i do remember the regen system, fun though it was it was terribly unrealistic. i agree with chris that we should be trying to make the core concepts and game mechanics, particularly for a thing so integral to fanwar as combat, as intuitive as possible. ideally they should also be as realistic as possible, for purposes of roleplay, because a few well placed inaccuracies can interely blow any suspension of disbelief, and make it terribly difficult to focus on the hopes, dreams and motivations of your character. for example, we are trying to avoid situations where you are too busy figuring out what is going on in game, translating what you see in real life to the reality of whats going on in roekron, that you cannot react as your character would, because while your character instantly reckognized the charging behemoth, you were sitting there waiting for a response to " what do i see" looking at wade and clay coming up, wondering what they are playing, then diving aside as the last second as you hear them call 16 av=o slay, or the like. the fewer situations like that, and the easier it is to tell at a glance precisely what is going on the better. also, if there is a game mechanic that doesnt mirror reality, by choice, or by neccesity, there should be a reasonably logical and well known to all reason for it working that way. and the fact is no such explanation lends itself to explaining why swords and other one damage weapons cannot be one-shot lethal. is there some invisible force pushing the blade away from vital organs, or is it merely assumed that anyone without an ability that increases damage is to incompetent and feeble to kill anyone with a short sword thrust. for example, if a 15th level veteran warrior stabs you with a shortsword, he only deals one damage, unless he has some racial ability or magic weapon that says otherwise, by the old system he was incabable of downing someone with one well placed shot, but history and the roman legions tell us otherwise.

in response to point 11, only one problem with the silence, one hit kill benefit, odds are that any player hit in the killzone, not hearing anything, will question his death, and will thus have allready drawn the attention of everyone within 30 feet or so. i dont see ny immediate solution to this, other that just doing our best to make sure everyone is aware of the killzone ruling and precisely where thiers is located.


i also wanted to bring up instant etherial, while etherial, they are unable to be affected by anything not etherial, and they can switch back and forth, instantaneously as frequently as they like, i think i see a game balance problem in there i dont recall exactly how it works in arduin, but in dungeons and dragons etherial creatures can be harmed by magic, and magic weapons, while etherial. in the current game, as far as i know, nothing can touch them , shy of high level elder sorcery which is specially made to extend into the etherial. its pretty bad that they can harass just about anything with relative impunity, poofing in just to strike and then poofing back out, but to top it off as undead, ( pretty much the only ones that get it) they need to be harmed with magic weapons to boot, and even should you be armed with a magic weapon and hit them just right when they go to strike , ( provided you can even see them) they have respawns, and so get up again. it seems out of hand when a group of 3 level 15 paladins could be dropped , and drained to death by a single specter, or the like. and ive seem that happen on more than one occasion. i understand they are supposed to be nasty, but i think there also comes a point when defeating a foe simply requires to much of someone. the only thing i can think of is to have half the party etherial travel, beforehand, so that regarless of which plane they are on they are still threatened. but that only works if you have 10 minutes and know they are coming, and if you do that, they have effectively divided your party, and get to choose which one to deal with, iot can get nasty if the fighter and mage are down in etherial and the life mage cant get to them to heal them, and other such problematic situations. im not making any judgements, i cant say for certain that baddies are even supposed to be balanced, it really depends on the flavor of the world and the whim of the gm, but if it is your intent to be balanced, consider my words and weigh them with what you know, and think on if the current state and ruling feels right to you. ( youd mentioned being curious about how fanwar felt from the players perspective and how it had been a while since youd gotten to pc, and how it could give insight into the game, and i was wondering if this kind of thing was just what you were reffering to.

brandon
perhaps my understanding of the rules in this is flawed, i know spirit guide allows you to talk to , and see, and "carry spirits, but how does that work with unwilling ones, and does it let you use martial arts on them, to harm them in the etherial.

I understand that I am newer to fanwar- but I thought that I would put in my idea in regards to kill zones (please don't laugh)
Neil is bothered by the fact that it is more luck when you kill someone with a sword ( or another 1 dmg weapon) and that if you make the KZ one hit one kill it is too powerful. Yet chris feels that you should be able to kill someone with a sword.
Now I use a sword frequently as my favored weapon and on the whole they kinda suck. Alot of classes have either abilities or armor that makes me seem like a fly to a giant- not effective unless I (as a less experianced player) get "lucky" with the new rules and kill zone someone. Yet as was said historically swords were a highly favored weapon because many times it was the first few hits that decided a fight.
This is what I see as a middle ground. The kill zone is currently a rather large area compaired to the number of true vital kill zone places on the human body which are small and hard to hit. As I understand it- the kill zone is defined as to place you hand over your belly button and spin it- this is your kill zone.
What if the kill zone was changed to be two separate spheres, and inner and outer. Say for example the outer being the full handspan and the inner being a loosely opened fist. Now when a human takes a sword hit the stomache they may live through it, but they are most often out of the combat. I propose that the for the 1dmg weapons if you are hit in the outer circle you are knocked unconsious, and out of the combat thus making it quicker to move to the next enemy yet keeping to the realizim that you may not be dead. And if you are hit in the "inner kill zone" you then are dead thus making it so a sword or javelin can kill someone.

