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(TFT) Action Report - DCG's "The Dark Vale"; also rules comments
All,
Over the holidays, I got together with friends and family to
do some TFT gaming, and thought I'd relay our experiences and some
related thoughts.
Our referee used one of the Dark City adventures, "The Dark
Vale". He expertly tuned up the threats to match the size of our
party.
The party included a total of 8 players; me, 3 kids, my
brother, and 3 friends. Each had a character with 4 additional
attribute points. (At least two of the players besides myself are
readers here; corrections or comments welcome from them if they think
I misrepresented anything or left out something important.)
The party included:
2 archers, one elf and one tiger-man.
Both shot twice a turn, one with a longbow and one a horse bow.
2 hobbits, both with daggers and sha-ken, one a master physicker, one a thief.
1 wizard, IQ 16, Lightning, 7-hex Illusion, Alchemy, Aid, etc.
1 fencer, ("Indigo") Two Weapons, Fencing, Rapiers
1 wrestler, ("Fizzick") ST:18, warrior, Veteran, Running, Leather Armor, Maul
1 leader, ("Rotini"), Tactics and Strategy, New Followers, etc.
Yeah, we did a whole lot of "Princess Bride" quotes with the
last three.
Below, comments from me and some of the other players.
We played with several house rules. One we particularly liked
is the "mostly dead" rules ("I've seen worse") under which a
character isn't irremediably dead until his ST goes to a negative
value equal to his normal uninjured ST. At less damage than that, he
can be physicked or healing-potioned back to life, if he makes a roll
of less than ((original ST) - (amount below 0 post-potion and
post-Physick)). This helped a lot; we lost two characters, at least
one of whom turned out to be absolutely crucial later on, but were
able to revive both. However, we think maybe these rules take *too*
much of the sting out of dying. I think maybe it would be a good idea
for a "mostly dead" character to lose some attribute points upon
revival; maybe (amount below zero as wounded)/2, rounded up, maximum
5 points?
Indigo turned out to be quite effective, to my shock. Turns
out the fencing double-damage bonus (or better) comes up over 16% of
the time, and with two attacks/turn that means every 3rd turn or so
he can expect to see it. Meantime, he can clean off a swarm of
nuisance creatures or goblins or whatever, or disengage first if he
likes because he has three extra points of adjDX that he didn't have
to pour into ST to carry the broadsword.
Fizzick also turned out to be very effective. Running meant
he could engage in HTH against most strong opponents (when the party
had numerical superiority), even when the leader managed not to win
initiative (which was rare). When we did get initiative, he could
circle around and tackle from behind during movement phase. Against
more numerous opponents, he could defend with his maul and made a
very good front-line fighter, with 4 points (Veteran and leather
armor, which cost nothing due to his great strength (ITL pp. 8)) of
protection. One of our more experienced players commented that he had
never ever seen a character go on an adventure with no weapons talent
at all; nevertheless, this one worked out well.
I played the leader, and had a blast trying to rattle off
Vizzini quotes at the appropriate moments. ("... but only slightly
less well known is this: Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is
on the line! Ah hah hah hah hah...." )
The Hobbits. Sigh. They came through like troopers, which was
kind of the problem, in some views. A 34-point Hobbit, with racial
bonuses, Thrown Weapons, a fist full of Sha-ken, and a copy of
Advanced Melee flipping back and forth between "Dagger Marksmanship"
and "Aimed Shots" rules (AM pp.20-22) turns out to be death on two
(short) legs. Big, dangerous opponents - dagger to the head. Numerous
weak opponents - sha-ken snowstorm. Medium opponents - either way.
Our referee was somewhat frustrated with our MO of ringing up,
defending the hobbits, and letting them pick off his best fighters
with aimed daggers and sha-ken.
Challenges of being a GM.
Hate hobbits. Tolkien would take back every word he ever wrote if he
knew that gamers just use his hobbits as thieves and assassins.
;-) Bilbo Baggins *was* a thief. Somewhat reluctant and not
too clever about it, but hey.
But yeah, I'm not clear about where the swarms of Murderous
Psycho Ninja Sniper (MPNS) Hobbits come from either, from a
role-playing point of view. They are definitely not cute and fuzzy,
like hobbits are supposed to be.
