JE Sawyer on SPECIAL

[Saint_Proverbius]

Hey, guys. I have actually posted all of these ideas before on various BIS boards, but the reaction was less than civil. Things I learned from those threads:

* I am a homosexual
* I am a stupid dumb idiot
* I am incompetent
* I don't know anything
* I want to ruin Fallout

Strangely enough, these weren't the sort of things I was planning to "learn" when I participated in those threads. So, given the general reactions from "hardcore" members of Fallout communities, I often don't see a lot of point to bringing up ideas in those areas.

This thread, on the other hand, seems to be pretty reasonable, so I'll try to discuss some things here.

Well, these aren't the BIS forums, JE. While some people around here use both, they are radically different user bases. Frankly, I don't care much for the BIS forums because of the user base there. They just don't seem to "Get it" a lot of times, especially in the Fallout forum there.

It amazes me you guys use that forum for sounding things out where you get insanely bad ideas posted all the time rather than places like NMA or DAC. Hell, I've seen posts on the BIS forum's Fallout area about making underwater cities, car warz, using all real world weapons, making it a first person shooter, alien invasions, cyber punk, and so on.

Heck, didn't most of the bad ideas tossed in to Fallout 2 come from Interplay's Fallout forum?

Maybe this isn't a good idea, but I figured shotguns and rifles would use the same skill category. That would allow area-effect shots and precise sniper attacks from the same skill. I've also wondered if just having Small Arms and Big Guns (instead of Small Arms/Energy Weapons/Big Guns) would be a bad idea.

I'm not sure there should be less skills in SPECIAL. The system worked really well for Fallout but not so well in Fallout 2. Why? Fallout 2 was much, much bigger. Instead of a level range of 1 to 13 or so, you have one that's twice that. In Fallout 2, you could effectively master any and all skills you need with even a decent intelligence.

Of course, there are other ways to make the system work for a higher level scale, but I think you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by reducing skills.

Sorry, I was going off an erroneous listing in a document.

Isn't that the way Lionheart is though?

Let's say that my Doctor skill starts at 30 and my Melee skill starts at 80. If we assume that a slide in the difficulty scale for any given task is paralleled at a 1:1 ratio across all skills, a Doctor task with a -30 check should be an equal increase in difficulty to a Melee task with a -30 check. The problem is that to cancel out those penalties for difficult tasks, it takes 30 allocated points in Doctor to "meet the challenge", but 40 allocated points in Melee to do the same. That's the discrepancy that I see, and I don't honestly know why the skills are scaled like that.

Okay, I'm following what you're saying here. That is odd. The checks aren't based on fixed percentages but are rather relative to what skill you're using?

That'd be funny if that was a bug.

I'm not suggesting that Doctor cost more -- not at all. I think that the skills should be derived using similar formulae that produce a fixed range of starting values. However, this isn't enough. All skills need to have a "robust" use across all strata of skill levels. That's one of the reasons why I would suggest collapsing First Aid into Doctor and letting low uses of Doctor serve as First Aid. This way, characters with only rudimentary Doctor skills could still make use of it, but the big boys could still do the massively cool stuff like removing cancer with a toothpick and some milk.

Personally, I'd keep both and expand their roles like so:

First Aid: Healing skill, primarily for a quick return of hit points. Can be used in combat but only to a point. Massive damage fixed by first aid will eventually drop hit points back down.

Doctor: Healing skill, in depth and lasts. Can also cure crippling injuries at high level, or like you said, cancer.

That would preserve the two skills and offer reasons to have them. After all, you really do need more skills if you want higher level advancement.

Come on. That's like saying that NOT subdividing Gambling any more is "dumbing it down". Why isn't there a Poker skill and a Roulette skill, etc.? It doesn't have anything to do with dumbing things down. I think that if a skill is in the game, it should have "robust" usefulness across the various skill levels. One solution might, indeed, be to find more uses for First Aid and Doctor. That doesn't mean it's the BEST solution or even a particularly GOOD solution.

It does for the reason I stated above.

My quote did make it sound like I missed it, but I really just worded my statement poorly. I know that DT and DR are BOTH in Fallout -- I've just never understood the need for a percentile operation when calculating damage reduction. At the high end, it seems to produce scary results. If my power armor has 80% resistance to the bullets slamming into me for 100 points of damage. Well -- I'd hate to think of what happens to anyone who, woe betide, simply doesn't have access to or doesn't want to wear power armor.

Well, one problem is that Advanced Power Armor is a little bit too much. I have to question why it was so much better than Power Armor given that only high end weapons work on PA in Fallout. Other than dishing out massive damage and critical hits, there's not much you can do against it. Well, hordes of Enclave Soldiers can still kill you.

I just think it probably would have been better to just have the Enclave in T-51b PAs rather than trying to one-up the original PA.

Heaven help us if FO3 has ULTRA POWER ARMOR that's even better than the APA.

