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 didn’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 enemies’ 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 won™ 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 Anthony’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.