Re: (TFT) Action Report - DCG's "The Dark Vale"; also rules comments

[Richard Walters <rick.walters@yahoo.com>]

I rather like that pole weapon charges go first above adjDX considerations.  I'm a big fan of everything having a weakness as well as a benefit.  That said, I think that very high DX is "unbalanced" in this respect.  So, it's nice to have something that trumps it on occasion.  

Besides, pole weapons aren't foolproof.  If you defend and they miss (or you take a chance and soak the charge and survive), then your attacker is now locked in an engagement with a weapon that does less overall damage than many others available.  So, it can be a disadvantage.  

What I don't particularly like about the ruling that "pole weapons always go first" due to length considerations is that this same principle isn't applied universally.  If I had a bastard sword in my hands and I wanted to hold off a guy with a dagger, I could easily do so by threatening to jab him, keeping the full length of the weapon between us.  He would have to knock away my attack to get close enough to me if I were to adopt this posture.  

Very recently I have adopted Dave Seagraves' parrying rules from the Thail campaign as a New Talent in my own world.  What this means is, a character can learn a talent that gives them an automatic roll to block attacks in their front hexes (if they have a ready weapon).  While at first I thought this added roll to block did nothing more than extend the length of battles, what I soon saw was that it gave characters with higher DX an ability to perform better in duels.  And, as an added bonus, it really makes pole weapons users think twice about the person they are charging.

Good Fortune,
Richard



----- Original Message ----
From: Sgt Hulka <hulkasgt@yahoo.com>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Wed, February 3, 2010 4:09:09 PM
Subject: Re: (TFT) Action Report - DCG's "The Dark Vale"; also rules comments

...

There's also a major exploitation that you didn't mention: charging pole weapons going first in a turn. That doesn't happen in regular Melee, and it really kills programmed adventures if the opponents don't also have pole weapons. 
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