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Old 01-28-2020, 10:14 AM   #41
hcobb
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

To have a reasonable chance against the branded light crossbow bolts (which have no historical counterpart) with non-magical protections you really need to layer Shield Expertise on top of Fine Plate. (Also non-historical, outside of jousting.)
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Old 01-28-2020, 10:39 AM   #42
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

I would add it isn't clear there is a Fantasy Trip precedent for 'branded crossbow bolts'. My reading of the relevant rules doesn't support this idea.

But it is true that there are several attacks in the game (heavy crossbow, arquebus, charging pike axe, battle axe, great sword, charging lance) that can only be mostly deflected most of the time by someone in fine plate with some sort of additional 'add ons' like Toughness talent an/or a small shield (preferably with shield expertise). You can get to 8 with no shield, and that is pretty good against the average result from most of these (and makes you functionally 'bullet proof' against spears, draw-bow arrows and other light hand weapons). I find that to be pretty close to historical uses and benefits of late-medieval plate armors.
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Old 02-12-2020, 09:54 PM   #43
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

If I had a dollar for every mention of a "branded" weapon....

I'm thinking this fantasy wouldn't be allowed in most campaigns, so why discuss it as a viable strategy?

Now...that Armor Talent for high Dex/strength is potentially a huge game changer.

I can recall where that one character with fine plate, sword & board was just simply ALWAYS the last man standing, as even 2d6 weapons were of little threat. Even surviving the occasional critical hit (which most dont)

He was always just trying to slip by in the round and not get the -2 DX from enemy strikes, if he could shake off the round without a DX penalty he was gonna put the hurt on em next round, absorbing 8 hits from every strike changes the game, I can't imagine how deadly he would have been with even less armor penalties!

that also opens the door for...enchanted armor on top of that, to get really crazy, there are Rich characters.

Now...all that said. I am a fan of high strength modifiers of Original TFT, I would like to see something similar in the current rules, maybe on scale with the Toughness talent, but for sheer raw strength? Also, i'm not a fan of attribute capping, I'd like to see Strength go higher.
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Old 02-13-2020, 10:33 AM   #44
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

I would recommend against any additional talents that let you effectively trade 500 XP for 1 point of DX; there are a couple of them already on the books (e.g., Missile Weapons) so you might imagine it couldn't hurt to add a couple more, but Melee is a game where small advantages have big consequences so it is easy to engineer something that effectively makes only one 'build' the obviously best choice for combatants. I play with house rules but try to steer away from anything that is functionally necessary for all characters who are supposed to be competitive in combat.

One thing I would advocate is a reduction in armor penalties based on ST, sort of like the old version of 'advantages of great strength', but re-cast to respond to the reduced range of character stat totals.
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Old 02-13-2020, 10:44 AM   #45
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

Reducing armor DX penalties by one, at least for characters with toughness, would help to reduce some of the balance issues.

Combine with enchantments can't provide more protection than the underlying material. So a +2 Small Shield stops two hits total for an average user, but four hits for a figure with Shield Expertise.

Finally Stone (etc.) Flesh enchantments cost 1 ST/minute and double armor DX penalties when active.
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Old 02-13-2020, 11:11 AM   #46
Skarg
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

I would prefer to have characters be able to get some Armor Familiarity talents to decrease DX penalty in armor, as opposed to seeing them put lots and lots of points into DX. And/or to have a talent that can increase melee weapon adjDX. Because I would prefer to have very experienced characters be better and better in combat (and be able to fight effectively in heavy armor) without requiring them to have super duper DX for all purposes.

Also for authenticity purposes, I don't think heavy armor really reduces DX for all purposes as much as its effect in TFT, and I don't think that everyone who can fight effectively in heavy armor, would also be super-agile out of armor. Same for melee weapons - I think people can get very good at hitting people, without also becoming super-agile.

Also with the Legacy XP table limiting total attributes to 40-42 points (without Wish cheese), it starts to cramp the possible characters, especially if they're going to lose 3-7 points of adjDX to armor.

Such talents could be tweaked so they are not necessarily +1 for 500 XP, to get the desired balance.

I would probably want such talents to be set up so beginning characters can't (or are just not allowed to) get them, or else the classic TFT character designs will be thrown off, unless using a heavy set of house rules where that was going out the window anyway.
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Old 03-06-2020, 01:31 PM   #47
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

Show me the starting character in Chain or higher who beats this:

ST 9, DX 12, IQ 11, MA 14
Very fine Javelin(1d+1+1), Small Shield(1+1)
Elvish(Native), Pole Weapons, Running, Shield, Shield Expertise, Weapon Expertise-Pole Weapons.

Anybody who charges this character with a sword gets a standing pole weapon defense, followed by a disengage the next turn and repeat.
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Old 03-06-2020, 01:59 PM   #48
Skarg
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

The reason that "starting character" looks strong is because of the stacked Expert talents, not because of the lack of armor.
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Old 03-06-2020, 09:32 PM   #49
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

ST 10 DX 14 IQ 8
Saber
Fine plate
small shield

7 pts of armor stops most or all of most attacks (even the charging javelin), with a 50:50 chance of hitting each turn, doing an average of 5 pts of damage. That has an ok chance of getting the job done pretty quickly.
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Old 03-06-2020, 11:18 PM   #50
Skarg
 
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Default Re: No Love For Armour?

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
ST 10 DX 14 IQ 8
Saber
Fine plate
small shield

7 pts of armor stops most or all of most attacks (even the charging javelin), with a 50:50 chance of hitting each turn, doing an average of 5 pts of damage. That has an ok chance of getting the job done pretty quickly.
Not bad, though the cost of Fire Plate isn't affordable by a starting character using standard $1000 starting wealth, and the double Expert talents would reduce your adjDX to 8.
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