Experience Points

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Steve,
I've had some players asking for 'armour' talents for a while. I resisted for two reasons. Learning how to wear armour seems trivial. A week or two to get comfortable, rather than months of training for other talents. Second, it is a dominate strategy for any fighter.

I cobbled something together for them with a steep memory cost, but that won't work in the new TFT. (My talents increased your ST for purposes of Great ST Bonuses for wearing armour, and gave minor benefits on judging the quality of armour and the time to get in or out of armor.)

I suggest that we don't bother with armour talents. If you want to add a few more talents, I think that there are higher priorities.

Warm regards, Rick.

I agree. I think giving armor a ST requisite (like weapons) and reducing the DX penalty when you exceed that requirement by so-and-so-many points is better. It is more like the original rules and doesn't play the game of forcing everyone to have the same 'build'. Actually, if you see people engineering perfect 'builds' for TFT characters, you'll realize something went wrong, because there really isn't a generically ideal fighter type with the original rules.

[JLV]

I just want to clarify one point -- there's more to armor than simply wearing it. Taking proper advantage of it in a fight is more complex than you might assume if your only "experience" is wearing a Kevlar flak vest.

Medieval warriors apparently used their armor as an adjunct to their weapons, not simply as a suit of clothing -- witness the Shield Rush tactic, for one example of using armor proactively that's already accounted for in TFT.

So "getting comfortable" for a couple of weeks isn't really the issue here...

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by JLV

I just want to clarify one point -- there's more to armor than simply wearing it. Taking proper advantage of it in a fight is more complex than you might assume if your only "experience" is wearing a Kevlar flak vest.

Medieval warriors apparently used their armor as an adjunct to their weapons, not simply as a suit of clothing -- witness the Shield Rush tactic, for one example of using armor proactively that's already accounted for in TFT.

So "getting comfortable" for a couple of weeks isn't really the issue here...

The armor penalties are too severe for heavy armors worn by experienced fighters. They're proportionally correct as written in Adv. Melee... but they're all too severe.

I've have seen literal acrobatics in semi-rigid body (lamelar under leather) with plate legs and shoulders, with separate arms (articulated elbows/vambraces, rebraces, and demi-gauntlets). Cartwheels and summersaults, to be specific. I've seen it in chain as well... these guys were almost unhindered.

Given that, a talent to reduce penalties to half makes more sense to me.
And, as I noted before, the rigid armors should be more confining.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by warhorse11h

Under the old rules for ITL, a character got certain advantages for great strength. The rules stated that a human ST beyond 30 was improbable and set the limit at 30.

Doesn't do that at all. Actually says,

If a GM wants to run a "realistic" campaign, he should consider limiting the maximum ST of human-type figures to 30.

Not only is it not a rule, not an optional rule, it's merely author's advice.
The rest of the paragraph reads

Of course, in a pure fantasy world, super-heroes capable of sustaining massive damage while performing incredible feats of strength are common; if you want this type of game, you should allow characters to build up to any ST they can earn.

Explicitly the counter of a limit rule.

Besides, TFTLE is already setting a limit for humans - at 24. (8 base, + 8 choice, + 8 more from XP)

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Discussing armor in reality is in my opinion a rabbit hole. Don't go down into one.

Great strength was an optional rule with bad balancing, just as 10 or even 5 extra ST to wield a two handed weapon in one hand is strange mathematically.

The system doesn't allow for it. Balance will be out of whack. Even one point here and there will skew it severely.

Take the expertise talents, you pay with IQ and more talent points to get something back. It is a strict this for that, that keeps the balance but give your character another feel and it will fight differently. At the moment the balance is very close to perfect.

What we could do, would be to have a talent like Expertise, and in a way we already do in Shield Expertise and Warrior/Veteran Talents. Where you make it possible to have a smart fighter, which in turn opens up more builds. I don't really care how realistic it is, but at least we know how to balance such a talent.


One thing to improve it would probably be to set Expert Shield at IQ 9 or 11 to differentiate it from all the IQ 10 fighters that will be out there. And then we could have the armor talent at 9, 11 or 13. It would create balanced choices at all IQ levels. You spend a little bit on IQ instead of DX and get something back that is as good, but you also spend and extra talent point or two for the opportunity to chose more high level talents in the future.

So any major changes at this late stage should be well motivated balance wise. Realism or perceived realism is not really an argument for me. Find the rule that give you balanced and viable build choices and I am sure we can find a more or less contrived "realistic" way of explaining why the rule is there.

