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Old 01-11-2018, 08:08 PM   #261
Rick_Smith
 
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Default Melichor's new weapon talents.

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Originally Posted by Melichor View Post
Back in the day we added these talents to give characters a higher level of weapon skill and ability. ...
Hi Melichor,
I rather like your talents except for one thing. The biggest problem in TFT is that long term characters gain lots of attributes and all start to feel the same. (High in all three attributes.) Also everyone soon gets a really high DX and hits almost all the time.

So these talents that give you a higher DX on attacking, just makes that evil day come sooner. I would be much more interested in using such talents in my campaign, if they did NOT give the DX bonus on offence.

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 01-11-2018, 08:41 PM   #262
Steve Jackson
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

I spent some of my office day in going through the SPACE GAMER file and marking TFT articles worthy of reprint. Some of them may have been (or may be about to be) overtaken by events, but in the context of the original rules there is a lot of fun material there.
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Old 01-11-2018, 09:24 PM   #263
JLV
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Bayarea View Post
I have to respond to the bloat misconception. This is what gets me even playing the same character for 35 years it would be nearly impossible to get to ST 43, DX20 and IQ 36. Even with wishes which are limited to increasing an attribute to 16 you would have get 47 more attribute points a 95 point character at 640000 EP to get one attribute point. Or to put it another way you would have to kill 10000 7hex dragons if it was only the one character getting all the ep. The beauty of the system is that people still get killed just like real life. I have gotten a couple of characters up to the 56- 60 point range but then they retired or became sponsors for younger PC's, but most die at some point due to either a bad die roll or treachery. Rich people tend to have enemies.
Not a "misconception" at all. Just because you disagree with the observation doesn't invalidate it. Obviously, "43" was an exaggeration for effect (though I have seen a character with that general level of ST), but even a ST of 25 or so is a huge disconnect with what is specifically stated to be the Human norm in the rule books (9-11, depending on sex of the character). And while we can all agree that characters are obviously a cut above the norm, that's already partially addressed at character creation by allowing 32 points for beginning characters vice the 30 that a "normal" person would be worth (again, according to ITL). Nor am I the only one who has experienced this over the past four decades. So it's not as if I'm bringing up something that isn't already known to be an issue. Finally, even Steve conceded that Attribute Bloat was a problem. Also, I note that you rely solely on the XP for killing things for your numbers. In my games, characters gained XP for a wide variety of acts, precisely as suggested in ITL.
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Old 01-11-2018, 09:31 PM   #264
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Melichor View Post
Back in the day we added these talents to give characters a higher level of weapon skill and ability.

IQ 9
"Melee Weapon Talent" Expert (2): The ability to use these weapons in an expert fashion. This talent gives you +2 DX when attacking with these weapons. You are also proficient in using these weapons for defense, your weapon acts as a shield to stop 2 hits.
Prerequisite: Melee WEAPON TALENT.

IQ 11
"Melee Weapon Talent" Master (2): You have Mastered the ability to use these weapons. This talent gives you +2 DX (in addition to the +2 bonus from "Weapon Talent" Expert) when attacking with these weapons.This talent permits a character fighting with these weapons, on
any turn he attacks, to do any one of the following:
(a) attack twice, at normal DX for the first attack and -4 for the second one. The attacks may be against the same OR different figures.
(b) make a normal attack and parry using the weapon to stop 4 hits.
(c) when Defending, stopping 6 hits of damage in addition to the opponent rolling 4 dice when attacking.
Prerequisite: "Weapon Talent" Expert.
I like these ideas -- the talents may possibly be a bit overpowered (I tend to start things at +1 and proceed from there, not +2, to avoid creating a "perfect talent," but maybe that's just me), but they definitely satisfy the "but everyone should be able to parry" argument while simultaneously avoiding turning combat into GURPS. (No offense intended -- but let's face it, GURPS combat ought to be five times as long as TFT combat, since the GURPS tactical turn is one second, vice five seconds in TFT!)
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Old 01-11-2018, 09:32 PM   #265
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Default Re: Melichor's new weapon talents.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi Melichor,
I rather like your talents except for one thing. The biggest problem in TFT is that long term characters gain lots of attributes and all start to feel the same. (High in all three attributes.) Also everyone soon gets a really high DX and hits almost all the time.

So these talents that give you a higher DX on attacking, just makes that evil day come sooner. I would be much more interested in using such talents in my campaign, if they did NOT give the DX bonus on offence.

Warm regards, Rick.
Which goes back to attribute bloat... ;-)
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Old 01-11-2018, 09:33 PM   #266
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
I spent some of my office day in going through the SPACE GAMER file and marking TFT articles worthy of reprint. Some of them may have been (or may be about to be) overtaken by events, but in the context of the original rules there is a lot of fun material there.
There is indeed. It's a real pity you can't use the Interplay material, because there were some good ideas in there too. (At least, I assume you can't...)
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Old 01-11-2018, 11:05 PM   #267
Chris Rice
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi all,
After TFT died, I bought a lot of GURPS stuff. I tried to move my players over to GURPS a couple times, but it did not take. It just seemed slower. I reasoned that we knew TFT really well, but GURPS was slow because we didn't know the more complex rules. So I started a GURPS campaign and we played it until all of use knew GURPS backwards and forwards. We were not slow because we didn't know the rules.

