Entering A Hex With A Body

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

New draft; I am listening to the reality comments but I am also listening to my new players who want to feel some of that tactical mobility I've been talking about. I continued to an Obstacles section (for the big book only; no room in Melee) which would largely replace what is there now.

Fallen Bodies
Fallen bodies are obstacles. To leap over one, spend 3 MA.
To move into the hex with a body, either spend 3 MA to move cautiously, or take a move-one-hex option, or follow a retreat, or, if you insist on moving quickly onto the body, spend only one MA but make a 3/DX roll to stay afoot. If you fail, you fall on top of the body or bodies.

Other Obstacles
The GM may add a variety of obstacles, either in arenas or underground, just to keep things interesting.
Pits (see p. 00). They might be full (or half full) of water, lava, tar . . . or they might be bottomless.
Permanent columns of Fire or Darkness, or permanent areas of Sticky or Slippery Floor, as described in the spells.
Bad footing, such as sand, loose gravel, swamp muck, water-slick stone, ankle-deep brush, ice. Bad footing can reduce MA, penalize DX of those who move and fight on the same turn, or even require a saving roll to stay afoot. Details are up to the GM, and the players should not know exactly what to expect when they first step in it.
Columns or tree trunks. Figures must go around tall ones but might leap over short ones.
Quicksand, or just very deep, wet swamp, will reduce MA drastically and might trap a lone wanderer who does not make an IQ roll (Woodsman will help) to escape.

I greatly prefer imposing a movement cost rather than making a DX roll. My only question is whether 3 mp is too high. You're giving the option of moving quickly through the hex with a DX roll, though, so that may be a reasonable compromise. I'll need to playtest it.

[JLV]

Wait! You mean that under the new rules, that "Lucky Lizard" might NOT have gotten a TPK against my first character and his friends (remember, the last guy to die slipped on my dead character's entrails and fell down, thus giving the Lizard time to kill the third victim and turn on him)?

A great story which now no longer makes any sense! :-(

(Ok, I can live with it!)

[Steve Jackson]

Ambiguity pointed out - thanks, both of you.

I meant 3 MA to jump over hex A, where the body is, and wind up in hex B. So three MA are spent to move two hexes. Could I have phrased that better? A diagram would help but I have no place to put it at this stage, at least in MELEE.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Fallen bodies are obstacles. To leap over one, spend 3 MA.
To move into the hex with a body, either spend 3 MA to move cautiously, or take a move-one-hex option, or follow a retreat, or, if you insist on moving quickly onto the body, spend only one MA but make a 3/DX roll to stay afoot. If you fail, you fall on top of the body or bodies.

Suggested changes in bold:

Fallen bodies are obstacles. You can spend 3 MA to leap 2 hexes to a clear hex on the other side of it.
To move into a hex with a body, either spend 3 MA to move cautiously, or take a move-one-hex option, or follow a retreat, or, if you insist on moving quickly onto the body, spend only one MA but make a 3/DX roll to stay afoot. If you fail, you fall on top of the body or bodies.

and

If you end your movement standing on a hex with a fallen body, you fight at a -2 DX penalty for bad footing (another -1 for each additional body in the hex).

[larsdangly]

This is perhaps off at a bit of an angle from the main point of this thread, but is related: I appreciate the fact that TFT players often want even more from the movement and maneuver part of the game, as it is where a lot of the tactical decision making and interesting variations in play arise. That desire is apparently what inspired this question about getting around bodies. I would like to mention some changes that significantly develop this element of play; all are rules I've implemented in 'fantasy heart breaker' games I've written based on TFT, and I think my players found the results pretty interesting:

1: Increase the ranges, and diversity of ranges, of melee weapons, with the following categories suggested:
0,1: dagger, fist
1: hand axe, mace, short swords
1,2: 1 and 2 handed long swords, two handed clubs, mauls axes; short spears
2,3: long spears, many pole arms
3,4: pike, lance

2: No such thing as engagement. You are where you are and you can move where you can move, irrespective of someone being near you. But when you enter a hex someone threatens they can take a swipe at you.

