combat system
- Thread starter daxos232
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Deleriad
Mongoose
Sadly I have yet to test it properly. Our group has been on hiatus for the summer.
It's the movement that's most problematic. Currently each figure has a 'budget' of movement it can make in a single round. That's a bear to track and leads to all sorts of difficulties. So I tried to integrate movement and CAs but I'm not entirely convinced by it yet. Charging is another bug bear.
It's the movement that's most problematic. Currently each figure has a 'budget' of movement it can make in a single round. That's a bear to track and leads to all sorts of difficulties. So I tried to integrate movement and CAs but I'm not entirely convinced by it yet. Charging is another bug bear.
In my campaign we also wanted to use miniatures and maps, we've found that with only some mild tweaks it seems to work pretty well. I do agree that charging is a problem. For now we've agreed that charging is for mounted combat only. Haven't quite decided how to handle weapon reach yet, still tweaking that one.
To track CA:s we use poker chips (three colors, red for attack only, white for any action, blue for defense only) which has worked really well for us so far.
Tracking movement hasn't been a problem so far, we'll see how it goes.
My current attempt (scroll down to Combat) can be found at:
http://sites.google.com/site/rqumea/rules/house-rulesclarifications
It's a random mix of house rules, clarifications and errata.
/Jonas
To track CA:s we use poker chips (three colors, red for attack only, white for any action, blue for defense only) which has worked really well for us so far.
Tracking movement hasn't been a problem so far, we'll see how it goes.
My current attempt (scroll down to Combat) can be found at:
http://sites.google.com/site/rqumea/rules/house-rulesclarifications
It's a random mix of house rules, clarifications and errata.
/Jonas
Deleriad
Mongoose
xdy nice site. Noticed it before and good to see it expanding. I've just been slightly tweaking my grid-based system after just running a session.
http://b5quest.pbworks.com/Grid-based+Combat Trying to tidy up and spell it out a bit more clearly.
I must admit that I'm not a fan of measuring movement in Combat Rounds and actions separately. It's ok when you're not using figures but gets weird if not.
http://b5quest.pbworks.com/Grid-based+Combat Trying to tidy up and spell it out a bit more clearly.
I must admit that I'm not a fan of measuring movement in Combat Rounds and actions separately. It's ok when you're not using figures but gets weird if not.
Deleriad said:
You did a great job, good enough to almost convince me to simply nick your rules.
In my group we talked about using 2m squares, but eventually decided against it as we wanted to try for fluid, fast moving combats. One point in favor of 2m squares is that (as your rules show) it would make my fairly complicated reach rules rather unnecessary as the differences between T-M weapons would be too 'low resolution' to really matter. But, all in all, I think we'll keep the 1m squares, they're right for us.
I do like your base size rules, I'm definitely going to do something similar. (Possibly even using your numbers, I want to analyze creature sizes a bit, along with looking at the miniatures I have. No point in insisting that bears are 2x1 creatures if the mini is clearly a 2x2.
As for movement we decided (by default) to not bother with having diagonal movement cost extra (probably a effect of us playing a lot of d&d4 lately I guess.)
We did try allowing movement only on the 'movement' maneuvers, but that ended up with everyone stopping just short of the opponent when moving, so as to be able to strike first, which just seemed weird. (I.e. Bob spends one CA to move 1 square beyond Alice´s reach. Alice cannot attack, so must spend a CA to move within reach. Now Bob can spend a CA to attack before Alice has had a chance to attack.) This was probably an artifact of us not using the reach rules yet, but, we'll probably stick with allowing a small move with every CA. (Of course, the big difference here could be our 'high res' grid. Also, my group has played a lot of Gurps, so 'step and attack' just feels natural...)
I quite like your Running and sprinting rules. I'll probably mix those in with mine. Or, basically steal yours.
Much the same with the 'Moving past figures' rule. Very sensible to not have the 'defendant' need to declare beforehand that he wants to possibly attack approaching enemies. I'll definitely change my rules the same way, it should make for more fluid combats with less 'combat state' needed to be kept in memory.
And I *really* like your Combat Actions and Conditional Defenses rules. You say very simply and clearly what I tried to say. I definitely need to try a rewrite for clarity. (As well as formatting it better.)
/Jonas
Deleriad
Mongoose
xdy said:
My general inclination would be to follow you on this but I find if people haven't played D&D then they balk. That said, when using 2m squares then you already have to 'pay' 2m to move across so calling that paying 3m to move diagonally doesn't seem too bad.
I see what you mean about 1m squares allowing a finer grain; I hadn't fully thought through what would happen to reach if you did that.
