Limiting Combat Reactions

[Bardicheart]

Was going over the combat rules as I continue cleaning up and organizing my house rules and found a note about limiting the number of reactions. Apparently at some point I'd decided to arbitrarily limit the number of reactions a character can make in a combat round to 3.

Has anyone else experimented with limiting the number of reactions an individual can make in a combat round? If so what sort of limit? Was it an arbitrary number or based on an attribute or skill?

I like the general idea of limiting the number of reactions, unlimited reactions gets a bit surreal. Starts seeming like Neo dodging bullets. At some point it seems the individual would be overwhelmed by the number of attacks and just wouldn't be able to react further. Thoughts?

 

[Old timer]

Never seen the need to restrict reactions, as every reaction is reducing your initiative and applying a -1DM to skill checks and -2 to initiative, and these are cumulative (page 62 MRB) which is harsh enough. I think limiting a characters reactions will make combat even harsher.

 

[locarno24]

I thought you couldn't reduce your initiative below zero with reactions? Or is that just High Guard orders?

That would produce a built-in limit of ~5-8 reactions for most people, most of the time.
It's still a lot, though, I agree.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Has anyone else experimented with limiting the number of reactions an individual can make in a combat round? If so what sort of limit? Was it an arbitrary number or based on an attribute or skill?

For me, this limit is already in the rules, just not a hard number.

"A character can only react to attacks that he is aware of."

Can bullets and lasers be dodged?

 

[DickTurpin]

As a general rule I do not like arbitrary limitations on what a character can do on his turn. Limiting him to only three reactions seems arbitrary to me so I do not like the idea. What I could accept is a ruling that a player who has his initiative lowered to a negative number cannot act that round. The effect of that ruling would be to limit a character to 3 or 4 reactions per round on average but it makes more sense than just saying that you can only dodge or parry three attacks each round.

Another reason that I prefer such a ruling is that while it limits the number of reactions possible it allows the player to decide for himself if he would rather stand there fully on the defensive or if he would rather accept some extra risk to be able to attack or move to cover instead.

 

[mr31337]

For me, this limit is already in the rules, just not a hard number.

"A character can only react to attacks that he is aware of."

Can bullets and lasers be dodged?

I think, although I'm not certain, what we are meant to believe is that it is a reaction to being aimed at. :roll:

 

[CosmicGamer]

For me, this limit is already in the rules, just not a hard number.

"A character can only react to attacks that he is aware of."

Can bullets and lasers be dodged?

I think, although I'm not certain, what we are meant to believe is that it is a reaction to being aimed at. :roll:

In the game mechanics there is an aiming action. This isn't what is being reacted to.

Within the games mechanics, if the target has initiative and sees they are about to be attacked, they have options like trying to take out their opponent by firing first or ducking into cover or making themselves a harder to hit moving target. If the attacker has the initiative, they can get off a shot before the target can act or maybe they are a crappy shot and decide to duck into cover. These game mechanics seam to make for good realistic role playing to me. Do I make a stand and shoot it out, do I take cover or run? Initiative decides who does what first.

It is totally up to the play group if they want dodging of bullets or not because it is up to them to interpret the rule to best fit their gaming.

I see a couple options
1) Don't have a character dodging ranged attacks (maybe arrows from long distance?) because bullets move too fast to react to. A within the rules personal interpretation of the game mechanic of a Dex 2 -3DM character (same chance as a Dex 12 character) should not be able to sense and react to the attack of speeding bullet once it's started.
vs
2) Role play the dodging character as being suppressed. Treat the mechanic as a type of suppression fire. The more people that are attacking and suppressing you, the less effective you are. Or you can role play your hard azz character just standing tall unfazed.

Thoughts? More options?

 

[locarno24]

You are still 'aiming' at a target in the sense of 'point the explody bit of the gun at them', even if you don't take an aim action.

An unaimed shot is a rough fraction-of-a-second snapshot rather than 'brace, exhale and squeeze'. It's the sort of shot you get as part of a 'quick draw', or firing from the hip whilst running, or similar. If someone is aware you are trying to shoot at them, they can still move, which makes it less likely your muzzle is pointing the correct way when the bullet (or laser pulse, or whatever) leaves it.

