Another combat.......

[captainjack23]

Well, had a chance to run another chargen & combat with the 3.0 tweaks.

This one was a bar fight, and included two new players, three if you count my seven year old son (more about him later).

Several things got tested.

First, someone other than me ran half the chargen. Second, we had two experienced and two de novo players for the combat. Third, we had a kid to test the complexity of the combat rules.


Overview.
1. The combat sytem conceptually works quite well, ONCE players have the "Ah ha" moment.
2. The seven year almost got there got there, but still had fun....until bedtime.
3. Interestingly, the seven year old is the only one who fired a pistol in fist fight, and consequently did quite well.....

4. All the adults including the new one started using the initiative sytem quite effctively, including the new guy who started by throwing a chair the minute he got a six init, ended up with a 1 timing dice, and then realized he would have been much better off doing nothing, unlike in D&D where there is no real consequence for doing something at every opportunity weather it is likely to work or not.
This is good.

5. Luckily my son's gun jammed (snakeyes) so he only shot two knife armed thugs (including the leader: "I stand up and shoot the big guy".....I was so proud !) and only one died; then everyone got stuck in with fists and bottles.

6. Random reactions on the part of the patrons generated several roaming combatants hitting anyone nearby; this was fun.

Result; Thug boss fled trailing bood; four unconsious thugs, one dead. Players took a few lumps, but okay; hauled ass before police show up.

Conculsion: the one pistol in the hands of the best shot (pistol 2 ,dex 9) really mattered. This semms pretty realistic an outcome.

Specific rules questions in following posts.

Cap

 

[captainjack23]

Specific rules questions in following posts.

Combat range:

The table ranges do not mesh well with the scale used: with 1.5 meters/square, range bands dont fit.

Also, the close range (for brawling/martial arts and blades) seems excessively long. Not only is five meters a long way for even a wire guided kung fu kick, it goes out 3 1/3 squares. The heck ? Also, personal range covers the square occupied, and half the adjacent one.

Suggestions:

First change range band definition to squares, not numeric values. Works easier, and discourages millimeter munchkin measuring common in distance based miniature rules. If we have squares lets use em.

Second The close range is perfect for close pistol range, too long for Hand to hand combat. Add in either a new band for fists and swords, defined as same/adjacent square.

Third (cosmetic, really) change the names to somthing more functional:
Personal = grappling
Close (1)= blade
Close (2) = pistol
Or whatever.


Alternately, don't change the range bands, but if making a non-adjacent melee attack, you move into contact with opponent and take a penalty per space -up to some limit. Martial arts may give one an advantage in this, perhaps.

More to come.

 

[captainjack23]

Interrupts:

The interrupt rules are VERY important, and need to be made more obvious ! We completely missed it last time, and one complaint was that it was possible for any player to run across a line of fire into cover without taking a shot. This time it didn't come up lots (starting with a six is kinda hard) but was crucial when it did. One player used a 5/6 mele roll to hit for 5, set init to 6 then interrupt at the top of the next turn for another attck - effectively getting two hits in a row. Another got to a corner, got to a six, and covered the door with the other pistol (which was never fired) and kept two more goons from rushing the rear of the party -first one thru would have gotten a serious shot as an interrupt at a high dex.

The ability to overwatch and cover is crucial, and adds a tremendous level of realism and tactical choice to the system. the combat system. It needs to be better emphasised.


Also, we used the interrupt rule to allow you to act AFTER you normally would - essentially allowing you to hold your action rather than just interrupt another action. This was also interpreted to mean that You couldn't do a hold unless you had started with a six.

The happy effect of this was to minimize the bane of sequential action rules: multiple overlapping holds creating a Sergio Leone staredown, and having little practical effect beyond slowing melee down.


Also, in addition to emphasis, interrupt needs a bit more clarification.
1. The rule states you can act at any time if you start the round with a six init.

Is this specific to combat actions, or does it include movement?

If so, and if you move out of turn, can you still interrupt with a combat action ?

