Distinguishing Edged Weapons from Hafted Weapons

[Kirk]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Then don’t use any of these rules. But as the purpose of this thread is to explore ways to distinguish hafted and edged weapons, I think I’ll continue.

Also, your assertion about the damage curves is mostly incorrect. The hatchet, mace, morningstar, military pick do the exact same damage as their sword counterparts of the same ST. A ST15 battleaxe uses the same 3d6 bell curve that ST14 Two Handed Swords, ST16 Greatswords and ST13 2 handed Bastard Swords use. At ST 8,the club does exactly the same damage as a dagger.

Only the hammer, small axe and great axe have higher minimums and lower maximums than their edged weapon counterparts. That’s only 3 of the 9 hafted weapons.

And there’s no particular rhyme or reason as to why these weapons use different probability curves. The hatchet, small axe, great axe and battleaxe are all axes, but some use bell curves, while others use single die linear probabilities. The club, mace and hammer are bashing weapons, but the mace uses a 2d bell curve and the other two use 1 die linear probabilities.

Right, I didn't say all, but the axes tend to have flatter curves with different mins and maxes, probably an attempt to differentiate the types of damage between swords and axes as reasonably as possible keeping things simple with one type of die and simple additions and subtraction.

Swords, more variable, axes more regular. There is only so much Steve could do working with d6 within the context of the game to keep it simple and well-done. And part of the design fun is deciding between 1+2 vs. 2-1, for instance, regardless of what name is attached to the weapon.

It's great to make up all kinds of variations on damage potential, armor slopes, kung fu movements, weapon balance, materials, etc. along the lines of GURPS or other games, but all of it makes for lengthier PC creation, longer engagements, etc. etc. which isn't TFT. And the best thing about TFT is use of the bell curve with the simple and ancient d6, it was the best decision Steve made to stay away from D&Dish yuck.

I used to joke with D&D guys who wouldn't open their minds to a possibly better system and feign interest in their bag o' dice.

"Yeah, I've got d100, d200, d20, d3, everything! Sometimes it takes 5 minutes just to find the right dice for a roll! And the flat odds, it's so cool when the chances of something rare happening are just the same as the mundane. Mimics the natural world perfectly and feels so right. Oh, and there are those d2 and d1 dice I thought I had lost!."

"d2 and d1 dice, whaaaaat?"

I then would pull out a coin and a marble to show them. :)