Dwarves don't wear plate....

[Hellebore]

@ Helebore
The Comparison you are doing is rather skewed your coamparing the top and botom of the averages, of course there will be a huge disparity if you do that.
Also its not worth adding the dex for elves when you make the assumption that they have all 0 stats after racial modifiers.

If you were arguing the issues of Dwarves vs Humans or even Elves vs Humans (as they are closer to the same) then you may sell your point better. Prehaps the inherrant flaws in the static penalities on armour could be better to focus on using similare example you have to justify it.

Do you mean I shouldn't be comparing elves to dwarves, or that I've somehow used the bottom and top of their statistical averages? Because I assumed equal starting stats, modified by their racial bonuses.

Even comparing all three together you still get problems. A dwarf doesn't get better at running just because he's fighting alongside a human as a comparison. A human with 0 Dex will move at 5 yards in fullplate, or 2 yard charge. Which is still twice as far as a dwarf in the same circumstances.

I comparing elves and dwarves precisely because of the massive gulf between them. The racial starting stats aren't based on probability, so there is an equal chance of being any race. Thus comparing dwarves and elves is just as valid as comparing them to humans.

@ General
There is also a huge disparity between size and build of dwarves and elves.
Someone 4 feet tall and stocky is going to be significantly slower than someone thats lithe and 5.5 feet tall. One can only assume that elves have longer legs than humans do proportunatly to their size.

Speed is only what a character can do in a round both races are able to travel the same distance it just takes the dwarf longer to travel that distance. A warrior isnt limied to only moving their movement rate, the limit is their movement rate each round. So the dwarf warrior may need to use their minor action for movement to reach the opponent in that round while the elf warrior doesnt. The elf is likely doing nothing with that minor action anyway.

Well dwarves in Dragon Age aren't depicted as being 2/3rds the height of humans. They're only slightly shorter than elves.

As for combat movement, the dwarf can use a minor action of 3 yards plus a major charge action for a total movement of 4 yards. The elf can move as a minor 7 yards and a charge at 3 for a total of 10 yards. If you deliberately make combats only happen within 4 yards then sure, the dwarf won't be penalised. Anything more than 4 yards means the Dwarf requires 2 rounds to get into combat whilst the elf is already there.

it also means that any enemy that stays more than 4 yards from the dwarf will never get charged by him and can thus skirt around to get to the mage at the back. The elf with a potential 10 yard charge range has a 250% increase in its threat radius making that very difficult. Which makes the dwarf a very bad warrior on the offense or defence, whilst the elf is great in both.

The issue itself isnt with Dwarves and Elves, the issue you are (in general sence not specifically to one person) having is the way armour effects the movement rules, as only when it comes to heavy armour do people seem to take the bigest issue.

Armour affects in a flat rate, rather than a percentage effect.
Full plate reduces speed for each race differently, as shown below:
Elf: 41.67%
Human: 50.00%
Dwarf: 62.50%
Flat rate is a simpler rule however than having percentages.
If you want a simple solution make elves 10 movement same as humans and you no longer have that 4 yard disparity between dwarves and elves.

Given the rules as well there is always the possiblity of having 3 Dex starting on the dwarf and -1 on the elf, making their movements the same and the poor Human slower than both.

Absolutely. The way armour interacts with Speed is one of the central problems. But even if you remove that completely, the dwarf has a 12 yard threat zone whilst the elf has an 18 yard (or 19 for a city elf) threat zone which still means that unless you specifically tailor the encounters so that they always happen within 12 yards, the dwarf will still be worse at every aspect of the job.

As for the argument of improbability, well that's actually arguing using skewed data and thus irrelevant to the discussion. Your argument then falls back to 'well dwarves wouldn't suck so much if they had improbably rolled starting statistics'. Which can be applied to any character 'well my mage wouldn't suck so much in lore tests if he inadvertantly rolled 4 for Cunning.'

Averages are used for a reason, everyone is on an even footing. The elf has an equal chance of rolling 4 Dex as the dwarf does.