The PC's knew the importance of good active defences, and put a lot of points into them. My NPC's felt the same way.

---

Normally, a fight against a bunch of mooks results in the PC's getting a wound or two and the mooks dying. (Or some die and the rest run away.)

In TFT, a PC swings and hits, the enemy swings and hits, the PC swings and hits and the combat is over. Nice and quick.

In GURPS, the PC swings and hits, but enemy parries. Enemy swings and hits, and PC parries. PC swings and hits and Enemy parries. Enemy misses. PC swings and hits and enemy misses his parry! Enemy swings and hits and PC parries. PC swings and hits and enemy parries. Enemy swings and hits, but PC parries. PC hits, enemy misses parry and combat is over.

Exactly the same result, but the GURPS fight takes 3 times longer than TFT to play out.

After that, we went back to TFT and stayed there.

---

I game mastered a pbem game in Dave Seagraves Thail campaign, and - foolishly - I used his rules, rather than my own. He had an auto parry rule, and for the characters with a high DX, well, they were not hit much. Fighting NPC's with high DX was slow and frustrating.

I STRONGLY recommend against any sort of parrying as a free action in TFT. If you want complex and realistic cut and thrust, then play GURPS.

If you want to be harder to hit, get a Blur ring, or add some talents where anyone attacking you thru your front hexes gets a -3 adj DX to hit you. I have made such talents and they work. I really like the roll to hit, then roll for damage mechanic in TFT.

If you just like the idea of cut and thrust, clashes of swords, then fine. But don't make parrying a free action, which comes into play on EVERY attack.

Warm regards, Rick.
Excellent points. I am also against additional defensive rules or talents which slow down play/make combats last longer.
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Old 01-11-2018, 11:09 PM   #268
Chris Rice
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
I spent some of my office day in going through the SPACE GAMER file and marking TFT articles worthy of reprint. Some of them may have been (or may be about to be) overtaken by events, but in the context of the original rules there is a lot of fun material there.
I seem to remember a couple of articles on Disadvantages which I particularly liked; my favourite was Narcolepsy (get him Conan! Conan? Wake up Conan!!) There was also an article on splitting attributes to make 6 rather than 3 which I used and still use in a slightly different form.
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Old 01-11-2018, 11:18 PM   #269
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

The scope of talents is a tricky one. There is a natural instinct to want to play with the list, adding things that will be fun or open up new possibilities for characters. On the other hand, the end game of that process is you are now playing GURPS using a talent point economy. In addition to opening up the complexity of the game, the fact that GURPS lets you trade any kind of strength for any kind of weakness allows you to build characters in a way that would degrade one of TFT's strengths: it is a well balanced competitive combat engine. There are many options to building a character in TFT, but there is no recipe for creating characters who are clearly stronger in combat than others.

People have their personal preferences for higher ST or DX, more or less armor, etc. But the fact is most of that design space contains characters who match up fairly well against one another in an open one on one fight. When you can trade off your combat strength against narcolepsy or having a funny hair cut or something, it is pretty obvious how you should game the system to build a maximally powerful character. Some groups are graced with players who won't take advantage of that sort of system, but in my experience people take whatever opportunities you give them. So, I feel like TFT is at its strongest when you are making well balanced trade offs of one strength against another, with enough constraints that you can't just 'build-a-bear' your way to a monster.
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Old 01-12-2018, 01:29 AM   #270
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
The scope of talents is a tricky one. There is a natural instinct to want to play with the list, adding things that will be fun or open up new possibilities for characters. On the other hand, the end game of that process is you are now playing GURPS using a talent point economy. In addition to opening up the complexity of the game, the fact that GURPS lets you trade any kind of strength for any kind of weakness allows you to build characters in a way that would degrade one of TFT's strengths: it is a well balanced competitive combat engine. There are many options to building a character in TFT, but there is no recipe for creating characters who are clearly stronger in combat than others.

People have their personal preferences for higher ST or DX, more or less armor, etc. But the fact is most of that design space contains characters who match up fairly well against one another in an open one on one fight. When you can trade off your combat strength against narcolepsy or having a funny hair cut or something, it is pretty obvious how you should game the system to build a maximally powerful character. Some groups are graced with players who won't take advantage of that sort of system, but in my experience people take whatever opportunities you give them. So, I feel like TFT is at its strongest when you are making well balanced trade offs of one strength against another, with enough constraints that you can't just 'build-a-bear' your way to a monster.
Plus, honestly, too much talent bloat will cause us to lose the ability to keep most of the book in our heads, and we'll spend our time head-down in the books like we always did with D&D, or even, alas, GURPS... A few new ones would be nice -- especially ones that support broader roleplaying opportunities, but other than that, it would be a shame to bury us in a sea of new talents.
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