Re: (TFT) Shield rush in Melee

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

At 02:03 PM 11/22/03 -0500, ErolB1@aol.com wrote:
> I've concluded that +1 damage per +1 required St in a weapon-series is overly
> *generous*, and not something that can be kept up over a wide range of St
> scores.

I'd agree there in principle. You might want to examine a curve based on 
the average human experience. A ST 10 human does 2d-2 or 1d+1 with a 
one-handed weapon, which averages 4.5 to 5 per hit, and does from 0 min to 
10 max damage. That is, only an extreme blow kills in one shot (with no 
armor), while the average is two blows to kill or knock out an opponent. 
+1/+1 ST would tend to move things towards one hit gives one kill. +1/+2 ST 
maintains the same condition of two unarmored hits per kill. Three 
immediate complications come to mind, though:

1) TFT over-generalizes the ST attribute, making it represent both muscle 
and grit (capacity to survive damage). While for most humans they might be 
related, some things like a giant dragon or a giant might take a lot of 
damage to injure because they are large and tough, without having a 
proportional increase in ability to do damage. This is partly handled by 
giving all the non-humans damage amounts that aren't on the same curve as 
human weapons. Once you try to apply a mechanistic damage system, though, 
you might want to consider splitting grit from muscle, and different 
physiology, etc. (And then abstract it so it'll be as simple as TFT, of 
course.) ;-)

2) One needs to consider how one thinks the low and high ends should scale 
away from the average case. Should armed weaklings require more blows to 
kill each other than armed strongmen?

3) Since the high-ST TFT weapons also become two-handed, one has to decide 
how much of an advantage is given to those weapons, and/or opinions of 
which weapons are more or less efficient in general.


> "Normal" advancement, outside a weapon-series "sweet spot" should be
> something like +1 damage per +2 or +3 required St, which means that increased
> damage due to wielders high St alone should be on an even shallower slope 
> - like +1 per +4 St.

Sounds reasonable.

PvK
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"