I actually think it was originally posted as an "optional rule" in Interpla
y, with the intent of making it official in the "2nd edition" that was supp
osed to be published sometime in 1982 or 83. I THINK it was in Interplay
number 4, but I could be wrong about that and it could be like, number 6.
The guy in charge of re-writing the rules for Second Edition stated that
it was his intent to publish proposed rules changes as optional rules to s
eek player feedback before making them official. I never heard if they g
ot any feedback or not. By this stage of the game, Metagaming was even l
ess communicative than they had been back in the Spacegamer days.... The
y did something similar with proposed Priest/Theologian rules, but DID get
some blowback on those as highly unbalanced (and promised they were coming
out with a more developed priestly function supplement at some point -- thi
s despite Howard Thompson's raging atheism and opposition to any such
idea in the original game).
________________________________
Fr
om: Erol K. Bayburt <ErolB1@aol.com>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Tuesda
y, April 15, 2014 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: (TFT) The year is 20XX...
I think we may be misunderstanding each other: I'm asking where,
exac
tly, Metagaming published "three hexes in a straight line" as an
officia
l TFT rule.
If they didn't publish it anywhere as an official TFT rule
, then it
isn't an official TFT rule but only Yet Another Proposed Optio
nal Rule.
(Not that I'd use it even if it were "official." But I like
to keep
track of what the official rules are even when I don't use them.
)
Erol K. Bayburt
ErolB1@aol.com
On 4/15/2014 12:29 PM, David O
. Miller wrote:
Nothing written up, as I said just inferred from readin
g 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 h
umble opinion
trying to fix a perceived problem with the pole weapon ru
les 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
t
he years.
I'm sure whatever solution you come up with, if applied c
onsistently,
will work.
If you'd like to try out the: back up o
ne 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 th
e past 15 years or so.
Good luck! David ___________________________
_______________ David O.
Miller www.meleewizards.com Miller Design/Illu
stration
www.davidomiller.com
On Apr 15, 20
14, at 12:56 PM, "Erol K. Bayburt" <ErolB1@aol.com>
wrote:
I k
new that a lot of ideas for "fixing" the pole weapons were
thrown arou
nd after Steve Jackson left Metagaming, but I didn't
think anything of
ficial 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
"flavo
r" of combat in my own campaign.
I am on the side that sees the p
ole weapon charge rules as broken,
but I also think that most of the p
roposed changes are
over-corrections, if one wants to stick close to t
he letter and
spirit of the original rules. And that includes the "thr
ee hexes in
a straight line" requirement, official or not.
E
rol K. Bayburt ErolB1@aol.com
On 4/15/2014 10:50 AM, David O. Mil
ler wrote:
Erol,
Howard Thompson and team added that in a
fter Steve Jackson had
left the company. It's only in the very last a
ddition of TFT and,
as far as I can tell, was added because of a lot
of vocal
dissatisfaction concerning the pole weapon charge attack rul
es.
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
tha
t Thompson was trying to move away from Jackson's version of
the rule
s and mold them more to his own tastes. Me, I'll stick
with the origi
nal designer's rules.
Two quick things.1. I think a lot of peop
le got hung up on the
word "charge". Call it a one hex "lunge" attack
and the rule
suddenly just sounds better.
2. If you real
ly 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 wea
pons 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/Illustr
ation
www.davidomiller.com
On Apr 15, 2014, at 11:34 AM, "Erol K. Bayburt" <ErolB1@aol.com>
wrot
e:
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 of
ficial, "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 atta
ck 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 dur
ing the
previous turn."
Erol K. Bayburt ErolB1@aol.com
On 4/15/2014 3:13 AM, Edmund Nelson wrote:
... And e
verybody uses spears to absolute perfection. I
really don't see how
there is any counter at all to spears
without armor other than get
ting very lucky, the general rule
in melee is be 1 Dexterity higher
than them or 8 Dexterity
lower and be invulernable to their attack
s. unfortunately
spears have an amazing properties in being pole we
apons, 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 foll
owed by a string of weaker ones. this makes most
heavy armor charac
ters 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 Sm
all shield
No armor- 14 Dexterity lets him hit spearmen turn 1 a
nd
survives on a roll .less than 3, however still is very weak
to just taking damage and unfortunately just can't cut it
Broad
sword small shield Leather armor 10 Dexterity vs 13,
unfortunately
you Still suffer from the problem of losing to
the initial charge q
uit 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 th
e amount you are favored in
the mid game does not make up for the d
isfavor early
The only candidate I find that might be a spe
ar 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
a
ttack 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 g
et a kill and not 10, also note that
there are a neat set of permut
ations that lead to kills, they
have about a 13% chance to instantl
y kill the cutlass user
every combat, and 2/6ths of the time deal s
ignificant damage
and 2/6ths of the time deal marginal damage (thou
gh 3+7
and thus cutlass user is more complicated they hit 50% of the
time but th
ey go second, they also deal less damage overall,
I'd give this mat
chup to the spearman for now until more data
is gathered about spea
r vs armor.
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