05-19-2018, 12:47 AM | #21 | |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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05-19-2018, 12:53 AM | #22 | |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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I find myself that having a detailed mathematical system is a good basis for which to then estimate appropriate fuzzy numbers anyway. But without having done some math around it, I don't feel as well-equipped to do that. Perhaps the main point of making this system was to address the severe issues with the existing system and establish a new way to think about what general amounts of EP make sense, rather than to be a super-perfect system for exactly the right amount of EP. |
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05-19-2018, 03:38 AM | #23 | |||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2018
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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So, we both know what we want an enhanced Combat EP Award system to do; it seems we just need to agree on WHAT goes into that AND what does not, and then, it is down to the processes of HOW to balance the thing, and HOW we are going to state it as a simple formula. Quote:
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Bruce Lee had a saying: "The enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives, destroy the image (POTENTIAL THREAT), and you will break the enemy (ACTUAL THREAT). Quote:
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JK Last edited by Jim Kane; 05-19-2018 at 12:55 PM. Reason: Typo |
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05-19-2018, 08:49 PM | #24 | |||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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(There IS one TFT EP system that somewhat takes that into account at least somewhat, in Melee.) I'd mention (though it's getting ahead of the discussion you want to have) that the system I posted above is not entirely how I would actually assess threat value if I wanted to be as accurate as possible. In particular, it's missing (except in allowing for GM discretion) taking into direct account how much or a chance a figure has of injuring the other! Unless you Pin or use Critical Hits and knock someone out with a Head hit or something, in TFT you defeat someone by doing them damage, so a more accurate TV would really be a function of how much damage they can take, divided by how much damage you are actually liable to do to them (taking into account armor and misses), compared to the same thing for you - that would give you an actual number for how many turns on average it takes for each figure to kill the other in a slugfest, though still it wouldn't be perfect due to ignoring various circumstances, including effects of injury. But whatever EP system you use, there is the principle in ITL that the GM should shut down player tricks to attempt to farm EP, and mentions in multiple places that EP only be given out for actual danger/combat/problems. And, it seems to me, a fight against someone whose best attack has little or no chance of injuring someone, while the reverse is not true, is much more like a practice exercise than a dangerous fight, and so probably shouldn't be worth any EP. (My formula can indicate as much, but doesn't always.) Quote:
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Because, it seems to me that there are all sorts of potential threats if you widen the scope to the whole situation around a foe. If it's worth consideration and given value that someone could use a sword OR an axe (and I'm still not really convinced that's significant unless one's actually better, in which case it seems a bit like a disadvantage they might use the weaker one), and you really mean "you must defeat the totality of his being.", it seems to me that could include many vastly more significant factors, and many I don't know how to quantify. What a foe does before combat can be a huge factor, brining in endless potential circumstances, or not. For example, can they be lured into fighting alone or do they always have dangerous friends/guards around? Will they meet you in a dark alley or will they stay where you'll become a known criminal if you try to kill them? Do they wear armor all day every day? Do they post adequate guards at night? On and on. What they do during combat is also a potentially massive multiplier or divisor of their threat level. For example, I one wiped out about ten foes with one character of 33-35 points or so, by finding a good spot in the jungle, placing a torch at night, setting up prone in the bushes and making noise, which resulted in them showing up one or two at a time to investigate, at which point I shot them and took most of them out before they even spotted where I was. I was also sort of using abilities that weren't on my sheet, as the character was IQ 9 and didn't have Tactics (but he did have Missile Weapons). IQ would then actually start to matter, as the totality includes how smart their decisions are, whether they notice threats or other things they could use against you. Things that improve how others think of them could increase the odds that others will come to their aid if you attack them... So, do you have a clear idea where it would make sense to you to draw the line? |
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05-19-2018, 09:22 PM | #25 | |
Join Date: Feb 2018
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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If there is nothing to be had about this, then don't most characters actually, at least for their actions, have the "IQ" of their Player? ;) |
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05-19-2018, 10:02 PM | #26 |
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
Kirk's question takes us a bit astray from the primary topic, but it's a very worth-while question to ask at this point.
