So, Chris Rice posted an idea (on
another thread) for having to-hit rolls take into account both attacker and defender ability, which is a variation of the many forms that people have come up with for this (needed, I think) sort of thing, but when he wrote it just now, suddenly this one really clicked for me:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Rice
... The way I dealt with it was to compare the two Attributes to arrive at a required success score.
Situation 1. Fighter A, DEX10 v Fighter B, DEX10. The opponents are evenly matched so it's reasonable to make the assumption that each is equally likely to win. And that's what the rules allow; each has a 50% chance to hit. That's seems logical and fair.
Situation 2. Fighter A, DEX10 v Fighter C, DEX14. Fighter A still has a 50% chance to hit, but the more skilled Fighter C has a 90% chance to hit. That seems a bit less reasonable but perhaps acceptable.
Situation 3. Fighter C, DEX14 v Fighter D, DEX14. Each has a 90% chance to hit each other. This is where things have become silly. Are we to believe that the more skilled a warrior becomes the more inept his defence becomes?
It's obvious looking at these examples that in a contest Attributes should be compared in some way and not absolute.
What I did was create a table where equal attributes were at 50% success (10 on 3d6). A one point difference was +1 for attacker, a two point difference was -1 for defender, etc. So in Situation 2 above where there is a 4 point difference, Fighter A would be at 8 DEX (-2) and Fighter C would be at 12 DEX (+2).
I suppose there might be problems in larger combats with multiple engagements and I can't claim to have playtested it thoroughly but it seems to make logical sense.
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Whether as a suggested change or just a cool option or house rule, this seems like it might be smoother than the many other systems I've considered over the years. So I made a table and did some brief tests, and so far, the more I think about it, the more I like it!
Essentially, instead of rolling your own adjDX to hit, you subtract your target's adjDX from your attacker's adjDX, divide that number in half (round towards the lower value), add 10, and roll against that. This table shows the values:
The first column is the result of subtracting defeding adjDX from attacking adjDX.
The second column is the to-hit number the attacker rolls against.
+10 --> 15
+9 --> 15
+8 --> 14
+7 --> 14
+6 --> 13
+5 --> 13
+4 --> 12
+3 --> 12
+2 --> 11
+1 --> 11
0 --> 10
-1 --> 10
-2 --> 9
-3 --> 9
-4 --> 8
-5 --> 8
-6 --> 7
-7 --> 7
-8 --> 6
-9 --> 6
-10 --> 5
3,4,5 and 16,17,18 would still have their usual automatic results.
I did some tests and liked the results a lot. It solves the problem of more skilled people removing "missing" from the game as a thing that happens.
I tried allowing each fighter to declare they are attacking particularly aggressively or attacking defensively too, with the effect that a defensive attacker gives everyone including himself a -1 to-hit, and an aggressive figther gives everyone (him and his opponents) a +1 to-hit. I noticed that there is an imbalance because such a choice affects multiple opponents more than it affects the person declaring the style. I think for aggressive fighting, this is not a problem and makes sense - you're choosing to concentrate on attacking, but it opens you up to everyone near you, which is cool/fine. When fighting defensively, I think it's not fair to be able to make multiple enemies get a penalty when you're only penalizing your own single attack, so I think it makes sense to penalize a defensive attacker by -1 PER foe that they are engaged by.
I tested this out a bit and I REALLY liked the results!
As you can see from the table I listed, it opens up the range of meaningful DX values to be much larger than in standard TFT. i.e. in standard TFT, adjDX values below 6 or above 15 have no effect on the success of standard unmodified attack rolls, because of the auto-successes (and the difference between say 14 and 15 is not very much). With this system, values up to 10 more or less than your opponent are meaningful, for any opponent's adjDX value. Missing is always a factor, you're only really confident of an outcome if one person very much outclasses the other, etc.
It also has the interesting effect that when both people are below-average adjDX, their to-hit chances are higher than in standard TFT. An adjDX 8 versus adjDX 7 becomes an 11 to-hit vs. 10 to-hit.
Opponents with adjDX on opposite sides of 10 already, end up having the same chance to hit as they did in basic TFT. e.g. DX 9 vs 12 is still 9 vs 12.
It adds the ability to fight cautiously and use skill to avoid getting hurt without forfeiting all attacking with the Defend option.
It adds the ability to fight aggressively, which may make a lot of sense for people in heavy armor who don't mind being hit as much as others, and for other cases where you are more interested in hitting than avoiding being hit.
I think there are logical advanced talents for this system too, starting with ones that allow a greater shift than 1 when fighting aggressively or defensively.
Disadvantages I see are that:
* it's new/different
* it wants much more playtesting and getting used to
* it involves the dreaded subtraction and division, and is more complicated than rolling against the same to-hit number in almost all cases
* declaring and remembering who's fighting aggressively or defensively is a bunch extra to track, particularly for multiple fighters at once - I would use it but I'm a detail/crunch maniac - so that should be optional
Unclear things to sort out would include:
* Do missile & ranged attacks use this (with any adjustments?), or the old system?
* For all the existing to-hit modifiers, should they apply before or after the comparison? For example, Blur - if before, it would make it easier to attack people while Blurred, but offer less protection, and if after, then it would in some cases it'd be even more effective at protecting you than usual.