Blasphemous Polyhedral Weapons Table

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

Right, I get that; however, I shall beg the question nonetheless for the purposes of discussion:

"Shouldn't a 16 ST Fighter use a "ST-Appropriate" set of Nunchaku; which would be different than the ST-Minimum example Nunchaku presented on the table which a Halfling might use?" After all, Giants use giant-sized clubs for ST-Appropiate damage - and conceptually, what is a set of Nunchuka after all, other than a flail combined with (albeit) a small club(s)?

Well, as someone who spent an inordinate amount of time twirling nunchucks in the 80s, I don’t think they’re all that useful. Personally, I’d rather have a club. But, the cinematic nunchucks are something else entirely. That’s why I think that Advanced Melee should identify certain peculiar weapons as “cinematic” - unrealistic, unless your game is set in an appropriate genre. I kinda like the idea of giants with nunchucks though...

I’d add that I’ve allowed a modest damage bonus for having a ST higher than the weapon minimum - +1 per 2 points of ST (or fraction thereof), with a maximum of +2. I also deduct damage if your ST is too low - minus 1 point for each point of ST you lack. You can’t use a weapon if you lack more than 3 points of ST. This is slightly different from AM.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Et tu, JLV?

:D

Alas, but I must defend the Republic... ;-)

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Well, as someone who spent an inordinate amount of time twirling nunchucks in the 80s, I don’t think they’re all that useful. Personally, I’d rather have a club. But, the cinematic nunchucks are something else entirely. That’s why I think that Advanced Melee should identify certain peculiar weapons as “cinematic” - unrealistic, unless your game is set in an appropriate genre. I kinda like the idea of giants with nunchucks though...

I’d add that I’ve allowed a modest damage bonus for having a ST higher than the weapon minimum - +1 per 2 points of ST (or fraction thereof), with a maximum of +2. I also deduct damage if yur ST is too low - minus 1 point for each point of ST you lack. You can’t use a weapon if you lack more than 3 points of ST. This is slightly different from AM.

LOL! You too!! Did you have the Enter the Dragon or Game of Death pair with the ball-bearing speed-swivel from Asian World of Martial Arts? ;-)

I get the distinct impression that on-the-whole the TFT combat is supposed to be Cinematic by design. Your thoughts on that?

Yes, I would rather have a Club too,... pretty bartenders,.. good band,.... excellent food,... but, I digress LOL!

[JLV]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Well, as someone who spent an inordinate amount of time twirling nunchucks in the 80s, I don’t think they’re all that useful. Personally, I’d rather have a club. But, the cinematic nunchucks are something else entirely. That’s why I think that Advanced Melee should identify certain peculiar weapons as “cinematic” - unrealistic, unless your game is set in an appropriate genre. I kinda like the idea of giants with nunchucks though...

I’d add that I’ve allowed a modest damage bonus for having a ST higher than the weapon minimum - +1 per 2 points of ST (or fraction thereof), with a maximum of +2. I also deduct damage if yur ST is too low - minus 1 point for each point of ST you lack. You can’t use a weapon if you lack more than 3 points of ST. This is slightly different from AM.

That reminds me of a story -- a friend of mine in El Paso, Texas was big into Korean and Japanese martial arts (I mean BIG) and his father never quite understood his enthusiasm. My friend would frequently try to explain just how cool he thought all this was, especially some of the Okinawan weapons; and one day he was given a set of nun-chucks for his first day of training. That evening he returned home and his father saw the huge bruises on his arms, chest and back from his first day of learning. He looked at his son for a minute and then said; "NOW I see why those are such great weapons! You just had them to your opponent and say; 'Here, use these!' and you've won the fight!" ;-)

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Obviously your mileage may vary. However, some TFT weapons use a bell curve for damage; some don't. That has always bugged me (and apparently no one else on the planet).

I noticed. It starts to bug me sometimes, especially when it's something with a high constant such as a fine enchanted small axe doing 1d+7 damage. I'd rather add 2d-7 to all weapons, than make them all flat.

