Gedanken 1: Scenario 1, Conclusions |
Calenril_i
Subject: Gedanken: Scenario 1, conclusions
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 13:46:08 PDT
Scenario 1 notes:
-Ryone could have used both daggers for 4 dice in attack.
-Nitro has been holding back. He could use both clubs at once, adding three dice to his attack.
-After casting his spell, Ryone's strength was down to 5 points in 5th edition. Under 5th ed. rules, this lowered his combat adds by 4, decreased his normal rate of travel (see section 2.36), and left him with only enough strength to use his 2d6+0 poniard. Under 6th ed., he could have kept fighting at full strength.
-As a group, the warriors contributed the most to the first battle, but Ryone's special action made the biggest individual difference. If he had not made his first SR, it could have been very different.
-If Paddy had hit any of the monsters, he might have been the hero.
-Monster adds are normally 1/2 their MR. I chose to round their adds down when the MR was an odd number.
-The 6th-edition warrior bonus made very little difference for these first-level characters, increasing party combat adds by just 4. However, when combined with my decision to round down monster adds, it made a dramatic difference in the time it took the team to dispatch the gridbugs. At the beginning of the 3rd round of combat, the team under 5th edition rules was beating the gridbugs by just a couple of points, but under 6th ed. rules they were winning by over 10 points. Either way, it was clear that the team was winning and that the gridbugs couldn't defeat their armor.
-Balance between combat damage and armor was mostly the players' choice. Choosing better armor meant spending less on weapons. We have a party here with armor that can defend it against monsters that it cannot defeat.
-Note the experience points. Ryone got 5 for that spell—a boon to wizards—but he got over 70 for his special move.Conclusions:
-At this level, special actions and saving rolls make more of a difference than rule changes, both in experience points and combat.
-The warrior bonus in 6th ed. slightly decreases the armor/damage gap at 1st level and could eliminate it at higher levels.
-The Mystic attribute made Ryone as effective in combat as the warriors, since he could cast spells without losing the strength for combat. Under 5th ed., he became much less useful in combat after casting his spell.
-On the whole, it seems that at this stage the 6th ed. give a notable advantage to wizards. It remains to see how this will play out at higher levels.
Final comments:
-Without a rogue in the party, we have no way of checking to see how the rules apply to the rogue class. Any volunteers?
-Yes, we will play this Gedanken at higher character levels, but it won't take us months of play to get there.At this point, I invite the players to add their own comments on Scenario 1. Non-player comments are welcome but will not be archived.
Subject: Re: Gedanken: Scenario 2, @node 3
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 05:39:15 PDT
[1st part of post is here.]
[[OOC]] Comments for Scenario 1: What can I say? Paddy's congenital bad luck strikes again! The only hope for such characters (and especially this wee cobbler) is to *bootstrap* their experience with powerful allies as he's done, albeit through no merit of his own.
It would seem a viable option at this point to hold the presumably defensible gazebo and wait for sundown. We have no evidence to support any fear of the scenery changing without us cavorting willy-nilly through each blue door we find. On the other hand, how interesting an adventure would that be? Perhaps Paddy has the "danger gene" alongside his Unluck of the Irish. Surely a recipie for disaster.
Onto other subjects: How long would it take for Ryone to teach Paddy a spell? Am I correct in inferring from past OOC posts that this is a magical process? Any spell that Paddy learns would have to come with a cost of no more than 4 Strength. Casting such spells through his mage's staff would ensure that he doesn't commit suicide by exhausting his Strength.
The topic of introducing skills into T&T has resurfaced here, with input and support by none other than Ken St. Andre himself. As much a fan as I am of Ken and T&T, I am skeptical of the value of such a system in this RPG, with its streamlined rules and quick character generation, even though I very much appreciated the use of skills in the CRPG Wasteland, on which Ken worked, and which pairs T&T mechanics with skills.
As calenril_i has demonstrated, judicious use by the GM of the seven 5e stats for saving rolls at applicable levels is perhaps as flexible, robust and simple a system as possible. One will never be able to enumerate the countless skills that could be used over the course of an adventure (not even GURPS can claim to do this). Perhaps inevitably, the GM would still need to resort to a saving roll vs. Luck at some point. So why bother with skills?
Eickeric
Subject: Gedanken 2 and comments
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 03:09:33 PDT
>[OOC]: I have often wondered why a wizard would be able to use a sax and not a shortsword or foil. Saxes do a minimum of 7 damage, an average of 12, and a max of 17. Now shortswords do a minimum of 3 damage, an average of 11, and a max of 18. Give me a sax over a shortsword any day.
