05-13-2020, 12:56 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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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? |
05-13-2020, 01:33 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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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
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-HJC Last edited by hcobb; 05-13-2020 at 01:39 PM. |
05-13-2020, 01:54 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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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. |
05-13-2020, 01:54 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
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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. |
05-13-2020, 04:45 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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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. |
05-13-2020, 05:30 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Keeping characters alive
Quote:
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
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05-14-2020, 08:47 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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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. |
05-14-2020, 11:33 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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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 |
05-14-2020, 12:39 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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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.
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-HJC Last edited by hcobb; 05-14-2020 at 12:44 PM. |
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