Re: (TFT) Small Adjustments to UC talents...

["Craig W. Barber" <craigwbar@comcast.net>]

Hmm, the problem being at both lower and higher levels.  I *think* I've seen
guys do OK in campaigns which let you start at a higher level, but I cannot
right now recall ever seeing it.

BTW, I should've said I liked your idea on the increased odds on special
damage.  Since 9 or less comes up almost half the time, you'd expect two or
three punches to end it.  OTOH, I'm not sure a comparable weapons user is
going to need 2 to 3 strikes to end it the other way.

Challenge: can anyone come up with an example of a martial artist who
deliberately went into serious multi-person mC*lC)es or real military battles
*totally unarmed*?  Maybe the problem here is people expecting too much.  In a
bar fight, boxing match, or back-alley brawl, the UC guy rocks, but nobody
ever said "The enemy is coming!  Quick, drop all your weapons and prepare to
fight to the death!"

Which I'd argue would mean that we should just downgrade UC by making it
easier to get, and stop expecting UC guys to give up all their IQ and weapons!
Let the UC guy also have a Katana and some IQ to use it.


----- Original Message -----
From: raito@raito.com
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 9:24 PM
Subject: Re: (TFT) Small Adjustments to UC talents...


Quoting "Craig W. Barber" <craigwbar@comcast.net>:

> Sounds like you see the same problem: it's hard to get any useful benefit
for
> the cost spent at lower levels of UC.  The main question is, how big an
> adjustment to basic canon should we make, which I suppose boils back down
to
> the usual question, what kind of campeign do you run?

I see a worse problem at the higher levels.

If you're IQ 14, DX16, ST9 (as in the example), you have spent 11
points of that
IQ to get the 'benefit' of the UC skills. Someone of equal experience
spent 2 in
sword and will likely kick your butt, because he'll be wearing armour and you
won't damage him. And if you go HTH, he'll have his dagger doing 1+2 with the
+4DX, even with the 4 dice to hit. About the only decent alternative is
to keep
throwing the other guy to the ground, and hoping for double or triple damage.
Works fine as long as you have the DX on him. If you don't hope he doesn't
hit
you first -- not a good bet if his DX is 16+.

Realism is in conflict with the system here. Real fighters didn't train
exclusively with one type of weapon (many of the existing treatises from the
15th century start with 'wrestling' and move on from there). Also, those
'wrestling' moves (most of which were designed to break limbs or put the
other
guy on the ground) were also used in armour (which the UC skills
disallow). And
if you could punch armour with your hand and damage the guy inside,
you'd think
that there'd be some cult of bare-handed armourers out there.

As far as campaigns, mine are pretty agnostic as far as keeping
characters alive
is involved. Combat is deadly and per canon. Not surprisingly, it
doesn't happen
all that often unless the party can get an advantage from the start.
Shooting a
guy in the back with a longbow works out pretty well...

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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