Nothing written up, as I said just inferred from reading a lot about
the subject from a variety of sources. I wasn't there so I don't know
for sure but I think my conclusions are probably close to the truth.
I totally agree with you about over-corrections. In my humble opinion
trying to fix a perceived problem with the pole weapon rules by
introducing more rules is not in the spirit of the game. However
people are free to alter any game to make it fit better with their,
and their groups, playing style. I'm certainly not a rules lawyer in
that regard! I too have added in a couple of small rule "tweaks" over
the years.
I'm sure whatever solution you come up with, if applied consistently,
will work.
If you'd like to try out the: back up one hex and "lunge" attack back
into your opponent, adding an additional die of damage if you hit
tweak. It's worked great for our group for the past 15 years or so.
Good luck! David __________________________________________ David O.
Miller www.meleewizards.com Miller Design/Illustration
www.davidomiller.com
On Apr 15, 2014, at 12:56 PM, "Erol K. Bayburt" <ErolB1@aol.com>
wrote:
I knew that a lot of ideas for "fixing" the pole weapons were
thrown around after Steve Jackson left Metagaming, but I didn't
think anything official had been settled on. Where was this written
up? Interplay?
My own house rules do include something like your two suggestions,
but that's because I have deliberately set out to change the
"flavor" of combat in my own campaign.
I am on the side that sees the pole weapon charge rules as broken,
but I also think that most of the proposed changes are
over-corrections, if one wants to stick close to the letter and
spirit of the original rules. And that includes the "three hexes in
a straight line" requirement, official or not.
Erol K. Bayburt ErolB1@aol.com
On 4/15/2014 10:50 AM, David O. Miller wrote:
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.
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