Unit Warfare, Attacks and Damage

[coldwind]

Whoa... I was re-reading the Warfare chapter in anticipation of an upcoming battle, and I think I've been doing something wrong (which makes several orders seem way too powerful)...

In regular combat, damage is equal to Base * Degrees, but in Warfare, according to page 181 it's only Base + Degrees.

That's a difference that I never noticed before, and makes orders like Trample much less worrisome (I was seeing Cavalry units doing 40-50 damage repeatedly, but this means it's more in the range of 10-15)

Am I right in my new reading? Multiply for character combat, addition for unit combat?

[Zorbeltuss]

What I find on page 181:

the unit suffers damage equal to the attack, plus additional damage per degree.

That sounds very much like same thing as regular combat to me.

[coldwind]

Not to me, since the text on 158-159 says "A successful hit deals base damage times degree of success."

Maybe it's the mathematician in me, but "times" and "plus" are very different things.

[SerJerk]

I concur with Zorbeltuss. To put it in more mathematical terms, "damage" is a value that's equal to the attack (stats from unit page). The unit takes "damage" on a hit, plus an additional "damage" per degree - meaning that, in effect, an attack with 3 degrees of success would take 3*damage.

[coldwind]

To be fair, I'm not sold on my re-reading, but the text is different enough to give me pause.

Also, if you're going to use that definition of "damage", the sentence would still need errata, because it's current phrasing would yield (damage) + (damage * degree) - making unit damage even more powerful.

[SerJerk]

I'll concede that my math is likely silly and wrong, but the overall point is valid, honest!

In the GoT edition, there are further clarifications (can't recall if these are in the original, don't have it with me):

-Pg. 186 under Attack says "If the result beats the target's Defense, it scores a hit and deals damage multiplied by degree of success"

-Pg. 194, "An Example of Warfare", under Step Seven: Orders gives an example of a unit attacking and hitting another unit with 3 degrees of success, dealing a total of 9 damage. As the unit's stats appear earlier in the description, we can see that their damage is 3, making it clear that it indeed damage*degree rather than damage+degree.

[Zorbeltuss]

It says that on page 180 of normal book, too.

[coldwind]

Why yes. Yes it does.

Show me to pick and choose which sections to read.

Still odd way to phrase pg 181 though.