Protection and Defense

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

Do you have some sort of evidence that the parry part of the total defense attribute is not counted as part of the defense? My understanding is that it is added on top of the total defense (which already includes the shield parry attribute) for purposes of checking for a shield hit.

The reason that I am of this belief is that it seems to fit what I observe and that, in addition, that is how the mechanic is described very explicitly in the manual.

I cannot offer any substantial evidence, but I can tell you why I think that shields work as I said.

There are essentially two reasons for my line of though:
1. The description in the manual in combination with how defence is displayed in game makes me think so.

As you correctly noted, the given example does not really support my reading, but that presupposes that we already know that the 17 defence of the Black Centaur includes the parry value of the shield. It is not mentioned anywhere in the example text.

When you look at the break down on the defence value in game, the parry value is added separately as parry value and not anything else. It seems very strange to me that the parry value should be counted twice in addition to the defence modification - a much simpler way would have been to instead have a defence value that included the defence bonus from parry and just count parry once.

If you discount the example, just counting parry once seems in line with the rest of the text.

2. The performance of shields I have observed in game seems in line with my interpretation.

I know that you say the exact opposite, but consider e.g. the performance of light or medium shield-bearing infantry armed with spears. As a general rule they should not be able to hurt each other at all for quite a few rounds if your interpretation were correct. This is not consistent with what I have seen.


I know that this cannot be said to be a strong argument, so you should in no shape or form feel obligated to accept it. However, I am sure enough of my in game observation that I will not abandon my belief on the strength of the example in the manual. (I should add that, in general, I am not at all averse to count the manual as significant evidence - it is more often correct than not.) If enough members of the community tell me I am wrong, I will, though.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

When you look at the break down on the defence value in game, the parry value is added separately as parry value and not anything else.

So is extra defense from Quickness +3, which also gets its own line, or Prophet +2, Experience + X, and several other (all?) defense modifiers that get added separately and aren't labeled +defence on equipment, and the sum of all those are listed as the "Current Defence and Parry skill"

It seems very strange to me that the parry value should be counted twice in addition to the defence modification - a much simpler way would have been to instead have a defence value that included the defence bonus from parry and just count parry once.

I can understand what you are saying, but it also makes excellent sense the other way around.

The way you are thinking of it (parry value used once to determine whether an opposing attack is a shield hit that reduces the damage you take, but not adding to defence skill) a shield does not actually help prevent you from being hit - it merely reduces damage you take if you manage to interpose it between yourself and an incoming attack that would otherwise deal damage to you. The damage may be reduced to 0 (in line with the general protection mechanism) but probably not in case of really strong opponents.

This seems in stark opposition to not only several shield descriptions in-game (the Shield of the Accursed, the Shield of Gleaming Gold, and the Aegis all explain how the one using them becomes harder to hit because it is difficult to focus on the wielder), but also how shields have traditionally had dual use in warfare, both deflecting and absorbing blows (some better at one than the other and also depending on their martial use).

As such it makes excellent sense to have shields' both add to defense (value A) and to determine a range in which there's a shield hit (value B). This requires two different values to really fine tune - and shields have that: the parry value (x) and the defense value (y); in other words x = b, y = A - x

I know that you say the exact opposite, but consider e.g. the performance of light or medium shield-bearing infantry armed with spears. As a general rule they should not be able to hurt each other at all for quite a few rounds if your interpretation were correct. This is not consistent with what I have seen.

Independent Light Infantry using a spear: attack 10, defense 13 - including shield +4, and protection 15/8 [S15]. Damage is 10 + 3 + DRN - DRN - relevant_protection at location hit when considering shield protection into the mix.

Defense decreases by 2 per multiple attack and by fatigue/10 and attack by fatigue/20.

Under these conditions and given two groups of statistically significant size of Light Infantry, I most certainly expect a fair number of hits from the very first round they are in melee range of each other, for the difference between attack and defense and even attack and defense+parry is rather small (3 and 7 respectively) and the RNG will have its say in the +DRN - DRN business; moreover, the little light infantrymen won't square off one by one - given an equidistribution over each infantryman over those enemy infantrymen he can attack, it is practically certain that some infantrymen will be attacked more than others (and hence be easier to hit for every attack after the first one) and given the number of size 2 figures per square, some a lot more.

It might come out differently if I actually spent the time on doing a real statistical analysis of the problem but at least my rough mental napkin map (without a napkin ) comes nowhere close to your conclusion that "LI vs LI with spears and shield should not be able to hurt each other at all in the first few rounds if non-shield hits only occurred at above another +4 on top of the 13 defense rather than at above 13.

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

So is extra defense from Quickness +3, which also gets its own line, or Prophet +2, Experience + X, and several other (all?) defense modifiers that get added separately and aren't labeled +defence on equipment, and the sum of all those are listed as the "Current Defence and Parry skill"

Exactly, it is called "Current Defence and Parry skill", not "Current Defence skill" or "Current Defence, Blessed, Experience, X and Parry skill" - parry is singled out.

I can understand what you are saying, but it also makes excellent sense the other way around.

