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Old 06-13-2019, 02:45 PM   #1
TippetsTX
 
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Default MA Questions

Why are MA penalties always presented as fixed values rather than deductions? There's clearly a humanoid bias there, but there are also creatures with higher and lower MA scores that could be impacted by encumbrance or armor penalties.

For example, what is a centaur character's adjusted MA when wearing leather barding? Half plate?
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Old 06-13-2019, 09:29 PM   #2
JLV
 
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Default Re: MA Questions

Honestly, I personally have always felt that the MAs should be dependent on some combination of ST and DX to determine your actual MA. Perhaps something as simple as MA = (ST + DX)/2 (with suitable racial bonuses/penalties). This would, in turn, solve all of these conundrums that constantly come up, though it would mean that MA could literally vary from turn to turn based on encumbrances, damage, etc.

I suspect that the original decision to go with flat MAs with flat values for penalties was to make it "simpler," but in this case, I think making it just a bit more complex at the front end would have made the whole thing a LOT "simpler" in the end, since all these edge cases and special exceptions would have been eliminated from the beginning.

(That, of course, is just my personal feelings on the matter, and may not reflect anyone else's, YMMV, etc., etc., and so on.)
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Old 06-13-2019, 11:24 PM   #3
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Default Re: MA Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
Why are MA penalties always presented as fixed values rather than deductions? There's clearly a humanoid bias there, but there are also creatures with higher and lower MA scores that could be impacted by encumbrance or armor penalties.
TFT's simplicity bias. It doesn't even get through the human encumbrance rules without suggesting many people will want to ignore them.


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Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
For example, what is a centaur character's adjusted MA when wearing leather barding? Half plate?
Well, we can almost get there, but not definitively.

Per ITL pg. 66 and 132, it is per weight encumbrance, with armor weight being 250% that of a human suit, so 40 pounds for leather, 112.5 pounds for half plate. A ST 14 centaur would have its full MA up to 56 pounds carried... at which point, ITL trips over its attempted simplicity by saying MA drops to 8...

So the GM has to decide if that means literally MA 8 (probably not), MA -2 (maybe) or 8 MA for a normal human, so proportionally that'd be 80% of the MA of a creature with some other MA (I think that makes the most sense - some may balk, but I see no good simpler alternative to getting appropriate numbers).

I would also quibble with the flat 250% weight for ALL 2-hex creatures. I think a centaur might want not just horse barding but most of a human suit of leather armor as well, which might or might not weigh more, but probably would reduce DX by the full amount, not the reduced barding amount mentioned on ITL 132.

So to answer, I get Centaur MA at a full 24 outdoors / 12 indoors in leather, but half-plate barding brings a ST 14 centaur to just over 8 x ST, which is human MA 4, so 40% would be MA 9.6 outdoors, or MA 4.8 indoors, and an extra -2 DX, and only able to carry another 27 or so more pounds of gear.


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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Honestly, I personally have always felt that the MAs should be dependent on some combination of ST and DX to determine your actual MA. Perhaps something as simple as MA = (ST + DX)/2 (with suitable racial bonuses/penalties). This would, in turn, solve all of these conundrums that constantly come up, though it would mean that MA could literally vary from turn to turn based on encumbrances, damage, etc.

I suspect that the original decision to go with flat MAs with flat values for penalties was to make it "simpler," but in this case, I think making it just a bit more complex at the front end would have made the whole thing a LOT "simpler" in the end, since all these edge cases and special exceptions would have been eliminated from the beginning.

(That, of course, is just my personal feelings on the matter, and may not reflect anyone else's, YMMV, etc., etc., and so on.)
(Well it's also pretty much what GURPS does. I'd say it works out rather well there (for my own tastes), but the result there is more complicated, but logical and consistent.)

Last edited by Skarg; 06-13-2019 at 11:30 PM.
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Old 06-14-2019, 12:26 PM   #4
Chris Rice
 
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Default Re: MA Questions

"TFT's simplicity bias. It doesn't even get through the human encumbrance rules without suggesting many people will want to ignore them."

Yes exactly - I always ignored them. All that's "essential" for TFT to my mind is: Melee, Wizard, the Talent rules and the Bestiary, and perhaps not even all of those. I've always felt the rest of ITL is "reference material" to be added if required and to taste.

