Defend and changing options

[hcobb]

Defend and especially the super defends increases your chance of being hit by clumsy opponents.

adjDX 5 has a 4.63% chance of hitting on 3 dice, 5.4% on 4 dice, 5.88% on 5 dice, and 6.08% on 6 dice.

(Problem is that automatic success increases by 3 points per die while that die only adds an average of 3.5 to the roll. If automatic success only advanced by two the problem wouldn't exist.)

See here for the numbers: https://www.hcobb.com/tft/TFT_Saving...rcentages.html

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by Peter von Kleinsmid

I'd say that in actual combat, groups as well as individuals may also pause, so time may pass where some or all groups aren't actually even engaged. There may be things going on with group morale and leadership that uses more time than actual fighting, even after the opposing forces have squared off and some fighting has occurred. As Napoleon said, “In war, the moral is to the physical as ten to one.”

A battle could take many hours, if not days, mostly due to repositioning, waiting and coordination, and so forth. And I have no problems with that, but I was mentioning after they clash, as to two units clashing. They would not take pauses, they would try to break the other unit before they broke themselves. But even such a small engagement could take many minutes, a short time over the whole battle, but extremely slow compared to twelve attacks per minute. The only ones actually taking breaks while their own unit was engaged were the Romans, that switched out people and took turns being upfront. Most likely it was just as exhausting as a boxing match. So a couple of minutes and then your fighting prowess went downhill.

Originally Posted by Peter von Kleinsmid

Also, if both sides tend to have armor and/or shields and a typical weapon is a one-handed spear, many of the fighters are 30-32 points, and if typically when one person does attack, the target defends, that may not result in very fast casualties. (Lowish adjDX, 4/DX to hit, armor takes most/all of a hit.) If the ground starts having bodies on it, that too can reduce the rate of people attacking and hitting each other, as it can limit the places people are willing to fight from, or reduce their adjDX if they do stand on a body.

All these are valid points but don't change an average fight taking 3 turns to it taking 300 turns or more.

Originally Posted by Peter von Kleinsmid

The thing I have seen when playing that Defend and Dodge have to be pre-declared and commit a figure through the turn, is that the side who moves first (which already is often a serious tactical disadvantage by itself) also declares Defend and Dodge first, and those figures in many cases just get ignored by the other side wherever possible (or, if the GM insists they can't even switch Dodge with Defend or vice versa, the dodgers get charged and the defenders get shot). Which in turn means that people who realize that tend to just never Defend or Dodge unless they see nothing else worth doing.

I don't mean that you have to declare your intentions during movement. But I do suggest that you should interpret "change your option at any time" to be at any time in the DX count down order. Not in the middle of someone else's turn.

Originally Posted by Peter von Kleinsmid

And even with Dodge/Defend as an option in response to attacks, I rarely see fighters use it unless they feel great danger from an attack because they prefer to attack, and defending is a bit like losing a turn.

This is because it is boring to defend and heroes don't have a healthy regard for their own lives. And most of the time you go for somewhat even fights if two players fight (and then they only care about winning the fight, they don't care about each individual soldier) or you have players fighting monsters or NPC's and then the fights are almost always a little in the players favor, but not so much it would be boring.

Defending is the non-heroic way of fighting, especially if you heavily outnumber the other side. Fights like that are the most common in reality, but very rare (and boring) in RPG's.

[Peter von Kleinsmid]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

A battle could take many hours, if not days, mostly due to repositioning, waiting and coordination, and so forth. And I have no problems with that, but I was mentioning after they clash, as to two units clashing. They would not take pauses, they would try to break the other unit before they broke themselves. But even such a small engagement could take many minutes, a short time over the whole battle, but extremely slow compared to twelve attacks per minute.

Yes, and I'd say one part of the reason for that, is because the groups would not be doing non-stop TFT-style attacks. I think groups would end up having some or all of their frontmost figures not engaged some of the time, and even those who were engaged might be often disengaging or choosing to defend and wait for an opening.

Even with aggressive tactics, survival and winning are priorities, and attacking every single TFT turn is not. Even if it were, getting a group in melee to constantly do something seems to me like a theoretical goal that wouldn't often be achieved in reality.

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

All these are valid points but don't change an average fight taking 3 turns to it taking 300 turns or more.

A sample check on that:

ST 11 DX 11 (8) Spear 1d, Leather, Large Shield (total 4 hits stopped)

AdjDX 8 hits on 4/DX about 1/20 of the time, averaging 0.5 damage/hit. If they do a furious non-stop alternation of attacks like that (which I don't think they actually would do), one of them will tend to fall to ST 3 after they take 8 hits, so 16 spear hits, after 320 attacks, attacking every other turn each, so 640 turns.

They may drop from fatigue before they drop from damage. If they both end up at ST 3, they may have a far harder time trying to hurt each other.