The same problem ensues - the dwarf has starting move 12, reduced to 7 whilst the elf has starting speed 16, reduced to 11 - 1 pt lower than an unencumbered dwarf.

So although the effect armour has on Speed is definitely important, the mere fact that there is a 4 Dex or 8 level difference in base speed between an elf and a dwarf is disproportionately important.

Hellebore

[Sharsek]

Hi all, here's my take on the matter:

Dwarves are short and stocky, slower but able to carry great weight with ease.
Elves are quick and lithe, faster but easily hindered by weight.

In my game, I'll keep the base speed listed for them in the manual, but with an addition to the armor penalty rules: Dwarves reduce armor penalty to speed by 50%, Elves increase it by the same amount.

For example, plate armor: 5/2=2,5 (rounded down: 2)
With this rule, the armor penalty for dwarves in heavy plate will be 5-2=3, while for elves will be 5+2=7. This way, all races will move at the same speed in heavy plate (plus dexterity, of course).

This should fix the issues without great changes to existing rules.

(Sorry if I made any mistake, english is not my primary language)

[Admiral Yacob]

Hi all, here's my take on the matter:

Dwarves are short and stocky, slower but able to carry great weight with ease.
Elves are quick and lithe, faster but easily hindered by weight.

In my game, I'll keep the base speed listed for them in the manual, but with an addition to the armor penalty rules: Dwarves reduce armor penalty to speed by 50%, Elves increase it by the same amount.

For example, plate armor: 5/2=2,5 (rounded down: 2)
With this rule, the armor penalty for dwarves in heavy plate will be 5-2=3, while for elves will be 5+2=7. This way, all races will move at the same speed in heavy plate (plus dexterity, of course).

This should fix the issues without great changes to existing rules.

(Sorry if I made any mistake, english is not my primary language)

English may not be your primary language but this is the best idea I've heard so far. I liked the 2/0/-2 health but this makes more sense (as in better connected), nullifies the primary arguments and is fairly simple to handle (most people can do that basic math or it could be added to a table). This is the solution I will use if my group ever cares .

[Lyger]

it also means that any enemy that stays more than 4 yards from the dwarf will never get charged by him and can thus skirt around to get to the mage at the back. The elf with a potential 10 yard charge range has a 250% increase in its threat radius making that very difficult. Which makes the dwarf a very bad warrior on the offense or defence, whilst the elf is great in both.

This presupposes some things, none of which are givens:

1) Fighting occurs in open areas where the advantage is always to the combatants with the higher movement rate.

2) The players who run Dwarf characters don't have the tactical chops to find a way around this issue.

3) Parties as a whole are incapable of adapting to the situations in which they find themselves to best utilize their assets and offset their disadvantages.

I don't know that I would presume these things so strongly that it justifies the statement that Dwarfs are "very bad" warriors. A Dwarf simply can't fight in the same manner as an Elf. Now, if the tactical situation is ALWAYS going to favor a highly mobile style of mêleé combat and players aren't able to do much about it, you have a point. But that's a campaign issue, not a mechanical one.

Now, you can make the point that an Elf can emulate a Dwarf style of fighting pretty well, when the reverse is not true, and that Dwarfs have no other advantages in other areas that make up for that. But again, I would submit that if an Elf can always do the Dwarf's job better than a Dwarf, this is a matter of the campaign always being in areas that favor Elves, as there should be several circumstances where Dwarfs have an advantage.

[Banesfinger]

Since Dragon Age does not have rules for "attacks of opportunity", "flanking", (dis)engage, etc, it does somewhat mitigate a high movement. But there are still scenarios where a high movement is always better:
Ranged attacks (spells, arrows, etc) against low-movement targets (heavy armor, dwarves, etc). An elf with a bow could fire and move away from the melee dwarf so he would never get an attack (this is probably how it would work in real life thou...).

So what tactic could a low-movement character counter this with?
Apart from (unrealistically) staying in confined tunnels...

Set-2 introduces the Threaten stunt. I would change something like this into a "verbal attack" and change it to force the target to make a melee (not ranged or spell) attack on its next turn. But this would give the threatening dwarf a chance to "pull/agro" a fast target.

