Strength loss v Fatigue Loss

[Chris Rice]

One of the strong points of TFT is simplicity; there are just 3 Attributes, making it quick and easy to generate a character and get started. But therein also lies a weakness; since each attribute has to stand in for a number of different things (sub-attributes if you will). So INT stands for both how difficult it is to know something and how many things one can know, etc.

One way of dealing with this (and I've done this myself) is to split the attributes into the things they are actually signifying; so INT becomes IQ (how difficult it is to know something) and KN (knowledge=how many things one can know).

However, it's been said by many (including Steve) that this isn't TFT any more, which is a valid point, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

One of the problems arising from this is where loss of Strength is concerned . One can lose ST from wounds or from Fatigue (spell casting etc), but the two different sorts of loss are cumulative. ST lost from wounds is slow to recuperate and fatigue is quicker and yet Fatigue isn't a separate attribute. So somehow you must keep a discrete account of ST lost to Fatigue .

Example; a ST 12 Wizard is hit by an arrow for 6 points of damage. His ST is now 6. He then casts a 4 point spell. His ST is now 2 (but some of this is due to Fatigue). Another 2 points of damage will kill him in the same way as if all the damage was "wounds". However, if he doesn't suffer any more ST loss in this encounter, he will recover the 4 points of Fatigue lost by spell casting more rapidly than the ST loss caused by wounds.

Frankly, this is a bit of a pain to keep track of and it's not that easy to explain to new players.

I had the following idea:

Since it doesn't matter (in terms of an ongoing effect) what wounds or Fatigue you suffer until your ST reaches 3, it is logical to assume that all damage received until ST reaches 3 is fatigue. Once your ST reaches 3 you are "wounded" and suffer the -3DX penalty stated in the rules.

This has a number of advantages:

1. It is no longer necessary to take a separate account of ST lost to Fatigue.
2. Characters are a bit more robust as they can recover more quickly between encounters.

There may of course be disadvantages I haven't thought of. Or the whole idea may be nonsense. That's why I put the idea out here for your comments ;)

[Rick_Smith]

Hi Chris, everyone.
There are places where I want the rules to be simple, and there are places where I am willing to accept some complexity. Damage is in the latter area.

***

I actually have THREE types of damage.

-- Damage. This recovers at 1 point / 2 days.

-- Fatigue ST Loss. This recovers at 1 point / 15 minutes.

-- Subdual Damage. Which are the bruises and strains from non-lethal damage. (See "Taking Prisoners" on page 26 of AM.) This recovers at 4 points / 2 days.


On my standard TFT character sheets, I have a space for all three points of damage, each in their own area.

I agree that this is more complex, but it is worth it to me. I LIKE being able to do non-lethal damage. Also it makes sense to me, that you would recover from it at a faster rate. Since I have subdual damage anyway, some of damage which I hand out (e.g. the first few points of falling damage), can be in subdual as well.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

...

-- Subdual Damage. Which are the bruises and strains from non-lethal damage. (See "Taking Prisoners" on page 26 of AM.) This recovers at 4 points / 2 days. ...

The non-lethal damage, described above, IS in the old TFT. All I've added is the rule which says that it heals 4 times faster than the cuts and deep punctures of regular damage.

Assuming that Subdual damage is a thing, it suggests a new spell.

***

IQ 8
T .. Speed Healing Rate. Turns 5 points of real damage into Subdual damage.
COST: 2 fST.


***

I like this spell. It is low IQ, speeds up healing between fights, will not effect the lethality of actual combat, and feels appropriately costed for an IQ 8 spell.

Warm regards, Rick.

[David Bofinger]

My preferred implementation:

• You have life points, subdual points and fatigue points.
• When you suffer a normal wound you lose one of each.
• When you suffer a subdual wound you lose a subdual and a fatigue, but not a life.
• When you suffer fatigue (e.g. from spellcasting) you lose a fatigue point but not a life or subdual.
• If life points reach their minimum of zero you are dead.
• If subdual or fatigue points reach their minimum of one you are unconscious ... so if this is an arena fight to the death in Wizard you're dead shortly after.
• Lost life comes back at one point every two days, but never exceeds basic ST.
• Lost subdual comes back at two points a day, but never exceeds life.
• Lost fatigue comes back at four points an hour, but never exceeds subdual.
• Healing spells give you a life and a subdual point back, fatigue optional.

It's a little anal retentive but unless I wrote it down wrong from memory it's fairly clean. Your arrow-punctured wizard would be wounded and unconscious but not dead.