Another idea I had was that rather than have the 1 dmg KZ to make it instead that if you are hit in the KZ you would be knocked unconsious and thus out of the fight- but also bleed out faster cutting your death count down by 1/2 or 3/4's- thus reflecting the gravety of the wound. In real life if you put your sword through someone's eye the will be out of combat, yet if you don't do a full thrust they may not be dead- but gravely injured- therefore it is possible to still survive it. Thus you stay with the realizim of both being able to survive a grevious hit- yet still die by sword

This however requires us to rely heavily on the honor system and in the heat of battle it can be difficult. I know I have trouble telling precisely where some hits are when they are gray areas- and Idea I had for this would be to take a day and do a "sparing workshop" split into pairs and paractice fighting- learning precisely where your KZ and other such area's of definition are.

The two layered kill zone isn't going to work. It is to complicated for a person to say if it is kill zone or not now when it is your hand outstretched. I like the fundamentals if you are hit on the outside one you are bleeding to death and inside you die but it won't work in our system even with good honest players.

The one hit kill is fine it will fruserating at times and I know I'll try to eat my words at time because I wanted to live but it will work we have had this discussion before with impact weapons and it workedout fine.

On a different note I agree with clay on the knight problem. When we down graded them and took away trample it made them very unpopular and now I havn't seen anyone really go up in knight anymore. We need to atleast change the armor piercing skill to something else it seems to much of a downgrade.

Other than that is next tuesday going to still start after school because I don't know about anyone in Ukiah or other schools really but next week is spring break for me and I am planing on coming on tuesday.

Thanks for the great input on Kill Zone and good feedback. Brandon, you got my point exactly about what my goal is for the core set. Thanks for reflecting that so well. I agree with Marcus, a more detailed Kill Zone area is going to make the game more complex, not more simple, which is our goal, simple and realistic.
I have a new idea to add to killzone which might fix our problems. What if we changed the effect of Kill Zone so that rather than it killing you we say it puts you at -2 with your ROR is seconds to live! You are unconscious of course, and dying fast, but not dead (which is pretty realistic, since even a shot through the heart doesn't kill the brain for minute or two. This would give other players a chance to come and heal you. Please note that First Aid would be of no use because of simple math... it would take the same amount of time to heal the player as it would for them to die, which makes sense, since First Aid wouldn't help a shot through the heart.
I personally don't like this mod as much as the straight up dead mod because it is a little more sloppy, but it does have basis in reality and good sound reasoning behind it. This doesn't mean that you can't be killed with one shot (since damage in excess of your hit points still kills you outright, like boulders and such) but it means Kill Zone is more like a real Critical Hit that doesn't kill immediately, it just puts you down for the count and in need of help fast! Thought? (Please refrain from saying, "I don't like it" and nothing else).

On a different topic, I think I have come up with a solution to the New Death Bag dilemma and I will illustrate it below with my reasoning for all to critique.
First, what is the goal. The goal is to make people more accountable for their deaths. If picking for death is easy and fast, we can do it in the middle of the event as people die, instead of at the end etc. The means to reach this goal is to (a) have an unchanging Death Bag that never has to be reset for players and (b) to have players pick from it only one time (this does not mean they pick only one stone, it means they only have to reach in and take out stones one time, no picking again if you get a black stone.
Now, before I tell you the solution and people start complaining, please take a look at the following two Resurrection tables, the first from AD&D and the second from Arduin.

