swdevlin wrote:
Example: say two guards (from OBAM page 16) are fighting with short swords.
The problem is that OBAM is notoriously broken in the terms of the attribute values. Take the dragon (wyrm) for example. If two dragons were fighting, it would be impossible for one dragon to get hit and survive. Even the OBAM humans are too badass for most games. The knight has pretty insane stats, etc.
That being said, one point of difference isn't something really uncommon in TROS, but when it comes to determining the wound levels, that one point of advantage in the ST/TO difference is huge. So, yes, the attributes not being equal, it's not actually be possible do deliver glancing blows at all times. If you'd fight with characters whose ST/TO are equal, you might get level 1 wounds, which are mostly "pretty glancing".
A few house rules to fix the imbalance in attribute values:
"Naked Dwarf" Syndrome (High toughness indistinguishable from armour mechanically).
Solution: Toughness cannot reduce a weapon strike below a first level wound.
"Dragon Tap" Syndrome (High strength guarantees amputations and instant-death from glancing blows).
Solution: The final wound level can never be more than double the margin of success.
Another good option is to use
half ST/TO values for the purposes of determining wound levels. It basically minimises the naked dwarf syndrome and... dragon tap... well, that was mostly meant just for the broken OBAM stats anyway.
I used to be in favour of the "naked dragon" rules combination, but lately I've been converted to the half ST/TO clan. It's very easy to work in if you write weapon damage on the sheet not as ST+1, but the actual value that it makes up. That way you only need to divide the ST once and you don't have to keep track of the MoS, etc, like in case of dragon tap.
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