Re: Rick's comments on the Defend Option

[raito@raito.com]

> parry or slow you down.  A real life example: Duels with rapiers often
> took up to 5 minutes to get to first blood. This is partly because
> their real lives were on the line and no one likes to die, but also
> good duelist would take the time to set things up.  Beat feint attack,

And even that didn't help a lot of the time. One study showed that (for
some place and tine-bound region I don't recall) 75% of the people in
duels died. (and I usually do much better not giving the other guy time to
think that think he's setting anything up. I have enough experience that
my OODA loop is pretty quick.)

Edward, I think you missed a couple things on another reply.

Your first 2 reasons for Defending are the same. A temporary DX loss is
just that, regardless of why.

Another is that a Defending character still engages the opponent. This
helps prevent the opponent from moving. Very useful for holding one in
place for missile fire or pole weapons. This can also be used to help your
friends get away. And yes, it doesn't work so well against high-DX
opponents.

Really, we know TFT doesn't scale well. This is just another example.

AS for discussing this on the SJG forums, I'd prefer that the rules didn't
change, other than having stuff like Explosive Gems actually have rules
and that sort of thing. Rewrites really don't interest me that much.

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com