[steveman]

Set-2 introduces the Threaten stunt. I would change something like this into a "verbal attack" and change it to force the target to make a melee (not ranged or spell) attack on its next turn. But this would give the threatening dwarf a chance to "pull/agro" a fast target.

That's actually Taunt. Taunt and Threaten were typo'd. Given the other one's names.

[Banesfinger]

That's actually Taunt. Taunt and Threaten were typo'd. Given the other one's names.

OK, cool. But both are stunts, which means you would actually have to hit in order to use them. I'm suggesting versions of these become attacks types. This way, a low-movement character (dwarf in plate) could use this tactic to agro/pull in a high movement ranged attacker (elf with a bow).

[Machpants]

Not so, I am afraid, taunt/threaten allows you to attack with ranged weps. The taunted doesn't have to get closer. See underlined below, typo's aside

EDIT: and reading them again they are not just titled wrong but mixed up LOL. The bolded stuff needs to be swapped cos the foci are right but the results wrong.

2 Taunt: You insult or distract one opponent of your choice within 10 yards of you. You must make an opposed test of your Communication (Deception) vs. the target’s Willpower (Self-Discipline). If you win, the target suffers a –1 penalty on attack rolls and casting rolls on his next turn. A taunted character
cannot be taunted again until after his next turn.

2 Threaten: You strike a threatening pose, challenging an opponent of your choice within 10 yards of you. You must make an opposed test of your Strength (Intimidate) vs. the target’s Willpower (Self-Discipline). If you win, he must attack you in some way (melee, missile, spell, etc.) on his next turn. A
threatened character cannot be threatened again until after his next turn.

[Sharsek]

and reading them again they are not just titled wrong but mixed up LOL. The bolded stuff needs to be swapped cos the foci are right but the results wrong.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think that they are both completely correct as written.
With "Taunt", you insult or distract (using Deception) an opponent to give him a penalty, with "Threaten" you challenge an opponent (using Intimidate) to force him to chose you as target.
I don't think they have been swapped.

[Sharsek]

Hi all, here's my take on the matter:

Dwarves are short and stocky, slower but able to carry great weight with ease.
Elves are quick and lithe, faster but easily hindered by weight.

In my game, I'll keep the base speed listed for them in the manual, but with an addition to the armor penalty rules: Dwarves reduce armor penalty to speed by 50%, Elves increase it by the same amount.

For example, plate armor: 5/2=2,5 (rounded down: 2)
With this rule, the armor penalty for dwarves in heavy plate will be 5-2=3, while for elves will be 5+2=7. This way, all races will move at the same speed in heavy plate (plus dexterity, of course).

This should fix the issues without great changes to existing rules.

(Sorry if I made any mistake, english is not my primary language)

English may not be your primary language but this is the best idea I've heard so far.

I'm glad that you like it!

[Hellebore]

I'm glad that you like it!

It's a very elegant rule.

So if we round down, dwarves suffer -2 (5/2 rounding down is 2) and elves suffer -7. So the stats I gave before the elf would be at 5 Speed whilst the dwarf would be at 6 yard speed, which makes them slightly faster IN armour, but still slower out of it (or in less of it).

If we apply it to different armours:

light plate: -2 (6speed), -6 (6speed).
Heavy mail: -1 (7speed), -4 (8speed).
Light mail: -1 (7speed), -3 (9speed).
Heavy leather: 0 (8speed), -1 (11speed).

Not bad. It encourages dwarves to suit up and elves to strip down because they still move faster in lighter armour (heavy leather is the biggest difference).

Machpants now has a wide range of different options to help with his games which is always good.

Hellebore

[Machpants]

and reading them again they are not just titled wrong but mixed up LOL. The bolded stuff needs to be swapped cos the foci are right but the results wrong.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think that they are both completely correct as written.
With "Taunt", you insult or distract (using Deception) an opponent to give him a penalty, with "Threaten" you challenge an opponent (using Intimidate) to force him to chose you as target.
I don't think they have been swapped.