That is true, but I'd rather have it be a player choice for risk balancing and character "style" than something where you basically have to wear heavy armor or die a horrible, horrible death. In the current system, a guy wearing leather armor or metal armor is basically screwed if anyone with a decent skill shoots a powerful weapon at them. There isn't any way to make Bendy McDodgealot. Adding a skill like Dodge would help allow that player flexibility. YUK, YUK.

Well, there's two things about that. Like you said, Dodge would pretty much have to be only usable by the metal and leather armor people. Otherwise you end up with PA guy who is rarely ever hit.

However, even with Dodge, if you get hit successfully, I'm not sure you'd survive - especially with a monster that has a high crit chance and multiple attacks like a Deathclaw. Those things have so many APs, you can't run from them well. That's what makes them scary though.

Another thing is that if that skill gets SO advanced that your character is literally untouchable. Not being able to be hit at all would be much worse than a PA's resistances because you still have to deal with those criticals because you were hit.

I think that all references to skill values as "percentages" should be dropped. Refering to a 57 skill in Barter as "57%" is erroneous, confusing, and unnecessary. You randomly generate a number between 1-100 to check against that stat, but the stat itself doesn't really have anything to do with the scale used in the game.

Ever heard of giving one-hundred and ten percent? Well, in Fallout, you can give two-hundred and thirty-seven percent!

[Section8]

Cross Post from BIS forums (long time ago) regarding First Aid and doctor being more useful and distinct.

First Aid

First Aid is a skill primarily for recovering lost hitpoints. The existing system is effective, and not particularly frustrating to a player. However to bring it into line with some other skill changes, here is a summary.

* First Aid requires no resources
* Resources can amplify the effects of First Aid
* All First Aid resources must be simple, and readily found

Doctor

Doctor is more concerned with the healing of major wounds and crippling. However, to further differentiate from First Aid, Doctor should be entirely resource based. In summary:

* Doctor requires resources
* Doctors have a primary resource of "Tranqs"
* Doctor skill is used to produce healing items, in addition to items that require further use of doctor to "apply" them to a patient
* The effect of a remedy should gauge how easy it is to procure the resources.

So for example, the player could use their Doctor skill to combine a Broc flower and a Xander root, and get a healing powder. Or further combine the healing powder with a hypo to create a stim. On the healing of cripples side, a bandage could be combined with Plaster of Paris to create a cast, which would then have to be used on a wounded character, incuring another use of Doctor skill.

When actually applying the Doctor skill, the dialogue box should contain the following.

* Selection of location (Aimed shot screen)
* Required resources (ie Casts, splints)
* Individual steps for the operating procedure. Critical steps should be marked so. Operations should be no more complex than 5 steps.
* Allocated Time for each step - with the general rule being "More time, Less Criticals"
* Tranq Volume for each step - below required amount increases collateral damage (based on skill and time.) Tranq Volume over what is required reduces critical chance.

[Suejak]

Yeah, so I had an idea that is so probably convoluted and drastically different from Fallout's current system that it will likely get me shot and/or hanged, but listen for a sec.

Every type of gun, ammuntion, and melee weapon has a numerical "penetration strength" of a particular type -- normal, laser, explosion, yadda, and yadda. This penetration strength can possibly be rolled from within a range for each attack, if some randomness is desired. Each armor type has a "penetration resistance range" for each type of damage. If a gun's penetration strength is under the range for its type against a particular armor, it does no damage. If it's above, it does the full damage rolled. Within the range, the damage is softened by percentage, depending on what percentage of the resistance range the penetration strength is.

I AM RESORTING TO GIVING AN EXAMPLE: I shoot somebody wearing leather armor on their torso in the torso with a standard 9mm pistol thing loaded with standard, non-armor-piercing bullets. The pistol has a penetration strength of 7, while the bullets have a penetration strength of 1. The penetration strength of this gun-ammo combination is 8. The leather armor has a penetration resistance range for normal weapons of 5 to 20. 5 to 20 becomes, for simplicity, 0 to 15, and 8 becomes 3. 3 is 20% of 15, so that means that 20% of the damage rolled makes it through -- 80% is blocked by the armor. Fun and simple and wow, right?

This way, high-powered guns do not get softened at all by weaker armors; low-powered guns get stopped completely (save, possibly, critical hits) by stronger armors; and a nifty, seemingly-simple-to-me balance scale is set up. "Damage thresholds" and static percentages lead to confusing design and quirky results. This way, everything fits nicely on a simple scale. You design your armors and then base the designs for your weapons off of those armors.

Another thing I'd suggest is location-specific armor. I'm tired of laser shots being deflected for no damage off of the head of a guy wearing metal armor, very clearly, on just his torso.

[Suejak]

I forgot to post an example of a quirky situation that may pop up when just using just damage thresholds to represent the deflection of damage.

