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Re: (TFT) thrown weapons



Quoting gem6868 <gem6868@verizon.net>:
Since thrown weapons are a "regular attack", you can move half and throw
them, right?

Yep.
My experience with trying out a thrown weapon in Melee Arena Combat is that
the low likelihood of a hit unless you are right on top of someone, combined
with being close to them and having to switch weapons almost always gives
them a free attack.

Only if the combat is one on one. In many-on-many battles, it's different. As well, it's usually not a good idea to throw your only weapon, unless it ends the fight. So you're usually going to have something else in your hand, and the opponent doesn't get a free attack.
Historically, these heavy short-ranged weapons were
considered pretty dangerous, especially in the hands of practiced users like
Romans, Franks, et al.

You may wish to re-visit that assumption. In those cases, the weapons were used as volley fire. There's far less doucmentation for their use in single combats. Which might lead to another question about how to resolve volley fire in TFT. The roll-to-miss mechanic is fine for aimed shots. But what about volleys? I'll just throw something out there, and you guys can point out how I haven't thought it through. Volley fire is unaimed missle fire. When an archer does volley fire, they choose the hex they're aiming at, and roll to hit. Failures are counted as normal, and there is no automatic hits, or doubled/tripled damage. If the combat roll succeds, the arrow strikes the hex that was aimed at. If the roll misses, then the missle lands a number of hexes away from the target hex equal to the number the roll missed by, in a direction determined by a D6, where 1 is along the nearest stright hex line from archer to target, proceeding clockwise. Any figure in a hex struck by volley fire must roll their DX on 3 dice to avoid being hit, -1 for every subsequent volly fire hit in the hex in that turn. Example: A the Archer makes a volley fire shot at T the Target in the target hex. If A makes his roll, T rolls to avoid getting hit. If O the Other Archer also happens to hit T's hex, T rolls DX-1 to miss. Thus, volley fire is inherently less accurate, but the arrow does fall somewhere with a chance to do damage. And remember, having the Missle Weapons Talent significantly changes how penalty for range is calculated. For my own experience, I know I can (used to) throw a pilum 20 yards or so and land it well within a hex. I also know that I can with a 50 lb bow (which is pretty weak for combat), land something like 75% of my shots into a space 15 feet across at 100 yds. without much practice at all.
Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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