(TFT) Campaign Report -- The Doodads Worked!

["Ty Beard" <tbeard@tyler.net>]

Gentlemen,

I just completed a full evening of my TFT 2.0 system, which contains many of
the elements we've discussed and some of the suggestions others have made.
It succeeded beyond my expectations. In fact, it appears that nothing failed
to work well.

There were 2 human tanks, one human ranger/bowman, one human martial artist,
1 elf wizard and 1 dwarf thief (with a wheelock pistol).

Here are the changes I made and comments:

1. Used my d20 resolution mechanic. All modifiers doubled (except armor and
shields). Extra dice are -6 to attribute. My players had no problem with it
at all.

2. Kept the TFT magic system, with some additions (healing spells, cantrip
spell, etc.). Also capped missile spells at ST 4 and used a new rule for
continuing type spells: Any spell that has a maintenance cost can be cast at
double the initial cost. The effect lasts for 12 turns at no additional
cost. The wizard lasted most of the adventure and seemed to enjoy himself.

3. Used new death and dying rules. Basically, you go unconscious at 0 to -5
and you lose one point per round if you go to -6 or less. At -ST, you die.
Once per adventure, you can have a "heroic death" and stay conscious until
the turn *after* you reach -ST or less. You then say something dramatic and
get a last action.

4. Allowed players to defend by decreasing the opponent's DX and their own
by the same amount (limited to players' DX-1). Similarly allowed an "all-out
blitz" -- you add to your DX but increase the opponent's DX by the same
amount (limited to your DX-1). This was wildly popular with the strong slow
bashers and ensured great amounts of mayhem on both sides.

5. Used a polyhedral weapon damage system, where ST defines a base damage
and weapons modify that damage. Required bonuses to go up the scale (so a +1
weapon that normally does d8 now does d10, rather than d8+1). Scale was
d4-1, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d12+1, d12+2, d12+3, d20, d20+1, etc. Hafted
weapons do more damage, but reduce DX a bit. No minimum ST for weapons now.
Weapons list shortened (for instance, swords include dagger (-1 dmg, -1 DX),
light sword (-1 dmg, +1 DX), shortsword (-1 DX), longsword, bastard sword
(+1 damage if 2 handed), 2 handed sword (+2 damage)). Very dramatic -- you
can roll a 1 or a 20 as often as a 10 on a d20, and there was a fair amount
of excitement in combat.

6. Armor stopped variable damage: cloth (1d4-1), leather (1d4), chain (1d6),
half plate (1d8), plate (1d10), fine plate (1d12), shields add 1, 2 or 3 to
hits stopped. like normal. Used normal TFT DX adjustment (not doubled). Very
engaging and players loved it. It definitely kept players involved. With
lots of monsters, it became a little tedious for me to roll armor -- I'll
probably use an average next time. I'm also going to use the weapon scale
and have players move up the scale rather than accumulate bonuses. So +1
leather will stop d6 rather than d4+1.

7. Note on polyhedrals: my players enjoyed them and I noticed no slowdown in
the game. I like them too (I'm ashamed to admit this, but there it is).

8. After each combat, if the players rested 5 minutes, they recovered the
lesser of: 1/2 starting ST or the damage they took in the last fight. This
allowed (a) for resiliency in a dungeon crawl and (b) kept individual fights
from going too long.

9. I asked my players for a vote on whether to keep each component and they
unanimously voted to keep each thing.

10. Enough EP was awarded so that everyone got a point. Of 6 players, 3
chose ST, 2 chose DX and the wizard chose IQ.

11. Sadly, no one died. 4 players dropped to unconsciousness and 2 were at
less than -5 at various points. Several times the monsters had a chance to
finish a party member off, but bad dice prevented them from succeeding
<sigh>.

12. Anyone know where I can get d14, d16 and d18s?

13. Oh yes -- strike order was a function of DX as adjusted only by armor.

Conclusion --

We appear to have kept the most enjoyable components of TFT (speed of play,
tactical system, fast character creation, yet somehow produced a much more
intense and exciting game. Whodathunkit?

--Ty
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