I think you are missing something
When you intimidate some one (threaten them) they are likely to avoid you, when you annoy someone (taunt) they are more likely to want to get you. So the name and how you achieve success is correct, what you achieve if successful is wrong. At least that is how I have seen it in every single RPG that has these sort of mechanics before.
But maybe GRP agrees with you but it makes no sense as written to me.

Machpants now has a wide range of different options to help with his games which is always good.

Hellebore

Yep

[steveman]

Taunt and Threaten are typos. Switch their names around.

[Sharsek]

and reading them again they are not just titled wrong but mixed up LOL. The bolded stuff needs to be swapped cos the foci are right but the results wrong.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think that they are both completely correct as written.
With "Taunt", you insult or distract (using Deception) an opponent to give him a penalty, with "Threaten" you challenge an opponent (using Intimidate) to force him to chose you as target.
I don't think they have been swapped.

I think you are missing something
When you intimidate some one (threaten them) they are likely to avoid you, when you annoy someone (taunt) they are more likely to want to get you. So the name and how you achieve success is correct, what you achieve if successful is wrong. At least that is how I have seen it in every single RPG that has these sort of mechanics before.
But maybe GRP agrees with you but it makes no sense as written to me.

Machpants now has a wide range of different options to help with his games which is always good.

Hellebore

Yep

I'll try to explain my interpretation better:
When you challenge someone, making him thinking that you are the biggest threat in the battlefield (using intimidate), he will concentrate his attack on you to kill you quickly.
When you distract someone, annoying him and ruining his concentration (using deception), he will have a penalty to his rolls.

If I'm forced to fight an ogre and a jester (silly example I know, just trying to explain myself), I think that even if the jester is doing a great job making fun of me, I'm going to try to kill the ogre first. But it will be even more difficult with the jester that keep throwing insults at me!

Anyway I agree with you that in many CRPG the "taunt" mechanic is used to force to attack. Maybe GRP wanted to give it a twist, or really it is a typo.

[kobbold]

I'll try to explain my interpretation better:
When you challenge someone, making him thinking that you are the biggest threat in the battlefield (using intimidate), he will concentrate his attack on you to kill you quickly.
When you distract someone, annoying him and ruining his concentration (using deception), he will have a penalty to his rolls.

If I'm forced to fight an ogre and a jester (silly example I know, just trying to explain myself), I think that even if the jester is doing a great job making fun of me, I'm going to try to kill the ogre first. But it will be even more difficult with the jester that keep throwing insults at me!

I completely agree with this vision of things.

[Loswaith]

Re: Elf vs Dwarf stat comparsion
The reference was to this statement (me bolding the emphasis)

..If they both have the same starting stats (0 in everything with their racial bonuses added) and are given identical equipment (fullplate) the dwarf is at Speed 3 whilst the elf is at Speed 7 or Speed 8 if they are a city elf.

Given this assumption the values including the city elves dex bonus alter the data when you have assumed otherwise and thusly should have been ignored. It doesnt make the 4 point spread mute however, it was just a contradiction in your data.

Humans as the norm, is where the spread is skewed from (dwarves on the low side, elves on the high), you only mention that elves make better warriors than dwarves, humans are essentially part of the mix, by the same reasoning are humans better warriors than dwarves? as you take no stance on that matter one way or the other, I am presuming yes, for the same reasons elves are, though I dont know if thats a balance issue for you as well.

It is likely an oversite but it implies no issue with humans vs dwarves as the issue comes across as the balance factor between dwarves and elves.
I do understand the issue (im sure most do) but for me and possibly others we dont see it as much of an issue due to comparing dwarves to humans and elves to humans, rather than directly elves to dwarves.

... Well dwarves in Dragon Age aren't depicted as being 2/3rds the height of humans. They're only slightly shorter than elves. ...

Actually using Alistair as a comparson because he is a constant reguardless of your hero in DA:O dwarves only come up to his armpit, that to me is roughly 2/3rds of human height.
Outside of a computer game there will be more variance but thats a good average.

There will always be a disparity between inherant speeds of races because of their physiology, dwarves typically get the raw end of the stick when movement is considered because they are generally shorter than most other races.