Does anyone else have issues with the MPNS Hobbit concept? It
really does seem like a very *very* effective character, and one that
seems to take such strong advantage of a set of rules that it almost
forms a loophole.
I have only one mitigating suggestion, and that would be to
rule that the Hobbit racial bonus does not apply when throwing more
than one sha-ken (no bonus damage, no bonus DX).
On the other hand, one player opines:
Sha-Ken and Hobbits- what's wrong with hobbits being the dominant
missile thrower in at least one game setting? It explains why these
little buggers haven't been wiped out a long time ago. Maybe don't
allow Sha-ken to do double or triple damage, if you feel like they
are too overpowered. But maybe make the damage be cumulative, so
they will do at least some damage against armored foes.
On the subject of loopholes, here's a list of things that
seemed unfairly powerful in general in the rules, to one or more
players:
Sha-Ken (particularly in combination with MPNS Hobbits)
Naginata
Boomerang
Nun-chuk
Molotails
Gunpowder
Initiative bonus for having Strategist
Reaction roll bonus for a Charismatic Hobbit with New Followers
Most just seem overly powerful for the IQ cost to master
them, particularly in comparison with e.g. Unarmed Combat, which can
soak up an amazing number of IQ points to really exploit. The generic
answer, I think, is that if the party uses them, the party can expect
to face them, at least where the adventure is not pre-canned.
Gunpowder is balanced out somewhat by cost and unreliability.
On the last two:
the "making friends and influencing people" skill ... seems too
overpowered on a D6 reaction roll. Maybe make reaction rolls be 2D6.
... it could really alter the game play in an open ended setting
(Nazgul walks up, <character> wins him over, <character> and Nazgul
are now buds?) .
Strategy and Tactics- again, seemed overpowering using D6. Our party
went first like 80% of the time (it seemed) which doesn't seem
realistic when facing bands of hardened foes. Maybe make Initiative
a 2D6 roll as well. S&T would still be very useful, but one side
doesn't consistently dominate the battlefield. It seems like
deciding who moves when is the single best benefit to have in ITL
combat
In fairness, our party *heavily* exploited the initiative
advantage, with our HTH specialist and the desire to get MPNS Hobbits
close to but not engaged with their targets.
Regarding Aimed shots in general:
A character with strength six should not be able to do six points of
damage (on an aimed shot) that puts a 30 ST character out of the
game from such a distance and at virtually no risk at all.
Head shots- way too overpowering. I would have been very frustrated
as the GM with so many front line types going down in one shot.
I might scale the number of hits needed for all of the aimed
shot effects up by the ST of the target - 6 points for a nominal
16-ST human, so 10 points for a 30-ST boss. Generally, similar to the
"Reactions to Injury" rules on AM pp 18.
Think about if you had a party and you walked into room to be
greeted by three hobbits juggling daggers and sha-ken.
Scream and run.
More generally, I think adjDX is underrated - it really *is*
valuable in this game.
Regarding shield-rushes:
Do a shield rush attack that has a chance to knock down your
opponent. A shield rush is considered an attack but I have never
seen someone use it.
If you knock him down you might shift on to attack someone else
while a weaker character takes on the fallen guy.
Better yet, take two weapons and use the shield as the first attack,
the second would be at -4DX but if you had knocked down your
opponent it would be at +4DX too and they would cancel each other
out.
You might have to that use of two weapons by your GM but it seems
like a creative use of the rules.
It would be a way of playing your HTH character but without scuffing
your knees up as much. Also if outnumbered it might give you a way
to compensate but limiting the number of characters that are
standing.
I admit, I don't have a good feeling about shield-rushes. At
best, you hit, they miss, they get knocked down. Next turn, they
stand during movement, and you get a "free" attack at them. But if
all you want was an attack at them, you could have done that on the
first turn.
If you miss, you wasted your action (but would have done
anyway if you'd done a regular attack, so it's the same).
If you hit but they also hit (ie stay standing), you *also*
wasted your action, and they still get to attack you. In this case,
it seems a clear loss compared to a regular weapon attack - basically
the shield-rush defense gives them an "extra" action which can
nullify your action if they succeed.