Can you dodge a bullet? No. Is dodging still useful in a gunfight? Yes. Because it's not the bullet you're dodging.

 

[mr31337]

Can you dodge a bullet? No. Is dodging still useful in a gunfight? Yes. Because it's not the bullet you're dodging.

That's how I see it too, and in the context of the combat system I think it is just about acceptable, I can live with it. Without using an "at close quarters" or other snapshot-esq action-point combat system I can't see how this can be better represented and remain as playable.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Can you dodge a bullet? No. Is dodging still useful in a gunfight? Yes. Because it's not the bullet you're dodging.

That's how I see it too, and in the context of the combat system I think it is just about acceptable, I can live with it. Without using an "at close quarters" or other snapshot-esq action-point combat system I can't see how this can be better represented and remain as playable.

Just want to say that by quoting this and providing a different view I am not trying to knock your way of doing things. Like I said earlier different people interpret things differently. I'm just giving more options and ways of looking at things.

One way of looking at things is breaking down the attackers actions step by step realistically then comparing with game mechanics.

I think one option is
1) An attacker looks at their target
2) An attacker points their gun at the target
3) An attacker may or may not aim at the target
4) An attacker pulls the trigger
5) Bullets or lasers or what not occur

If we leave out the aim option, step 3, for game mechanics we go straight to the attack rule

the attacker declares his target, and the foe may choose to react

It does seam reasonable that "the attacker declares his target" could be a representation of steps 1 and 2. Perhaps some might include step 4. Definitely things one might react to realistically and an understandable interpretation of the dodge rules allowing gun attacks to be dodged via game mechanics.

Now lets consider the aim option in game mechanics.
With the aim option, there is no attack yet. There is no reaction yet. But realistically, and inferred by the rules

A character who spends a minor action aiming at a target gets a
+1 DM to his next attack on the target

a target is selected and it seams reasonable to me that steps 1 and 2 do occur. (*1)

An attacker could spend several minor actions aiming. Based on game mechanics, a dodge does not occur until the attack action. So one could reason that what left to react to is steps 4 and 5.

Please post your own ideas on this.

(*1) In some cases step 4 may even partially occur as the trigger needs to be pulled slightly, but not fully, to activate certain scopes, laser pointers or other features of a weapon.

 

[mr31337]

Please post your own ideas on this.

I would suggest making a house rule that allows the target to perform a dodge after "step 2" or after any "step 3" minor aiming action, but never after "step 4+" and that dodging DM's are therefore cumulative in the same way aiming DM's are cumulative.

Hopefully, the rules should then conform to common sense, nobody can dodge bullets in flight. One way to look at it is that an aiming action is in effect the opposite of dodging (+1 DM v -1DM), so it also seems fair from a mechanics point of view. It makes sense to me that aiming at a dodging target will not really make it any easier to hit than taking a snapshot at a non-dodging target.

You could go further and say dodging may only occur after an aiming action, since a snapshot isn't really enough time to react anyway. The weapon may already be pointed at its intended target. imho this is the most plausible solution.

So now you could make people dance (dodge) just by aiming your weapon at them! :twisted:

 

[CosmicGamer]

I would suggest making a house rule that allows the target to perform a dodge after "step 2" or after any "step 3" minor aiming action [snip]

I can see the way your thinking after I re read it and thought about it. I wouldn't give you grief if I played in a game you GM'ed. But...

I am a minimalist. Because most of the games I've GM'ed have been "pickup" games, I try to work within the rules that everyone knows and not add a bunch of my own house rules. Sometimes it's hard, but I try to find a way to make sense out of a rule or maybe just ignore it.

Oh, something new just occurred to me.
Game mechanic: You voluntarily dodge and get a -1DM penalty on all skill checks until the next round.
Game mechanic: You get shot or hit in melee. No default -DM penalty to your actions.

Is it realistic that the general rule is that the shock, pain, and impact of being hit does not impair someones abilities but a self imposed ducking and dodging does? I know that if a "serious" hit is taken it can alter the DM for some tasks.

