First, you'd want to give the defender a chance to dodge, block or parry the attack.

what you describe is similar to what i and the DM i learned from came up with in 1977, except we added a dex based check for a hit in the first place, followed by the dodge/parry/block phase, then hit location, then wpn vs armor, and finally dmg done. we figured out the system but never implemented it. my current project is the first game i've done that includes all those aspects you mentioned as well as a chance to hit influenced by dex.

A friend of mine long ago created this guide to how Final Fantasy VII calculates damage.
I am sure you will find it more than a little useful. :wink:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fantasy-vii/faqs/22395

L. Spiro

. Knights were covered, head to toe, in steel. Almost nothing could penetrate that. Then they also have a kite shield and sword. A large squad of these guys, slowly marching towards you, was an invincible, inevitable death. The only way you could kill one of these soldiers was to tire them out, lift up their arm, and stab them with a very thin dirk beneath the armor.

You could break their neck. Counting up they had extremely reduced agility it was not much of a win.

Actually the plate armor was quite thin (and had amazing sliding slot mechanisms for the overlapping plates) and its attribute was steel strength that resisted cutting of blades and curved surfaces to deflect blows/missile strikes (the long bow arrow had an extremely sharp hard point (high quality steel) to catch on the surface when not straight on and then penetrate cutting through using the force of that 3 foot (yard) long shaft. Blunt high impact weapons like warhammers would also cave in such armor. That kind of armors days were numbered when guns came which (as they improved) could punch through thin metal like butter.

You had to be able to run around in that armor (you would have a heavier version of it if you were mounted and used a huge horses strength)

While still fairly heavy versus no armor, the plate armor generally wasnt heavier (and often lighter) than other types of 'most of body' armor.

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For the OP consider that it can be more than just equations as : Many game mechanics hold off player incapacitation/death when at very low HP/health level a bit longer(moments) time to allow the victim to invoke some last-ditch 'ability' before death/whatever.

@slayemin

Dont forget the more complex the armor got, the more of a maintenance crew you needed to apply it and keep it operational and the prep time before it could be used on a battlefield (thus limiting its use to special circumstances much of the time and narrow situation of maximum utility).

Also certain inconveniences like of having to uriniate/defecate once you have that armor on ...

I think you should start from stats, work out test cased based on those stats, and find, or let the computer find, a formula that interpolates between the desired behaviour in each test case.

For starters, I don't think "attack" and "defense" are actual character stats: they are synthetic values, computed from what really matters to the player for the sole purpose of the damage formula.

Real characters could have:

• general combat training
• innate combat talent,
• familiarity with their weapons and armour
• familiarity with the opponent's weapons and armour
• muscular strength and speed
• quick reflexes
• superiority of weapon/armour types (pairwise or in tiers)
• quality of weapon/armour design (e.g. well balanced)
• weapon/armour technology level (e.g. steel sword vs bronze sword)
• quality of weapon/armour manufacture (e.g. incorrectly tempered steel that is more likely to bend or break)

And in fantasy settings:

• cost/quality/rarity/quantity/strength of spells and magical items that buff of attacks
• cost/quality/rarity/quantity/strength of spells and magical items that provide healing
• cost/quality/rarity/quantity/strength of spells and magical items that protect the user
• favor of the gods
• current burden of hostile spells and curses
• moon phases or other astrological trends and moments
• countless other setting-specific factors and conditions

In a game many of these elements, even if important "in theory", would be deliberately ignored as irrelevant ((e.g. aircraft combat only -> no strength)), not interesting (e.g. metallurgy is considered not heroic) or counterproductive (e.g. weapon types are few and weapons of the same type are assumed to be identical because weapons are scarce and randomly getting a "wrong" or inferior one would be a problem), flattened to irrelevance (e.g. everybody is a knight of similar skill, training and equipment) or simplified (e.g. D&D treats innate combat qualities only in part as stats and mostly as belonging to the Fighter class or similar ones, which fight better than other people in a number of ways).

