Attack/Armor types for a RPG

[Aeroblyctos]

Hey.

I'm here to ask your opinion. Blizzard have made a simple and useful attack and armor types. It would be waste not to use them. I have a campaign and I've been thinking a long time how should I use this gift.

I've tried many things but I'm still not satisfied. I'm at the moment using basic "paper, scissor, stone" but I quite don't like it, especially because this project of mine is a RPG.

So what kind of attack and armor types should I put? Does other RPGs use attack and armor types? How does they do the job?

 

[Skycraft]

You can always try using elements like..

Water > Fire.
Fire > Grass.
Grass > Water.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

But it's about attack and armor types? Not spells.

 

[Skycraft]

I was referring to attack and armor types.

 

[GhostThruster]

He meant he wants the attack and armor types...to be attack and armor, not spells.

Don't really think this suits an RPG, but you could go like:
Slashing (swords) > Light - Mail (for lightly armored units, eg. Footman)
Crushing (hammers) > Heavy - Mail (for heavily armored units, eg. Knight)
Piercing (arrows) > Light - Leather (for light units or creatures, eg. Archer or Gryphon Rider)
Hacking (axes) > Heavy - Leather (for heavy units or creatures, eg. Beastmaster or Tauren)
Magic (staffs) > Unarmored/Cloth (for unarmored, eg. Priest)
...You get the idea.

 

[Dawn Whitelighter]

i suggest that you dont make a lot of types because its hard to decide strengths and weaknesses..

 

[Cryophoenix]

Try this suggestion...
Attack Types:
Impact
Blade
Pierce
Arcane
Chaotic

Armor Types:
Heavy
Mail
Leather
Ethereal
Divine

If you like the idea i can elaborate more...

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Hmmm.

I'm still not sure what kind of attack/armor types I should implement.

 

[Peacehagen]

Well, could make some simple ones which arn't really affected by each other much, just adds something new:

Attack Types
Sharp (sharp weapons like swords, axes)
Blunt (blunt weapons like maces, staves)
Pierce (pierceing weapons like arrows, polearms, spears)
Magic (ranged casters which attacks with spells)

Armor Types
Light/Cloth/Leather - Takes 100% damage from all attack types.
Medium/Mail - Takes 95% damage from physical attacks, 100% from Magic.
Heavy/Plate - Takes 90% damage from physical attacks, 100% from Magic.
Resistant - Takes 75% damage from Magic attacks, 100% from physical.

(physical attacks are Sharp, Blunt & Pierce)

Either gives different classes different armor types which fits or you could perhaps make it so some items changes the carriers armor type.

Resistant would work best to use if you change armor type with items. Resistant is great because it both reduces damage taken from normal Magic attacks but also ability spells.

You could make items change the Attack type aswell. Sharp weapons gives +as and crit and stuff, blunt gives -as and chance to stun & gives more dmg, and well, pierce and magic would be based on ranged attacks somehow hehe. Not even sure if this would work lol >.<

Just some thought, would be pretty easy to make and balance

 

[Chizume]

I use, for all my maps nowadays, the simple system below.

Just something for the Attack/Armor types. The chart below is what I use in such maps. The percentage values may be a bit off as it was a while ago I checked them. Note that all reductions are 100% or below. Who ever heard of an armor making attacks do more damage to you anyway?

Cloth Leather Plate Sharp 80% 70% 30% Pierce 90% 80% 20% Blunt 90% 90% 80% Magic 90% 100% 70% Unarmed 50% 40% 10%

Sharp is for swords, misc blades and axes.
Pierce is for spears, javelins, arrows and etc.
Blunt is for clubs, mauls, hammers, siege weaponry.
Magic is merged with spell, why have both spell and magic damage?
Unarmed is for villagers and such, just because they don't have a weapon in their hands doesn't mean they can't deal a punch.
Fortified is obviously for buildings and I imagine buildings only take damage from blunt and magic attacks, and perhaps fire.

EDIT: Amazing how similar my and Peacehagen's ideas are.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Well, could make some simple ones which arn't really affected by each other much, just adds something new:

Attack Types
Sharp (sharp weapons like swords, axes)
Blunt (blunt weapons like maces, staves)
Pierce (pierceing weapons like arrows, polearms, spears)
Magic (ranged casters which attacks with spells)

Armor Types
Light/Cloth/Leather - Takes 100% damage from all attack types.
Medium/Mail - Takes 95% damage from physical attacks, 100% from Magic.
Heavy/Plate - Takes 90% damage from physical attacks, 100% from Magic.
Resistant - Takes 75% damage from Magic attacks, 100% from physical.

(physical attacks are Sharp, Blunt & Pierce)

Either gives different classes different armor types which fits or you could perhaps make it so some items changes the carriers armor type.

Resistant would work best to use if you change armor type with items. Resistant is great because it both reduces damage taken from normal Magic attacks but also ability spells.

You could make items change the Attack type aswell. Sharp weapons gives +as and crit and stuff, blunt gives -as and chance to stun & gives more dmg, and well, pierce and magic would be based on ranged attacks somehow hehe. Not even sure if this would work lol >.<

Just some thought, would be pretty easy to make and balance

I was thinking something like that. However there's a small problem: it doesn't matter what attack type unit actually have. Is that acceptable or not?

