Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > The Fantasy Trip

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-10-2018, 02:25 PM   #201
tbeard1999
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by brettd View Post
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.
Agreed. In general, heavier armor translated to better battlefield performance historically. (A few exceptions, such as the French at Crecy' and Agincourt can be explained by bad tactics and terrain). But fantasy literature (and artwork) is filled with depictions of lightly armored or unarmored warriors.

TFT might be "unrealistic"* in that it gives some incentives to not wear armor, but it's more faithful to the genre in my opinion. Without the DX penalties, *everyone* would wear the heaviest armor they could, ala D&D.


*Or not, since Steve stated that Melee reflects his own experience in the SCA.
tbeard1999 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-10-2018, 02:33 PM   #202
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbeard1999 View Post
Without the DX penalties, *everyone* would wear the heaviest armor they could, ala D&D.
Except that they don't, in my many years of experience with GURPS, where the only DX penalties for armor are -1 for un-tailored plate limbs, and -1 for a fully-visored helm. They don't because of the encumbrance and (mainly) its effects on your movement, your ability to dodge and retreat effectively, and (if the optional rule is used) how quickly you can stand up after falling.

I expect if you lowered or removed the DX penalty for armor in TFT, but kept the encumbrance and MA effects (and possibly added a minor bonus to be hit), that the balance and behavior would not be nearly as upset as you expect (except maybe more people would wear cloth and leather than go au naturale).
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-10-2018, 02:38 PM   #203
tbeard1999
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Except that they don't, in my many years of experience with GURPS, where the only DX penalties for armor are -1 for un-tailored plate limbs, and -1 for a fully-visored helm. They don't because of the encumbrance and (mainly) its effects on your movement, your ability to dodge and retreat effectively, and (if the optional rule is used) how quickly you can stand up after falling.

I expect if you lowered or removed the DX penalty for armor in TFT, but kept the encumbrance and MA effects (and possibly added a minor bonus to be hit), that the balance and behavior would not be nearly as upset as you expect (except maybe more people would wear cloth and leather than go au naturale).
For what it's worth, my players tended to gripe about the DX penalty; I can't ever recall anyone griping about the movement penalty. I certainly never considered it. If heavy armor is realistically expensive, this could reduce usage as well. (The TFT price of $500 seems for plate armor seems awfully low to me.)

Interesting idea to allow opponents a "to hit" bonus, though.
tbeard1999 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-10-2018, 06:44 PM   #204
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Experience Points

MA is decisive in situations where you need to catch enemies who are smart enough to run when outmatched, or who use tactics that deny engagement using MA, or where you're smart enough to do the same, or need to flee someone. It's possible to not realize that, though.

The reduction do dodging & retreating is nicely baked in to GURPS 4e. It also works well in the combat system used by Illwinter's Dominions series of computer games, which is great & accidentally somewhat TFT-like, but instead of DX figures have Attack & Defense scores. Armor tends not to affect your Attack but does reduce your Defense (ability to not get hit), while adding Protection like armor does in TFT. It's interesting because usually it's better overall to have more Protection, except against attacks which do so much damage that you really want to not be hit at all (especially telling when fighting giants, for example).
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 02:38 PM   #205
hcobb
 
hcobb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: Experience Points

I have a suggestion with two goals: Keep early starters from just dominating forever and also keep all the characters from simply converging to a single model.

Make the cost to advance any attribute point or talent level to be 100 + 50 XPs for each attribute point (but not talent) that you've advanced before.

This makes it a lot more cost effective for early character development to "discover" hidden talents (at a potential survival risk of having low attributes) while more developed characters will stay in their own lanes.
__________________
-HJC
hcobb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 02:56 PM   #206
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
I have a suggestion with two goals: Keep early starters from just dominating forever and also keep all the characters from simply converging to a single model.

Make the cost to advance any attribute point or talent level to be 100 + 50 XPs for each attribute point (but not talent) that you've advanced before.

This makes it a lot more cost effective for early character development to "discover" hidden talents (at a potential survival risk of having low attributes) while more developed characters will stay in their own lanes.
I'm not certain why the new basic Melee lists the cost at 100 XP per attribute up to 8 after starting.

Last I heard, Steve had a much steeper scale in mind after the first extra point. So, probably yes, and then some.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 07:49 PM   #207
JohnPaulB
 
JohnPaulB's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Portland, Maine
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I'm not certain why the new basic Melee lists the cost at 100 XP per attribute up to 8 after starting.

Last I heard, Steve had a much steeper scale in mind after the first extra point. So, probably yes, and then some.
Perhaps there is a BASIC level of Experience Points just for Melee Arena Battles and a different Experience Point level for the full RPG of In The Labyrinth?
__________________
- Hail Melee

Fantasy Chess: A chess game with combat.
Don't just take the square, Fight for it!
https://www.shadowhex.com
JohnPaulB is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 10:54 PM   #208
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Experience Points

Yeah, that's my best guess too. If you were running an arena campaign just using Melee, I can see that being a more gratifying experience rate to use...
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2018, 08:24 AM   #209
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Experience Points

I would say it is fair, and perhaps even necessary, to have faster advancement rules in Melee/Wizard, because these are intended to be relatively balanced competitive games, and the odds are going to catch up to you pretty quickly if you are fighting genuinely balanced fights to the death, whereas roleplaying situations usually provide ample opportunities to avoid or flee fights that are not going your way (plus they provide mechanisms for gaining experience points other than Mortal Kombat).

The tricky question is how you should merge the two systems when a character goes back and forth between these situations.
larsdangly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2018, 08:49 AM   #210
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
I would say it is fair, and perhaps even necessary, to have faster advancement rules in Melee/Wizard, because these are intended to be relatively balanced competitive games, and the odds are going to catch up to you pretty quickly if you are fighting genuinely balanced fights to the death, whereas roleplaying situations usually provide ample opportunities to avoid or flee fights that are not going your way (plus they provide mechanisms for gaining experience points other than Mortal Kombat).

The tricky question is how you should merge the two systems when a character goes back and forth between these situations.
Very tricky indeed. I think this should be revised so that basic Melee and Wizard use the same XP costs as the new ITL (I like what was proposed here: http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=135)

However, basic Melee and Wizard can have different rules for granting XP...and at different rates.
platimus is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:35 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.