As I understand it from Section 8 above, minigun damage is calculated as many "small damage" shots piled on top of one another. Even the smallest, static, impersonal damage threshold will therefore take off a large chunk of damage, in the end, despite the fact that a minigun is supposed to be very penetrating, just gauging by the way it works. If each bullet is supposed to do 13-15 damage and five bullets are fired into a leather jacket with a DT against normal damage of just 5 (all made-up), then you'll end up with a 25 damage taken out of the total, the maximum of which is just 75 -- because of simply a leather jacket, the maximum damage is just 50! However, if you set the minigun's penetration strength above the leather jacket's resistance range, no damage is blocked -- and this is how it should be.

Even if the minigun's damage were calculated as one big total against the DT, something will always be blocked, which can and is both frustrating and silly. If Joe Raider has 47 hit-points and leather armor that invariably blocks 15 normal damage, and I have a high-powered rifle that, when loaded with armor-piercing bullets, does 55-60 damage (up from maybe a base of 45-50), it is impossible to kill him in one shot to the torso, despite the fact that he just has simple leather armor which my high-powered rifle should be able to blast armor-piercing bullets straight through. If my armor-piercing bullets bumped my penetration strength up near the top or out of the leather armor's resistance range, though, I'd have a chance of doing this, just the way it seems it should be to common sense.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

Hey, guys. I have actually posted all of these ideas before on various BIS boards, but the reaction was less than civil. Things I learned from those threads:

* I am a homosexual

Damn, what a way to find out something like that. I hope you're coping okay.

This thread might be doing a bit better because some of the people prone to discussion through the medium of abuse haven't yet arrived.

Regarding skills, even when dealing specifically with the issue of skill progression, we do need to bear mind the value of the skill in the context of the game.

I found most weapon skills to vastly outweigh healing skills in value. Weapon skills seemed - along with some others - to be key skills, in that they had a greater impact on the game. Doctor did not have a high impact, due to the availability of alternate healing methods, as well as the fact that greater combat ability reduced the likelihood of injury. Skills with lower impact on the game should have cheaper progression, I feel, since otherwise players will opt to spend points on more valuable skills and the less valuable ones will become all but defunct.

There is another point - to do with realism, so runs the risk of crossing the line in the sand S_P drew earlier - about the value of experience/knowledge to a skill level compared to raw ability. Combat skills rely heavily on physical attriutes and do not lend themselves to being easily progressed through reading books. Even, perhaps, real experience is of relatively lower value compared to - for instance - paramedical skills (first aid). For skills with a higher reliance on natural abilities, progression should possibly be harder to achieve, but the upper range of starting values higher. Looked at from the other end, you could possibly say that it doesn't matter how clever, agile, or whatever, you are - some things in first aid or medicine are counter-intuitive and rely on acquisition of specific knowledge (possibly through trial and error).

I agree with S_P that we shouldn't take realism to the point of having an adverse effect on game mechanics, but can't help thinking that a certain broad consistency with real life adds a lot to the game.

The armour issue seems similar. Regardless of damage calculation there should be sufficient recognition that certain attirutes and skills will make people damn hard to hit in the first place.

Sorry, if my comments are simplistic or tired. I'm not familiar with the history of the debate and merely played Fallout/2 a lot, rather than religiously. If I'm honest, I actually have trouble remembering some things about it and can't always follow what S_P says. If you think that should exclude my opinion as non-expert, I'll understand.

[JESawyer]

I'm not sure there should be less skills in SPECIAL. The system worked really well for Fallout but not so well in Fallout 2. Why? Fallout 2 was much, much bigger. Instead of a level range of 1 to 13 or so, you have one that's twice that. In Fallout 2, you could effectively master any and all skills you need with even a decent intelligence.

Do you think that's a problem with a) too few skills b) too many skill points per level c) too shallow of a slope for point-point ratio increases d) too many levels to advance through during the course of the game or e) too many skills starting at high values? You can "fix" this problem by addressing one or more of a-e and still achieve a similar end.

Okay, I'm following what you're saying here. That is odd. The checks aren't based on fixed percentages but are rather relative to what skill you're using?

That'd be funny if that was a bug.

Yes, obviously the checks are relative the the skill you're using, but that's kind of an unnecessary way to go about things. And, due to the sliding skill point scale in the game, it produces inequality between the various skills and their difficulty levels. If all skills had initial values that fell in the same relatively close range, all skills could use a difficulty scale where each given element had a logical relationship with each other. Fixing a toaster has a +20 check. Removing someone's heart with a toothpick has a -50 check. While you could still stagger difficulty checks in relationship to things within a skill, allowing them to be placed in the context of other skills gives a better sense of scale for both designers and players.

Personally, I'd keep both and expand their roles like so:

First Aid: Healing skill, primarily for a quick return of hit points. Can be used in combat but only to a point. Massive damage fixed by first aid will eventually drop hit points back down.

