Re: (TFT) Armies and special gear

[Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu>]

>From: "Stan"<srydzews@ix.netcom.com>
>
>I suspect most soldiers wouldn't run nearly so lean a budget as you propose,

I suspect you're right - depends on their will for self-preservation vs.
their will to wench - always a losing battle. But there's always the option
for cheaper Fine swords (at least until they are strong enough for a
Bastard Sword).

>or pay such low taxes,

I think the rules for PC's are 2%/month. I assumed 6 4-week months, and
that they had the whole $1200 for the whole 6 months, which is
conservative. But I also assumed a lowly NPC would make the same salary as
a PC, which may be optimistic. But the job requirements are just 4 Weapon
talents, not 32 attribute points. (Else they'd be discriminatory against
hobbits!)

>Probably their first purchase, though, would be healing potions.  Cheap, and
>with a very clear and crucial benefit.

True enough! Can't wait to see the numerical breakdown on swigging potions
during battle.... :-)

>"buy the captain a + IQ helmet".  :)

I love it.
----
>From: "David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>
>
>   The subjects of castles in a magical world has come up three or four
>times.

Oops! Gotta find the earlier ones.

>castles are practially useless as
>defensive postions in a world of teleport, gate, and telepathy.

I'm trying to figure how how/why that won't be true! I *love* castles. They
are just such emotion-laden places, for many reasons. I'd hate to have a
world without castles. Of course, they don't *have* to make sense. Ludwig
didn't have a really good reason to build Neuschwanstein, but he did. But
I'd like to figure out some incentive for more than just mad emperors to
build them.

>My solution
>is a very minor extension of an existing spell.  The pentagram.

Something involving pentagrams is about the only hope I see. I don't see
where anything else gains an advantage from being immobile. (By analogy to
the physical world - the castle just has to *sit* there, so it can be as
heavy/bulky as it wants. The attackers have to lug all their stuff with
them - that's the advantage the defenders have. But practically all of the
magic spells work just as well on the move as in a fixed location.)

>   The wording of the pentagram spells says 'no spell may cross it'.  It
>also says it protects a mega hex.  The house rull I use, is that no matter
>what size the pentagram is, it still protects the whole mega hex.  You only
>need to draw it full sized if you want to summon a creature inside the
>pentagram.

So you basically divided the cost of permanent pentagrams by 7, on a
cost/floor-space basis, if they are intended for protection only? Makes me
a bit nervous.

>   Fixing a small permenant pentagram somewhere on every single floor of a
>mega hex tower would protect the whole tower.

I cannot find in the rules how *tall* a pentagram is. It obviously has a
"floor" and a "ceiling" to keep demons from teleporting in/out, but how far
apart are they?

I argued that a keep with 1-hex pentagrams in the walls, floor, and ceiling
would be invulnerable - in that the contents, though not on the inside of a
pentagram, *would* be encased in a solid layer of pentagrams and that no
magic  could cross the pentagram barrier - but there are dissenting
opinions to that. And it's not a very strong configuration anyway - one
breach in the wall, or roof, and magic is let loose inside. On the other
hand a single pentagram big enough to contain the entire keep ought to be
safe. But that would be pretty expensive - *particularly* if even big
pentagrams are only 3 meters tall, hence a new pentagram is needed for each
floor.

What does it cost to build a non-magical castle, anyway? Maybe $2k/hex is
actually cheap relative to the floor cost of a standard castle, and I'm
quibbling over a minor increment to the castles' cost. Any ideas?

---
>From: "Matt Picone" <matman@mysticworks.com>

>You could even describe naturally occurring materials -- a type of
>stone, for example quarriable from a remote and dangerous area, which
>would give anti-magic protective qualities to the castle constructed
>from it.

Aha! a Greater Magic Item, (or maybe I should say a Greater Magic
Commodity, as it would be turned out by the ton, in the form of bricks and
mortar).

"Pentagram Conductor" Any contiguous structure built of these materials and
having any part within any Pentagram automatically gains the properties of
the Pentagram over its entire extent. If it is a closed structure including
a roof and floor (reasonable windows and doors are permissible), the
enclosed volume also gains the properties of a Pentagram. Pentagram
Conductor may connect two or more pentagrams and will work as long as any
one of its energizing pentagrams remains unbroken. If all its pentagrams
are broken, the Conductor loses its magic properties and reverts to
ordinary building bricks.

Ingredients: Per 3-Ton lot (about 1 cubic meter) : Dust from 1 broken Ward,
1/10 ground-up Amulet of Skepticism, 1 teaspoon of silver dust. Common
ingredients appropriate to the local evironment (adobe in Arizona, mud in
Elbonia, etc.).

What's a fair cost/time per lot?

---
Back to David:

>IQ 17  Substantial Walk(T):

Oooh, another neat idea! Can the Wizard pick up more ST batteries, or
receive Aid spells, while he's taking his constitutional?

and on another topic:

>IQ 17 Flaming Armor(C):  ...
>... This spell cost
>5 points of fatigue per day it is to last.

Can the Armor be taken off, or does the subject need fireproof bedding that
night? How does he/she pee?

							- Mark
=====
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