03-17-2018, 07:08 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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Last edited by tbeard1999; 03-17-2018 at 07:41 AM. |
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03-17-2018, 12:17 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Feb 2018
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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Swords, more variable, axes more regular. There is only so much Steve could do working with d6 within the context of the game to keep it simple and well-done. And part of the design fun is deciding between 1+2 vs. 2-1, for instance, regardless of what name is attached to the weapon. It's great to make up all kinds of variations on damage potential, armor slopes, kung fu movements, weapon balance, materials, etc. along the lines of GURPS or other games, but all of it makes for lengthier PC creation, longer engagements, etc. etc. which isn't TFT. And the best thing about TFT is use of the bell curve with the simple and ancient d6, it was the best decision Steve made to stay away from D&Dish yuck. I used to joke with D&D guys who wouldn't open their minds to a possibly better system and feign interest in their bag o' dice. "Yeah, I've got d100, d200, d20, d3, everything! Sometimes it takes 5 minutes just to find the right dice for a roll! And the flat odds, it's so cool when the chances of something rare happening are just the same as the mundane. Mimics the natural world perfectly and feels so right. Oh, and there are those d2 and d1 dice I thought I had lost!." "d2 and d1 dice, whaaaaat?" I then would pull out a coin and a marble to show them. :) |
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03-17-2018, 12:54 PM | #13 | |||
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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As noted, only 3 of the 9 axes/maces have higher minimum and lower maximum damage than equivalent swords. 3 of 9 is not "most" of course. And hafted weapons don't tend to have flatter curves. 5 of the 9 hafted weapons use multiple d6s with bell curves. 2 of them are ST 9- weapons and all weapons in that ST class use a single die. Only 2 of the hafted weapons use a single die at a ST level where equivalent swords use 2 dice. Quote:
I really don’t think there’s any pattern here. Quote:
If you don't want to make any tweaks to TFT, that is of course your prerogative. I disagree. Currently, there's little meaningful difference between hafted weapons and edged weapons. If a few simple tweaks can add meaningful distinctions without slowing the game down or unbalancing it, I'm interested. Oh, and while I don’t care to get into a discussion about it, I don’t think there’s anything innately superior about a bell curve, compared with a linear probabilities. Last edited by tbeard1999; 03-17-2018 at 02:55 PM. |
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03-17-2018, 02:51 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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I’d use the following notation - x2+1. |
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03-17-2018, 05:27 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Feb 2018
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
Re: general trend of axes vs. sword damage
Here is my point: ST Ax MnMx Srd MnMx 10 1+1 2 7 2-2 0 10 11 1+2 3 8 2-1 1 11 13 2+1 3 13 3-2 1 16 14 2+2 4 14 3-1 2 17 These are the usual weapons characters we run have, and the swords tend to have more dice than the axes, and the min max values tend to put the axes at higher mins and lower maxes than the swords. Choose your poison, more consistent damage with axes, more variable with swords. As far as normal curves, so much of natural occurrences mimic it, to rely on flat probabilities never feels right to me and those I game with. I avoid most flat odds setups for that reason. Natural heights, intelligence, abilities, and more, etc. etc. almost all fall into a bell curve upon analysis. Last edited by Kirk; 03-17-2018 at 10:13 PM. |
03-19-2018, 08:37 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
Before working out what weapon characteristics should be it's worth thinking about what weapons we would want to represent. I think we may as well have lots of weapons because a big table doesn't really complicate things the way special rules do and it's cool to be able to pick the weapon that appears in the illustration/miniature/historical period/book/movie you like, or is just the one you imagine.
Here are some suggestions. Many of the names come out of the Roman period or the migration period because they often had the coolest names.
I realise that's a lot. But I think it adheres to the TFT principle someone or other once stated that players should be able to make decisions about their character and see the effect immediately. Plus it makes it easy to differentiate yourself from the character next door, which is an issue in standard TFT. And looking at a big table (like magic items) isn't particularly harder than looking at a small one (like current weapons). If you wanted to go further you could include weapons that were particularly good against armour but bad in other ways to compensate (like a pick, I guess, or maybe a war hammer) or particularly bad against armour but good in other ways to compensate (like a sabre, sling, flail, naginata or katana). That opens the door to characters carrying two weapons and switching depending on the enemy which might be OK but I haven't thought about it much. |
03-19-2018, 12:33 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
That is an excellent summary (though I hope that Steve will once again include the "other" weapons list for each weapon chosen as he did in AM).
I rather like your change in approach to the armor types too, though I'm sure he chose the names of his original armors more for simplicity's sake and to evoke a mental picture for the players, rather than for historical accuracy. (Besides, armor is technically so much more nit-picky than weapons really are; "Is he wearing a helmet? Or not? Do greaves stop 1 point of damage all the time, or 2 points directed towards the legs -- and does that mean we have to have called shots in combat? etc., etc., etc." I always assumed that the armor types were "generecized" by a severe application of both Occam's Razor and the KISS principle in the interest of rapid character creation and simple effect-averaging to keep combat easy to run.) |
03-19-2018, 04:52 PM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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It's a philosophical question whether it's desirable to evoke a mental image that is, from an historical context, inaccurate. Quote:
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03-19-2018, 05:27 PM | #19 | |||
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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03-20-2018, 02:21 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
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Re: Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons
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I'm reading thru the other TFT threads and making occasional comments. I like different types of weapons behaving differently from each other. Makes weapon choices more meaningful. That said, a lot of my weapon differentials occur at higher skill. For example, I do let morningstar / flails wrap around shields, but you have to have Ax / Mace 2 talent before you can use this technique. So basic weapons behave much like regular TFT, but as you become more skilled you can start using special tricks for them. I like this, since the basic game stays simple, but as players gain in competence, the complexity of the game grows slowly. I've not found a nice rule for heavy swung bashing weapons which I like. (I had one system I liked, but found it was a historical so I'm back to square one.) Warm regards, Rick. |
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