Re: Random Results:
I used the random results as more a factor of what is possible, and while there is little chance that dwarvs and elves ever being equal (with reguards to movement speed) there is a reasonable chance of a dwarf being equal to humans, and potentially negating alot of the speed issues.

Humans need to be considered as well in the grand scheme as any modifications to balance dwarves with elves can invariably penalise humans and make them the worst option.

As it stands humans are likely the better option (if flavour and concept arent considerd), the downside of the dwarf is less movement, the downside of the elf is the heavy predjudices (for a race perscuited for so long becoming faster seems like a good survival factor to me).

[Loswaith]

Hi all, here's my take on the matter:

Dwarves are short and stocky, slower but able to carry great weight with ease.
Elves are quick and lithe, faster but easily hindered by weight.

In my game, I'll keep the base speed listed for them in the manual, but with an addition to the armor penalty rules: Dwarves reduce armor penalty to speed by 50%, Elves increase it by the same amount.

For example, plate armor: 5/2=2,5 (rounded down: 2)
With this rule, the armor penalty for dwarves in heavy plate will be 5-2=3, while for elves will be 5+2=7. This way, all races will move at the same speed in heavy plate (plus dexterity, of course).

This should fix the issues without great changes to existing rules.

(Sorry if I made any mistake, english is not my primary language)

This is not a bad idea and works out the balance more evenly while keeping the maths on the simpler side of things. (BTW: your english was just fine.)

[Hellebore]

Re: Elf vs Dwarf stat comparsion
The reference was to this statement (me bolding the emphasis)

..If they both have the same starting stats (0 in everything with their racial bonuses added) and are given identical equipment (fullplate) the dwarf is at Speed 3 whilst the elf is at Speed 7 or Speed 8 if they are a city elf.

Given this assumption the values including the city elves dex bonus alter the data when you have assumed otherwise and thusly should have been ignored. It doesnt make the 4 point spread mute however, it was just a contradiction in your data.

You're going to have to walk me through your objection because I'm still not seeing what you're talking about.

I show the split between the city elf and the dalish in at least one post and most of my comparisons are between a dalish and a surface dwarf (which is the least of the two comparisons).

I say on page 7:

Now if we are to look at the mechanics of the game, a Dwarf warrior has 4 yards less movement than an Elven warrior (5 yards if they are a city elf).

If they both have the same starting stats (0 in everything with their racial bonuses added) and are given identical equipment (fullplate) the dwarf is at Speed 3 whilst the elf is at Speed 7 or Speed 8 if they are a city elf.

What does this mean? The dwarf charges 1 yard, the elves 3/4 yards. The Dwarf RUNS 6 yards, the elves 14/16.

Two warriors who are presumably supposed to be doing the same job. Yet one moves 2.33/2.66x faster than the other. A city elf running in fullplate moves almost 3x faster than a dwarf in fullplate.

The warrior class doesn't distinguish between races, so someone trying to be an effective dwarven warrior will find themselves outclassed by an elf doing the same thing every time.

Seriously, a dwarf charges ONE yard. The elves either have a 300% or 400% increased charge range. Charge is a big advantage but is all but useless on a dwarf playing as a warrior. He isn't fast enough to protect anyone.

And what happens if the Dwarf stacks his Dex? Dex is a Primary attribute for warriors. By level 6 he will have gained +3 Dex if he stacks it all there. The elves meanwhile can put it anywhere.

So what do we end up with? The dwarf now, at level SIX has a Speed of 6, whilst the elves STILL have Speed7/8 without putting ANY points in Dex. They could have put one point in Con (to equal the dwarf's starting Con bonus) and then gained +2 to Str.

So what's better?

A Speed 6 warrior with Con 1 and str0 or
A Speed 7/8 warrior with Con 1 and Str2?

It amuses me that people still attempt to apologise this away when the disparity is massive. Starting dwarves at Speed 8 is almost as bad as giving them speed 10 but applying a -2 Dex penalty out of the gate.

