Actually, I think I have a better grasp of this than some other posters. By "going negative", I meant that the effects that occur when a creature is able to go into negative AP and keep attacking seem rather disturbing...as they should be.
> If HW tries to model the drama of a combat, rather than 'what is
> happening' per se, then one needs to step back a little.
Exactly.
> You say:
> > a really high armor... doesn't feel right.
> > After all, they're easy to hit, and
> > your weapon just chops into them...
>
> Even in RQ, layers of blubber could be modelled as armour. Your
> weapons would chop into a blubbery creature, too.
That makes sense. Doesn't seem like the same thing, though. You're chopping into blubber, not vital organs and muscles.
> The important point is that your chopping of the zombie has less
> effect, on your progress to victory, than an otherwise equivalent
> monster. But chopping a monster wearing a suit of armour is likewise
> less effective. Physically, the flesh of a zombie and a suit of
> armour are very different. But their effects on opposing your
> progress to victory are (arguably) somewhat similar, and so are
> (arguably) well modelled by the same HW rule mechanics.
I can even agree with the argument in principal, but I don't think that it's really the -best- way to model it. IMO, anyway.
A chop into a zombie causes a wound identical in extent to when chopping into a living person. The disturbing aspect is that it doesn't really bother the zombie. By raising the armor value, the implication is that you are doing less damage, which isn't the case. You're doing as much damage...it just doesn't care.
Similarly, giving it a lot of extra AP implies it has more energy than expected. I can buy this, but I don't see how it is an improvement over letting the zombie fight to -40. Letting it fight to -40 gives it a whopping load of extra AP, and models what's happening more accurately...the zombie is taking horrendous damage that would have dropped a person long ago, and it keeps coming far beyond what a living creature could do.
Tom Bagwell
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