Advanced Combat Skills

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I have used both bow and crossbow on the range - real ones, not SCA versions - and there's not much similarity other than the basic need for some hand/eye coordination. They are just combined for ease of play.

Crossbows are marvelous machines. I have the second one that Master Iolo ever built. http://www.crossbows.net/

The SCA ones are quite real - it's only the arrows or bolts that aren't.

They are, however, limited in strength. The bows are 30 lb @ 28"draw. That's a pretty standard starter bow, of the kind kids use at scout camps. Put a razor head on it, it's a lethal weapon. (A chap I know poached a moose with one.)\

Rifle has more in common with crossbow than does standard bow. Especially black powder rifle.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I am not really liking that the trade-off seems to be IQ and reduced attribute focus to get expertise.

I don't see how else it could work. Tradeoffs are what make character variety possible: I decide to buy this thing which means I can't have that thing. And given that the character is a warrior, what else could the tradeoff be? Maybe you're saying less IQ, more talent points? I could get behind that.

If there's no tradeoff then we might as well have a D&D class: every now and then I go up a level, and when I do I get the goodies that come with that level, and I can have any colour I like as long as it's black.

The weapon/shield expertise and higher UC levels I sort of think should just not be allowed to start with (unless the character is supposed to be very experienced) and I'd like the way to get them to instead be actually needing exceptional levels of training and/or experience.

If they're good they should be expensive. Maybe put the weakest one on the edge of the practical budget of a starting character.

It feels unfortunately mechanical and gamey to me to have there be a heavy consideration/trade-off about whether to be stamped an Expert or Master and need to raise IQ, or to just raise ST & DX instead - that's hard for me to understand what it's supposed to represent.

Having the character's ST and DX rise way above what they were in young adulthood is perhaps unrealistic. There might be better ways to write a system and I've sometimes toyed with deleting all TFT attributes and making it a game of talents only. But that would no longer be TFT.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I am not really liking that the trade-off seems to be IQ and reduced attribute focus to get expertise. The weapon/shield expertise and higher UC levels I sort of think should just not be allowed to start with (unless the character is supposed to be very experienced) and I'd like the way to get them to instead be actually needing exceptional levels of training and/or experience.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I don't see how else it could work. Tradeoffs are what make character variety possible: I decide to buy this thing which means I can't have that thing. And given that the character is a warrior, what else could the tradeoff be? Maybe you're saying less IQ, more talent points? I could get behind that.

I think the ST 11 requirements I added to UC IV and UC V handle Skarg's concern nicely:

Originally Posted by zot

So that'd be:

IQ 7
UC I

IQ 8
UC II: DX 11

IQ 9
UC III: DX 12

IQ 10
UC IV: DX 13, ST 11

IQ 11
UC V: DX 14, ST 11

(note from above)
This still restricts UC IV and V to 34 and 36 points but it allows a maximum ST of 15 for UC V. I don't think requiring slightly above average ST for a UC expert or master is unreasonable at all.

They keep the talent point cost, don't require sinking points into IQ (which would have limited the max ST of a UC character to 12), and require at 34 and 36 attribute points for UC IV and UC V, making them unattainable for beginning characters.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I don't see how else it could work. Tradeoffs are what make character variety possible: I decide to buy this thing which means I can't have that thing. And given that the character is a warrior, what else could the tradeoff be? Maybe you're saying less IQ, more talent points? I could get behind that.

There are several ways talents could be priced and/or limited.

Original TFT uses:
* IQ requirements for all talents.
* other attribute requirements
* talent prerequisites
* memory point cost (in the rules labeled IQ COST) to learn
* time required studying to learn a talent
* some talents require training by an appropriate teacher/guild q.v. thief, mechanician
* some talents require experience time, e.g. Captain requires "two years around the sea"
* spells have additional rules requiring literacy & appropriate books or teachers knowing the spell, as well as time spent based on IQ level of spell compared to the student.

The 40-point cap adds a new effect which did not exist before (at least, not so absolutely), in that if a talent has attribute level requirements, it limits what your 40 points can ever be if you take that talent.

We're now also seeing SJ and guymc entertaining new ideas such as:

* allowing XP to buy total talent points above IQ, for an undecided amount of XP
* adding some other mechanic such as "slots"

And fans have also contributed various other ideas, such as limiting these talents based on attribute totals, or having come talents count against a limit that involves ST or DX rather than IQ.