2. The example is: Player starts with a 6. Moves first (in this case in dex order), ticks down 2 init. to 4. At the init increment phase, he goes back up to a 6. He declares an out of dex interrupt to shoot someone revealed by his move.

Does this work ? Letter of the rule says only that you must start with a six. Is this intentional ?

 

[captainjack23]

Dodging and ticks

We are working on the assumption that you cannot spend your init dice below 1 when reacting; otherwise everybody will dodge for the max everytime, all the time.
We couldn't find this spelled out explicitly, and was a very important point. (one player throws chair to make target dodge to 1, then next player punches. Works quite well....). ....). If this is the intent - no dodging once init is at 1 this needs to be stated-. an alternate interpretation is that one simply never sets init to less than 1, no matter how many ticks spent.

Hasty actions

Hasty actions may only be declared at the init increment phase of combat, and should be declared in order of dex, we assume (when it matters)

Hasty actions are generally only useful for jumping up from init 5 for an attack , OR to get prep for some serious dodging...as long as you don’t anticipate doing anything next round. (this relates to the no init below 1 issue above)

The exception was a highly skilled and fast character, who could outdraw a player with a six but a lower dex (starting at 4-5) and shoot with a minimum of penalty. This was great ! The thug leader did NOT see it coming.

Aiming rules: we assumed that you can’t just aim generically in an overwatch position, you have to actually have a target.
You can cover a door and interrupt, but you cannot take an aim bonus unless you see someone.
Correct ?

 

[captainjack23]

Armor.

We ran this in street clothes (except for one subdermal armored jarhead), things worked well as regards fists and as noted the pistol was way effective.

Partly this was decided as the new armor, based on our last game, seems to likely overpower the weapons, especially in the low end (fists, blades pistols). We wanted to avoid the invulnerable juggeraught effect from last time.

Damage.

Mostly people got beat up and fell down. It was possible to one-shot a target, but mostly several blows were needed to reduce the second stat to zero; and, the last blow generally didn't have enough extra to kill.

One shot HTH takedowns were generally accomplised due to extreme high/low task roll. Players preferred high damage and low init rather than minimal damage or an effect =1 spaz. Otherwise they generally kept initiative up and took weaker effects - those haymakers are fun, but you end up spinning around like a warner brothers cartoon for the next round.

The "effect dice =1 =fumble" rules does have an overall effect of keeping starting init lower; although one player chose a jammed pistol so as to max out init.

Boxcars are cooooool. I hit you hard. I then hit you again before you can move. Ha ha.

Snakeyes are baaaaad. One thug shot his bud in the back and then stood there staring at the guy that he was trying to shoot. Bad timing indeed.

It was generally felt that some kind of random table (or guideines more specific than "YOU FAILED LOSRNOOB !") for effect =1 mishaps would be a good idea.

Cap

 

[captainjack23]

Other Comments and Questions

One problem was players forgetting to allow targets to take a response, announcing target while rolling the dice. This is just a habit to be broken.

Another was the seperation of move and action; ironically, D&D 3.x players had an easier time with this. The seven year old never quite got there. (to be fair, he did have to leave early)

Facing. Did we miss the rules for flanking and rear attacks ?
Or is this assumed to be part of the init = 1 situation ?

Players still didn't remember all their options that you could spend ticks on; all feel that the flexibility is worth taking a bit more to get used to.


Overall, looking at the damage inflicted, if armor was worn, even cloth, combat would have taken MUCH longer, and mostly look like a hockey fight (bump flail, flail, bump bump....see, the skates keep you from having a very strong swing, and everyone wears pads). Plus, combat without it added quite a bit of motivation to not get hit - a waitress with a big iron frying pan was a major worry.


It was generally agreed that some way to bump damage up (as a crit) would be good, but only if it didn't complicate resolution (no location roll was unanimous, no reroll was generally agreed)

One of the major strengths of the system does seem to be the speed and flow of the proccess once it gets going. There was consensus that losing that flow would pretty much wreck combat.

Cap