01-18-2018, 11:52 AM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jul 2010
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
Always happy to provide amusement.
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The rest is a pretty straight-forward application of the rules as written. Of course, there is ample room in there for a GM to disallow, starting with the (GURPS or ITL? Can't remember.) "Congratulate the player on his cleverness and then ruthlessly disallow" and ending with deciding that even if you can wield the two-handed sword in one hand, sweeping blows always require two arms actively involved. Nevertheless, our GM allowed it in the fairly high powered campaign we played back around '90. But we were fighting things like vampire wizards with herds of enslaved trolls that wore special enchanted gem/strength battery variants that sent the vampire one point of energy per troll by accessing their regenerative powers. Basically, the vampire wizards had scores of spell energy available every turn. |
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01-20-2018, 11:15 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
I've been thinking about the question of pole weapons and charges.
It is my firm belief that the rule, as currently written (either version) is a bit over-powered. There are two solutions: 1) Come up with an even more arcane rule that is effectively an exception to a lot of other rules, but powers down Pole Weapons to roughly the level they ought to have, or; 2) Consider again Rick Smith's suggestion on re-writing the weapons table to account for the differences in possible versus probable damage between penetrating and crushing damage. It seems to me that by choosing number two, even the existing rules would work well to simulate the effects of a pole weapon charge -- damage could be enormous, if the attacker gets lucky on his damage roll (that is, penetrates some vulnerable point of the victim's armor); otherwise, while still deadly, it isn't the current "sure thing" attack that it seems to be if it hits at all. In effect, changing the weapon tables to take into account the difference in damage "expectation" might render a rule change for this type of attack unnecessary, since it might well "power down" the attack sufficiently to make it less dominating in the game. Of note, a mounted pole weapon charge might need to be "powered back up" somewhat to reflect the much greater physical force behind such an attack -- though hitting something from horseback isn't as easy as all those fantasy novels make it seem to be, and either the "to hit" roll should be modified by a DX penalty for doing so while mounted, or perhaps the DODGE option should be more effective against a mounted opponent... |
01-21-2018, 03:16 AM | #23 | |
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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1. Swords. These are the "base weapon" and do damage as currently with no other features. 2. Axes/Hammers/Maces. These do less damage than a sword at the same ST level. Their feature is that they ignore armour as far as Stun (-2DX) and knockdowns are concerned. 3. Spears/Poleweapons. These also do less damage than the sword at the same ST. Their feature is twofold; they can strike at 2 hexes and they do more damage than the sword in a charge (how much more will need to be determined as it's generally felt that "double" is too much, but certainly must be "more"). 4. Missile Weapons. These have their own features and advantages so stay as written. I think this is simple, largely preserves the game as it is, but adds more meaningful choice. The only thing needing to be revised will be damage figures for some weapons. |
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01-25-2018, 07:01 AM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jan 2018
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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01-30-2018, 06:43 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
I think everyone agrees with that.