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First off, one notices the pattern that the percent chance of being resurrected is the listed number and that thus the inverse of that number is the chance of a PD. Looking at these numbers one see's very quickly that the odds are about 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 that you PD, each and every time you die, for both systems on average (or a 25% to 33%). Some species even have worse odds like Elves who only get one chance to be revived, whereas in Arduin, you can try up to three times, but the chance decrease rapidly each try. Another important thing to note is that in both systems, the number of times you can ever be resurrected is equal to your Constitution AND you loose one CON every time you are Resurrected. Even if you get your CON back, you don't get another Resurrection.
Now, take a look at the FanWar system and I think you will see why most FanWar players treat death as pretty trivial. A friend did some statistical analysis of our Death Bag System at Starbucks last Tuesday and here are the statistics of the old Death System.
1 Death =.0027% of PD
2 Deaths =.02%
3 Deaths =.07%
4 Deaths =.17%
5 Deaths =.34%
6 Deaths =.58%
7 Deaths =.93%
8 Deaths =1.38%
9 Deaths =1.97%
10 Deaths=2.7%
11 Deaths=3.59%
Now, compare that to AD&D or Arduins percentage of 33% (not .33% 33%!!!!) and you can see that we are off by about a factor of 10,000 at first death and by a factor of 10 by about 10 deaths (the average CON score, when you would PD automatically in AD&D or Arduin).
So, as we look at the proposed solution, please keep your whining and complaining to a minimum and refer back to your odds in AD&D or Arduin whenever you start to think the system is unfair.
Here is my New Death Bag System:
There are 30 white stones in the bag and 3 black ones. You draw a stone out for each death you have, each time you die. For each black stone you draw, you loose 1 exp, 1 lvl or PD, respectively (thus if I pull out eight stones and 2 are black, I loose a level). If all the stones you pull are Black you PD (this just means that at death 1, if you pull one black stone, you PD, and at death two if you pull two black stone you PD). Before everyone freaks out and thinks this unfair, consider the following. Thought the odds are considerably higher, are they anywhere near normal AD&D or Arduin odds. Most likely no. I tried to figure it out exactly for an hour or so but I am too tired and the contingent probability makes my head hurt but suffice it to say the probability of getting all three black stones it low, at least for your first 10 deaths.
Something important to note about this system is that death 1 and 2 have a higher PD rate than death 3. While this might seem not to make sense, I like the system because it makes sense in the fantasy magic world. The first time someone tried to resurrect you it has never been done, your body is not use to it, and it might not work. The second time, it is still new to you, but it has been done before so the odds are better. The third time, it is old hat and is starting to work well. But then, as you get more deaths, the odds start to decrease as your soul becomes weighed down by all the deaths it is carrying. I call this the "Trial by Fire" effect, in that if you can get through your first death, it gets easier, for a bit, but then once you start dieing a lot, it adds up again. I wish I could put up the stats on it, but I am too tired right now. Maybe later.
It looks something like this
1 Death = 9% PD
2 Deaths = .05%
3 Deaths = .005%
4 Deaths = .06% ?
5 Deaths = 1.3% ?
You get the idea... (if anyone want to figure it out exactly before I do, be my guest).

Thought?

Christopher

personally I like it. I thought it would restrict people from doing hari kari all the way down to no deaths because it is a little more risky to do it. Right now the death bag isn't eally a big deal until maybe ten death's and that's still not that bad. Though as a little comment it seems like chris wants more dead people oh well it will make you value not dieing more.

personally i thing the new system still makes sense, but will make death more important, have more impact, and have a greater game impact. one thing to consider is that fanwar deaths seem much more frequent than the pen and paper fare, at least on average, theres one-3 pc deaths per session, when compared to a d&D session that would be indicative of some monstrous failure on the pc's part or terrible luck, this is the death toll for average encounters, not overwhelming ones. for one things happen a lot quicker in live action, and for another the hit point total and number of blows required to kill someone is less, in the chaos of actual battle, things happen much more quickly. that being said i think the proposed death bag system will be less clunky, and also possibly have a positive effect on roleplay, in that death means more, both to pc's and npc's to that end people will tend to be less reckless on a whole, while those who are truly being heroic risking life and limb to save others, and the like, will have more meaning as well. also this would likely mean that in battle non-evil or hungry foes are more likely to simply beat you down and relieve you of your possesions, rather than making sure to strike the killing blow. because if death is more serious the penalties for murder would be as well, along with the cultural implications and emotional ramifications of killing someone being more pronounced. i beleive that is something every baddy should way heavily and keep in mind, rather than just decapitating the whole party should they fall, are they ok taking a life, knowing that its reasonably likely to be permanent. we cant assume that every ork or bandit is a vicious, chaotic evil, insane murderer, some are, but as in society this is actually fairly uncommon, and the same goes to pc's

At our last event and build we discussed some of the changes to the FanWar system of late. The death bag system should work great and I hope to see people pulling from the death bag regularly all through the event, we just need a bunch of death bags, (which I might make in the next few days unless someone else is making them).

One mod discussed is the Weapon Set Mod, which would change the wording on skills that read "Choose a Class of Weapons." to "Choose a class of weapons OR a fighting style." Fighting styles are things like Sword and Shield Style, Two Handed Style, Duel Wield Style, Thrown Weapon Style. Players would not have to use just a weapon from a class but could use anything as long as it was used in their style. Thoughts?

