Tunnels and Trolls: 7.5 versus 8.0 Warriors

Ah, warriors, the backbone of any good Tunnels and Trolls party and the heavy-hitters when it comes to dice and combat adds thrown into the turn's hit point total. Let's take two min-maxed warroirs from version 7.5 and 8 and put them beside each other.

But before we do that, we need a strategy for spending AP and determining priority on spending adventure points. I shall make the following assumptions for my test characters:

• STR and CON will equal each other and be set to a tens level
• DEX will be set to 80% of STR and CON
• SPD and LK will be set to 60% of STR and CON
• IQ will be 40% of STR and CON
• WIZ will be set to 10
• No ability score will go below 10

That is sort of how I may build my generic fighter when I play, so let's look at a sample 7.5 or 8.0 warrior at level 5:

Finnegan and Grimly (level 5)
STR: 50
CON: 50
DEX: 40
SPD: 30
LK: 30
IQ: 20
WIZ: 10
adds: +102

Let's call our 7.5 warrior Finnegan and our 8.0 warrior Grimly, just for fun. The scores look okay, a bit bland but balanced overall. Let's equip him with a 5d6 longsword (a similar weapon can be found in both versions) and 16 point (32 for warriors) plate armor (though in 7.5 it is 18/36 armor). Now, what am I getting at?

The Warrior Bonus

In 7.5, the warrior bonus is as follows from page 13 of the rules:

Simply put, the Warrior gets to increase his combat adds by his character level.

In 8.0, there is a drastic change here:

Warriors roll one extra d6 per character level on any melee weapon they are using.

Note that 8.0 applies to only melee weapons, where 7.5 applies to all weapons. So while our 7.5 warrior only adds 5 points to their adds, the 8.0 warrior adds 5d6. So our base attack totals for both sample warriors are as follows:

Finnegan the 5th level 7.5 Warrior: 5d6 + 107
Grimly the 5th level 8.0 Warrior: 5d6 + 5d6 + 102

The 7.5 warrior will average 125 points of damage (and 1 spite on average), and the 8.0 warrior will average 137 (and about 2 spite) - or about a 10% difference in power at level 5 between the games. I can see why they upped warrior damage, because a rogue in 7.5 at these levels has about the same adds plus magic. The only bonus a 7.5 warrior has over a rogue is the double-protection armor bonus.

At Level 10

Let's raise both of these warriors to level 10 and see what happens. We will need to recalculate our stats based on our formulas, as below:

Finnegan and Grimly (level 10)
STR: 100
CON: 100
DEX: 80
SPD: 60
LK: 60
IQ: 40
WIZ: 10
adds: +252

You can see where this is going. Let us take a look at their combat power now with weapons and warrior bonuses:

Finnegan the 10th level 7.5 Warrior: 5d6 + 262
Grimly the 10th level 8.0 Warrior: 5d6 + 10d6 + 252

While our 7.5 version warrior Finnegan will average 280 points of damage (and 1 spite), Grimly in version 8.0 will average 305 points of damage (and 3 spite) - and again, only about a 10% difference in combat power. So warriors received a 10% buff in power between 7.5 and 8.0 in combat strength, and I honestly expected a full +1d6 per level over +1 per level to be really, really unbalancing in overall terms of combat power.

15d6 vs. 5d6

But 15d6 is a lot to roll every turn, isn't it? I admit, the tighter feeling of 7.5 where players aren't rolling handfuls of dice seems appealing from a speed-of-play standpoint. Then again, you are level 10 and the player isn't rolling multiple attacks per turn, so who cares if they throw an extra 10d6 for that 5d6 longsword attack? DarkgarX is adamant that 15d6 is a lot to roll (and dead set against this) and I am on the fence.

If you are at a table and every player is responsible for their own dice and adding, I am fine with it. If I have to run statted NPCs in a party alongside one player, this is a non-starter (I'd rather just give them MRs, but the large number of dice problem is there too). If we are verbally roleplaying a combat, forget all of this, I am noting your averages and using that.

Warrior Bonus +4 Per Level?

If I was playing 8.0 and wanted a 7.5 style "dice reduction" effect, I would set the warrior bonus to 4 points per level and do that, so an 8.0 version of Finnegan would be:

Finnegan the 10th level 7.5 Warrior: 5d6 + 292 (+4 per level)

That puts him at an average of 310 damage and into the same range as Grimly. Yes, I know I should be doing 3.5 per level, but losing 10d6 will make us lose about 2 spite damage, so I am rounding up (308 total with spite for 8.0 and 311 total for this mod).

The main rulebook suggest adding +2 per level if you feel 1d6 per level is overpowered, but I don't think the math adds up to have an equal balance, especially when you want to keep that 10% buff over 7.5 in order to make warriors appealing again.

Finnegan the 10th level 7.5 Warrior: 5d6 + 272 (+2 per level) = 290 damage on average

House Rule #2

Warrior Bonus: The Warrior gets to increase his combat adds by 4 per level.

I would also extend the warrior bonus to all weapons, like 7.5, since missile weapons in our game will be a 7.5-like straight to HPT affair instead of 5/5.5 single target strikes separate from total party hits. This will make archery-based warriors viable builds and be able to keep up with the melee warriors in the group.

So this is our second houserule to T&T Deluxe, and it helps reduce the dice thrown at the table while keeping the warrior bonus in-line with the 8.0 power level used in the game. DarkgarX shouldn't complain now, and you know what? I like this rule a lot since it makes my job easier as well.