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PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:06 pm 
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I'm trialling something in issue 3 of 'Casket of Fays'

Below is a brief adaption of one of Esser2002's house rules. It's not ready for primetime yet.

I'm putting this in the zine, asking people to come here and comment, and hopefully this will spiral enough discussion to be able to do as a full article in the future.

Over to you.

Bäreshirt – A Skill of the Mighty (one reason it's not ready yet, here)
Jonas Esser
Some barbarians adopt a fighting style, based on free movement. Relieving themselves from the weight and bulk of armour, they are able to reach their full potential, moving with strength, swiftness and grace. Fighting unarmoured is risky however, and it takes only a few missteps to end up dead, when you have no armour to rely on.
When a character trained in Bäreshirt is fighting with armour lighter than ringmail, they gain the following bonuses in melee.

Hard leather armour +1 Attack +1 Defense +1 Evasion
Soft leather armour +2 Attack +2 Defense +1 Evasion
No armour +3 Attack +2 Defense +2 Evasion


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:59 pm 
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It needs to also detail how this skill is acquired in Vanilla DW, as Barbarians do not have any choice regards Skills of the Mighty but rather gain Bloodrage by default at 8th rank. Does this replace Bloodrage? Is it gained earlier, or later?


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:46 am 
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Make it scalable. 1st rank vs 10th rank. Compulsory bear fur chest hair for 10th rank.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:13 pm 
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wimlach wrote:
It needs to also detail how this skill is acquired in Vanilla DW, as Barbarians do not have any choice regards Skills of the Mighty but rather gain Bloodrage by default at 8th rank. Does this replace Bloodrage? Is it gained earlier, or later?


The skill is balanced to be rougly as powerfull as fighting with chainmail, so it could just be used as an alternative fighting style for barbarians. Perhaps they could trade their armour proficiency at character creation.

I have made the skill to be part of my larger collection of skills of the mighty for both knights and barbarians, available here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b1c ... sp=sharing

But since it will be put in the casket of fays, it is now presented as a stand-alone bonus rule. Do you have any suggestions how it might be implemented?


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:46 pm 
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Perhaps they can gain the skill at character creation if they forego the ability to wear chainmail (and gain penalties for heavy armour as a mystic)?
This fits thematically, as a "Bäreshirt" fighter would likely not have trained in heavy chainmail if the light, agile fighting style is their preference.

How valuable is AF 3 through? Would a simplified +1 per AF foregone be too powerful at 1st rank? No AF is quite risky for a fighter.

Hard Leather +1 Attack +1 Defence +1 Evasion
Soft Leather +2 Attack +2 Defence +2 Evasion
No armour +3 Attack +3 Defence +3 Evasion


Just plugged these numbers into the rank equivalence calculator on the Cobwebbed Forest website - +3 ATT & DEF vs an armoured Barbarian or Knight is about equal, so it's not over powerful as an ability available at 1st rank.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:10 am 
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Tell you what, how about a totally different approach? Berzerk becomes 2 DEFENCE for 1 ATTACK when naked. Reflects the higher mobility for not wearing armour.

How about a bonus to 'reflexes' for reaction time?

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:59 pm 
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+3 Defence is too powerfull.

I have written a C# script simulating a duel between two characters.
Lets say we have two barbarians of same rank and average attack/defence.
They are both fighting with greatswords. The other barbarian is wearing chainmail.

This is the winrate of the Bäreshirt barbarian if he is wearing:
Hard leather armour: 45.5 %
Soft leather armour : 51.2 %
No armour: 50.4 %

If Bäreshirt has +3/+3 for no armour, the winrate would be as such.
No armour: 57.9 %
I think that is too much

I see Bäreshirt as an alternative fighting style, giving a slight edge in a duel, but making the barbarian a lot more exposed to ranged fire, and multible opponents.

As for giving a discount on berserk, i like the idea but i simply think it is too weak. Trading attack for defence is only worth it in very few scenarios, and armour is very useful in every combat.
I don't think it would even be worth it, even if berserk was improved to 1:1.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:20 pm 
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Note that armour gives additional value vs multiple opponents, as every opponent needs to bypass the armour equally.
A bareshirt fighter is disadvantaged against multiple foes compared to a warrior in Chainmail, as defence becomes increasingly less effective per opponent.

So the small % advantage your test provides may be lost entirely once multi-opponent combats are taken into consideration.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:25 pm 
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Well, how about multiple attacks? You can split your defence vs 2 people when attacked by two, so how about some variation where you can get more hits in based on splitting attack? Just a suggestion.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2020 6:20 pm 
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I've had a go at simulating some scenarios with the Rank Equivalence calculator. The "standard" first-rank barbarian has an Attack of 14, Defence of 6, and an AF of 4. Armed with a battleaxe (d8, 6), this compared comparably to an unarmoured barbarian (same weapon). No surprise, really, but the real difference starts to tell in scenarios in which AF makes more of a difference than Defence - multiple opponents.

Let's use peasants - unranked humans (Att 11, Def 5, AF 0, HP 7) with staffs (d6, 3)

Fighting 4 peasants is tough for the Barbarian - the 4 peasants are RE 4 to a Barbarian but only RE3 to a Knight (the high AF and shield, which applies to all attacks, really helps the Knight here - also, each peasant requires two hits from either a sword or battleaxe to fell, so no advantage for the axe's higher damage). When I fudged the app to give the barbarian +3 Attack, +2 Defence, and 0 AF, the four peasants became Rank Equivalent 5 - even harder for the Barbarian to defeat.

Now, give those peasants only 6 HP and even a first-rank armoured barbarian has very little trouble despatching 4 of them (one hit, one kill really helps). The unarmoured Barbarian, however, still struggles - those low-HP peasants are back up to RE 4. The Barbarian's split Defence and lack of armour means the peasants are injuring him a lot more than before.

I don't think the unarmoured bonus to Attack/Defence is unbalancing but you'd probably want to delve further into the intimidating impact fighting bare-chested or naked would have on the barbarian's enemies. And, for hotter regions in Legend, the penalties to Attack and Defence for fighting in full armour might make developing an unarmoured fighting style advantageous. A warrior is only going to fight unarmoured, bare-chested, or naked if it gives them some advantage in battle - the benefits of armour would otherwise seem to speak for themselves.

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