People are concerned that Kill Zone is too powerful and perhaps it is. I remember when we first introduced it and it was shockingly brutal. I am not past changing kill zone so that it is less lethal but I have some concerns. First off, Kill Zone is something like death ray, it is one of the only ways that people die for sure. Often they take a bunch of damage in combat but then "forget" and are at -1 or -2. I like it that Kill Zone guarantees that the players do die. If we discuss any possibilities we need to look at the fact that if Kill Zone does NOT kill player outright, then it will likely become nothing more than knockout. I don't think that is good.
Having said that, lets look at the options:
(1) Kill zone kills you outright (as we are playing it now).
(2) Kill zone puts you at -2 with only your ROR in seconds to live. This gives other characters a chance to save you, but very likely you are going to die.
(3) Kill zone puts you at -2. You have your ROR in minutes before you die, which means you will likely wakeup before you actually bleed to death.
I personally like #1 because it is simple and easy. #2 seems like it is okay but I think people will abuse it and Regenerating critters won't notice it much, especially if they have Adrenaline. #3 seems like it misses the point. No one will EVER die from kill zone if we went with that option. People would just wake up after getting stabbed though the heart, first aid themselves and then walk home for the rest of the healing... not very realistic.
Now, it is worth noting that perhaps if we expand the rules a bit, we might find a better solution by changing something on a grander scale, so consider the following options:
The NERO Mod: NERO has a rule that once you hit -3 etc. you are dieing and no amount of damage beyond that kills you, you are still just dieing. Unless someone comes along and intentionally delivers three "Killing Blows" you just continue to bleed to death. This means that players do not die often because they must be killed intentionally. A rule like this might help fix our problem. Perhaps we should say that whenever you hit -3 you are dieing and have your ROR in minutes to live but nothing will wake you or heal you except magic healing (no potions, no first aid). This would be something like a body hack- hack must be healed by magic healing seperate from the damage you took. This rule would be the same, and you would have to have magic healing to bring you back to -2 at which point you could be first aided etc to -1 or healed the rest of the way with conventional means.
The Time Critical Mod: In many game systems the time someone is dead before they are resurrected matters a great deal. If people feel the that game system is too lethal, perhaps we could rule that if a player is resurrected before their ROR in minutes has passed, they don't gain a death (though they do have to pull from the death bag). This would lesson the impact of dieing as long a someone was on hand to resurrect you quickly.
The Expanded Kill Zone Mod: This one seems like insanity to me, but we could expand the kill zone to zone 3-4. Why you ask, because then we would have no arguments about whether it was kill zone or not, it is torso or no torso. The advantage to this mod is that it links up well with other mods like the NERO mod. Having a bigger kill zone is not a big deal if you don't really die outright, you just go down (and yes I know Vitals would be effected- see below).
The Critical Damage at -2 Mod: If we change the rules for -2 HP we might get both the things we want. If -2 becomes more like a body hack, where you have taken "Critical Damage" and cannot be healed except by Magic Healing etc then if Kill Zone just took you to -2 it could be like it crits you. Furthermore, it is more like a crit because if you do get woken up or wake up, you are immoblie (which is realistic. If you don't have a leg, it is hard to walk home!). The trick with this mod is to make -2 HP a place you cannot get back from without serious help. Hacks are already this way. They need Magic healing to heal (like Cure Critical Wounds in Arduin).
The Longer Unconsciousness OR Faster Death Count Mod: One of the problems with Death Count right now is that it is your ROR in minutes. Everyone wakes up before they ever bleed to death. They first aid themselves and are fine. But the facts are to the contrary:
"Trauma (injury) can cause exsanguination (bleeding to death) if bleeding is not stymied. It is the most common cause of deaths on the battlefield (though the most common cause of death from battle is infection)."
"If a large blood vessel is cut, a person can bleed to death in one minute or less. Rapid loss of one quart or more of blood often leads to irreversible shock and death. Serious bleeding requires immediate attention and care."
Noting these facts, why does it take characters 20 minuets to die? We could change the Death Count to something much faster and then we would not need Kill Zone to be instant death, just a -2 or -1 if you bleed to death fast enough. Also, if people were unconscious for their full ROR they would be guaranteed to die unless someone helped them, so Death Count would mean something. Either way, we could fix the Death Count problem.

