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

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

> I assume by S Curve, Rick meant a mathematical S Curve
> (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function ) and not one that
> literally looked like an S.

OK. I wasn't trying to suggest anything like that. I was thinking of
something that had penalties going to infinity as ST went to negative
infinity. (Yes, I know, ST doesn't actually go to negatove infinity, I
hope you know what I mean.) If the armour ST requirement is up around
16 then someone with ST 12 is in big trouble, but someone with ST 8 is
in a lot more trouble so the curve shouldn't go flat on the left.

> The modern battle rattle when kitted can easily be over 50 pounds

British troops in Afghanistan are routinely carrying three times this.
See for instance
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/188986/British-soldiers-suffer-injuries-from-too-heavy-weights
. It is amazing what humans can be made to do. The sooner they get
this load off human backs and onto robots the better. (This may not be
an entirely fair comparison because soldiers would I think drop a lot
of this load the moment combat began.)

The heaviest load I ever heard of was (memory) 82 kg for the first
Royal Marines to land on the Falklands. (They knew they might get cut
off if the Argentine air force drove the ships away so I'm guessing
they had a lot of spare rations and organic capabilities which they
waddled up the beach with and dumped in a pile as soon as they
decently could. But I don't know.)

I think a full suit of mediaeval battle armour ran to about 40 lbs,
add in weapons etc. and it's probably comparable with the lethality
element of a modern kit, and probably carried by a smaller man.

Lots of things should be done via fatigue but aren't because fatigue's
a nuisance to track. To some extent the DX mods are standing in for
fatigue effects. In a game as simple as TFT that's perhaps acceptable.

--
David


On 25 May 2016 at 21:39, Thomas Fulmer <tfulmer1@gmail.com> wrote:
> I assume by S Curve, Rick meant a mathematical S Curve (
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function ) and not one that
> literally looked like an S.
>
> I can't personally speak to cloth, leather, chain and plate. I have worn
> modern armor on the battlefield though so perhaps have some perspective.
>
> The modern battle rattle when kitted can easily be over 50 pounds. It has
> the same stopping power regardless of which size you get, so on average
> smaller people are more affected by the armor than larger people but it's
> far from linear due to sizing.
>
> Do I feel Dex modifiers while wearing armor? Maybe, but not so much as you
> might expect for its bulk and weight. Slight limits to arm movement and
> torso bending.
>
> Do I feel fatigue modifiers while wearing armor? Yes, very much so. You tire
> much faster when running, fighting, etc with the extra weight.
>
> Do I feel speed modifiers? Yep, fastest sprint was exhausting, the first
> time I ran in armor in training I only made it a few hundred yards before i
> started feeling sick and pained... Pretty sad for someone running several
> miles a day at the time. Walking wasn't bad, but anything faster than that
> you are paying fatigue for it.
>
> So if you are going for realism and have a game with fatigue attributes, I'd
> look there and at MA as your primary armor penalties personally. At least,
> based on more modern armor. But I think wearing weights is perhaps universal
> in terms of its impacts. Do older armors also impact Dex? Comparing a chain
> mail shirt to modern armor maybe not. A full suit of jousting armor that
> covers joints? Probably more so
>
> --Thomas
>
>
> On Wed, May 25, 2016, 01:24 David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > this is not something that I created from nothing.
>>
>> I think I addressed this when I said:
>>
>> >> TFT let that slide for high ST but to let it slide for
>> >> everyone cuts something I liked.
>>
>> The idea that something can be heavy but not reduce your combat DX seems
>> petty unlikely to me. Try playing tennis with lead weights tied to you, they
>> don't have to be very heavy to make a huge difference.
>>
>> You have no threshold numbers that are 11, 15, 19 and can't see how 12,
>> 16, 20 are relatively disadvantaged?
>>
>> Yes, for some armour type they might be helpful but is that an armour type
>> you want to wear? I showed comparisons of adjacent armour types and armour
>> your strength is only able to slightly effect is a sucky choice. Threshold
>> is nothing in your system - the no negatives numbers are what kick bottoms.
>>
>> Are your ST 15 PCs really wearing boiled leather? Because IIRC that seems
>> like a very odd choice. (On my phone so can't be certain.)
>>
>> > Would we really gain anything if the system followed an
>> > "s" shaped curve?
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean by an S. Really, functions can't be
>> shaped like an S because they would have three values in the middle.
>>
>> > In this system, wouldn't you NOT want to wear cloth at ST 24 when
>> > you COULD wear chainmail?
>>
>> Quite correct. All the problems I'm identifying with your system also
>> appear in ITL's. But we do have a forty year edge on them in sophistication
>> so we probably should do better. Also in your system the problems develop at
>> lower ST.
>>
>> > From realism's standpoint, I think that very strong figures ARE less
>> > affected by armor.
>>
>> Probably true in the short term, for a constant standard of protection.
>> One of the issues of armour was heat management. A powerful guy generating
>> lots of waste heat and wearing lots of armour gets into trouble.
>>
>> And less doesn't mean completely unaffected.
>>
>> I'm not actually suggesting squaring things, by the way. Just a curve that
>> looks parabolic rather than linear. Though I think I prefer the idea of
>> increasing protection instead.
>>
>> > So if you wear leather, but are really strong, you get the penalties for
>> > leather, but stop hits like platemail?
>>
>> I mean: If you are really strong you can wear leather that is so thick it
>> is as good as the plate an ordinary person wears, and only pay leather
>> penalties. Or you could wear plate that was so thick it stopped even more
>> hits, but then you pay the plate penalties. Or cloth, and stop as many hits
>> as leather or chain on an ordinary person.
>>
>> By the way, technically it should be called plate, not plate mail.
>>
>> Getting a threshold number is not generally very useful because the armour
>> generally doesn't become attractive until it has been at least mostly
>> defeated by your ST.
>>
>> > I think that if you are happy with most people not
>> > being able to gain any advantage for any armor until very high ST
>>
>> I don't think this is desirable. I would prefer not to force characters
>> into crossing a desert to get to the promised land. All increases should
>> matter.
>>
>> --
>> David
>>
>> 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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