Re: (TFT) House rule on Wizards with Quarterstaff Talent.

[ErolB1@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/27/2006 4:09:56 AM Central Daylight Time, 
rsmith@lightspeed.ca writes:


>    When Advanced Melee first came out some players asked
> me if they could take quarterstaff talent with wizards and
> do 2d+2 with 11 ST.  That seemed way too high for me and
> I discouraged it.
> 
>    However I bought the TFT codex, and in the Q&A section
> they said you could do this, but the wizard's staff only 
> did 2 dice of damage (I think).  2 dice was balanced for
> play, but the damage made no logical sense sense to me &
> so I promptly forgot the rule.  I did allow wizards to 
> take quarterstaff talent, and do both the quarterstaff
> damage AND the die of damage from the magical shock from
> the staff spell.  (Remember, a wand or twig with a staff
> still does 1 die damage.)
> 
>   Even paying double, lots of martial wizards did take
> quarterstaff and yes, it did not feel balanced.  In 
> particular, the starting wizards were doing more damage
> than the starting fighters in melee combat and that did
> not seem fair.

I allow the full 2d+2 damage, rather than 2 dice, but only because I like 
that particular trick and want to have NPCs use it. (There's also the factor that 
it doesn't really cause wizards to outshine heroes in melee, under my house 
rules: A St 11 IQ 12 wizard who spends a quarter of his skill points on this 
trick gets a 2d+2 attack, yes, but a St 11 IQ 12 hero who spends a quarter of 
his skill points (twice as many as the wizard) on becoming a quarterstaff 
specialist has a 1d+2 weapon with two attacks per turn and a +2 Dx bonus.)

If I didn't like the trick and wanted to weaken it, I'd rule that it 
increased an object's damage, when used as a weapon, to 1d or by +1 point, whichever 
gave the higher damage. So the quarterstaff-wizards-staff would do 1d+3. 

I should also note that I don't allow the damage bonus if the wizard's staff 
is used as a thrown weapon, that I allow a wizard to have only one (1) Staff 
at a time (which I think is the official rule, but I can't find it), and that I 
take a strict and narrow intrepretation of "if another character picks up the 
staff against the wizard's will..." - I do *not* want wizards to use their 
staves as improvised bombs. 

In fact, I'm thinking about changing the rule to something like "If another 
character is holding a wizard's staff, the wizard may telepathically command 
the character to drop it. If the character refuses to obey, the staff explodes 
and does 3d damage to the character. However, if the character is for some 
reason *unable* to obey (and can't drop the staff as a free action) then the staff 
does not explode."

Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow
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