Suggestion to adjust Fist Damage.

Rick_Smith · 06-28-2018, 03:15 AM

Hi all,
I think that an easy improvement to the new TFT is to adjust the fist damage table, as it does too much damage.

***
REASONS IT SHOULD BE TWEAKED:

1) Club damage is too high in mid levels. A ST 11 fighter is doing 1d+2 with a club. This is too good compared to a Quarterstaff (1d+2), Small Ax (1d+2), or Short Sword (2d-1). Look at the short sword, you need a two point talent and it is only doing 0.5 extra points of damage vs. a club on average. I would far rather be hit by a baseball bat than a shortsword.

2) Huge creatures do more damage with their fists than with innate weapons. A 100 ST demon would do 9d+1 if it used the fist table, but actually its claws do 4 dice. A 7 hex dragon would do 5d+1 with the fist table, but its claws actually do 2 dice. (A 14 hex dragon should do 9d+1 with fist damage but actually does 2d+2.) A 50 ST Indricotherium should do 4d+1 using fist damage but actually does 3dice. For very large ST, the fist damage seems too high.

3) In the new TFT, a lot of low to mid ST wizards will be using wooden staves (clubs) for damage. We want to make sure that these low ST clubs are not too powerful. It would not hurt my feelings to debuff the fighting ability of wizards, given the many new perks they are getting.

4) Note that there are many errors on AM 21 and on the fist damage in the Codex, and GM shield. Even if the damage is not tweaked, these errors should be fixed.

***

MY SUGGESTION OF A NEW FIST DAMAGE TABLE:

ST ................ DAMAGE
01 to 04......... 1d–5
05 to 08......... 1d–4
09 to 12......... 1d–3
13 to 16......... 1d–2
17 to 20......... 1d–1
21 to 40......... 1 die
41 to 60......... 2 dice
61 to 80......... 3 dice
81 to 100 ...... 4 dice, etc.

A quick rule of thumb is to take ST of the monster and divide by 20 to find the number of dice of damage it does. If the monster is half way between, give a bonus, (so a ST 55 monster would do around 2d+2).

Regular or HTH combat: UC i: +1damage / UC ii: +2 damage / UC iii: +4 damage.

(Note that both the table on the GM shield and the rules on AM page 21 do not match what is said in the UC talents in the talent list. Unarmed Combat 3 could be beefed up a bit IMO, so I've given it an extra point of damage to keep serious martial artists viable. Also there is an error on the GM shield, which says UC talents only give bonus damage in HTH but the talents say any combat. This corrects the error.)

Regular or HTH combat: Wizard or non-combat hero: +0 damage / Fighter (4+ fighting talents): +1 damage.

(A 'fighter' was not defined on the GM shield. I say a fighter has 4 or more fighting talents. UC talents count as fighting talents.)

HTH Combat: Cestus +2 damage. Note that daggers do extra damage in HTH, see the write up for the dagger.

Regular (not HTH) Combat: Clubs: 1 handed +2 damage / 2 handed +3 damage.

(if you use my suggestion that 2 handed weapons should be beefed up with +1 damage across the board, then 2 handed clubs should be as well. Note that I also beefed-up shields.)

Comments are welcome, warm regards, Rick.

zot · 06-28-2018, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi all,
I think that an easy improvement to the new TFT is to adjust the fist damage table, as it does too much damage.

Sounds good but that's a lot to digest. I made a comparative table so I could see how UC compares to fighters in HTH.

When you say "writeup for the dagger" are you talking about in Advanced Melee where it says daggers do +3 damage in HTH? I'm assuming that for the table, below.

Comparing damage for weapon | normal fists in HTH | fighter in HTH | dagger in HTH | UC III in HTH

(Sorry about the dots, they're for the table column format)

. . . . wea | nor | figh| dag | UC
ST 9 .| 1 . | 1-3 | 1-2 | 1 . | 1+2
ST 10 | 1+1 | 1-3 | 1-2 | 1 . | 1+2
ST 11 | 1+2 | 1-3 | 1-2 | 1 . | 1+2
ST 12 | 2 . | 1-3 | 1-2 | 1 . | 1+2
ST 13 | 2+1 | 1-2 | 1-1 | 1+1 | 2
ST 14 | 2+2 | 1-2 | 1-1 | 1+1 | 2
ST 15 | 3 . | 1-2 | 1-1 | 1+1 | 2

These numbers seem really good to me with one proviso: HTH must be much easier for an experienced UC fighter to initiate than it is in the RAW, along the lines of your HTH house rules (which we've been using in our play tests). I really like your extra modifiers to the HTH initiation roll and the way that the UC and Judo talents interact with it. If HTH-initiation is kept as-is, then HTH will be way less common and UC characters will be at an even worse disadvantage then they are now in the RAW during a melee fight outside of HTH. "Diving for the legs" is also a great improvement (and Dive Block)!

Rick_Smith · 06-28-2018, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zot

...
When you say "writeup for the dagger" are you talking about in Advanced Melee where it says daggers do +3 damage in HTH? I'm assuming that for the table, below.
...

