Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Standard ITL 82 octopus vs a starting human in HTH

The human is ST 9, DX 12(10), IQ 9, Dagger Expertise, Very Fine Dagger, leather armor.

The Octopus does 1.4 points a turn on average and wins the fight in six turns.

The human does four points of damage a turn on average and wins the fight in five turns.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Surely, most PCs don't have dagger expertise and a very fine dagger when they start out. Your point is that some starting characters can do very well against octopodes in HTH, I guess. The claim that was made in the other thread was surely about the kind of PC we typically see, not a specific PC made for the purpose of kicking a little butt in HTH.

I'm not quite sure how you calculated the average damage for a turn by the PC. His base damage with a dagger is d6, +1 for HTH, +1 for expertise and +2 for very fine dagger, so on average 7.5. Multiply by 50% chance to hit and I get 3.75 hits. Close to four, of course, but not quite four.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

The way I see it, an octopus engaged in HTH can simultaneously pin, strangle and stab a humanoid figure. The outcome should be a forgone conclusion.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

So go with an Unarmed Combat III starting human and pin the octopus.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

+4 DX in HTH
ST 9 fist is 1d-3, dagger in HTH is +3, +2 for very fine, +1 for expertise, -2 damage for tough skin.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Yeah, good luck with that.

https://youtu.be/lRrkaLTVHrs
Now picture one three times larger with 4 times the ST of a human.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

[QUOTE=TippetsTX;2346742]Yeah, good luck with that.


Final Jeopardy Round:
I'll take Ring of Shock Shield till death, Alex.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Agh, I plumb forgot the +4. I also forgot the tough skin.

Thanks.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Once you pin the octopus then hitting her is a free action, right?

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

The octopus acts first and can usually successfully disengage from HTH, or pin the human, though bringing up the Pin rules and Unarmed Combat brings us back to how the pinning rules have issues (and my house rule fix for that), especially with Unarmed Combat talent involved.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

A human has 2 arms and an Octopus has 8. I doubt the rules take this into account but really a human would have little chance against a man sized octopus in HTH.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Only if your GM says so. The rules say a pin victim is "held helpless" but do not explain what that means.

What do you mean by "free action" anyway? To me, that would mean an action a figure can do without even using their Action for the turn, which would not make sense to me. If you just mean an automatic hit, I'd probably say also no. HTH already gives you a +4 to hit.

Pinning also requires no ready weapon.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

And I would say implicitly assumes your target has a scale and number of limbs that could plausibly be pinned. It is now well established 'case law' that you need to use your brain and not intentionally try to break things if you are going to adjudicate complex situations in TFT - we have lots of technical moving parts but not billions of explicit rules that guide your hand on every exception.

More generally, I think the pinning rules are perfectly good for abstract treatment of wrestling between two humanoids in the same weight class. They are obviously not o.k. for non humanoids or combatants of significantly dissimilar strength and size. Personally, I think the most obvious house rules (so obvious it probably belongs in the errata) are to make ST difference count in the attack roll and to have the escape roll depend on relative rather than absolute strengths (i.e., when two hobbits wrestle no one pinned can ever escape; when two giants wrestle no one can fail their escape roll, assuming they get to make it).

The most parsimonious rulings I can suggest are to make the attack roll a contest where each contestant picks between ST and DX as their master stat, and to have the escape roll be a contest of ST.

Also, I think it is ludicrous to imagine a 32 point character with a dagger could defeat a properly armed and played octopus in an arena fight.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Oh, I like the first suggestion. I'm not too clear on the second, however. Assuming the two hobbits have the same ST and the two giants have the same ST, how come the difference in outcome? In relative terms, the situations are the same, ain't they?

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

The issue is that your roll to escape once pinned is 4d vs. ST (assuming you are equal or greater in ST than the foe who pinned you). If your ST is 6 or so, you could play for many many years and never see this roll succeed at the table. If your ST is 25 you will only see it fail on an auto failure roll (so, success roughly 95% of the time). If this becomes a contest it becomes a competitive, and therefore interesting, roll in all roughly balanced situations.

Re the first issue (the initial attack roll), there are several ways you could bring ST into the mix, but I feel like simplicity is very important. The 'contested rolls' are now RAW and they provide an elegant way to handle this without keeping track of bunch of modifiers and creating result that are wildly off kilter once stat values move outside some narrow range.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Pinning rules are totally broken. I'd advise against using them in any instance, let alone against an Octopus.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Ah. I misunderstood your post and thought you were talking about the effects for hobbit/giant under your proposed rules. Got it now.

I agree that breaking free should have some relation to relative strengths. It's also a bit nutty that ST 10 can never break free from ST 11 pins.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

What's wrong with them as a treatment of wrestling between humanoids with close to equal and moderate strength? Basically, you want to figure out who ends up immobilizing the other, and you want to do it with a minimum number of rolls and modifiers. What would you suggest in its place?

