Chris Rice's suggestion for to-hit rolls

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

So my friend suggested rounding up for the attack number and down for the defense number. This had the effect of changing the adjustment: when both the attacker and defender's DX is odd, the attacker gets a -1 to their attack number.

I like this better because you don't have to remember whether it's the attacker or defender that needs to be even for the adjustment to apply.

This has the same balance benefit of the original system (+1 effect per +1 improvement), but a weird artifact that half the people are worse at defending than they are at attacking, but others aren't, and whether they are not changes when they improve their adjDX.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

This has the same balance benefit of the original system (+1 effect per +1 improvement), but a weird artifact that half the people are worse at defending than they are at attacking, but others aren't, and whether they are not changes when they improve their adjDX.

It feels that way but that's not really true because the result is exactly the same as your system when you apply the adjustment (-1 attack if both are odd)... Strange, isn't it?

[zot]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I haven't really followed here, but if you simply took the delta of each from 10, halved it, and don't round on the charsheet ( So DX 15/+2.5) and just carried that modifier, you could decide to either round fractions up or drop fractions, but if you're doing 2.5 - 1.5, that's 1.0 and it takes care of itself. Yeah, you have the 1/2 number on the charsheet, but you only have a subtraction to do, and then you can decide round up or drop fractions. Round up favors the attacker (which is more true to the proper TFT rules which favor attacking) drop fractions favors the defender. Both simple.

Interesting!

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

It feels that way but that's not really true because the result is exactly the same as your system when you apply the adjustment (-1 attack if both are odd)... Strange, isn't it?

I think we're not on the same page.

I have been talking about your later proposal where you wrote:

What about just subtracting the defender's defense from your DX?

DEF = (DX - 10) / 2 (rounded up)

I get that the "attacker gets +1 if their DX is even and the defender's is odd" optional improvement would help. But to me, thinking about whether the attacker adj DX is even and the defender's odd, seems alien/odd to me and more disruptive to my thinking than Chris' system.

Both because of that, and because other things you wrote have me thinking you're not even talking about the same version of your suggestion as I have been, I have not analyzed your idea that it completely compensates for the difference. If I _am_ right about which version of your suggestion we are talking about, then my first thinking about it seems like it would not, since you're saying it affects 1/4 the cases, but I see 1/2 of the cases as being different.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I think we're not on the same page.

I have been talking about your later proposal where you wrote:

I get that the "attacker gets +1 if their DX is even and the defender's is odd" optional improvement would help. But to me, thinking about whether the attacker adj DX is even and the defender's odd, seems alien/odd to me and more disruptive to my thinking than Chris' system.

Both because of that, and because other things you wrote have me thinking you're not even talking about the same version of your suggestion as I have been, I have not analyzed your idea that it completely compensates for the difference. If I _am_ right about which version of your suggestion we are talking about, then my first thinking about it seems like it would not, since you're saying it affects 1/4 the cases, but I see 1/2 of the cases as being different.

Ah, I was talking about my friend's tweak to it that uses an adjustment when both are odd, rather than attacker even & defender odd. It's easier to remember that way. It's still just attacker's AT - defender's DF with a potential adjustment of 1 point 25% of the time and it still comes out to exactly the same numbers as yours.

Here's yours (inner cells = ceiling((attacker-defender)/2) + 10):

| DX |  8 |  9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
|----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| 16 | 14 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 |
| 15 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |
| 14 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |
| 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |
| 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |
| 11 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |
| 10 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |  7 |
|  9 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |  7 |  7 |
|  8 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |  7 |  7 |  6 |

Here's the tweaked version of my suggestion inner cells = (attacker's AT - defender's DF - ADJ where ADJ = 0 or 1 when both are odd), but AT = ceiling(DX/2)+5 and DF = floor(DX/2)-5 (you could also think of AT as ceiling(DX/2 - 10) + 10):

| DX |  8 |  9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | AT | DF | | ADJ  | even | odd |
|----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ +------+------+-----|
| 16 | 14 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 13 |  3 | | even |    0 |   0 |
| 15 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 13 |  2 | | odd  |    0 |   1 |
| 14 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 | 12 |  2 |
| 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 | 12 |  1 |
| 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 | 11 |  1 |
| 11 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 | 11 |  0 |
| 10 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |  7 | 10 |  0 |
|  9 | 11 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |  7 |  7 | 10 | -1 |
|  8 | 10 | 10 |  9 |  9 |  8 |  8 |  7 |  7 |  6 |  9 | -1 |

It actually works out as very close to Douglas Cole's suggestion:

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I haven't really followed here, but if you simply took the delta of each from 10, halved it, and don't round on the charsheet (So DX 15/+2.5) and just carried that modifier, you could decide to either round fractions up or drop fractions, but if you're doing 2.5 - 1.5, that's 1.0 and it takes care of itself. Yeah, you have the 1/2 number on the charsheet, but you only have a subtraction to do, and then you can decide round up or drop fractions. Round up favors the attacker (which is more true to the proper TFT rules which favor attacking) drop fractions favors the defender. Both simple.

Rather than keeping the 0.5s for odd numbers, you can just note when both are odd. I like Cole's system but the 0.5s essentially make you do the same even/odd comparisons as my suggestion. My friend's change to use ceiling/floor for AT/DF means you only worry about the 1pt adjustment if both are odd.

Originally Posted by Skarg

But to me, thinking about whether the attacker adj DX is even and the defender's odd, seems alien/odd to me and more disruptive to my thinking than Chris' system.

I guess you have to compare the disruption of even/odd and AT-DF against the disruption/delay of the DX subtraction and halving.

It's really a fine point, I think. Subtracting DX and halving isn't SUCH a big deal but it just feels clunky to me, more so than subtracting a small number from AT and, if your DX is odd, subtracting one if the defender's DX is also odd.

[Chris Rice]

These days I don’t bother with a table, I just look at the difference between the DX scores. Let’s say DX14 fights DX 10: difference is 4. Split it 2 each. Higher DX adds to 10 base so 10 + 2 = 12. Lower DX subtracts from 10 base so 10 - 2 = 8.

If the difference is odd, the higher DX gets the extra point.

This is very simple to do in your head in just a moment.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

These days I don’t bother with a table, I just look at the difference between the DX scores. Let’s say DX14 fights DX 10: difference is 4. Split it 2 each. Higher DX adds to 10 base so 10 + 2 = 12. Lower DX subtracts from 10 base so 10 - 2 = 8.

If the difference is odd, the higher DX gets the extra point.

This is very simple to do in your head in just a moment.

All of these are just different ways to look at the same mathematical function (table).

I get Skarg's point that you do need to track 1-point variations in DX. My approach does that but requires recomputing AT and DF numbers when your DX changes. Since that can happen many times in a combat because of situational modifiers, I wonder if it's going to end up requiring a lot of updates to those numbers.

I'll just have to try a test with this way of thinking about it and see how it feels. It's not really fair for me to just test my approach and then compare it to what I think using other approaches might be like...