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Re: (TFT) Moving through figures
At 10:15 PM 4/8/06 -0400, David O. Miller wrote:
...
Here's another situation from a game that I played a while back. Picture a
bottle neck, shaped like an hour glass.
...
The question is: what can figure (A) do? He can not stand. If he crawls
is he disengaging from his enemies? Can he even crawl into a hex that is
occupied by a standing figure, friendly or not? Could he crawl into an
enemies hex that is furiously engaged in combat with a standing figure?
Hmm, either it's just my rusty TFT, or the rules aren't very clear on this
point.
Looking at the Advanced Melee rules, it looks like A's options are these:
* Stay put and wait for B to do something (or be done upon).
* Attempt to enter HTH with a foe, but this will fail unless the HTH entry
conditions are met (enemy kneeling or lying, or enemy back to wall, or
enemy MA is 1 or 0 since crawling is MA 2, or enemy offers a rear hexside
or the enemy agrees - and they might want to, because it might get (A) in
even deeper trouble).
* Stand up (you say he could not stand up, but I don't know why - why
not?). This would I think prevent B from fighting that turn, but would
allow one or both of them to disengage next turn, assuming the people
behind them allow it.
* Declare himself in HTH with B, and attempt to disengage from that HTH,
requiring a 4-die roll on DX to succeed... but since there are friends
filling the hexes he wants to get to, I suppose they would need to agree to
let him do that, unless the HTH entry conditions are met.
* Lawyer the disengagement rule, and disengage from the enemies, claiming
that since the enemies are engaged with B, A should be allowed to
disengage. Again, the friends behind A & B would need to agree to let him
enter one of their hexes, unless the HTH entry conditions are met.
Do all of the figures on his side have to move back one hex to allow him
to stand?
I think not, but if they allow him to stand in a hex where they are also
standing, they won't be able to fight back - it'll be like they are in
voluntary standing HTH with each other - they can't strike out while two of
them are standing in the same hex.
Or can he crawl through the legs of his friends and stand up at the rear?
Yes.
This was a tough one. It was a make or break situation for both players.
The figure that fell was a high experienced character that would have
definitely influenced the battle if a lucky hit had not knocked him down.
Would you have ignored the rules concerning movement to make it more
realistic, allow him to crawl away and thus aid one player or ruled that
he was stuck where he was which would aid the other player?
Yes. I think the rules don't quite cover every possible situation and
reasonable action, and this is something of a hole, or at least I didn't
find a clearer answer than I gave above.
I think there is an inconsistency in that the rules say you can escape HTH
with a 4/DX roll to disengage from HTH. I tend to think that at the very
least, a figure stuck in a crowd like this should probably be able to make
a 4/DX roll to squirm away, disengaging no matter who claims to have them
engaged.
I think the part about people being able to deny entry into their own hex
causes a problem in jammed up areas.
FWIW, in GURPS, there is no engagement and unless someone is holding onto
your character, you can crawl about when on the ground, at least 1 hex per
turn, and it seems to work well. TFT mainly needs engagement where GURPS
doesn't, because TFT splits movement and action, so engagement lets you get
a chance to hit someone before they move away or past. But when the rules
start to seem to deny the ability to move at all out of a position, I think
that gets to be a problem.
PvK
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