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

[Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com>]

And, at this point, you might as well just go over to playing GURPS.

Sorry, it's getting way too complex for me.
--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 5/24/16, David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: (TFT) Re: New Armor in TFT. -- David's thoughts.
 To: tft@brainiac.com
 Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2016, 6:00 PM
 
 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.)
 
 --
 
 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 simple.
 
 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.
 
 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.
 
 * 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.
 
 * 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.
 
 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.
 
 ---
 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
 
 
 On 5/24/16 2:28 PM, Rick Smith
 wrote:
 
 > On 2016-05-24,
 at 10:10 AM, David Bofinger wrote:
 >
 > Rick,
 >>
 >> I have some concerns about your armour
 scheme.
 >>
 >>
 Philosophical argument, YMMV: It means light armour
 literally has no
 >> effect on many
 basically ordinary people. It becomes a why not feature
 >> of a character, very difficult to
 leave off without making your
 >>
 character just worse than everyone else. TFT always tried to
 cater for
 >> unarmoured fighters,
 Celtic maniacs and the like, and yes it went way
 >> further than is realistic but still,
 the core idea of "armour keeps
 >>
 you alive at the cost of slowing you down" is one
 that's probably
 >> worth keeping.
 TFT let that slide for high ST but to let it slide for
 >> everyone cuts something I liked.
 >>
 > On the other
 hand, in the Advantages of Great ST in ITL, page 8, it
 > talks about strong figures not being
 affected by armor, and being
 > able to
 use shields with no negatives.
 >
 > So this is not something that I created
 from nothing.  Now in GURPS,
 > Steve
 Jackson argued, that well constructed and fitted armor did
 not
 > lower your DX at all.  That you
 could do acrobatics in armor.  The big
 >
 disadvantage was the weight.
 >
 > I didn't go that far, but I have made
 very light armor not penalize
 > medium
 strong figures.
 >
 >
 > Eliminating magic numbers was a design
 objective. But there are still
 >>
 basically magic numbers. it's generally good to have a
 ST that's one
 >> less than a
 multiple of four. An ST that is a multiple of four kind
 of
 >> sucks.
 >>
 > Hmm....
 looking.  Not seeing your point.  The no negatives number
 for
 > Cloth, Leather, Boiled Leather,
 Scale, Half Plate, Plate and Hvy Plate
 >
 are respectively: 11 ST, 15, 19, 23, 27, 30 and 33 ST.  I
 am not seeing
 > why 12, 16, 20 etc. are
 especially punished.
 >
 > Perhaps you mean Threshold Number?  For
 Cloth to Heavy Plate, we
 > have: 11 ST,
 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, and 23 ST.  Again, why 8, 12, 16,
 etc.
 >
 > are
 especially singled out is not obvious to me.
 >
 > Let us look at a
 concrete example;
 >
 >
 If you were wearing Boiled Leather (popular with my
 players), at 15 ST
 > you hit the
 threshold number.  So 15 is special, right, because the
 DX
 > penalty is 1 less.  But at ST 16,
 the MA penalty is one less, so it is
 >
 also
 > special right?  Boiled leather
 has the following special numbers:
 > 15
 ST, 16, 17, 18 and 19.  So out of the 5 special numbers,
 for this
 > armor, 1/5 of them evenly
 divisible by 4, for 20%  Given that we want
 > this to be 25% we are low for this type of
 armor.
 >
 > For heavy
 plate the special numbers where you gain an advantage
 > (either one less DX penalty or one less MA
 penalty are: 23, 24, 25, 26,
 > 27, 28,
 29, 30, 31, 32, and finally 33.  So 3/11 of these numbers
 are
 > divisible by 4.  The divisible by
 4 numbers are special 27.3% of the
 >
 time.
 > Given that you would want one
 quarter of the numbers to be special
 >
 25% of the time, for this armor, the evenly divisible
 numbers seem to
 > be doing a bit better
 than average.
 >
 >
 > Armour at any level can be divided into
 armour that defeats your ST
 >> (you
 pay full penalty for wearing it), armour that your ST
 partially
 >> defeats (less than full
 penalty) and armour that your ST totally
 >> defeats (no penalty). That has two
 effects:
 >>
 >> *
 The penalty of armour as a function of ST is flat, then
 falls, then
 >> is flat again. Which is
 pretty weird. You might expect it to be
 >> falling from absurdly high numbers for
 low ST, then go flat.
 >>
 >> * The system strongly encourages your
 character to adopt armour that
 >> your
