First time questions about Legend Combat

[phantomwhale]

I had my first go at running a Legend combat last week, and was overall impressed at the brutal bloody-ness of it all.

However, I had a few questions which I've been unable to find answered in the forums.

Firstly, Wounds. If you suffer a serious wounds (0 hp or less), you lose the next 1D3 combat actions. During this time, if someone wounds that area again, reducing it further (but not to a major wound), do you suffer a further loss of 1D3 combat actions. For instance, if you roll a "2", miss your first combat action, and then get hit again, must your roll ? And if that roll came up a "1", must you now miss one or two more actions ?

My reason for this question was it seemed that a creature become seriously wounded was an almost death sentence, even in 1-on-1, as missing 1 action meant the next strike if it hit (and often it will with ~70% starting weapon skills) allows the attacker to choose location with there CM, which naturally would be the seriously wounded location ! Sure, my creatures (good ol' Broo) were unarmored, but if even 1 more HP damage can cause another lost 1D3 actions, that still becomes very harsh.

The example on page 149 is unclear, with 1D3 lost actions mention on first injury, and the resilience roll only mentioned on the second injury. Although that appear to be all within one "impale", so maybe it's a special case.

Secondly, Initiative. The book states you only roll this once for a combat (possibly again if new combatants join in, etc...) I was playing it as you perform a new roll each round. Does anyone have a take on this ? Ok, this is less a question, more a house rule. I guess I found winning initiative quite an advantage, and wouldn't want one roll to dominate the combat. Or descend into "Having lost initiative, I flee, and then once the chase is over, re-engage the foe and hope I win initiative this time" meta-gaming.

Thirdly, Aiming. Is there a cap on how many turns / how much bonus you can get for aiming ? I was running an archery contest, and one of my players noted he could aim for 10 rounds and double his skill (!) We just said "no aiming" for the contest (it applied evenly to all, after all) but feels like something that maybe should be capped in combat. Or must all aims happen within the combat round ? That would put a cap in place, but I guess be bad for someone on his last action who wants to aim for the next action (on the next round) ?

Fourthly, missile weapons in melee. My archer loaded his bow (1CA) and then a Broo moved to engage him (1CA). What can the archer do on his next round ? Fire his bow in melee ? Fire at someone else outside of the melee ? Or must he drop his bow for free (lordy knows where the loaded arrow ends up) and get a "proper" melee weapon out ?

Lastly, Impales. Can you spend the extra CA to withdraw immediately after striking, or must you wait for your next action ? The example on page 149 shows the goblin spends 2 CAs in a row, implaing and pulling the weapon out, but it seemed strange where there are few other places were you can spend 2 CAs during "your go" ?

Thanks for any and all help with this - I really want to screw down some of this combat stuff. As a semi-seasoned RQ player of the older editions, I am used to the fact that I am going to house rule quite a few bits to get it "just how I like it", but I feel there is quite a fine and deadly balance going on in the system that I want to respect before I mutate it.

Regards,
Ben (-PW-)

 

[Olaus Petrus]

I'll try to answer:

1. It doesn't say that the lost actions are cumulative, so I would calculate it for each wound individually and higest number would decide when character can attack again. Remember that you can still parry and evade attacks, so you're not completely helpless.

2. Initative rolls last at least one combat round. Personally I re-roll initative usually only if something happens in the battle which changes the situation, but it's up to GM's preferences how often you roll those.

3. Rules don't put cap to how long you can aim, but as GM you can decide a cap if you like or use other situational modifiers like his hand becoming tired or changing wind to lower his aiming bonus if he is aiming for too long.

4. You can't really use bow in close combat, except as an improvised weapon. Hitting enemy with an arrow probably does more damage.

5. If you have combat actions you can instantly try to pull out the impaling weapon.

 

[phantomwhale]

Thanks for your answers Olaus.

There was one point you made which surprised me, which was :

1. It doesn't say that the lost actions are cumulative, so I would calculate it for each wound individually and higest number would decide when character can attack again. Remember that you can still parry and evade attacks, so you're not completely helpless.

If you've lost all your actions for a round (with only 2-3 actions typically, the fact that this could happen mid-round when you've already spent 1-2 of them, and also the loss of 1-3 actions would mean this happens quite often) then surely you can't Parry or evade attacks any more ? Or maybe I've misunderstood how these actions work.

Certainly I had some very cinematic combats during my two sessions, but in the end, typical combat skills of around 70-80% meant that combat actions were king, which lead to many fights being decided during the last action of each round, when the faster PCs or outnumbering forces used those extra actions to almost certainly hit (8 in 10 chance) and cut down the now defence-less foes.