The way you are thinking of it (parry value used once to determine whether an opposing attack is a shield hit that reduces the damage you take, but not adding to defence skill) a shield does not actually help prevent you from being hit - it merely reduces damage you take if you manage to interpose it between yourself and an incoming attack that would otherwise deal damage to you. The damage may be reduced to 0 (in line with the general protection mechanism) but probably not in case of really strong opponents.

This seems in stark opposition to not only several shield descriptions in-game (the Shield of the Accursed, the Shield of Gleaming Gold, and the Aegis all explain how the one using them becomes harder to hit because it is difficult to focus on the wielder), but also how shields have traditionally had dual use in warfare, both deflecting and absorbing blows (some better at one than the other and also depending on their martial use).

As such it makes excellent sense to have shields' both add to defense (value A) and to determine a range in which there's a shield hit (value B). This requires two different values to really fine tune - and shields have that: the parry value (x) and the defense value (y); in other words x = b, y = A - x

The magical shields you talk about have special effects that fulfil the description. Fear and awe perform the mentioned function admirably. I do not know the description of the Accursed Shield, but I expect it has to do with the horror marking.

As for your explanation about needing two values, it fails to convince me because of the simple fact that shields also have a listed defence value. If they did not, it would be plausible (albeit a bit inflexible), but as is, it is a part of the representational argument for my interpretation. The standard shield has a defence value of -1 and parry value of 4. If shields were intended to add to defence as you say, it makes much more sense to display the defence value as 3, the parry value 4 and only count the parry value once. You do not lose any flexibility but gain a lot in clarity. And you need to do less overall work, if I understand you correctly. First deciding a defence value from which you then subtract the parry value in order to display it does not make much sense when the persons looking at the display are then supposed to add that parry value back in order to determine what is a shield hit.

Independent Light Infantry using a spear: attack 10, defense 13 - including shield +4, and protection 15/8 [S15]. Damage is 10 + 3 + DRN - DRN - relevant_protection at location hit when considering shield protection into the mix.

Defense decreases by 2 per multiple attack and by fatigue/10 and attack by fatigue/20.

Under these conditions and given two groups of statistically significant size of Light Infantry, I most certainly expect a fair number of hits from the very first round they are in melee range of each other, for the difference between attack and defense and even attack and defense+parry is rather small (3 and 7 respectively) and the RNG will have its say in the +DRN - DRN business; moreover, the little light infantrymen won't square off one by one - given an equidistribution over each infantryman over those enemy infantrymen he can attack, it is practically certain that some infantrymen will be attacked more than others (and hence be easier to hit for every attack after the first one) and given the number of size 2 figures per square, some a lot more.

It might come out differently if I actually spent the time on doing a real statistical analysis of the problem but at least my rough mental napkin map (without a napkin ) comes nowhere close to your conclusion that "LI vs LI with spears and shield should not be able to hurt each other at all in the first few rounds if non-shield hits only occurred at above another +4 on top of the 13 defense rather than at above 13.

I was unclear. Sorry about that.

Since we are talking about a decent number of troops, there will of course be some troops that are hurt, but relative to the number it will not be significant. My observation is of course that troops suffer more losses than they should, if parry was counted twice. Beating a difference of 7 is not easy (about 2/25) and though the majority of troops struck in a round will be struck twice (reducing their defence for the second attempt by 2), few will be struck more often than that. Beating a difference of 5 is also not that easy (a bit less than 1/7). Counting on that a rough 2/3 of those targeted are targeted twice, about 2 in 21 are actually hit this way. If we then, to simplify, assume that all hits are on protection 8, the chance to kill someone this way is about 1/73.
Defence drops with fatigue, but so does attack. In effect, relative defence drops by one after three rounds and goes down a notch again after eight rounds.

With fatigue and damage accumulation, deaths will be increasingly likely, but it takes a number of rounds for that to happen.

I will not pretend to have done a complete statistical analysis, because I have not, but the (very) rough numbers above just do not correspond with my in game experiences.

Edit:
For what it is worth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43615#5 is a post that explains defence and parry as I think it works.
Take it for what it is worth. I have not made an extensive search of the boards, I just took the first one I found that explained it.

[Peter Ebbesen]

What we probably need, should we desire to know how it works rather than rely on our anecdotal evidence, is for us or somebody else to mod in some degenerate shield with an absurd defense value to lower base defense or set it to some convenient total number when considering the attacker for the test and a grotesque high parry value and run a series of structured tests. I won't have time to do this today, but later this week should be an option.

[Amorphous]

Some shield-modding seems to confirm my beliefs.

I modded the machakan hide shield (armour number 105) to encumbrance -2 (to eliminate fatigue from the machakan warriors), defence 20 and protection 0, which ends up as defence 2, parry 18 and protection 0.

With the above, the machakan warrior without javelin ends up with 11 defence not including and 29 defence including parry.

If you were correct, they should be practically impervious to normal troops. In reality they die like flies.

These are the lines that modify the shield:

#selectarmor 105
#prot 0
#def 20
#enc -2
#end

I attach a small mod containing only this change, so that you can try it yourself. Just start a game as Machaka and go to town with the warriors.