Doctor: Healing skill, in depth and lasts. Can also cure crippling injuries at high level, or like you said, cancer.

That would preserve the two skills and offer reasons to have them. After all, you really do need more skills if you want higher level advancement.

That's helpful, but it still seems like First Aid is a low-level throw away skill and Doctor is a high-level skill that you use once in a while when you get a crippled limb or radiation poisoning.

And is high level advancement really desireable?

Well, one problem is that Advanced Power Armor is a little bit too much.

That might be the case, but I still don't see why DR is necessary or sensible.

Well, there's two things about that. Like you said, Dodge would pretty much have to be only usable by the metal and leather armor people. Otherwise you end up with PA guy who is rarely ever hit.

However, even with Dodge, if you get hit successfully, I'm not sure you'd survive - especially with a monster that has a high crit chance and multiple attacks like a Deathclaw. Those things have so many APs, you can't run from them well. That's what makes them scary though.

True. Heavy armor should definitely reduce a person's ability to avoid blows through dodging. However, I think there are some "hand in hand" problems here. Some weapons in the Fallout universe do an insanely high amount of damage specifically because they have to deal with armor that has a high DR percentage. If you need to do 20 points of damage against the guy with 80% DR, you have to do 100 points of damage to him on that hit (or critical him, in which case he will almost assuredly die). That's pretty extreme, but I think it's relevant. If only DT were used and the damage ranges were kept in a smaller numerical range, there would be a few benefits:

*) People could consider wearing lighter armor and still have a reasonable chance of survival.
*) Critical hits that bypass armor would not be so incredibly devastating at high level. In Fallout 1, most super mutants couldn't touch my power armored lad, but on a critical, it was instant death.
*) Sneaky McDodgealot could possibly take a few hits here or there, suffer for it, but survive.

Another thing is that if that skill gets SO advanced that your character is literally untouchable. Not being able to be hit at all would be much worse than a PA's resistances because you still have to deal with those criticals because you were hit.

I think there are easy ways to deal with that, though. If skills advance on a similar scale, your badass dodgy man is only going to be as good as badass shooty man. Yes, total feebs wouldn't be able to hit you, but that is sometimes a good thing.

[OnTheBounce]

Well, one problem is that Advanced Power Armor is a little bit too much. I have to question why it was so much better than Power Armor given that only high end weapons work on PA in Fallout. Other than dishing out massive damage and critical hits, there's not much you can do against it. Well, hordes of Enclave Soldiers can still kill you.

I just think it probably would have been better to just have the Enclave in T-51b PAs rather than trying to one-up the original PA.

Heaven help us if FO3 has ULTRA POWER ARMOR that's even better than the APA.

If this "Ultra Power Armor" is an improvement on APA Mk II the same way that the APA types were over simple PA, then I'd agree -- and wholeheartedly. However, probably the single most important issue that was overlooked when the APA types were implemented is that they are categorically superior to the earlier types. Look at the DT/DR vs every type of damage and the APA types are better, as well as featuring a higher AC. That was a mistake.

I think that the FO2 designers should have considered that improving something against one type of attack may very well have rendered it more vulnerable against another. That's both realistic, as well as essential to game balance. For instance, in their quest to better protect their troops against Normal damage type (everything from rocks to tribal spears to Deathclaws maulings, all of which would have been the primary threats that they would have encountered) they could very well have been left with armor that protected less well against the lowliest of Energy Weapon types: the laser.

Of course, once this is all said and done and the armor type has been finalized, you make sure and put a holodisk/computer to be accessed so that we can read the Sci-Fi element of why this type of armor works the way it does.

Regarding Armor Class, I think that we're missing something here. While I certainly like the idea of a character who can dodge incoming attacks -- I myself don't favor trundling around the Wastes in PA, but rather prefer the various types of CA which don't leave my character looking like a rabid teapot looking for a coffee can to sodomize -- I'm going to go out on a limb and say that AC doesn't actually represent the chance of a character being hit. Rather it represents an abstraction of the chance that an attack will have a chance to do damage. A target in PA is actually not that hard to hit, but there is only a small chance that an attack will actually hit an area that can be penetrated, at which time the DT/DR kicks in.

So if you're that "light-fighter" your high AC might actually represent the chance that you're simply not being hit -- although as Prov points out when you do get hit you will feel it, or not, since you will likely be dead -- but if you're wearing high-end armor w/a high AC you could still be taking hits from a blistering hail of fire, however it has no game effect other than a graphical representation of your character dodging. (Yes, I see the PA types of the FO universe as being more lumbering tanks than the nimble affairs of the world of Anime.)