I always figured that non-weapon Talents were a crutch you used when you couldn't actually think of something clever to do on your own. Let's put it another way; your character is in a sticky situation, militarily speaking, but you, as a player, can't come up with any clever ideas on how to address the situation. But, your character has TACTICS!!! "Ah-hah," you tell the GM; "I have TACTICS!" So the GM tells you to roll some dice versus your IQ, and if you make it, he helps you figure out a clever tactical response to the situation. But if the player himself comes up with a brilliant idea, there's no problem with it in my book. Too often, in the real world, I've seen all the tactical geniuses sitting around a map stumped as hell, when some clown who barely knows how to wear the uniform shows up and says; "Well, what about THIS?" and his idea is just stone-cold stupid enough to work. ANYBODY can have a flash of genius once in a while, and shouldn't be "prevented" by some arbitrary interpretation of Talents or IQ ratings. Besides, easily half the best war-stories I have from my decades of gaming are from people who did something that was either totally stupid, or totally genius, and got lucky on the dice roll, thus making it genius... And isn't that pretty much really the way it is in real life? You're either Einstein, or a candidate for a Darwin Award, and a lot of the time it all depends on the luck of the draw. |
05-20-2018, 02:21 AM | #27 | ||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2018
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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I believe we already agree on the inclusion of:
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JK Last edited by Jim Kane; 05-20-2018 at 12:35 PM. Reason: Clairity |
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05-20-2018, 10:02 PM | #28 | ||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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In TFT, with such a strong incentive for fighters to not put points in IQ at least to start with (since it directly means less fighting ability), and considering how common the IQ 8-9 fighter is, I tend to think of it that it's not so much that they're all dumb, but they may be inexperienced, under-developed and/or naive (after all, so many of them get themselves killed in fairly pointless fights... ;) ). I tend to think of TFT characters as having an unlisted level of innate smartness that doesn't particularly change with experience, as part of their character concept, which generally isn't explicitly on their sheet, and may or may not correspond to their IQ attribute. After all, many players like to be able to play as someone clever and not to have to act dumber than they are, but there are only 32 points to start with, and that would tend to mean a problematic dilemma for such players who wanted to be a non-wizard. Imagine if everyone who started a fighter at IQ 8-9 had to play them as lackwits... and besides, even smart players tend to do amble stupid things, too. (It also doesn't seem plausible to have dumb people becoming clever, per se, through experience.) So to my mind, it's not really OOC for a player to do some smart/clever things as a low-IQ starting fighter who's not thought to be dumb. To me it makes sense to have a starting character with IQ 9 or even 8 who may be a clever person, but is inexperienced. If the PC adds several attribute levels through experience though and is still IQ 9 or less, though, then I may tend to think they're probably not that sharp. When my IQ 9 character racked up all that EP (enough to go up a couple of attribute points, at least if/when he ever made it out of the adventure to "home") from cleverly shooting a bunch of confused people, I remember feeling slightly embarrassed and asking the GM if he really thought I should get that much EP, and then me deciding I should probably use at least some of it to increase my IQ, as it would seem wrong to me to suddenly develop notably more muscles or agility for having done something clever and shot straight for quite a short period of time. I can think of several potential answers to "how do you keep a character from acting more clever because of a smarter player who plays him?", but mine is probably that you don't, unless you think it violates the character's concept or life experience so far. If someone did seem to be mis-roleplaying their character concept, I'd probably remind them of the character concept and see wha sort of adjustment were needed. However, the PC's IQ is still what it is, and rolls may be wanted to see how well the character manages to pull of the player's clever idea. Not that they can't think of a good idea, but if the character is clever but rates IQ 8-9, to me that means they probably lack experience pulling off plans, and in any case a clever plan may have some potential gotchas if not executed quite well. In the case of my PC laying an ambush, does he manage to find and light a torch and set it up properly so it stays lit and lights the right area? Do I manage to find a good hiding spot with a good view of the lit area, without leaving obvious tracks to find and get to me? Do I manage to stay alert and unobserved while setting it up? Do I avoid disturbing a snake or something in the jungle? Of course, there's a balance between considering logical things that might go wrong, and sabotaging a player's plan that might actually work when they're already at terrible odds of survival. Maybe just roll vs. IQ to see in general whether there are any hitches in pulling it off or not. As for players playing foolishly with characters who are supposedly smart, again I think there's a difference between high IQ and someone who's clever at everything (and the use of IQ to become a powerful wizard I think should not always mean they're super-smart and observant in every way - part of the "attribute bloat" issue), there are also various approaches. In general though, if I think a player's being more foolish than their PC, I tend to (rule or possibly roll IQ for the PC and on success) give the player some and/or "are you sure?" or "your character has the thought that that probably wouldn't work because..." types of clues/prodding and second-chances. Quote:
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05-28-2018, 11:47 PM | #29 | |||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule
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But I was mainly mentioning those other situations because if we do want a system to assess EP for how challenging the entire situation is of facing an opponent before you even meet them, then things like their habits of being armed or wearing armor or falling for ambushes or setting ambushes or going for friends seem more significant than the (to me, almost insignificant) factor of whether he has both Sword and Ax/Mace talents. Quote:
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