Making combat less lethal.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Anthony

By the time you're engaged in something that can reasonably be called a combat encounter, retreat is often not an available option. Successfully running away from a close combat engagement is not easy (either in reality or TFT).

Exception that proves the point: if your side outnumbers the opponents, it might well be easier to retreat because you have friends to tie up and engage all the opponents. But then under most circumstances one doesn't usually feel the need to retreat when they are on the bigger side.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Exception that proves the point: if your side outnumbers the opponents, it might well be easier to retreat because you have friends to tie up and engage all the opponents. But then under most circumstances one doesn't usually feel the need to retreat when they are on the bigger side.

Even if you're on the smaller side, abandoning your allies to die while you run away can work for some fraction of the weaker force, but it's... problematic in an RPG.

[Axly Suregrip]

Regarding lethal vs non-lethal damage: this is true but not for the granularity of TFT. Most RPG systems use points instead of lethal vs non-lethal. Furthermore, this is disabling vs non-disabling. There are many examples from history of combat and accidents of: a person sustaining a lethal injury but continuing/fighting on; or a person sustaining a non-lethal injury that knocks out or disables a limb.

I say someone is dead and unrecoverable once they sustain damage equal to 2x their ST. So, a ST 10 person that takes 20, goes to -10 ST may not be recovered through healing potions, etc. Zero is unconscious. -1 to -(ST-1) is unconscious and dying.

Fatigue that takes a character goes beyond zero: I allow rest for every 15 minutes until conscious, as well as other aid, until they are covered unless after an hour they are still negative ST. Exhaustion can kill. Thus without any other aid, if ST goes to -4 by fatigue, recovery will occur in an hour by returning to ST 0. Such rest is automatic for an unconscious person despite whatever is going on around them. If someones ST goes to -5 by fatigue, they will need outside help or they will perish.

[Axly Suregrip]

Regarding retreat:

I think Retreat is a real & necessary part of combat. Encountering a great foe should be a regular and normal part of any adventure. Players need to have various decisions to make:
1) is it/are they too strong?
2) can we over come this in combat thru ...?
3) if not, can we avoid combat through negotiations/hiding/etc ?
4) can we run and how?

There are some spells that are mostly lackluster in combat but helpful for escape. Here are the spells that are helpful in escaping (some are still good in combat):

- Slow Movement
- Speed Movement (for self or the friend in Chainmail)
- Create Wall (specially the multihex versions)
- Sticky Floor & Slippery Floor
- Stop & Trip
- Avert (to get disengagement)
- Freeze & Sleep
- Rope
- Darkness
- Lock/Knock (Lock the door)
- Control spells, Illusions, Summoned creatures & Staff to Snake (to engage & hold foes while others run)
- Invisibility
- Trailtwister
- Flight


A fun wizard to try is one that strict learns spells to escape. Make him/her a coward and the GM should award extra XP every time they successfully escape a fight. :-)

[Axly Suregrip]

Another thought on lethality.

Self preservation should be a motivation of most creatures. When they take too much damage they should be looking to disengage and run. This may be true even if they are winning. That is, a dragon that slays your whole party but is down to 3 ST is likely to die in its next encounter. Creatures, unless starving or mindless, should definitely be looking to run if taking half ST in damage. Most creatures do not have the benefits of physickers and healing potions.

That said, slow creatures without the benefit of magic will have to die fighting or hope for a gracious foe or hope to leave some of their party behind as a sacrifice to escape.

[hcobb]

Just plan out your Escape Rogue
https://www.hcobb.com/tft/Job_Role/Escape_Rogue.html

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Another thought on lethality.

Self preservation should be a motivation of most creatures. When they take too much damage they should be looking to disengage and run.

This runs into the same problem as the PCs running: a lot of creatures lack a convenient capability to run away. A monster that's winning is probably much safer taking the additional injury and killing the PCs than retreating -- though if the PCs flee it may well not follow.

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by Anthony

This runs into the same problem as the PCs running: a lot of creatures lack a convenient capability to run away. A monster that's winning is probably much safer taking the additional injury and killing the PCs than retreating -- though if the PCs flee it may well not follow.

True, still better that some of the wolves escape, leaving their brothers to be slain, than all of them die.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Regarding lethal vs non-lethal damage: this is true but not for the granularity of TFT.

I have to disagree this is any "grainier" than we have now. We currently have to tally hits two different ways already, one column for wounds and a second column for fatigue. In that earlier proposal I made, we'd still have only two columns, with the one for "Fatigue" renamed "Non-Lethal", and a few forms of damage moved to be tallied there instead of under the first column. That's not any more complicated or messier than what we already do.

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Furthermore, this is disabling vs non-disabling. There are many examples from history of combat and accidents of: a person sustaining a lethal injury but continuing/fighting on; or a person sustaining a non-lethal injury that knocks out or disables a limb. [emphasis mine]

Precisely why in my proposal the Non-Lethal hits (of which there'd be more now because they now include more things than fatigue) count towards unconsciousness, but do not count towards death. It's really difficult under the RAW to disable a figure without killing them, which is mitigated if fewer hits count towards death while more hits count towards unconsciousness (disabled but not dead). Yeah, the easiest out here would be to just house rule fatigue can't kill you (as some have proposed), but that would narrowly only help wizards, which just doesn't seem to be enough.

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

I say someone is dead and unrecoverable once they sustain damage equal to 2x their ST. So, a ST 10 person that takes 20, goes to -10 ST may not be recovered...

Oh that works fine too, I'm just a lazy klutz who doesn't want to have to remember another cut-off point and do the simplest multiplication - LOL! So I still favor death at the point wounds equals ST, without counting as many things as lethal wounds. Either way, the goal is to have a wider buffer zone, and there's different good ways to do it.

[Steve Plambeck]

One of the old micro-quests (Silver Dragon maybe?) had simple morale rules for NPCs that would trigger them to retreat. I can't remember what they were but I remember liking them very much at the time.