And some elements would be deliberately emphasized or downplayed, even to unrealistic extremes: in a game about the chosen of the gods, i.e. a kid, going on an epic quest to save the world combat training and experience should not be an important success factor for the protagonist, who should have little to learn and many decisive unique or magical items and resources to collect, while in a game about being the best gladiator in town magical aids should be illegal to begin with and no more than a nuisance for a smarter, stronger and better equipped opponent.

Blunt high impact weapons like warhammers would also cave in such armor. That kind of armors days were numbered when guns came which (as they improved) could punch through thin metal like butter.

I am not sure even wheather those armors had any days of glory.

To load a crossbow that has more penetrating power than Magnum rifle, firing 3pound+ ridiculous projectiles is doable for even a child (I have "stabbed" my father's summerhouse as 9 years old with french army crossbow, putting naively as wide as three matraces before the wall to not "hurt it" and walking 100m away).

A person, even in more profesional agile armor, is still loosing dogging ability against better strike moves, so for example with a short chain or rope you could get grab such a person around neck or head from behind and pull it so fast they will loose prosperity in absolute manner for like 5 seconds on the ground. I think those armored guys were literaly clauns.

To OP, you must mainly equalize amount of player's investment (time/resources/experience) in a stat to effect of the stat, to be at least a bit sane as a decision - else you will be totaly blown up indie!

Oh they did (heyday), but their expense limited their use. Crossbows (powerful large ones you refer to) were very slow to load (you actually had to use a clumsy mechanical winch to reload it) and not something you could do properly on an active battlefield (very useful in defensive works where you could take your time loading behind cover)

They also had limited accurate range.

Yes an armored man was at a disadvantage amongst agile unarmored men, but the trade off was how many of them he could kill before they got him (and if you go to the expense for such armor the user probably would be highly trained in use of their weapons versus the usual cannon-fodder 'levies'.) Massed armored men who could support each other (protect flanks) still allowed concentrating force on the field and likely with better order/dicipline would have the enemy routed quickly after inflicting their damage on the enemy.

Even into the age of guns 'partial armor' like heavy THICK breastplates were used that were 'proofed' against pistol shots (large numbers of early guns were those) - as always its a matter of being BETTER protection rather than PERFECT protection.

. Knights were covered, head to toe, in steel. Almost nothing could penetrate that. Then they also have a kite shield and sword. A large squad of these guys, slowly marching towards you, was an invincible, inevitable death. The only way you could kill one of these soldiers was to tire them out, lift up their arm, and stab them with a very thin dirk beneath the armor.

You could break their neck. Counting up they had extremly reduced agility it was not much of a win.

lol, this is kind of laughable. In a 1v1 fight, attempting to snap someones neck *might* be a viable tactic, but I'd say your chances of doing that successfully are probably around 1%. I don't know if you've ever been to a renaissance fair and watched armored men duel each other, but they are actually surprisingly mobile and flexible with full body armor. It barely hampers their fighting ability.

Keep in mind that in battle, people fought in tight formations. It wasn't any of that braveheart BS, where a bunch of dudes just ran out and had a ton of 1v1 fights with other dudes who ran out. The prevailing strategy was to march into battle in formation, lock shields together, and keep the front lines unbroken. If a man gets hurt or tired, he goes to the back to recover and the next one steps forward and resumes the fight. Since everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder, nobody can attack you from anywhere but the front. The best weapons were either nice long pikes, or short swords. Short swords are better than long swords because they're much easier to swing in close proximity. Long pikes are great because the lines behind the front line can also use their pikes to stab at the enemy. Keep in mind, battle is a lot different from what you see in movies and video games. People are pretty much like sacks of blood, waiting to be popped like water balloons. All you need is one or two good pokes or slashes and someone will bleed out and die.

An interesting weapon development was the halberd and bill. They were used like pikes, but could also had a multipurpose function of taking down horse riders and using the hooks to find chinks in armor and tear them off.