Saturday, March 12, 2016
Deep thinking on T&T going on
After my last few posts, I started to wonder why things were like they were in the rules for T&T and initiated conversations with the creators of the game. There are some quite interesting stories and facts coming out in this conversations, but I'm going to let those run their course before posting. But, just so you know. More posts are coming on the topic.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Mix and match T&T rules - Rules for gear
Finally, after dissecting multiple editions of the game, I get so mix and match up the rules for the perfect experience. According to me. I would agree with critics who claim the game is taking too long with big dice pools, and I have my own issue with the lack of money sinks. I think these can successfully be handled, together.
Less dice - faster combats
For me, two things should be done to the game as written in the latest edition. My first suggestion would be to scale back the number for dice for all weapons. The older editions had smaller numbers and I see nothing to be gained by bigger numbers on both armour and weapons. One big benefit of this would be a game that runs faster. It's not hard to add at max 6 to 6 and so on, but every little step counts. Worth noting for those who like big pools of dice is a trick I learned Hero and D6 system players using, is to block the dice up in sums of ten, i.e. sort out those 5 + 5 and 6 + 4 matches and then you can quickly count those groups times 10. Supposedly it speed things up a bit. I'd just use less dice.
Ablative armour - money sink and more tactical combat
In my games I've found that after a short while, everyone have gotten the best armour they can buy. This is very similar to how D&D works in older editions. Check the price list in the B/X edition and you'll see what I mean. In D&D there's the possibility to save money to build that hold of yours at 9th level, but in T&T the only thing you have to pour money into is spells. The other option is to have a very developed system with an open market of magic items in general, but since that would make them feel less magical I don't like that option.
The solution would be to go back to ablative armour. If you take a hit, the armour absorbs the damage and gets reduced at the same time. An interesting option would be to take a page from dT&T and allow a LK roll to see if the armour holds up. But, in line with my first point, I'd limit that to a special occasion. Allow a LK roll to see if the armour absorbs all damage a round, and then it's wasted. For good.
This relates somewhat to character abilities, like Warriors and armour. That's the topic for the next post...
Less dice - faster combats
For me, two things should be done to the game as written in the latest edition. My first suggestion would be to scale back the number for dice for all weapons. The older editions had smaller numbers and I see nothing to be gained by bigger numbers on both armour and weapons. One big benefit of this would be a game that runs faster. It's not hard to add at max 6 to 6 and so on, but every little step counts. Worth noting for those who like big pools of dice is a trick I learned Hero and D6 system players using, is to block the dice up in sums of ten, i.e. sort out those 5 + 5 and 6 + 4 matches and then you can quickly count those groups times 10. Supposedly it speed things up a bit. I'd just use less dice.
Ablative armour - money sink and more tactical combat
In my games I've found that after a short while, everyone have gotten the best armour they can buy. This is very similar to how D&D works in older editions. Check the price list in the B/X edition and you'll see what I mean. In D&D there's the possibility to save money to build that hold of yours at 9th level, but in T&T the only thing you have to pour money into is spells. The other option is to have a very developed system with an open market of magic items in general, but since that would make them feel less magical I don't like that option.
The solution would be to go back to ablative armour. If you take a hit, the armour absorbs the damage and gets reduced at the same time. An interesting option would be to take a page from dT&T and allow a LK roll to see if the armour holds up. But, in line with my first point, I'd limit that to a special occasion. Allow a LK roll to see if the armour absorbs all damage a round, and then it's wasted. For good.
This relates somewhat to character abilities, like Warriors and armour. That's the topic for the next post...
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Combat capabilities through T&T editions
The next part of my walk through of T&T editions will be a closer look at some miscellaneous rules that pertain to combat, and that might exacerbate or alleviate some of the issues you might have.
Having talked about the hardware, it's time to look at how the classes/types work in combat. In T&T you have those wielding swords, and those wielding magic. There is the middle ground, the rogue wizard, but I will leave it out of the discussion as there's nothing new for that type of character. But, it's worth noting how opposition works, because the monster have their own rules.
