Burning Convert (and armor questions)

For the last 24 hours I’ve been gripping my brother’s copy of BWG like a bible.

I bought a large set of 6 siders and can’t even imagine going back to d20. I haven’t even played yet, but BWG is everything I’ve always wanted in an rpg: gritty, realistic, literary, and open-ended. I plan on starting my friends off with The Sword ASAP.

Anyway, I’m fairly certain I have a grasp on DoW, RaC, and Fight. I’ve never seen systems like those before, but they’re logical in their own way. I’m sure I’ll have more questions soon, but the first thing I need clarification on is armor.

So… Armor tests at 1 Ob to be effective when being hit. The only time this changes is when the offending weapon has a VA score. Based on The Sword pre-gen characters, it isn’t that hard to get armor with a 4D chest armor rating. Getting zero successes with 4 dice seems pretty hard. So for example, a fighter with a B10 sword skill attacks a drooling buffoon in plated leather and gets 10 successes. But the buffoon gets 1 success with his armor, and the whole attack is null.

Am I reading this correctly?? This means that armor is a huge game-changer, and any weapon with VA has a huge advantage. I really don’t wanna live in a fictional world without swords :\

You take an action to assess and strike the weakpoint in their armor. Otherwise you could Greatstrike. Or just rip of the helmet from their face and then stab them in the eye.

Yes. Armor is the killer ap.

if you don’t have VA, pushes and locks are your friend. Then you can rip their helmet off with a physical action and stab them in the eye.

edit: Scooped!

The other thing you can do against armor is just keep forcing rolls until there are enough 1’s rolled to reduce its effectiveness. That works okay against low quality armor, gets very slow when only one 1 per roll counts with normal armor, and takes forever against superior quality armor. Most armor won’t last forever in a fight, but it will last long enough to kill all the guys without armor.

Out of curiosity, what do y’all typically set as a base Ob for tearing off a helm or prying apart a breastplate strap? I’ve only ever had it come up in a game once, and I was the one doing it. The GM struggled to figure out a good Ob.

Swords in general are a terrible weapon to use against anyone with armor. This is realistic. Historical accounts of sword fights between armored opponents typically tell of the “sword fight” devolving into a de facto wrestling match.

Superior Quality Longsword is VA 1… :smiley:

What is the other guy doing to stop you?

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I kind of figured things would devolve into grappling matches. Has anyone tried implementing rules such as “If your Strike roll gains x extra successes, add x to opponent’s armor test ob”?

Part of me likes the historical authenticity; but part of me is also really afraid of how long a fight between two armored opponents could take.

Also second the question about Ob for prying off a helm

That’s kinda why they don’t happen all the time.

Edit: Is something going wonky with the site today? BB Codes seems to be having issues when posting a link.

In my case, I had him locked - I think by 2D, but maybe it was 3D - and he scripted Avoid to break the lock against my Physical Action to try and break a strap on his armor. The 2nd half of my PA was unopposed.

Now there’s a good target for the “Call of Iron” spell, pulling the armor off your opponents bodies.

Wouldn’t you have to use obstacles similar to breaking things, perhaps based on the type of armor? (Caps and Hoods being easier than Great Helms and such).

Hmm…so you’re holding the lock and removing the armor. He’s breaking the lock while trying to stop you from removing the armor. What’s wrong with treating the avoid as a vs. Test in the first action and unopposed roll (Ob1?) in the second? My first thought was that he can’t both break the lock and fight over the armor at the same time, but that seems pretty douchey.

I would think it should be more like disarm, where your lock would have to exceed their armor dice. Either that, or set the obstacle based on the type of armor for that location where obstacle would equal the number of armor dice, +/- 1 for superior/poor quality and strap/no strap in the case of helmets.
Of these two I prefer the first one as there is always a variable and the armor is still defending itself with or without your help (armor always defends against attacks, regardless of scripting) that way you could try for a straight power attack grab to yank your opponents helmet off or go for a lock and eventually wrestle it off of him. It also works well for the weird stuff like “Call of Iron”