Still polyhedral blasphemy, but perhaps rolling 2 or 3 polyhedrals for every weapon, with an appropriate minus, e.g.:

Rapier 3d6-7
Cutlass 3d8-9
Shortsword 3d10-11
Broadsword 3d12-13
Bastard Sword (1 hand) 3d12-12
Bastard Sword (2 hands)† 3d20-23
2-handed Sword† 3d20-22
Great Sword† 3d20-20

(Though personally, I'm with Rick that 2-handed weapons should do another +1, so I'd have:

Bastard Sword (2 hands)† 3d20-22
2-handed Sword† 3d20-21
Great Sword† 3d20-19
)

However, even I would probably find that notably slower due to the arithmetic, so while I like the numbers better, I probably wouldn't do that outside a computer game - maybe I'm just so used to d6's, but to me 5d-6 for a battleaxe is easy, but 3d20-20 sounds slightly tiresome.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I noticed. It starts to bug me sometimes, especially when it's something with a high constant such as a fine enchanted small axe doing 1d+7 damage. I'd rather add 2d-7 to all weapons, than make them all flat.

Still polyhedral blasphemy, but perhaps rolling 2 or 3 polyhedrals for every weapon, with an appropriate minus, e.g.:

Rapier 3d6-7
Cutlass 3d8-9
Shortsword 3d10-11
Broadsword 3d12-13
Bastard Sword (1 hand) 3d12-12
Bastard Sword (2 hands)† 3d20-23
2-handed Sword† 3d20-22
Great Sword† 3d20-20

(Though personally, I'm with Rick that 2-handed weapons should do another +1, so I'd have:

Bastard Sword (2 hands)† 3d20-22
2-handed Sword† 3d20-21
Great Sword† 3d20-19
)

However, even I would probably find that notably slower due to the arithmetic, so while I like the numbers better, I probably wouldn't do that outside a computer game - maybe I'm just so used to d6's, but to me 5d-6 for a battleaxe is easy, but 3d20-20 sounds slightly tiresome.

Something I’d like to avoid if at all possible is a damage spread that results in weapons doing zero damage. Since we don’t have readily available 14, 16 and 18 sided dice, I had to use d20s and do a little subtraction for the 2h sword and 2h bastard sword. My suggestion of using 1d20-7 for daggers was somewhat frivolous. Anyhow, most weapons do not subtract points.

The sha-ken is an odd case - the d6-2 is tedious if you fling a bunch of them. To be mathematically correct, you have to subtract 2 from each die. So if you hit with 5 of then you can’t simply roll 5 dice and subtract 10. (An easy, though somewhat unintuitive solution is to roll 1d per sha-ken. A 5 or 6 does no damage; a 1-4 does the indicated amount of damage,) Mathematically a d4-1 would produce almost the same average damage (1 2/3 is the average damage with d6-2; -1 damage is functionally the same as 0 damage). But I just didn’t like it for some reason. And the non intuitive fix above works just fine,

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Something I’d like to avoid if at all possible is a damage spread that results in weapons doing zero damage.

Ty - you might want to re-think your feeling on the idea for a minute. Remember all the times in movies or TV when the little guy attempts to punch the big bruiser in the gut, and the big bruiser just smiles,... right before he picks up the little guy in an upside down bear-hug and crushes little guy like a soda can? It's very Cinematic.

Also, it is MY PERSONAL SUSPICION that most of that "zero damage" makes up for the fact that your opponent gets "no defense roll", and the "zero damage result" may be trying to compensate/simulate a detailed situation where you landed a blow, BUT it was a glancing blow after all,... OR, perhaps the opponent twisted away as a reaction, OR, your sword handle "turned" in your hand at impact, OR, your footing slipped, so no leverage to your swing, OR.. whatever. It's too fine a level of detail for TFT to present in-play, but perhaps it was simply factored into the unseen parts of the game-design - but not pointed to in print - and nonetheless REPRESENTS AN AGGREGATE SUM RESULTING IN NET: ZERO which includes unstated combat variables, which then results in "zero damage".

Anyway, that's how I rationalize the existence of "zero damage" in TFT; maybe that might work for you too; maybe not.

You might want to directly ask SJ himself about how "zero damage" is possible; or what it really simulates, etc.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Something I’d like to avoid if at all possible is a damage spread that results in weapons doing zero damage. Since we don’t have readily available 14, 16 and 18 sided dice, I had to use d20s and do a little subtraction for the 2h sword and 2h bastard sword. My suggestion of using 1d20-7 for daggers was somewhat frivolous. Anyhow, most weapons do not subtract points.

