Firepower progression of the Myrmidon

[hcobb]

Age 20: ST 12 DX 12 IQ 8 MA 12 FP 37.2 (Ghoul)
Broadsword(2d) Small Shield(1) Dagger(1d-1)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Horsemanship(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2)

Does 5.18 damage per turn and survives 2.66 turns against such an attack.

Therefore total damage delivered is 13.8 and Firepower rating is 37.2

Add a year and gained 500 XP. 35th attribute plus 100 XP left over.

Increasing IQ won't increase FP so dump into physical stats.

Age 21: ST 13 DX 14(12) IQ 8 MA 10 FP 51.0 (Giant)
Bastard Sword 1h(2d+1) Small Shield(1) Dagger(1d-1) Leather Armor(2)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Horsemanship(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2)

Does 5.92 damage per turn and takes 2.96 damage from the DX 12 broadsword so survives 4.39 turns. Does a total of 26 damage and so Firepower is 51.0

Add a year and gained another 500 XP. 36th attribute plus 300 XP left over.

Add to DX and upgrade to large shield.

Age 22: ST 13 DX 15(12) IQ 8 MA 10 FP 56.2 (2-hex dragon)
Bastard Sword 1h(2d+1) Large Shield(2) Dagger(1d-1) Leather Armor(2)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Horsemanship(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2)

Still does 5.92 damage per turn, but now faces the DX 9 battleax which does 2.44 damage against him. Survives 5.33 turns and so does a total of 31.57 damage which is Firepower 56.2

Next year gets another 500 XP and finally invests in IQ, with 200 XP left over. Firepower is unchanged

Age 23: ST 13 DX 15(12) IQ 9 MA 10 FP 56.2 (2-hex dragon)
Bastard Sword 1h(2d+1) Large Shield(2) Dagger(1d-1) Leather Armor(2)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Horsemanship(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2)

And then it takes him two more years to get Toughness I, with 200 XP left over.

Age 25: ST 13 DX 15(12) IQ 9 MA 10 FP 61.1 (Tiger)
Bastard Sword 1h(2d+1) Large Shield(2) Dagger(1d-1) Leather Armor(2) Toughness I(1)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Horsemanship(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2), Toughness I(2)

Takes 2.06 damage per turn from the DX 9 battleax and so FP is 61.1

I.e. 2500 XP hasn't doubled his starting Firepower.

Now the fencer

Age 20: ST 9 DX 12 IQ 11 MA 12 FP 31 (Jaguar)
2x rapier(1d+1), Dagger(1d-1)
Fencer(3), Sword(2), Unarmed Combat II(1), Unarmed Combat I(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2)

Best stance seems to be attack with one rapier and parry with the other. The fencer then does 3.33 damage per turn and the DX 12 Broadsword is at -1 DX and 2 hits stopped for 3.125 damage in response. Fencer survives 2.88 turns and so does a total of 9.6 damage for Firepower

Advancing to Master Fencer takes 4 attribute points and 3 skill points or 2200 XP. That's age 25 with 300 XP left over.

Age 25: ST 9 DX 14 IQ 13 MA 12 FP 57.5 (Gryphon)
2x rapier(1d+2), Dagger(1d-1)
Fencer(3), Sword(2), Unarmed Combat II(1), Unarmed Combat I(1), Running(2), Thrown Weapons(2), Master Fencer(3)

Best stance is shrewd thrust for 2d+4 adjDX 11, DX 12 Broadsword is -3 DX and down two hits. The master fencer is doing 6.88 damage a turn and taking 1.9 hits per turn. He survives 4.8 turns and does a total of 33.0 damage for a Firepower rating of 57.5

UC master
Age 20: ST 8 DX 12 IQ 12 MA 12 FP 24.3 (Large Pit Trap Plant)
Punch(1d-1), Evade(-2/-2)
UC I(1), II(1), III(2), Running(2), Silent Movement (2), Acrobatics (2), Stealth (2)

Does 1.85 damage per turn and takes 2.5 av hits from the broadsword so lives 3.2 turns. Total damage 5.92, FP

Next year: +500 XP 35th attribute plus 100 XP left over.
Age 21: ST 11 DX 12 IQ 12 MA 12 FP 38.3 (Glyptodont)
Punch(1d+1), Evade(-2/-2)
UC I(1), II(1), III(2), Running(2), Silent Movement (2), Acrobatics (2), Stealth (2)

