Re: (TFT) Re: New Armor in TFT. -- David's thoughts.

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi David, everyone.
   My comments are inline below.

On 2016-05-24, at 6:00 PM, David Bofinger wrote:

> It would still give you magic numbers. ST 12 would be much better than ST
> 11. Maybe not the end of the world but it would distort characters - nobody
> would make a character with ST 11 any more, because ST 12 is so much
> better. (The Roman empire fell because the gladius was a poor choice under
> the new armour rules introduced in late antiquity.)

Many systems have magic numbers.  One thing that has not been 
mentioned is that I have lots of magic numbers and they are small.  So 
many, and so small, and so close together, that they tend to blend 
together.  In the ITL page 8 rules there are few magic numbers and 
they give big steps.

I suspect Rome fell for other reasons, or at least more reasons, than that.
I've seen a very nicely argued essay that said that Rome faced a energy
crisis in the form of ecological damage causing declining crop yields, which 
caused it to fall.  Many other suggestions have been made for the reason 
for the fall of Rome.


> I think before making the rules more complex we should give some thought to
> which kinds of complexity are harmful and which are tolerable. Meg's system
> tries to make it all as simple as possible. Rick's system lets it get
> complicated but pushes the complex bits into character generation where you
> only have to do them once, so that play status is simple.

Good point, I agree.  You buy a set of new armor, what?  Once every 12
play sessions?  Your ST goes up, what? Once every 15 play sessions?
The player makes adjustments to the character sheet very rarely, and 
play is fast.

> 
> Something else that doesn't happen much is PCs getting hurt. When they do
> it's not routine, it's an attention grabbing event and I think nobody would
> mind a little bit of extra work.

The PC's also hit NPC's all the time.  Damaging goblins, orcs and wolves is 
routine and happens often.  I do not think I like where this is going...

> 
> Proposal:
> 
> * Armour has the DX and MA penalties given in TFT, or maybe those in Rick's
> system since they seem to have a little more resolution and nuance than
> TFT's.
> 
> * The advantages of great strength rules from TFT are deleted. Well, I
> guess you can still kick chests if you want to but no armour benefits.
> 
> * If we want realism we ditch the names "cloth", "leather", etc. and just
> think of them as Armour 1, Armour 2, etc. where the difference represents a
> combination of thickness and coverage. The difference between plate and
> leather is technology, not encumbrance. If we don't care about realism then
> we keep the silly names and say they are quaint.

Frowny face.  When I say cloth or leather or Plate armor, people know what
I am talking about and can picture it.  I think that trying to sell people on 
armor 4 which might stop 4 hits, and might stop a different number of hits,
is not going to fly.

> 
> * The protection afforded by armour and shields is ST x [armour number] /
> 12, round down to the nearest sixth. So Flavius Marcellus, a ST 11
> character with "chain" aka Armour 3 plus large shield (i.e. 2) has total
> defence 4+3/6 in front and 2+4/6 from behind. For character sheet brevity,
> write these "4.3" and "2.4" like overs in cricket. Sorry, that probably
> wasn't helpful to most of you.
> 
> * When a character with non-integer armour gets hit, and the armour is
> possibly penetrated, roll one die to determine whether the armour stops an
> extra point. So if the armour is 4.3 then it stops 5 points on a 1-3 and 4
> points on a 4-6.

I WOULD mind this.  The last thing I want in combat is extra steps that 
happen often.


> 
> * If a character puts on armour or shield made for a character with a
> different ST then we have a problem. Divide the armour's protection by the
> new character's ST, multiply by 12, round up to get the penalties.
> Fortunately this shouldn't happen often.

I am not seeing why this is needed at all.  Someone has "armor 4" and 
they have the constant armor 4 penalties and the armor stops a variable 
amount of hits.  When I put on armor 4, I get the same penalties and stop 
a different number of hits.  Why divide by ST and multiply by 12?

> 
> In summary, a ST 18 character takes full penalties from leather armour,
> but at least it stops 3 hits instead of two.
> 
> Thoughts and comments solicited.

