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Old 05-08-2018, 04:02 PM   #31
Jim Kane
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

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Originally Posted by tbeard1999 View Post
As an aside, I recall that to advance in Bushido (?), you had to kill X men per level. Applying that to TFT, you'd have to kill 895 32 point warriors to get to 50 points.
LOL!! Right!

And, I bet you also recall in the original Melee rules that you were basically awarded a flat 50 EPs for a kill, and it only took 100 EPs to gain each new attribute point.

JK
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Old 05-08-2018, 05:15 PM   #32
tbeard1999
 
Join Date: May 2013
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

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Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
LOL!! Right!

And, I bet you also recall in the original Melee rules that you were basically awarded a flat 50 EPs for a kill, and it only took 100 EPs to gain each new attribute point.

JK
Of course, even there, you’d need to win 36 arena duels in a row against roughly comparable opponents to get to 55 points. If you had a 90% chance of winning and surviving each duel, you’d have about a 2.2% chance of doing it 36 times.

And Bushido - now that’s a Man’s Game. None of those sissy experience points. You gain levels by killing enemies. Period.

Last edited by tbeard1999; 05-09-2018 at 10:59 AM.
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Old 05-08-2018, 05:31 PM   #33
Jim Kane
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

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Originally Posted by tbeard1999 View Post
... And Bushido - now that’s a Man’s Game. None of those sissy experience points. You gain levels by killing enemies. Period.
LOL!!!

JK
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Old 05-09-2018, 11:54 AM   #34
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

The only PC I ever had above 50 points got most of them before ITL was published, using the original experience rules in Melee, and by then he was so high he could take on a high risk job without any significant chance of dying, so his additional increases came through job rolls.

I seriously don't think it is possible to go from 32 points up to the level where you are blowing the doors off the system using the official ITL experience rules unless you adapt the game with house rules, cheat, or are so outrageously lucky that it isn't worth talking about. You advance through fighting, and fighting is super dangerous, even when you are superior to your foe. It is just so probable that you will be killed in a random fight that I don't see how someone could rise to 55+ points without taking an arrow in the eye or something. Anyway, I've never had a character rise that high using ITL rules.
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Old 05-09-2018, 01:33 PM   #35
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

A lot of this discussion seems to focus on 55 point characters. I maintain that even just ONE attribute at the 18+ level shows the effects by derailing that particular piece of the pie.

If a character were to put all eight of his additional attribute points into DX, and then survived to add merely 2 or 3 more attribute points to DX, you'd start to see the effects. Problems due to Attribute Bloat are not conditional on ALL of the attributes becoming bloated, you know.
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Old 05-09-2018, 01:37 PM   #36
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

I'm not sure I understand the point. In what sense is the game broken if a character has a stat at 18+? You could argue that this is where the point of diminishing returns really kicks in, and if anything you are being a dope for raising a stat further. I always felt like high stats were problematic because there was not much reason to raise them further, so your character is 'fully cooked' and can't change any more, but I never understood how a high stat made the game play differently.
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Old 05-09-2018, 01:53 PM   #37
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

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I'm not sure I understand the point. In what sense is the game broken if a character has a stat at 18+? You could argue that this is where the point of diminishing returns really kicks in, and if anything you are being a dope for raising a stat further. I always felt like high stats were problematic because there was not much reason to raise them further, so your character is 'fully cooked' and can't change any more, but I never understood how a high stat made the game play differently.
First, I never said the game was "broken." YOU said that. (I'm starting to develop a pet peeve about people putting words in my mouth and then arguing against something I never said in the first place -- nothing to do with you personally, but it DOES seem to be a common thread lately regarding TFT.) All I said is that it starts to derail the mechanics at that point.

A ST of 18 means that you will succeed in 3d rolls against ST 97.37% of the time. Indeed, even with a ST of 16, you will succeed the same percentage of the time (since 16, 17, and 18 are always automatic failures). So actually the point of diminishing returns for both ST and IQ is at 16. DX requires a bit more to start materially affecting the game, since it's possible you would need up to 24 or 25 points of DX to exceed your armor/shield deficiencies in DX. However my contention is that when you succeed in everything 97.37% of the time, the game becomes a bit...ah...predictable. Which sort of defeats the purpose in rolling dice in the first place.
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Old 05-09-2018, 02:28 PM   #38
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

There is no reason to be upset at anyone (or at least at me in this instance!); 'broken' mechanics means the same thing as thinking the mechanics no long work properly, so I don't think we are actually saying anything different.