Since we don't get much for our ST, above 16 for 2-handers and 13 for 1-handers, damage wise, we could set up armor to work in the region of 14 to 20 at about 1 for 1. The system is built around the fact that damage and HP should increase 1 for 1 between 17 and 20 and not suddenly stop at 16. The same goes for DX that works fine all the way to 20 since it is easy to turn extra DX into something valuable like armor, aimed attacks, compensate for enemy given penalties and so on, not to mention a lot of talents roll against DX. IQ above mastery is not really useful for a fighter and I can live with that limitation.


Since we still get HP for extra ST, and maybe can get some sort of damage bonus for high ST like Clubs get (+1 dmg per 3 extra ST if the weapon is extra heavy. So no need for 1-h great swords, just large and heavy Bastard Swords). Then maybe we could get something like this:

ST 15 Shields give 1 less penalty. Large Shield for free.
ST 16 ((Damage bonus for ST 13 weapon users))

ST 17 Armor gives 1 less penalty.
ST 18 Armor gives 1 less penalty.
ST 19 ((You get extra damage with ST 16 or ST 13 weapons))
ST 20 2 less MA penalty from armor.
ST 21 Armor gives 1 less penalty.
ST 22 ((More damage again for ST 16 or ST 13 weapons)).
ST 23 2 less MA penalty from armor.
ST 24 Armor gives 1 less penalty.
ST 25 ((More damage again for ST 16 or ST 13 weapons)).

A ST 22 Fighter with a 1h and shield would do 2+1 (+3dmg), +2 shield, +3 armor for free. That is an average dmg of 11 and armor +5.
A ST 22 Fighter with a 2-h would do 3+1 (+2dmg), +2 armor for free. That is an average damage of 13,5 and armor +3.

I haven't created any builds for my sim using high ST builds with these advantages, but I think they will be OK balance wise. Will test it for balance if people like the idea.

[Anomylous]

Late to the party here, but re: Job Table:

Granting experience for successful job rolls is actually something that gets used a lot around here, generally at the beginning of campaigns. You build your character, and then you "work" at whatever job you can qualify for, for some number of weeks determined by the GM. At the end of it, you have a pile of money to spend on gear, and a couple extra attribute points if you're lucky. If you roll badly and "die", then you lose everything, but you can keep rolling for however many weeks you've got left.

This system tends to reward characters with marketable skills, i.e. "skill monkey" types, who can get the low-risk, high-paying jobs.

It's fine if experience-for-jobs gets removed in the new edition...but I'm going to keep a copy or two of the old job tables around for this purpose.

[David Bofinger]

Two things bother me about Nils' idea:

1. I don't like ruling out unarmoured insane barbarian characters (i.e. making them simply inferior to armoured ones) because unarmoured insane barbarians are fun. But: if you are going to have a system like this:
2. From ST 8 to ST 13/16 or so, increasing ST causes an increase in damage. From ST 16 to ST 25 or so, increasing ST causes an improvement in defence. That feels gamey to me: why would it switch from one to the other? As an alternative, interleave the offensive and defensive benefits. Even if that means some weapons are available at higher ST than they are in canon TFT.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Two things bother me about Nils' idea:

1. I don't like ruling out unarmoured insane barbarian characters (i.e. making them simply inferior to armoured ones) because unarmoured insane barbarians are fun. But: if you are going to have a system like this:
2. From ST 8 to ST 13/16 or so, increasing ST causes an increase in damage. From ST 16 to ST 25 or so, increasing ST causes an improvement in defence. That feels gamey to me: why would it switch from one to the other? As an alternative, interleave the offensive and defensive benefits. Even if that means some weapons are available at higher ST than they are in canon TFT.

Ok new suggestion:
For Exceptional ST, that is ST above 13. You can chose one of these advantages per extra ST. That way each GM and player can chose their own version of what Great ST should be.

(These are only useful for 1-h fighters):
Shield Wielding*: 1 less shield penalty.
Sword and Board*: Mighty Blow but only with 1-h weapons.
Monkey Grip: Lower ST, 2-handed weapon, can be used in one hand. -1DX for being unwieldy.

At ST above 16 you can chose from this table as well.

