04-07-2022, 08:14 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
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04-07-2022, 08:24 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
If you want the Ax/Mace weapons to hit with more oomph, then any of Shostak's suggestions would do. I think you're wrong about any of the Ax/Mace having higher average damage than the swords of same ST -- the opposite is true. Some Ax/Mace options are a half point less damage on average.
But this could be fixed by Shostak's first suggestion, for instance, that armor is one point less effective against Ax/Mace weapons. I don't know, that sounds pretty damned powerful. Now, Shostak wants to balance that with something distinct to swords. Already, swords comes with knife, so that's an advantage. Hence the sword advantage doesn't have to be as good as the Ax/Mace armor advantage (if that's what we choose). I'd stay away from parry because I feel that kind of steps on the Two Weapons talent and also is a whole different notion of parrying than we currently have. The only "parry" action we have is in Two Weapons and the weapon cannot be used for an attack at all when it is used to parry. The Defend action plays a similar role, but again the weapon cannot be used to parry. On the other hand, the quick draw of the sword steps all over the Quick Draw talent. The temptation to distinguish Ax/Mace from Sword is reasonable. It's especially sensible to give folks some reason to choose Ax/Mace instead of sword. I have three players with many characters per player and the only Ax/Mace characters are NPCs. Not a single PC has seen a reason to go for that talent! And why should they, when having Knife skill is kinda handy and Swords dominate (slightly) in the average damage category. But I'm a bit cautious regarding Shostak's initial suggestions. |
04-07-2022, 08:43 PM | #14 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
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04-07-2022, 08:50 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
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Which brings me to another problem for the two 8+ damage requirements. At ST 11, there are to Ax/Mace options, a 1d+2 ax and a 2d-1 mace. The former has a one in 6 chance of getting that bonus each hit, the latter a 10 in 36 chance, if I'm not mistaken. Thus, these two Ax/Mace bonuses would make an Ax an even worse choice than it is now (with its 1/2 point average damage disadvantage). Last edited by phiwum; 04-08-2022 at 06:43 AM. |
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04-07-2022, 08:57 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
I'll need to post a more detailed explanation this weekend, but in the process of deconstructing and expanding the weapon table I decided to add weapon-specific traits to the mix. It's a concept I can't take credit for as it was stolen from D&D/Pathfinder (apologies to those offended by the use of those sources), but they really are the best way to give different weapons distinct properties IMO. Obviously, I tried to simplify the idea to stay closer to TFT's level of abstraction. TBH, though, several weapon traits already exist in the game, although they are presented differently in the rules... traits like throwing, sweeping, tripping, for example, are special attacks or effects dependent on specific weapons. All I did was pull them together into a shared framework and link them more explicitly to the various entries on the Weapon Table.
In addition to those already included in the ruleset, I have also created or adapted...
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
04-07-2022, 09:30 PM | #17 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
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04-08-2022, 08:02 AM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Indiana
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
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If an Ax does one more point of damage, so be it. That would go further to take out its lack of advantage and possibly promote more Axe usage. It was probably a mistake in the design to lump these blade edged weapons with the bludgeoning weapons like the mace or morning star. I've always thought of them as having more differences than similarities. They are wielded in similar fashion but the functionality of delivering damage is different. Perhaps, separating Ax/Mace into different types is a worthy discussion? Last edited by Bill_in_IN; 04-08-2022 at 08:08 AM. |
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04-10-2022, 05:07 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
The more sophisticated solutions I've seen offered here have their attractions but they seem overkill for a system for which simplicity has always been a core strength.
My preference is to leave axe/mace/hammer weapons as they are. Swords can be made different by giving them some kind of limited defensive ability, to represent parrying, and a lower damage to compensate. I'm thinking something like: blocks some damage against weapons which do damage less than or approximately equal to the damage of the parrying weapon. So a main-gauche can parry a light weapon but not a great sword. The parry ability gets more powerful as the weapon damage increases, so it can replace a percentage of its offensive ability. But I'm not sure about the details. |
04-10-2022, 05:51 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Differentiating Weapon Types
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But if you add a defensive bonus to swords and no bonus to Ax/Mace, then the problem for Ax/Mace is exacerbated. Already, there's a benefit to Sword, namely the Knife talent for free. This is why none of the PCs in my game have seen fit to use Ax/Mace at all. I suppose the built-in benefit for Ax/Mace is that you can throw some of them and they do more damage than a thrown dagger, but that hasn't been persuasive in my game. Still, I agree that simplicity is a key feature of this game, so perhaps best to leave well enough alone. |
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Tags |
combat, damage, special abilities, tactical, traits |
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