Re: (TFT) Dexterity Problem in TFT

[Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com>]

On Sun, 1 Jan 2006 01:10:56 -0600
<Gavin@TheFantasyQuest.com> wrote:

> The DX of your opponent DOES affect your own performance (i.e.., your own 
> ability to hit or score).
> 
> I sword-fight with my 8-year-old all the time, and I can guarantee you this: 
> He will NEVER land a hit on me unless I want him to.  Period.
> 
> That's the problem.

This comes back to one of the main discussions on this list, that of
abstraction vs. realism.  

> How did Ludd get through John Carson's defense?  John Carson's Superior DX 
> is completely un-accounted-for in Ludd's chance-to-hit.  Could it be a basic 
> flaw in the game mechanics?

With TFT's turn-based mechanics and the options available to a character,
I'd say Ludd hit because in the brief time a turn represents, Gavin chose to attack, not to defend.  That gave Ludd enough of a chance to get his knife
into Carter.  Because of a lucky damage roll, he manages to inflict a point
of damage, which isn't really going to affect Carter all that much.

I'd liken this to either Shelob vs. Sam or Merry vs. the Nazgul Lord in
LotR.  In each case, it was unlikely that the attacks made would be 
successful, and yet they were.

Should the attacked character always get a chance to jump out of the way
of the attacker, even if he's busy bringing a longsword up and around?
>From the realistic model point of view, maybe.  But from the abstracted
mechanics point of view, I'd say that overall, the odds will even out, and
Ludd will shortly be a hardly recognizible pile of viscera shortly, while
Carter heads off in search of a Band-Aid(tm).

I've never had a problem abstracting the combat, but as the archives will
show, others have gone to great lengths to add the realistic combat modeling
to the TFT rules, ending up with more roll-playing than role-playing.

To me, the beauty of the TFT mechanics are that if you just accept the
abstraction and that the probabilities take care of the details, you can
have a fast-paced game with not a lot of dice-rolling.  If you want the
more detailed approach, though, the TFT mechanics lend themselves to 
any level of modification desired.

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh@brainiac.com
 Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
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