Re: (TFT) More Weapons, and variable strength

[David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com>]

>
> Arrows are really not expensive. If they were, the English wouldn't have
>
had so many


I think they had so many because they were rich (by that period's standards)
and built up a huge arrow industry. And they still had shortages.

My experience is that it's easier to teach basic competency with a sword

than nearly any other hand weapon. Have you learned to use any of them?


My expertise is limited to a little foil but AFAICT those who claim more
knowledge seem to feel a sword requires more work because most swords
are quite flexible and do a lot of different jobs. Depending on sword type
you
might need to learn parries and cuts and thrusts. It might be *harder* to
hit
with a spear but that doesn't mean it needs more training.

The naginata in game terms is nothing more than a polearm that gives more
> damage if one has the requisite skill. And note that when the wielder has
> the strength for a more powerful weapon, that skill no longer has value.
>

Which is why the parry rules, that emphasise DX over ST, are the naginata
warrior's friend.

Similarly, I don't consider the names of any of the weapons to be literal.
> They're just part of the fetish of game designers to put names to things.
> I can partly understand that, because 'sword for strength 11 doing 2-1'
> doesn't sound as good as 'shortsword'. But don't let names get in the way
> of the mechanics. Don't go the way of Gygax, who had to have umpteen pole
> arms, every one just a bit different. They just aren't all that different
> (and I say that from experience).
>

I actually don't have a problem with this. Sure, a halberd and a pollaxe
are a
lot alike, but letting a player pick one or the other can only add to the
feel they
have for the character. Even if they just pick the weapon on the basis of a
photo in Wikipedia, it's helped them visualise. And if they think it's cool
they
can use their weapon to pull a knight off his horse then let them pick a
weapon
that can do that.

>>  If you grew up on a farm, you used an ax as a tool and a spear to fend
 off
>>  predators. And when you wandered off to become a hero, they were
probably
>> the weapons you took with you.

> That happened a lot less in Europe than you might think.

Not sure what you mean didn't happen. From what I've read the Anglo-Saxon
fyrd used things that weren't strictly weapons.

I think that damage should scale with ST... in theory... but that one
> should try to be aware of the effects on gameplay of any house rules.
> It doesn't take much to throw TFT balance off quite a bit, as it's
> balanced by single point values.
>

I've put a lot of work into balancing. The software that builds the HTML
file has a quite complex algorithm, I tried to think of as many
pathological cases as I could.


> most TFT players seem to be playing TFT because they
> prefer the simplicity.)
>

I thought about that. But this is a kind of complexity that (a) only
involves looking up a huge table and (b) is only done at character
generation time. The play is still simple.

If I were to try to make a TFT house rule, it might simply be +1
> damage rank for every 2 ST you have over the weapon's MinST, or
> something.


That reduces the penalty for using the wrong weapon, but doesn't eliminate
it. Not
sure it helps much.


> That is at least consistent with the -1 per 2 ST under the MinST.
>

I don't know that rule. I trust it's not the only penalty.

I would also use something like the active defense rules we were
> using in the Thail PBEM campaign, minus the super-elite defense
> master talents which seemed overpowered unless you _want_ a tiered
> uberness effect.
>

The best talent is the IQ 9 one, which makes the old-fashioned IQ 8 fighter
obsolete. The second talent is the least attractive, the third is good
again.

--
David

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