Moreover, the way they've been balanced against each other has created a new kind of character improvement dilemma for players, where even if the concept is just "I want to be great at fighting with weapons", they could raise their ST & DX, or they could raise IQ to various levels to learn various talents that otherwise aren't available, which cuts into their ST & DX. The XP curve makes that effect take much more time than it would have before, and the 40-point cap even means they'd never be able to raise their ST & DX as high as someone keeping their IQ low. And although that may look "balanced" from a game theory perspective, it looks wonky to me from a "what does this even represent that corresponds to anything that makes sense as representing anything in the game world?"

Alternatives could include any of the other ways talents are limited mentioned above, or new ones.

I think it helps to think what would make the most sense, before trying to build (and later, simplify) mechanics for it. In this case, it seems to me that high-level exceptional weapon expertise such as an "expert" or "master" talent would represent should probably:

* Not be available to typical fresh young inexperienced 32-point characters.
* Require a serious amount of combat experience.
* Require exceptional training (whether in terms of dedication, time spent, teacher quality, or whatever).
* Require a serious amount of whatever currency TFT2 will use to measure investment/focus in a certain study path (e.g. XP, and/or talent cost and/or "slots")
* Not require so much IQ investment that characters who earn the same amount of XP but don't invest in being experts, don't end up actually being equal or better fighters to those who go for being experts (this is what the computer results suggest to me about the current draft).

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

I think the ST 11 requirements I added to UC IV and UC V handle Skarg's concern nicely:
...
They keep the talent point cost, don't require sinking points into IQ (which would have limited the max ST of a UC character to 12), and require at 34 and 36 attribute points for UC IV and UC V, making them unattainable for beginning characters.

Yes, that might assuage the problem for UC. I actually haven't re-analyzed the latest UC versions because I still haven't noticed whether their damages are based on a flat 1d-4 damage, or the AM damage that scales with ST.

I was mainly thinking about the Weapon Expert (IQ 10) & Master (IQ 13) talents, which the computer sims were showing may be currently at a rock-paper-scissors point with characters who ignore those talents and just put points in ST & DX, even at 40 attributes.

I think I'd like it more if both the UC and the Weapon Expert/Master talents were abilities you actually needed to invest a bunch of XP in, and require serious experience/training time, rather than just be something you can get by raising IQ.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Yes, that might assuage the problem for UC. I actually haven't re-analyzed the latest UC versions because I still haven't noticed whether their damages are based on a flat 1d-4 damage, or the AM damage that scales with ST.

I was mainly thinking about the Weapon Expert (IQ 10) & Master (IQ 13) talents, which the computer sims were showing may be currently at a rock-paper-scissors point with characters who ignore those talents and just put points in ST & DX, even at 40 attributes.

I think I'd like it more if both the UC and the Weapon Expert/Master talents were abilities you actually needed to invest a bunch of XP in, and require serious experience/training time, rather than just be something you can get by raising IQ.

I was surprised at how modest the ST requirement had to be. What about these reqs for expertise / mastery, which also add a modest ST 11 requirement?

Expert: ST 11 DX 13 IQ 10 (34 attribute points)
Master: ST 11 DX 14 IQ 11 (36 attribute points)

[zot]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Unarmed Combat (1). Basic martial arts, similar to judo, karate, la savate, etc. A figure with this skill can:
• Punch. Does +1 damage with bare hands in either HTH or regular combat. Regular bare-hands damage is 1d-4, so you do 1d-3.
• Kick. In regular combat, roll to hit at -4, but do +2 damage compared to your bare-hands attack. So you kick at 1d-1.
To use this skill – or any of the higher-level Unarmed Combat skills – a figure must be unarmored, or wearing cloth armor only, and have both hands free. No “unskilled” use of unarmored combat talents is allowed. A martial artist should not expect to best a prepared, armed and armored foe, but is far more prepared for an impromptu, unarmed battle.
Note: This and the below UC talents do not “stack” – the effect of UC II replaces the effect of UC I, and so on.

So bare-hands damage is now fixed at 1d-4 instead of increasing with ST?

[Nils_Lindeberg]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but I am a little bit concerned. TFT is all about picking a talent, maybe two and then you know that skill. The rest will come with experience when your attributes increase. You usually only have to focus on you attribute score and one question, do you have the talent in question or not?

