Re: Weapons for pulling you down / off balance.

[jackal@speakeasy.net]

Rick - 

First, I like your idea. And I love the discussion you've spawned. It's given me much to think about - many thanks.

One quibble tho: TFT is intended as a rules-light, LOW abstraction combat system. It lacks the "Difficulty Class" abstraction at the base of D&D and most OSRs. It also is (mostly) free of the "Saving Throw" abstraction.

What do I mean by "low abstraction" in a TFT context? Think of it this way: would your fencing coach spend any time planning for an opponent's AC or SV% or advantage/disadvantage or resistances or similar abstractions? No? Then TFT doesn't, either. 

Cheers!

- Jack
 

On Wed, 2 May 2018 18:21:48 -0700, Rick  wrote:

Hi Everyone, Peter.
  I agree that hooking opponents is not a random effect, but a deliberate act,
Peter.  But let me discuss my thinking...

  I so disliked the shield rush and other special weapon special attacks that I
rewrote them so that they gave saving throws.  It would be easy enough to 
do that for the hooking weapons, but I find that remembering all these funny 
little rules for weird weapons and situations is a pain.  What is more the 
PLAYERS have to remember them.  The result is that they don’t get used 
much.

  This is why I was thinking of trying out option two, some rules in the 
background that (if I remember them) trigger automatically.

  I was thinking about having them give a small bonus that always exists in 
the background, and then some special option that the players can do when 
they want.  (But this, tho cool, requires even MORE rules.)

  I admit that option 2 (having some rules that automatically trigger in the 
background), is a bit of an experiment - it is not the way I normally do things, 
and not the way TFT normally does things.  But TFT is intended to be a rules 
light, high abstraction type of game.  Maybe this is an idea that should be 
explored?

  Option 1 (just ignoring them), is the ultimate abstraction, but lately I’ve been
trying to distinguish weapons more from each other.

  Warm regards, Rick.



> On May 2, 2018, at 5:44 PM, Peter von Kleinsmid  wrote:
> 
> I've only ever done method 1 (ignore) in TFT. In GURPS, I've used the existing rules or improvised some, which were all method 4.
> 
> I'd do 4, and not 2 or 3, for weapons where it makes sense. I'd probably assign a different DX penalty for each weapon depending on how good a hook it provides, and then create one or more special attack types, which would all include some sort of resistance by the target using their ST and/or DX and/or talents, so it's not just an automatic "messes anyone up" attack, which I think is the weakness of the existing peculiar weapon rules such as those for Lassos, Whips, Bolas, Nets, etc.
> 
> I don't like method 2 or 3 because they are random bonus effects, and it seems to me that hooking people to pull them about is usually a deliberate and different thing from trying to kill them with the same tool, and the attacker should get/need to choose which, not randomly pull people around because they rolled a 7. Also, a fixed roll number meaning a pull attack would be a flat chance ignoring even the attacker's ability and circumstances, and would for low-adj-DX attackers mean a proportionately high chance that you were trying to kill someone but hooked them instead, which is just a weird artifact of a lazy mechanic.
> 
> I think it would only be unbalanced if it's really very effective, which is another reason to take the defender's abilities into account. I think it should be balanced with the other techniques that can knock someone down into account, such as the peculiars I mentioned above, shield rush, and HTH combat. It shouldn't be as effective as a peculiar weapon attack (which I'd also add some target defense chances to).
> 
> PvK
> 
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