Revised edition needs

[larsdangly]

I've just received my hard copies of your collected works (pretty much the whole set), and have just finished the first half of the core book. In general I'm terribly impressed and delighted to see so much love and attention put into reviving this most excellent game system. And, your overall editorial approach is very good - some people may struggle to keep up on a first reading, but the brevity and concision of the thing makes for a much better book overall.

That said, I notice three things that could use attention - one tiny, one medium and one really desperately in need of a re-write:

Tiny: the healing spell uses the abbreviation 'HP' for damage recovered. I haven't noticed any other use of the term hit points, or definition of the HP abbreviation, anywhere else in the book. Perhaps this is a hold over from some earlier draft? If a reader is really ignorant or wants to be obtuse, they could read it several different ways. Better to make it clear that this recovers ST or EN or both (whatever your intention might have been).

Medium: Several of the spell entries contain stat blocks for summoned creatures that are inconsistent with other sections of the book. The summoned gargoyle's ST and MV scores disagree with the beastiary later in the book; the myrmidon's broadsword damage is not consistent with the weapon tables (which, if correct, would imply a 1H damage of 2d+3 for a fighter of this ST score).

Another medium one: you never describe the properties of the unique weapons, so it isn't obvious how nets and lasso's and so forth are supposed to work.

Major: please don't take this too hard, but the weapon tables are simply beyond the pale. I hardly know where to begin and perhaps won't bother reciting all the examples, which I think have been raised in this and other threads. If you sort of blur your eyes you can see the principles at play: you are approximately following the damage scales in Melee/AdvMelee, but reducing the required ST scores by about 2. That is fine; the original damage scale has stood the test of time and I've never heard a single complaint about it. And reducing the ST requirements by 2 is justifiable on 'realism' grounds, works better with the more limited attribute scale in HOW, and partially compensates for the other rules changes that help the defender in a fight (reaction defenses and the improved protective values of heavy armors). So that is all fine. But the execution is beyond understanding - there are many cases where two seemingly similar weapons have substantially different ratios of damage to ST requirement, and quite a few cases that violate the general principle that a +1 in required ST increases the expected value of damage by +1. This all needs to be fixed. For starters, you could just reproduce the AM weapon tables with all the ST requirements lowered by 2 and see how that looks.

A related suggestion, though not really a problem: swords, knives, fencing weapons and pole arms all have something special about them that distinguishes them from other weapons and makes it feel a meaningful choice to use them. The axe/mace/hammer group, in comparison, seems to have nothing special about it except that all the weapons to terrible damage for their ST requirement. In addition to tidying up the overall weapon tables, it might be interesting to have two sorts of special, advantageous properties for these: they are either throwable OR receive the +1 dam per excess +2 ST bonus, and have those be the only weapons that receive that advantage. Or something like that.

[tomas]

I'm new to HOW, but played TFT way back in the day for a few years. One difference that I've noticed and would like see changed is the lack of an IN requirement for skills.

[larsdangly]

O.k.; I've now had a chance to really do through the whole core book. The next several posts will go through my notes, starting with errors, then moving to things I think need clarrificatio, then suggested changes or additions that are not really about mistakes or omissions and more along the lines of brain storming. Off we go...

ERRORS
Halflings in character generation have a minimum ST of 6; Halflings in the Terrors chapter have a typical ST of 4.

Orcs in the Terrors chapter are quite different from (and much weaker than) the orcs found in the adventures.

Summon Gargoyle stats disagree with Terrors chapter (ST, MV and armor)
Summon Spectral Warrior: Damage for broadsword disagrees with weapon table
Summon Giant Spider: IQ and damage disagree with Terrors chapter
Note these three errors are retained in Magi Carta.

The combat example contains an error in the description and stats for the bandit’s shield: ‘small’ shield does not appear on the shield table, and there is no shield that has both a -1 DX penalty and a -1 AR. EDIT: THE SAME ERROR OCCURS FOR THE SCABBERS ON P. 112

Headings: the heading fonts and formatting often violate the general scheme; i.e., one generally organizes headings into 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. levels (chapter, section, bullet point, etc.). Much of HOW core book is poorly organized in this way — things that seem clearly to be a fresh section appear with a heading that suggests it is a ‘bullet point’ in the previous section.

