Some Problems with TRoS Combat=Comments Appreciated

[Claymore]

Hello All,

I've been running a RoS campaign for about a month now. It's a converted older Gurps campaign that I’ve run over the last two years. The campaign takes place on an island similar to 12th century England, but land was never completely conquered and three different distinct cultures, a Norman like culture, a Saxon/Viking type culture, and a Celtic/Welsh culture all exist.  The campaign takes place on the border between the Normans/Saxon types with one of the Chivlarics being the younger son of a local lord. The main antagonists are the raiding Saxon types onto the knight’s father's land, but every so often the party has a bout with the supernatural (a Troll, a Barrow Wight, perhaps an unseelie or two :-)

I love TRoS as a game system, but I’ve found some break downs in the rules in certain situations and was wondering if I could use the group as a sounding board for some of the problems I've been having.

Terrain and Multiple Opponents

I love the terrain rules. I think they are a wonderful idea, and my players love them as well, particularly when outnumbered against a raiding party of "Velm" as I call the Nordic/Saxon archetypes found within the saga. The problem my group has with them is when the major NPC uses the rules against them.

I recently ran the party against a Barrow Wight. The creatures combat pool was about three higher than the best swordsman in the party (a significant margin in this game, see my last comments) so teamwork was going to be needed on taking the creature out. When the creature was attacked three to one, I had it make a terrain check which was successful, which led to a lot of questions that I'm curious to the answers to:

1. When successfully using terrain, which side gets to choose who attacks the person who used terrain?

For example: a knight successfully uses terrain against three enemy men at arms. Does the Knight or men at arms side choose which man at arms the knight faces? It could become important if say one of the men at arms was well armored and the other two were not. In my campaign not all PCs were chivalrics so if a creature is attacked three on one and it can whittle down the lesser party members first, the creature has a significant advantage.


2. Can you try to contest a terrain roll by expending dice from your own combat pool?
Something not covered in the rules but I thought I’d ask.


Combat Maneuvers and Game Mechanics

The combat maneuvers add a great element of strategy to the game. But some of the maneuvers I feel were designed for one on one combat against a normal human combatant. Also some of the creatures and monsters might not be affected by some rules as a normal human would.  There has been some confusion with my players (Can you beat a giant, do undead or animate constructs take shock damage, can a wolf do anything to a knight in chain and plate?) I realize that much of this is probably intended for Flower of Battle or the Bestiary, but guidelines until then would help.

I personally have ruled that undead and constructs take no shock from damage or combat maneuvers, can suffer the equivalent of pain, but to a lesser degree to represent their combat ability being reduced because of damage being inflicted which are breaking off limbs or cracking bones/surface. For wolves and other like creatures attacking heavily armored adversaries I’ve used the optional exploding die rule I’ve seen elsewhere on the site as a way of simulating the chance of a creatures teeth tearing at or getting behind a plate to inflict a wound. I however cap the total amount of damage being done.


Higher Combat pool=Winner

A small combat die pool advantage is enormous in this game, which I personally kind of like. In many other games (Gurps, DnD, RulesMaster, etc.) a lesser foe has a good chance of getting a lucking shot and taking out a superior foe. TroS is very predicable, if you are more skilled, 9 out of 10 chances, your going to win, provided you don’t do something stupid (then you’re dead!)  which isn’t a bad thing. But problems can arise when trying to simulate that one-shot dragon kill that many other systems attempt. Yes I know PCs have their spiritual attributes to their advantage, but not every situation can these attributes can be justified (or in the case of luck, be used time and time again), and there is also a cap of five as the max amount of extra dice that can be rolled.. I’ve read somewhere on this site about allowing the option of exploding all 10’s, but I’m not sure if that’s the answer. It will useful every once in a while when the party goes up against that ubber monster the GM has designed, however in the short term every thug and footpad is going to get much more of an advantage out of it. Do other people find this a problem in their campaign? Anyone have any suggestions? I’ve been toying the idea of allowing the exploding optional d10 rule with the exception that for most npcs (the major ones get to play by the same rules the PC’s do) when re-rolling the d10 the TN is raised by 2, making it harder for them to gut the PC’s but allowing the party the chance for exceptional rolls on occasion.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I love the game. There are some rough edges that need to be worked on, but I only wish that supplemental material would come out faster! Thanks all for your attention to this matter.


