Re: (TFT) Gates?

[Stan <srydzews@ix.netcom.com>]

> "There is a small chance that a Gate will malfunction and be 
> destroyed each time it is used. The GM should roll 3 dice each 
> time a **figure** passes through. ..."

I think this has been touched on before.  Certainly it is a key 
point.  What is a 'figure'?  The TFT rules regard any character or creature that moves on the hexgrid to be a figure.  (Basically any creature, as well as undead, animate constructs, etc.)  So do we take that sentence to be limiting, as in: ONLY such a thing can trigger the gate?   

Without such an approach, how does one know when to roll for the gate to collapse?   If water can flow through a gate, does a stream only make one roll the first time it hits the gate?  (essentially treating it as one infinitely-long 'figure')  Such an approach is not unworkable, but would seem something of an interpretive leap from the rules as stated.  Even if this were the case, any fish, floating branch, etc. in the stream would require a roll of their own when they hit the gate, so presumably the gate would have to be made with exclusionary rules to prevent such things from going through.

If the test for 'figure-hood' is taken to be a discrete object, as with the stream above, then a handful of thrown sand or gravel is surely the fastest way to take down a gate.

In my opinion a more rational way to approach this would have been "one roll per 'hex' of material" that passes through -- basically one person plus gear, or about 250 lbs. of inanimate material.  This is how I work these things (as I have no love of gates pumping oceans of seawater into annoying cities, etc.), but it is not what the rules say.
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