(These are useful for all):
Toughness*: +1/2 Armor. Round down.
Ignore Armor*: 1 less armor penalty.
Mighty Blow*: 1 more damage if the weapon is made for it. Otherwise +1/2. Round down.
Great Constitution*: +2 vs. Disease, poison and biology attacks.
Hardy*: +2 vs. Exhaustion and endurance tests.
Broad Shoulders*: 2 Less MA penalty from armor.
Roll with it: 12 damage before knockdown. 8 damage before -2DX.
Long Stride: +2 MA.
Power Jump: Can jump over a 1-hex enemy if they charged him.
Strong Man: Throw big objects, break objects with you hand, etc. -1 die versus such tests. +2 damage with such attacks.
Whirlwind attack: Sweeping Blow in side hexes.
etc.
(* can be chosen multiple times.)

This way both 1-h fighters and 2-handed fighters can benefit from higher ST than 13 and 16 in a way that fits their style.

I could see a similar table for exceptional IQ above 16. With "great feats of IQ" Like Photographic Memory, Exceptional Beauty, Common Sense (GM helps you to play a genius by giving warnings), Back Up Plan (Retcon certain minor things or add things to a story with a flash back), Fast Learner (learn new talents in less time, but same XP requirement) and other similar neutral advantages that doesn't really need to be learned as a talent but shows off exceptional abilities. But the best would be to increase the talents all the way up to 20, just like wizard spells.


Another solution would be to give Great IQ characters some talent points as a bonus. So if you invest in IQ above 14, you get better at some old talents when your IQ increases, and you learn some new talents as well, say 2 bonus talent points per IQ above 14, but you don't get access to any new talents. The balance of this would be that you sacrifice some of your few precious attribute increases instead of just spending XP to get talents. Now you get a compensation for that. Otherwise we will never see a Hero with higher IQ than 14, ever.

Feats of Great DX is not as important since there already are a lot of ways to trade DX around for other advantages. I would like to see a few more though, like better rules for Aimed attacks and maybe some sort of bypassing armor or expertiseless poor man's Shrewd attacks. Otherwise armor stacking might be a problem.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by warhorse11h

Could this work. It seems that a consensus is that the armor penalties are too severe. There is no consensus on a solution. A talent is an idea for some, but others indicate it is not difficult enough to learn to wear armor and the loss of movement is not too severe for lighter forms of armor.

Would it be possible for a fighter, as he advances, to purchase a bonus for his armor/shield familiarity, reducing the DX penalty for his armor/shield by 1. The cost would be equal to a talent with a value of (1). Allow him to purchase a second and greater level of armor familiarity with experience point cost as a talent of (2). This would reduce the armor/shield DX penalty by 2. And a third would allow him to purchase a third level of familiarity at a cost equal to a talent of (3) and reduce the armor/shield DX penalty by 3. The maximum penalty reduction would be 3, each higher level replacing the former.

Set a minimum ST requirement for each level of this familiarity, say ST 12 for the first, ST 16 for the second and ST 20 for the third.

And provide one last requirement, you have to wear armor and/or carry a shield the whole time. You can't become familiar with anything by looking at it, you have to do it.

I am pretty sure the consensus is a little bit wrong here. Armor penalties are not too high over all. In my sim armor builds do quite well.

At 40p level the top 20 builds (out of a total of 380 builds) have 5.35 points of armor on average. 6 plate builds, 2 Chain builds, 3 leather, 3 cloth and 6 No armor.

At 36p level the top 20 builds (out of a total of 336 builds) have 3,9 points of armor on average. 0 plate builds (2 in the top 30), 1 Chain builds (number 21 and 22 were both chain builds), 4 leather, 4 cloth and 11 No armor. At this level Shields are preferred over armor that lower MA.

At 32p level the top 20 builds (out of a total of 162 builds) have 2.0 points of armor on average. 0 plate builds (1 half-plate and 2 plate builds at 60, but still with a better than 50/50 win rate), 0 Chain builds (first one comes at number 40), 2 leather (3 in the top 30), 6 cloth and 14 No armor. 7 out of those top builds were Pole Arm builds and they prefer Cloth as a maximum for MA purposes.

Over all the armor balancing is almost spot on. The cost of armor is either about 1 to 1.5 less damage from swinging a one handed weapon instead of a two handed one. But you get a bonus of 1 for your shield, so that pretty much evens out. Especially since you have Shield Expertise that cost you very little if you already have the IQ for it because you have Expertise with you main weapon and after that you are ahead.

Armor with the new changes, so they are are 1 for 1 all the way up to plate are also spot on. The whole trick is to get your bell curve adjDX to a reasonable number. And you use armor to adjust that. Armor for a DX 10 character is usually bad. But if you have a DX of 14, armor is a very good investment, at least until you bring your adjDX down to about 12. If your DX is 16 it is a super investment, since you will lose very little for that first point of DX that goes to armor.

