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Old 05-28-2019, 06:13 PM   #91
Shostak
 
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
Default Re: Current play?

Sounds great!

Quote:
Originally Posted by mstlaurent View Post

Two things of note:

1. It's very easy for wizards to get in a rut summoning or making illusions of bears. They're highly effective. I've been working on ways to wean our two wizards off of that crutch without being too obvious about it.

2. Throughout our learning phase, my two oldest always seemed to have a problem underestimating their DX requirements.
I've found a pie chart or bell graphs that illustrates the 3d6 probabilities helpful in getting TFT (and GURPS) newbies to understand the big difference between having roll-under target of 9 and that of 12.

Illusions: Disbelieving to nullify the 2-point ST spend. Or shoot the wizard with arrows to make them pay for not being more defensive before casting an illusion.
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Old 05-28-2019, 06:27 PM   #92
malchidael
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Near Milwaukee, WI
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I'll contribute. I actually bought TFT to introduce my youngest child to RPGs. My wife and two oldest play GURPS already, but I wanted something simpler for my youngest (who is 8) to start out on. (Plus, you know, I did play Melee and Wizard back in the day, so there is some nostalgia there....)

So, we ran a bunch of starter games to get a good feel for it. Started with Melee, first with the pre-gen characters and then making our own. Then added Wizard. Couple of head-to-head, couple of groups ganging up on the big creatures. Then we went into Death Test a couple of times. By then I think we had the hang of it.

For a campaign, I actually didn't go with Cidri. I love the old TSR Greyhawk setting and adventures, so I decided to just adapt those on the fly. For the first campaign I chose The Temple of Elemental Evil. It's been going really well so far, they're almost at the end of Village of Hommlet.
Awesome! Greyhawk (in my not-so-humble opinion) is the second best D&D campaign world for use with TFT (Wilderlands of High Fantasy is #1).

Hommlet is fun (I didn't care for the actual Temple, but the Moathouse was good)- Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and Cult of the Reptile God are two early adventures that would also convert pretty easily.

Great to hear how you introduced your family to TFT, and your kids experiences figuring out the "right" starting stats!
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Old 05-28-2019, 08:01 PM   #93
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
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I've used tons of pre 2E D+D materials for TFT adventures. You need to have your head screwed on straight as a DM, making sure to adapt things that are just slog-fests of endless fights with gangs of humanoids. TFT characters can't really stand up to that kind of punishment. But often that just amounts to making sure the party knows what they are getting into and understand a plan might be in order.

Re. over use of illusions of bears and gargoyles and such: I think the best solution is to play the opposing side like they know the rules of the game and are trying to win. Your players wouldn't hesitate to attempt to disbelieve an illusion, and neither should their foes. Illusion is the correct spell choice for lots of situations, but people won't over use it if half the time they find they've spent 2 ST points for absolutely nothing.
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Old 05-29-2019, 09:12 PM   #94
JLV
 
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Location: Arizona
Default Re: Current play?

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Originally Posted by malchidael View Post
Awesome! Greyhawk (in my not-so-humble opinion) is the second best D&D campaign world for use with TFT (Wilderlands of High Fantasy is #1).

Hommlet is fun (I didn't care for the actual Temple, but the Moathouse was good)- Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and Cult of the Reptile God are two early adventures that would also convert pretty easily.

Great to hear how you introduced your family to TFT, and your kids experiences figuring out the "right" starting stats!
I concur with this in every respect!

(Fun fact: Did you know that legend has it that Cult of the Reptile God actually started out it's design life as a TFT scenario that was scrubbed for some reason (possibly due to the collapse of Metagaming) and then converted by the author to D&D?)
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Old 05-30-2019, 07:42 AM   #95
malchidael
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
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I concur with this in every respect!

(Fun fact: Did you know that legend has it that Cult of the Reptile God actually started out it's design life as a TFT scenario that was scrubbed for some reason (possibly due to the collapse of Metagaming) and then converted by the author to D&D?)
I did not know that. Keen!
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Old 05-30-2019, 07:47 AM   #96
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
I've used tons of pre 2E D+D materials for TFT adventures. You need to have your head screwed on straight as a DM, making sure to adapt things that are just slog-fests of endless fights with gangs of humanoids. TFT characters can't really stand up to that kind of punishment. But often that just amounts to making sure the party knows what they are getting into and understand a plan might be in order.
As an example of how true that is; I thought I'd create a little mini-dungeon. I chose 4 of the pre-gens from the LE box. First room had 2 Giant Snakes. Man, I'd forgotten how tough these suckers were. My two survivors were forced to retreat after killing one Snake. Sigurd was heavily wounded. Only Ylva, with 5 armour was unharmed, but it didn't look like they'd be able to take out the snake. The -3 to hit on these creatures and the fact that you can't flank them is really punishing.

So, an adventure which is just a series of Melee combats is not going to work in TFT, unless the opponents are ridiculously weak.
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Old 05-30-2019, 08:29 AM   #97
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
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When you are designing or adapting a TFT dungeon it is good to ruminate over things like the Indiana Jones movies and original Conan stories. A lot of the obstacles don't involve violence, and a lot of the violence would translate into relatively survivable TFT fights
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