Re: (TFT) Variants = flavor of the age

[lifeisfun@aol.com]

"Judge me by my size do you, and where you should not, for my ally is the force".? 

Thx for the compliment on my research.? I wish I'd unearthed some of the more obscure rules to truly deserve kudos. 

I think I did mention fatigue in my original message.? It seems clear that the intent was that ST 14 meant you could use the weapon without suffering deterity modifications.? But, it does also seem to imply that fatigue is an issue.? 

Unfortuantely, the vast majority of battles take place in under a minute.? A good number of battles take place in three or four turns.? Hollywood would hate Mele.? Mele is, unfortunately, more like baseball than rugby.? The action of a mele battle is often about the same length as a play in baseball.? A pitch, a swing, a scramble and a run, a throw and a catch!? He's outta there. So, I guess what I'm saying is... the average baseball player must only be ST 9 (little girl powerful).? 

Let's look at this another way.? Maybe I'll make the case for you.? 

The debate could be viewed from the angle that one point difference in strength is either a "relatively large difference in strength" or it is a "relatively small difference in strength".? 
So, i've cited examples that tend to show that the difference is relatively small. But, if I wanted to cite that the difference was large, I'd shift over to other uses for strength such as fatigue and constitution rolls.? 

I don't have the books with me today, but we roll three or four die against strength most times to save vs. different types of poison.? I believe the statistical Mean for three dice is 10.5.? And, I'm sure everyone knows that the odds are greatly in favor of rolling a 10 or an 11 over a 
4 or a 17.? The reason is the number of die combinations that create a 10 or an 11 in contrast to the number of die combinations that make a 4 or a 17.? 

So, without knowing the exact probabilities, I think it is safe to say that there's a mathematical reason for saying that a single point of strentgh gains has a much greater difference the closer you get to 16 (automatic success on three dice).? But, unfortunately, since there is next to no difference mathematically between rolling a 10 or an 11, this doesn't support what you have proposed at all.

The other example has to do with fatigue.? If you were to say that there is very litttle difference between strength points, then expending strength as fatigue doesn't mean very much.? But, clearly, if you fatigue a 13 strength figure by only 2 points, you have just opened the possiblity of a normal two die damage roll killing (knocking him unconscious). 1/13th of your total strength is quite a lot.? Again, mathematically, if you are ST 10 and you can lift 200 lbs, then one strength point is equal to 20 lbs, on a flatline scale.? Hmm.. that doesn't sound like very much, now that i think about it and I'm not sure I would allow a 10 strength figure to pick up something weighing 200 lbs.

What about the damage rules?? At what point did extra strength add to the normal 1d damage in HTH combat?? I think it was at 18.? Hmm.. again, that doesn't seem to be saying that there's a huge difference between strengths.? It seems like you have to spend a huge number of strength points to get even a marginal increase in damage.

I don't deal with encumberance very often.? What are the encumberance rules?? How much extra weight can a person carry (without extra fatigue) per ST point?

Hmm.. I set out to try to support the other side of this debate, but I'm not doing a very good job.? 

You know, you did bring up an interesting point about strength irrespective of mass/size.? I think you can't introduce mass/size without really messing things up.? An ant, for example, is incredibly strong in relation to it's size.? If we were shrunk down to an ant's size, the ant would own us.? Of course, an ant would be a two hex creature.? Maybe I should have used the example of a flea.? Fleas are even stronger!

Good Fortune,
Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: David Michael Grouchy II <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 4:41 pm
Subject: RE: (TFT) Variants = flavor of the age


...But generally everyone perceives ST 25 to be an
absolute value irrespective of the creatures Mass.? 

...So it may be obvious that I'm trying to leverage endurance as a very
important unrealized aspect of Strength.? It explains how I can say a ST 9
Rapier user in TFT is in Olympic form.? Sure other people can fence, and fence
well.? But can they fence for an hour tirelessly and under duress.? I know, I
know.? This is what is called a weak argument.? 

...And calling ST 9 Olympic form definetly
deviates from the ITL page 7 ``10 is the human 'average' for each attribute.``
But how I feel about it is TFT is too humble in its self description.? The
game is positively modest and only seeking justice.

...So now one can see why I might suggest that all genetic variation can exist
between ST 10 and 11.? In the invisible space of over a one point spread.
Because I'm packing entire worlds into that space.? but on the Frivolity scale
I feel the numbers are accurate enough to launch and land an interplanetary
mission three hundred and seventy one times in a row with out incident.? 

David Michael Grouchy II
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"