Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone
A good point. Using that to step off on a tangent for a moment:
On that topic of how unarmored (or otherwise nimble) characters could be given better defense in TFT, I had one passing thought as follows: perhaps the Defending/Dodging option could be tweaked to accommodate. That is, Defending/Dodging essentially means "-3.5 to enemy's to-hit roll". But what if that varied with the defender's quickness, so that a lumbering, armored fighter only inflicted (say) -2 on the attacker by Defending/Dodging, while an agile, unencumbered fighter inflicted (say) -5 on the attacker...
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Awhile back I posted the solution that I used to make swashbuckler viable. It worked, without overpowering them. A bit fiddly, but again, it worked. And it didn't really slow combat down. Anyhow, here it is (best I can remember):
Figures with any hand weapon talent (including unarmed combat and the staff spell) have a Defense rating (DF). All enemies subtract the target’s adjusted DF from all attacks with hand weapons or bare handed.
A figure’s base DF is 1 for each point of DX over 12. Armor seriously degrades DF, however. DX penalties for armor and shields are doubled against DF.
So if you have DX 17, your base DF is 5. If you wear leather armor (DX -2) you’d have an adjDF of 1 and an adjDX of 15.
Note that in original TFT, armor could be enchanted to stop more hits, but you couldn’t magically reduce its DX penalty. (You had to use a +1 DX enchantment which was more expensive than stopping an extra hit). So it was all but impossible to have a high DF if you wore heavy armor/shield. This was an intentional design goal.
Figures with Unarmed Combat V add 2 to their adjDF. This replaces the “four dice to hit them in normal combat”. As an aside, this means a figure with UC V, no armor and the minimum adjDX will be -6(!) to hit.
A 32 point would-be swashbuckler would have ST8, DX14, IQ 10. Talents could be Sword (2), Fencing (3), and 3 more points (saving 2 to get Two Weapons when he gets IQ8). His adjusted DF is 2, so he’ll be a little hard to hit by beginning characters. But against a ST12 DX12(10) IQ8 swordsman with leather, small shield and broadsword, he’ll probably still lose unless he gets some luck shots in.
At 36 points, he’s much more viable. His IQ is 11, ST is 10 and DX is 15. DF is 3. He uses a Sabre (Cutlass, 2-2 damage) in each hand. He’s hard to hit, but still fragile. Now, he stands a decent chance against a ST13 DX15(11) IQ8 fighter with chain and large shield (-5 hits), though he struggles against opponents with heavier armor.
This system allowed swashbuckler type characters to be viable, though perhaps unrealistically so. But realism wasn't the goal; movie swashbucklers were.