Armour / Encumbrance alternative?

[MikMod]

I've always been a little concerned that DEX is pretty much the primary stat. High DEX means acting first, reliably hitting, even in difficult circumstances, it's the most common saving throw, and on top of that, and not imho logically, it means you get better armour...

In another thread about 'tank' characters a build of ST 10 DX 14 was recommended to reach armour of 8 and still be functional (ADX 10), using fine plate, small shield and shield skill.

But this leaves us in a weird situation I think. Given a powerful dwarf with average dexterity ST 14 DX 10 and a nimble goblin ST 10 DX 14, somehow the rules mean that the goblin makes a better tank?!

So I've been thinking about the encumbrance rules. These include DX penalties for weight carried - potentially a way to link higher ST to the ability to more easily carry armour. The old Advantage Of Great Strength rules (which I'm still using) recognised that ST should be a factor in carrying armour without it hampering you. I've seen the reenactment guys in plate armour - they're not at all feeble and it's exhausting work fighting in full metal armour. The problem is that DX minuses for weight only kick in at ST x 6, effectively allowing anyone to wear any armour.

So. I'm thinking I might reduce the base DX penalty for all armour, but increase the encumbrance penalties, bringing them in much earlier.

This should enable stronger characters to wear heavier armour, as they would IRL, and discourage the feeble from being the plate-wearing tanks.

Does anyone else have an opinion on this? Has anyone tried something similar? I don't think it will turn ST into some kind of super-stat, it should just trim the outlier edges: the strong character that cannot wear armour because it effectively disables them (!) and the goblin tank who can wear impregnable plate but hits with a paper knife for no damage.

Thoughts? (Thank you in advance)

[hcobb]

I'd rather spend the $4k on a Stone Flesh ring to not hamper DX.

[Theohippip]

When I think of great strength athletes, I think of big guys - heavyweight boxers, pro wrestlers, football players. These people would require big, heavy armor. Scale down the size and strength of a person, and you scale down the weight of the armor as well. Pound for pound, a 57kg Olympic wrestler in the lowest weight class is probably as strong as his 125kg counterpart in the highest weight class and can, as such, handle the scaled-down plate armor as well as the stronger person.

[hcobb]

ST 6 Goblin with ...
Fine Plate $3,500 38.5lb
Small Shield $21 7lb
2xVery Fine daggers $400 0.4lb
Backpack $40 4.0lb
Labyrinth kit $30 6.0lb
Physicker’s kit $50 4.0lb
Lantern $20 2.0lb
2 Molotail $40 4.0lb
Belt pouch $5 0.5lb
2 days Rations $10 2.0lb
2 quarts of water $6 4.0lb

Total weight is 72.4 which is over 12 times ST so his combat MA is zero.

Just wearing the armor and nothing else gives him -1 DX from the weight.

[Shostak]

TFT's overall simplicity means that many things are roughly sketched out or simplified for the sake of streamlined play. Add too much encumberance or tinkering and you that ease at the table can be quickly lost. That said, you can use encumberance rules for armor DX and MA adjustments and they work fine. It will be a different game, in which wealth is more important, combat has a different center of balance, and there is more book-keeping, but it works.

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Shostak

TFT's overall simplicity means that many things are roughly sketched out or simplified for the sake of streamlined play. Add too much encumberance or tinkering and you that ease at the table can be quickly lost. That said, you can use encumberance rules for armor DX and MA adjustments and they work fine. It will be a different game, in which wealth is more important, combat has a different center of balance, and there is more book-keeping, but it works.

Why would wealth be more important with a change like this? Wouldn't it be less important if it changed at all?

Do you agree that there is a weird distortion where 'tanks' are often feeble with high dex in order to 'carry' their armour and stronger characters are unable to wear heavy armour because it cripples them? It's not the 'centre' that concerns me, that would remain the same, it's the weird outliers that I'm hoping to address if that makes sense?

Do you know if there already are some 'encumbrance rules for armour' somewhere?

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Theohippip

When I think of great strength athletes, I think of big guys - heavyweight boxers, pro wrestlers, football players. These people would require big, heavy armor. Scale down the size and strength of a person, and you scale down the weight of the armor as well. Pound for pound, a 57kg Olympic wrestler in the lowest weight class is probably as strong as his 125kg counterpart in the highest weight class and can, as such, handle the scaled-down plate armor as well as the stronger person.

I'm not sure this works does it? There are plenty of small and strong dwarves and tall (bigger armour) weak elves about. You can be 5'10" and ST 9 or 5'10" and ST 16. The weight difference in armour terms will be negligible, but under RAW the weaker person (if they had spent their points on dex) would counter-intuitively find it far easier to carry on operating in full plate.

[TippetsTX]

Simple fix from back in the day... we had minimum ST requirements for armor just like you have for weapons.

Cloth - n/a
Leather - 6 ST
Chainmail - 8 ST
Half-Plate - 11 ST
Full Plate - 14 ST

*Fine* quality armor would reduce minimum ST by one. I think we made adjustments for size and special materials as well.

[Anthony]

The basic problem is that balance in Melee is calculated on a three way tradeoff between accuracy, damage, and toughness, so an increase in toughness has to result in a penalty to one of the other two. It could be a damage penalty instead of an accuracy penalty, but that doesn't make a lot more sense (wearing more armor means you have to use lighter weapons?). You can also decide that you don't care about that tradeoff, but the result is everyone wears the max armor they can manage.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by MikMod

Why would wealth be more important with a change like this? Wouldn't it be less important if it changed at all?

Because chainemail costs more than leather, and plate costs more than chainmail.