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Old 10-12-2018, 05:32 PM   #61
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Misc. Spell questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Wyzard View Post
... The question I would ask myself is whether such a move would give the player an *advantage* in any sense; that is, are there situations where a club is better than a mace? Because I'm less likely to allow such a dodge if clubs aren't strictly worse.
Just a mace, or all Ax/Mace weapons?

Clubs beat maces when you have enough ST, since for some reason normal weapons don't scale with ST (in RAW) but clubs do. The break even point is ST 13 (or ST 11 if you have a 2-handed club and a mace but no shield) if you think 1d+2 is close enough to 2d-1 (small axes are ST 11 1d+2 too), or ST 15 (13 comparing 2-handed w. no shield) if you need 1d+3 to deem it better than 2d-1. ST 17 will do 1d+4 (1d+5 2-hdd).

Other advantages of a club are that it costs nothing, can weigh 3 lbs less than a mace, it has no listed minimum ST, and that you can improvise a club from ordinary objects (with the brawling talent, you can claim to be able to make a club out of any piece of broken furniture).
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Old 10-12-2018, 05:41 PM   #62
hcobb
 
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Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: Misc. Spell questions

Can a ST 4 Halfling do a 1d two handed throw of a club?
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Old 10-12-2018, 06:11 PM   #63
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Misc. Spell questions

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Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
"A giant? Just a giant? Bring it on man!"

"The giant has a mace."

"Run away!"
Seems more like:
"The giant has a mace."
"Sweet, that does a lot less damage than it would with a club!"
No?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Helborn View Post
In Death test 1, the Giant, at the end, PP 161 does 3+3 with his club, i.e. the damage of a Battle Axe +3. According to the table, if the damage was based on strength alone (with no weapon skill) the damage should be 1+6. There is your difference. A trained fighter will do the damage according to the weapon table using a club, while an untrained fighter will do damage according to the ST table.
That'd be cool if the rules said that.
Really it is that the Death Test I giant damage hasn't changed since it was written about 1978, using the original Melee rules which are also still as was in new Melee, which say a Giant ranges from at least ST 24 to "about 50 if he's a tough one", and that a Giant does 1d+1 damage for every 10 ST he has, so the 30 ST giant does 3d+3, and the 50 ST giant would do 5d+5. In ITL, giants are said to be ST 25 to 40, and per the table, even with a two-handed club would do:

ST 25-30: 1d+7
ST 31-40: 2d+5
ST 41-50 (Basic Melee only?): 3d+5

It's not vastly different from the basic Melee formula for most ST values, but Melee giants have an advantage:

Code:
ITL damage vs basic Melee damage:
ST 24-29:    1d+7 vs. 2d+2   (avg 10.5 vs. 9, max 13 vs. 14)
ST 30:       1d+7 vs. 3d+3   (avg 10.5 vs. 13.5, max 13 vs. 21)
ST 31-39:    2d+5 vs. 3d+3   (avg 12 vs. 13.5, max 17 vs. 21)
ST 40:       2d+5 vs. 4d+4   (avg 12 vs. 18, max 17 vs. 28)
ST 41-49:    3d+5 vs. 4d+4   (avg 15.5 vs. 18, max 23 vs. 28)
ST 50:       3d+5 vs. 5d+5   (avg 15.5 vs. 22.5, max 23 vs. 35)
ITL has also had the sentence about swords, axes, or giant cesti strapped to their hands (2d+2, 3 dice in HTH), but I always took that to mean cesti damage rather than sword, axe, or club damage. Seems like it should still go by the ST table since giants vary at least from 25 to 40 in ST, which would be:

ST 25-30: 1d+7, 1d+8 in HTH
ST 31-40: 2d+5, 2d+6 in HTH
ST 41-50 (Basic Melee only?): 3d+5, 3d+6 in HTH

So apart from lower max possible damage for ST 25-30 giants, the table gives rather higher damage with Cestus than the comment in the giant description in ITL.

As for sometimes using axes and swords, unless there's a rule for getting to do more damage with high ST, giants would seem to do better with clubs.