I agree w/Section8's assessment of the merits of the DT/DR system. While it does have its idiosyncracies the system stands head and shoulders above simplistic systems like D&D/AD&D. I think that the system might use some work, but it's far from needing to be tossed on the scrap heap. We're talking tinkering here, though, not a major overhaul. (BTW, FoT's system of ammo subtypes which affected both DT and DR should be used in FO3, it's far superior to the system used in the RPGs.)

I'd like to go on, but my time is up for now. Not to mention that my dialup connection cuts out on me during long posts, which it just did...

Cheers,

OTB

P.S. Go ahead and register, JES, I'm sure you'll find this place much more amenable than the BIS boards. I'm sure Prov can come up w/some nifty title for you, too.

[JESawyer]

I am not trying to make any arguments based on realism. Realism is only helpful if it allows the player to understand and use the system "better".

[Guest]

Regarding Armor Class, I think that we're missing something here. While I certainly like the idea of a character who can dodge incoming attacks -- I myself don't favor trundling around the Wastes in PA, but rather prefer the various types of CA which don't leave my character looking like a rabid teapot looking for a coffee can to sodomize -- I'm going to go out on a limb and say that AC doesn't actually represent the chance of a character being hit. Rather it represents an abstraction of the chance that an attack will have a chance to do damage. A target in PA is actually not that hard to hit, but there is only a small chance that an attack will actually hit an area that can be penetrated, at which time the DT/DR kicks in.

Heavy armor increasing Armor Class is perhaps the most inappropriately AD&D element of the SPECIAL system as it stands. If AC represents an abstraction of the chance that attack will have a chance to do damage, DR and DT are inappropriately tacked on. That makes heavy armor even more necessary and light armor/dodgy even LESS viable.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Sorry for the triple post; I just had to find my password.

[OnTheBounce]

Heavy armor increasing Armor Class is perhaps the most inappropriately AD&D element of the SPECIAL system as it stands. If AC represents an abstraction of the chance that attack will have a chance to do damage, DR and DT are inappropriately tacked on. That makes heavy armor even more necessary and light armor/dodgy even LESS viable.

I think that the ACs of the heavy armor types are a bit overdone, especially in the case of APA. However, a light weapon that scores a hit and yet has no chance of overcoming the DT/DR of the armor in question still has a chance of damaging the target with a critical hit. ("He jammed a spork in my eye!")

How about rather than adding a new skill to the game we simply expand on something that's already there? Namely, perks! The Dodger perk isn't worth the proverbial hill of beans, if you ask me, since you're having to burn a precious perk slot to gain a mere 5 AC. How about upping the AC bonus of that perk and allowing multiple levels on top of it?

OTB

[J.E. Sawyer]

How about rather than adding a new skill to the game we simply expand on something that's already there?

DAMMIT, MAN, HAVEN'T YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION?! We need more skills like fish need water! MORE SKILLS = BETTER. Yuk, yuk. Just kidding.

Actually, making Dodger a better perk would certainly be nice. However, I still think that AC should remain "I am hard to hit" and leave "I am hard to damage" to DT and/or DR.

[Saint_Proverbius]

Do you think that's a problem with a) too few skills b) too many skill points per level c) too shallow of a slope for point-point ratio increases d) too many levels to advance through during the course of the game or e) too many skills starting at high values? You can "fix" this problem by addressing one or more of a-e and still achieve a similar end.

Well, you could do b-e, but you still would be shooting yourself in the foot by removing another thing to spend skill points on like I said earlier.

Really, I think b might be the best choice since ramping advancement more steeply would encourage Jack-of-All-Trades-ism, which would give the player access to most every quest in the game.

Another idea would be to be able to spend Skill Points on training NPCs or some similar mechanism of flushing them away from the player.

Yes, obviously the checks are relative the the skill you're using, but that's kind of an unnecessary way to go about things. And, due to the sliding skill point scale in the game, it produces inequality between the various skills and their difficulty levels. If all skills had initial values that fell in the same relatively close range, all skills could use a difficulty scale where each given element had a logical relationship with each other. Fixing a toaster has a +20 check. Removing someone's heart with a toothpick has a -50 check. While you could still stagger difficulty checks in relationship to things within a skill, allowing them to be placed in the context of other skills gives a better sense of scale for both designers and players.

Well, you could always do the prototyping of certain things to remove the sense of scale. Say with lock picking, old wooden doors have the same chance, well kept metal doors have the same chance, and so on. I don't think that's an incredibly good idea though because it makes everything too generic.

That's helpful, but it still seems like First Aid is a low-level throw away skill and Doctor is a high-level skill that you use once in a while when you get a crippled limb or radiation poisoning.

And is high level advancement really desireable?

That really depends on other areas of the game. For example, if there's a time limit in the game, then you could factor in the time of completion for the Doctor skill to mend a broken leg. The higher level the Doctor, the faster he does things.

You could also give skills like Doctor inate abilities, such as making stimpacks given the ingrediants for them. I don't think it would be a bad idea for all skills to have an inate ability bonus to them.

