[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: (TFT) The year is 20XX...
Erol,
Howard Thompson and team added that in after Steve Jackson had left the company. It's only in the very last addition of TFT and, as far as I can tell, was added because of a lot of vocal dissatisfaction concerning the pole weapon charge attack rules. Of course those of us who don't think the rule is broken usually don't complain about it. Therefore I think it was a simple case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil. The other possible factor is that Thompson was trying to move away from Jackson's version of the rules and mold them more to his own tastes. Me, I'll stick with the original designer's rules.
Two quick things.
1. I think a lot of people got hung up on the word "charge". Call it a one hex "lunge" attack and the rule suddenly just sounds better.
2. If you really want to nerf the two top tiered pole weapons just add in an extra die damage rather than double what's rolled. Keeps the lower pole weapons doing basically double damage while lowering the bite of the two big ones.
My two cents,
David
__________________________________________
David O. Miller
www.meleewizards.com
Miller Design/Illustration
www.davidomiller.com
On Apr 15, 2014, at 11:34 AM, "Erol K. Bayburt" <ErolB1@aol.com> wrote:
> The rules for pole weapons and charge attacks are as big a magnet for house-rule changes as the rules for HTH combat.
>
> The TFT wiki has under "Charge Attack" the note "Special case for pole weapons (x2 damage, if last 3 hexes in a line)." Is this an official rule from Metagaming, added late in TFT's history? Or is it a house rule that somehow crept into what should be a list of official, "by the book" rules?
>
> As a suggestion made with an eye to keeping the rule changes as simple and minimal as possible, I'll push forward:
>
> "A figure using a pole weapon in a charge attack situation does not get either double damage or the possible +2 DX bonus if he and his opponent were in adjacent hexes at any time during the previous turn."
>
> Erol K. Bayburt
> ErolB1@aol.com
>
> On 4/15/2014 3:13 AM, Edmund Nelson wrote:
>> ... And everybody uses spears to absolute perfection. I really don't see
>> how there is any counter at all to spears without armor other than getting
>> very lucky, the general rule in melee is be 1 Dexterity higher than them or
>> 8 Dexterity lower and be invulernable to their attacks. unfortunately
>> spears have an amazing properties in being pole weapons, The user can
>> disengage from the slower enemy and instead of dealing many weaker shots
>> they can deal one double damage attack every 2 turns rather than having 1
>> double damage attack followed by a string of weaker ones. this makes most
>> heavy armor characters weak to spears. one needs to have an odd amount of
>> armor to beat spears reasonably, so they avoid getting knocked down by the
>> spearman on rolls 2 or greater. this provides us with the following
>> configurations as potential candidates to beat spearmen
>> Cutless Small shield No armor- 14 Dexterity lets him hit spearmen turn 1
>> and survives on a roll .less than 3, however still is very weak to just
>> taking damage and unfortunately just can't cut it
>> Broadsword small shield Leather armor 10 Dexterity vs 13, unfortunately you
>> Still suffer from the problem of losing to the initial charge quit often,
>> sure spearmen hit the initial charge a little less than 50% of the time,
>> but when they do you die 2/3rds of the time, so the amount you are favored
>> in the mid game does not make up for the disfavor early
>>
>> The only candidate I find that might be a spear counter is
>> Cutlass with Chain and a large shield
>> the strategy is to defend on the turn of charge and then to counterattack
>> on the retreat, though just how good that is is hard to know because it is
>> hard to simulate,
>> The best I can come up with is
>> Charge attack turn (turn 1)
>> Spearman has a 40% chance (rounded) of hitting the cutlass user
>> If they hit they do
>> 1 1/6 times
>> 3 1/6
>> 5 1/6
>> 7 1/6
>> Instant kill 2/6
>> Note that the spearman needs to deal 9 damage to get a kill and not 10,
>> also note that there are a neat set of permutations that lead to kills,
>> they have about a 13% chance to instantly kill the cutlass user every
>> combat, and 2/6ths of the time deal significant damage and 2/6ths of the
>> time deal marginal damage (though 3+7=10 and thus = dead cutlass)
>>
>>
>> The cutlass user is more complicated they hit 50% of the time but they go
>> second, they also deal less damage overall, I'd give this matchup to the
>> spearman for now until more data is gathered about spear vs armor.
>>
>> =====
>> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
>> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
>> "unsubscribe tft"
>>
> =====
> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
> "unsubscribe tft"
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"