The Grapple rules presented in the Combat chapter violate the principles of opposed rolls. I.e., opposed rolls state that the greatest margin of victory wins; this paragraph states the lowest total roll wins. This could be either a mistake or a conscious design; either way, I suggest it be brought into conformance with the standard opposed roll rule.

There is a skill called ‘axe/club/mace’ and there is a separate skill for quarterstaff. But the weapon tables list staff as a type of ‘club and hammer’, and list axes as a separate category. Re name and organize skills and lists so it is clear what skills provide ability with which weapons. Perhaps staff belongs with the other unique weapons (functionally, that is what it is).

The weapon tables need to be thoroughly revised and perhaps expanded. There may not be an explicit error here, but there are problems none the less. The progression of damage vs. STRQ is often unbalanced (and in fact violates examples in the book and conflicts with stats in some of the other books, such as Redwal). Note also there are some important weapons that don’t even appear (e.g., mounted lance, pike). Rather than tweak things, I would scrap it all and start over, working from a template similar to the Advanced Melee weapon tables. If you want STRQ values to be lower by a point or two that is fine, but it should all hang together more rationally.

[larsdangly]

CLARIFICATIONS
The sizes of combatants and the distinction between front and rear facing for each size category (there is no evidence you intend there to be side facing; this is fine but it should be clarified).

The implications of facing for engagement. I.e., are you engaged by a foe who is adjacent to you but has his back turned to you?

The role of size on engagement. Can you engage a giant? In ancient dragon?

The implications of engagement for the movement phase. I.e., it is stated how engagement limits actions, but not movement. What happens if you become engaged in the middle of a move?

The reactions to injury for large creatures. Are they every knocked down? If so, do they make a ST save? If so, is it on 3 dice? Better might be a rule to the effect that whenever you are hit you have to save or fall, on 1 die per full 3 points of damage (or something like that), but can skip the roll if it would be an automatic success for you.

Present rules that state how you enter an opponent’s hex. Not clear how this meshes with rules for movement and engagement. The best move here might be to simply reproduce Melee’s rules.

What happens when someone attacks with a common item, like a kitchen knife, pitch fork, tree branch, etc.? Do they suffer the 1-die penalty for performing an unskilled attack, or is it assumed that any familiar object like this can be used without penalty. Similarly, what about unarmed attacks? Do they suffer the 1 die penalty if you lack unarmed combat skill?

You never explain how the Unique weapons really work. Is a whip just like any other weapon? Etc. Calls for about a half page or page list explaining what these are and how they work.

[larsdangly]

SUGGESTED CHANGES
The notion that the Berserk action is penalized by neglecting armor and shield protection strikes me as unsatisfactory. Instead, I suggest that a combatant who performs a Berserk action may not perform any defensive actions (including defensive reactions) on that turn.

I believe the 4d roll required to disengage is too high of a hurdle. This should be replaced by the standard Melee rule.

The optional armor STRQ rule is not plausible or ‘game-able’. Consider that the only character that could possibly wear platemail has ST 18 and therefore an adjusted DX of 3. I like the concept, but this seems like a rule that wouldn’t survive play testing. I would remove it and simply add a STRQ column to the armor and shield tables, providing more plausible values covering a more modest range.

Specify that the optional damage bonus for ST in excess of STRQ does not apply for weapons with nominal STRQ values of 1 (or in some other way modify the rule so these don’t become the most dangerous weapon a ST 8 character can carry!).

[larsdangly]

SUGGESTED ADDITIONS
Optional random character generation. Roll 3d6 for each attribute and then receive 2d6-2 skills. This will result in the same average level of ability but significantly greater variance.

Allow pole arms to make a Jab attack (as in Advanced Melee)

Provide a simple starting social status or class (peasant, noble, slave, etc.), with implications for starting wealth and perhaps access to starting skills. It is a simple addition but adds flavor to your characters.

Make it possible to raise attributes through experience expenditures, at a suggested rate of 200x the value of the new score for ST, DX and IQ, and of 100x the value of the new score for EN. I consider these quite balanced rates; note that going from unskilled to complete mastery in a skill takes only 2100 experience points, which is a bit under what this rule would require for raising an attribute from 10 to 11.

Provide impact weapons (axes, maces, etc.) some sort of special ability that distinguishes them, just as swords, fencing weapons and pole arms do. Perhaps a damage bonus related to ST? Perhaps the ability to cleave shields or blow through armor?