Of course they don't subtract damage. Did you think the TFT rocks at 1d-4 were for healing?

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

The sha-ken is an odd case - the d6-2 is tedious if you fling a bunch of them. To be mathematically correct, you have to subtract 2 from each die. So if you hit with 5 of then you can’t simply roll 5 dice and subtract 10. (An easy, though somewhat unintuitive solution is to roll 1d per sha-ken. A 5 or 6 does no damage; a 1-4 does the indicated amount of damage,) Mathematically a d4-1 would produce almost the same average damage (1 2/3 is the average damage with d6-2; -1 damage is functionally the same as 0 damage). But I just didn’t like it for some reason. And the non intuitive fix above works just fine,

Sha-ken are odd. Rolling d4 for them seems humorously appropriate since d4 are also little annoying spikey things. The main problem I have with sha ken though is that they do too much damage against unarmored people for what they are (and their zero minST) especially when thrown in a handful (12 sha-ken hits average 20 damage against armor 0, 12 damage against armor 1), and also especially if a GM allows something to increase their damage - e.g. fine sha-ken. Yeah it's at -8 DX plus range to hit with 12 at once, but my main objection is the damage to unarmored people for what they are, and it isn't impossible to get over the DX penalty, especially with halfling madness - a halfling can start with DX 18, 21 with thrown weapons, and some GMs would let them also take Thrown Weapons, for a starting character with adjDX 23 to throw. Then there's the Aid spell... and the 20 average damage might not be so hard to achieve after all. I'd probably limit sha-ken damage (especially when thrown more than one at a time) to 2 points max final damage per sha-ken.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

Ty - you might want to re-think your feeling on the idea for a minute. Remember all the times in movies or TV when the little guy attempts to punch the big bruiser in the gut, and the big bruiser just smiles,... right before he picks up the little guy in an upside down bear-hug and crushes little guy like a soda can? It's very Cinematic.

Also, it is MY PERSONAL SUSPICION that most of that "zero damage" makes up for the fact that your opponent gets "no defense roll", and the "zero damage result" may be trying to compensate/simulate a detailed situation where you landed a blow, BUT it was a glancing blow after all,... OR, perhaps the opponent twisted away as a reaction, OR, your sword handle "turned" in your hand at impact, OR, your footing slipped, so no leverage to your swing, OR.. whatever. It's too fine a level of detail for TFT to present in-play, but perhaps it was simply factored into the unseen parts of the game-design - but not pointed to in print - and nonetheless REPRESENTS AN AGGREGATE SUM RESULTING IN NET: ZERO which includes unstated combat variables, which then results in "zero damage".

Anyway, that's how I rationalize the existence of "zero damage" in TFT; maybe that might work for you too; maybe not.

You might want to directly ask SJ himself about how "zero damage" is possible; or what it really simulates, etc.

Oh, I think the answer is clear - with only six sided dice, you’re gonna have to fudge some things. If you want 5 points of average damage, and 3 dice or less, you have to roll 2d-2. If you want a maximum damage of 4, then with one d6 it has to be 1d-2. That creates some odd effects. For example, a longbow and cutlass do about the same average damage. But the longbow will always do at least 3 points and never more than 8 points of normal damage, with the same probability of rolling any given number. The cutless can do as little as 0 and at most 10, with a bell shaped probability curve. Is there any particular reason that some weapons (longbow, dagger, javelin, spear, quarterstaff, rapier, hammer, small ax) use a linear progression, while others use a bell curve, other than “using d6’s required it”?

And as a lawyer, I’m professionally trained to rationalize ANYTHING. But that doesn’t get it for me. The differing damage approaches bothers me at a reptilian brain stem level. It’s almost certainly irrational.

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Oh, I think the answer is clear - with only six sided dice, you’re gonna have to fudge some things. If you want 5 points of average damage, and 3 dice or less, you have to roll 2d-2. If you want a maximum damage of 4, then with one d6 it has to be 1d-2. That creates some odd effects. For example, a longbow and cutlass do about the same average damage. But the longbow will always do at least 3 points and never more than 8 points of normal damage, with the same probability of rolling any given number. The cutlass can do as little as 0 and at most 10, with a bell shaped probability curve. Is there any particular reason that some weapons (longbow, dagger, javelin, spear, quarterstaff, rapier, hammer, small ax) use a linear progression, while others use a bell curve, other than “using d6’s required it”?