 

[mr31337]

I wouldn't give you grief if I played in a game you GM'd and we dropped the dodge rule. :lol:

I understand what you're saying about minimalism. I've approached my hard limit for house rules, not because there isn't a need for more, but because sometimes less is more....er..easier.

I'm fortunate to have a good bunch of fairly longstanding players on my PBP game. Usually we discuss the possible addition of new rules. A good example was a player was running away and getting shot with a shotgun (buckshot) at well over 80m and facing 4d6 damage, so we agreed damage drop off (over range) for buckshot was a necessarily-evil house rule. I guess we could have 'roleplayed it', but a house rule is more consistent.

 

[Bardicheart]

Appreciate all the replies and perspectives.

I have never liked the idea of allowing characters to dodge ranged attacks from bullets or laser or even arrows. You don't dodge bullets, you take cover or else wear enough body armor you start resembling a human tank. So for my games dodge is primarily about melee and thrown weapons. I got to thinking however about how long a combat round is, six seconds. One problem in fencing is that moment when you get overwhelmed by a flurry of attacks and not only can you not counter attack but you can no longer even defend... you're just overwhelmed. That set me to thinking that there should be some limit to how many reactions a player might be allowed, one per 2 seconds or three max for a combat round seemed like a reasonable starting point.

I'm aware that dodging could be construed as diving for cover at the last second and what I've considered is this. If you're diving for cover as your reaction to guns/lasers/other fast projectiles, you get a -2 DM, you take cover and that becomes your final action for that round, any further ranged attacks get the -2 DM for the limited cover you managed to find. At the start of the next round you're considered to be behind cover and may have a better DM vs ranged attacks (you managed to scramble fully behind cover during your Reaction) depending on what kind of cover was actually available, but you can also now react and attack normally.

In melee I'm still thinking of limiting it to a max of 3 Reactions (with the usual penalties included) and possibly make that 3 + DEX DM Reactions (with a minimum of 1 per turn), making high DEX characters more resilient in melee and low DEX combatants easier targets.

I'm trying to keep any house rules fairly straight forward, I don't want to muddle things up, just tweak a few things in ways I think are needed. Yes, this would make combat more lethal, make cover or body armor even more important in a gun fight and make high DEX fencers something to fear... which is pretty much just what I want.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Was going over the combat rules as I continue cleaning up and organizing my house rules and found a note about limiting the number of reactions. Apparently at some point I'd decided to arbitrarily limit the number of reactions a character can make in a combat round to 3.

Has anyone else experimented with limiting the number of reactions an individual can make in a combat round? If so what sort of limit? Was it an arbitrary number or based on an attribute or skill?

I like the general idea of limiting the number of reactions, unlimited reactions gets a bit surreal. Starts seeming like Neo dodging bullets. At some point it seems the individual would be overwhelmed by the number of attacks and just wouldn't be able to react further. Thoughts?

Our group doesn't use combat rounds or initiative or actions. It's role-played out in real-time.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Our group doesn't use combat rounds or initiative or actions. It's role-played out in real-time.

Are you doing combat tasks and dice rolls for damage?

 

[mr31337]

Our group doesn't use combat rounds or initiative or actions. It's role-played out in real-time.

It's an interesting idea. I'd like to hear an example of how a couple of rounds of small scale combat might play out like this.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Our group doesn't use combat rounds or initiative or actions. It's role-played out in real-time.

It's an interesting idea. I'd like to hear an example of how a couple of rounds of small scale combat might play out like this.

Here's a session http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2eyjKUUeng

 

[CosmicGamer]

Our group doesn't use combat rounds or initiative or actions. It's role-played out in real-time.

It's an interesting idea. I'd like to hear an example of how a couple of rounds of small scale combat might play out like this.

Here's a session http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2eyjKUUeng

Thank you for the link. Started watching but it will take me a while (especially with the holidays) to view it's entirety.

Thing you could post a time for the combat portion so I can jump to it?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Thing you could post a time for the combat portion so I can jump to it?

Yep. Right after posting, I thought I should probably give a start time for it. Let's see...

Here's one http://youtu.be/w2eyjKUUeng?t=1h40m42s