Re: "Steve Jackson's greatest mistakes",

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

At 05:27 PM 6/22/2018, Rick wrote:
> > At least it takes 4 turns to ready and uses a stand (so presumably
> > you can't just carry it around ready), there's a 1/6 chance the gun
> > doesn't even fire, costs $500 plus $100 per powder charge, and
> > explodes on an 18.
> >
> > It seems to me the main errors there actually come from the
> > scalability of the basic system, both in terms of adding cumulative
> > modifiers, the 3d6 to-hit roll, and the ranged to-hit rules that let
> > high skill reduce miss chances so much.
>
> As to the stand, the metal barrel was so long and so heavy, that the
> stand was to help hold the end up.  You had to move your whole
> hand to move the trigger so you didnâ??t have two hands steadying the
> weapon the way you do with modern rifles.  (Altho some late period
> arquebus did have a short trigger like we are used to, which allowed
> both hands to steady the gun.  These gradually took over, except
> in France for some reason.)
>
> But even if the thing was aimed like a modern rifle, +4 DX seems
> really steep.  If you brace and aim a crossbow, you only get +2 DX
> in TFT.
I don't disagree. I don't know why SJ thought +4 
made sense, but I think he seems to have had some 
different ideas about it - the one-paragraph rule 
on it says it's due to using the "stand, sights, 
etc." so it seems he thought that they were 
fairly accurate if you did have a stand and set 
it up for four turns. One could retcon that Cidri 
arquebusses are actually fairly accurate, due to 
the setting's weird history that includes some 
technology fallen into disuse rather than just being invented.
SJ admitted that his idea of the blunderbuss was 
based on a goofy idea (I forget exactly what he 
wrote), so I expect he just didn't know any better.
I agree that from a realistic accuracy 
perspective it's basically a mistake that it gets a +4 DX.
However this seems mainly sloppy rather than 
terrible, and as I wrote before, I think your 
example actually points to other weaknesses in 
the system (i.e. the way you can stack modifiers 
and get really high to-hit chances with enough DX + modifiers).


> I agree with you about the gunpowder (misfires and explosions).  One
> thing that could be done to tone down guns in TFT is insist that
> misfires be extracted from the barrel.  This was a tedious and tricky
> job.
Sounds reasonable.



> Given the basic inaccuracy of this type of smoothbore weapon firing a
> round, unrifled ball, it would not bother me to say that the maximum DX
> that you could get with the weapon was 13 from 1 to 3 hexes, a max
> DX 11 from 4 to 7 hexes and a max DX of 9 for ranges of 8 hexes and
> beyond.  (Based on the fact that you were likely to be missed by a
> Napoleonic smooth bore at 10 yards or more.
>
> (If you wanted to be generous and make these ranges: 1 to 4 hexes;
> 5 to 10 hexes; and 11+ hexes I would not mind much.  But the -1 DX
> per 2 Mega-hexes is just far too slow a fall off of accuracy for these
> primitive weapons.)
>
> This penalty is ignored if you stick the gun against the enemiesâ?? body &
> then trigger it.  (Which is what people would sometimes do with ancient
> guns.)
Yeah, I completely agree. So do some GURPS smoothbore rules.

Last time I thought about this, I spitballed to 
write "a smoothbore arquebuss should probably 
have a major inaccuracy/scatter problem that 
cannot be compensated for by skill - that could 
be represented by saying that your maximum 
effective adjDX is 11 minus the range in megahexes, or something."
I think that it should probably drop to 9 or less 
at some point. Basically, there are two factors - 
one is did you aim it right, and the other is 
what is the scatter. Your aim is important up 
close, but at some point the scatter is more than 
any error you'd ever do, and that means the 
chance of hitting gets vanishingly small no 
matter what your skill is. So you really need a 
mechanic that keeps getting smaller and smaller 
and ignores your skill at some point (as long as 
you don't crit fail). The chance would even go 
below a 3 on 3 dice before too long, just due to the size of the scatter cone.



> >> Ugh.  Oh well, I wonÂ? t be using it in my campaign.
> >
> > I agree with your lack of enthusiasm for that 
> spell as written. I don't think any of the 
> examples represent drunkenness but think it's 
> lack of consideration of the implications. I 
> don't mind SJ's first-shot healing spell so 
> much if you have it count as "treating" the 
> wound as if a physicker did it, and not be able 
> to heal treated wounds (so you can't stack 
> spell-healing with physicking or other 
> castings) and if there is a fairly low cap on 
> how much you can put into a casting (since 
> otherwise people can jack up the caster on Aid spells to heal a ton of injury).
> >
> > I wouldn't use it without such limits either.
> >
> > I'm hopeful Steve will adjust it before 
> publication, considering his suggestion did 
> create like 26+ forum pages (and counting) of arguments.
> >
> > PvK
>
> LOL, you mean there is hope?
>
> Was it you who suggested no stacking healing with physicker talents?
> I rather thought that was a clever limitation to fast heal spells.
Not sure exactly how you mean.

SJ mentioned in his original suggestion that, 
"Perhaps a Master Physicker who knows this spell 
would restore lost hits at only 2 ST each? I like 
synergies between Master Physicker and other kinds of healing."
There's also a rule in GURPS Magic where 
non-magical medical skills can help reduce the 
risk of the worst critical failure results from using healing spells.
I recently suggested that the new spell might 
have a cap at 2-3 points healed, plus 1 if the 
wizard knows physicker, plus 2 for master 
physicker, and of course the limits I mentioned 
on already-treated wounds. That basically just 
makes the healing spell an alternative to 
Physicker, which can exceed physicker's ability 
by a couple of points if someone learns the spell 
and physicker (which of course has a significant 
cost to get). I'm fine with that... but it 
probably doesn't make fast-healing fans happy. 
Though combined with my way of allowing 
physicking per wound (not per "combat"), it would 
actually mean not a lot of lasting injuries in many cases.


> I liked Anthonyâ??s spell which causes you to regenerate at one point per
> hour.  It is simpler than my healing spells certainly.
It's better than SJ's _without_ having my 
"treated" limits (because of what Aid and rest 
can do). But the rate per day is pretty huge: 1 per hour per patient, no limit.