Attack Roll Modifiers

The current setup for combat to-hit is: get 8+ on 2d6, modified by weapon skill, and whether the target is moving or not (actively trying not to be hit, but not via skillful dodging).

Which leads to two things: some critters are naturally difficult to hit; having a heavy damage soak armor on them isn't quite the same, at least feeling-wise; the end effect may be the same (takes 5-10 seconds to actually kill the critter), but it feels different to knock a point off each second until it's dead, vs missing repeatedly until you manage to get a hit in, which takes it down to zero.

So: skill (or animal trait) 'hard to hit'. From a skill standpoint, this'd be treated the same as anything else; -3 if you don't have it (and that would be considered to be built into the base to-hit), so at hard-to-hit-0, there'd be a -3 modifier on the to-hit roll... hth-1, and a -4.

(The skill makes sense lore-wise, as knowing how to swing a sword well is a very different thing than knowing how to -dodge- a sword well. You can know one and not the other, I think)

This is a problem with the numbers and quick readability / standards used; every other skill, -0 = 0 modifier, -1 = +1 to a roll, etc. This ignores that, and that's bad.

So maybe it's hard-to-hit-0 is the base for this skill, and hth-1 = +1 to the defense (ie, -1 to the to-hit), etc. Perhaps we take that as meaning that all PC's / humanoid NPC's have had a childhood of evading blows of their friends, etc, so all of them start w/ hth-0.

That's probably the way to go.

A worry is that this leads to modifier buildup - I definitely do not want the to-hit to become a mess of 5+ modifiers. I also don't want GMs or players to have to consult a long table, "I'm leaping through the air, so -1, he's turned to the side, that's +1, but he's distracted with another foe, that's a +2, and I had a cheese sandwich a minute ago, so that's -1," etc.