In addition to the fine reasons given by Calenril and Mistwalker, there's other things to consider.
Wizards have spells. Toss a vorpal blade, whammy, or zappathingum spell onto a short sword, and it becomes better than a similarly enchanted sax.
I suspect things like this were part of the reason the 2 die limit was imposed.>Calenril: Scenario 1 notes:
-Nitro has been holding back. He could use both clubs at once, adding three dice to his attack.
So realized, but it's not a case of holding back just for the sake of holding back.
Nitro is an inexperienced fighter going up against complete unknowns. As such, he'd rather have the protection of his buckler than an additional club attack. To him, the extra 6 (or 3) points of protection seem like a better move than using 2 clubs.
(Yes, mathematically, we're better off with the club. PCs don't always do the best mathematical choice though.)
Yes, he did buy the extra club, and may switch over to it if things get really desperate. For now though, it's 1 club and 1 buckler.
-As a group, the warriors contributed the most to the first battle,
Nitro is pleased.
-If Paddy had hit any of the monsters, he might have been the hero.
At least until he became a goat for losing the token.
>-Monster adds are normally 1/2 their MR. I chose to round their adds down when the MR was an odd number.
Very kind of you. I round up for MR.
>-Either way, it was clear that the team was winning and that the gridbugs couldn't defeat their armor.
Nitro is still keeping the buckler handy.
[remainder edited]
Eickeric
Subject: Gedanken comments continued
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 03:11:15 PDT
I'll have to get to that.
I'm not especially worried about them until it seems like I might have enough to start considering them.
>Ryone got 5 for that spell—a boon to wizardsó
Yet ANOTHER example of the game's favoritism towards the wizard class.
>Conclusions:
-At this level, special actions and saving rolls make more of a difference than rule changes, both in experience points and combat.Okay.
>-The warrior bonus in 6th ed. slightly decreases the armor/damage gap at 1st level and could eliminate it at higher levels.
Okay.
I'd still much rather have the armor bonus than the hit bonus. You'd have to be an obscene level to eliminate the gap of someone who has plate mail and a larger shield, and while anyone can do adds of damage, the `double armor bonus' is unique to warriors. Eliminating it lessens their uniqueness, and why should I care that I can do +10 points of damage at 10th level, when a wizard will do a MINIMUM of 90 points of damage with a TTYF spell of HALF that level?
>-The Mystic attribute made Ryone as effective in combat as the warriors, since he could cast spells without losing the strength for combat.
Yep, definitely an edge for wizards there. Bloody Romans.
>-On the whole, it seems that at this stage the 6th ed. give a notable advantage to wizards.
Nitro hates 6th edition.
>It remains to see how this will play out at higher levels.
I don't expect to see the advantage pass from wizard to warrior in either system, at either level.
>Final comments:
-Without a rogue in the party, we have no way of checking to see how the rules apply to the rogue class. Any volunteers?Öchirp chirp chirpÖ
>At this point, I invite the players to add their own comments on scenario 1.
Not really too much else to say- we're low level, and haven't got as many options available to us, but did what we could.
The scenario itself was pretty straightforward- not a lot to say there, especially until we know more about how it all works and was put together.Interesting use of the special move by Ryone- I'd like to know how/why you judged the effects to work as they did, and what the results would have been on a failure. (You hinted, but didn't say.) Of course this is outside of the 5th-6th edition comparison, so it really doesn't matter. It's more of a GM comparison.
>Non-player comments are welcome but will not be archived.
While this stupid quip of mine shall be immortalized.
Eat yer hearts out, non-players.[Edited]
>Jax: Comments for Scenario 1: What can I say? Paddy's congenital bad luck strikes again! The only hope for such characters (and especially this wee cobbler) is to *bootstrap* their experience with powerful allies as he's done, albeit through no merit of his own.
I would question the `powerful allies' assessment, but the rest seems accurate.
>Perhaps Paddy has the "danger gene" alongside his Unluck of the Irish. Surely a recipie for disaster.
Ever hear the song `Luck of the Irish'?
Shonen Knife does a great version of it.
>Onto other subjects: ... introducing skills into T&T ... I am skeptical of the value of such a system in this RPG, with its streamlined rules and quick character generation... As calenril_i has demonstrated, judicious use by the GM of the seven 5e stats for saving rolls at applicable levels is perhaps as flexible, robust and simple a system as possible.
... So why bother witEickeric [huh?—ed.]