Missile Combat!? Grr!!

[daagon]

So let me get this straight...

Even though the book mentions prep time for missiles as rounds, they actually mean seconds, yes?

I'm wondering this because people on the forum tend to say that missiles work in seconds. But the book specifically states rounds in the prep times.

What gives?

[Brian Leybourne]

Uh, yeah, use seconds. We calrified this in TFOB.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

Whoa, hold on...

Maybe it does mean rounds...have we changed it to seconds? Is my memory just bad right now?

Jake

[Caz]

How much time is a round supposed to be?  I think the ranged actions work well in seconds.

[Ingenious]

As long as it is 'calrified', Brian..
And as far as missile combat is concerned, we run it as rounds. Changing it to exchanges wound be interesting.

BUT, one caveat.. we run rounds in equivalent terms of 1 second per round.. Brian runs his in 2 seconds per round.. hence the possible reasoning behind him using seconds for missile combat instead of rounds.

It seems more logical to me, as one second per round for melee seems quite impossible to get an entire offense and defense in twice in that amount of time.. So, if you use 2 seconds per reound.. then you'd be doing missile combat in exchanges(seconds) not rounds(still seconds)..

Clear as mud? I hope so. I hope this 'calrifies' Brian's wording. :-D
Just poking fun at ya Brian.
To get the facts perfectly comprehensible to the other people of this forum..
If one round =2 seconds, then do missile combat in exchanges and not rounds..
If one round is one second, do missile combat in rounds.

A spade, is a spade, is a spade... as we all well know. It gets difficult sometimes to understand these things since the original corebook states that a round can be 1-2 seconds.. we just need to align our collective pages and THEN we can be on the same wavelength. And it isnt really as much as changing rounds to seconds.. rather than seeing it this way...
An exchange in the 2 second per round method equals one second..
A round in the 1 second method is *gasp* one second, and an exchange is half a second.

-Ingenious

[Brian Leybourne]

Maybe it does mean rounds...have we changed it to seconds? Is my memory just bad right now?

Uh, well, I did in that archery document I wrote and in your first revision you agreed that it was the right way of doing things, so, yeah, I assumed we made that change :-)

TBH, doing archery in seconds is just slightly too fast, but it's a lot closer to being realistic than doing it with each round = 2 seconds, which is way too slow. Of course, when melee combat isn't involved, it doesn't matter as much and you can just fudge times as being 1-2 seconds (like I do with melee when spellcasting and missiles aren't involved) but when you mix them all up and need to know when missiles fire in relation to which exchange melee combatants are at, I certainly thought we had agreed on each exchange being a second, thus each melee round 2 seconds, and archery measured in seconds.

Brian.

[Tash]

Now that everything is clear, how do you handle a multi-character battle where some characters are moving engaged in melee, others are trying to aim and fire bows, and still others are trying to move into position to engage the archers with melee weapons....

:)

[nsruf]

Now that everything is clear, how do you handle a multi-character battle where some characters are moving engaged in melee, others are trying to aim and fire bows, and still others are trying to move into position to engage the archers with melee weapons....

I asked the same here

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9958

and got some good advice. Basically, you break it down into smaller engagements as much as possible and run each of them separately for a couple of rounds. Use Terrain Rolls liberally to resolve issues of positioning and who engages whom.

[daagon]

Cheers guys. That's cleared up a few things.

Much appreciated :)