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Old 07-03-2018, 03:00 PM   #21
tomc
 
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
* If they win initiative and have you move first, and you don't get your back to something or run far enough away, they can often move around you and get you in the rear for an attack or HTH.
As the GM in a campaign, if the human isn't already heavily involved with something very distracting, I'd let him pivot to to keep the lion in his front hexes.

As a board game player, I'd probably want to house rule it, unless it was agreed beforehand to play the rules strictly as written.
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Old 07-03-2018, 03:52 PM   #22
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
... A human world-record should not be used as the basis of comparison for MA 10, or even for MA 12 (Running talent). ...

And, the world record for 100m dash, it looks to me, is 9.58s, or 37.58kph, ... High school track records seems to be about 13s, or 27.69kph... I'd say that's more like what someone with Running should be compared at. More typical 100m dash times for non-track experts seem to be more like 15s, or 24kph, which I'd call more like MA 10 ...

Let's see if we use those, if MA 10 vs MA 12 even pans, out... 27.69 / 24 = 1.15, so yeah, actually it does!

(And FWIW, the non-athletic speed comes out to MA 7.5, call it 8. Sounds like something to give non-athletic figures.)

Ok, so if we are comparing an average human at MA 10 and calling it 24 kph, and comparing to Rick's animal speeds in Kph and converting to MA, we get:
Lion 33.33
Wolf 26.67
Grizzly 23.33
Brown Bear 14.58
Tiger 27.08
Hi Skarg,
I really like your analysis but the speed of the animals seem way to high too me. So I thought I would double check your math.

I like using your 15 seconds for a normal person (without Running talent) to run a 100 meter dash. So...

100 meters / 1.33 meters / hex = 75 hexes.

75 hexes / 15 seconds = 5 hexes per second. Turns are 5 second long so...

5 hexes / second x 5 seconds / turn = a human without Running has can move 25 hexes / turn = 25 MA.

When I was writing my Sprinting rules (which allow people to double their movement), I discovered that MA 10 was far slower than people ran in a 100 meter dash.

So a person with armor, a back pack, boots and carrying several weapons runs slower than someone in sneakers and shorts. But someone running on perfectly flat ground in a straight line SHOULD be able to go faster than MA 10. (I allow people to spend 1 fatigue ST to SPRINT for two turns. People Sprinting double their MA, but triple any MA penalties. Sprinting must be in a fairly straight line, no sharp turns.) Even someone with Running, using my sprinting rules, can not quite run 1,600 meters in under 4 minutes, but with the Sprinting rules, TFT humans get fairly close to the running speeds for real life human athletes.

***

So this explains the problem. Humans have a 25 MA if in shorts, running straight, on flat ground. If human speeds are reduced 2.5 fold in TFT, then maybe the animals speeds should also be reduced? But by how much???

Warm regards, Rick.

Last edited by Rick_Smith; 07-03-2018 at 04:05 PM. Reason: Reordered phrase to make it clearer.
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Old 07-03-2018, 04:53 PM   #23
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

Hi Rick,

Yes, TFT MA is way lower than what even a human can actually move in real life, let alone a lion. If you had human MA at 25 per 5 seconds (as in GURPS), then proportionally, Lion MA would be over 80.

I'm not sure if you meant to say that's a correction for 100m versus 100 1.33m hexes, but that wouldn't apply, because I just figured the proportions in comparison to athletic human MA 10.

That is, the math I did is a proportional comparison of the animal speeds in kph, to the human speeds in kph (for world record 100m sprints, high school records, average athletic times, and unathletic times). I then normalized for human MA of 10, and found that if we take MA 10 as athletic, then proportionally, MA 8 is unathletic, 12 is high school record-holders (so, like people with Running), and world record-holders come out to MA 15 (so Elf with running +1). That seemed very conveniently to be working out well, so then I just did a simple proportion comparing the animal stats in Kph to the human MA 10.

If you want to nudge them down a bit, you could adjust/research what the animal speeds really mean a bit, or compare to human MA 12 instead, which gives:

Lion 80kph = 28.89
Wolf 64kph = 23.11
Grizzly 56kph = 20.22
Brown Bear 35kph = 12.64
Tiger 65kph = 23.47

But that doesn't help a whole terrible lot. Still, no one's outrunning anything faster than brown bear.

Seems to me the real issue isn't so much the MA, but the gamable tactics that appear when MA is so high that you can easily move all the way around people's front hexes during movement. That problem is going to exist for high-MA figures (e.g. horses & their riders, fliers, people with Speed Movement, etc) unless/until there's some adjustment to make it less weird, which I expect Steve will need to see playtest evidence of...

(Kind of like someone should probably show him an example of hobgoblins pinning a 7-hex dragon and keeping it from turning around using Engagement.)
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Old 07-03-2018, 05:33 PM   #24
Rick_Smith
 
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Default Speed of animals. Most are too slow.