3: You can grasp a person in or next to your hex, holding them still. So, sort of like engagement, but only because a grapple has been initiated.

4: You can enter someone's hex if you can reach it, full stop. Collisions and close combat are just things that naturally arise from people moving around in relation to each other.

These variants open up many more possibilities regarding the ways you can move to set up or avoid attacks, and the result is a much more dynamic interaction as combatants jockey for range and position. It is surprisingly exciting.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

This is perhaps off at a bit of an angle from the main point of this thread, but is related: I appreciate the fact that TFT players often want even more from the movement and maneuver part of the game, as it is where a lot of the tactical decision making and interesting variations in play arise. That desire is apparently what inspired this question about getting around bodies. I would like to mention some changes that significantly develop this element of play; all are rules I've implemented in 'fantasy heart breaker' games I've written based on TFT, and I think my players found the results pretty interesting:

1: Increase the ranges, and diversity of ranges, of melee weapons, with the following categories suggested:
0,1: dagger, fist
1: hand axe, mace, short swords
1,2: 1 and 2 handed long swords, two handed clubs, mauls axes; short spears
2,3: long spears, many pole arms
3,4: pike, lance

2: No such thing as engagement. You are where you are and you can move where you can move, irrespective of someone being near you. But when you enter a hex someone threatens they can take a swipe at you.

3: You can grasp a person in or next to your hex, holding them still. So, sort of like engagement, but only because a grapple has been initiated.

4: You can enter someone's hex if you can reach it, full stop. Collisions and close combat are just things that naturally arise from people moving around in relation to each other.

These variants open up many more possibilities regarding the ways you can move to set up or avoid attacks, and the result is a much more dynamic interaction as combatants jockey for range and position. It is surprisingly exciting.

Absolutely, I love (and generally prefer) that style of play! (I've played that way for decades, as those are all nearly-exactly features of GURPS.) GURPS is of course a lot crunchier though, and some major changes that add complexity make it work well in GURPS, better than I think they would in TFT, in particular the interleaved sequence of character movement & action, the reduced movement allowances and rules for facing changes during movement in different directions, the Wait maneuver, the 1-yard 1-second scale, and the elaborate close combat rules.

In introducing those to TFT, I'd start with options (or house rules) for allowing leaving engagement (giving your foes attack options because of the turn sequence), and elaborating HTH so it's not just about tackling and not one unmodified d6 roll to initiate.

[Oneiros]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Ambiguity pointed out - thanks, both of you.

I meant 3 MA to jump over hex A, where the body is, and wind up in hex B. So three MA are spent to move two hexes. Could I have phrased that better? A diagram would help but I have no place to put it at this stage, at least in MELEE.

Isn't this the same as saying the hex with the body costs 2 MA to move through?

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

... elaborating HTH so it's not just about tackling and not one unmodified d6 roll to initiate.

This is another situation where I think opposed rolls would work really well.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Ambiguity pointed out - thanks, both of you.

I meant 3 MA to jump over hex A, where the body is, and wind up in hex B. So three MA are spent to move two hexes. Could I have phrased that better? A diagram would help but I have no place to put it at this stage, at least in MELEE.

Just say, "3 MA to move 2 spaces." That is clear.

One of the places TFT shines is maneuver. Having terrain helps this, making some hexes better than others. Bodies are terrain that happens during a fight! It is worth a bit of space and rules to make this work right.

Rick

[larsdangly]

Exactly. The strength of TFT is its approach to movement and maneuver, but there are situations where this doesn't get expressed, like when the only real option is to move to engage, after which combat is mostly an exchange of to-hit and damage rolls. Complexity in terrain breaks that up by introducing more decision points on the way to melee engagement, where each side has some chance of joining combat with an advantage or disadvantage (or avoiding it all together).