memetics said:
The math is off because one character gets to use their AP twice each round, while the other only gets to use their AP once. It doesn't make sense to receive the AC bonus for not moving, *and* to be able to use all your action points *again* for movement and attacking, all in the same round. The AC bonus is supposed to be given for not using some or all of the AP: in other words, for spending your action points on defense by not using them for movement and attack. The "wrong math" I refer to is the doubling error of being able to use the same action points twice.
Ok, I see where you're coming from. I think it all depends on how exactly one defines the term "a round of combat".
It seems you look at each round of combat being related to the other -- kinda like each link in a continuous chain. But the Pen-and-Paper model that Fallout 2 uses views each combat round as a totally separate units -- in other words, each round of combat should have absolutely no impact on the other rounds, speaking from a pure mechanics point-of-view (i.e. how different values such as hit percentage and damage dealt are calculated).
So, try to look at combat in Fallout 2 as being solely determined by Pen and Paper mechanics -- if you're limited to using only pencil, paper, and some dice to determine combat in Fallout 2, how would you implement the system? And remember, it is well documented that from a mechanics point-of-view, the original developers wanted to replicate this Pen-and-Paper system down to last details. On looking at the assembly, it looks like about the only thing not simulated is the die roll: they use a pseudo-random number generator instead.
Now, that's not to say that the system is without flaws -- for example, you just pointed a good one out. In fact, I'm aware that there's been huge debates - flame wars, really - on NMA in the past about the merits of such a turn-based system. But it is what it is.
memetics said:
It doesn't add up, imho, and just intuitively, it doesn't make sense that a character somehow defends better against another character who's faster (higher sequence) but more poorly against a character who's slower. If you swing and kick faster than me, you'd expect to be able to hit me more, and more effectively, not the opposite, no?
Actually, as a matter of fact, this isn't quite true. In my chosen martial arts, it is designed to help you against opponents that are faster than you: One of the effects of higher speed is that the faster person also has a higher chance to over-leverage himself, and we are taught to use relatively slower movements to exploit this. Mind you, that's not saying that we're slow -- I'm sure in terms of absolute speed, we're both pretty fast.
Having said all that, though, I definitely understand your point about the system not being intuitive. Again, if you can think of a system of discrete combat turns that's more fair -- unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to change the system to a more continuous "chain" type of mechanics -- I'm willing to see what can be done on an implementation level.
-- The Haen.
Maybe that was why I couldn't kill them in my encounter: my SEQ was too high. (I probably could have and should have run away, though - after snorting some SEQ-reducing healing powder! lol)
