RECIVS wrote:If you value my concept of the essence and feel of AHQ as you say, then you have to admit that variety of combat is one of the aspects of the game that should be privileged over all else given its nature. AHQ is a combat-oriented tactical dungeon crawler in which the players fight monsters in dungeons most of the time. Isn't that obvious?
I do like variety of combat, and I felt like my changes were adding to the variety of combat. They were intended to increase the variety of weapons used and therefore the tactical options open to players.
-High toughness enemy: Use an Axe, better chance of halving toughness so more wounds caused.
-Low toughness enemies: Use a sword, higher number of damage dice so more wounds caused.
-Fast enemies: Use a long bow that can kill them in one shot before they can reach you.
-Slow enemies: Use a shortbow and pepper them with weak shots while moving away each turn.
This might be heading for an argument of what is “Variety”.
Is a single hamburger or two hamburger variety? Yes, its variety of amount.
Is a hamburger or a chicken burger variety? Yes, is variety of flavour.
To say one or the other as objectively better is, I would claim, not possible. It’s still a matter of opinion.
Free attacks on crits add more randomness to a combat and more of a chance to kill two or more targets. Halve toughness, when used with the different weapon characteristics I created, add more choices for players in combat and a reduction in randomness. Note that you
have to use my different weapons to be able to make correct use of the halve toughness rule. My statistical analysis when coming up with those characteristics was vital to make them work.
Thanquol wrote:Your slight confusion likely stems from GW's historically murky wording – "free attack" sounds like an extra swing, when in reality, it's just shorthand for "inflicts greater damage," a mechanic abstraction for a severe hit, not another action.
I can only go off what I read. If I break down the original AHQ rule for critical hits into 3 parts in attempt to divine the… errr… ingredients and therefor how to interpret it.
1. The rule name:
A Critical Hit – Implies a single hit or blow that is critical or serious.
2. The rule’s effect:
A Free Attack. Implies an attack or assault that is free or without effort.
3. The rule’s implementation:
Gives the attacker an extra HTH attack that may target any appropriate model in the attackers death zone. While the name of the rule indicates a hit that “inflicts greater damage” or a “severe hit”, the other two point at an extra attack independent of the original attack. The Implementation particularly appears to be a separate attack. The free attack still requires a hit roll and can hit, miss, fumble or critical. The free attack is not written to require it to also target the original target (at least in my reading), it can be directed at another model. If only facing a single opponent, a free attack from a crit is wasted if the original target dies from the first blow.
To me, a free attack, as implemented in the rules, is clearly an independent attack, separate from the first attack.
However! A fourth ingredient can be examined! The description or flavour of weapons that are more likely to generate a critical hit. I.e. “Large weapons are heavier and score critical hits on 11 or 12” and has “enchanted sharpness”. These indicate a weapon that will cause more damage upon a hit.
We have description pointing at a more damaging blow and implementation pointing at a second independent attack. Which should we choose? To me, this just sounds like the original AHQ author screwed up. So I “fixed” it in my rules by choosing a side and going with more damage on a hit.
Which, by the way, is exactly how Slev handles it in his rules for Reforged variant: Book 1 “intro rules”, page 25, under critical hits:
“That Attack is assumed to have found a chink in the target's Armour or hit a vital spot. The target's Toughness is halved (rounding fractions down, minimum 2) when Rolling for Damage.”I know RECIVS that you changed it back to a free attack in your re-reforged variant and even go to lengths to explain how the free attack is clearly a completely a separate attack that can be used at any point during the model’s activation. So
you must believe that this free attack is unrelated to the damage the weapon causes when hitting a target and is caused by some other means?
Objectively how would you explain how a large heavy weapon would be more likely to cause this second attack?
Thanquol wrote:You mentioned not wanting to "create additional rules," but swapping out free attacks for halved toughness is, functionally, a new mechanic.
But it’s
not a new mechanic. It’s right there in the ranged combat rules in original AHQ. Original rule book, page 21:
“Critical hits with a ranged weapon are assumed to have found a chink in the target's armour or hit a vital spot. The target's Toughness is halved (rounding fractions down) when rolling for damage.”I would argue that my system of making both HTH and ranged attacks halve toughness is actually
reducing the amount of mechanics. (Though a free attack from an opponent on a fumble still exists in my rules).
RECIVS wrote:Thank you, sir! I rest my case. It's clear that Slev's cleaving approach offers more combat options and variety of results with fewer changes to the original rules, which can be proven objectively (again) any day.
This seems unfair. How can you criticise my rules changes, which include only a single rules “change” (halve toughness on both HTH and ranged critical hits), some rule clarifications (
thrown, two handed, large-only, move & fire, reload) and modifications to the numeric characteristics of the existing AHQ weapons. But hold up Slev’s rules as simpler when they have more weapon special rules (
Cleaving, thrown, Accurate, exhaustion, swiftshot, great, ammunition, Bash, Slow Fire, Unreliable, Blade Fury, Clumsy), has more than 60 different weapons, has a damage “band” system of 16 different “bands” and
includes the rule to halve toughness on both hth and ranged critical hits.You can’t just pick cleaving and say that it invalidates my whole ruleset. Cleaving does not add more options or choices to combat.
I have just spent some time doing the numbers with my python script (numbers may not be 100% accurate, but should be close enough for discussion) and Cleaving is what I would describe as a linear boost to damage. Adding more Cleaving to a weapon simply increase the average amount of wounds caused to all targets regardless of WS, critical chance or target toughness. The bonus from cleaving is quite minimal. By my calculations, for a damage dice 3 weapons to cause an average of more wounds than a damage dice 4 weapons, it would need a Cleaving of 4 (meaning that you could reroll the damage dice on a roll of 8). There’s also no advantage to choosing a weapon with high cleaving when targeting different toughness targets or targets with more armour. Looking at the weapons in reforged, why would you ever take a Rapier when an Arming Sword, will do better average damage in
ALL situations, and you can wield it with lower strength.
So how does Cleaving provide more combat options? All it adds is an extra rule you need to look up and track, but is meaningless until it reaches a value of 4 or better (very difficult in Reforged).
