Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

I've written up another tactical encounter to share. Hopefully you enjoy it.
It's a bandit attack at a roadside tavern.

In my initial playtests, the dice were against my sample 32-point characters and I had two TPK's, so a little tougher than my earlier scenarios.

This time, I'm including the full-size map separately, in case anyone wants to scale it down to smaller hexes or print it out as a 21"x16" poster.

The newer template prints a Melee map on four sheets of paper, as opposed to the three sheet maps I have been using, which is unfortunate, but it allowed me a bit more freedom.

All comments or criticisms welcome, either here or by PM.

Tactical Encounter - Panic at the Thisco!
Thisco Tavern Map

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

This is excellent! I'm going to run this with my players.

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

Looks nice. Reminds me of an old "Gunslinger" scenario. One point; your bandits are ST10 but carry 2d-1 shortswords. These actually require a ST of 11. So they should really carry cutlasses 2d-2 or up their ST values to 11.

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

D'oh! Great catch..... I'll update it tonight and repost. I wanted their strength at 10, so cutlasses it is!

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

Another excellent little fight! Thanks for sharing (again) and please keep them coming!

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

I have updated the document to give the bandits sabers . The download link is the same.

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

That is an excellent map!

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

Thank you! Designed using Dungeon Designer 3+ with the Symbol Set 4 "Dungeons of Schley" add-on.

I have two other scenario/map sets scattered about the forums, although I like this one the best.

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

This looks like fun. Anyone have thoughts on chairs as obstacles and/or weapons? (What's a bar fight without someone being hit by a chair?) Perhaps an NPC could intervene with a surprise clobbering of a bandit if the player party is under too much distress?

P.S. Could this be reworked for the postcard adventure contest? Seems perfect, if you can adjust the tavern layout to use TFT hexes.

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

I thought there was a section on Improvised Weapons in ITL, but I can't find it (and the PDF viewer on my kindle fire doesn't allow search, or my IQ isn't high enough for that talent) - you could treat chairs as Clubs (perhaps with -2DX for being unwieldy). Same with bottles and nice, stout mugs.

For tables, I treated them as obstacles at first. After the first playtest, I followed the rules on ITL p118 for moving onto bodies but gave those on the tables the advantage of Height (ITL p119) instead of the penalty for being on a body. But, that's just the option I took.

Absolutely! In one quick playthrough, I had the bystanders make speedy morale checks (1D6; 1-2=Flee, 3-4=Hide, 5-6=Fight) at the beginning of the scenario. The scenario, though, was designed so the player wouldn't have to manage the NPC's too much.

Unfortunately, as it was "published" on the forums, it's not eligible. And, I may be an oddball (if you ask my wife or kids, there is no question about that), but I'd rather just post anything I do on the forums for free. Or, I may recruit my son into building me a website to host them.

My April and May have been interesting, but I'm hoping to start working on an additional scenario pack Any Day Now....

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

ITL p35 under the Brawling Talent it says "Improvised Weapons. You may “ready” a bottle into an (unthrowable) dagger, throw a mug as though it was a rock (1d-4 damage), or find a club in any piece of broken furniture."

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

Thanks! I knew I read it somewhere.

As an aside, the TFT Line Editor, Guy McLimore, was part of a small company named MicroTactix - an early pioneer in the downloadable game biz.

They had their own TFT-like suite of games (Compact Combat/Budget Battlefield for larger battles, and Simply Roleplaying! for the RPG aspect).

They published the tactical scenario called BAR-Barians, which was a big tavern fight with improvised weapons. I can't find my printed copy any more, but I did scan it all in back when I had it and have it in my gaming folder. It was an inspiration for this scenario.

I have one of their other skirmish scenarios - Night of the Red Jackal - that I keep thinking about porting to TFT and playing. Ah, free time, wherefore art thou????

Re: Tactical Encounter #3 - Panic at the Thisco!
 

If your strength is less than that of the weapon you are trying to wield, your DX is -1 and damage is -0.5 for each ST you lack (at the end, round up damage.) This means that, at ST 10 vs 11, wielding a shortsword is the same, assuming that you'd put your extra point into DX. Which is strange.