 

[Peacehagen]

I was thinking something like that. However there's a small problem: it doesn't matter what attack type unit actually have. Is that acceptable or not?

In my opinion it doesn't matter. There are many other ways to balance an RPG map, easier ways, which still adds customization. Just for the sake of making it look different, change names and icons of attack and armor types. They don't really have to matter, just bring something new.

But this is just my oppinion

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Attack types:

Blunt(physical)
Slashing(physical)
Magical(magic)

Armor types:

Light - Takes 100% damage from physical attacks and 70% from Magic.
Medium - Takes 90% damage from physical attacks and 80% from Magic.
Heavy - Takes 80% damage from physical attacks and 90% from Magic.
Sturdy - Takes 70% damage from physical attacks and 100% from Magic.

What you guys think?

 

[Peacehagen]

Sounds good, but you should have Piercing or something for archers as Slashing or Blunt doesn't work for them

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Attack types:

Blunt(physical)
Sharp(physical)
Magical(magic)

Armor types:

Light - Takes 100% damage from physical attacks and 60% from Magic.
Medium - Takes 80% damage from physical attacks and 80% from Magic.
Heavy - Takes 60% damage from physical attacks and 100% from Magic.
Sturdy - Takes 25% damage from physical attacks and 100% from Magic.
Elemental - Takes 100% damage from physical attacks and 25% from Magic.

What you guys think? Doesn't arrows go under Sharp? There are just few enemy units that actually have a bow...

 

[Chizume]

These sound good. Stripped down and simple. I'm not sure though why lighter armor takes less damage from magic? Sturdy I assume is for buildings and such. May I ask what Elemental Armor is for?

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Well I try to make some tactical meaning even though this is a RPG. So I decided that the ligher the armor gets less damage from magic.

Sturdy is for units like magical statues.

Elemental Armor is for like water elementals.

There are no buildings that can be attacked in this RPG.

Does this make any sense?

 

[Chizume]

It does. The attack/armor types are good, and matches your RPG.

 

[Dawn Whitelighter]

Attack types:

Blunt(physical)
Sharp(physical)
Magical(magic)

Armor types:

Light - Takes 100% damage from physical attacks and 60% from Magic.
Medium - Takes 80% damage from physical attacks and 80% from Magic.
Heavy - Takes 60% damage from physical attacks and 100% from Magic.
Sturdy - Takes 25% damage from physical attacks and 100% from Magic.
Elemental - Takes 100% damage from physical attacks and 25% from Magic.

What you guys think? Doesn't arrows go under Sharp? There are just few enemy units that actually have a bow...

well.. there is no sense in dividing the Physical damages into Sharp and Blunt if there is no difference between them in their damage to armors right? you should differentiate the damage dealt by sharp and blunt for them to have a function

 

[Peacehagen]

well.. there is no sense in dividing the Physical damages into Sharp and Blunt if there is no difference between them in their damage to armors right? you should differentiate the damage dealt by sharp and blunt for them to have a function

They still have the visual function but I see your point.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

well.. there is no sense in dividing the Physical damages into Sharp and Blunt if there is no difference between them in their damage to armors right? you should differentiate the damage dealt by sharp and blunt for them to have a function

Yeah well tell me better idea.

 

[Chizume]

Physical Magical Physical 100% 150% Magical 50% 100% Elemental 70% 70% Ethereal 0% 200%

If you want something simpler.

 

[Ignitedstar]

Any game is a lot funner when the rules are meant to be flexible. The damage reduction table that Warcraft 3 gives does this in a way, but at the same time once you set it, it can never be changed unless you have Armor. Even that's not really true, since Armor has diminishing returns and Armor with a negative value is constant (so no matter what value you use to change Armor's significance, negative Armor's damage increase "table" never changes) Look at Trading Card Games: you have cards that always allow a player to bend the rules. If you can do this in a map, expect players of your map to be a little happier because the system allows lenience.

There is a better way: Abandon the armor/damage table (set everything to 100%) and trigger all of the damage reductions yourself. This approach takes a long time and you will need proper damage detection do it right, but you'll love it when it starts working since you have complete control over every aspect of how damage works. More love: After one realizes they have dynamic control of the damage table while IN-GAME.

I did this for my map and combined FFVIII's dynamic resistance with Persona's Weak/Null/Absorb/Reflect. Made two archdamage types: Physical and Spell, and the lesser elemental types: Fire, Water, Thunder, Earth, Light, Dark, Neutral, and Negative. Every unit in the game is registered to the system and the resistances of all ten elements above can be set out-of-game and changed in-game. Yes, lots of work to get everything done, but I have it finished and the satisfaction of having it work plus knowing what I can do with it makes it so much more rewarding than using the damage table that Warcraft 3 gives us.

For a test map I did, I used the same method but wanted a simpler dynamic damage system. Three physical types: Slash, Pierce, and Bash; and three magical types: Wicca (nature i.e. fire, ice, lightning, etc.), Soul (light, dark), and Vega (anything else). Resistance was still there, but since damage reduction to each type can change on a whim via abilities or items, this was all that was needed in a PvP setting.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Good info, good info.