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

To be honest, I haven't had an occasion yet for pinning rules to come up. I will have that occasion soon, when the (apparent) foe is a bunch of martially trained by peace loving monks. Sorta like Cain back in Kung Fu at the beginning of each episode, though by the end he just seemed to lay the hurt on all the baddies.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

The problem with pinning is that a pinned figure is helpless for two turns before being able to try to break the hold. This can be exploited pretty easily, especially if you have someone in the party with UC talents.

I've some house rules for HTH which include replacing pinning with grappling; PM me if interested in the details.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

A contest of ST to escape HTH will get tricky when there's more than two opponents, but I'm sure there'd be some way to figure it out.

Now getting away when it's 4 on 1 should be pretty impossible, what with it being 8 arms vs 2. Further imagine the 8 arms are centrally coordinated, and equipped with powerful suction cups -- the PC is now dinner.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

It sounds like the objection to standard pinning rules is that they can lead to a quick victory if you outnumber your opponent and send a capable martial artist into HTH with them. I imagine that's true, but shouldn't it be? If I agree to grapple with someone faster than me while their friend stands by with a spear ready to kill me if I get exposed, that sounds like I made a series of really bad choices in the preceding turns.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Try a set of fights with a weak high-DX fighter against a strong low-DX one and see who wins most of the time. I've played out numerous HTH fights and the results are more lopsided than standard combats. The UC talents simply throw the already unfair rules into greater imbalance.

The rules also break down for the aggressor when a pin is made. All they can do is pin someone and keep them there for a minimum of two turns; they can't inflict any pain.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I agree it leads to highly implausible results when ST doesn't figure in attempts to pin; this just needs to be changed in order to avoid crazy outcomes. I'm not sure I understand the other point, re. successful aggressors not having enough options. Pinning in the game is a way to get a temporary advantage or prevent someone from performing an action you want to stop, or to set them up for someone else's attack when you've mobbed them. It isn't intended to be a way to kill people while they are rendered helpless. I'd always assumed that your basic HTH attack is so abstract that includes things like chokes, arm wrenches, etc.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

TFT is cinematic (we don't haggle over the physics of dragons, gargoyles or octopi), and the movies are full of rather scrawny types using leet martial arts to pin huge foes.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Um... I thought this forum was precisely for such haggling.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Once you've pinned someone, how do use RAW to go about using the advantage you have over your foe in a one-to-one fight? The only way I can see (and I'm not advocating for this interpretation) is to declare that they are "helpless" and you can thus slaughter them, but that is hardly fun, given that the combatant with the higher DX is almost certain to pin, and thus almost certain to kill their opponent. Having actual rules for limb and head holds is more satisfying, for me.

There's also the issue of slower figures being unable to enter HTH from the front with a faster opponent; anyone who has watched a football game knows that this is wrong. Having rules that allow for this is also more satisfying from my experience.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Okay I will write up and send in the Universal quick overrun rules that handle all X attempts to enter Y hex for all values of X and Y, mice, men, wolves, giants, dragons, etc. And see what happens.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I don't think there is any need to have overrun rules much different from what we have. A slow person should not be able to force HTH combat with a faster one (assuming they are facing and aware of each other). What slower football players are able to do is seize space from a faster person by occupying it, which is something more like a shield rush (at least in terms of its effects). UC experts are already allowed to do this without a shield, but I suppose if you wanted to generalize that ability further you could add some kind of house rule that does the same thing for all combatants.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Tackling someone is quite different than bashing into them to try to knock them down. The end result of a successful shield rush is a standing rusher and a prone rushee. The end result of a successful tackle is both combatants on the ground--essentially in HTH.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Shostak makes good points, but there's always a tension between realism and simplicity. I may be persuaded that RAW doesn't work for many situations, allowing a goblin to hold a very strong human pinned for two turns, but I'd probably fix that with an ad hoc rule for that situation or perhaps use the ST difference as a modifier.

Some ad hoc rules are obvious. You won't pin a three hex figure, for instance. Others are fairly complicated. Should an ST 17 human have to wait two turns to break free from a goblin? Doesn't seem like it, but I can just make that up on the fly and keep playing.

Since pinning hasn't happened in my campaign yet, I won't sweat these rules too much. To be sure, this from a guy who just wrote a 13 point list with cross-references and helpful diagrams for how to drop a stupid lantern, but I guess we all make our choices about what's important. My ad hoc rule for pinning an octopus? Long as he has a tentacle free, he can punch, perhaps with a DX penalty. Just try and stop him!

