New Player - a few combat questions

[Freakyweakywoo]

I ran a one shot last weekend, it went well with only a few moments where I had to look things up. After the one shot was over I ran a few combat encounters against some more dangerous opponents. Here things got interesting.

An Elffriend Barbarian vs a giant. One on one.

The Giant has reach advantage and via a good roll gets to act first. It's club attack hits. The player throws down a hero point, reroll that attack. I try to explain he might want to save that in case I nail the damage roll, as the giant has an 84ish club skill, but he demands the attack be rolled again. Tens die is 80, units die goes off table. He wait, 89 a miss. He rolls the parry, success, goes with overextend. Giant is up, but can't attack, or do much else and is now out of CA. Player drops axe and shield and pulls out a bow.

Here is the first thing, the shield adds 1 CA, when do you lose the CA if you lose the shield?

I let him keep the bonus CA for this round. He now want to shoot while the Giant has him in range. I couldn't find anything stopping this. Giant can't parry, player goes with impale, book says shortbow projectiles count as large, so -20% on skills.

Giant attacks, can the player parry with a bow? I rule no, but I'm not sure. Miss

Player want to move out of attack range, but I can't find rules for moving that way. Disengage is to move away to a longer reach, this doesn't seem to fit ranged weapons in "melee". So the player just fires. I think about evading, but the giant doesn't have it as a listed skill, does that mean he can't?

Player hits impale again, do they stack? Internet says yes, so I go with that.

Giant at -40, misses. And is out of CA so player gets 2 actions, both hit and impale. Giant now at -80%. Run away!

We had fun, just a few questions there for using ranged weapons in close combat. If a bow could parry and fire while in melee is allowed, it is a very powerful tactic.

I suspect I've badly mangled the rules, so I apologise for the pain that causes . Help is appreciated.

 

[Da Boss]

The Giant has reach advantage and via a good roll gets to act first. It's club attack hits. The player throws down a hero point, reroll that attack. I try to explain he might want to save that in case I nail the damage roll, as the giant has an 84ish club skill, but he demands the attack be rolled again. Tens die is 80, units die goes off table. He wait, 89 a miss.

As you say risky for him but it paid off........

He rolls the parry, success, goes with overextend. Giant is up, but can't attack, or do much else and is now out of CA. Player drops axe and shield and pulls out a bow.

Yeah sucks to be the Giant.....
Here is the first thing, the shield adds 1 CA, when do you lose the CA if you lose the shield?

The Rules don't say - bee a source of considerable debate previously - we rule that you would keep the CA for that round

I let him keep the bonus CA for this round. He now want to shoot while the Giant has him in range. I couldn't find anything stopping this. Giant can't parry, player goes with impale, book says shortbow projectiles count as large, so -20% on skills.

p88 of the book says arrows are small weapons so -10%


Giant attacks, can the player parry with a bow? I rule no, but I'm not sure. Miss

I would say he can parry, but wepaon will take the damage if he makes it? The Giant is really having a bad day

Player want to move out of attack range, but I can't find rules for moving that way. Disengage is to move away to a longer reach, this doesn't seem to fit ranged weapons in "melee". So the player just fires. I think about evading, but the giant doesn't have it as a listed skill, does that mean he can't?

Good Questions - Rules don't really cover it - I would however have given the Giant the base chance for Evade (Dex x2), the player is getting loads of bonuses for its size anyway!

Player hits impale again, do they stack? Internet says yes, so I go with that.

Giant at -40, misses. And is out of CA so player gets 2 actions, both hit and impale. Giant now at -80%. Run away!

Giant would have been at -20% so more likely to have hit?

We had fun, just a few questions there for using ranged weapons in close combat. If a bow could parry and fire while in melee is allowed, it is a very powerful tactic.

Bow takes a CA to reload

 

[Dan True]

Player want to move out of attack range, but I can't find rules for moving that way. Disengage is to move away to a longer reach, this doesn't seem to fit ranged weapons in "melee". So the player just fires. I think about evading, but the giant doesn't have it as a listed skill, does that mean he can't?

Well, "longer reach" would also constitute "unengaged". I always use the disengage action to allow people to move away from an opponent. Once they're clear, they can begin to move freely away (by moving).

- Dan

 

[Freakyweakywoo]

Thanks guys. I totally ignored bow reload time, too much 3.5 D&D and Pathfinder trained me that way.

I came up with arrows being large, as they count as large when calculating parry, I didn't notice any other rules in my panic.

Oh almost forgot. Player rolls 01 on his attack, a crit! He then does a stack of damage to the chest, so the poor opponent has to roll an opposed Resilience or be killed. Does he have to roll a better crit, or will just any success mean auto success as it will always be a large number, yet still a success? If the latter, it kind of makes crits less critical.

One more, do animals "parry" like giant beetles? Seems odd that they would.

 

[Dan True]

Oh almost forgot. Player rolls 01 on his attack, a crit! He then does a stack of damage to the chest, so the poor opponent has to roll an opposed Resilience or be killed. Does he have to roll a better crit, or will just any success mean auto success as it will always be a large number, yet still a success? If the latter, it kind of makes crits less critical.

If opposing a critical, you have to crit yourself AND roll higher.

One more, do animals "parry" like giant beetles? Seems odd that they would.