Does 3.33 damage per turn and takes 2.5 av hits from the broadsword so lives 4.4 turns. Total damage 14.6 FP 38.3

Next year: +500 XP 36th attribute plus 300 XP left over.
Age 22: ST 11 DX 13 IQ 12 MA 12 FP 40.7 (Glyptodont)
Punch(1d+1), Evade(-2/-2)
UC I(1), II(1), III(2), Running(2), Silent Movement (2), Acrobatics (2), Stealth (2)

Does 3.77 damage per turn and takes 2.5 av hits from the broadsword so lives 4.4 turns. Total damage 16.6, FP 40.7

Next year: +500 XP 37th attribute plus 200 XP left over.
Age 23: ST 11 DX 13 IQ 13 MA 12 FP 40.7 (Glyptodont)
Punch(1d+1), Evade(-2/-2)
UC I(1), II(1), III(2), Running(2), Silent Movement (2), Acrobatics (2), Stealth (2)

No change in FP

Three years later: +1500 XP add a skill plus 200 XP left over.
Age 26: ST 11 DX 13 IQ 13 MA 12 FP 46.9 (Big Lizard)
Kick(2d-1), Evade(-2/-2)
UC I(1), II(1), III(2), IV(3), Running(2), Silent Movement (2), Acrobatics (2), Stealth (2)

Does 5 hits a turn for 4.4 turns = 22 damage, FP 46.9

18 years later: +9000 XP add a skill plus 200 XP left over.
Age 44: ST 12 DX 14 IQ 14 MA 12 FP 79.7 (4-hex Dragon)
2x Punch(2d-2), Evade(-2/-3)
UC I(1), II(1), III(2), IV(3), V(4), Running(2), Silent Movement (2), Acrobatics (2), Stealth (2)

Does 9.07 damage per turn for 7 turns. Total is 63.5 FP 79.7

[hcobb]

That a retirement age martial artist can take on a 4-hex Dragon just shows how wimpy TFT dragons are.

[Skarg]

Those are two separate points, though.

Again, I think it's a huge problem to hand out 500 XP (or even 100 XP) to every NPC per year and have all humanoids go from average 30 points to average 38 points.

1. It doesn't match any of the published materials' sample NPC populations.

2. It makes ability levels that were exceptional the norm.

3. It changes 32-point starting characters from "above average" to "newbies who shouldn't take on normal people with a few years' experience working at any non-dangerous job". (It's more like 32-point characters are 12-14 years old, and adults are all 38-40 points.)

4. It goes along with an expectation that most rolls for success will be against values much higher than 10.

6. It power creeps away from the 3d6 sweet spot, and the expectation starts to be that most competent people will make most 3d6 rolls, which starts to break the levels the system was mainly designed for, where success is more uncertain.

7. It goes along with expectations that things like Charms and other magic items are needed, expected, and common things a typical professional just has access to, instead of being rare/exceptional, expensive, etc.

8. When you compare to ANY other monster/creature stats or any difficult task, of course they'll all start to look oddly weak and easy if you expectation is they'll be faced by extremely capable 38+ point people instead of normal 28-to-32-point people.

9. If after a few years' experience doing whatever job, everyone is a 38-40 point character, and that's where the attribute curve ramps up to impossible costs, then there are no exceptional people in the game world.

Instead, if the average person is going to remain about 30 points, that means to me that most people don't tend to add many attribute points in their professional lifetimes, maybe 2-4 points is typical (but typical people tend to start at 28-30, not 32).

It also implies to me that many people can learn at least some talents and spells without gaining and spending 500 XP (or if they do, it's either a different sort of XP that only works for talents not raising attributes), or something is preventing them from spending it on attributes instead (since 500 XP will boost a 29 point character to a 34 point character).

i.e. I think XP that can be spent on attributes must be something that is exceptional, such as learning and developing one's true potential from experience in highly-charged life and death adventure situations. i.e. Something most of the population doesn't get, and something that also kills many of the people that do get it, so the 38-point characters are the rare people who got and learned from extreme experiences and also survived them. Not just everyone doing their job.

