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Old 01-09-2018, 04:32 AM   #211
Chris Rice
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
It was in Melee.
Attacking a defending target with melee weapons or dodging with missile (AM 18, Melee 17), 4 vs AdjDX.

In AM, it's used for a number of things.

Disengaging (AM 18), 4 dice vs AdjDX. (In melee, it's a 1d for ≤3 if DX is better, for ≤1 if not. See Melee 17.)
Climbing (AM 19) uses 3D for typical rock, 2D for soft, 4D for hard rocks. Free-hanging ropes are automatic if talented, 2D vs DX if not.

I could go on, but it's part of the core from the beginning. And it's the biggest difference from GURPS. Almost the definitional one, IIRC Steve's comments in Roleplayer (I think issue #1) in his Designer's Notes.
I see these like the saving rolls of Tunnels and Trolls. 2d v Attribute for something easy (don't normally bother with these), 3d v Attribute for something of standard difficulty, 4d for something very difficult and 5d (or more) for something of extreme difficulty. I've always liked this mechanic and if players ask how difficult something looks and I say it looks very difficult, they know exactly where they stand.
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Old 01-09-2018, 05:45 AM   #212
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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That "rivals" analysis is especially interesting.
It is indeed. And it reminds me of how we would play Melee when as kids. One of us would get on a run with some fighter who seemed unbeatable, until another of us would come up with an idea of something to counter him. It really was a thrill to be able to find the right combination to defeat the reigning king of the arena.
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Old 01-09-2018, 05:51 AM   #213
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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
My house rules for TFT, with all the options and new gear turned 'on' simply imposes a minimum ST requirement for various armors and shields, just as for all weapons. If you don't meet the listed requirement, you pay an extra DX penalty, as you would for using a weapon for which you don't meet the requirement.
How did it handle halflings? Being half-sized, one would assume their armor weighs half as much and thus their strength requirements would be lessened.
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Old 01-09-2018, 06:27 AM   #214
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Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
It was in Melee.
Attacking a defending target with melee weapons or dodging with missile (AM 18, Melee 17), 4 vs AdjDX.

In AM, it's used for a number of things.

Disengaging (AM 18), 4 dice vs AdjDX. (In melee, it's a 1d for ≤3 if DX is better, for ≤1 if not. See Melee 17.)
Climbing (AM 19) uses 3D for typical rock, 2D for soft, 4D for hard rocks. Free-hanging ropes are automatic if talented, 2D vs DX if not.

I could go on, but it's part of the core from the beginning. And it's the biggest difference from GURPS. Almost the definitional one, IIRC Steve's comments in Roleplayer (I think issue #1) in his Designer's Notes.
Fwiw, I believe it is one of the defining elements of the system.
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Old 01-09-2018, 06:40 AM   #215
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I can absolutely see the argument in favor of extra DX (and MA!) penalties for a weak fighter in heavy armor. I have added it to my list of things to think seriously about.
So, in essence this would be the opposite of the "Advantages of Great Strength" rule on page 8 of TFT?
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Old 01-09-2018, 06:59 AM   #216
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Originally Posted by Charles G. View Post
Put another way, I'd be fine if, say, the Sword talents were expanded to have multiple levels, such as Sword - Fencing - Intermediate Fencing - Advanced Fencing - Swordmaster (or whatever), with similar, parallel benefits to the advanced level UC talents (for example, I think any skilled martial artist, whether bare handed or using a sword, probably has developed an instinctual "Eyes Behind" kind of instinct). My only objection then would simply be that I don't think the five talent progression levels really work well in TFT at all. Granted that two talents may in fact be too few (I have a hunch that three levels might actually be the sweet spot) but that is how TFT was originally designed, so that is the basis for my recommendation.
Well, again, I think that the objective was to provide an analogue for the AD&D Monk class. In my part of the woods, gamers liked monks (despite them being culturally inappropriate for a game with Paladins and Clerics). I’m not bothered by the use of 5 talents; if it takes 5 talents, it takes 5 talents. It doesn’t bother me that this system violates the “talent progression model”.

In any case, at least one player in every one of my classic TFT campaigns played a one. We didn’t find the UC talents unbalancing and the character was refreshingly different. I say leave them alone. If you find them objectionable, you can fix them to your liking in your own campaign. But I don’t think that they should arbitrarily be reworked merely to be consistent with other talent progression approaches.

Also, this was a part of the old school game design ethic - systems were designed to do the job and consistency between systems was subordinated (and often not considered at all <cough, AD&D>).

