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Old 01-18-2018, 03:42 PM   #361
trag
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
In a fantasy setting there may be other means of making swords; dwarves may be able to mass produce them for example, so I don't think a direct comparison to our mediaeval past is necessarily required or even useful.
Our Mediaeval past was not a fun time in which to live, or in which to adventure. Making the economics realistic will lead to a nasty, brutish and uncomfortable setting.
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Old 01-18-2018, 04:11 PM   #362
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

Not to beat a dead horse, but if you revise the properties of weapons, armor and shields to match intuitions and so forth you are going to invalidate a bunch of trade offs that make TFT a well balanced game. Something kind of like this happened with Heroes and Other Worlds, where the weapon table was revised in such a way that there are one or two that are obviously superior to all others, meaning they are the only rational choices, meaning characters who meet their ST requirements are the only rational character design, meaning most of the 'design space' for characters is basically invalid. In games with a lot of complexity to character attributes and skills there are ways out of this sort of box, but TFT is too simple to permit that: if one particular design is quantitatively better than the others, then it will be obvious to everyone on inspection and that will be the only character type anyone makes. So, revise as you wish, but but please stick to the trade offs that give people a variety of valid strategies for making effective characters.
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Old 01-18-2018, 05:54 PM   #363
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Trag's healing rules.

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Originally Posted by trag View Post
In campaigns we quickly added a rule that if a [Master] Physicker's healing would bring a character's ST back above 0, then the character was only mostly dead, and the Physicker, if he acted quickly, could save the character's life.
...
Hi Trag, everyone.
The thing that I most like about this rule is it is simple. Question: how do you handle overpowered healing potions? If a Jojar is at -9 ST and takes 10 healing potions, can that save him?

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 01-18-2018, 07:14 PM   #364
JLV
 
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Rick's thoughts on weapons - Impaling damage.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi all,
I read in the Space Gamer an article where Steve Jackson wrote that he realized in reality a rapier could do more damage than a broadsword, but that he intended to ignore such things. He wanted the weapons table to simply show increasing damage as ST increased and didn't worry about such details.

In GURPS he DID worry about such things. He has thrusting weapons, swung weapons. Impaling weapons. Impaling+ weapons. Impaling++ weapons. Swung impaling weapons, etc. And rules to make all of these fine distinctions work.

Thinking about this, I occurred to me that impaling weapons could do a LOT of damage if they hit the right spot (important organ, major blood vessel), or they could do very little damage (small point hits armor, or does a small localized wound in some less important flesh).

I didn't want to write a tonne of special rules for different types of weapons but I decided that I did want to capture that impaling weapons have a high range of damage.

So I retooled my weapons table so that impailing weapons did damage like 3d-5 (about 5.5 hits on average) and blunt impact weapons did damage like 1d+2 (exactly 5.5 hits on average).

So in my campaign a Horse Bow (ST 11) does 2d-3 damage. (From 0 to 9 damage.) Where as a small ax (ST 11) does 1d+2 (from 3 to 8 damage).

(I thought longbows needed a high ST to fire so they got moved to 15 ST, where they do 3d-4 damage.)

With ZERO overhead in rules, I have captured the idea that impaling weapons do a wider, less predictable range of damage.

As an additional bonus, this gives the weapons table more variety. Weapons feel more different from each other.

Warm regards, Rick.
I could see Steve putting together a revised weapons table along these lines. I think it would be a nice update, taking into account all the experience he's gained since GURPS was published. And this is one of the few suggestions I've seen on this forum that literally has no player overhead.

I would hope that penetrating weapons would have a potentially higher damage based on the damage roll, but that impact weapons would, on average, do more slightly more damage when they hit -- thus the advantages to each weapon type would be offsetting and prevent an "ideal" weapon pick from appearing -- just as in your example of the Horse Bow and the Small Axe. Also, a thrown rock or sling bullet would be impact damage, not penetrating -- which is a bit unusual for thrown or missile weapons. It would be interesting to see how a thrown Small Axe would stack up though...would that be impact, or penetration? Which in turn raises the question; are there some weapons that would appear in the weapons table twice because of this? It would require some careful balancing to figure out the damage ranges...

Last edited by JLV; 01-18-2018 at 07:23 PM.
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Old 01-18-2018, 07:15 PM   #365
JLV
 
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Melichor's new weapon talents.

