I like The Fantasy Trip, but there are some things about the game that I find tilt the balance too much for my tastes (see previous musings about the wizard’s staff). This time, Fencing and Weapon Expertise (and their Master siblings) are under scrutiny.
The original In the Labyrinth had the Fencing talent, but not Weapon Expertise. Fencing (IQ 10) allowed anyone who using a sword to make critical hits much more frequently, doing double damage on rolls of 5, 6, and 7, and triple damage on rolls of 3 or 4; that meant that roughly 1 in 6 attacks will be doing extra damage. It was simple, easy to understand, and easy to implement at the table.
The Legacy Edition has substantially altered the Fencing talent. Now called “Fencer”, the talent is IQ 11 and confers the Two Weapons talent (with the limitation of fencing weapons only); a +1 bonus to all damage with a rapier, saber, or main-gauche; the ability to make a well-aimed thrust at a DX penalty for extra damage; and both passive and active defense bonuses. That’s a lot more stuff to remember than the original talent. One aspect of these new benefits that might not be readily apparent is that, because of the minimum adjDX required to make use of this talent, it means that any Fencer who wants to deal extra damage has at least a 1-in-4 chance of doing so, and they will do even more damage on a roll of 3 or 4.
The Legacy Edition also brings us a new talent, Weapon Expertise. It is identical to Fencer, except that it does not confer the Two Weapons talent and is for all other hand weapons, and the roll for additional damage is at a greater DX adjustment.
Clearly, Fencer is a better talent than Weapon Master, since it gives the Two Weapons skill, which lets the Fencer with parry with a second weapon to stop 2 points of damage (see Legacy Edition In the Labyrinth p. 41). That’s almost as good protection as a large shield (which are also effective against missile weapons), but with no DX penalty! And, the Fencer can use that second weapon to make actively Defending extremely effective, or use it for a second attack.
The Legacy Edition’s addition of Master Fencer and Weapon Mastery basically turn up the amplification of the talents’ benefits to 11; the master does even more damage, is even harder to hit, and can also disarm with relative ease. From my experience, these talents are ridiculously overpowered for what they cost.
Personally, I’d prefer to keep things as they were with the original Fencing rules but offer the talent to any melee weapon category, but I suspect that may be too much a departure from the Legacy Edition for too many of today’s players. So, working with something more in line with the new rules, my solutions are simple:
- Eliminate Fencer, Master Fencer, and Weapon Mastery altogether.
- Alter Weapon Expertise to only include:
- a +1 damage bonus
- the shrewd blow at -5DX for an extra die of damage
- a penalty of -2DX to hand weapon attacks if Expert defends
- Lower Weapon Mastery to IQ 10
This lets characters talented with any hand weapon have equal Expert options, and brings the overall benefits of the talent down to more reasonable levels: one benefit for each point of the cost of the talent. Lowering the talent to IQ 10 puts the intensity of training required to master it on par with that of Unarmed Combat.
The material presented here are my house rules intended for use with the The Fantasy Trip system from Steve Jackson Games. This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games. The Fantasy Trip is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.
Musings from Myriangia 
At the risk of sacrilege, I have to say that I’m not all that impressed with the Legacy edition. While there were deficiencies in the original rules, these could have been addressed with tweaks to those rules, rather than the wholesale changes that were made. For example, the only change I would have made to Fencing as it was in the original rules was to combine it with the Defensive Quickness concept presented in Interplay (which in turn was derived from rules found in the upper level Unarmed Combat talents – in other words, any “advanced” form of a given martial art would make you harder to hit in combat, a way of balancing out a high attribute figure with a high dexterity). The need for buff physiques for wizards could have been countered by allowing a wizard with an IQ higher than the minimum for a given spell to cast at a reduced fST (or allow “double” learning a spell or maybe have a special “Magery” talent or whatever) and so forth.
Overall I have to echo Howard Thompson’s complaint from 40 years ago, which is that, “TFT is too complicated as completed by Steve Jackson.” Even original TFT had a lot of “fluff” overhead, though I think HT’s answer to that, in the form of Dragons of Underearth, was way too stripped down. But I sympathize with where he was coming from. Legacy TFT now looks too much like GURPS, and I think it’s a step in the wrong direction.
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It’s not heresy to have criticisms of the Legacy Edition. I have several of my own. Your comments are greatly appreciated.
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