diff --git a/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md b/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md index eba895b..e32ddac 100644 --- a/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md +++ b/docs/REVIEW_LOG.md @@ -4469,3 +4469,55 @@ as hit points, with its band under it and the box itself changing colour as it f yellow at Adrift, red at Unmoored and Displaced. It is the number that measures whether an agent is still filed as themselves, and it was set in 11px grey between MOV and carried weight. + +## THE CHANTRY RUIN — coverage, measured + +The point of this fight was to make coverage the only variable. Two officers built +from the same pregen, both 12 hit points, both Sword 55% and Dodge 45%, and armour +chosen so that **the one carrying more points was carrying it in fewer places**: + +* **Suited** — Breaching suit. **7 points, on all seven locations.** +* **Plated** — Cuirass and a Brodie helmet. **9 points**, on three. + +Against a redcap: Polearm 80%, Dodge 75%, a halberd at 1d10+2, and POWER: NOT TIRED, +which ignores the cumulative defence penalty so every parry it makes is at full skill. +In melee **fourteen of the twenty hit locations are limbs**, which is the whole test. + +**Plated's own armour worked perfectly, and it did not matter.** + +| Round | Where the halberd landed | Armour there | Rolled | Through | +|---|---|---|---|---| +| 1 | right leg | 0 | 5 | **5** | +| 3 | abdomen | 6 | 6 | 0 | +| 4 | head | 3 | 4 | 1 | +| 5 | right leg | 0 | 10 | **10** | + +Four connecting blows. The cuirass and the helmet between them stopped fifteen points +of damage. The two that found a bare leg did every point they rolled, destroyed the +leg outright (12 damage against a location maximum of 6), took Plated to zero and +started a six-round dying clock with a bleeding Major Wound. **Under the old rule that +leg carried 9 points and both blows would have done nothing at all.** + +**Suited took the same weapon on a limb and felt nothing.** Round 6, left arm, 3 +rolled against 7 — zero through. Round 2 and 8 and 9 turned aside on the dodge. After +nine rounds against an 80% attacker they were still at 12 of 12. + +**And then full coverage turned out not to be immunity.** Round 10 the halberd came in +on a **critical**; Suited dodged *successfully* and a success against a critical only +reduces it one step, so it landed as a special — half armour — and 12 damage put 9 +through a 7-point suit. Round 11 finished them. Zero to zero in two rounds, with a +catastrophic Major Wound. + +**What the fight says about the change.** Coverage is now the single most important +thing about a suit of armour, far more than its points: 9 points in three places lost +a leg and nearly a life, 7 points in seven places went nine rounds untouched. That is +the correct shape and it is a large difficulty swing for anyone in partial armour — +which, in a catalogue with this many cuirasses and helmets, is most people. Critically, +it did not make full armour boring: a critical halves it and a maximum-damage halberd +still gets through. + +Saved by the rule that has been quietly working since R-223: First Aid at 37% failed +on the first attempt and landed on the second, staunched the bleeding, healed 3, and +`reviveIfHealed` took Plated out of the dying state without being asked. My harness +then called `tickDying` on a revived character and read `.state` off the null it +correctly returned — the rule was right and the probe was wrong.