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Re: (TFT) ...and keep your powder dry
From: stan rydzewski <srydzews@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: (TFT) ...and keep your powder dry
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 10:30:37 -0400
In TFT, gunpowder is made very expensive to prevent the players from
blowing up everything they encounter. While that's a reasonable goal, the
rules to make it happen are strange and unreasonable.
To sum up the problem: if one "charge" of gunpowder is enough to fire
a musket, it's totally ridiculous for even a government to contemplate
using cannon. Taking 1 musket shot = 1 charge = $100
as the starting point of my previous gunpowder discussion, I calculated the
cost of firing a cannon to be around $16,000 per shot.
[snip]
To sum up:
petard 5 kg of powder, $2500 (6 kg total weight)
grenade .6 kg of powder, $300 (1 kg total weight)
one charge .2 kg of powder, $100 (what an alchemist makes)
musket shot .02 kg of powder, $10 (about .7 ounce or 5 drams)
This pricing structure makes a lot more sense, and the cost
of the petard (obviously what Jackson was concerned about
the players abusing) is kept the same. $10 a shot keeps the
arquebus too expensive to equip an army with, but small
specialist units might have them.
PS: The gunpowder conspiracy can still be alive and well under
this pricing regime...each shot from a bombard still costs
between $2000 and $4000.
---------------------------------------------------------
Stan
I like these prices. I'll put them in my campaigns.
Just a comment on price. When there is talk of characters being able to pay
vast amounts for custom armor when the character is several "ranks" older,
it seams the damage per cost that a petard can do to even Custom Plate is
incredible. Except for the great risk of it accidently blowing up on you or
being a dud, it is a handy weapon.
I have enjoyed using gunpowder in games, and even had a game centered on
some Imperials escorting several wagons of secreted powder away from dwarven
lands, and the dwarven pursuit of these wagons. The Imperials had to get
the wagon through the small canyon (from one side of the board to the other
on a full terrain 3-D surface). There was an ambush by the dwarves with
their mercenaries pursuing in the rear. I called the game "Boom or Bust".
Hail Melee,
John Paul
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