Claymore

[Jake Norwood]

Hey Claymore. Wow, big post...lemme see if I can help/

I love TRoS as a game system, but I've found some break downs in the rules in certain situations and was wondering if I could use the group as a sounding board for some of the problems I've been having.

Terrain and Multiple Opponents

I love the terrain rules. I think they are a wonderful idea, and my players love them as well, particularly when outnumbered against a raiding party of "Velm" as I call the Nordic/Saxon archetypes found within the saga. The problem my group has with them is when the major NPC uses the rules against them.

I recently ran the party against a Barrow Wight. The creatures combat pool was about three higher than the best swordsman in the party (a significant margin in this game, see my last comments) so teamwork was going to be needed on taking the creature out. When the creature was attacked three to one, I had it make a terrain check which was successful, which led to a lot of questions that I'm curious to the answers to:

1. When successfully using terrain, which side gets to choose who attacks the person who used terrain?

For example: a knight successfully uses terrain against three enemy men at arms. Does the Knight or men at arms side choose which man at arms the knight faces? It could become important if say one of the men at arms was well armored and the other two were not. In my campaign not all PCs were chivalrics so if a creature is attacked three on one and it can whittle down the lesser party members first, the creature has a significant advantage.

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.

2. Can you try to contest a terrain roll by expending dice from your own combat pool?
Something not covered in the rules but I thought I'd ask.

Oooooh, dangerously close to TFOB...oh well. Yeah, that'll work until then. I would certainly allow it in the campaign you're running. I'm not sure what the chaser's TN would be. Something for debate. I agree that this is an aspect of TROS that was written very one-dimensionally. A contested roll would be the best way to fix this.

Combat Maneuvers and Game Mechanics

The combat maneuvers add a great element of strategy to the game. But some of the maneuvers I feel were designed for one on one combat against a normal human combatant. Also some of the creatures and monsters might not be affected by some rules as a normal human would.  There has been some confusion with my players (Can you beat a giant, do undead or animate constructs take shock damage, can a wolf do anything to a knight in chain and plate?) I realize that much of this is probably intended for Flower of Battle or the Bestiary, but guidelines until then would help.

The thing I bolded is absolutely true, and is representative of the reality of "manevuers" that TROS represents. Mass and skirmish combat simply was messier than a duel, and there wasn't much time or space for more elaborate manevuers. Regardless, many do still work in other situations, but not all. Additionally, remember that TROS's maneuvers are based on real ones, and mankind never actually faced trolls, wights, or giants--there was no need for special techniques against them. In Weyrth these things are rare enough that there still wouldn't be special techniques for for it. Your world may be different, and that'll require new techniques.

I personally have ruled that undead and constructs take no shock from damage or combat maneuvers, can suffer the equivalent of pain, but to a lesser degree to represent their combat ability being reduced because of damage being inflicted which are breaking off limbs or cracking bones/surface. For wolves and other like creatures attacking heavily armored adversaries I've used the optional exploding die rule I've seen elsewhere on the site as a way of simulating the chance of a creatures teeth tearing at or getting behind a plate to inflict a wound. I however cap the total amount of damage being done.

Oh man we have some cool undead rules in OBAM. Until then I run it like this: No shock and half pain (to represent physical damage, just like you do). Bludgeoning weapons still get their shock bonus, though. I personally don't think that wolf teeth could get through or around plate, but that's a completely arbitrary opinion based on my own best guesses. TROS does reflect my own combat opinions as well as actual knowledge--I won't deny that.

Higher Combat pool=Winner

A small combat die pool advantage is enormous in this game, which I personally kind of like. In many other games (Gurps, DnD, RulesMaster, etc.) a lesser foe has a good chance of getting a lucking shot and taking out a superior foe. TroS is very predicable, if you are more skilled, 9 out of 10 chances, your going to win, provided you don't do something stupid (then you're dead!)  which isn't a bad thing. But problems can arise when trying to simulate that one-shot dragon kill that many other systems attempt. Yes I know PCs have their spiritual attributes to their advantage, but not every situation can these attributes can be justified (or in the case of luck, be used time and time again), and there is also a cap of five as the max amount of extra dice that can be rolled.. I've read somewhere on this site about allowing the option of exploding all 10's, but I'm not sure if that's the answer. It will useful every once in a while when the party goes up against that ubber monster the GM has designed, however in the short term every thug and footpad is going to get much more of an advantage out of it. Do other people find this a problem in their campaign? Anyone have any suggestions? I've been toying the idea of allowing the exploding optional d10 rule with the exception that for most npcs (the major ones get to play by the same rules the PC's do) when re-rolling the d10 the TN is raised by 2, making it harder for them to gut the PC's but allowing the party the chance for exceptional rolls on occasion.

