Re: (TFT) Shields and Feats.

[David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com>]

> I feel that a barely trained fighter SHOULD be beaten by highly skilled
adversaries.

It means "he's not much in the brains department, but he knows about
hurting people" ceases to be a functional character. I think that's one of
the archetypes so it's probably a shame. By making IQ start at 9 you're
reducing the range of characters.

I'm not talking about getting feats because you bought something else, I'm
talking about buying the feats and there is nothing else. The idea being
that everything written down on a character sheet is a qualitative change
and you should be able to tell characters with that feature apart from
characters without it. Changing ST 10 to ST 11 isn't a qualitative change
so we ditch the ST attribute, though we might still have feats that imply
strength and are useful in situations that ST would be useful. Feats are
things like "Knows the basics of using melee weapons", "Familiar with ships
and the sea", "Wears heavy armour", "Scholar", "Speaks goblinoid and is
familiar with goblin culture", etc.. A lot of them would be TFT talents,
but TFT attributes are also folded into them.

It's not really a fully-developed idea. Something I'd like to implement.

--
David


On 2 December 2015 at 05:22, Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca> wrote:

> Hi David,
>   Thanks for the comments.
>
>   Two handed weapons used to do one extra point of damage.
> In my revised weapon list they usually do 3 extra points of
> damage.  (The exception is pole weapons.  A two handed pole
> weapon does +2 damage, but then gets a x 1.5 multiplier if
> it charges closing the distance by 3 hexes.)
>
>   I have added lots of talents some of which come on the even
> number of IQ points, (e.g. IQ 10, 12, etc.).  However, to make
> talents easier to find, prerequisites are 2 IQ lower than the
> more advanced talents.  This means that given that Shield is
> IQ 7, then advanced shield talents will fall at IQ 9 and 11.
> (I've added so many talents, that this rule is actually fairly
> important to help people remember where to find talents.)
>
>   We will have to agree to disagree about making an IQ 8
> fighter obsolete.  I feel that a barely trained fighter SHOULD
> be beaten by highly skilled adversaries.  I am not troubled
> that many of the advanced fighting skills are higher IQ than
> 8.  That is how the TFT system is set up.  If you wanted to
> grab a bunch of my talents, but make them all IQ 8, it would
> not trouble me.
>
> The last edition of D&D that I played much was 2nd, which
> was before feats, so I can't comment much on them.  But if
> you were to write up a bunch of feats, I would read them
> with interest.
>
> In D&D you get more feats with higher levels.  Would your
> feats be based on buying DX and ST (but not IQ), or would
> you have another system?
>
> Warm regards, Rick.
>
>
> On 2015-12-01, at 1:25 AM, David Bofinger wrote:
> > If you make shields much better, you need to make two-handed weapons much
> > better as well. Or one-handed weapons worse. Probably a bit of both.
> >
> > Caveat: This is based on what I've seen of Rick's advanced weapon
> talents,
> > which might have changed since I saw them.
> >
> > Rick, you seem to like putting all your combat expertise talents (shield,
> > weapons) at IQ 9, 11. I'm not sure why you do that but it has a couple of
> > effects I suspect are undesirable. First, IQ 9 is only just above the
> hard
> > deck of IQ 8 so it makes the classic IQ 8 fighter pretty much obsolete.
> The
> > benefits of IQ 9 talents greatly outweigh the cost of 1 point so IQ 8 is
> no
> > longer a sweet spot. As an example:
> >
> > Fighter ST 12 DX 12 IQ 8 [Knife, Sword, Shield, Running, +3 @ IQ 8]
> > broadsword, small shield: 2+0, aDX 12, stops 1, parries on 12 (10%), MA
> 12.
> >
> > Fighter ST 11 DX 12 IQ 9: [Knife, Sword, Shield, Improved Sword, Shield
> 2,
> > +2 @ IQ 9] shortsword, small shield: 2+1, aDX 12, stops 3, parries on 14
> > (22%), MA 10.
> >
> > OK, it's not absolutely one-sided, but I know who I'd rather back in a
> > fight. It's a pretty huge gulf in capability. Two-handed weapons also
> take
> > a hit.
> >
> > I don't think the simple fighter should be made obsolete. Have to
> compete,
> > sure, but not get badly outcompeted by obvious analogous designs.
> >
> > Generally it tends to make the odd-IQ levels more useful than the even
> > IQ-levels, for anyone with an interest in melee combat. That's already
> true
> > to some extent in the standard rules, because the best stuff is, IMO,
> > somewhat more common at odd IQ than even, at least at lower IQ levels.
> IQ 8
> > has Seamanship/Boating/Horsemanship which might be useful but is highly
> > situational and anyway that doesn't count because we don't get to choose
> > whether we have IQ 8. IQ 9 has Missile Weapons which can easily be really
> > important, IQ 10 has Fencing but that's not a huge deal, IQ 11 has Two
> > Weapons which can be quite a big deal (along with three critical party
> > skills, it's a big skill monkey level), IQ 12 has nothing much, IQ 13 has
> > nothing much, IQ 14 has the high level unarmed combat abilities though
> they
> > cost a fortune. Add in your special combat talents and I think characters
> > will be putting their IQ up two at a time.
> >
> > (Another feature of your weapon talents is that IQ 9 to IQ 11 is a
> smaller
> > jump than IQ 11 to IQ 13 so characters tend to stop at IQ 9 or IQ 13. I
> > think.)
> >
> > I'm not sure what the answer is to this. But I sort of like the idea that
> > the special abilities should be a bit more like what D&D calls feats and
> > less just "add two". Actually, my current theory of RPG design is to
> ditch
> > as many numbers as possible and describe everything by characters having
> > feats. Because feats are more fun than numbers.
> >
> > --
> > David
> >
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