And as for a giant becoming a club expert/master, they pretty much can't since weapon Expertise is an IQ 11 talent and giant max IQ is 10.
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Old 10-12-2018, 06:31 PM   #64
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Misc. Spell questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
Can a ST 4 Halfling do a 1d two handed throw of a club?
RAW, I see no rules against it... 1d, even better than daggers at 1d-1. Trade-off is clubs weigh at least 3 pounds each, so a supply of them starts to be slightly significant for encumbrance with someone at ST 4.




Quote:
Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
BTW: Wait until the victim has acted and summon an illusion of a wolf behind them. The wolf engages the victim in HTH combat which has no disbelieve option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Helborn View Post
Hmmm. The Wolf Illusion can't do anything the turn it is created. And next turn..... who knows.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
Wolf is at +4DX for a taking the victim from the rear so will act before the victim can disbelieve.
Turn 1:
Victim moves away and turns his back to wizard.
Wizard summons wolf.

Turn 2:
Victim can turn around during movement if he wants to be able to respond to the sounds of spellcasting behind him. In TFT, he could even run away at full MA and end movement facing back the way he came, but can only disbelieve (during the action phase) if he moved 1 or less. If he's close enough and depending on terrain and facing, the wolf might or might not have enough MA to initiate HTH even from the rear during movement this turn - the wolf can attempt it from the front unless the victim has as much MA as the wolf somehow (who goes first would be based on adj DX).

So it seems to me it depends on various things. If the victim just runs and faces away long enough for the wolf to get him in HTH, then yeah he will likely get no chance to disbelieve. It really depends on who wins initiative, the map and the victim's adjDX whether he'll get a chance to disbelieve if the victim tries to move one and disbelieve before the wolf gets to try to initiate HTH first (the result of that could give the victim a chance to disbelieve). It may also become vital to know whether you can disbelieve without a line of sight or not.
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Old 11-09-2020, 10:25 PM   #65
TedT
 
Join Date: Aug 2020
Default Re: Misc. Spell questions

"The damage that a club does is based on the user’s ST. Refer to the Combat with Bare Hands, Daggers, Cestus, or Club table (below). The damage shown on that table, plus 3, is the damage a fighter with a club does in regular combat. If the club is used two-handed, as a maul, add 4 instead of 3."

In Death test 1, the Giant, at the end, PP 161 does 3+3 with his club, i.e. the damage of a Battle Axe +3. According to the table, if the damage was based on strength alone (with no weapon skill) the damage should be 1+6. There is your difference. A trained fighter will do the damage according to the weapon table using a club, while an untrained fighter will do damage according to the ST table."

The spell Summon Giant brings an ST 30 giant who does 3d+3 with club. But in the rules for damage with a club where giants are discussed (pg. 122), ST 30 lines up with 1d+6 (one-handed) and 1d+7 (two-handed). Summoned giants wield clubs with extra gusto?
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Old 11-09-2020, 11:21 PM   #66
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Misc. Spell questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by TedT View Post
.. The spell Summon Giant brings an ST 30 giant who does 3d+3 with club. But in the rules for damage with a club where giants are discussed (pg. 122), ST 30 lines up with 1d+6 (one-handed) and 1d+7 (two-handed). Summoned giants wield clubs with extra gusto?
Giants have rules for their club damage in basic Melee, which says they use giant-sized weapons that do 1d+1 per 10 ST, which is what Wizard, Death Test, and the ITL Summon Giant spell show.

The ITL bare hand damage table would apply to a human-sized figure using a human-sized club, IF they had ST 24-30. Notice too that if they had ST 31, they'd do 2d+5, which is closer to 3d+3, And a giant with ST 20 using the Melee-based giant club damage rule would do only 2d+2. so part of the difference is just from the crude low grain of both damage rules.

But it seems to me that a giant's club is rather larger than the "2-handed maul" that supposedly even a ST 4 halfling can use. And 3d+3 seems more "right" to me for a ST 30 giant with a huge club, than 1d+6.
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