In any case, I understand what you are saying about DX scores of 15 or higher, which all provide you with a 95.37 % chance of success on a 3d roll. But I don't agree with the broader conclusion. First, because ST and IQ are mostly significant for their effect on things other than die rolls, and they don't 'saturate' or produce uniform outcomes in this same way. Second, because DX can be usefully traded for armor up to the mid 20's. Third, because DX can be traded for enhanced range or targeting, e.g., a DX 18 combatant throwing a spear at someone 10 hexes away will mis most of the time, whereas a DX 26 combatant doing the same thing will usually hit. Fourth, because there are many things that happen in the game that call for rolls on 4D or more, or incur significant DX penalties (fighting with two weapons, poor lighting or footing, etc.). In these cases, characters with DX 16+ have significant chances of failure, and higher DX scores have value. So, basically the only important thing is that at adjDX 15 or higher you reach a uniformly high chance of success at normal melee or short range missile attacks.
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Old 05-09-2018, 02:34 PM   #39
tbeard1999
 
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Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
A lot of this discussion seems to focus on 55 point characters. I maintain that even just ONE attribute at the 18+ level shows the effects by derailing that particular piece of the pie.

If a character were to put all eight of his additional attribute points into DX, and then survived to add merely 2 or 3 more attribute points to DX, you'd start to see the effects. Problems due to Attribute Bloat are not conditional on ALL of the attributes becoming bloated, you know.
I've long felt that that is a problem with the 3d6 resolution mechanic - it's only 4 points from a 10 (50% chance of success) to a 14 (91% chance of success). It's why I use the blasphemous d20 instead.

However, the attribute bloat problem has generally been described as several very high attributes (or at least that's how I heard it). I'm not too worried if a fighter has ST 18 and DX 8; he'll hit 26% of the time and won't be able to wear armor without being totally useless. A ST 8, DX 18 character will hit virtually all the time, but will do 1d-1 damage...hardly fearsome.

But a ST 16, DX 16 character - 40 points assuming IQ 8 -- would be pretty tough. He could wear leather and still hit 95% of the time. A ST 16, DX 20 character - 44 points assuming IQ 8 - can wear plate armor and still hit with a greatsword 95% of the time. I don't really think that the 40 point fighter "breaks" the system. But the 44 point fighter starts becoming obscenely tough.

However - as noted - assuming average EP awards of 100 per session, a character would have to survive 16 sessions (4 months) to reach 40 points; 55 sessions (over a year) to reach 44 points.

Even if you double the average number of EP, you're still talking about surviving 28 sessions - 6+ months if you play weekly. If a character has a 90% chance of surviving each session, only about 5% will survive 28 sessions.

So it seems to me that the "outrageous attribute" problem may be more an issue of GMs handing EP out like candy, rather than a true defect in the system. Or, allowing the characters to abuse the jobs table to add attribute points through good die rolls and not actual roleplaying. If the latter, the fix is simple and obvious - change the job rules. No need to re-wire the entire system.

It might also be a good idea to smooth out the TFT experience points system, so that the amount of EP required increases steadily rather than have the huge increases at 40 and 45 points.

Or, Steve Jackson was aware of the excessive attribute problem and built the chart to dramatically slow advancement before it becomes a serious issue. The later "corrected" chart was issued by Metagaming and so does not necessarily reflect Steve's reasoning.

I also think that most RPGs break down at the extremes. In my mind, this is a problem only if the game makes it unusually easy to reach those extremes.

At the very least, I now understand why I haven't experienced the outrageous attribute problem. My campaigns were pretty violent, we followed the EP rules exactly* and I disallowed the "gain an attribute" result on the jobs tables. *One modest tweak. I never told PCs how much damage an opponent's armor stopped. So I let them track EP themselves and they got 1 for every point of damage done, regardless of armor.

Last edited by tbeard1999; 05-09-2018 at 03:14 PM.
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Old 05-09-2018, 03:49 PM   #40
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: the "outrageous attribute" problem

One reason why I don't agree with a lot of the analysis on this is that for many years I've played with a house rule that allows combatants to exchange 1 die penalties to combat rolls for 1 extra action in melee combat (an attack, parry, dodge, etc.), and this really changes the flow of play when combatants have high DX scores.

This house rule doesn't mean anything for most combatants because no one will be willing to roll 4d when they have an adj.DX of 11 or something. But when your adjDX rises above 13 you start getting more and more willing to exchange a reduced chance of success for more things you can do per turn. My experience is that most players ignore this complexity when their odds get driven below 50-60 %, and always take advantage of it when they have 'saturated' their odds with an adjDX of 15 or more. The end result is that, even though players have the option of an automatic success, they rarely take it because they would prefer to do two things that each have a 60 % chance of success.
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