Anyway, I realize I forgot to include a glossary and index for my lantern supplements, which I will submit to Hexagram #37 to the adulation of RPGers everywhere. With some effort, perhaps I'll spin it off to a self-contained game. (Have I mentioned that no one has even lit a stupid lantern in my campaign yet?)

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

The Unarmed Combat adjustment as written is one of the worst aspects IMO, as I house-fixed, along with a few other Pin issues, here.

Just because some people haven't seen anyone try something in play, doesn't mean it isn't very broken as soon as someone uses it in a broken way. And, having more Unarmed Combat than your opponent practically guaranteeing a pin, seems pretty broken to me.


Ironic, as you're the only TFT player I've seen since the 80's who does get into proposing formulae for ST to weight.

I wonder what scrawny types pinning huge foes in films you are thinking of. None come to mind.

When something that seems wrong in a film comes up, my reaction is pretty much always "that's wrong and is ruining my interest in this film". It is never "yay I want a game that is also wrong like that".

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Ah; I misinterpreted your original comment because it didn't mention tackling. Anyway, there are several ways to way to tackle a faster person in TFT: enter through their rear hex (I house rule that you can do this from the side also but that's a detail). Or engage them, which stops them dead in their tracks; if they disengage you may be able to re-engage them (depending on the details); if they shift in an effort to get around you, you may be able to enter from the rear hex side; while this jostling goes on someone else comes along and enters their hex. Both of those scenarios are actually pretty similar to how lots of tackles work in football. Also, remember that any successful entry into a foe's hex is not just a tackle attempt - it is a successful tackle because they automatically fall to the ground. Broken tackles would be interpreted in Melee as an unsuccessful attempt to enter HTH - either because your 1d6 roll failed or because you were not in the right position and MA match up to enter through the front. Anyway, for a game that has nothing whatsoever to do with football, it doesn't do that badly.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I don't think of TFT as particularly cinematic in the sense implied above. Yes, there are magical creatures and so forth, but your ST is supposed to mean your physical strength (and generally also mass). And it is hard to think of many games less cinematic than TFT when it comes to the scales of PC power in combat. You could carefully develop a character for years and still be vulnerable to a quick death if you were surrounded and outnumbered by mundane foes.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

Totally fair point.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

With all respect, I'll maintain that real world tackles generally don't result in a would-be tackler running up to their target, stopping adjacent to them for several seconds, and then getting around to actually tackling if and only if they manage to outflank them. Real world tackles typically involve someone running up and grabbing someone else and pulling them down to the ground as one unified act that takes a second or two. TFT's modeling of this is just inaccurate to my mind.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I think you may be asking for the wrong level of granularity from TFT's combat system, and an approach to the time frames of events that can't be compatible with a game (at least not a playable one). Consider that you could also complain the opposite point: that throws and pins are resolved far too quickly in TFT. Go watch a judo or greco-roman wrestling match and you'll see many 'turns' worth of jostling for position are needed to set up even a tentative attempt at a throw or pin. A 2 minute round might include just a few significant events. So how do you create a game that treats both an instantaneous collision and a minute of jostling for position, but where only one meaningful event need be resolved? Through abstraction, of course.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

No, I'm opining that pinning favors the faster combatant in an unfun way.

Tackling and grappling are different things in the house rules I've adopted, though both still connected to HTH. Those rules are, admittedly, more granular, but I think they still stay simple enough to be in the spirit of TFT.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

You should post those to the house-rules forum when you have a chance.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I've always thought of pinning as a way to subdue your foe without doing any damage. Your arms and legs are occupied with the pin so you don't have a free hand to kill them with. But if you have a friend with a knife it's a good time for them to use it...

I'd treat pinning and killing them as already covered by a very successful regular HTH attack.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

What's the roll to tie up somebody you (or your buddy) has pinned?

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I agree that the basic HTH attack is sufficiently abstract that it includes harmful and potentially lethal things you might do while grappling. The fact that there is no specific mechanism for subduing someone without damage and then killing them after doesn't bug me; first, it is implausible (even someone in a tight hold has a way to bite, scratch, wrench fingers and generally continue to try to deliver attacks), and second I don't see the purpose, particularly in a game that doesn't have highly granular mechanics for other forms of attack.

Re: Octopus vs starting human in HTH
 

I think all the advanced fighting techniques and peculiar weapons introduced in Advanced Melee were designed with a human vs a human in mind. To much of these just do not fit when applying it to other creatures.

I saw Skarg's pinning rules, and this one in particular does not go far enough: "Pin attempts are one die harder for every hex larger the victim is than the pinner."

If foe is larger by even one hex, you cannot pin him. You just do not have the span of limbs to reach and hold his.

Same goes for number of limbs. If your foe has more limbs than you, you may not attempt to pin.


And that is just the minimum that needs to be changed. There is still more that needs to be done to fix pinning.