Post originally by MattW at 2004-07-29 08:45:50
Converted from Phorums BB System

OK.

First of all, the target number and the number of dice you roll both matter. Now, even if TN matters "more," i.e., affects the number of successes you get more sharply, that hardly means dice are irrelevant. Especially since it should be difficult to lower your TN's, more difficult than raising proficiencies... I conceded the point about fine weapons elsewhere; it sounds like a bug which will definitely be fixed in 2E. (I mean, fine quarterstaves? WTF, mate?)

>> HOWEVER, if you can attack first, you can prevent the opponent from attacking back....and since you wouldn't have been able to defense anyway (because your total number of successes wouldn't change), it makes more sense to attack. This is completely counter-intuitive, I agree, but that is what the statistics tell us. <<

Now, this just isn't true. I know this from just some simple mock duels. Attacking first is simply not tantamount to winning. You can only prevent the other person from attacking back *if you hit*, which is easily avoidable. (I mean, even if you spend enough dice to really worry the person who threw white, he can always full evade and reset the fight.) If you take into account the effect of maneuvers like Counter and Defensive Grapple, it hardly seems a foregone conclusion that attacking first makes you win automatically on the first exchange. I just don't understand what you mean by "you wouldn't have been able to defense anyway." If both sides have equal TNs, the defender just needs to spend a few more dice, right? He'll defend successfully, and take initiative. Assuming equal dice pools, the person who attacked first (who is now the defender in the second exchange) will have more dice, true, but there are ways around this, like Bind & Strike.

Now, certainly I will concede that if you have two *identical* opponents, it's a crapshoot who wins, which one eventually gets that lucky shot. But this is true in every system (assuming both players know the system equally well). However, truly identical opponents in every respect are an absurdity.

There is one other thing I want to address:

>> Now in TROS, the only real defense against this is to "steal" the initiative. *Unfortunately, if you take an aggressive stance, you get two free dice to your pool...these dice can be held "in reserve" to steal back initiative and thus voids the only possible counter-strategy (unless the opponent puts so many dice into stealing init that he won't make an effective attack anyway...and that's where the naked dwarf syndrome rears it's ugly head). <<

I think you're not taking into account the maneuvers people can always perform whose TNs are static and independent of weapons. I'm talking about the three types of Dodges, which in my (admittedly limited, but not nonexistent) experience make a *huge* difference.

Or, if you're defending, why not perform a Counter? If he has held his bonus dice from his stance in reserve, you can use your bonus dice for defense from *your* stance to activate the maneuver, spend more dice than are incoming, so as to get more successes, and kick the other guy's butt on the second exchange. (He can't use his bonus dice for defense!)

The other thing is, if shields are common, their DTNs are either 5 or 6, which are quite good, and better than or equal to the ATNs of most weapons. Even if the DTN of the shield only *equals* the ATN of the incoming attack, that's still good, because shields also allow things like Simultaneous Block/Strike...

Matt