Well, I like it too, and it is largely intentional. That's reality for you. John Clements (ARMA director) kicks my trash every time we spar at swords. I can beat all of the guys I study with, percentage-wise based on skill. My "equals" I beat 60% or so. New guys I beat 95% of the time or more. Intermediate folks get me about 20%-ish. It's predictable, because combat really is like that, and the freak accidents that make these things change are just that--freak accidents that happen as often as rolling lots of 1's and 2's.

OTOH, ask Ralph Mazza (Valamir here on the Forge) if a guy with 8 dice can wail on someone with 15. The skill of a player *really* can make a *huge* difference. I did it to him at GenCon (sorry for singling you out, Ralph). Other factors, such as weapon choice, also make a large difference.

Some of the basic problems that arise here regularly really come from a non-TROS mentality. An uber-monster really isn't very TROS-ish, at least from the standpoint that the PCs should be able to overcome it in face-to-face battle. It's hard not to do, because that's the tradition that we come from, but TROS is different. Remember, everyone but Gandalf ran from the Balrog. Even Aragorn.

Oh, and there's no 5-die cap for dice rolled--just for SA's as they sit on the sheet. You could, theoretically, put 25 dice from all 5 SA's into a roll.

Finally, what do you mean by "one-shot dragon kill," so that I don't answer off-base?

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I love the game. There are some rough edges that need to be worked on, but I only wish that supplemental material would come out faster! Thanks all for your attention to this matter.

You're not the only one! Me, too. We're working on it, though. OBAM is finished (except for rough edges), but it's a long way from a finished book, because that's how publishing is (unfortunately). We'll have something out soon, though.

As for rough edges in TROS...never!

;-)

Jake

[Thirsty Viking]

1. When successfully using terrain, which side gets to choose who attacks the person who used terrain?

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.
Jake

Not an outright disagreement Jake,  but if the defender rolls for terrain,  I'd allow the attackers to coordinate who closes on the defender.  If they weren't in agreement/actively coordinating... I'd let the fastest go first though.  I might then allow the others to expend dice trying to manuver for an attack flanking position.

[Claymore]

Thank you so much for your timely reply! I really appreciate it!

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.

Therefore in my example of the knight, if he had the highest move he would he would pick the man at arms, if one of the men at arms had the highest Move he could choose to be the attacker to move in and engage. Correct?  

The thing I bolded is absolutely true, and is representative of the reality of "manevuers" that TROS represents. Mass and skirmish combat simply was messier than a duel, and there wasn't much time or space for more elaborate manevuers. Regardless, many do still work in other situations, but not all. Additionally, remember that TROS's maneuvers are based on real ones, and mankind never actually faced trolls, wights, or giants--there was no need for special techniques against them. In Weyrth these things are rare enough that there still wouldn't be special techniques for for it. Your world may be different, and that'll require new techniques.

I would say my world has about supernatural activity as yours, maybe even less. 80% of all adventures tend to deal with mundanes, the other 20% have to deal with the supernatural. The main issue I feel is one of scaling. A larger creature has such a high strength won’t hurt a PC, it will either miss or kill! There is no middle ground. There attributes are so high. If a giant hits you, you’re dead! (Strength 20+10 for weapon) Even a Gorem is going to crush PCs to pulp if it hits. I know the game has the power to simulate various types of fantasy. I'm just trying to tweak the system to get it to my comfort level.

Finally, what do you mean by "one-shot dragon kill," so that I don't answer off-base?

