Re: Weapons for pulling you down / off balance.

"One thing I touched on was these could set up combinations for several
figures. I remember in a battle scene from a Viking’s TV episode, one viking
hooked an Englishman’s shield (with their ax), and pulled it down. A moment
later, another viking took advantage of the opening created, slaughtering
the man."

This was standard "shield wall" tactics and continued to be used well into later periods. Neil states freezing the shield is enough keeping it from blocking.

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------ Original Message ------
Received: 08:48 AM PDT, 05/02/2019
From: Rick <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>
To: "tft@brainiac.com" <tft@brainiac.com>
Cc: "The_slope@googlegroups.com" <The_slope@googlegroups.com>, CJ <chrjames@gmail.com>, Matt Fraser <mathesonfraser@gmail.com>, Alec Morrison <alphaalec@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Weapons for pulling you down / off balance.

Hi all,
Some time ago, I had suggested that hooked weapons might give an
occasional bonus (which was triggered randomly), but most people
seemed to prefer the idea that hooking an enemy’s shield / legs / weapon
/ dismount / etc. be a specific attack.

Assuming we wanted to capture the idea that some weapons have hooks,
and that these should do something in TFT, what would an ideal solution
look like?

— We don’t want these weapons to be useless, nor overpowered.

— If we are adding rules, the effects have to be interesting enough, that it
‘pays’ for the cost / effort of remembering & using these rules.

— The rules should not be too complex, nor take too much time to use.

— It would not require a tonne of extra dice rolling.

— It should capture the idea that more competent people are better at
generating these effects, and avoiding these penalties.

(And that is it. Anyone see some property that an ideal system would have
which I’m missing?)

***

My initial concept (hooked weapons do a bit less damage, but occasionally
gain a random bonus), fit the above goals pretty well, except for the concept
that awesome people generate these bonuses more often.

***

The obvious solution to the “awesome people should generate these effects
more often” and the “we want to CHOOSE when something is hooked” is to
make hooking something an attack which requires a DX roll or contest. (Nod
to Peter here.)

However, once this becomes an action, it is competing with a straight ‘whack
em and do some damage’ as David points out. (However, if you run into
someone with super shield talents, massive armor, magic armor, and your
normal attacks just are not cutting it, then some “useless rules that never get
used,” might actually get used.)

***

I think Neil was asking “does TFT need this”. Some thoughts on why we
might want this sort of thing…

— No way in TFT to dismount a rider. <— The big one.

— I like the idea that you can discombobulate enemy in ways other than
doing massive damage.

— I think that hooked weapons are exotic looking, and would like to have
TFT capture in some way, that they are useful.

***

What are some effects that we could generate that would make these rules
worthwhile?

1 — Dismount a rider.
2 — Put someone “off balance”. (A DX penalty until next movement phase?)
3 — Reduce an enemies’ defense. (Shield or weapon pulled out of position.)
4 — Knock someone to a kneeling or prone position.
5 — Break enemy weapon. (e.g. the sword breaker weapon.)
6 — Cause enemy to drop a weapon.

(Am I missing anything?)

***

One thing Neil pointed out, is that the above list is not solely the province of
hooked weapons. ’Normal’ weapons could and did some of these above
effects.

Further Neil points out that some weapons could do some of these effects,
but not all. However, in order to avoid too great complexity, I’m willing to
group effects.

The suggested rules I sent out a couple days ago, didn’t try to capture all of
the above ideas. (My rules used effects, 1, 3 and 4 only.)

Peter suggested that many weapons have some sort of "hook rating". So
’normal’ weapons would have a poor hook rating but do good damage,
where as some weird weapons would have a very high hook rating but do
significantly less damage.

***

One thing I touched on was these could set up combinations for several
figures. I remember in a battle scene from a Viking’s TV episode, one viking
hooked an Englishman’s shield (with their ax), and pulled it down. A moment
later, another viking took advantage of the opening created, slaughtering
the man.

(I think TFT underestimates the importance of shields, but that is another
topic.)

***

Any thoughts on the above?

Warm regards, Rick.
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