Most naginata were very much curved over at the end, specialised for slashing at the expense of stabbing. So perhaps the naginata could have only some of the characteristics of a polearm: it might give the first attack in a charge, and allow jabs, but not give bonus damage (because it's got no point). Also, naginata shouldn't be an exotic weapon, at least not for characters from cultures where it's common as muck. I'd ditch the concept altogether. |
01-30-2018, 07:46 PM | #26 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
My suggestion, which is partially GURPS-like:
Categories might include:
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02-07-2018, 08:02 AM | #27 | ||
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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I always allowed figures to use any sword, but at a -1 for each point of ST they lacked. This allowed me to have NPC military units with the same gear, but different STs. It would be interesting to make hafted weapons different than swords. In Real Life, I suspect that hafted weapons were much cheaper and much heavier. In TFT, that could be replicated by making them much cheaper, heavier and do 1 point less damage than swords with the same ST requirement. BTW, this highlights the consequences of using Melee, unmodified, as the TFT combat system. Melee is a wargame and in wargames, game balance is critical. Melee hand weapons have only two attributes - damage and ST required. Oh, and whether they required two hands. Higher ST weapons do more damage, naturally. Melee had no cost system. You took 2 weapons (or a weapon and shield), a dagger and whatever armor you wanted. Clean and simple, with no wasted motion. For an arena combat wargame, that is. Imposing DX penalties on armor, while justifiable to some degree, was a critical game balance tool. Otherwise, every figure would pick plate armor. Again, clean and simple, for an arena combat wargame. It *might* have been a better idea to put a simple cost system in Melee and reduce the armor/shield DX penalties. However, that would've made it way too easy for armored figures to have a decent DX and hit almost always. Which then would've necessitated some kind of defense mechanic. And so it goes. Quote:
Also, flails could be reduced in damage, but ignore shields. That said, I don't think these kinds of modifications would improve Melee. Specifically, I'm talking about the ones I quoted in green above (and my own additions). The other modifications are baked in, so they wouldn't complicate the game. Melee plays superbly as is (other than pole weapon charge attacks being too powerful). However, they might improve TFT:ITL. So Melee's combat system may need significant changes to make it a good roleplaying combat system. Last edited by tbeard1999; 02-07-2018 at 08:42 AM. |
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02-07-2018, 07:51 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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The number of weapons is a tradeoff between various things including flavour. We could have as many weapon categories as we liked, each of which has damage depending on ST. If you want to go crazy:
You don't need to do all this but if you like flavour you can. Some of them might be optional rules. The important point is to emancipate the flavour from things being just better or worse. This is maybe too big a change for a new version. |
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02-08-2018, 10:35 AM | #29 | |
Join Date: Jan 2018
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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Instead a thing it has not been emphasized, but could have its importance, is the fact that swords and armor are too inexpensive. I think that a rewrite of the rules should include a rewrite of prices. A full plate armor costs $500, a great sword $150; a broadsword $ 80. According the rules an Army/Police recruit or ausiliary earns about $30/week. This basically means anyone -at the starting level making an honest low skilled job - can buy a great sword, the mother-queen of the melee weapons, in less than 40 days of work, and a full plate in less than 5 months. I do not know what do you think, but in my imagination great swords and full plates should be much much more expensive and clearly beyond the possibilities of a police recruit or of a school teacher or of a petty thief. This easy and necessary adjustment in the rules would could give a new dimension to combat: more people should use daggers, shortswords, clubs, maces, axes and inexpensive weapons and also players should. Heavy weapons and armor should be rare, and banned in city. They should be openly used only in war or in wild places. Otherwise characters attract attention or break some law. Besides a GM could consider to record the use of heavy weapons and armor and require after a certain number of fights a cost to refit, and also impose a small penalty until they are repaired. Thus, coming back to quoted post, money cost should be another element the players must consider when they decide the weapon, but that is omitted because RAW made this aspect completely negligible. |
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02-08-2018, 12:08 PM | #30 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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Mail - 100 Squire's armor - 136-156 Lance Armor - 66-80 Armor of Proof - 282 Cuirass of Proof - 26 Leather - 5 (estimated) Armor for Prince of Wales "gilt and graven" - 6800 Cheap sword for peasants - 0.5 Normal sword - ~10 (my estimate based on armorer's wage of 6 per week, assuming a week's work, 1s for steel and 50% markup) War Sword (from other source) - 3.5 Longbow (from other source) - 7 Ax (tool) - 0.5 From 1261-1520 AD, a thatcher made from 4.3 to 11.4 shillings per month (assuming 26 working days/mo). Or, 2-5.25 pence per day. The average was around 8-9 per month or 4 pence per day. A mercenary man at arms made 1 shilling per day. A mercenary knight, 2 shillings per day. A mercenary knight banneret 4 shillings per day. An average army infantryman made 2/3 shillings per day. TFT already imposes a harsh DX penalty for heavy armor. Many characters eschew it for that reason, not because of its cost. Making it more expensive may not affect its use that much. Last edited by tbeard1999; 02-08-2018 at 12:12 PM. |
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