Regardless of what sort of mod we end up with, Vitals needs looking at. With the one hit Kill Zone mod vitals got a lot weaker. Thus, we need to look at some options for fixing it.
Eliminate Vitals Mod: This mod would remove Vitals from the game all together and replace it with simple damage adds. If this seems to powerful, those adds could be tied to specific weapons (see Weapon Dedication), or the bonuses could be reduced in number.
Vitals as a Modifier not AZ: Currently, Vitals is an AZ call, meaning it must come second in the call and cannot be used with AV=0. If Vitals became a Modifier like Magic, Poison, Silver, etc. then it could be used with AV=0 and then would be more powerful as it would then punch through half plate and such and work much better with bows.
Vitals expands Kill Zone Mod: This is something like a hybrid of the other mods. Vitals could become a skill that instead of adding damage, just expands the kill zone for that attack. Thus, if you call Vitals, you can kill zone in zone 3-4, you don't add any more damage to the attack (you don't need to). Obviously this mod is very powerful but could be modified with weapon choices and limitations as above and would be insanely powerful if we also include the Vitals as a Modifier no AZ mod because then it could be combined for AV=0 Vitals!

Now, before you dismiss any of these Mods, please consider them carefully and how they might work together. One of the things I find interesting about these Mods is that while one alone may not solve the problem, two or three taken together can make a surprisingly more effective system. For example, take #3, Kill Zone puts you at -2 Mod, and then add either the -2 is Critical Damage Mod OR the Faster Death Count Mod and suddenly the system seems workable. Try making some combinations and see what feel right.
Also, remember that our goal as rules revisers is to (a) make the game more playable, (b) make the game more realistic and intuitive, and (c) simplify it wherever possible. Thus, I like the "Eliminate Vitals" Mod because it makes the game easier to play. If we go with the Expanded Kill Zone Mod, it will be harder to play, though it might be really cool in game. We need to weigh the in game effect against the playability if we are going to make the right choices.
As a final note. I am also willing to make Kill Zone less lethal if Resurrection is a lot harder to do OR if players have less characters. If the chance of PD was a lot higher, than the Kill Zone puts you at -2 Mod sounds more reasonable. Another option is if players only get to have one character per region at a time, then they will have to be more careful with it and I don't mind if Kill Zone is less lethal.

Thoughts? Comments? Reasoned arguments? Favorites? New ideas?

Christopher

I like the NERO Mod alot because it has to be intentional to be killed instantly, but isn't that what often ends up happening? walking around hitting people in the kill zone a few times to make sure they wont get up?
I like kill zone the way it is. It seems realistic for some people to be killed by chance of being hit in the wrong place, and to have a place you know will kill; however, a chance of surviving would be awesome. I think the Critical Damage at -2 Mod might work out better, although I can see that being abused...though, i've seen kill zone ignored, maybe if it wasn't so severe it wouldn't be ignored as often.
Maybe Vitals as a Modifier not AZ would work well with the Critical Damage at -2? I always wished vitals and AV=0 stacked, I think it could work well with critical damage at -2, though that combo would need a 3rd I think.
hmm, I'm not sure if that all made sense, I'm tired.
I miss fanwar hope all is going well and I can make it soon

-Andrea

if kill zone only take one damamge why would anyone ever use a hammer or an axe?

Because its not always easy to hit someone in the kill zone. zone 4 is only as big as your hand and not always accessible, take shields for example, when someone is holding a shield, it becomes very handy to be able to hit them for 2 or more because it halves the times needed to get them to 0. Also, not that it is technically relevant to game play, but some people feel powerful when holding a big ax in two hands and swinging it down on someone.
I personally think that having a one hit kill zone make perfect sense, it makes it easier to kill someone with a sword (as it should) but it brings more variety to the game. It means that people will have to design their characters to kill (or incapacitate) people in whatever way they see fit, just like picking a class. Do you want to be sneaky or smooth and eloquent and kill people with a single stroke, or do you want to be a tank swinging big weapons for lots of damage not worrying about who or what hits you? It all depends on the person and what they feel like doing.



On the subject of expanding/changing definitions and rules, i think that vitals expanding kill zone makes sense. vitals meant that you are trained to hit in a certain place to kill with ease. Combining that with the shorter death count (as unc. time) along with kill zone only taking someone to -2 and bleeding to death would seem fair. people would have a chance to live but slim, thats how it works in the real world.

i think having kill zone enourages people to be murderers. The two options james mentioned are both focused not on who the character is as a person but how they kill things they come across. When I play a good character I try not to kill baddies. I want to get them down before they kill me, but unless I want to make sure they don't hurt others I leave them alive.