A one-shot Dragon kill refers to Bard in the Hobbit, who slays Smaug with Black-Arrow. Yes the arrow was magical. Yes he had Spiritual attributes up the wazoo working for him, but still, a Dragon is a Dragon! It’s toughness and armor is enormous. You cite that:

It's predictable, because combat really is like that, and the freak accidents that make these things change are just that--freak accidents that happen as often as rolling lots of 1's and 2's.

The problem with that you need to be able to hurt it in the first place, even if the creature rolls all 1’s on defense if you cant crack the armor you can’t damage it. The Dragon’s toughness is 20+ armor, if you have a dice pool 10 which you pump to 20 with spiritual attributes working for you and you get 20 successes, it’s still going to bounce. There is an absolute upper cap to what can be done.

One last thing. Is the November release date for TFOB hard or soft at this point?

Again thank you so much for your speedy reply! Keep up the good work!


Claymore

[Thirsty Viking]

Thank you so much for your timely reply! I really appreciate it!

My take on it is the fastest guy (by Move score) gets to attack first.

Therefore in my example of the knight, if he had the highest move he would he would pick the man at arms, if one of the men at arms had the highest Move he could choose to be the attacker to move in and engage. Correct?  

I'm not Jake,  but no...  not as i see it.   If the knight choses position to limit the # of attackers who can get at him...   he takes who ever comes to him. (barring an ambush)  If the Knight singles out an enemy and attacks...  I'd have him lose his terrain advantage.

I would say my world has about supernatural activity as yours, maybe even less. 80% of all adventures tend to deal with mundanes, the other 20% have to deal with the supernatural. The main issue I feel is one of scaling. A larger creature has such a high strength won't hurt a PC, it will either miss or kill! There is no middle ground. There attributes are so high. If a giant hits you, you're dead! (Strength 20+10 for weapon) Even a Gorem is going to crush PCs to pulp if it hits. I know the game has the power to simulate various types of fantasy. I'm just trying to tweak the system to get it to my comfort level.

This is of course true.  if I hit a small sized dog with a decent weapon trying to kill it,   I will generally kill it.    To more accurately simulate reality ...  allow a tie on combat to hurt the charachter short of killing..   level 2 wound maybe?  A marauding giant,  or such often needs to be stopped with the aid of magic,  or ranged attacks, or mass combat shedding much life.
I prefer balista as my weapon of choice in this instance...  preferably from the baily of a castle surrouned by a city,   lol

[Bob Richter]

The problem with that you need to be able to hurt it in the first place, even if the creature rolls all 1's on defense if you cant crack the armor you can't damage it. The Dragon's toughness is 20+ armor, if you have a dice pool 10 which you pump to 20 with spiritual attributes working for you and you get 20 successes, it's still going to bounce. There is an absolute upper cap to what can be done.

First off, Dragons don't WEAR armor. Their thick, scaly hides are armor enough (or so they think.) Dragons may be smart, but they're not primates. They don't think like tool-users. So while a Dragon might be able to fashion a spear or crude armor, it simply wouldn't.

Which means you only need a damage total of 25 to kill a dragon.

Let's assume that our friend the bard was using a Longbow of excellent quality (reduced ATN) And that the magical arrow, which always flew true, negates any range penalties.

Add the base damage of the longbow (8) in there...
...and we only need 17 successes (against ATN6) to boost us to one-shot-dragon-kill.

Keep in mind that Smaug is unaware of the attack (or chose not to dodge, in any case. It may be another effect of the arrow that dodging is uniformly ineffective.)

Shall we assume a Missile Pool of 10? I'd like to.

That should produce 6 successes.

Meaning we need 11 more.

Hm.

I think we need SAs.

Hm. Well, it turns out he has 19 points of SAs that happen to align toward this Dragon-slaying (Loves the people he's protecting. Loyal to them.  Destiny to kill Smaug. Faith in the Black Arrow.)

Which, as it turns out, average 11 successes.

One of a kind shot? Sure. But perfectly reproducible.
:)

(Looking at your example, it appears you forgot to factor in the Longbow.)

[Claymore]

First off, Dragons don't WEAR armor. Their thick, scaly hides are armor enough (or so they think.) Dragons may be smart, but they're not primates. They don't think like tool-users. So while a Dragon might be able to fashion a spear or crude armor, it simply wouldn't.

I was thinking natural armor, I did not realize Toughness is "natural armor" in all cases.

