Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > The Fantasy Trip > The Fantasy Trip: House Rules

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 05-13-2020, 12:56 PM   #1
JimmyPlenty
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Keeping characters alive

So, when it comes down to characters reaching 38 points, that's a lot of sessions. The Fantasy Trip system is deadly by default.

So how are your players staying alive to get to this point? What modifications have you had to make to make this happen?
JimmyPlenty is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-13-2020, 01:33 PM   #2
hcobb
 
hcobb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

If you avoid a TPK then the errata gives you a day to drag your dead friend to the WG for a $59 casting of Revival. This does cost them five attribute points though.

Note that ANY number of healing potions can be poured down their throat within an hour of death so if you just carry enough of these you'll be fine.

Cart: $100
Mule: $476
Six months of training for the mule: $600
three castings of Revival: $159
Bringing back your dead team: priceless
__________________
-HJC

Last edited by hcobb; 05-13-2020 at 01:39 PM.
hcobb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-13-2020, 01:54 PM   #3
Shostak
 
Shostak's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

Playing smart. PCs who know how to work as a group to exploit positioning and let their comrades act to their potential tend to live longer. This includes knowing what dangers to avoid.

Rolling well. In my current multi-session tomb-raiding adventure, a 35-point hero picked up a wizard's staff out of the hands of a mummified corpse. It exploded, of course! 3d only resulted in 6 points, so he avoided what could easily have been a lethal injury. And this guy has rolled incredibly well to avoid pit traps, arrow traps, and falling slimes.
Shostak is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 05-13-2020, 01:54 PM   #4
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

Get and keep a Lesser Wish for emergencies once your character has gained enough to be worth the 500 XP insurance policy. See ITL pg 46 and 143. It still requires you using it smartly to head off the death or deadly situation. I have not got a character experienced enough to go this path.

Hcobb nailed it: stock up on health potions. The downside is you can spend a lot more on potions than you will recover in treasure. And then that leave you for your next expedition with no safety net.
Axly Suregrip is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-13-2020, 02:12 PM   #5
hcobb
 
hcobb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

Hyper intelligent characters help. The Armourer talent gives a 3/IQ save to notice that random sticks of wood are magical weapons so they don't pick up unexploded staves.
__________________
-HJC
hcobb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-13-2020, 04:45 PM   #6
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

My players are pretty conservative. There have been 3 or 4 major adventures where they just bailed because they thought the vibe was too dangerous. One of these times they probably avoided a TPK; the others were not really that big of a risk, but they didn't know that. You have to be pretty flexible as a GM in these situations; if your plan is that the party is going to perform some adventure you prepared until it reaches some conclusion, then you might be intentionally or unintentionally railroading them into situations that will eventually get them killed. I've gotten adroit at just tossing my carefully designed dungeon into a drawer and pulling out the random tables when a session goes off in an unexpected direction!

Another good and more specific piece of advice is 'don't fight when you are out numbered, unless you have some really overwhelming advantage'. TFT is particularly unforgiving to people who get ganged up on, even by weaker opponents.

Finally, do what you can to jack up your armor protection, even if it means your offensive output suffers. A lot of the white-room debating about this system focuses on maximizing your probability of success at some very specific situation, like a 1 on 1 duel in an open arena. When you are playing extended campaigns with lots of risks involved, this is not a smart way to think. You need to account for the fact that you are definitely going to be subject to some number of attacks, traps, etc., and it is just a question of statistics as to when one of those attacks catches up with you. Having 6-8 points of armor protection is an incredible insurance policy against those unavoidable hits; it can reduce the chance you die unexpectedly by a factor of 10 or more. And it isn't that hard to achieve. It is easy to come up with a character design that has 8 or 9 points of armor with no magic whatsoever.
larsdangly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-13-2020, 05:30 PM   #7
TippetsTX
 
TippetsTX's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
Finally, do what you can to jack up your armor protection, even if it means your offensive output suffers. A lot of the white-room debating about this system focuses on maximizing your probability of success at some very specific situation, like a 1 on 1 duel in an open arena. When you are playing extended campaigns with lots of risks involved, this is not a smart way to think. You need to account for the fact that you are definitely going to be subject to some number of attacks, traps, etc., and it is just a question of statistics as to when one of those attacks catches up with you. Having 6-8 points of armor protection is an incredible insurance policy against those unavoidable hits; it can reduce the chance you die unexpectedly by a factor of 10 or more. And it isn't that hard to achieve. It is easy to come up with a character design that has 8 or 9 points of armor with no magic whatsoever.
This last point is actually something I've been thinking about lately. As Lars astutely observes, armor is pretty crucial to longevity in TFT so if I wanted my game to encourage long-term character progression, I have considered whether raising the damage reduction values for armor across the board would be desirable... not by much, though.
__________________
“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos
TippetsTX is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2020, 08:47 AM   #8
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

I would not recommend raising armor values across the board unless you intend for all combat oriented characters to wear maximum armor. The system was created to provide a balance of advantages and disadvantages to all the various approaches to combat a non-magical character can take; therefore any meaningful tweak will make the favored approach essentially mandatory.

I think the rules as they stand motivate characters who will be exposed to a lot of attacks to strongly prefer having fine plate ± some other sort of supplemental protection (shield, toughness, Expert talents, etc.), but the cost and DX penalty mean they will probably want to wait for 6+ months of play to make that move.

But of course personal taste can bring you in a different direction with fine results. The party I'm running currently has no one in armor heavier than leather because they all want stout damage (requiring high ST) and adjDX scores of at least 13. If that is what you want, then you either need to accept lighter armor or wait until you have 39-40 stat points to fully armor up.
larsdangly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2020, 11:33 AM   #9
TippetsTX
 
TippetsTX's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

As I said, I wouldn't want to make a drastic change... probably just bump Fine Plate up to 8 hits stopped and create a few more armor choices in-between those currently presented. I'll need to test it out, obviously.
__________________
“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos
TippetsTX is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2020, 12:39 PM   #10
hcobb
 
hcobb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: Keeping characters alive

Given how cheap Stone Flesh rings are the default is that the characters stay alive until the 216th hit against them.

In order to avoid this your meatshields need to plow a quarter of their XPs into Lesser Wishes, leaving these muggles even further behind.

Compare to a full defense Fencer who's stopping four hits at 5/(DX-1) with only a tiny chance of a critical hit.
__________________
-HJC

Last edited by hcobb; 05-14-2020 at 12:44 PM.
hcobb is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:47 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.