Re: (TFT) Twisting the Knight Away

[Lloyd Weber <laweber3@yahoo.com>]

I tend to agree that moving into HTH is problematic and should either not be
part of a computer game, or should be one of a set of options/features that
can be enabled or disabled as desired.

Lloyd

----- Original Message ----
From: Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Sunday,
December 3, 2006 1:53:36 PM
Subject: Re: (TFT) Twisting the Knight Away

At
01:47 PM 12/3/06 +0000, John wrote:
>But that all only applies to melee, not
HTH, since a run around HTH
>attack never came up in my years of gaming.  As I
said, I would presume
>that an attacker who could do a run around to get a
rear HTH attack
>could also just initiate HTH by virtue of a higher MA.

No, a
figure with higher MA will still be stopped by Front hexes and be 
forced to
attempt HTH as an action in DX order, giving the opponents some 
chance to
disengage or cut him down before he can tackle them.

My guess is it never
came up because your players were roleplaying and/or 
thinking of the
situation and not gaming the rules, and so it never 
occurred that something
so silly would give such an advantage.

One example of the problem is like
this:
  __    __    __    __    __    __
/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__
\__/  \__/vK\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__
\__/
\__/ 1\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__
\__/^X\__/
2\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
/  \__/ 3\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__
\__/ 4\__/  \__/
\__/  \__/  \__/
/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__
\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
\__/  \__/

Xygor is an Elvish swordsman at X facing north, with DX 18, MA 14,
Alertness, and Unarmed Combat III.
Kog is a hobgoblin with a dagger facing
south, with DX 8, MA 10.

Roll for initiative - Kog wins 50% of the time.
In
the case where Kog wins initiative, he chooses to move first via the 
hexes
marked 1, 2, 3, 4, and then enters Xygor's hex via the rear, 
initiating HTH
instantly, and receiving everyone's generic 4/6 + re-roll 6 
chance to
succeed, knocking Xygor down, etc. None of Xygor's abilities nor 
Kog's
incompetences are taken into account.

If this doesn't seem like a problem yet
(perhaps one might think at first, 
because Xygor is supposed to never start a
turn in open terrain in that 
proximity to any MA 10 foe who might HTH him?),
then consider a slightly 
different situation:

Same map, but K is now a
decent polearm user, who chooses to charge attack, 
and chooses to move first
and by the same path. In this case, Xygor gets to 
move before the attack is
resolved, say, turning to face, and/or perhaps 
choosing to disengage or to
defend. If K had a sword rather than a polearm, 
Xygor would likely get to
swing first (DX order), and in fact there would 
be no real effect of K moving
to Xygor's rear.

* That is, winning initiative in situations besides HTH
initiation, means a 
choice of whether to move first, but not whether to move
and mess up 
enemies before they can do anything at all. Usually the only way
to get 
around a single opponent to attack them normally is to let them move
first 
and then take advantage of their carelessness or a situation where they
decide to expose their side/rear hexes (e.g. because there are multiple
threats or something, or they have lower MA than you and they want to lure
you with a +2 attack so they can engage you next turn).

* So why should any
old figure get to use HTH as a way to shortcut the 
whole initiative system?
I'd say it should not, and so I would advise just ignoring the idea of
entering HTH during movement, and make it only be an action, because it
solves these problems.

PvK
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