 ST either just defeats or almost defeats, or possibly very
 heavy
 >> armour if you laugh in the
 face of penalties. Going to lighter armour
 >> just loses you protection without
 benefit. Going to armour a modest
 >>
 distance beyond the defeat line incurs big penalties at the
 margin,
 >> relative to the optimum
 armour. So all characters of a given ST will
 >> tend to have similar fitouts. I think
 that's undesirable, though
 >>
 admittedly it's what happens now in weapons.
 >>
 > Re: the curve
 being flat, then linear then flat.  The system is
 simple,
 > and I can not see any reason
 why a more complex system would be
 > more
 fun.  Would we really gain anything if the system followed
 an
 > "s" shaped curve?  That
 said, this "simple" system seems to have
 > caused some confusion which would argue
 against using something
 > more
 elaborate.
 >
 >
 > In TFT on page 9 of ITL the have a system
 where:
 > ST 18 - big jump.  Cloth and
 Leather is ignored.
 > ST 20 - jump for
 shields.
 > ST 24 - another big jump.
 Chainmail is ignored.
 > ST 26 - another
 jump.
 > ST 28 - all armor is ignored.
 >
 > In this system,
 wouldn't you NOT want to wear cloth at ST 24 when
 > you COULD wear chainmail?
 >
 > >From
 realism's standpoint, I think that very strong figures
 ARE less
 > affected by armor.  If we
 accept that as true, then it is proper for
 > them
 > to pick the
 heavier armor of a pair when they have no penalties for
 > both.
 >
 >
 > --
 >>
 >> Here's an
 example (leaving out the chain variant armours for
 clarity):
 >> the German ST 14 with a
 two-handed sword fighter "Wulf" from the Melee
 >> example of play, who in basic Melee
 doesn't wear armour. For him:
 >>
 >> Cloth stops
 1, -0 DX, -0 MA
 >> Leather stops 2, -0
 DX, -0 MA
 >> Boiled leather stops 3,
 -2 DX, -2 MA
 >> Scale stops 4, -4 DX,
 -3 MA
 >>
 >>
 Obviously not wearing armour is a silly move, as is wearing
 cloth. But
 >> because leather is
 benefitting from his ST, and boiled leather isn't,
 >> the penalty jump from leather to
 boiled leather is kind of nasty. I
 >>
 don't think many characters will choose to make it (at
 least until
 >> they get their ST up a
 few points higher). On the other hand the jump
 >> from boiled leather to scale is
 actually smaller than the one from
 >>
 leather to boiled leather. So the character is pushed
 strongly into
 >> wearing leather
 armour and away from boiled leather with heavier
 >> armour options less affected. I doubt
 this is what you intended.
 >>
 > Speaking generally, this is caused by two
 things:
 > -- The threshold number
 increases from armor type to armor type and
 > -- the movement penalty increasing with
 heavier armor (until it maxes
 > out at -4
 MA).
 >   (In your example with
 armor up to Scale, both of these effect are
 > kicking in.  A way to improve this, would
 be to say ALL armor, gives
 > the same
 movement penalty, say, -2 MA.)
 >
 > Flavius Marcellus, the Roman in that
 fight, is ST 11, carries a large
 >>
 shield and wears chain. (DX penalties? A soldier of the
 empire fears
 >> not these things.) For
 him:
 >>
 >> Cloth
 stops 1, -0 DX, -0 MA
 >> Leather stops
 2, -2 DX, -1 MA
 >> Boiled leather
 stops 3, -3 DX, -2 MA
 >>
 >> It's not as severe but again we
 have the odd distortion that the jump
 >> from cloth to leather is larger than
 the jump from leather to boiled
 >>
 leather. So characters at this ST will be pushed into cloth
 and away
 >> from leather. It's all
 a bit odd and a bit gamey, making the game less
 >> accessible to a new player unwilling
 to do analysis.
 >>
 >> --
 >>
 >> I'm not sure what the solution is.
 Maybe a non-linear scheme where
 >>
 e.g. you have a ST needed to defeat armour completely, and
 the harm
 >> from being below that
 level goes up like roughly the square of how far
 >> you are below. ...
 >>
 > What?  Is this
 what you want?  Let us say that I want to wear Boiled
 > Leather with a No Negative's number of
 19 ST.  I have a 16 ST.  So
 > the
 difference is 3 which I square to 9.  So I would use 9 of
 the
 > penalties
 > that
 I get from Boiled Leather?  Boiled leather has 5
 penalties.  (3 to
 > DX
 > and 2 to MA.)   So for almost
 all armor, you would get almost no benefit
 > until just before you reach the no
 negative's number.  A far simpler
 >
 rule would be to give no benefit to armor until the No Neg.
 armor and
 > then get all bonuses at
 once.
 >
 > ... Or else
 make penalties fixed and say that strong people
 >> wear thicker armour that stops more
 hits (I think I like that idea but
 >>
 it's got magic number issues).
 >>
 > So if you wear
 leather, but are really strong, you get the penalties for
 >
 > leather, but stop
 hits like platemail?  Why would anyone take leather?
