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Old 01-09-2018, 11:53 PM   #256
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Okay, that was completely different from the way I was reading it. I see your point, but I have to think about it for a while before I can constructively comment; mostly because I don't think I ever worried about some sort of EP scale for the individual opponents much. It may even be an issue, though no one ever brought it up in any of my campaigns -- a kill was a kill was a kill for my crew, and any bonus came from looting the body of the victim! ;-)
It wasn't on our radar either at first either. But after some conspicuous examples, and especially after five or six years of playing TFT all the time, when we noticed our higher-level campaigns (40-46 points with a few magic items) started to seem problematic. The 46-pointer wasn't even munchkiny but he was smart and he had armor 9, adjDX 16, and could pull off sweeping blows doing about 3d+3 damage, so he could take out three decent-ish opponents per turn and was rarely in any danger except from exceptional opponents. But it was painfully clear that laying waste to 30-36 point opponents with no special equipment, while nearly not worth rolling the dice, was giving more EP than defeating someone who was a worthy opponent. So we made an EP system that would take that into account, though it means calculating the combat value of everyone and comparing it and maybe doing some pro-rating if you want to be accurate, which many wouldn't want to do, but there could be a simpler version written, and it could be an optional rule.


Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
I think Dragons of Underearth is a non-event in SJG's world. That seemed to be HT's attempt to "dumb down" TFT into whatever it was that HT apparently originally wanted from Steve in the beginning (at least, based on Mr. Thompson's complaints at the time), and Mr. Jackson doesn't have copyright to it anyway, so I think it's a moot point at best.
I thought so too. I thought the idea for a larger-unit combat system in Lords of Underearth was good, but HT's later design efforts seemed to want to dumb things down (not the direction we wanted) and were not nearly as well designed or edited as SJ's stuff. I tried it and realized it wasn't as good as the wargame systems I was already using for larger combats, and that it had silly things like the narrow tunnel modifier meaning one dwarf champion could not only hold a narrow tunnel against 100 orcs, the 100 orcs would all die... etc.


Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
One more comment I'd like to throw out for consideration here.

Many years ago, someone published a neat little article on "Magic Backlash in TFT." ...
Yeah, we also added a Magic Item Breakdown system and table which we really liked (versions of which I still use in GURPS), particularly because we had reached a balance crisis where the challenge of fighting lesser foes without magic was vanishing. But it mainly felt needed/wanted later on. I'd have such things as options rather than core rules (also because some people dislike unreliable magic).
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