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Old 07-17-2018, 11:00 PM   #31
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Hardened - replaces Warrior and Veteran

I think there are two ways to look at Toughness:
  • An ST-based talent: You get hit, but the armour turns that into a blunt impact and you're so tough you just grunt at that. This is implied by canon TFT, because ST is a prerequisite.
  • A DX-based talent: You get hit, but by twisting away at the last moment you make sure it's not a proper hit. This is what canon TFT says the talent is like.
I find the implicit contradiction in the canon rules unfortunate.

Now let's try some usage cases.
  • Hit for two points, but the two points of Toughness stops it. I can sort of believe that, if Toughness is seen as a DX-based skill that reflects mostly getting out of the way: it was only a graze in the first place and I made it a clean miss. But if it's an ST-based skill, and it's something like a sword, then it's harder to believe.
  • Hit for six points, but the two points of shield, the two points of armour and the two points of Toughness combine to stop it. I think this is fine for either interpretation.
  • I think most other cases work either way.

So I think there might be a bit of a problem here, but maybe not, and on balance I'd be comfortable keeping them as armour.

If you want an alternative, have two kinds of defensive talents.
  • One is not called Toughness, and might be called something like Roll with the Punches, or maybe a martial arts term that means that, there must be some. It's based on DX and reflects last minute manoeuvres that reduce the damage suffered. It works like Toughness does now.
  • The other is called Toughness. It's based on ST and reflects being resistant to damage. The effect is to force the opponent to reroll any 6 in the damage roll (max one die rerolled, keep the result) or something like that. There might be a more powerful version that can reroll more than one die and/or also rerolls 5s.

Quote:
Originally Posted by guymc View Post
How about this:Toughness acts as “armor” but only to an extent. At level 1,it simply negates any physical attack that dies only one point of damage. If you get hit for 2 ST in one attack, you still take BOTH ST points. At level 2 it protects against single hits of 1 or 2 points only. At level 3, it protects from 1, 2 or 3 point hits.
I assume you realise just how much weaker that is than how it works now: almost useless unless you're wearing quite good armour, especially at the lower levels. The talent would be so nerfed it would hardly be worth having, because it's useless in every situation but being heavily armoured, so either it's too expensive to be worth it for most characters or it's so cheap it's awesome for heavily armoured characters. Also the second-level talent is three times more effective than the first and the third-level talent is six, so the prices would have to scale up dramatically, is that intentional? I really hope you don't do this.
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Old 07-17-2018, 11:43 PM   #32
zot
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default Re: Hardened - replaces Warrior and Veteran

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by guymc View Post
How about this:Toughness acts as “armor” but only to an extent. At level 1,it simply negates any physical attack that dies only one point of damage. If you get hit for 2 ST in one attack, you still take BOTH ST points. At level 2 it protects against single hits of 1 or 2 points only. At level 3, it protects from 1, 2 or 3 point hits.

Is that too complicated? It certainly would keep it from being as good as armor while doing what we want it to do — allow a fighter to soak up a lot of individual smaller attacks (as might be delivered in a fistfight).
I assume you realise just how much weaker that is than how it works now: almost useless unless you're wearing quite good armour, especially at the lower levels. The talent would be so nerfed it would hardly be worth having, because it's useless in every situation but being heavily armoured, so either it's too expensive to be worth it for most characters or it's so cheap it's awesome for heavily armoured characters. Also the second-level talent is three times more effective than the first and the third-level talent is six, so the prices would have to scale up dramatically, is that intentional? I really hope you don't do this.
Armor effectiveness works the same way but the prices don't scale like that.

If the talent is too weak, what about increasing the amounts: you can shrug off a 2-hit, 3-hit, or 4-hit blow? That would make someone in chain with Toughness 3 immune to 7-hit blows, which is pretty impressive.
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Old 07-18-2018, 04:08 AM   #33
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Hardened - replaces Warrior and Veteran

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
Armor effectiveness works the same way but the prices don't scale like that.
No, armour works quite differently.

To illustrate, suppose I might suffer a wound of anything from 1 to 9 points after armour, and what I get is random. I know that's not particularly realistic but it'll illustrate the principle.
  • With no defence the damage suffered is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 for an average of 5.
  • Under the Toughness = 1 point of armour paradigm, damage suffered is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: average 4, mean hits stopped 1.
  • Under the Toughness = 2 points of armour paradigm, damage suffered is 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: average 3.11, mean hits stopped 1.89.
  • Under the Toughness = stops 1 point hits only paradigm, damage suffered is 0, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: average of 4.89, mean hits stopped 0.11.
  • Under the Toughness = stops 1 and 2 point hits paradigm, damage suffered is 0, 0, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: average of 4.67, mean hits stopped 0.33.
  • Under the Toughness = stops 1 to 3 point hits paradigm, damage suffered is 0, 0, 0, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: average of 4.33, mean hits stopped 0.67.
  • Under the Toughness = stops 1 to 4 point hits paradigm, damage suffered is 0, 0, 0, 0, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: average of 3.89, mean hits stopped 1.11.

The "stops small hits only" version is much less effective, and rises faster than linearly.
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Old 07-18-2018, 06:24 AM   #34
tomc
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Carrboro, NC
Default Re: Hardened - replaces Warrior and Veteran

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Originally Posted by guymc View Post
Is that too complicated? It certainly would keep it from being as good as armor while doing what we want it to do — allow a fighter to soak up a lot of individual smaller attacks (as might be delivered in a fistfight).
It things get too complicated it's going to feel like a "bait and switch" to go from Melee to ITL. If simplicity is being touted as a selling point, then you shouldn't undermine it with too much granularity.

Granted, it's really cool granularity, but we've had the base rules pretty well memorized for over half our lives.
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Old 07-18-2018, 10:09 AM   #35
JLV
 
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Hardened - replaces Warrior and Veteran

Intellectually, I like Guy's idea for Toughness; but I'm forced to concede that tomc makes a telling argument here, and thus reluctantly back the argument that it should just more or less work like armor (the same way Warrior and Veteran did)... KISS is still the primary plus for TFT.
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