This is not my opinion it is from the simulation. The results made me reevaluate the worth of armor a lot. I used to think that armor sucked as well. But my sim only handles one vs one. In a battle situation where we have five PC vs. one bad guy, armor do suck. The well armored guy will be attacked last, and his armor will not absorb much in the fight. But in the reverse situation with 3 PC vs 15 weak minions, your armor will be a game winner three times over. And in a campaign setting with a physicker and healing per wound (common home brew rule), armor makes the physicker many times more effective. With out that rule, he will still be a lot better, but not astoundingly better.

The only bad thing with armor is that if everyone go 9/13(8)/10 with double expertise they do about 1+1 damage and have adjDX vs each other of 6 and 7 points of armor and can't hurt each other unless they crit. The battles will be very looong. We are talking 30+ turns easily. So people will resort to Shrewd attacks with adjDX of 1, hope for auto hits and crits instead.

Armor stacking on the other hand might be a problem. It will not get better by allowing people to buy it cheaper. The solution would be that all 5 point hits give 1 non lethal damage, if all of the normal damage was absorbed. Or an aimed attack that by-passes some or all of the armor like dagger marksmanship, etc. Then you could jump a tin can, get them into HTH so their shield is out of play and start aiming for their weak spots.

One more thing. The worth of armor is not linear. You need a certain amount to get the most out of it. Your adjDX is the big difference of course. But the opponents average and max damage is another bell curve. Going from 5 to 7 armor in the example above is a huge difference when the max damage is 1+1(7).

But one point of armor against a Great Sword wielder is hardly noticeable if you have ST 9. 11.5 damage versus 1 armor gives you about a 10% increase in survival, but since most hits will take you out anyways it is almost of no use.

But 1 more point of armor when you go from 8 to 9 armor will make a huge difference. Now the average great sword hit do 2.5 instead of 3.5 which is a 25% improvement. If you pay with adjDX in the 10 to 11 range every point cost you about 20% effectiveness (62.5% down to 50% hit chance).

But in order to reach 8 or 9 armor you probably already have an abysmal adjDX around 8. And so the cost is higher, about a 33% loss of effectiveness (30% down to 20% hit chance). So against a Great Sword wielder, armor is usually not a winning strategy. Better to attack first, hit and try to do 5 or 8 hits and hope the great sword never connects.

If we still have a high adjDX around 14 (high attribute characters) and go down to 13 we lose less than 10% effectiveness (91% down to 84%). And still gain a 25% increase in survivability. All of sudden it is worth it.

So even against a Great Sword wielder we can find a tipping point where armor might be a good trade-off. Against dagger wielders, Cloth and an expertise tower shield will shut them down.

But I am not against the idea to have a talent that can shift IQ and XP into a more defensive build. But I don't feel it is needed because armor is inherently weak, but I like build options, so as long as the talent is balanced it might be a good idea. Armor is sliiightly weaker in a one on one arena fights if the opposition is unknown. But as a dungeon delver build they are very competitive. I am not too fond of the lower MA from armor though. It goes out side the normal balance equation and it comes in at certain levels a little haphazardly making Leather and Chain a lot worse.

And Running is not enough to counter it. Maybe a "running in heavy armor"-talent? That costs a lot (probably 3), reduces armor penalty with 1 and also reduce MA penalties by 2. Maybe at IQ 11 or 12 so there is something for pure fighters between Expertise and Mastery levels. Two weapon fighting is a little weak and not for everyone. (Builds come in at 50-55% win rate. Not really viable. -2 or -3 on second attack maybe? Or parry for 3 damage, since we now have Shield Expertise.)

I would rather have nice rules for custom fit armor that are costly but gives 1 less adjDX that would give the cheaper base cost armors Leather and Chainmail a little boost to compensate for taking a hit on MA.

As for your suggestion for talent prereqs. I like them. I just disagreed that armor is undervalued. I thought so to, but not anymore. :-) We need something for Great ST. Be it chosen feats, talents or a table with set bonuses or a general rule of oversized weapons or damage bonuses.

[brettd]

I agree that armor is not prohibitive to use as is. If people had more armor then a lot of lighter weapons would become effectively worthless. A big part of the charm of TFT is that such a broad spectrum of choices are workable. We don't want extremely strong characters walking through hordes of goblins like they're driving through a no-touch carwash.