Warriors can't do their job if their charge range is 1 yard. This isn't a case of a small advantage, the Dwarf has to put 4 points in dex just to equal the elf, whilst the elf is free to put them in the other places that make warriors good, Con and Str. They certainly don't need much extra speed.

And why? Because armour only affects Dexterity and mostly only Speed due to the armour training talent. It doesn't matter than dwarves are tougher or stronger (in set 2) - the armour could weigh 100kgs and the elf would still charge 4x further because he has a higher starting Speed.

Creating a 4pt speed gap between dwarves and elves means dwarves have to spend 4 pts of Dex to actually EQUAL the starting speed of an elf (or 5 if they are a city elf). And if they don't? Well the elf will probably have dispatched the enemy before the dwarf can wheeze his way there, or the enemy will just run rings around him.

But I'm sure having a better relationship with humans is worth getting a 1 yard charge range on a melee character...

Hellebore

I am very clear what I'm talking about. 0 for starting Dex which means a city elf starts with 1 in dex.

So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.


Hellebore

[Loswaith]

You explicitly state the assumption of 0 in all stats including racial bonuses, yet you go to show the elf calculations with reguards to having the +1 dex for race/background.

It's not so much an issue as a semantical factor of accurate data.

[Hellebore]

You explicitly state the assumption of 0 in all stats including racial bonuses, yet go to show the elf calculations with reguards to having the +1 dex, which is counter to the assumption, implying they get a further +1.

I presume it is something that will mostly be overlooked but caused initial confusion when I assesed the data basis.

Actually that's not what I intended when I wrote it. Perhaps it's the lack of a comma or other word. I can now see how you could read it that way, but that's not what I meant.

What I meant was "If they both have the same starting [rolled] stats (so 0 in everything [then] with their racial bonuses added)".

I'm sorry if that wasn't clear, but I certainly wasn't trying to infer they started with 0 in everything. The starting stats are separate to the racial traits the characters get, so I was trying to say they started with 0 and then had racial traits added on that (so everything would either be 0 or 1 depending if they get a bonus to a starting stat).


Hellebore

[Loswaith]

True.. A subtle difference I completly missed.

[Hellebore]

Well that's what happens when I'm not clear enough with my writing . I was reading how I expected it to be read, but it obviously has an emphasis discrepency I didn't see.

Hopefully it makes more sense now.

Hellebore

[Machpants]

LOL I understood Hellebore!

[JRHigley]

I'll try to explain my interpretation better:
When you challenge someone, making him thinking that you are the biggest threat in the battlefield (using intimidate), he will concentrate his attack on you to kill you quickly.
When you distract someone, annoying him and ruining his concentration (using deception), he will have a penalty to his rolls.

If I'm forced to fight an ogre and a jester (silly example I know, just trying to explain myself), I think that even if the jester is doing a great job making fun of me, I'm going to try to kill the ogre first. But it will be even more difficult with the jester that keep throwing insults at me!

Anyway I agree with you that in many CRPG the "taunt" mechanic is used to force to attack. Maybe GRP wanted to give it a twist, or really it is a typo.

I love the analogy!

It looks to me like the "Taunt" stunt is similar to the "Taunt" feat in Neverwinter Nights (Penalty to Attack in DA, penalty to AC in NWN, spellcasting affected in both games).

The "Threaten" stunt looks a lot like the "Threaten" talent in Dragon Age: Origins.

At the risk of taking the thread into a totally different direction: Since these "stunts" are still in beta, who thinks they should be (warrior?) "abilities" rather than stunts? This would help resolve the earlier poster's concern that one must connect (with doubles no less) before being able to execute them.

[Phelan]

I really don´t see the merit of the Taunt stunt at all (the one that may force an opponent to attack you). Sure, it may be fun for a player to use on a foe, but I bet any players who have it used upon their character once or twice, forcing them to abort their other extremely important action, will hate it. If a pc is the victim of magic that somehow prevents him, fine, but having a stunt that takes away control of your character´s actions? Not my cup of tea.


(I can see how it works in the CRPG, that doesn´t make it a good idea for pnp.)