Re: Weapons for pulling you down / off balance.

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

As I've mentioned about other rules that use things like "if they 
roll a number evenly divisible by 4", I think that has subtle and 
peculiar side effects on the odds that don't make sense to me in 
terms of what is trying to be represented.

People who resist any added complexity in TFT, I think may find it 
easier to "roll a die and on a 5-6, you have an opportunity" or 
something, as opposed to the monumental task ;-) of noticing and 
remembering a divided by 4 to-hit roll by the victim.

And, the odds look a bit too good to me when there IS an opportunity, 
unless you developed them further so that various talents and 
situations might help. One solution would be to drop the 
"opportunity" requirement and just make them all take another die to 
achieve or one less die to resist.

For example, 5/DX or be unhorsed? Can the defender roll one less die 
for having Horsemenship, and/or Expert Horsemanship? Or, is someone 
with Shield Expertise less liable to have their shield hooked?

I think, like other such things in TFT, the experience will vary 
based on the power level of your campaign. If it's a campaign that 
allows or features many high-attribute high-talented characters, it 
won't have as much impact as in a campaign with most fighters in the 
30-35 point range, almost none of which have acrobatics, because the 
rolls are flat. You could replace the two flat rolls with a contest 
if you wanted to get away from that.

You could also put on the weapon table a number for each weapon being 
the amount it needs to win a contest by in order to hook someone. 
That would let you present a range of weapons that are more or less 
specialized at hooking. E.g. maybe you CAN try to hook someone with 
an axe, but you need to win the contest by 6 or 7, whereas if you 
used a good sodegarami, you'd only have to win the contest by 3 or 4, 
but the axe is much better for making lethal wounds.

Do you mean to reduce the damage of halberds and axes by one point 
for this? Or increase the damage of spears and great hammers by comparison?

PvK