So today I got my first swordsman bounty, and I headed into the citadel dungeon. There I found some enemies. Then something happened... something I did not think possible.


With a combined trip and force on force defense pushdown, a swordsman managed to barely pierce my defenses, my very heavily crit padded forest green brig took the impact....... and parted like a wisp of smoke in a breeze, next thing I knew....

A decaying Citadel guardsman swings a tarnished and rusted Hammer of Kai at you!
AS: +340 vs DS: +409 with AvD: +29 + d100 roll: +34 = -6
A clean miss.
>
[Roll result: 205 (open d100: 93)]
With a fluid whirl, a decaying Citadel guardsman plants a tarnished and rusted Hammer of Kai firmly into the ground near you and jerks the weapon sharply sideways.
Your feet are suddenly swept from under you!
Roundtime: 15 sec.
... 10 points of damage!
Smash to the kneecap.
PR>stance offensive
...wait 15 seconds.
PR>
[script aborted]
PR>
You feel more refreshed.
PR>
A phantasmal bestial swordsman swings a black steel claidhmore at you!
AS: +348 vs DS: +322 with AvD: +28 + d100 roll: +13 = +67
A clean miss.
PR>
A putrefied Citadel herald strides in confidently.
PR>
A putrefied Citadel herald seethes a forceful chant, commanding the spirits to do her bidding.
PR>
A decaying Citadel guardsman swings a tarnished and rusted Hammer of Kai at you!
AS: +340 vs DS: +358 with AvD: +29 + d100 roll: +86 = +97
A clean miss.
PR>
A decaying Citadel guardsman swings a tarnished and rusted Hammer of Kai at you!
AS: +340 vs DS: +322 with AvD: +29 + d100 roll: +1 = +48
A clean miss.
PR>
A phantasmal bestial swordsman swings a black steel claidhmore at you!
AS: +348 vs DS: +322 with AvD: +28 + d100 roll: +65 = +119
... and hits for 35 points of damage!
Slash strikes your left eye.
Seems there was a brain there after all.
The bright luminescence fades from around you.
The silvery luminescence fades from around you.
You return to normal color.
The glowing specks of energy surrounding you suddenly shoot off in all directions, then quickly fade away.
You feel your extra strength departing.
The brilliant luminescence fades from around you.
You notice your blood flow go back to normal.
Your heart hammers suddenly in your chest before failing entirely. Even the influence of Troll's Blood is not enough to change the fact of your death.
The very powerful look leaves you.
The white light leaves you.
The opalescent aura fades from around you.
The brilliant aura fades away from you.
You feel less confident.
The air shivers about you, glistening faintly before stilling to normalcy.
Your breathing becomes more shallow.
You feel less secure.
The dim aura fades from around you.
The powerful look leaves you.
The misty halo fades from you.
You no longer bristle with energy.
The deep blue glow leaves you.
Deep blue motes swirl away from you and fade.
You feel the extra courage wane.
The air calms down around you.
You sense that your attunement to the minds of others has ceased.
You lose your extra internal fortitude.
The light blue glow leaves you.
A faint silvery glow fades from around you.
The layer of protection fades away.
You become solid again.

It seems you have died, my friend. Although you cannot do anything, you are keenly aware of what is going on around you...

You mentally give a sigh of relief as you remember that the Goddess Lorminstra owes you a favor.

...departing in 13 mins...
*********


Are the claidhs that shockingly weighted that a +119 will kill someone through very heavily crit padded armor? Was this a glitch of somesort? I'm just stunned. I couldn't ever see fighting in here if, in all defenses/statues/symbols/spells I could be killed by a 119 endroll if more than one thing happens to be swinging at me, and one of them happens to do a trip or some other CM I cannot avoid.

Crit randomization FTL... in this case.

A simple way of looking at it/explaining it is basically... both the padding on your armor, and the weighting on the claidhmore each roll independently to see how much padding/weighting is applied to the outcome of the AS/DS resolution.

Your armor rolled bad, and the claid rolled good. It can and will happen, even with VHCP (12-14 points) vs Fantastic (40 points).

I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you shouldn't be surprised if it happens again.

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Are the claidhs that shockingly weighted that a +119 will kill someone through very heavily crit padded armor?

Short answer: yes. At least if you replace will with can in your sentence. When fighting anything with a claid, it's best to be so DS'ed up that they can not hit you at all.

-Taakhooshi, and Me

For the Story of Taakhooshi:
http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Taakhooshi

>>Eyes are an unarmored location


Didn't know this. I thought armor that covers the head also covered the eyes and stuff.


I guess this is why rogues always ambush to the eye, because there's no eye armor?

A phantasmal bestial swordsman swings a black steel claidhmore at you!

AS: +348 vs DS: +322 with AvD: +28 + d100 roll: +65 = +119

... and hits for 35 points of damage!

Slash strikes your left eye.

