Re: (TFT) How often should TFT swords Break

[John J Hyland <johnnyboytmm@juno.com>]

First, I want to apologize for re-opening this can of worms.  But as long as its open I'll wade right in (and mix a few metaphors along the way).

I am willing to assume that cheap, good, and real good weapons break somewhere between 1 in 216 and 1 in 7500 rounds, and that maybe a stunningly well constructed weapon, the kind that costs a kings ransom, maybe survives those mishaps, and only breaks 1 in 45,000.

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 A rule along the lines of "A fine-quality weapon gets stuck (12 turns to recover) if it makes the roll to avoid breaking" might work - more severe than an ordinary drop-weapon result, but less so than a break-weapon one.
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In my game On an 18, if the weapon does not break, I make it a little more than just dropped in the same hex.  Usually I describe it flying overhead, or skittering accross the floor.  But having it get stuck in something (assuming the appropriate environment) would work too, and add to the color of combat.

  

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But I'm glad to see that you consider trying to get the odds right to be important. One reason why the subject is a sore point with me is that I've encountered so many gamers who *don't* care about getting the odds right. Or worse, gamers who considered grossly screwed up odds to be "more realistic" as long as they were screwed up in the More Bad Shit direction. 
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I don't know that I want to get it right, but I am also not just looking for bad stuff.  As long as the likelihood is vaguely reasonable, that is enough for me.  And i think a range of 216 to 45,000 is good enough for government work.  Plus there is always the Repair spell hangigng around, so broken weapons are not that big a deal, which IMO would incresse the likelyhood that tft weapons are cheap.

I also like the double and triple damage - good stuff. 

Thanks for the enlightening discussion fellas, I will run my extra dice ideas past the party, and may start having the occasional non-break 18 get stuck somewhere, rather than thrown.

John



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