I tried simulating a combat last night when I had some time and have put the results here (http://b5quest.pbworks.com/Example-Grid-Combat-1). It's pretty terse but I'm interested to see what you think of it.
Problems were: what happens after a charge? And why can't you parry a charge (i.e. an Orlanthi bandit running at you) with a shield?
Bash as a CM becomes a little pointless with 2m square if you allow figures to step and attack because it's hard to bash someone far enough away to make a difference.
Also I had one mounted character which should have been a 2*1 figure really but didn't have good answers for what happens when a non-square figure turns. May need more thinking about that so called her horse a 1*1 pony...
It ended up being a fairly dramatic fight with the Orlanthi bandits finally winning. A critical spear parry versus the mounted sorceress who had missed her attack ended up with her being "tripped" (to dehorse her) and disarmed and that persuaded the Jrusteli to surrender.
duncan_disorderly
Mongoose
Deleriad said:
I would have thought that where a character is 1 (wide) by 2(long) - like a horse, then to turn you move the back of the figure to the square currently occupid by the front, and front to an adjacent square. If the figure is 2 (wide) by 1(long) (say an Elemental of some sort manifesting as a "wall") then it would pivot around one or other end.
so if you had a grid
A B C D E
1
2 H
3 H
4 S S
5
where H is a horse occupying squares B2 and B3 and heading in the direction B1, and S is a Salamander occupying C4 and D4 and facing towards row 3, the horse would be able to turn left into A2-B2 or right into B2-C2, while the salamander could turn left into C3-C4 or D4-D5 and right into D3-D4 or C4-C5
Deleriad said:
Yeah, took me a while to get used to it myself in d&d... Now I rather like it. My brain tends to stop towards the end of the day, so anything that makes things simpler is good in my book.
Deleriad said:
I think an example like this is needed to clarify things. The one in the book doesn't really cover enough rules. I hope I'll be able to work up one for my 1m rules next weekend. (No time this weekend, one of my players apparently likes the rq campaign so much he wants to referee (something he's not done for 15 years or so) giving me a chance to play a (originally intendended to be a foe) Ompalam-worshiping sorcerer, giving me an opportunity to try out the sorcery rules properly. No doubt causing much confusion.
For some reason reading it made me like your distinction between cautious (half move) and normal movement more. I need to think that one over more.
Incidentally, did you use some virtual tabletop software to produce the images?
Deleriad said:
That is part of the reason that we simply disallowed charging except for mounted combat.
I guess what I'll eventually do is disregard the printed rules entirely and make something up. (Most likely little more complicated than 'full move with attack at the end, at some penalty to to hit with an increase to damage bonus'. All other rules (whether I go with 'spend CA to ready for attack', or 'if you have a CA left over, use it to attack when someone comes within reach') apply as normal. Possibly with the addition of some rule about 'use opponent's damage modifier if you set a weapon against a charge'.)
Deleriad said:
Yeah, for 2m squares, step and attack is just too high resolution. I mean, a square is 4m2, plenty of room there for minor movements that just aren't 'visible' in the game system.
Deleriad said:
What I did was simply to crib another bit from d&d and say that there are no facings. A bit unrealistic for non-square creatures, but I'm willing to ignore that. (Especially given that I mostly use square d&d 4e miniatures.
However, if one does use facing, I think that for 'non-square' creatures (and miniatures) (especially at a 2m scale) it'd be enough to just allow them a 'free spin' when they spend a CA. Few creatures really fill a 4x2 meter area after all. (I.e. when deciding how many squares a creature should take up, round up so as to give wiggle room so to speak.) And, on the occasions when this seems unreasonable (say, a dozen knights moving in a tight line suddenly being attacked from the rear), demand a successful Ride roll at a -10% per square already moved this round or so. Or, just disallow turning in place.
/Jonas
Deleriad
Mongoose
That works and it looks like it would give a nice simulation of increased turning circles presuming you don't allow the figure to be placed on the diagonal.duncan_disorderly said:
Reading xdy below I'm also becoming minded to remove step and attack at the 1 square = 2m scale. It would slow things down slightly because more movement would be needed.
The graphics were done in photoshop with a battlemap I found online. Nothing very high tech...
duncan_disorderly
Mongoose
duncan_disorderly said:
...that wasn't formatted differently in the edit box to the way it appears when submitted...
Deleriad
Mongoose
Jonas, been thinking on your comments about "step and attack" & "move cautiously" some more.
Even with step and attack there may be tendency for players to stop just out of range and wait for the first move because otherwise you go into combat one CA down.
Move cautiously is actually implicit in the RQ rules: a lot of actions let you move up to half your movement while doing them. Pete has even ruled that you can perform ranged attacks this way. So calling it 'move cautiously' simply formalises that.