Instead of making the game as realistic as possible and as close to a game based on percentages as posible, I think we should be concerned with making the game fun. This is fantasy warplay. I don't want to join the army and I dont play WWII games because I dont want realism, I want fantasy. Arduin and D&D are both great and work beautifuly, but fanwar is intrinsically different because not many things can be based on chance. The systems can't be combined because at the very core they are different.
Changing basic combat changes the entire game. Every skill is unbalanced and many of them are obsolete. Shock touch and brace are far, far better than slay, and dispact should no longer exist. While discussing it at home, Torgo pointed out that if the classes had been developed after kill zone was introduced the skills would be totally different. All attacks would be based on getting a kill zone easily and all defenses would be based on avoiding kill zone.
Maybe the world of fanwar isn't like real life, but it shouldn't have to be. It is it's own world. Having a zone that you can aim for to kill someone, which isn't even like real life, changes everything about the fanwar world.

I really like the idea of the first mod(Choose a class of weapons OR a fighting style) I mean weapons and fighting styles are fun to work with

I like the NERO Mod for kill zone, I have recently been reading a comic called "Gebbas of Parade." The Artist/writer of the comic plays in SOLAR(Southern Organization of Live-Action Reenactment) And from what i can tell they use near the "Killing Blow" way to kill people. It would change the game mechanics a little, but you wouldn't die near as much, well except for the whole bleeding out, and this makes things easier for the player, the one problem i see is how does the (what i will now refer to as "Killing Blow Mod") affect things like slay and death ray? Dose it make them
do 3 killing blow at once even if there standing? With how the new Death bag works this makes things almost a little easier, but it does bring realism to the game, i mean even if you do have something critical hit by a weapon you can still be saved because it takes time to die no matter what. It's highly unlikely that people are having the hearts stabbed or being split in half with normal weapons, sure it happens sometimes, but i think the kill zone is more like having some one stab 4 inches of steal into your gut, yes you will die but it may take a while.

I also Like the idea on Vitals being a Modifier instead if a AZ, it might be a little broken if it also expands the kill zone(or crit zone if you will). Vitals as a skill is important to bring that you are traind to stab people harder in the torso, bringing about a deadly or near crippleing blow, but if you are also trained to get around armor(AV=0) your should also be able to hit the "vitals."

Just remeber ..... Killing blow one... Killing blow two... Killing blow 3, well my post is now dead so bye bye!

Decisions on Kill Zone and Vitals:

I just got back from our Starbucks Meeting to discuss Mods and we reached a very high level of consensus on what Mods are the best and which ones we want to try. So, starting now, these are the Mods we are using.

Vitals is a Modifier, not an AZ call. This means you can call 4 AV=0 Vitals. That means that if you hit in the Vitals even if they are armored there, they still take the damage add.

Kill Zone takes you to -2, not -3. This is true of all Kill Zone attacks, not just one damage kill zones.

-2 HP is now a Critical Damage state. You cannot be healed from -2 with First Aid, Potions, or any Trade Craft healing. You must have Magic Healing to bring you back from -2. Furthermore, you are incoherent at -2 HP, and if you are somehow brought to consciousness, you cannot move, use any called skills/spells (only passive type abilities). You are bleeding out fast. Your death count is sped up to 4X your ROR in seconds. This means that you will die before you wake up unless someone else comes to help you. If someone does do First Aid on you while you are at -2 they can return your Death Count to the standard rate (ROR in Minuets) but only for so long as they remain doing First Aid on you. Any interruption restarts the accelerated Death Count from where you left off!

(A few things we didn't finish discussing- open for debate)
How should Adrenaline work with the new -2 system?
Should First Aid wake you up at -2 so that you could say something like "In my bag... scroll... use it... quickly!" Should it be able to bring you to consciousness (what little you have in that state) but be unable to get you back from -2. Since you can't use any called skills at -2, even if you wake up the Life Mage who is at -2 HP they won't be able to cast Healing Touch on themselves, so I think it would mostly be a roll play thing. You wake them up as say, "How can I heal you?" and then they can gasp and point to their staff or hand you a scroll while coughing etc. and try to get you to use it on them. This might be too powerful and it might be simpler to say they are just out of it period. Thought?


See you all at Ragel on Saturday!

Thank you nell.
To everyone else don't bother replying to this unless you read it all.

