[AGE] Playtesting the combat mechanics

[Andrew Cooper]

I'm putting this in Playtesting because just sitting down to do combat without any story going on doesn't seem like Actual Play to me.  It is playtesting the rules though.

You can find the current state of the rules HERE.

So, I sat down with a buddy and just ran through some simple combat scenarios.  I just wanted to get a feel for how the combat engine felt.  Here are some things I discovered about the rules.

1.)  At first I didn't have the rule that had each attack in the round degrade the Defensive die value by 1 and things could get a little bogged down if a character had a d10 or d12 blue die and consistently was rolling high.  Multiple characters ganging up on him didn't even help at that point.  Once I put in the degrading Defense rule, ganging up on a character with high defensive capabilities became a viable option.

2.)  I was having everyone roll all their dice and assign them at the beginning of the combat turn to begin with.  Something about this just wasn't sitting right with me.  It's like once the dice were rolled all the mystery and suspence went out of the whole affair.  Then I remembered that in Mechaton Vincent didn't have anyone roll dice until it was either their turn to attack or they were attacked.  I added this as a rule.  I like it a lot better.  It also made things faster as fewer dice were rolled up front so the actual play could get started faster.  It also added some elements of the unknown to the mix as until a character was actually attacked, no one knew what his Defensive die would come up.

3.)  Sacrificing Weapons and/or Armor items to keep from taking those big hits worked better than I even expected.  In an actual game I expect that the decision to do so might carry some additional weight.  During this playtest, Bob the Ranger sacrificed his Longbow, using it to block a 5 point hit.  Not only did he lose his Longbow but he also lost the ability to use the "I'm deadly with a bow. d8" Trait.  It hurt but it kept him from being removed for the field or being really close to being removed.

4.)  Multiple opponents ganging up on a single character really hurts unless the single character just rolls phenomenally or really outclasses his competition.  This worked the way I wanted, I think.

5.)  Evenly matched characters can go a long while without hurting each other, dragging out combat.  I'm not sure this is a problem or not really.  Once someone takes some damage the death spiral effect kicks in and things progress from there.  I'll be interested to see how this works out with other folks when they actually start playing the game.  It's an area that might need some definate tweeking.

6.)  The combat map takes some getting used to but I *think* it worked well.  It's very abstract, like Agon.  I liked being able to take spaces on the map and give them bonuses or penalties to different combat values for characters occupying that space.  It made the battlefield and little more tactically interesting.

Well, that's about it for the first run through of the combat rules.  I'm working on the other types of conflict rules.  I'm treating it much like Burning Wheel treats DoW vs Fight!.  They have a very different feel to them but the basic mechanic is the same between them.  I'd be very interested in hearing any comments from anyone concerning the rules I have posted.  I'd even be interested in "these suck!" as long as it is followed with why they suck and/or how you think they can be fixed.