So what I'm going to try is saying that you can combine "move cautiously" with "ready a parry" as that follows logically from the rules. I'm also going to remove "step and attack." The result of that is that if you want to force close combat you move cautiously with a prepared parry as your CA. Your opponent probably attacks but you have a parry ready. This means that the person moving has a potential tempo disadvantage for the first combat round as the opponent will probably get the first attack. Should stop people from faffing about trying to avoid getting a CA disadvantage.
What you do you think?
Even with step and attack there may be tendency for players to stop just out of range and wait for the first move because otherwise you go into combat one CA down.
Move cautiously is actually implicit in the RQ rules: a lot of actions let you move up to half your movement while doing them. Pete has even ruled that you can perform ranged attacks this way. So calling it 'move cautiously' simply formalises that.
So what I'm going to try is saying that you can combine "move cautiously" with "ready a parry" as that follows logically from the rules. I'm also going to remove "step and attack." The result of that is that if you want to force close combat you move cautiously with a prepared parry as your CA. Your opponent probably attacks but you have a parry ready. This means that the person moving has a potential tempo disadvantage for the first combat round as the opponent will probably get the first attack. Should stop people from faffing about trying to avoid getting a CA disadvantage.
What you do you think?
Deleriad
Mongoose
As I had some spare time last night I thought I would try out the ideas above. Copied the "Kobold Hall" map from D&D4e and changed the kobolds into goblins. Handy to test the following:
1) what happens without step & attack but allowing combination of ready a parry with 1/2 move (as per RAW)
2) what happens when you treat standard 5 foot squares as equivalent 2m squares.
3) use of a smaller space.
So three hardy adventurers braved Goblin Hall. A barbarian mercenary, civilised spy and civilised sorcerer.
Dynamic was quite different. A fair amount of moving into position and readying a parry. Movement was a little more tactical than when allowing step and attack. The confined space and blocked lines of sight made the goblin slingers less effective. The speed around the map seemed pretty reasonable.
As and when time permits, I'll explore it further, but I have added the fight in the first room to the wiki on http://b5quest.pbworks.com/Goblin-Hall
1) what happens without step & attack but allowing combination of ready a parry with 1/2 move (as per RAW)
2) what happens when you treat standard 5 foot squares as equivalent 2m squares.
3) use of a smaller space.
So three hardy adventurers braved Goblin Hall. A barbarian mercenary, civilised spy and civilised sorcerer.
Dynamic was quite different. A fair amount of moving into position and readying a parry. Movement was a little more tactical than when allowing step and attack. The confined space and blocked lines of sight made the goblin slingers less effective. The speed around the map seemed pretty reasonable.
As and when time permits, I'll explore it further, but I have added the fight in the first room to the wiki on http://b5quest.pbworks.com/Goblin-Hall
Deleriad
Mongoose
Been working some more on this and added a few more combat rounds. I'm quite conflicted about the best way to model running in CAs.
Having run equal 3xMOV by spending 2 CAs makes movement very jerky. So I tried a different way which requires slightly more changes.
Basically your MOV, like SR, is affected by Armour Penalty. However it is only affected by 1/2 your AP (rounded up as usual). So someone with a MOV of 8m and Armour Penalty of 3 ends up with a MOV of 6m.
This means that 1/2 MOV is now 1/2 of your MOV after applying penalty.
Run is 1.5*MOV after applying penalty. So someone with a MOV of 8 and an Armour Penalty of 3 has a normal MOV of 6m, a 1/2 move of 3m and can run 9m in a Combat Action.
This makes movement more fine grained and means that Armour significantly slows you down. It is a bit more of a change than I really wanted though.
Runnning this example has also reinforced my belief that you need to be able to pre-declare an attack as a CA just like you can pre-declare a Parry.
Having run equal 3xMOV by spending 2 CAs makes movement very jerky. So I tried a different way which requires slightly more changes.
Basically your MOV, like SR, is affected by Armour Penalty. However it is only affected by 1/2 your AP (rounded up as usual). So someone with a MOV of 8m and Armour Penalty of 3 ends up with a MOV of 6m.
This means that 1/2 MOV is now 1/2 of your MOV after applying penalty.
Run is 1.5*MOV after applying penalty. So someone with a MOV of 8 and an Armour Penalty of 3 has a normal MOV of 6m, a 1/2 move of 3m and can run 9m in a Combat Action.
This makes movement more fine grained and means that Armour significantly slows you down. It is a bit more of a change than I really wanted though.
Runnning this example has also reinforced my belief that you need to be able to pre-declare an attack as a CA just like you can pre-declare a Parry.
