An UC damage tweak that fixes many issues

[mark hill]

Firstly, I realise that the rules are probably in a 'writ in stone' situation now, so this idea might be a little late to the party ..

I offer this idea to solve the 'club is a superweapon' problem at bronze or stone age tech, and a few other problems. So heres an alternate table .. changing the Bare Handed Damage table would seem to solve a GREAT many more complex problems with the least adjustments to the rules as a whole .. all other TFT rules remain unchanged, (I presume 'fighters' still get +1 bare handed damage in the new rules), the club rules are otherwise the same (except that theres probably enuf wiggle room now for a designer 'spiked' club, +1 damage, and a simple log or brick is no longer even close to being competitive with a sword), and the weapon/armour tables would now have enuf wiggle room to simulate more primitive gear (bronze weapons do 1 point less damage, stone/glass weapons 2 less .. simple). It does means two non fighters with low ST boxing one another will slap away for some long time to little or no effect .. well thats probably realistic (also funny). It also means a slight nerfing of daggers in HTH (so corpses now have more dagger wounds .. more realistic, probably) and the general combat strength of Bruce Lee types compared to knights in armour is slightly lowered (easily adjusted in the UC talents if one cares, maybe just give em a straightforward +1 damage per talent level .. simple rules are good rules)

ST 8 or less ... (1-5) Bare Handed damage
ST 9 to 11 ..... (1-4)
ST 12 to 14 ... (1-3)
ST 15 to 17 ... (1-2)
ST 18 to 20 ... (1-1)
ST 21 to 25 ... (1d6)
every 5 ST more ... (+1)

Thoughts?

[hcobb]

So by fighter you mean someone who has the Brawling talent?

Anybody who has the Brawling talent does the table listed bare handed, club and dagger in HTH damage, and everybody else does one less damage?

UC I then gives the listed bare handed damage and higher levels add to that?

[mark hill]

well in the OLD rules (I dont have the new ones yet, but folks tell me its 99% the same) fighter characters (as opposed to wizards or whatever) got a +1 BH damage adjustment .. no longer a thing? should still work fine either way

no those numbers are meant to be the baseline, add all adds the rules say to .. (1-5) damage is literally as low as damage potential can go, yeah?

Brawling is a new talent? adds +1 damage? add it .. it probably (?) replaces the old +1 BH for fighters rule

Maybe UC talents, and daggers in HTH, get a general +1 damage adjustment to make them closer to their usual place in the damage scale .. or not

This suggestion should really have been labelled as Bare Handed Damage, not Unarmed Combat Damage, not trying to be intentionally misleading lol .. ill edit it

[Skarg]

* I agree that a tweak or two to the bare-hand damaged table, particularly lowering the low-ST damage amounts. I wrote an elaborate post on the topic "HERE":http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=12 but I think I overwhelmed my audience. It also contains a few other tweaks which each are pretty simple but I think fix the issues I know of in a way I like.

* I think the values you list do what you want, but I think they go a bit too far. For example, wouldn't daggers in normal combat still do 1d-1, making them as good as or better than clubs at ST 11 or below? Also what would you do for giant-club-wielding giants? I think it could work to define new giant club damage for them.

* Where is the +1 bare hand damage for "fighters" in the original rules? I don't remember that.

[hcobb]

A ST 12 untrained yahoo does 1d-2 striking into the next hex bare handed by ITL 122. (And 1d-1 HTH)

A ST 12 Myrmidon does 1d-3 striking into the next hex bare handed by page 12 of the Wizard rulebook. (And 1d-4 to 1d-2 in HTH by page 18 of the Melee rulebook.)

I.e. Melee/Wizard Fighters do one less point than ITL untrained.

[mark hill]

Ah yes, 'club revisited' .. Im aware of it, I commented there

Originally Posted by Skarg

* I think the values you list do what you want, but I think they go a bit too far. For example, wouldn't daggers in normal combat still do 1d-1, making them as good as or better than clubs at ST 11 or below? Also what would you do for giant-club-wielding giants? I think it could work to define new giant club damage for them.

At low ST .. Id probably rather get a belt from a log than have a steel knife shoved in me. Perhaps thats personal taste? Imagine a child was getting a free hit on you .. would you want the log or the knife?

Note that with the adjustments this table would make possible, a club at low-average ST would beat a STONE knife .. a steel knife one could view as belonging to a 'higher tech' paradigm compared to a simple club.

Giants could have Giant Clubs .. there always was a problem there, Summoned Giants apparently had clubs way better than those suggested by the rules. 'Giant' Clubs could require ST 30 and do an extra 1 or 2 dice damage or something. Or require simply being a Giant figure to weild. If it was an additional +(2+2) it would give Summoned Giants at ST 30 the (3+3) they have in the original rules. (some of that bonus is for being 2-handed and spiked, the rest is for large mass and 'giant leverage' compared to a regular club)

Where is the bonus 'fighters' get in BH .. well bugger me, I dont remember .. maybe its an ancient house rule of ours that 'became canon' in the memorey?
>> Ive just done a (brief) flick thru my rules, and buggered if I can find it lol

[Mike P.]

* Where is the +1 bare hand damage for "fighters" in the original rules? I don't remember that.[/QUOTE]

It was on the back of the Fantasy Masters' Screen, which I believe was published after Steve J. left Meta Gaming.

Under the "DAMAGE BASED ON STRENGTH TABLE" (Same table as in AM p. 21)

"Any Combat: wizard/+0, fighter/+1"

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by mark hill

At low ST .. Id probably rather get a belt from a log than have a steel knife shoved in me. Perhaps thats personal taste? Imagine a child was getting a free hit on you .. would you want the log or the knife?

We basically agree, just differing on what damage values we assigned (and that you greatly reduced damage for higher ST unarmed/clubs, while I instead increased damages for using real weapons with higher ST).

My children do base 1d-6, and ST 11 does base 1d-3. Your ST 10-11 (adult) does 1d-4 but your child (8 or less) only does 1 less point of damage.

[mark hill]

well I rekon a guy who would go down to one or two sword blows, probably will only be knocked out by a LOT of punching .. more than the TFT system has wiggle room for in truth. I know Ive been punched much more than 20 times by pretty strong guys in a fight, and obviously not died .. but I seriously dont think I qualify for 20 ST :)

My child damages are possibly scaled on aussie kids .. not afraid to engage in rock and club fights with the neighbours kids, kill a deadly spider or snake without screaming for mummy, or fall outta a tree without whining about it (or even admitting it) .. you know .. kids :)

my home table uses weapon damage bonuses for high ST .. most TFT players dont Im guessin

[Skarg]

Good points, though I think the fist fight examples fall under a discussion we had some months ago before you appeared, about brawling and such.

The gist IIRC being that the "1/2 damage, round down" should probably apply to brawls and fist fights, and/or do some sort of less serious damage.