1) It is finally starting to be accepted that KZ is not, and can not be, a representation of a critical hit. It is not based on anything random. People still seem to want it around to represent the lethality of true combat. But this does not fit with the basic set up of FanWar's combat system. If you wanted true realism then do it. In real combat any significant or meaningful attack is pretty much a death sentence. Only skill and luck save you. More often than not, a fight with weapons only goes until one person is hit, because it only takes once. Life isn't the movies. If you did take a sword or axe blow to a limb you are likely to end up with it broken. THAT STOPS YOU. For those of you who've broken a limb I'm sure you know. Shock (if your lucky enough) only gets you so far. If you've seen combat (or been forced to watch real combat and its aftermath over and over) it doesn't take long. One or two hits is all it takes. Our combat system it fantasy NOT realism, and you cant act like real life. In fact there are specific rules in place (and for good reason) to subtract from the realistic aspect of combat. I can't overpower my enemies, I can't rip the shield from their arm, I can't break their nose with my elbow, I can't put them into a choke hold and use them as a meat shield. LARP is intentionally not like real life because we want it to be fun, and frankly you got to be hard core or messed up to enjoy real life combat. Distorted reflection of life is one thing. Attempting to shift all the rules to duplicate real life is quite another. STOP IT!

2) If you want a truly realistic system then do away with HP all together, just make zonal hits. ie your hit in zone 3 your bleeding out, your hit in zone 4 your dead ect. Whats the point of bringing a char up 7 hp if all it takes is one hit to drop you? one of the better skills of the veteran gives him 4 more hp, and he's going to be using armor, the only place to aim will probably be zone 4 in which case he's dead immediatly. Why are you all trying so hard and spending so much time to fix kill zone when it is intrinsically flawed, does not represent what it is supposed to, upsets game balance and makes long standing skills obsolete. I do believe you chris was stated earlier that you had to give up the old way of doing things because you were just trying to fix something that was broken at its core. For all of us who opposed it from the beginning, let me just say GET RID OF IT!

3) Though I understand what it is you are trying to achieve with your -2 damage scenario, how do you actually restrict what and how much a player who has been temporarily rendered contious can say? People are going to cheat and people are going to forget and people (for the most part) probably wont roll play it. It is an interesting and nice thought but if you don't set a specific rule on it no one will be truly restricted, and if you do set a rule then it will always be in debate.

4) FanWar is a combat based game sure, but lately (as I hear it) it has become a killing based game. Why bother learning technique when you can aim for zone 4 and drop your opponent one hit. Why bother with grace when you can just poke a guy. Why bother with style when you can grab a morganti weapon and cause permanent damage (oh sorry thats right only the enemies have enough of that for everyone.)

5) The sheer amount of power built into the system is alarming. And some of the magic items I've witnessed and heard about are downright foolish. I am sorry chis but I have failed to see the balancing point anymore. The enemies control half the territory, deaths mean nothing as they have unlimited remove death potions (something unavaliable to the player) they have a large group of super baddasses all with their own super powers (basically) who are each of a level most player struggle (or at least should) to reach. They have morganti weapons aplenty, which are illegal for the players to own in most countries. They have the ability to craft incredibly powerfull magic items nigh unavliable to the player. They can summon to their aid powerful undead creatures, while the player has to pay to a mediocre NPC companion. All this while the jist of the work seems to be on the players shoulders, like it is their responsibility to fix this tainted world. And more often than nought the solution seems to be, well just throw more power the players way. But all that does is build and build upon a rotten base. WHEN PEASANTS CAN FIGHT GIANTS ON A NEAR EQUAL SCALE THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG. The level of "realism" here is too high. it has allowed the negative forces here to proliferate while (for some reason) your good forces infight, and your players do mostly their own thing (as they should). The world lacks balance, and swings ever more in the favor of the antagonist. I think chris (and I do wish to say this publicly) that you are being too swayed but the player and not taking enough GM discretion, badgered into doing what you might otherwise not. And if Chris this fully is your wish and will. That this is how you want to do things then it is my suggestion that you take some time away from GM'ing and try to see things from the perspective of an old hat player, with no decision making abilities.

My intention with this inarticulate spouting was not to insult or incise anyone. I meant no offense. My experience with GM'ing is quite fair, and my speciality has always been building balanced self functioning systems. My experience as a player is equal to any other who has played FanWar. Perhaps my view is skewed and flawed but I do not think so. I know I did not give my thoughts as clearly and concisly as others but that does not mean that they should be ignored. I do not know how to fix many of the problems I see, but just because one does not know the solution to the problem does not mean that they should blind themselves to it. If I am truly a fool and am barking at shadows let me know and I will speak no more on it.