[hcobb]

Let us assume that the police / town guard or whatever actually exist. (Otherwise all the PCs should simply be more open about being thieves than usual.)

Then the NPCs doing these jobs would need to be qualified for them.

A typical police recruit (at 28 attributes) would then be
ST 10 DX 10(9) IQ 8
Saber(2d-2), Horsebow(1d), Small Shield(1), Cloth armor(1)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Bow(2)

This person has a 2.1% chance of dying each week on the job. Which means that after five years less than one in 200 of them is still alive.

So let us assume a promotion within the first year to regular for the third of them that are still breathing.

police regular
ST 10 DX 10(9) IQ 10
Saber(2d-2), Horsebow(1d), Small Shield(1), Cloth armor(1)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Bow(2), Unarmed Combat I(1)

That's 700 XP required in one year.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Let us assume that the police / town guard or whatever actually exist. (Otherwise all the PCs should simply be more open about being thieves than usual.)

Then the NPCs doing these jobs would need to be qualified for them.

A typical police recruit (at 28 attributes) would then be
ST 10 DX 10(9) IQ 8
Saber(2d-2), Horsebow(1d), Small Shield(1), Cloth armor(1)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Bow(2)

That looks about right to me for a trained below-average police recruit (though they could have more points and still be a recruit), yes.

Originally Posted by hcobb

This person has a 2.1% chance of dying each week on the job. Which means that after five years less than one in 200 of them is still alive.

You're continuing to react to problematic statistics you notice as indications that the world is weird rather than to consider that to apply the rules accurately to population models, the rules want adjustment so the odds will work out better.

The job risk rolls are a quick & dirty abstract system to provide something for PCs. It's not meant to be a statistically accurate simulator for your whole world population.

The "roll best attribute or take 4 dice damage" is clearly a minimum-complexity placeholder for what would really happen. The Risk roll indicates something bad happened. What actually happens would be a situation with various risks and consequences. Basing a world's demographics on such a mechanic is of course going to give you weird results.

Originally Posted by hcobb

So let us assume a promotion within the first year to regular for the third of them that are still breathing.

police regular
ST 10 DX 10(9) IQ 10
Saber(2d-2), Horsebow(1d), Small Shield(1), Cloth armor(1)
Sword(2), Shield(1), Bow(2), Unarmed Combat I(1)

That's 700 XP required in one year.

Again it seems to me like you're thinking about the cause & effect in a strange way.

That could be a person who gained good experience and UC I in a year, sure. It's not necessarily the average experience, and I certainly don't think it's sustainable without breaking the "what's an average character" guidelines, which I think should be the baseline.

I think what recruits learn as they become regulars would tend to be job familiarity (0), maybe a talent or two if they need them (would vary for the actual required/used skills of that police force - the generic dangerous jobs requirements list silly amounts of weapon talents, kind of like job listings that ask for excessive experience), and possibly an attribute point or two for people who got a lot of good experience and weren't great to begin with. Your listed recruit may have started at 10 10 8 to represent someone without much life- or fighting experience, who then might gain that and have a steep initial improvement like that, but it's not going to keep zooming up year after year, unless again you think all average competent adults move over the course of a few years' moderate job experience to 38+ points.

[hcobb]

If GMIC happens in your world then you have IQ 20 wizards somewhere and if these are human that's around 40 attribute points right there.

But let's just to agree to differ and accept that in my campaigns if a starting PC picks a fight with a captain of the town guard then they are not likely to win that fight.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

If GMIC happens in your world then you have IQ 20 wizards somewhere and if these are human that's around 40 attribute points right there.

Yes. I didn't say that no one was an exceptionally capable person. I just said that only some people become exceptionally powerful people.

Originally Posted by hcobb

But let's just to agree to differ and accept that in my campaigns if a starting PC picks a fight with a captain of the town guard then they are not likely to win that fight.

Why would you think they would be in mine?

I'd expect your guard captains to be in more trouble, because you seem to expect everyone to get 500 XP per year, and then hit the improvement wall after a few years, so the average 23-year-old went from 30 to 37 points in three years, can be 38 points at 25, 39 points by 29 years old. i.e. it's like there are no really exceptional people, and the age of competence is about 23, and 32-point characters are inferior to most older adults?