Missile Combat in Solo

[dougpeterson]

I am a little uncertain on the missile combat rules for solo. As background, I am relatively new to Tunnels & Trolls so I have only played Buffalo Castle and a few of the free adventures in Trollszine magazines. I'm using the Deluxe rules.

So far there has been no room size mentioned in any of the adventures or distances in corridors (e.g., with Wandering Monsters) to make any assessment around the saving roll for missiles. I have been just assuming "Near, Easy". Are there any appropriate conventions here?

So the character gets off a round with a missile weapon in the first round. Does the monster get to attack this combat round? If so, I assume I would roll for hit points if the missile saving roll had been unsuccessful or use those rolled for a successful hit.

[darrght]

Hi dougpeterson

I'm relaxing just about to watch the first quarter of SuperBowl LV

Your query is a good one. I think you can play it any way you like really. I would normally allow a character to get a missile weapon shot away if they could make a successful L1 SPD SR. If this SR is missed, however, the opponent gets to attack and the character cannot use melee weapons, fists only. If they fumble ('1' & '2' on 2D6), they get caught off guard and cannot retaliate at all that combat turn This gives a PC a chance to soften up their opponent before melee is joined but is balanced by the 'high risk' associated with failing the SR.

As to calculating the DEX SR required 'to hit' I usually assume the size of the target based on the figures from the Deluxe Rules for monster sizes and the range as 'Point Blank' or 'Near' depending on the text in the solo.

Particularly for new characters, this seems to balance the deadliness of combat scenarios so that they have a slightly better chance of surviving. T&T solos are extremely deadly anyway, so the risk of failing the SPD roll is probably no worse than any other SR you're likely to come up against

[zanshin]

In dT&T the damage factors even on a miss with a missile weapon. I would probably rule that if you hit with a missile weapon all the damage gets applied to one creature only, and the total counts for defensive purposes regardless.

However if you don't have anyone protecting in the front row you I would say that a SPD SR = enemy MR/40 (a modest adjustment of darrght's proposal) would be needed to get off a shot in the first round (unless the description made it clear you had longer), and that SR should increase by 1 for each round of melee combat as it becomes more difficult to weave and dodge.

T&T is very flexible and there is no one right way to skin a cat.

If it was a loaded crossbow that you could use in one hand, I wouldn't require a speed SR for the first shot