I never used; the Job Table, Encumbrance, Experience, Magic Item creation and probably lots of other stuff. Like I say, it may be useful to refer to, but none of it is essential.
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Old 06-14-2019, 03:29 PM   #5
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Default Re: MA Questions

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
TFT's simplicity bias. It doesn't even get through the human encumbrance rules without suggesting many people will want to ignore them.
TBH, I think MA deductions would've been simpler... certainly more broadly apply-able.

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Per ITL pg. 66 and 132, it is per weight encumbrance, with armor weight being 250% that of a human suit, so 40 pounds for leather, 112.5 pounds for half plate. A ST 14 centaur would have its full MA up to 56 pounds carried... at which point, ITL trips over its attempted simplicity by saying MA drops to 8...

So the GM has to decide if that means literally MA 8 (probably not), MA -2 (maybe) or 8 MA for a normal human, so proportionally that'd be 80% of the MA of a creature with some other MA (I think that makes the most sense - some may balk, but I see no good simpler alternative to getting appropriate numbers).

I would also quibble with the flat 250% weight for ALL 2-hex creatures. I think a centaur might want not just horse barding but most of a human suit of leather armor as well, which might or might not weigh more, but probably would reduce DX by the full amount, not the reduced barding amount mentioned on ITL 132.

So to answer, I get Centaur MA at a full 24 outdoors / 12 indoors in leather, but half-plate barding brings a ST 14 centaur to just over 8 x ST, which is human MA 4, so 40% would be MA 9.6 outdoors, or MA 4.8 indoors, and an extra -2 DX, and only able to carry another 27 or so more pounds of gear.
I dislike the extra math, but you're probably right that percentage approach is the most reasonable. I don't think, however, that a 14 ST centaur should be treated the same as a 14 ST human... not where encumbrance is concerned. The quadruped chassis should at least double a centaur's carrying capacity IMO. That would reduce the impact of armor on MA somewhat, I think.
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Old 06-14-2019, 03:41 PM   #6
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Default Re: MA Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
All that's "essential" for TFT to my mind is: Melee, Wizard, the Talent rules and the Bestiary, and perhaps not even all of those. I've always felt the rest of ITL is "reference material" to be added if required and to taste.

I never used; the Job Table, Encumbrance, Experience, Magic Item creation and probably lots of other stuff. Like I say, it may be useful to refer to, but none of it is essential.
To be clear, however, the issue is how to properly adjust MA for non-humanoid creatures which is an essential aspect of combat. Encumbrance is a factor, but I'm more concerned about the impacts to MA from armor on multi-hex figures (ITL pg 132 addresses DX penalties of barding, but not MA, for example).
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Old 06-14-2019, 06:40 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
I dislike the extra math, but you're probably right that percentage approach is the most reasonable. I don't think, however, that a 14 ST centaur should be treated the same as a 14 ST human... not where encumbrance is concerned. The quadruped chassis should at least double a centaur's carrying capacity IMO. That would reduce the impact of armor on MA somewhat, I think.
Right, there should be some sort of centaur adjustment. Centaurs are weird because they are part horse, part humanoid, and yet they only have ST 14, and the encumbrance rules are about humans, but then you multiply armor weight by 250% for a 2-hex creature, and TFT armor weights are quite high.

A ST 14 horse is the weakest nag. Horses in TFT have ST 14 - 38, so their armored and mounted MA tends to be more reasonable.

Centaurs either want an adjustment of some sort (which would of course logically be necessary, since they have both a human part of their body and a horse part of their body), or they're intended not to be able to wear heavy armor for thematic reasons.

Really though I think it's that the level of attention stopped short of developing a solid answer, leaving it to GMs to figure out what to do about it.

And a hand-waved answer may be just fine for most GMs and/or players.

However a player actually playing a PC centaur and wanting to understand and have a logical play experience may run into this quickly, and might have not such a great time if the GM isn't up to generating satisfactory answers. But that's what simple published rules get you, and TFT does a vastly better job of setting up a logical framework than most... it just also leaves some of us with an appetite for more details, which we can either work out ourselves, on on forums (q.v. the house rules sub-forum here), and/or partial import and/or migrate GURPSward.
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