Hi Zot,
Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, in the dagger description it says daggers do more damage in HTH (they have a separate listing for HTH damage) and in AM page 21 it says that daggers do extra damage in HTH. I don't want someone to think that they get BOTH bonuses, so I simply refer them to the HTH damage in the dagger write ups.

Back when I was talking about the Codex, I looked thru it for the first time in ages. I saw that the TFT Line Editor, Guy W. McLimore had written that currently HTH happened in movement but that that would change in later editions of TFT. (Of course there were no later editions.)

Warm regards, Rick.

zot · 06-28-2018, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Back when I was talking about the Codex, I looked thru it for the first time in ages. I saw that the TFT Line Editor, Guy W. McLimore had written that currently HTH happened in movement but that that would change in later editions of TFT. (Of course there were no later editions.)

Eh, in our play testing, your "dive for the legs" to initiate HTH during movement has served very well with its +1 disadvantage (higher is worse in this case). It seems like a decent trade off -- a 1-point shift on a d6 is a big deal!

Skarg · 06-28-2018, 06:25 PM

I think that there is an issue with trying to make Fist Damage table work for very large high-ST non-human monsters, because ST has two roles, and only humanoids use weapons and so use their ST for how much damage they do. Non-human monster ST tends to mostly (or only) be used for how much damage they can take (and resistance to spells), as their description lists the damage they do, which can be for logical reasons that their body is huge but their muscles/systems for attacking are not proportional to how much damage they can take compared to humans.

(That said, I do think the dragon damages are a bit light, and possibly their ST for taking wounds, too.)

KevinJ · 06-28-2018, 07:22 PM

I agree that THT and Unarmed damage needs work. Some weapons that are listed are actually not condusive to HTH combat as described in the rules. I somehow doubt that an actual club would be of much use.

Knives are obviously useful in HTH as described in the rules, but few other weapons actually give much of an advantage. Half-swording would be more effective than any club and small weapons like hatches would still be effective by choking up on the half.

My own unarmed combat training extends to wresting in high school, unarmed combat training in the Army, Scottist knife fighting (the winner drips, the loser gushes), and messing around with gamer friends who thought they could take me (Never bring a wrestling match to a knife fight).

KevinJ · 06-28-2018, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skarg

I think that there is an issue with trying to make Fist Damage table work for very large high-ST non-human monsters, because ST has two roles, and only humanoids use weapons and so use their ST for how much damage they do. Non-human monster ST tends to mostly (or only) be used for how much damage they can take (and resistance to spells), as their description lists the damage they do, which can be for logical reasons that their body is huge but their muscles/systems for attacking are not proportional to how much damage they can take compared to humans.

(That said, I do think the dragon damages are a bit light, and possibly their ST for taking wounds, too.)

This.
Some animals should do better damage because most predators are designed to kill and many prey animals have a more effective defense than most people realize. A lot of prey simply run away or go underground, but animal like a Cape Buffalo actually charge lions and the lions will back off because the Cape Buffalo is strong and has lethal horns.

Rick_Smith · 06-28-2018, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinJ

I agree that THT and Unarmed damage needs work. Some weapons that are listed are actually not condusive to HTH combat as described in the rules. I somehow doubt that an actual club would be of much use. ...

Hi Kevin,
The clubs are listed as Regular (Not HTH) damage.

Warm regards, Rick.

KevinJ · 06-28-2018, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Kevin,
The clubs are listed as Regular (Not HTH) damage.

Warm regards, Rick.

I don't know why, but HTH was stuck in my head.

David Bofinger · 06-28-2018, 08:56 PM

The difference between club damage and unarmed damage is presently a constant, whereas it probably should be proportional: i.e. the damage done by a club is the damage that would be done unarmed if your ST was, say, twice as large. And maybe the damage done by a one-handed sword is the unarmed damage for an ST three times as large: that might be cleaner and more realistic than the present system of defining swords by ST requirement.

The most important relevance of unarmed combat is a fight where for some reason the character didn't bring a weapon. That might be because the character is in a social situation where weapons aren't permitted (bar room brawl, tea party at the palace) or because he's escaping from jail and needs to beat up a guard. The unarmed combat system should be designed with these sorts of situations in mind, and maybe also so that people can throw in a punch or pommel strike as a bonus during a fight.

That makes it difficult. The damage has to be large enough to provide a realistic chance a guard can be prevented from raising an alarm but not so great that it competes with a sword. I don't know how this should be done.

