aren't firing right. We love the Role Playing but we're not sold on the Game.
Thoughts?