Regarding the use of weapon talent levels, I agree that there may be some merit in that approach. In the “Fantasy Trip Defense” thread, I posted a solution that begins to approach what you’re talking about. I suspect that you might fold the Fencing talent and perhaps some other benefits into this structure.

Last edited by tbeard1999; 01-09-2018 at 07:03 AM.
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Old 01-09-2018, 09:46 AM   #217
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Originally Posted by Charles G. View Post
All good points. Keep in mind, though, that much of what is driving this has to do with the real problem of high DX figures essentially never missing (or very rarely missing) an attack. This has at least two, sort of opposite, problems: first, combat tends to be boring, mostly just a series of damage rolls, and, two, in the rules as written high "level" figures tend to be rather vulnerable to multiple opponents. Even facing off against merely two figures means receiving at least one attack (unless you have a two-handed sword or similar and can thus attack multiple foes in your front hexes) which only requires a 3/DX roll to hit. Unless you can deduct a lot of damage per blow, you can be worn down very quickly (much worse if your foe rolls a 3 or 4, or if you face three at a time continuously). And yet, even in the real world, it is possible for a skilled martial artist to engage and defeat multiple foes. I recall reading one instance in the 16th century of a man armed with a quarterstaff engaging and outright killing five Spanish swordsmen with rapiers (IIRC, anyway, but I think that's right). This match up would likely end in disaster for the lone staffman in a Melee battle, though, since he could only attack one at a time and further could be struck by the swordsmen at normal 3/DX attacks. Even with higher ST and DX the battle would be a foregone conclusion in favor of the swordsmen, but with a DQ type talent this would have an ending more in accord with real world observations, not to mention fantasy world heroics as well.
The sorts of issues you mention were behind the parry rules I developed as a house rule some time ago. I describe them higher up in this thread; briefly, any combatant may choose to perform two or more actions as part of an 'attack', at the cost of a 1 die penalty (or -4 adj DX penalty if you prefer) per action beyond the first. This rule, combined with the introduction of a Parry mechanic (roll vs. adj DX on the appropriate number of dice, and on a success your weapon adds 3, 6 or 9 points of protection to your armor, depending on the size e.g., dagger vs. broadsword vs. two handed sword). This has certain things generically in common with other defense house rules mentioned on these pages, but with the important proviso that you are trading the number of actions for the chance of each action to succeed. So, if you have a normal sort of DX (10-12 or so), you would rarely bother with these rules because they kill your success chances. If you have a moderately high DX (say, 14-16) you will often opt to attack and parry (though with some risk). If your DX is quite high, you will usually select to do 2-3 actions and any low DX foe will be unlikely to reach you unless something goes amiss or you are out numbered. And on and on: DX continues to have value to effectively unlimited values, but taking advantage of those high scores (by trading them for more actions) means you are always skirting the edge of risking failed rolls (because the trade reduces your adj DX significantly). In practice it effectively solves the 'DX' problem and the defense problem. It also doesn't really slow play because only the unusual high DX characters regularly take advantage of these options.
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Old 01-09-2018, 09:49 AM   #218
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Rolling additional dice for more difficult tasks is obviously too coarse to rely of for all task rolls. Hence TFT had modifiers to the roll as well. I replaced the additional dice mechanic with modifiers for the following reasons:

1. The original system required me to have (and try to remember) different, non-intuitive numbers for automatic hits, double damage, triple damage, automatic miss, weapon dropped and weapon broken results. These numbers weren't provided in the original 3 TFT books as I recall. They had to be derived or gotten from the Codex or GM Screen (neither of which I could find until the mid-late 1980s). In an era where personal computers cost $2-4000 in 2018 dollars, this had to be done by hand. Ugh.

2. Fencing talent made automatic hits, double and triple damage more likely on a 3d6 roll. What were the comparable numbers for rolling more than 3 dice to hit?

As an aside, the only other game I saw that used the "roll more dice" mechanic was Traveller 4. It tried to avoid the granularity by introducing the half die (i.e. a d3). In TFT terms, you might replace a -1 or -2 modifier with adding a d3. I'm not sure that's a great solution but it does allow you to get rid of die roll modifiers.
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Old 01-09-2018, 10:10 AM   #219
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Originally Posted by Charles G. View Post
One point here: I would not change the required numbers to achieve automatic hit/double or triple damage with the increase in dice difficulty. Reason being if someone is harder to hit, whether due to Defending or the upper level UC talents, then it should be harder or even impossible to score, say, a triple damage hit.