And as a lawyer, I’m professionally trained to rationalize ANYTHING. But that doesn’t get it for me. The differing damage approaches bothers me at a reptilian brain stem level. It’s almost certainly irrational.

LOL! "... as a lawyer, I’m professionally trained to rationalize ANYTHING."

Well see now we are really hitting on the thing. The entire "Dice PLUS Adds" or "MINUS", as the case maybe, IS NOT the best approach to create variable damage within such a small integer-set to find the damage result, as you point out. My pet peeve? The 1d6+2 Small Ax which is guaranteed to deliver 3 hits every time it hits, and for only having an 11 ST required.

That's another thing SJ really got right with MtM; Axes are unbalanced and need to be re-readied after every attack attempt - that was conceptually a good off-set to the damage they delivered (imo) AND THEY PLAY DIFFERENT than a sword or pole weapon.

Here is the thing in a nut-shell. The entire TFT Strength-to-HTH Damage-to-Weapon Damage Ratios are off INTERNALLY. That's why everyone messes with it.

MY SUSPICION - It looks like SJ really tried (maybe wanted to do the WHOLE ST/Damage system over again) at the end of Advanced Melee (see - Page 21) after getting into the whole concept of BARE-HANDED DAMAGE as a base for a dagger - and maybe adding the weapon Damage for the Sword/Ax/Pole weapon to go on top of that, but he HAD to turn it in to HT, so.. it is what it is.

I suspect this because it seems that the system begins to suggest a metamorphosis had begun in his head, but he just couldn't get it out on paper in time.

BUT NOTICE on that BARE-HAND DAMAGE CHART - see how the ST values are grouped together by two's? That's because the system is too tight to do integer-by-integer. There is no room.

The entire thing would have to be over-hauled from top-to-bottom to get the system to scale within itself properly.

BUT, as we both agree, there is NO ROOM for all the incremental differences. So we are basically stuck. All the alternatives that I know of are no more desirable than what we have now. I loved the Hero System for Champions, BUT, how would like to count up to 10d6 in dice - 2 differnet ways no less - over and over and over again,.. not for me anymore with these eyes LOL!


Other alternatives are COMBAT RESULTS TABLES. Well,... I loved these in the Avalon Hill Games I played, but that is NOT the Feel, Flow, or Form of TFT.

Here's an interesting thing and I will do my best to explain this thing which is really tough to put into words properly: TFT characters are really small when scaled against other systems. Even though MtM/GURPS uses 10 as a base attribute figure, those figures are MUCH larger in "Math Size" than TFT figures, and a Hero System figure is HUGE. It's an economy of scale situation, but in short, each systems "10" is different to each other in terms of dimension.

With TFT there is ALMOST NO ROOM for re-work. It's like comparing 3 metal miniature of the same figure pose at 15mm (TFT), 20mm (MtM), and 75mm(Hero), so we are kind of stuck in that regard; unless you want stats such as: 11.6 ST, 13.3 DX, 8.2 IQ - not very pleasant prospect if you ask me.

And in the end, I still think TFT is THE BEST system out there - for me anyway.

So what are we going to do?

We are going to do what we have always done. We are going to take the system and fiddle with it while loving it LOL!

I came to a point years ago where I said to myself that it really doesn't matter in a way how the dice killed a character in this game, because as far as the story goes, that character is dead just the same. LOL!

SO,.. if there is basically no room in "the math" to scale the system to itself, you can make those weapons which are out-of-scale (like the small ax) and give them penalties to use them (i.e. re-ready after turn) things like that.

BOTTOM LINE If it can't be scaled and balanced on the NUMBERS side, you have to scale and balance it on the PLAY side.

Frankly, I would much rather see SJ apply more "Weapons Handling Rules" to the weapons to TFT, rather than the math; so that each weapon really FEELS different in PLAY from the next; even if a _____ does the same damage as a ____; because now we are talking Strategy & Tactics and Cinema!