Re: (TFT) More Weapons, and variable strength

[Teagan Harper <harperteagan@yahoo.com>]

Yikes! Surely you're just reinventing GURPS weapon rules (or your variations -- I have not read all the details) One of the great things about TFT is simplicity. 

Just a quick set of comments:
Surely part of basic training for an army would be physical exercise for the troops to get them all to be strong enough to wield their basic weapons. So I have no issue with requiring the Roman Legionnaires to be min ST 11 to use the gladius effectively. If someone less than ST 11 picked one up, they would be at an AdjDX penalty --not incapable of using it. Similarly when someone advances to ST 12, they don't have to stop using the gladius. Arguably you could give them an AdjDX bonus for being stronger than needed, but I think it just adds unnecessary book keeping.
I agree about the interchangeability of weapons issue. But the real issue for me is not that a sword pierces and an ax slashes. It's based on cost and convention. Historically swords were EXPENSIVE and were a mark of upper ranks (gladius carrying Romans being an exception, perhaps -- but the cost of equipping a legion was a major reason only the Romans did it). Axes and spears are much cheaper to make and easier to learn how to use.I think that swords should cost much more than other weapons -- and long bow arrows should be a significant expense too -- and probably have some sort of penalty for badly made.
Naginata, etc. These are highly specialized weapons from fairly late era societies. If you're gaming in Conan era settings they should be unavailable unless someone has a very good back story. (I am a firm believer in paying for unusual talents or gear with excellent back stories.)
Defense: I do think that a Parry talent would be appropriate (and should be built in to Fencing). Though I must say that using a battle axe to parry seems a stretch. IQ and DX minimums should apply. I could see it being used with blade weapons and spears and quarterstaffs, for instance. You could wrap the Shield talent into it -- or expand shield to include it. Sometimes you use a shield to slide the blow aside rather than just absorb the damage.
Just some casual thoughts, David. But big time kudos on making the effort to write this all up and share.

T


     From: David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com>
 To: tft@brainiac.com 
 Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 7:40 AM
 Subject: (TFT) More Weapons, and variable strength
   
The TFT (i.e. Melee) weapon system is at least simple but it has a few
issues. I planned to create a small table of generic weapons (sword, axe,
spear, etc.) on one axis and ST on the other. Then Roman soldiers could
carry short swords without being inefficient whether they were ST 11 or
not, etc..

I may have got a bit carried away.

The output of the program is an HTML file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ezn3zo741cp0te1/weapons_short_integer.html?dl=0
and a longer list including weapons I haven't figured out yet:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gy2akd3sj32qmts/weapons_long_integer.html?dl=0
There's also commentary attached.

Any comments gratefully accepted, including anything that looks stupid or
how your favourite weapon is missing.

---
David

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