Put another way I wouldn't worry about the automatic hit type criteria for more than three dice.
But what about automatic misses? With 4d6, there's a 33% chance of an automatic miss; a 24% chance of dropped weapon and a 16% chance of a broken weapon. Seems to me that you'd be a fool to attack someone who selected the "defend" option, particularly if they're using an expensive or rare weapon.

On 4 dice, the chance of double damage is 0.8%; the chance of an automatic hit is 0.32%.

And the whole point of automatic hits and misses is to introduce a chance of uncertainty regardless of other conditions.
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Old 01-09-2018, 11:25 AM   #220
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Originally Posted by tbeard1999 View Post
But what about automatic misses? With 4d6, there's a 33% chance of an automatic miss; a 24% chance of dropped weapon and a 16% chance of a broken weapon. Seems to me that you'd be a fool to attack someone who selected the "defend" option, particularly if they're using an expensive or rare weapon.

On 4 dice, the chance of double damage is 0.8%; the chance of an automatic hit is 0.32%.

And the whole point of automatic hits and misses is to introduce a chance of uncertainty regardless of other conditions.
Yes, it seems to me a very good point that these should be defined, and carefully while looking at the odds and what it does to the range of possible numbers.

There were multiple takes published, e.g.:

Melee 03-1-003 (glossy gargoyle):
Defend/Dodge 4-die roll -> No automatic hits, 20+ is a miss.

Advanced Melee:
Defend/Dodge 4-die roll -> 3 (sic), 4, 5 auto-hit, 20 auto-miss, 21-22 drop, 23-24 break.
Note no mention of any chance of a triple or double damage, though I'd think presumably at least a 4 would be double.

In The Labyrinth:
"use your imagination when determining the results of spectacularly successful (or incredibly bad) rolls"
1-die roll -> auto success
2-die roll -> 2 auto-success, 12 auto-fail
3-die roll -> 3-5 auto-success, 16+ auto-fail
4-die roll -> 4-8 auto-success, 20+ auto-fail
5-die roll -> 5-11 auto-success, 24+ auto-fail
6-die roll -> 6-14 auto-success, 28+ auto-fail
7-die roll -> 7-17 auto-success, 32+ auto-fail
8-die roll -> 8-20 auto-success, 36+ auto-fail
"The result is that any character, no matter how dextrous, has around a 4 1/2% chance of missing a roll - and even a clumsy or stupid character has the same chance of making it."
And GM can rule out automatic success (noted for repeated tries, also limited).

Codex:
Has a whole page-long table of what 3, 4, 5 and 16, 17, 18 mean for weapons, bare hands, and various types of spells.
Then spells out equivalents of 3, 4, 5 and 16, 17, 18 results for up to 7-die rolls, following a set pattern that could be extended to any number of dice for the crit successes, but a less regular progression for the crit fails.
Moreover it is not what ITL says. It says only the lowest (e.g. a 7 on 7 dice) is the equivalent of a 3 on 3 dice, and [number of dice]+1 is like a 4, and [number of dice]+2 is like a 5 on 3 dice. So, increasingly vanishing chances of those on hard tests.
It reads:
Code:
To Hit with more dice
      3     4     5     16     17     18
4     4     5     6     20     21&22  23&24
5     5     6     7     24&25  26&27  28-30
6     6     7     8     28-30  31-33  34-36
7     7     8     9     32-34  35-38  39-42
Which does not offer a parallel chance of auto-success or failure at all. I get the intention, which the GM could pick or choose if he wants an ITL increasing auto-success or a vanishing one for different sorts of events (though that might be best left to detail-oriented GMs who can house-rule for themselves anyway), and I think the double and triple damage results being kept in but vanishingly unlikely is fine.
The growing auto-failures rate is the same but the 17/drop and 18/break columns are irregular in progression - I haven't run the odds yet, but I think they were trying to keep similar odds with each number of dice.

One nice thing about the Codex version is there is more spread of possible values with higher dice. The ITL version preserves the ~4.5% auto-success/fail chances, but at the cost or reducing the range of possible values on both ends, making more attribute values equivalent.

Ty, your house rule had the feature of a second roll to see what sort of effect on extreme rolls, which IMO is nice (and especially wanted for your blasphemous d20's). An "exploding dice" system of some sort could also be a useful option, though of course original TFT had nothing like that so might be considered blasphemous too.

Last edited by Skarg; 01-09-2018 at 11:33 AM.
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