Of course, examples like that can vary in a lot of ways, and have different assumptions in many ways. Certainly you can also give an example that expects someone to die in 3 turns or less, particularly by reducing armor or increasing adjDX, or using heavier weapons and/or higher-attribute fighters.


When one actually plays out even a somewhat large combat in TFT, one other thing that often happens is you get a line of bodies on the ground between the two forces, which becomes a natural deterrent to continuing to charge into battle. The fighters behind the bodies can have good reason to wait for their opponents to advance onto the bodies and suffer -2 or more DX for bad footing.

Not to mention that pole arms are at an advantage when foes advance onto them. So even from a game tactics perspective, not rushing into combat every turn can tend to have various advantages, not even considering survival goals, other tactical reasons for delay, or problems getting a group to commit to efficient organized action.

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

This is because it is boring to defend and heroes don't have a healthy regard for their own lives. And most of the time you go for somewhat even fights if two players fight (and then they only care about winning the fight, they don't care about each individual soldier) or you have players fighting monsters or NPC's and then the fights are almost always a little in the players favor, but not so much it would be boring.

Defending is the non-heroic way of fighting, especially if you heavily outnumber the other side. Fights like that are the most common in reality, but very rare (and boring) in RPG's.

First, not everyone thinks fighting defensively and trying to say alive "is boring".

Avoiding "boredom" is also not the reason (or at least, not the main reason) why I've seen people choose not to defend. Other reasons include wanting to help your group win, wanting to be perceived by comrades as brave and useful (avoiding being seen as passive or "non-heroic", as you put it), and practical and effective tactics which aim to take down foes as quickly as possible (which, when done effectively, can be even more likely to avoid injury than defending).

I also mostly play and run campaigns where the GM is not trying to "balance" combat so the PCs will always have an advantage and survive (and also isn't trying to avoid supposedly-boring situations where the PCs have a clear advantage). The logic of the campaign situation, and the choices of the characters and players determine who is fighting whom, as well as what tactics they use.

All those reflections aside, I was just remarking that in my experience playing with defending allowed as a response to being attacked, people don't often take that option. It tends to be seen as a coup for the attacker to get their target to use their action defending.

[hcobb]

There's no point dodging or defending against somebody who acts before you because they've got the DX to overcome the penalty.

[Peter von Kleinsmid]

Originally Posted by hcobb

There's no point dodging or defending against somebody who acts before you because they've got the DX to overcome the penalty.

That's not true at all, unless their adjDX is very high indeed.

[hcobb]

A typical PC has adjDX 12 for the leet combat talents, and will be backed by Tactics.

The op force that strikes before them has adjDX 13+ so typically DX 14 (wolves and such). The chance of rolling 14 or less on four dice is 55.63%

A fencing defend is -1 DX and five dice so the wolf needs to roll 13 or less on five dice which is still a 15.2%

Using a two rapier parry instead is 13 or less on four dice 44.37%, but then the two blades stop four hits so the wolf needs to inflict 5 or more points of damage (half the time for a 1d6+1 attack) for a net 22.19% chance of inflicting damage. (Neglecting the 0.39% chance of double or more damage for now.)

Taking Shield Expertise as well reduces the wolf down to adjDX 12 so that the PC strikes first with their very fine rapier (look Ma, no silvers for healing potions) hitting 74.07% of the time for an average of (1d6+3) 6.5 points, or a 2/3rds chance of inflicting the five hits required for a stun adjustment. (That's a 49.38% chance, neglecting double and triple damage as above).

The stunned wolf is then DX 14 -1 -1 -2 or adjDX 10 for an even chance of a hit against the two hits stopped by an expert small shield. (I.e. it takes the wolf six turns to take down the fencer with the buckler.)

[larsdangly]

You can't 'prove' a general point with a highly specific situational example. What if we are discussing a duel between two heavily armored knights with adjDX of 9 or 10? Now Defend has a good chance of shutting your foe down.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by hcobb

There's no point dodging or defending against somebody who acts before you because they've got the DX to overcome the penalty.

Ummmm... if you mean because there's no point picking Dodge or Defend to use against an opponent has already acted, well of course not. That is obviously obvious. Is it still true against multiple opponents of varied adjDX and positions? Just as obviously, no.

[Steve Plambeck]

Hexagram 9 - Questions and Answers, now offers more clarity on these deep dark Defend dillies. If you haven't seen it, the pertinent parts are:

• Yes, you can pick Defend as your action after moving up to 1/2 MA. Apparently the wording on this in Legacy ITL was not meant to imply this had changed from original TFT.
• Yes, you can change your stated/intended action from Defend to something else if your turn to act comes up, and you still haven't been attacked.

The gods have spoken.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

• Yes, you can change your stated/intended action from Defend to something else if your turn to act comes up, and you still haven't been attacked.

That'll be getting a house rule treatment in games I run. It doesn't seem right to me that, by merely appearing to defend, someone can benefit from by having enemies pick an easier target and then turn around and attack anyway.