Entering A Hex With A Body

[Steve Jackson]

New draft; I am listening to the reality comments but I am also listening to my new players who want to feel some of that tactical mobility I've been talking about. I continued to an Obstacles section (for the big book only; no room in Melee) which would largely replace what is there now.

Fallen Bodies
Fallen bodies are obstacles. To leap over one, spend 3 MA.
To move into the hex with a body, either spend 3 MA to move cautiously, or take a move-one-hex option, or follow a retreat, or, if you insist on moving quickly onto the body, spend only one MA but make a 3/DX roll to stay afoot. If you fail, you fall on top of the body or bodies.

Other Obstacles
The GM may add a variety of obstacles, either in arenas or underground, just to keep things interesting.
Pits (see p. 00). They might be full (or half full) of water, lava, tar . . . or they might be bottomless.
Permanent columns of Fire or Darkness, or permanent areas of Sticky or Slippery Floor, as described in the spells.
Bad footing, such as sand, loose gravel, swamp muck, water-slick stone, ankle-deep brush, ice. Bad footing can reduce MA, penalize DX of those who move and fight on the same turn, or even require a saving roll to stay afoot. Details are up to the GM, and the players should not know exactly what to expect when they first step in it.
Columns or tree trunks. Figures must go around tall ones but might leap over short ones.
Quicksand, or just very deep, wet swamp, will reduce MA drastically and might trap a lone wanderer who does not make an IQ roll (Woodsman will help) to escape.

[JLV]

That looks pretty good to me, and seems to cover all the bases.

(I presume you'll still have some rules on bad footing in general.)

[Skarg]

This part is not crystal clear to me as written:

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Fallen Bodies
Fallen bodies are obstacles. To leap over one, spend 3 MA.

Does that mean 3 MA to move two hexes, or 3 MA + 1 MA for the hex on the other side of the body, or an extra 3 MA on top of the normal 2 MA to move two hexes?


Seems to me that hexes with dead bodies in them ought to give a DX penalty to fight from them. It means you can take advantage of them as obstacles during combat, even now that you've made it easier to step on top of them.

I suggest -2 for one body plus -1 for each additional, which is what we mostly used and liked (except when we were having fun with making whole tables for numbers of bodies and all their effects including height advantage...).

[schoon]

I prefer the new concept roles to the old ones - I never much cared for that roll, and the new rules still provide tactical interest.

[Steve Jackson]

Ambiguity pointed out - thanks, both of you.

I meant 3 MA to jump over hex A, where the body is, and wind up in hex B. So three MA are spent to move two hexes. Could I have phrased that better? A diagram would help but I have no place to put it at this stage, at least in MELEE.

[Oneiros]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Ambiguity pointed out - thanks, both of you.

I meant 3 MA to jump over hex A, where the body is, and wind up in hex B. So three MA are spent to move two hexes. Could I have phrased that better? A diagram would help but I have no place to put it at this stage, at least in MELEE.

Isn't this the same as saying the hex with the body costs 2 MA to move through?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Ambiguity pointed out - thanks, both of you.

I meant 3 MA to jump over hex A, where the body is, and wind up in hex B. So three MA are spent to move two hexes. Could I have phrased that better? A diagram would help but I have no place to put it at this stage, at least in MELEE.

Just say, "3 MA to move 2 spaces." That is clear.

One of the places TFT shines is maneuver. Having terrain helps this, making some hexes better than others. Bodies are terrain that happens during a fight! It is worth a bit of space and rules to make this work right.

Rick

[larsdangly]

Exactly. The strength of TFT is its approach to movement and maneuver, but there are situations where this doesn't get expressed, like when the only real option is to move to engage, after which combat is mostly an exchange of to-hit and damage rolls. Complexity in terrain breaks that up by introducing more decision points on the way to melee engagement, where each side has some chance of joining combat with an advantage or disadvantage (or avoiding it all together).

[Skarg]

^ Yes. There's often a nice tension in the mid-to-end-battle phase, where there are choices about whether you want to move to places where you can help but you're also at a disadvantage because it means a broken ground DX penalty for standing on a body, or possibly falling and ending up on the ground in front of an opponent.

To me, these are all clear examples that call for not removing certain details:

* The broken ground DX mod is needed to keep body pile terrain effects even when people aren't moving much.

* As in Advanced Melee, having falling give the loss of your next action, i.e. you lose an action BEFORE the action when you can get up, is crucial to avoid weird situations where someone trips and falls on their face in front of you, but you somehow still don't get a chance to hit them with any DX bonus for them being down, or even to escape being engaged by them, because they take an action to stand up and re-engage you again before you get a chance.

* The possibility of falling should be there, but I like the proposed options that let you use MA to avoid it as long as there is also a penalty for fighting from a body hex (or else bodies become irrelevant in many situations). I've often used nearly identical house tweaks to the one suggested (always with a DX penalty, too) and think it's one of the best ways to do it.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

New draft; I am listening to the reality comments but I am also listening to my new players who want to feel some of that tactical mobility I've been talking about. I continued to an Obstacles section (for the big book only; no room in Melee) which would largely replace what is there now.

Fallen Bodies
Fallen bodies are obstacles. To leap over one, spend 3 MA.
To move into the hex with a body, either spend 3 MA to move cautiously, or take a move-one-hex option, or follow a retreat, or, if you insist on moving quickly onto the body, spend only one MA but make a 3/DX roll to stay afoot. If you fail, you fall on top of the body or bodies.

Other Obstacles
The GM may add a variety of obstacles, either in arenas or underground, just to keep things interesting.
Pits (see p. 00). They might be full (or half full) of water, lava, tar . . . or they might be bottomless.
Permanent columns of Fire or Darkness, or permanent areas of Sticky or Slippery Floor, as described in the spells.
Bad footing, such as sand, loose gravel, swamp muck, water-slick stone, ankle-deep brush, ice. Bad footing can reduce MA, penalize DX of those who move and fight on the same turn, or even require a saving roll to stay afoot. Details are up to the GM, and the players should not know exactly what to expect when they first step in it.
Columns or tree trunks. Figures must go around tall ones but might leap over short ones.
Quicksand, or just very deep, wet swamp, will reduce MA drastically and might trap a lone wanderer who does not make an IQ roll (Woodsman will help) to escape.

I greatly prefer imposing a movement cost rather than making a DX roll. My only question is whether 3 mp is too high. You're giving the option of moving quickly through the hex with a DX roll, though, so that may be a reasonable compromise. I'll need to playtest it.