Seems there was a brain there after all.

- TRAZIER

There is nothing unusual about this outcome. Your armor, brigandine, provides VHC padding to ALL body locations and will randomize between 6 and 14 points. The weapon critical weighting (claidhmore) is 40 points. Critical weighting DOES NOT randomize; damage weighting, critical/damage padding each randomize.

Note: I'm using 14 points of padding for the calculations, however, the actual padding of your armor could be slightly less.

Max crit rank formula: (Raw damage + critical weighting (non-randomized) - critical padding (randomized)) / armor group critical divisor.

For this attack the maximum crit rank range is 5 to 6:

(10 + 40 - 14) / 7 = 5 to (10 + 40 - 6) / 7 = 6

Claidmore DF vs Brig: .500
Raw damage: 10 (19 * .500) rounds normally
Brig armor critical divisor: 7
Crit weighting: 40 points (claidhmore)
VHC padding: 6 to 14
Total damage range for maximum crit rank determination: 36 to 44 ((50 - 14) to (50 - 6))
Minimum crit rank: 3
Maximum crit rank range: 5 to 6 (depends on amount of padding applied)
Possible crit rank outcome: 3 to 6 (depends on padding and crit randomization)
Actual crit rank: 5 (left eye slash)

This attack also had the potential to cause a fatal rank 6 head, neck or eye critical. Weighting also bypasses redux.

Eyes are an unarmored location, your brig wasn't really factored in to the attack. That's why he killed you with such a low roll. It was just bad luck that he happened to catch your eye. I wouldn't be too worried about the strike. - MIRRAMI

Incorrect. Brigandine provides full coverage (scale) armor protection to all body locations, including the eyes.

A simple way of looking at it/explaining it is basically... both the padding on your armor, and the weighting on the claidhmore each roll independently to see how much padding/weighting is applied to the outcome of the AS/DS resolution.

Your armor rolled bad, and the claid rolled good. It can and will happen, even with VHCP (12-14 points) vs Fantastic (40 points). - G4IA

Partially correct. There is no roll on critical weighting. Full critical weighting is always applied to the attack.

Didn't know this. I thought armor that covers the head also covered the eyes and stuff. - TRAZIER

Correct. Full coverage armor, such as brigandine, provides that armor group's coverage to all body locations. Partial coverage armor provides the torso armor group protection to covered areas and the next lower armor group protection to non-covered areas. For example, MBP provides plate coverage to all torso locations (chest, abdomen and back) and chain protection to all other locations.

I guess this is why rogues always ambush to the eye, because there's no eye armor? - TRAZIER

Ambush can add significant, non-randomized, critical weighting to an attack. Rogues aim for the eye because the lowest fatal critical is a rank 4 eye puncture.


Mark

Swordsmen don't gen with claidhs very often. It looks like you just had extraordinarily bad luck in that situation.

I'm just confused I guess. All by the calculations and the way these items interacted. I mean, i've survived some crazy situations before, but this felt like a light scratch that just exploded my face. I guess what I can take from this is claidhs are silly, and I need to eventually upgrade to even thicker armor. Maybe use the yearly fixskills to try out claidh swinging myself... - TRAZIER

The numbers and calculations can easily cause confusion. It just doesn't feel right that with a very low endroll and minimal raw damage your character ends up with a fatal critical, especially in VHCP brig.

Claidhmore's are naturally crit weighted with 40 points of phantom raw damage. However, the attack must do enough actual raw damage to cause at least a rank 1 critical before this weighting will kick in.

Claidhmore minimum endroll thresholds for Rank 1 and Rank 9 criticals:

Armor Group	Claidhmore DF	Armor Crit Divisor	Rank 1	Rank 9
1 (Cloth)	.625	5	108	108
2 (Leather)	.475	6	112	129
3 (Scale)	.500	7	113	145
4 (Chain)	.350	9	125	216
5 (Plate)	.225	11	147	360

Look at this attack:

You swing a claidhmore at a giant rat!
AS: +37 vs DS: +14 with AvD: +31 + d100 roll: +54 = +108
... and hit for 80 points of damage!
Terrible slash to the giant rat's side!
Entrails spill out, onto the ground!
Death can be SO messy.

DF: .625
Cloth armor crit divisor: 5
Raw damage: 5 (.625 * 8)
Critical weighting: 40
Critical damage: 75 (Rank 9 slash to abdomen)
Total damage: 80

In the above attack a claidhmore hit a giant rat and caused 5 raw damage; just enough to cause a rank 1 critical. Since there was a critical, the 40 points of weighting from the claidh were then added to the raw damage for a total of 45 phantom damage. This 45 damage is enough to cause a rank 9 critical against cloth armor. The possible critical outcomes with randomization are rank 5 to 9. In the above attack the crit randomized to a rank 9. To achieve this same result against plate armor would require a minimum endroll of 360 as shown in the table above.

Mark