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
... If you want to nudge them down a bit, you could adjust/research what the animal speeds really mean a bit, or compare to human MA 12 instead, which gives:

Lion 80kph = 28.89
Wolf 64kph = 23.11
Grizzly 56kph = 20.22
Brown Bear 35kph = 12.64
Tiger 65kph = 23.47

But that doesn't help a whole terrible lot. Still, no one's outrunning anything faster than brown bear.

Seems to me the real issue isn't so much the MA, but the gamable tactics that appear when MA is so high that you can easily move all the way around people's front hexes during movement. That problem is going to exist for high-MA figures (e.g. horses & their riders, fliers, people with Speed Movement, etc) unless/until there's some adjustment to make it less weird, which I expect Steve will need to see playtest evidence of...

(Kind of like someone should probably show him an example of hobgoblins pinning a 7-hex dragon and keeping it from turning around using Engagement.)
Hi Skarg, everyone.
I think that what would be the simplest solution is to bump the faster animal's MA up by 4 or 6 points, so that they can still go into HTH with people with Running or elves with Running talent.

In my campaign, I allow a "last second twist", at the end of movement. People who do this, get a -2 DX for the rest of the turn.

My dragons are not pinned by hobgoblins as much as regular TFT, because the dragon can say, "You don't engage me", and move away from some or all of them during movement. (They get free attacks on the dragon as it leaves, but what is a ST 7 hobgoblin going to do vs. the Dragon's 5 point armor?)

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 07-03-2018, 05:46 PM   #25
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Speed of animals. Most are too slow.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
I think that what would be the simplest solution is to bump the faster animal's MA up by 4 or 6 points, so that they can still go into HTH with people with Running or elves with Running talent.
Yeah, that was my first thought, too. Having known that bears in particular were too slow even when we were kids, I remember we talked about it and thought maybe SJ thought this was just how he wanted bears to play, not their actual speed? It's a pretty widespread meme over the last 10+ years though that no one can out-run a bear.


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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
In my campaign, I allow a "last second twist", at the end of movement. People who do this, get a -2 DX for the rest of the turn.
Yeah, some rule adjustment like that would go a long way to handle weird-seeming high-MA run-around situations. I like that you have some effect still there though, so it's still worthwhile to circle around someone, but also doesn't feel like you're frozen in place because it's not your turn and the foe has high MA.


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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
My dragons are not pinned by hobgoblins as much as regular TFT, because the dragon can say, "You don't engage me", and move away from some or all of them during movement. (They get free attacks on the dragon as it leaves, but what is a ST 7 hobgoblin going to do vs. the Dragon's 5 point armor?)
Again, yes, I quite prefer this sort of house rule, too.
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Old 07-04-2018, 10:46 AM   #26
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

I feel like I should add that MA doesn't necessarily need to be proportional to real-world running statistics, even if you're trying to be all simulationist. Those are numbers for maximums when running full speed in a straight line, not what might be actually done in combat including turns (especially moving in a circle to get around behind someone), maintaining tactical situational awareness and trying to out-maneuver others (etc), and for humans it's people wearing/carrying nearly nothing and running on ideal flat clear hard ground.

Also, if figures are allowed to stop to fight and choose what to do, then MA should include the time spent doing that, and getting up to speed. Even if someone took zero time to start running, accelerating from zero would tend to mean they'd cover half the distance they would if they started the turn running full speed. Considered that way, TFT MA is actually not that slow, as it would be at most half the max running speed, probably less (so Rick's MA 25, halved is 12.5, and nudged down a bit because people don't react instantly/perfectly nor are they usually running straight in gym shorts on a perfect track.

So TL;DR: TFT MA doesn't need to be proportional to speed or match statistics, but it's actually pretty reasonable.

(However, accurate speed for running straight in good conditions would be more like double MA.)
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Old 07-04-2018, 03:09 PM   #27
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

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(However, accurate speed for running straight in good conditions would be more like double MA.)
(...though that's assuming that they aren't carrying armor or other significant equipment at the time.)
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Old 07-04-2018, 10:29 PM   #28
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

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(...though that's assuming that they aren't carrying armor or other significant equipment at the time.)
True, it's not a simple situation.

Still, it seemed surprising and interesting to me that the 15-second 100m dash statistic worked out to MA 25, compared to usual unarmored combat MA 10... I had in my head that TFT MA was lower than it ought to be, but maybe not so much.
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Old 07-04-2018, 11:46 PM   #29
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

I've always assumed that the figures in TFT were using some basic common sense in their movement -- that is, not rushing blindly at their opponents, perhaps observing how they move, noticing if they favor a particular side, taking the time on their approach to examine their enemy's equipment...

You know, moving tactically, not expediently.

Let's face it, if we're running a footrace over a cinder track while competing for a prize, we move differently than we would if we were approaching a duel to the death with an unknown warrior/creature who can kill us right back.
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Old 07-05-2018, 01:34 AM   #30
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Default Re: Running and Engaging

Yes, definitely.

However in some cases, someone really would be just running in a straight line, and in that case, after say, spending a turn moving normal MA in the intended direction, I'd have them move faster (looks like about double or so might be about right), but they'd have to keep running straight to do that, and they'd have restricted awareness about what was going on, especially in other directions.
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