Re: (TFT) TFT: Expert Weapon Talents

[Pasha and or Rick Smith <pnrsmith@istar.ca>]

	Hi all,

	I feel the same way about Expert Swordsman and Defensive Q.
If the prerequisites and or the corequisites were much higher I would
feel better about the talents.

	Rick 

>   I've had my suspicions that Expert Swordsman and similar talents (at
>http://www.reese.org/tft/Combat.htm) are unbalanced, so I did some
>playtesting.  Testing indicates these talents are probably highly unbalanced
>compared to a similar character without such a talent.
>   To do the playtest I designed two similar 35-point fighters.  The normal
>fighter: ST 12, DX 15(13), IQ 8, MA 8, HS 3, broadsword (2d), small shield,
>leather armor.  The fighter with Expert Swordsman: ST 10, DX 15(13), IQ 10,
>MA 8, HS 3, cutlass (2d), small shield, leather armor.  Both characters
>purposely have the same adjDX.  Also note that both do the same amount of
>damage with their weapon.
>   I ran both fighters against each other one-on-one for 24 battles.  The
>score was 20 to 4 in the expert swordsman's favor . . .  a 5:1 ratio!
>Forcing the opponent to roll 4d6 to hit must be the devastating part of
>Expert Swordsman; equivalent to a minus 3 1/2 to hit -- better than a snake.
>   I was planning on creating some different characters for more testing,
>but the results were so lopsided that I didn't see any reason to continue.
>The results shouldn't change too much with opponents with different
>attributes.
>   I'll be removing this class of talents from my campaigns and characters,
>and I recommend all GMs and solo players here do the same.  Though I haven't
>specifically tested it, I also recommend removing Defensive Quickness (from
>/Interplay/) as well for the same reasons (or at least until it's been
playtested as well).

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