You REALLY avoid magic numbers here.  None of this "armor stops 1 or 2
points" nonsense!  YOUR armor stops 3 and one third hits.  His armor 
stops 2 and 5 sixths hits.  That guy over there stops 7 and 3 seventeenths
hits per attack.   ( JOKE.  I find fractions like 3 / 17ths funny for some reason.
"We want to cut this 2x4 to be 6 feet, 3 inches and 14 / 19ths long!"  ) 



Harkening back to the super simple suggestion I made based on Meg's
idea, I do NOT think that the magic numbers should be even 12, 14, 16, etc.
Because the Warrior, Veteran, Campaigner series of talents (which stop
hits) are on the even numbers.  

If Meg's system was set up with the magic numbers at 13, 15, 17, etc,
then you would really want just one more ST to go to 13 (gives you an
armor bonus).  But then you want just one more ST to go to 14 (gives you
Warrior talent), etc.

We could start the series at 11.  But honestly, I can see David's point
that 11 is too low.   It is less "Great ST Rules" and more "Barely Above
Average Rules".   I picked 11, because it meant the Plate armor stayed
at what ITL page 8 gave it, but smoothly lowered the ST for the
lower armor.  No big deal if the No Negatives number for Heavy Plate
rises a bit.  People are going to get ST 35 about as often as they get 
ST 33.


Note for the slope campaign:
We will use my rules for now.  But I might get the time to revise the
Great ST, Armor and Fine armor rules some time.  (The 3 sets of rules
are tightly bound so all need to be fixed at the same time.)

Warm regards, Rick.



>> Hi Meg,
>>  I was trying to keep the system near what ITL had, except I 
>> wanted to stretch the point where weak armor could be worn 
>> easily, much lower than the 18 ST given in ITL page 8.
>> 
>>  However, your idea is REALLY simple.   I'm tempted to chuck 
>> all of my stuff and just use your idea.
>> 
>>  So the biggest penalties that armor can give you is currently 
>> -11 for my heavy plate.  So...
>> 
>> ST 12 gives everyone one points less penalty on all armor.
>> ST 14 gives everyone two points less penalty on all armor. 
>> ST 16 gives everyone 3 points less penatlty on all armor.
>> ...
>> ST 32 gives everyone 11 points less penalty on all armor.
>> 
>> This would mean...
>> 
>> Armor type:		No Negative Number:
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> Cloth			12 ST
>> Leather			16 ST
>> Boiled L. 		20 ST
>> Scale			24 ST
>> Half Plate		28 ST
>> Plate			30 ST
>> Hvy Plate		32 ST
>> 
>> (The no negatives number go up by 4 ST at first because both 
>> DX and MA penalties are increasing.  When MA penalties max 
>> out at -4 MA, the No Neg # only goes up by 2 ST per armor 
>> level.)
>> 
>> So ALL armor would start getting easier to wear at 12 ST and 
>> every two ST above that, it gets 1 penalty easier.
>> 
>> I would not stagger DX and MA penalties.  You still get magic
>> numbers (in the system above, even numbers for ST is just
>> better), but worse of all, the system gets wonky if you have armor
>> that gives you normal MA penalties but no DX penalties.  (Such
>> as what you might get if you buy fine armor.)
>> 
>> 
>> I think that Meg's system is less realistic, but it is MUCH, MUCH
>> simpler.
>> 
>> Warm regards, Rick.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> ---
>>> David
>>> What if, instead of having each type of armor have separate Threshold and
>>> No Negative numbers, stronger characters just take progressively less
>>> penalties for armor?
>>> 
>>> So maybe something like: each type of armor has its associated DX penalty,
>>> per rules. Stronger figures take progressively less DX penalty. So, for
>>> purpose of illustration, say a ST 12 figure takes 1 point less penalty, so
>>> they can wear cloth armor with no DX penalty, or leather with only a -1, or
>>> chain with -2, etc. Or ST 18 takes 3 fewer DX penalty, so anything up to
>>> chain has no penalty, and plate-mail is at -3. You'd still end up with some
>>> ST's being "more optimum" than others, but maybe you could stagger DX
>>> penalties offset with MA penalties offset to get a smoother "optimization
>>> curve".
>>> 
>>> 
>>> - Meg
>>> 
> 

=====
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