Defense (sorry post is long)

[Kieddicus]

I'm sure the topic of higher level characters being better at blocking attacks most have come up a few times by now, so sorry if I am beating a dead horse. But anyway...

Other than a few talents there isn't much in the way of buffing your defense in TFT and this make the game run faster, but it does bother me as well. Have any of you played around with different ways to add defense into your games? And if so what are they and how well did they work?

I have been debating an idea for sometime but haven't gotten around to testing it out.
To set-up this idea it is important to note that I like the idea of simultaneous combat/turns. Everyone performing a ranged attack rolls their dice and resolves their attacks at the same time, then everyone in melee does the same.

So my idea is:
For melee combat you only hit your target if you make your DX roll by a greater margin than your target does. If your target is not making a melee attack against anyone, you hit so long as you make your DX roll as normal.

This does makes DX even more valuable as it buffs defense, but DX now no longer determines who goes first.

Example
For example lets say our Hero is being attacked by three evil goblins.
The Hero makes his roll by 5 against one of the goblins in front of him.
The goblin (g1) the hero swung at makes his roll by 2
Another goblin (g2) misses his roll.
And the last goblin (g3) was in the Hero's rear and thus made her roll by 7
The Hero hits g1 since they made their DX roll by a greater amount than g1.
g1 misses the hero, as they did not make their DX roll by 5 or more.
g2 misses because they missed their DX roll.
and g3 hits our Hero as they made their DX roll by a better margin than the Hero.

[phiwum]

It's an interesting idea, but I have a few concerns.

How to interpret this rule thematically? A better to-hit roll means that I beat the other guy to the punch, costing him a shot? Evidently not, or this would only affect my opponent and not the guy behind me. I guess I just don't see why a really good roll against the guy in front of me makes it more likely the guy behind me will miss.

Second, we now have DX doing even more in the game, since a high to-hit roll results in a good defense. If your DX is high enough, ST won't matter so much, so long as you can keep swinging and generate defense that way.

Suppose I have a (disengaged) archer who makes an incredible shot. As a result, any opponents firing their missile weapons will have a hard time hitting them. I guess I don't see why.

[TippetsTX]

I'm testing a much simpler mechanic... I give characters the option of sacrificing points from their DX score and apply that as a penalty against their opponent's next attack.

For example, Legolas (DX 15) is engaged in melee with Gimli (DX 11). Setting aside the various modifiers that impact adjDX for the moment, Legolas opts to apply 3 points of his DX to defense (not to be confused with the DEFEND action). His effective DX is lowered to 12 for this turn which still allows him to strike first. When it comes time for Gimli to strike back, he will have an additional -3 DX applied to his 'to hit' roll.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

I'm testing a much simpler mechanic... I give characters the option of sacrificing points from their DX score and apply that as a penalty against their opponent's next attack.

For example, Legolas (DX 15) is engaged in melee with Gimli (DX 11). Setting aside the various modifiers that impact adjDX for the moment, Legolas opts to apply 3 points of his DX to defense (not to be confused with the DEFEND action). His effective DX is lowered to 12 for this turn which still allows him to strike first. When it comes time for Gimli to strike back, he will have an additional -3 DX applied to his 'to hit' roll.

So, if Legolas is disbelieving, can he drive Gimli down to the auto-success probabilities by reducing his DX by 6? And what happens with Defend? Is this only for attacks?

If it's only for attacks, then it's still a better option than Defend. Legolas applies 6 points to defense leaving a 9 to hit while Ghimli has 5. Perhaps you're fine with that and you're effectively doing away with the Defend option, but I think that if I were Legolas, I'd go with a 9 to hit so that my opponent has to roll 5 or less pretty darned regularly. I'd have a 37% chance to hit while he has a 5%, so I'll hit him seven times as often.

With RAW, Gimli has a 63% and Legolas a 95% to hit.

You could play with the numbers and drop Gimli's to-hit by one for every -2 for Legolas. That might end up better. With that alteration, the numbers look like this:

Legolas/Gimli
95/63
84/50
63/37
37/25
16/16
5/10
5/5

Clearly, the biggest advantage for Legolas occurs when he used adjDX 11 to hit, forcing Gimly down to 9. He's gained a considerable advantage by this method, hitting 1.7 times for every hit from Gimli, rather than RAW's 3 to 2 ratio.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

I'm testing a much simpler mechanic... I give characters the option of sacrificing points from their DX score and apply that as a penalty against their opponent's next attack.

With that rule, a dexterous thug (ST9 DX15) with a knife can predictably (albeit slowly) kill a strongman (ST15 DX9) with a battleaxe by accepting a -4 penalty every turn, still succeeding in his attack half to almost two-thirds of the time while the strongman has a little under a 5% chance of hitting.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Shostak

With that rule, a dexterous thug (ST9 DX15) with a knife can predictably (albeit slowly) kill a strongman (ST15 DX9) with a battleaxe by accepting a -4 penalty every turn, still succeeding in his attack half to almost two-thirds of the time while the strongman has a little under a 5% chance of hitting.

Yes, though I have yet to see any player willing to sacrifice more than 1 or 2 DX in actual gameplay. Remember, this adjustment is before modifiers for armor, facing, health-level, etc. It also provides a continued incentive for characters to advance their DX (bearing in mind that my system does not limit characters to 40-points).

And to answer a prior comment, I have also been considering changing the exchange ratio to 2:1. I prefer the simplicity of 1:1 but I do recognize the potential for abuse even though it has not yet manifested during playtesting.

Another idea I'm considering is to tie this ability to a talent.

[tcr25]

Originally Posted by Shostak

With that rule, a dexterous thug (ST9 DX15) with a knife can predictably (albeit slowly) kill a strongman (ST15 DX9) with a battleaxe by accepting a -4 penalty every turn, still succeeding in his attack half to almost two-thirds of the time while the strongman has a little under a 5% chance of hitting.

To dissuade that sort of thing, maybe fatigue should start becoming an issue after a certain number of turns, say equal to ST. (After n=ST turns of being engaged, a player loses 1 ST to fatigue each subsequent turn.) So your dexterous thug would need to get the kill within 9 turns or else the strongman is going to eventually wear them out.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by tcr25

To dissuade that sort of thing, maybe fatigue should start becoming an issue after a certain number of turns, say equal to ST. (After n=ST turns of being engaged, a player loses 1 ST to fatigue each subsequent turn.) So your dexterous thug would need to get the kill within 9 turns or else the strongman is going to eventually wear them out.

Not a bad idea, but an awful lot of the melees I've played through were over within nine turns.

[tcr25]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Not a bad idea, but an awful lot of the melees I've played through were over within nine turns.

For sure, but n=ST/2 seemed a bit too harsh ...

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Kieddicus

So my idea is:
For melee combat you only hit your target if you make your DX roll by a greater margin than your target does.

This means that if two figures are fighting, only one can hit that turn, since to do so, the margin of success must be greater than the opponent's. Aside from possibly creating a great many more forced retreats, this does not agree with the following:

Example
The Hero makes his roll by 5 against one of the goblins in front of him.
The goblin (g1) the hero swung at makes his roll by 2
...
g1 misses the hero, as they did not make their DX roll by 5 or more.

According to the example, both would hit if g1's roll succeeded by 5.

All that aside, the fact that a slower opponent's attack roll can influence a faster figure's is a little odd, suggesting that everything happens at once instead of according to the very fluid adjDX order. And, because reactions to injury can include adjustments to DX, trying to keep track of their effects on who actually hits could become very confusing.