Warriors
Let's start with the Warriors. In the first two editions, the only thing a Warrior got was their adds from high stats. Then from the T&T Supplement and on to the latest edition, they get the ability to use their armour extra effectively. So, twice the value for absorbing hits. This kind of coincides with the first serious bump in dice for weapons. From the unofficial 6th unto the latest edition Warriors have also gotten a boost by adding extra damage. I think the +1/lvl kind of makes sense as the armour suddenly absorbs more from 5th ed on, but 1d extra damage per level as in 8th ed just sounds ill thought out. They mention in a side bar it was questioned in play testing. That should have told the game developers this was a bad idea.
Wizards
The magic wielding class have been very uniform through the editions. All first level spells have been available for all wizards, and apart from the 7th ed era where they needed to make a Saving Roll to cast, they have been able to lob spells freely, paying for then by WIZ or STR points. From 5th ed they have been upgraded combat wise with the ability to not only use 1d weapon, but 2d weapons. Then they also got the ability to use adds from high stats, which they were forbidden before. Interestingly, before that switch they had the benefit of being assigned hits last.
Monsters
How about the opposition then? Monsters can be stated out like characters, or they can use the more basic method of just having a Monster Rating. The basic idea is the MR gives the dice rolled, and the adds you add to that in combat. From 5th ed on you use the same amount of adds for each combat round, and before that the monsters used to loose steam as the fight progressed, loosing dice and adds. Interestingly enough, before 5th ed. the rules stated that monsters thrived in darkness and got double their rating in darkness! As sometimes is the case, the British edition adds in a line about rolling the dice off MR to generate the amount of hits a monster can take. Feels a bit odd if you already have the MR, right?
So what does this all mean?
I think we can see how the power of the classes have increased in lockstep with the die ratings for weapons and armor. There are some quirks on top of this, like the Wizards being last to take a hit, that I had either not noticed or just plain forgot. There was one quite interesting note in the editions before the 5th about monsters on deeper levels. I guess they game expanded out beyond the dungeon. But, that suggestion was to multiply the dice the monster rolled by the level to make it easier on the GM when rolling many dice. It seems like the rules writer and developer somehow changed their minds about big dice pools being a hassle.
It's not very far fetched to think that if you feel the present edition is cumbersome, just roll scale back all the numbers! In my next post I will consider that, and some other options.
Having talked about the hardware, it's time to look at how the classes/types work in combat. In T&T you have those wielding swords, and those wielding magic. There is the middle ground, the rogue wizard, but I will leave it out of the discussion as there's nothing new for that type of character. But, it's worth noting how opposition works, because the monster have their own rules.
Warriors
Let's start with the Warriors. In the first two editions, the only thing a Warrior got was their adds from high stats. Then from the T&T Supplement and on to the latest edition, they get the ability to use their armour extra effectively. So, twice the value for absorbing hits. This kind of coincides with the first serious bump in dice for weapons. From the unofficial 6th unto the latest edition Warriors have also gotten a boost by adding extra damage. I think the +1/lvl kind of makes sense as the armour suddenly absorbs more from 5th ed on, but 1d extra damage per level as in 8th ed just sounds ill thought out. They mention in a side bar it was questioned in play testing. That should have told the game developers this was a bad idea.
Wizards
The magic wielding class have been very uniform through the editions. All first level spells have been available for all wizards, and apart from the 7th ed era where they needed to make a Saving Roll to cast, they have been able to lob spells freely, paying for then by WIZ or STR points. From 5th ed they have been upgraded combat wise with the ability to not only use 1d weapon, but 2d weapons. Then they also got the ability to use adds from high stats, which they were forbidden before. Interestingly, before that switch they had the benefit of being assigned hits last.
Monsters
How about the opposition then? Monsters can be stated out like characters, or they can use the more basic method of just having a Monster Rating. The basic idea is the MR gives the dice rolled, and the adds you add to that in combat. From 5th ed on you use the same amount of adds for each combat round, and before that the monsters used to loose steam as the fight progressed, loosing dice and adds. Interestingly enough, before 5th ed. the rules stated that monsters thrived in darkness and got double their rating in darkness! As sometimes is the case, the British edition adds in a line about rolling the dice off MR to generate the amount of hits a monster can take. Feels a bit odd if you already have the MR, right?
So what does this all mean?