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Thanks for your answers Olaus.

There was one point you made which surprised me, which was :

1. It doesn't say that the lost actions are cumulative, so I would calculate it for each wound individually and higest number would decide when character can attack again. Remember that you can still parry and evade attacks, so you're not completely helpless.

If you've lost all your actions for a round (with only 2-3 actions typically, the fact that this could happen mid-round when you've already spent 1-2 of them, and also the loss of 1-3 actions would mean this happens quite often) then surely you can't Parry or evade attacks any more ? Or maybe I've misunderstood how these actions work.

Certainly I had some very cinematic combats during my two sessions, but in the end, typical combat skills of around 70-80% meant that combat actions were king, which lead to many fights being decided during the last action of each round, when the faster PCs or outnumbering forces used those extra actions to almost certainly hit (8 in 10 chance) and cut down the now defence-less foes.

Thanks,
Ben

Coservative use of the combat actions is the key and you're always in disadvantage if your enemy has more combat actions than you. Usually humans have 2 or 3 combat actions, so the advantage isn't always deadly. But remember if you have shield or you use two weapons you gain extra combat action.

When it comes to parrying. If you act first you can declare parry in advance and you can parry any single attack against you before your next strike rank. If you're fighting against single opponent then you should use parry even when he fails his attack because you'll miss your action unless you act before your next strike rank and defensive combat manoeuvres can help you to survive, blind opponent, pin weapon or trip opponent certainly gives some advantage back to you.

If you're acting after him then you should consider carefully after missed attack if you use the parry anyway to gain defensive manoeuvre or if you want to save the CA for later parry or if you want to do something else on your turn.

If you're fighting against multiple opponents then you were in disadvantage even before you got wounded and outmanoeuvring and disengaging the battle might be a good option. They get free hits even if you're not wounded.

Now let's get back to your example. Let's say that you and your enemy both have 3 CA. You have used your actions to attack and failed parry. So you have 1 CA left. Your enemy has used his CAs to parry and attack. So also he has one action left. You declare parry in advance and enemy attacks against you. After that new round begins and both combatants have 3 CAs. But if one of the combatant has a shield he gets extra combat action at the end of the round which gives him advantage. If both have shields then the situation remains more equal.

It's possible to survive such situations as long as you play it wisely.

 

[DrBargle]

If you're acting after him then you should consider carefully after missed attack if you use the parry anyway to gain defensive manoeuvre or if you want to save the CA for later parry [...]

One problem with this is that the same statistic combination is used to work out the number of CA *and* Strike Rank. So, very often, the combatant with the higher effective SR will also have more CA. Why does this matter? Because if you are acting last in a SR cycle you cannot conserve your CA when it reaches your SR. It is use it or lose it - so you can't save it to defend against that extra CA at the end of the round - the only way for the slower character to conserve a CA is to not parry a (presumably) failed attack, but to do so is to miss a great chance of a CA-stripping CM.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

If you're acting after him then you should consider carefully after missed attack if you use the parry anyway to gain defensive manoeuvre or if you want to save the CA for later parry [...]

One problem with this is that the same statistic combination is used to work out the number of CA *and* Strike Rank. So, very often, the combatant with the higher effective SR will also have more CA. Why does this matter? Because if you are acting last in a SR cycle you cannot conserve your CA when it reaches your SR. It is use it or lose it - so you can't save it to defend against that extra CA at the end of the round - the only way for the slower character to conserve a CA is to not parry a (presumably) failed attack, but to do so is to miss a great chance of a CA-stripping CM.

What I mean is that if you're acting later than your enemy then you can decide that you won't use your last CA to reaction parry a failed attack. Instead you declare in advance when it's your turn that you use parry. Parry is valid till your next strike rank and it doesn't go away when SR reaches 0 like delay. Because enemy still has one CA the round isn't over and you can use your declared parry because he acts before your next strike rank (even if you don't have any combat actions left to use in that strike rank your previous order is still valid). Naturally getting defensive manoeuvre might be better strategy, but it depends on a situation.

Wise opponent might use delay to wait till your next strike rank has passed, but I would say that generic cannon fodder NPC or monster isn't necessarily that smart.

 

[DrBargle]

Ah, yes, you're right - we've been playing it wrong. I thought that there must be some utility in choosing to prepare a parry, but had got the rules for 'delay' stuck in my head every time.

D'oh.