[JLV]

Again, I'll describe the system we used to track the differing damages and their effects (no, no subdual damage -- it seems like an unnecessary complication when you can just say that instead of striking to wound (and thus inflicting HITS on a character, you are instead striking to subdue and can instead inflict fatigue on the character):

We put a simple box on the character sheet for each point of ST the character had. ([])

When a fatigue "hit" was inflicted, the player marked a box off with a "/" mark to indicate fatigue. ([/])

When a wound hit was inflicted, the character marked the box off with an "X." ([X])

Once all the boxes had either a "/" or an "X" in them, additional fatigue or normal hits were marked off with a "backslash" (for some reason, the system won't let me use the backslash character, even if it's in quotes) in a box already containing a "/" mark (which converted them to "X"s and made them damage hits).

Once all the boxes had "X"s in them, the character died. If all the boxes had either an "X" or a "/" in them, the character was unconscious.

The above system was instantly understandable, made actual damage versus fatigue damage completely obvious, and never required any serious arguments or discussions on what someone's obscure notes meant.

If a character's permanent ST changed, you simply added or deleted the requisite number of boxes.

Example: Character A has a ST of 10. His record sheet looks like this:

ST 10 [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

During a melee, Character A takes four actual hits (after armor, etc. is deducted) Character A's record sheet now looks like this:

ST 10 [X] [X] [X] [X] [] [] [] [] [] []

A few turns later, Character A casts a couple of spells, using up four fatigue points. Character A's record sheet now looks like this:

ST 10 [X] [X] [X] [X] [/] [/] [/] [/] [] []

Another few turns later, and Character A is forced to cast a Spell that uses up the last of his fatigue and even goes a bit beyond that costing him four more fatigue points. He falls unconscious after the spell is cast and suffers additional damage for going beyond his remaining strength. His record sheet now looks like this:

ST 10 [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [/] [/] [/] [/] (note that two of the previous fatigue "hits" were converted to full damage because he overused his ST)

Character A must now rest for a time to regains consciousness and even if he rests long enough to restore all his lost fatigue, he'll still only have four ST points to use for Spells until he can heal some of his damage.

My apologies for the length of the post.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Frankly, this is a bit of a pain to keep track of and it's not that easy to explain to new players.

We never found it a pain at all.

ST 12 -6 -3F

Means the character has a 6-point wound and 3 points of fatigue. What's painful?

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Since it doesn't matter (in terms of an ongoing effect) what wounds or Fatigue you suffer until your ST reaches 3, it is logical to assume that all damage received until ST reaches 3 is fatigue. Once your ST reaches 3 you are "wounded" and suffer the -3DX penalty stated in the rules.

This has a number of advantages:

1. It is no longer necessary to take a separate account of ST lost to Fatigue.
2. Characters are a bit more robust as they can recover more quickly between encounters.

There may of course be disadvantages I haven't thought of. Or the whole idea may be nonsense. That's why I put the idea out here for your comments ;)

I would say this doesn't work for me at all. Immediate reasons that come to mind:

1. The meaning of what happened to the character is very different. In a campaign, it matters whether you are cut with an axe or just tired. They heal at different rates for logical reasons. All that continuity would be lost with this system.

2. You're not right that there is no effect of wounds until ST 3 remain. There's the -2 DX penalty for damage per turn. There's falling after taking a certain amount of damage (not fatigue). There's the retreat effect due to damage, etc.

3. The loss of meaningful effects of events like "I got massively butchered but lived" would be erased if you could say "oho, my ST is 4, so I can just rest all that damage up. It would be surreal.

4. It would be a bit like other RPGs that give out piles of non-representative hitpoints and claim no one is really hurt until the very end of their hitpoint pile. That severely undermines the logic of what happens during play and what the consequences are.

[Skarg]

There is at least one other damage type which is Exposure Damage (as explained in the Woodsman talent) that only heals when you get to a hospitable place.


I would say additionally that I like the house rules many people use where actual damage is needed to kill someone, not just fatigue or fatigue + damage. If fatigue + damage exceeds ST, you pass out, but unless actual damage exceeds ST, you don't die. I think this is both humane and makes good sense. And of course, it requires you know the difference between your axe wounds and your fatigue.

