Upgrading Healing Potions

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by MikMod

Any combat will go A WHOLE LOT BETTER if the party plan ahead, set up the situation and arrange for all possible advantages to be on their side. Otherwise they will fail, fail and fail again.

This is a separate category of thing: is the interesting part the actual combat, or is it preparing for the combat (again, this comes down to player preferences).

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Anthony

This is a separate category of thing: is the interesting part the actual combat, or is it preparing for the combat (again, this comes down to player preferences).

Hopefully both?

I guess I was responding to the idea that " the type of healing available should determine the kinds of fights you should arrange in your dungeon". Which I found an odd idea, as I don't see it as the major factor in combats at all.

Realistically, every creature should only fight as a last resort, since it is so lethal. People should certainly need a very good reason to fight to the death. IMHO.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by MikMod

Hopefully both?

In general tactically interesting combat is a result of a strategic failure, and RPGs are no exception.

Originally Posted by MikMod

I guess I was responding to the idea that " the type of healing available should determine the kinds of fights you should arrange in your dungeon". Which I found an odd idea, as I don't see it as the major factor in combats at all.

The set of fights you expect the PCs to make it through is determined by the availability of healing.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Anthony

To give a more concrete example, let's say you have four PCs, and we'll simplify and assume the opposition is equal to the PCs, just different in number. Also, we'll ignore healing entirely.

Against four NPCs, the winner is random, and heavy casualties can be expected, so you can have one fight.
Against three NPCs, the PCs are substantially favored to win, but are likely to take more than 50% injury in the process, so if you put in a second fight, the PCs are likely to lose the second fight.
Against two NPCs, expected damage is about 25%, so you can have three fights with the PCs still favored to win.
Against one NPC, expected damage is about 6%, so you can have fifteen fights with the PCs still favored.

Maybe in some other game. In TFT, the odds of injury are much more based on the situation (terrain, equipment, positions, moves, what people do), what choices each side makes, and what actually ends up happening.

If the party is clever and/or tactical and/or stealthy and the enemy doesn't know they're coming, they may be able to face 4 or more equal opponents without much loss of any injury. Or not, or the opposite. That's where the gameplay and challenge and risk come in. If I could pre-calculate the odds of outcomes, I'd stop playing (and in fact after many years of play, when we got so familiar with TFT and our characters were so strong that we almost could do that, we did stop playing and started redesigning until GURPS came out).

Originally Posted by Anthony

If healing is easy, a dungeon should probably contain a mix of 2s and 3s. If healing is hard, it should probably contain a mix of 1s and 2s.

This is anathema to the way I want the GM to generate their campaign world and to run their adventures, unless it's something like Death Test or intentionally fair arena combats or tournament matches. Having the universe change what's in it to try to automatically artificially adapt to the players' power levels, undermines the idea of playing in a game world that has natural inhabitants and cause and effect.

Instead, I want an adventure location to be like an actual place, and visiting it to be like actually visiting an actual place. I.e. I want to have in it things that make sense to be in it. And I want those things to behave like those things would behave. A group of adventurers should try to be careful and learn what that is, and if/when they find it has more in it than they can handle, they should switch to doing things to avoid getting killed by whatever that is.

So if a place does have several dispersed groups of 1-3 inhabitants, and a group of 4 invaders shows up, those inhabitants should probably use their knowledge of the place they're in and know about, to avoid being outnumbered and killed piecemeal, latch doors and run to gather a bunch of other inhabitants so they can try to deal with the intruders (player party) in a stronger group, etc.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Maybe in some other game. In TFT, the odds of injury are much more based on the situation (terrain, equipment, positions, moves, what people do), what choices each side makes, and what actually ends up happening.

We are assuming otherwise equal levels of competence; it is as likely that the NPCs ambush you as that you ambush the NPCs, for example.

Originally Posted by Skarg

This is anathema to the way I want the GM to generate their campaign world and to run their adventures, unless it's something like Death Test or intentionally fair arena combats or tournament matches. Having the universe change what's in it to try to automatically artificially adapt to the players' power levels, undermines the idea of playing in a game world that has natural inhabitants and cause and effect.

As a GM, you should have an idea what your PCs can beat, and you'd use those rules for something that will be challenging but probably beatable. There is nothing saying you can't have things in the world that the PCs can't beat, or can beat easily.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Anthony

We are assuming otherwise equal levels of competence; it is as likely that the NPCs ambush you as that you ambush the NPCs, for example.

Yes that's why I added "Or not, or the opposite."

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Yes that's why I added "Or not, or the opposite."

In that case, my original numbers stand. The effects you describe change the randomness of the results but not the average.

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In general tactically interesting combat is a result of a strategic failure, and RPGs are no exception.

Not in my experience. The most interesting combats I've seen or been a part of is when the party is using their wits to the utmost to pull the odds in their favor despite having 'taken on more than they can handle'.

The set of fights you expect the PCs to make it through is determined by the availability of healing.

I don't have any expectations of my PCs. They do what they do, the NPCs do what they do. The story unfolds as it will. Healing is the very last thing I would worry about :)

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Having the universe change what's in it to try to automatically artificially adapt to the players' power levels, undermines the idea of playing in a game world that has natural inhabitants and cause and effect.

^^^^^^^ This.

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by MikMod

Any combat will go A WHOLE LOT BETTER if the party plan ahead, set up the situation and arrange for all possible advantages to be on their side. Otherwise they will fail, fail and fail again.

That's true, always, but problematic if you are running say, preprogrammed adventures like DT or the DCGs books. Players have less agency in those sort of situations and most existing TFT modules are of that nature, unfortunately. :(