i wish to state doug that i have read the whole of what you, said, and considered it, and this is not a knee jerk response. i like to think i understand where you are coming from as well. i will try my best to address your points in the order you presented them, and give my honest and thought out opinion. with regards to kill zone, i can see the point of view of the detractors as well as those that support it. on one hand you want a certain level of (percieved ) realism to make role-play flow easily, it is not supposed to truly mimic reality, so much as smooth the edge of a fantasy system for smoother digestion. on the other hand it is very, very easy to take a kill zone hit, particularly when all players know of the location and more or less go for it. larp combat is allready a fast and chaotic situation. and a one shot end to combat is going to tend to make it faster and more chaotic. and if this makes things less fun for people, then it may not be best serving us. i havent observed it really taking away from game play. but i can see how it could, especially if it imparts a feeling of futility. something to consider in any system of combat rp is that anything that makes combat more real, or lethal favors the baddies. because essentially the heros are in every fight, and only have to lose a relative few times before they are pushing up daisies, where as the baddies can throw nigh upon endless fodder at the heros, knowing that attrition will take care of their problem its a matter of who has more to lose, it means little if joe orc take a killzone and dies, but when the odds come around and ariond, paladin of light and virtue, hero of the land happens to be felled in a similar manner by one of joe orcs numerous and nameless cousins. i can see this kind of thing lead to feelings of hopelessness and futility, which are things people get enough of in real life, and if they are getting that in their larp as well they just arent having much fun. on the other hand i can see these kind of circumstances from the perspective of one working life lessons and real issues into larp, im not sure if this is exactly what chris is doing, but there seems to be a certain amount of teacher in the very nature and spirit of chris's world, as though it was never indended as a purely frivolous fantasy entertainment and stress relief game, so much as a learning and exploratory role- play forum for fundamental real world concepts all people struggle with.



point 2 seems mostly an extention of point one intended to demonstrate why you feel realism wouldnt be a favorable thing. and strongly convey why you see it as a problem.

point 3, chris is to my knowledge deciding on this one as we speak. but his leanings were strongly towards the completely incapacitated, unable to do anything or be even remotely aware of anything outside the fact of the roiling cloud of pain overwhelming your senses.


on point 4 im not sure i fully understand which way you mean what you say you say why bother learning technique and grace, do you refer to " why level your character up and get abilities?" or " why spar and train yourself to be a better fanwar fighter IRL" because hitting a usually staunchly protected small area on an opponent could easily be viewed as grace and technique i know for one that someone with a shield, or a great fighting technique like chris can be very, very difficult to kill-zone. i recall a 5 minute, lunging and slashing battle in which i tried to kill zone chris when he was wielding 2 swords and his claw bracer, after many furious attacks from just about every angle i did manage to deliver one, but he had a full plate helm, my character went down, i defy anyone who says kill zone doesnt take skill to try the same, im sure chris would oblige you.


i can sympathize with you on point 5, as i too have some questions of balance in fanwar. the way things have been going has left many players feeling somewhat hopeless and helpless, getting frustrated and discouraged by the state of the world. its hard to imagine what a character, or group of characters can accomplish in the face of the evils that we are facing. it does seem to me that the heros in fanwar are facing a nigh- impossibly task, and are ill- prepared to face it. in order to deal with these feelings, and partially as an exploratory, what if gesture, my friends and i are trying to build a legendary good party, all devout followers of good gods, trying their best to make the world a better place, we feel we owe it to chris to try to make a difference through heroic altruism before making blanket assumptions that players can accomplish nothing in the face of such overwhelming odds. it is my intention to try my best in this endeavor, and trust chris. if these perceptions of helplessness are and imbalance are true, it is my hope that our actions might cause the gm to re- evaluate the system and how it works and makes people feel, if, on the other hand, it seems our actions do have positive impact and we can actually make a difference, or at least had a fair shot at it. even if we fail, then that would undoubtedly renew my faith in fanwar, as a system i can have fun in , as well as learn from. it is my hope that if players promote good, and make positive changes, the good dieties will take notice, have more power and influence, and step up their efforts to make the world a better, and more balanced place to live, but this doesnt apply just to dieites, but also to kings, blacksmiths, peasants. if everyone sees heros providing a grand example, and tries just a little harder and the world gets better, i will feel supremely satisfied. either way, the game is continually evolving and i have faith that if we speak up about the issues that concern us, and continue to work on the system, it will continue to improve. we all know it is imperfect, and never will be perfect, but we should keep our focus and be proactive in addressing any issues that may detract from an individuals enjoyment of or ability to understand and learn from, fanwar.

i also apoligize if spoke poorly, or was unclear, i merely spoke my peace on what what brought up to the best of my ability, in the hopes that through such discussion, the issues may be resolved satisfactorily. my goal in these statements is not to start or win any arguements, but rather to arrive at a workable solution. il admit i do have some concern doug that in your fervor to express yourself, you may have been insulting to chris. though i know it was not your intent. i personally advocate a moderate approach to such discussions, as getting people riled up rarely leads to a productive discussion.