That might be the case, but I still don't see why DR is necessary or sensible.

Because that gives designers two aspects to play with when it comes to making armor as opposed to just one. Even if you don't like the idea of stopping power and absorbtion for armors, you can surely see that the more variables in armor is good.

Keep in mind that Fallout doesn't have magic to make armors varied, so you have to model the armor in such a way that it's still interesting. Having +2 AC, +4 vs Slashing is done in D&D by magical means. Fallout just has physical properties to fall back on - but they still do the same thing when you think about it.

True. Heavy armor should definitely reduce a person's ability to avoid blows through dodging. However, I think there are some "hand in hand" problems here. Some weapons in the Fallout universe do an insanely high amount of damage specifically because they have to deal with armor that has a high DR percentage. If you need to do 20 points of damage against the guy with 80% DR, you have to do 100 points of damage to him on that hit (or critical him, in which case he will almost assuredly die). That's pretty extreme, but I think it's relevant.

Keep in mind that in Fallout you were rarely fighting one on one though. In terms of critters shooting you, you might be taking several 20 point shots at a time. Those add up pretty quickly, so DR is fairly important in nearly all the situations of combat you could get in - especially when it came to Supermutants in Fallout and Enclavers in Fallout 2.

By removing DR, you'd probably have to scale all the weapons in the game or you'd have it so that there's more player fatalities. Neither one is that good of a solution.

If only DT were used and the damage ranges were kept in a smaller numerical range, there would be a few benefits:

*) People could consider wearing lighter armor and still have a reasonable chance of survival.
*) Critical hits that bypass armor would not be so incredibly devastating at high level. In Fallout 1, most super mutants couldn't touch my power armored lad, but on a critical, it was instant death.
*) Sneaky McDodgealot could possibly take a few hits here or there, suffer for it, but survive.

Now the downsides:

*) There's be less things for designers to use when it came to making armor. No more of that tweaking that makes Tesla Armor as good as it is at absorbing energy versus Metal Armor MkII. MAMkII absorbs more physical damage than TA, but absorbs less energy weapon attacks.
*) Weapons would have to be scaled to remove what DR normally did. Where's the compass for that, since armors resisted different things differently. You're talking about taking a fairly balanced system, removing a big part of it, and then having to rebalance again.
*) You'd wipe out something endurance does as well as several perks by removing DR.

I think there are easy ways to deal with that, though. If skills advance on a similar scale, your badass dodgy man is only going to be as good as badass shooty man. Yes, total feebs wouldn't be able to hit you, but that is sometimes a good thing.

Yes, but how do you scale that? If it's like guns, you'll have a 95% chance of dodging under ideal conditions with a 95% skill. Every point after that offsets less ideal conditions. At some point, you'd be mostly unhittable.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

Because that gives designers two aspects to play with when it comes to making armor as opposed to just one. Even if you don't like the idea of stopping power and absorbtion for armors, you can surely see that the more variables in armor is good.

Keep in mind that Fallout doesn't have magic to make armors varied, so you have to model the armor in such a way that it's still interesting. Having +2 AC, +4 vs Slashing is done in D&D by magical means. Fallout just has physical properties to fall back on - but they still do the same thing when you think about it.

There are already several (physical) variables, if you allow for a mobility factor, attribute boosts, cost and stopping power versus different damage types.

I like the idea of DR, though. Maybe an "effectivity threshold" could be added to deal with those situations where the armour is vapourised (or whatever) by a tiny proportion of the damage. Possibly this could be achieved by giving the armour some hit points.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Really, I think b might be the best choice since ramping advancement more steeply would encourage Jack-of-All-Trades-ism, which would give the player access to most every quest in the game.

That, combined with Perks that only become available after 50 or 100 makes the choice between being a specialist or Jack of All Trades even more difficult. And that seems like a good thing to me.

That really depends on other areas of the game. For example, if there's a time limit in the game, then you could factor in the time of completion for the Doctor skill to mend a broken leg. The higher level the Doctor, the faster he does things.

You could also give skills like Doctor inate abilities, such as making stimpacks given the ingrediants for them. I don't think it would be a bad idea for all skills to have an inate ability bonus to them.

Then what does First Aid do at higher levels, when your Doctor skill is capable of not only healing greivous wounds, but also making stimpacks? Sorry that I keep harping on this, but in both current game mechanics and common sense, First Aid is the foundation for Doctor. What person with the ability to heal broken limbs, remove poison and disease, and eradicate traces of radiation doesn't know how to treat minor wounds? And what person with the medical experience and know-how to heal dozens of serious flesh wounds has no idea what to do when faced with a broken limb or a poisoned bite?

Because that gives designers two aspects to play with when it comes to making armor as opposed to just one. Even if you don't like the idea of stopping power and absorbtion for armors, you can surely see that the more variables in armor is good.