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Originally Posted by trag View Post
In campaigns we quickly added a rule that if a [Master] Physicker's healing would bring a character's ST back above 0, then the character was only mostly dead, and the Physicker, if he acted quickly, could save the character's life.

This worked pretty well for us, I think.
"...mostly dead..." Shades of Miracle Max! ;-)
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Old 01-18-2018, 08:29 PM   #366
Steve Jackson
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Default Re: Trag's healing rules.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Question: how do you handle overpowered healing potions? If a Jojar is at -9 ST and takes 10 healing potions, can that save him?
Save vs. ST or become a mindless, ravening, but very healthy flesh golem?
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Old 01-18-2018, 11:14 PM   #367
bookworm562
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Default Re: Trag's healing rules.

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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
Save vs. ST or become a mindless, ravening, but very healthy flesh golem?
Clearly an opportunity to give characters nightmares of the afterlife. A chance to make them quest for a cure to that pesky death rot. I see interesting possibilities with this one.
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Old 01-20-2018, 02:46 AM   #368
tbeard1999
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
Default Re: Rick's Thoughts on Weapon Damage - Bows:

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi Everyone,
I have some suggestions on the weapons tables:

-- Bows do too much damage. The ability to strike at a distance is an awesome bonus. A TFT longbow does 1d+2 damage at 11 ST (average 5.5 damage). A Shortsword does 2d-1 at 11 ST (average of 6 damage). A light crossbow does 2 dice damage at ST 12, EXACTLY the same as a broadsword.
In addition to the attack at range advantage, bows can fire twice per turn at high DX. This effectively doubles their potential damage! Let us say that one type of sword (say a Bastard Sword) could attack twice per turn like a bow. How popular would that single sword be, compared to other swords without that bonus?
In my campaign I've lowered their average damage by at least a full point of damage per attack, and my players still take missile weapons.

Digression: I'm fine with a ST 11 bow doing around 4 or 5 points of damage per turn, but I do not think it should be called a longbow. The English Longbows had a 100 to 110 lb draw. I've made them a 15 ST weapon in my campaign and made a bow with a different name for ST 11.

Warm regards, Rick.
Polyhedrals, Rick. They’re the answer. Polyhedrals. Search your feelings. You know it to be true. 😁
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Old 01-20-2018, 11:41 AM   #369
JLV
 
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Location: Arizona
Default Re: Rick's Thoughts on Weapon Damage - Bows:

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Originally Posted by tbeard1999 View Post
Polyhedrals, Rick. They’re the answer. Polyhedrals. Search your feelings. You know it to be true. 😁
Give it up, O Prince of Darkness! D6 are the only acceptable dice! ;-)
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Old 01-20-2018, 02:45 PM   #370
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Rick's thoughts on Weapons - 2 Handed weapons & shields.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi all,
I think that two handed weapons should do more damage. Currently they do about 1 point more damage than a one handed weapon. (Two handed clubs do EXACTLY one extra point of damage.)

A fighter taking a two handed weapon gives up a shield, which is a very important defence.

In my SCA experience heavy fighters almost always use a shield. It is a lot harder to get a good hit on someone with a shield. (A large shield stops 2 hits per attack thru your front hexes. If you are fighting a horde of small figures, that shield could easily be stopping 4 or 6 points of damage per turn.)

And two handed weapons historically, were scary. Claymores, war hammers, lochaber axes... These two handed weapons were designed to smash thru the heaviest of armor.

One extra point of damage seems insufficient to capture the advantage in leverage you gain from adding an extra hand to a weapon.

Now in my campaign, I felt that shields were underpowered compared to real life. So I allowed people to gain talents that made shields more useful. (Stopped extra damage and gave melee attacks -2 adj DX to hit you thru your front hexes.)

So my two handed weapons now do +3 damage over 1 handed weapons at the same ST.

A nice advantage of this change is that weapons in the weapon's table are better distinguished from each other. And when the PC's encounter 3 orcs, armed with a battle ax, great hammer, and 2 handed sword, there is a thoughtful pause. ;-D
I agree. Especially if there is a change to make shields work more like shields (blocking entire attacks, not just 1-3 points of damage). I have done this in GURPS, too, and never regretted it.

Also because another major balance point for higher-powered campaign situations was people with magic. Stacking armor with Stone Flesh, for instance (and/or Warrior/Veteran, etc) can end up with figures that are very hard for people without magic to hurt - adding some damage to the heaviest ordinary weapons adds a bit more possibility of risk.
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