 > Everyone would be wearing cloth (which
 only masses 7 kg), but be
 > stopping more
 hits based on their ST.  Seems pretty ahistorical.
 >
 > Right now I don't
 think this is going
 >> where we need
 it to. Sorry.
 >>
 >> --
 >> David
 >>
 > Thinking back on
 long ago TFT campaigns (before ITL and the Great ST
 > rules came out), people had all sorts of
 armor.  (Plate was pretty
 > standard
 > for high attribute figures.)  Now, the
 armor people pick is either:
 >
 > -- Armor they can wear with no penalty or
 almost no penalty (as you
 > predicted), 
 OR
 > -- People who are going for
 'huge armor builds' where they want the
 > extra protection no matter what.  (Also
 what you predicted.)
 >
 > The "everyone with ST 15 takes
 leather" tendency is blurred when you
 > add in fine armor.  People might well
 take Boiled leather when they
 > get armor
 with the relatively modest price increase for two less DX
 > penalties.
 >
 >
 > You say that you
 don't know what the solution is.  Well I see several
 > choices...
 > 1) Ignore
 "Great ST" benefits on ITL page 9.
 >
 > 2) Use the
 "Great ST" benefits on ITL page 9.  (Effectively
 these are so
 >
 > high
 that they help almost no one, so option 2 is close to option
 1.)
 >
 > 3) Use my
 rules.
 >
 > 4) Use a
 mix of 2 and 3.  Start the lowest threshold number at
 say,
 > 18  for cloth, and have in
 increase by one for each armor type.  That
 > would barely change the higher armors from
 my system, and make far
 > fewer jumps
 with big differences between armor types.  (That is, if
 you
 >
 > are getting
 benefits from wearing Boiled Leather, you would be far
 > more likely to be getting similar benefits
 from wearing Scale Armor.)
 >
 > 5) Something else of course.
 >
 >
 >
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > -------------------
 >
 > However, one thing
 that I was trying to do with my armor rules was to
 > encourage player to "get just one
 more ST" at a wide range of ST.  If
 > you are at ST 12, is there a reason to get
 just one more ST?  Why yes.
 > At ST 13,
 you hit the threshold number for Leather.  At ST 14 is
 there a
 > reason to get just one more
 ST?  Why yes, you would hit the no negatives
 > number for Leather, or the threshold
 number for Boiled Leather.
 > At 20 ST is
 there a reason to get just one more ST?  Yes, This helps
 you
 > if you are in Half plate, or
 platemail.
 >
 > I LIKE
 the fact that there always is a reason for people to want
 more
 > ST.
 > Let's
 look at only the threshold numbers (but include those for
 the
 > chain
 > mail
 variants).  The values where the just the threshold number
 cause
 > people to want 'just one more
 ST' include:
 >
 >
 ST 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and
 23.  Pretty
 > good
 >
 actually.   Of course, far more numbers are
 valuable if you count
 > value between the
 threshold numbers and the no negative numbers.
 > Then the valuable ST key numbers blur
 together so much that at every
 > ST from
 8 to 33 you have reasons to want just one more ST.  I think
 that
 >
 > THIS is very
 attractive and desirable.
 >
 > (This discussion does not include
 shields.  My shields start getting
 >
 bonuses
 > at 7 ST & get bigger ones
 every 7 more, so these are another set of
 > number
 > (not divisible
 by 4 by the way) which fits into this system.  In that
 > case
 > people want,
 'just one more ST' from ST 7 up to ST 35.  (OK, I
 admit
 > that
 > ST 34
 is missed, sadly, which admittedly is a weakness in my
 rules.)
 >
 > I think
 that this is attractive, rather than giving no rewards at
 all up
 > to
 > ST 18 as
 is done in ITL page 9.
 >
 > ******
 >
 > Thinking all this over, I think that if
 you are happy with most people
 > not
 > being able to gain any advantage for any
 armor until very high ST, then
 > you
 might like a system like this:
 >
 > Armor type:                 
    Threshold #                 
    No Neg.
 > #
 >
 >
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > --------
 > Cloth   
                        17 ST       
                    17 ST
 > Leather                     
    18 ST                       
    20 ST
 > Boiled L.     
                  19 ST             
              23 ST
 >
 Scale                           20
 ST                           26 ST
 > 1/2 Plate                   
    21 ST                       
    29 ST
 > Plate         
                  22 ST             
              31 ST
 > Hvy
 Plate                       23 ST   
                        33 ST.
 >
 > I would be very
 curious about your thoughts on all of the above.
 >
 > Warm regards,
 Rick.
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
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