Now we are talking about a lot of calculations, figuring out which talents I have and the more IQ/XP you can spend in one area, the more you have to become a one trick pony to compete. And that is never a good thing.

I say we should keep the weapon groups, but all other higher weapon talents should be like, feats in other systems. Ex. "Now you can shield rush without a shield"-1pnt. Or "You do 1 more damage with weapons that you are trained in"-1pnt. Otherwise it will be impossible to be good at two different weapon groups, ever! And you can mix and chose what ever style of fighting you like.

And try to keep the damage potential down, down down. All damage calculations breaks down outside the 8-16 ST weapons and 7-15 DX range with 0-8 or so armor. It works surprisingly and extremely well when you do monte carlo analysis with in those ranges, but as soon as you approach any kind of extremes in weapon damage, armor, DX modifiers, etc it breaks. And a +2 damage might not seem like much, but those +2 are deadly when you crit. Especially since armor is absorption.

An average hit of 7 damage against a normal soldier with 5 armor points do 2 dmg. With a +2 you double the average damage. And with a crit you go from 9 dmg to 13 dmg after armor. That is the difference between being knocked on your ass and being dead. So a +2 is alot.

I prefer a maximum of +2 dmg increase in total. And maybe focus on Armor Piercing or armor circumvention.

I really like to give opponents a harder time to hit instead, since that means you open up a new type of character, a dodger, a nimble "Catch me if you can"-type of character that previously did not exist. And the best way to do that is to give the opponents extra dice to hit just like Dodge and Defend, but let the Dodger or Defender have a chance to attack as well. And no matter how good you are at avoiding damage your will never be immune to a lucky roll. And it gives you a reason to invest a lot in DX if 4vsDX and 5vsDX are common when you try to hit people.

So focus weapon expertise and such talents on two things: Increased critical hits, since they don't stack with normal criticals instead of bonus damage across the board. Just like Fencing. And then on better defense. Fights between two very good martial artist, be they Knights or Bruce Lee, tend to go on for a longer time, not a shorter time (which increased damage would mean). A good defense is what makes a great warrior survive to become a great warrior.

A general rule should be that you never give your opponents a set of negative modifier, because it will be forgotten way too often. And it is always on and hard to remember. You will have to explain that hitting A is at -2, while B is -1, etc. Use a stance that you are either in, like Defend and Dodge or not. It shouldn't be so good that it is always on, but when the situation calls for it you state it. And preferably you can attack at the same time but with a penalty. So when you give modifiers to other combatants you do it with whole dice. And they themselves can calculate facing bonuses, broken ground penalties, stun damage penalties, etc. Separation makes the rules cleaner.

Skip kick as an option. It is part of the whole Melee and HTH concept. Even when you fight with a sword and shield you will use a kick if the opportunity arises to get your opponent off balance as part of your attack combo with the sword. You don't need thrust, slash, pommelhit, head but, shield bash etc as separate attacks to simulate two fighters battling. A low dmg hit might just as easily have been a head but or shield slam into a wall as a slash with the sword that barely connected.

A general rule to trade off ToHit for extra damage is another thing. In a fist fight it could be described as a hay maker, a kick or precision strike. I don't think it is needed because too high damage is usually a problem (people die suddenly and TFT has few safety nets as is and that can destroy a campaign).

All in all skip UC, split up the unique abilities into 1 point talents. Some that can only be used empty handed like nerve strike (with lots of prereqs), but most should be allowed for everyone both armed and armored if their adjDX allows it. Focus unarmed martial artists on HTH, shield rushes with out shields, Defending/Dodging without being armed and maybe +2 dmg to make them a viable choice to normal fighters. And remember the advantage of always beeing ready to fight and being able to lay down your weapons and still be deadly. A monk character doesn't have to do the same damage in a one on one duel with a fighter to be viable. They should fight differently, but not trade punsch for mace bash on equal terms.

[larsdangly]

When you look at these proposed advanced talents, keep in mind the limit to stat advances (40 point max for humans). This effectively caps your ability to develop combat capabilities through stat increases, meaning characters either become static or you introduce new talents that let them develop further.

[zot]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

When you look at these proposed advanced talents, keep in mind the limit to stat advances (40 point max for humans). This effectively caps your ability to develop combat capabilities through stat increases, meaning characters either become static or you introduce new talents that let them develop further.

Which isn't a bad thing at all -- provided that there are plenty of cool talents to go around...