Depends on the natural armour of they animal. A giant beetle with high natural armour might just as well bash of weapons.. a wolf certainly won't.

- Dan

 

[Freakyweakywoo]

The rules say if you use Evade in anticipation of a missile attack you cannot use the following CA to attack. Am I understanding that correctly? Does the "no attack" rule count to reactionary evades?

Also, Charging. Defender stand firm and attacks with longer reach, can the charger spend another CA to parry it even though he is charging?

Sorry to do these in parts, they keep flooding back to me

 

[Dan True]

The rules say if you use Evade in anticipation of a missile attack you cannot use the following CA to attack. Am I understanding that correctly? Does the "no attack" rule count to reactionary evades?

Yep, they count every time an evade is performed, inkluding evading a spell cast at you.

Also, Charging. Defender stand firm and attacks with longer reach, can the charger spend another CA to parry it even though he is charging?

I don't think so. The charging rules state that you an your opponent only have 1 CA left... so committing yourself to a charge against an opponent with a longer weapon than you, is next to suicide... just like in reality.

Sorry to do these in parts, they keep flooding back to me

No problem. We've all been there.

 

[Mixster]

Here is the first thing, the shield adds 1 CA, when do you lose the CA if you lose the shield?

We rule that the extra CA must be with the shield, so if he's used the shield to parry with, he suffers no ill effects for dropping it. Since he hasn't I'd rule he loses the extra CA unless he wants to do something with his soon to be bowholding left hand. Perhaps I'd allow him to use this CA to draw his bow. He would still have to load it on the next CA and fire it on the one after that.

Giant attacks, can the player parry with a bow? I rule no, but I'm not sure. Miss

I would rule no as well. At the very least I would count it as a small weapon since if I didn't Arbalest would be the best parrying weapon around (as it is Enourmous).

Player want to move out of attack range, but I can't find rules for moving that way. Disengage is to move away to a longer reach, this doesn't seem to fit ranged weapons in "melee". So the player just fires. I think about evading, but the giant doesn't have it as a listed skill, does that mean he can't?

I'd use the rules for disengaging on page 92-93. Technically they aren't for that RAW, but it's pretty close on what I'd rule if I had to make it up on the fly anyway. (the paragraph about multiple opponents on page 91 mentions running away from a combat with evade, so I guess that is how it works).
Evade is a common skill, everybody can do it at their Dex x2, the giant can try it but he is terrible at it with his 10 dex.

Player hits impale again, do they stack? Internet says yes, so I go with that.

I usually rule they stack as well.

We had fun, just a few questions there for using ranged weapons in close combat. If a bow could parry and fire while in melee is allowed, it is a very powerful tactic.

Well I wouldn't allow it to parry at it's full size, and since it takes a CA to load it is a terrible tactic in close combat anyway IMO. You lose any resemblances of CA advantage, and CA Advantage is pretty damn important. Even if his bow was huge, the giants club is Enourmous, so it deals half damage, half of 2d6+2d12 is still pretty much dead.

One more, do animals "parry" like giant beetles? Seems odd that they would.

Creatures would probably have the instincts to gauge the attack. If the beetle is about to get squashed under something big, like a giants club, it would probably try to get out of the way (evade). If someone tried hitting it with a greatsword it would probably attempt to parry with it's antlers. If someone poked it with a dagger it probably wouldn't care since it probably has a carapace that gives 5-7 AP.

Yep, they count every time an evade is performed, inkluding evading a spell cast at you.

I keep forgetting how awesome spells that target Evade are, you lose a CA AND you can't attack on your next CA. Even if you save against the spell it is golden. Sadly only hinder and teleport target Evade. But since both of them can pretty effectively shut down an opponent, I think that's ok.

Also, Charging. Defender stand firm and attacks with longer reach, can the charger spend another CA to parry it even though he is charging?

I don't think so. The charging rules state that you an your opponent only have 1 CA left... so committing yourself to a charge against an opponent with a longer weapon than you, is next to suicide... just like in reality.

The charging rules are kindda messy so I'm not sure I agree totally. The last paragraph only applies if you don't stop in the combat, but continue on past your opponent, in which case neither of you apparently gets to parry.
However, the last point only applies if you don't willingly stop (or is forcibly stopped), and if you do you still get your full quota of CAs and should be able to parry away.

Sorry to do these in parts, they keep flooding back to me

You are welcome, answering these questions gets us to look through the books and learn the system better. So feel free to ask.

 

[ThatGuy]

I will add that one of the popular houseruled with Shields is that the extra CA is limited to use with the shield.

So if he throws the shield down, he loses the CA. Uses it to parry once? Then, yes, the bonus CA is applicable (it was just used).

I find this to be a real simplifier, and keeps the situation of the Wizard with the Shield just to cast an extra spell (which is just an abuse of the rules really, isn't it?).

 

[gran_orco]

Player want to move out of attack range, but I can't find rules for moving that way. Disengage is to move away to a longer reach, this doesn't seem to fit ranged weapons in "melee". So the player just fires. I think about evading, but the giant doesn't have it as a listed skill, does that mean he can't?

According to Loz:
"Pete made a very good observation that probably speaks to this.

Some creatures simply won't try and evade or parry. However, if you need an Evade % on the fly, I'd use DEX x3 and add 10%; that's the general formula I used for calculating Evade, Persistence and Resilience (different stats, obviously)."