[zot]

Originally Posted by JLV

Again, I'll describe the system we used to track the differing damages and their effects (no, no subdual damage -- it seems like an unnecessary complication when you can just say that instead of striking to wound (and thus inflicting HITS on a character, you are instead striking to subdue and can instead inflict fatigue on the character):

We put a simple box on the character sheet for each point of ST the character had. ([])

When a fatigue "hit" was inflicted, the player marked a box off with a "/" mark to indicate fatigue. ([/])

When a wound hit was inflicted, the character marked the box off with an "X." ([X])

Once all the boxes had either a "/" or an "X" in them, additional fatigue or normal hits were marked off with a "backslash" (for some reason, the system won't let me use the backslash character, even if it's in quotes) in a box already containing a "/" mark (which converted them to "X"s and made them damage hits).

Once all the boxes had "X"s in them, the character died. If all the boxes had either an "X" or a "/" in them, the character was unconscious.

The above system was instantly understandable, made actual damage versus fatigue damage completely obvious, and never required any serious arguments or discussions on what someone's obscure notes meant.

If a character's permanent ST changed, you simply added or deleted the requisite number of boxes.

Example: Character A has a ST of 10. His record sheet looks like this:

ST 10 [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

During a melee, Character A takes four actual hits (after armor, etc. is deducted) Character A's record sheet now looks like this:

ST 10 [X] [X] [X] [X] [] [] [] [] [] []

A few turns later, Character A casts a couple of spells, using up four fatigue points. Character A's record sheet now looks like this:

ST 10 [X] [X] [X] [X] [/] [/] [/] [/] [] []

Another few turns later, and Character A is forced to cast a Spell that uses up the last of his fatigue and even goes a bit beyond that costing him four more fatigue points. He falls unconscious after the spell is cast and suffers additional damage for going beyond his remaining strength. His record sheet now looks like this:

ST 10 [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [X] [/] [/] [/] [/] (note that two of the previous fatigue "hits" were converted to full damage because he overused his ST)

Character A must now rest for a time to regains consciousness and even if he rests long enough to restore all his lost fatigue, he'll still only have four ST points to use for Spells until he can heal some of his damage.

My apologies for the length of the post.

I like the idea but it does change the dynamics of damage a lot.

If you marked the slashes starting at the right-hand side:

ST 10 [X][X][X][ ][ ][ ][/][/][/][/]

You'd be way closer to the RAW -- wizards who cast a lot of spells would drop from almost the same amount of damage but they'd be unconscious instead of dead, which I think makes more sense, except they would get one more ST for casting since unconscious is at full instead of at one-empty-spot.

A quoted backslash needs to be doubled, btw: "\". It's an error in the forum program. Preview your post and one of the backslashes will disappear and you'll need to retype it :)

[JLV]

That's quite true (marking fatigue from the right hand side being closer to the RAW), but we did it the other way on purpose, because we wanted to give the Wizards a bit more power than they would have otherwise (without going insanely overboard about it); it was a way to make the possibility of "dungeon crawling" more likely...

Besides, we always felt that equating 10 fatigue hits with dying, just as if they were 10 actual wounds didn't make a lot of sense for a 10 ST character. Most of us were in the military and we all knew you could go on a lot farther than most people think you can, but at some point you start doing actual injury to yourself, so this system made that a simple thing to track.

It also answered the need for non-spellcasting fatigue quite well. We had rules for fatigue build-up due to things other than spellcasting (it just seems to be logically begged by the RAW), so this gave us a way to track that as well, and we all agreed that it would be relatively easy to "work oneself to death" under TFT rules, so we wanted to make sure it took longer.

It also solved the problem of "0 hits remaining = dead" (which many people on this forum have expressed concern over in the past) since it effectively gave you a bit of room beyond that to survive...and now the enemy had to actually hack you to death while you were unconscious in order to kill you.

In short, it solved a number of our "issues" with the rules being unclear or too harsh (in our opinions) with one very simple graphic system and without extensively re-writing the rules.

However, having said all of that, I provide the explanation here simply as a graphic device that Steve (and others) may want to consider at some point -- rewriting, or adapting or converting as he (or others) sees fit, of course.

[Skarg]

The Codex version of the character sheet has two separate box tracks, one marked damage and one marked fatigue.

There's another major damage type to track, which is already-healed wounds versus unhealed wounds, which is needed to use the physicker rules.

When we used character sheets with check boxes on them, we tended to use forward slashes for unhealed wounds, and X's for healed wounds.

Mo:
ST 10 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Mo takes 6 points of damage:
ST 10 [/][/][/][/][/][/][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Mo gets physicked for 2:
ST 10 [X][X][X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

We also tracked individual wounds, which you could do by putting a bracket below the boxes, but we mostly stopped using boxes because written numbers seemed so much easier, especially for tracking wound details. Parentheses show healed wounds.

ST 10 (-4) -2 -1F