No, I don't. More variables does not automatically mean "better". For every variable you add, there is something new that you have to check, track, use, and balance. That's why adding new skills isn't inherently good and why adding stats to weapons or armor isn't necessarily good. Flexibility is certainly nice to have, but the benefits of that flexibility need to be weighed against any problems it might cause.

Keep in mind that Fallout doesn't have magic to make armors varied, so you have to model the armor in such a way that it's still interesting. Having +2 AC, +4 vs Slashing is done in D&D by magical means. Fallout just has physical properties to fall back on - but they still do the same thing when you think about it.

Why can't you just make armor varied through subdivided DT? A bulletproof vest might have good threshhold against Explosion/Ballistic attacks, no resistance against Electrical attacks, and low resistance against Fire/Cold attacks.

By removing DR, you'd probably have to scale all the weapons in the game or you'd have it so that there's more player fatalities. Neither one is that good of a solution.

We have to scale all the weapons in the game anyway -- this just means that we'd be scaling them in a different system.

Now the downsides:

*) There's be less things for designers to use when it came to making armor. No more of that tweaking that makes Tesla Armor as good as it is at absorbing energy versus Metal Armor MkII. MAMkII absorbs more physical damage than TA, but absorbs less energy weapon attacks.
*) Weapons would have to be scaled to remove what DR normally did. Where's the compass for that, since armors resisted different things differently. You're talking about taking a fairly balanced system, removing a big part of it, and then having to rebalance again.
*) You'd wipe out something endurance does as well as several perks by removing DR.

*) Again, more variables does not equal better. I think you can still have lots of variation between different types of armor by using subdivided damage thresholds. Hell, it might even wind up being a similar number of variables.
*) I hesitate to call the armor systems used in Fallout or Fallout 2 "fairly balanced". Towards the end of the games, if you wear Power Armor, you live. If you don't wear Power Armor, you die. The reason I'm suggesting these changes is specifically because I don't believe they are balanced.
*) Why can't Endurance and those Perks do different things under this system?

Yes, but how do you scale that? If it's like guns, you'll have a 95% chance of dodging under ideal conditions with a 95% skill. Every point after that offsets less ideal conditions. At some point, you'd be mostly unhittable.

Saint, stop thinking of everything as a raw percentage in a void. When Shooty and Dodgy fight, there should be a mathematical relationship between their skills. Shooty's weapon skill raises or lower's Dodgy's dodging skill when they are used against each other. Common sense dictates that a guy with a 95 skill in Melee attempting to attack a guy with a 95 skill in Dodging (for sake of argument) should have a 50% chance to hit.

[Vergilius]

I do not really feel that I can contribute with much here but I have one unclear thought(or whatever word you English speaking people would like to use instead)…

I notice that armour is in question and that some believe that APA is a little bit too powerful (something I agree with) and remember complains about Fallout.
You remember, do you not, that a lot people complained about PA in Fallout. It was too powerful, anyone could destroy hordes of Mutants with it without damage.
I note that we once again have this complain and as I did then, I agree. The interesting thing here, as I see it, is that opponents are bigger, tougher etc. You yourself, gains more exp, has better weapons and a tougher armour, and basically nothing really changed in that aspect, between the games.

I never really liked the AC in Fallout, in my (previous) vision of damage systems, you either have a “to hit and damage� or “damage reduction�. Not both. Reading Sawyers take here, I believe he is on to something. I would like to use a lighter armour, becoming more dodgy, if it suits my chr. And if I want to play the one-man-army, I would like to use the tank armour, you can hit me but never hurt me.

As usual I make absolute no sense not even to me…

[Saint_Proverbius]

That, combined with Perks that only become available after 50 or 100 makes the choice between being a specialist or Jack of All Trades even more difficult. And that seems like a good thing to me.

See, I think of a specialist in Fallout/Fallout 2 as someone with a really, really high skill in one or two areas. A Jack-of-all-Trades character is someone with a lot of skills in the 50 to 100 area. Now, if you had Perks that catered to specialists, as I'm describing them, more, that would be a good thing. Something extra for those guys who build up to say, 120% to 150% skill power, that would be better for specialists.

Then what does First Aid do at higher levels, when your Doctor skill is capable of not only healing greivous wounds, but also making stimpacks?

Remember, I stated that First Aid could be considered "On the Field of Combat" type medicine, right? How about temporary splinting of a crippled arm/leg at high levels? Something to keep you going for the fight.

As for the inate ability of First Aid, why not have the ability to make field medic kits? Have it so they are used up after a certain number of uses which Fallout Tactics did. Being able to use First Aid in combat was one of the few good things about that game.

Sorry that I keep harping on this, but in both current game mechanics and common sense, First Aid is the foundation for Doctor. What person with the ability to heal broken limbs, remove poison and disease, and eradicate traces of radiation doesn't know how to treat minor wounds?