Is it legal to "Defend" against a shield-rush?
Comments? Has anyone figured out how to use shield-rush effectively?
Regarding play-aids:
I love minis, they can really add life to the board- too bad they
don't make them with hex bases any more, although the circular
bases didn't seem to be much trouble
MAN I agree. I think even Mark is sold at this point, although I
don't know how any of us are going to get together a mini set that
looks ANYTHING like yours ... I think you have an open invite to
every gaming session ever again... :)
Correct, miniatures help a lot. I think I'm convinced now of
their utility, whereas I was not before. One of the players brought
extra-thick counters (glued to foam-board) which were good too.
I think if you hit someone's turn to act and they are gone from the
gaming table then they miss their actions.
Everyone have their own dice and roll in a jar or a bowl. You could
say that a die off the table is an automatic missed roll.
:-) OK, I can live with that. It would be interesting to see
what fraction of the lost time really was bad die rolls.
Don't take forever to shake the dice
For reference, we played for roughly 16 straight hours. 8-O <- yawn
Regarding the DCG adventure:
I really like the adventures made by this company.
Yup, they are pretty good.
I wish you had gone to some of the other areas, there are some very
interesting stories there and some big rewards.
We cleaned out a lot of the map; if we'd had longer we could
have done everything, but oh well. I guess we could play it again,
but let the referee re-arrange things, but I think it's always going
to be true of canned adventures that there are paths not taken. True
of some referee creations, too.
I like the plot lines and the variety of story lines.
It is designed for parties of about 4. I doubled the number of bad
guys in some cases and in almost all cases I added to their DX. I
maybe should have done more of this but at least I err'd on the
right side.
There were several cases where I was plenty worried, and in
fact we did end up with two "mostly dead" fatalities (revived) and
one unconscious (revived). On the other hand, we came out with the
party intact, and fulfilled the main mission and at least one good
sub-plot. I like to think we were tactically brilliant, of course,
with one exception, but...
I have many more specific details of our glorious victory,
but for fear of being a spoiler, I'll hold those unless someone
specifically requests details.
... I really don't know the answer to taking a premade and making
it more open ended. Didn't really like the "Do you do A,B,or C?"
approach. B/C invariably players want to do option D, which can
make for a lot of on the fly fun. I also think the opponents could
have been scaled a little tougher, but as a GM I try to make
players wet their pants sometimes- ... I never got that "Oh crap,
we are in for it" feeling (although I did leave the game early)
Yes, later in the game play we had a few more serious calls that
did require a little pucker factor, but this was a strong party and
there was nothing we really could not handle.
Regarding our Party:
Why take new followers for a canned adventure? First, it would throw
the balance off. Second, why couldn't / shouldn't you be able to
accomplish the same thing with a good business case with some social
talents.
In the case of Rotini, it's because I was trying to get as
close to Vizzini as I could, and he clearly had it, to have collected
Inigo and Fezzick. In general, I just think of it as another path for
a character to develop into.
It has always made me a little nervous, too, though. We count
on the new followers as though they were NPC's, but I think they
should take morale checks periodically when they face, oh, say, Death
Incarnate or something.
Do you realize you had a whole party with no two die roll weapons
Depends on your interpretation. There's some evidence in the
rules for a 1D+3 weapon being converted automatically to 2D-1 or 2D
(AW, pp 34, "Flaming weapons"). So Fizzick's 1D+5 maul might have
been properly rolled as 2D+2.
And then there's the 8-Die weapon (wizard with Lightning).
("Walk down to... electric avenue...")
the ITL system builds an idea where different kinds of characters
can fight and some can win while some loose and there is not a
sure winner ...
...very perceptive comment. It's a little like
"rock/scissors/paper" - any one character will be hyper-effective in
some situations but will have an Achilles Heel in others. If the
party is diverse, your buddies can cover for you when you are weak,
and vice versa. I think that's OK, and it's up to the GM to challenge
the party in a variety of ways so each character gets to shine.
Again, more specific details on request. I think I have or
can get character stats for any of the characters that's of interest.
--
- Mark 210-379-4635
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