Break up the first skill level (+1) into two steps. First you obtain the skill, negating the 1d penalty. Then you gain the +1 bonus. Also, you might solve the ambiguities regarding common weapons and unarmed attacks by specifying that everyone starts with 0 level skill in a couple things like this. Cost of level 0 is half standard cost of level 1; cost of level 1 is same. If you do this, perhaps when a character is created he or she may exchange any +1 for two 0-level skills.

[joshua]

I've made a number of suggestions for house rules on my blog (Tales of the Rambling Bumblers), some of which I think would make good official rules, or at least official optional rules. Things that I didn't cover there are:

I'd like to see EN either as a stat that every creature has (though that's a bunch of work) OR have it be a caster-only stat (like POW in RuneQuest) that doesn't figure into taking damage at all. It's nice for PCs to have that slight survival buffer, but having different rules for PCs vs. NPCs always bugs me a little. Plus it makes it harder to convert from TFT or D&D materials, since if you give things roughly the same survival ability compared to heroes, they end up with enormous ST...but since ST is used for other things like Shield Bash checks, it gets messy. One way to add EN to existing creatures would be to do something like convert ST to ST and EN by splitting ST above 10 between ST and EN: 50/50 for a "typical" creature, 1/3 ST to 2/3 EN for a creature that is tough to kill but not vastly stronger than a man, or uses EN to power special abilities (including spell casters), 2/3 ST to 1/3 EN for creatures that are hard to kill just because they're massive. So a Warg might go from having 36 ST to having 23 ST and 13 EN, while a Frost Giant would be 70 ST and 40 EN, and a 16' Centipede might be ST 17 En 13. Something like that anyway.

I hated IQ requirements for skills in TFT (it worked for game balance to prevent fighters from using IQ as a dump stat, but it made very little sense as a statement of how smart you had to be to learn, say, how to box or be a popular performer), so I wouldn't want to see them creep back in.

I'm all for at least one Reaction per attack your skill allows, as long as you can't use more than one reaction against the same attack. (Of course one of my house rules was to introduce degrees of success, so the availability of reactions didn't necessarily lead to stalemates.)

I'm for returning damage values to be like Melee; those all worked nicely. ST minima should likewise either be reset to Melee's values or the rule for additional damage for higher ST be tossed... or both.

There needs to be a way to increase stats. I suggested one that doesn't lead to the GURPS-style minmaxing problems, but almost anything would help. Not being able to increase how much damage you can take as you get more experienced is another one of those things that makes it so if you want to borrow from other systems you've got your work cut out for you. Ditto for highly experienced Wizards not being able to increase the number or power of their spells. Magi Carta at least gives them a way to cast spells they don't actually know out of books, but is full of spells that are completely impractical to cast (e.g. Long Distance Teleport is an IQ 18 spell that costs 10 EN to cast...) In order to be able to cast the most powerful spells, your Wizard has to have the bare minimum of EN to cast spells with. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's a bit of ugliness that would be easy enough to fix just by letting stats improve, however slowly.

[tomas]

Regarding the proposed rule about only being able to use weapon skill bonus in a parry against the same type od weapon...

Not sure I like the notion. The way I see it, a skilled fighter is trained to use his weapon in defense against all incoming attacks. When you get down to it, a swung axe is coming in like a swung sword and the parry would be the same.

Instead, maybe differentiate between weapon size so that a dagger cannot parry a great axe.

[Deleted]

i'm inclined to agree with tomas.

i'm very late to the party here. my apologies. i have to ask why alternative parry rules were sought? it would seem to me that one's weapon skill would fully transfer into parrying. however, it does seem to me that a parry should not be as effective at stopping damage as a dodge or shield block. here's what i plan to use:

A defender wielding a melee weapon may use to block damage from a striking attack by passing 3/DX. If successful, the attacker uses one less die when rolling for damage.

this also means that lighter weapons have a very decreased chance of stopping all damage from a heavier weapon. no extra die-rolling or math.

i like the chance of a broken weapon for Fencing. i think that should apply to Swords and Pole-arms as well. but it seems like tom-foolery to allow a rapier or saber to be broken by a dagger while parrying. what seems to show promise for me?

on a successful parry, there is a chance that the lighter weapon involved may break.

this could be the defender's weapon or the attacker's weapon. i would make daggers immune to breaking.

[ijateluyayow]

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