Which is why I suggested making First Aid more of a combat treatment skill. It doesn't have to make sense realistically. You just say, "Hey, this is what this skill does as opposed to this similar skill."

That's kind of like saying a HtH character should also know how to hit people with a sledgehammer or vice versa since they're both melee abilities. Just suspend that belief and follow the rules.

And what person with the medical experience and know-how to heal dozens of serious flesh wounds has no idea what to do when faced with a broken limb or a poisoned bite?

Like I said, First Aid could be quick, dirty solutions for the purpose of getting through combat. Then you find a doctor to do that job for you.

No, I don't. More variables does not automatically mean "better". For every variable you add, there is something new that you have to check, track, use, and balance. That's why adding new skills isn't inherently good and why adding stats to weapons or armor isn't necessarily good. Flexibility is certainly nice to have, but the benefits of that flexibility need to be weighed against any problems it might cause.

Yes, but we're already talking about a system that is fairly well balanced. When you remove aspects of that system, you're going to have to re-balance things too.

Why can't you just make armor varied through subdivided DT? A bulletproof vest might have good threshhold against Explosion/Ballistic attacks, no resistance against Electrical attacks, and low resistance against Fire/Cold attacks.

Look at Metal Armor MkII versus Telsa Armor. They're similar in terms of DT, but the DR are different because Telsa Armor is designed to soak energy weapon damage.

Sure, you could vary DT alone, but DR makes more sense in the case of Telsa Armor.

Like I said, this isn't a system where you can just toss around magical abilities to make new armors. The armor model in Fallout, because there's no magic, needs to be as complex naturally just to enough type variance to make it interesting.

We have to scale all the weapons in the game anyway -- this just means that we'd be scaling them in a different system.

If that's the case, why not just make a new system then? Just say, "Hey, SPECIAL works great for Fallout, but we're making something that's different. Let's make a whole new system!" After all, that's the way Interplay used to do things.

*) Again, more variables does not equal better. I think you can still have lots of variation between different types of armor by using subdivided damage thresholds. Hell, it might even wind up being a similar number of variables.

Which doesn't make sense, does it? Let's tear down a complex system, and replace it with a complex system, then rebalance it.

*) I hesitate to call the armor systems used in Fallout or Fallout 2 "fairly balanced". Towards the end of the games, if you wear Power Armor, you live. If you don't wear Power Armor, you die. The reason I'm suggesting these changes is specifically because I don't believe they are balanced.

I wouldn't. The APA was a bit much, but all in all, a lot of people still die in power armor. Killing the President manually in Fallout 2, even with APA, can be rough. Fighting the Master or the Lieutinant in Fallout is a similar situation.

*) Why can't Endurance and those Perks do different things under this system?

You're basically talking about making a new system here. Throwing out some big concepts, replacing them with other big concepts. That brings me back to, "Why not just make a new system?"

So far, just getting rid of DR, you've said you'd:

• Change all the armor and the armor system
• Change all the weapons to fit the new armor system
• Change all the resistance Perks to something else
• Change Endurance to do something else
• Rebalance everything

That's a pretty extensive and time consuming list just to get rid of one aspect because you, in your own words, "don't get it".

Saint, stop thinking of everything as a raw percentage in a void.

But skills are percentages. SPECIAL is a percentage based system. The reason they go over 100% is because they offset penalty percentages.

Stop thinking of absolutes here, JE. Just because it goes over 100% doesn't mean it's not a percentage. If IPLY stock jumped up to a dollar, that'd be a 500% change, wouldn't it? See, percentages can be over 100%.

When Shooty and Dodgy fight, there should be a mathematical relationship between their skills. Shooty's weapon skill raises or lower's Dodgy's dodging skill when they are used against each other. Common sense dictates that a guy with a 95 skill in Melee attempting to attack a guy with a 95 skill in Dodging (for sake of argument) should have a 50% chance to hit.

Then we're back to that skill not being that useful because getting hit with a super sledge while wearing puny armor is likely to kill you. Being hit half the time is not a good thing.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

Why do I get the impression this is a grudge match between two, rather than a discussion between many?

[Killzig]

probably because the conversation is over your head :]

[Section8]

Try thinking of First Aid and Doctor in the same sort of wrapper as Sorcerors vs Wizards in D&D.

First Aid (sorceror) can perform a limited amount of tasks basically at will, and because they are basically using whatever is on hand, so time becomes the sole factor governing use.

Doctor (wizard) however, can perform a great deal more, but must be specifically prepared for each discrete task they can perform.

The system I outlined before adds further distinction between the two by making First Aid completely free. No supplies necessary, but they can boost skill use slightly. Doctor requires resources to perform (let's think reagents) and in the wasteland, resources are scarce, and money can always be spent on ammo, weapons and armour no matter what the focus of your character.

I think that provides enough distinction, and even gives motivation to have both tagged.