06-28-2018, 03:15 AM	#1
Rick_Smith Join Date: Apr 2014 Location: Coquitlam B.C.	Suggestion to adjust Fist Damage. Hi all, I think that an easy improvement to the new TFT is to adjust the fist damage table, as it does too much damage. * REASONS IT SHOULD BE TWEAKED: 1) Club damage is too high in mid levels. A ST 11 fighter is doing 1d+2 with a club. This is too good compared to a Quarterstaff (1d+2), Small Ax (1d+2), or Short Sword (2d-1). Look at the short sword, you need a two point talent and it is only doing 0.5 extra points of damage vs. a club on average. I would far rather be hit by a baseball bat than a shortsword. 2) Huge creatures do more damage with their fists than with innate weapons. A 100 ST demon would do 9d+1 if it used the fist table, but actually its claws do 4 dice. A 7 hex dragon would do 5d+1 with the fist table, but its claws actually do 2 dice. (A 14 hex dragon should do 9d+1 with fist damage but actually does 2d+2.) A 50 ST Indricotherium should do 4d+1 using fist damage but actually does 3dice. For very large ST, the fist damage seems too high. 3) In the new TFT, a lot of low to mid ST wizards will be using wooden staves (clubs) for damage. We want to make sure that these low ST clubs are not too powerful. It would not hurt my feelings to debuff the fighting ability of wizards, given the many new perks they are getting. 4) Note that there are many errors on AM 21 and on the fist damage in the Codex, and GM shield. Even if the damage is not tweaked, these errors should be fixed. * MY SUGGESTION OF A NEW FIST DAMAGE TABLE: ST ................ DAMAGE 01 to 04......... 1d–5 05 to 08......... 1d–4 09 to 12......... 1d–3 13 to 16......... 1d–2 17 to 20......... 1d–1 21 to 40......... 1 die 41 to 60......... 2 dice 61 to 80......... 3 dice 81 to 100 ...... 4 dice, etc. A quick rule of thumb is to take ST of the monster and divide by 20 to find the number of dice of damage it does. If the monster is half way between, give a bonus, (so a ST 55 monster would do around 2d+2). Regular or HTH combat: UC i: +1damage / UC ii: +2 damage / UC iii: +4 damage. (Note that both the table on the GM shield and the rules on AM page 21 do not match what is said in the UC talents in the talent list. Unarmed Combat 3 could be beefed up a bit IMO, so I've given it an extra point of damage to keep serious martial artists viable. Also there is an error on the GM shield, which says UC talents only give bonus damage in HTH but the talents say any combat. This corrects the error.) Regular or HTH combat: Wizard or non-combat hero: +0 damage / Fighter (4+ fighting talents): +1 damage. (A 'fighter' was not defined on the GM shield. I say a fighter has 4 or more fighting talents. UC talents count as fighting talents.) HTH Combat: Cestus +2 damage. Note that daggers do extra damage in HTH, see the write up for the dagger. Regular (not HTH) Combat: Clubs: 1 handed +2 damage / 2 handed +3 damage. (if you use my suggestion that 2 handed weapons should be beefed up with +1 damage across the board, then 2 handed clubs should be as well. Note that I also beefed-up shields.) Comments are welcome, warm regards, Rick. Last edited by Rick_Smith; 06-28-2018 at 03:35 AM.

06-28-2018, 06:25 PM	#5
Skarg Join Date: May 2015	Re: Suggestion to adjust Fist Damage. I think that there is an issue with trying to make Fist Damage table work for very large high-ST non-human monsters, because ST has two roles, and only humanoids use weapons and so use their ST for how much damage they do. Non-human monster ST tends to mostly (or only) be used for how much damage they can take (and resistance to spells), as their description lists the damage they do, which can be for logical reasons that their body is huge but their muscles/systems for attacking are not proportional to how much damage they can take compared to humans. (That said, I do think the dragon damages are a bit light, and possibly their ST for taking wounds, too.)

06-28-2018, 07:22 PM	#6
KevinJ Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Arizona	Re: Suggestion to adjust Fist Damage. I agree that THT and Unarmed damage needs work. Some weapons that are listed are actually not condusive to HTH combat as described in the rules. I somehow doubt that an actual club would be of much use. Knives are obviously useful in HTH as described in the rules, but few other weapons actually give much of an advantage. Half-swording would be more effective than any club and small weapons like hatches would still be effective by choking up on the half. My own unarmed combat training extends to wresting in high school, unarmed combat training in the Army, Scottist knife fighting (the winner drips, the loser gushes), and messing around with gamer friends who thought they could take me (Never bring a wrestling match to a knife fight). __________________ So you've got the tiger by the tail. Now what?

06-28-2018, 08:56 PM	#10
David Bofinger Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Sydney, Australia	Re: Suggestion to adjust Fist Damage. The difference between club damage and unarmed damage is presently a constant, whereas it probably should be proportional: i.e. the damage done by a club is the damage that would be done unarmed if your ST was, say, twice as large. And maybe the damage done by a one-handed sword is the unarmed damage for an ST three times as large: that might be cleaner and more realistic than the present system of defining swords by ST requirement. The most important relevance of unarmed combat is a fight where for some reason the character didn't bring a weapon. That might be because the character is in a social situation where weapons aren't permitted (bar room brawl, tea party at the palace) or because he's escaping from jail and needs to beat up a guard. The unarmed combat system should be designed with these sorts of situations in mind, and maybe also so that people can throw in a punch or pommel strike as a bonus during a fight. That makes it difficult. The damage has to be large enough to provide a realistic chance a guard can be prevented from raising an alarm but not so great that it competes with a sword. I don't know how this should be done.