I think we can see how the power of the classes have increased in lockstep with the die ratings for weapons and armor. There are some quirks on top of this, like the Wizards being last to take a hit, that I had either not noticed or just plain forgot. There was one quite interesting note in the editions before the 5th about monsters on deeper levels. I guess they game expanded out beyond the dungeon. But, that suggestion was to multiply the dice the monster rolled by the level to make it easier on the GM when rolling many dice. It seems like the rules writer and developer somehow changed their minds about big dice pools being a hassle.
It's not very far fetched to think that if you feel the present edition is cumbersome, just roll scale back all the numbers! In my next post I will consider that, and some other options.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
A bucket full of dice - how the dice have changed in T&T through the ages
Like I wrote in my last post, it seems the biggest issue people are having with dT&T who have come to the game cold, are the dice pools. Since the basic combat mechanic is you roll all dice on one side of the conflict, add it up and subtract from the sum of the other side, you will roll a lot of dice. There ways to either roll fewer, or to sum them up, but I'm going to focus on the historical perspective.
So, was the game always like this? Let's take out the old books. I have in my possession the 1st ed reprint, the 2nd ed, the British 1st ed (1st ed with The T&T supplement included), 5th ed, 7th ed, the revised 7th ed and now dT&T.
Let's take a look at how some of the weapons have looked like through the ages.
Greatsword
Bastard sword
Great axe
Can you also see a trend here? I could take more examples, but I think the point I'm trying to make is clear. The game has become more unwieldy because of dice inflation.
It kind of reminds me of how D&D grew out of proportions in 4th ed. where the hit points of both player characters and monsters were in the hundreds! The game wont feel more epic if all numbers are raised, it will only take longer to play. I think WotC proved that for all of us who played that edition of D&D. But, wait! Did T&T raise all numbers? Let's look at some armor.
Plate
Scale
Even though the Plate armor is not increasing all the way, we see the trend here as well. The fact is, the situation is more complex than it seems. In the earliest editions, armor was ablative! That 18 points of damage reduction you get in 7th ed is even better than the 10->18 step looks like!
So, the damage dealt have increased, and the damage absorbed by armor have increased. You could try to figure out the relation between those, but I will just state that in that increase you have also increased another thing. The time it takes to resolve a combat.
In my next post I will take a look at some other rules that have changed during the years, and in the final post I will serve up my take on how I would use the rules in my game.
So, was the game always like this? Let's take out the old books. I have in my possession the 1st ed reprint, the 2nd ed, the British 1st ed (1st ed with The T&T supplement included), 5th ed, 7th ed, the revised 7th ed and now dT&T.
Let's take a look at how some of the weapons have looked like through the ages.
Greatsword
| 1st | 2nd | 1st British | 5th | 7th | 8th |
| 3d+3 | 3d+3 | 3d+3 | 6 | 6 | 7 |
| 1st | 2nd | 1st British | 5th | 7th | 8th |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 1st | 2nd | 1st British | 5th | 7th | 8th |
| 4d+3 | 4d+3 | 4d+3 | 5d+3 | 5d+3 | 7 |
Can you also see a trend here? I could take more examples, but I think the point I'm trying to make is clear. The game has become more unwieldy because of dice inflation.
It kind of reminds me of how D&D grew out of proportions in 4th ed. where the hit points of both player characters and monsters were in the hundreds! The game wont feel more epic if all numbers are raised, it will only take longer to play. I think WotC proved that for all of us who played that edition of D&D. But, wait! Did T&T raise all numbers? Let's look at some armor.
Plate
| 1st | 2nd | 1st British | 5th | 7th | 8th |
| 10 | 10 | 10 | 14 | 18 | 16 |
| 1st | 2nd | 1st British | 5th | 7th | 8th |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 10 |
Even though the Plate armor is not increasing all the way, we see the trend here as well. The fact is, the situation is more complex than it seems. In the earliest editions, armor was ablative! That 18 points of damage reduction you get in 7th ed is even better than the 10->18 step looks like!
So, the damage dealt have increased, and the damage absorbed by armor have increased. You could try to figure out the relation between those, but I will just state that in that increase you have also increased another thing. The time it takes to resolve a combat.
In my next post I will take a look at some other rules that have changed during the years, and in the final post I will serve up my take on how I would use the rules in my game.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
