(TFT) Death Test, playing to try out Vassal module

[Cris Fuhrman <fuhrmanator@gmail.com>]

Tonight I ran four 34-pt characters through DT to try out the Melee/Wizard
module for Vassal with some modifications I made to it (added some charts
and a notes part). I like it better than the other game-playing aids, even
though it's far from perfect. The interface is intuitive and attractive, and
the documentation for extending modules is decent. There's a strong
community in the Vassal engine forums, although a lot of the games are
chit-type and/or card games.

As for results of going once again through DT, I never opened the chest in
the first room (my fear of spiders?), but anyway, my party was dead within
three more rooms. I ran into some bad luck - a double-damage hit (24 pts)
from a pole-weapon yielding Orc took out my own pole-weapon fighter in the
first room, before he even got a second attack... I nearly wanted to start
over, but as Forrest Gump said, it happens.

In another room, my horse-bow archer normally has two shots, one of which is
first off, and he rolled a 17 on the first shot! Took away lots of his
advantage for that encounter. The spells my wizard took weren't of much use
for the encounters. I regret not taking Clumsiness...

I got one triple-damage roll, and it was on a horse-bow that did 1pt of
damage. The d6 random number generator was stuck on 1 :)

Finally, the idea of a Gargoyle that tries to engage in HTH any weak-armored
players is brilliant. It wiped out my wizard, archer and finally my other
fighter, although it took some time. The wiz was done in one round, and once
my archer had to drop his bow in HTH, he was worthless and took a couple of
turns, even though he disengaged a few times and managed to ready his
dagger... My last fighter was weakened from previous rooms and had the
Gargoyle down to 3 ST before giving up the ghost himself in HTH.

The rule about entering HTH from movement seems too unfair if attacking is
allowed on the same turn that HTH is entered, especially with an MA 16
monster who will disengage the single remaining fighter to try to go after
the cowering light-armored players who stay back. I tried to play where the
Gargoyle doesn't get to attack on the first round it enters HTH. Basic Melee
says entering HTH is option a) (which technically disallows any other action
that round), although in the part about HTH rules it says a figure enters
HTH during movement and attacks during combat, implying the same round.

Anyway, I have a new respect for Gargoyles. I will try this all again soon.

-- 
Cris Fuhrman, http://www.google.com/profiles/fuhrmanator
Sent from Mont-Royal, QC, Canada
Mike Ditka <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html>  -
"If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."
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