I think we need SAs.

Hm. Well, it turns out he has 19 points of SAs that happen to align toward this Dragon-slaying (Loves the people he's protecting. Loyal to them. Destiny to kill Smaug. Faith in the Black Arrow.)

Which, as it turns out, average 11 successes.

One of a kind shot? Sure. But perfectly reproducible.
:)

(Looking at your example, it appears you forgot to factor in the Longbow.)

To be honest I find somewhat unrealistic that a creature with 20 toughness only needs 5 more successses to kill, like a standard character, I assumed this might be looked at in the Bestiary, but I could be wrong.

Any example can be tweaked to provide the results needed, but the point is, there is a HARD CAP on the total level of success that can be accomplished right now currently in the rules. I'm not neccessarily saying this is terrible, but it's something I question and want to look at.


Claymore

[Thirsty Viking]

I guess it all depends how you define toughness...  If you define toughness as 5 wound levels less than a killing blow...   then it makes perfect sence.  I'm going to car for my tros book,  see if it lists dragons...  i don't recall.

[Claymore]

I guess it all depends how you define toughness... If you define toughness as 5 wound levels less than a killing blow... then it makes perfect sence. I'm going to car for my tros book, see if it lists dragons... i don't recall.

page 227 of the main rules, revised edition.

[Jake Norwood]

What's this HARD CAP I keep hearing about? I didn't write one.

Jake

[Claymore]

What's this HARD CAP I keep hearing about? I didn't write one

I reffering to the  basic system design. Some systems have an upper limit of what you can do with what you've got, some allow open ended rolling. TROS is a game that has an upper can on what you can roll. For example in TROS if you have a dice pool of 10 and another 10 points of spiritual attributes, the maximum amount of successes you can achieve is 20. No more, unless using a special maneuver which will raise the pool by a fixed amount.

In White Wolf games 10's explode, so even if your dice pool is a mere 6, you could theoretically get  10, 12, 20 successes. There is always a chance, no matter how poor it is.

Other games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Gurps have a number that is an auto-hit, and will do some damage (unless it has a magical resistance). This sort of technique would not work for TROS because just because you hit does not mean that you do damage.

I was considering using an exploding die rule in TROS to always give someone that chance even if it is a very small one. The problem is while every once in a while it will help the PCs against a superior foe, it favors every weak NPC going against the party even more.

I had one question concerning spiritual attributes though. The total amount of points a character can have in a single spiritual attribute is 5, correct? The rest go into a "bank" for character growth, I assume?

Thanks,


Claymore

[Brian Leybourne]

Regarding the whole Smaug one-shot-kill thing...

Lets not forget that the only reason Bard was able to kill the dragon with his arrow at all is because he shot Smaug in the soft spot. In TROS terms, Smaug has a TO of 15 (say) but only 5 in his soft spot. Bard took a couple of die penalty for aiming specifically at that spot (same penalty as targeting a head or arm perhaps) and then only had 5 toughness to content with instead of 15.

Yes, there's an extended Dragon entry in OBAM but it's not anything like as detailed as (say) D&D3e's Dragons. From memory I think they have a TO of 12 but it's certainly reasonable that there could be softer spots.. if not an unplated bit like Smaug then you could always still aim for the eye, or into the mouth etc, and as Seneschal I would rule a lower TO at those spots. No, OBAM doesn't cover all of those possibilities because Wyrms are extremely rare in Weyrth and I didn't see the need to spend pages and pages covering creatures that you might use once ever. Remember that Weyrth (and TRoS in general) is more about human interaction than huge fantastical creatures.

And, quite frankly, although in D&D I would probably take on a dragon or a giant (depending on my level, perhaps), in TROS (just as in real life) I would run away with squishy trousers and trailing urine, and so would you. If you have to beat something like that, you come back with lots of men, or you get intelligent and don't just whale away in hand to hand assuming the Seneschal wouldn't put you against an opponent with a TO greater than your SR+DR. TRoS is the thinking mans game.

Oh yeah, err.. wolves versus platemail? Well, they only have ST5 and DR +0 (thus damage is just ST+successes) so no, they're not terribly likely to be able to get through platemail, but if they roll high really high (CP is ~13), then maybe they found a gap, or a claw slipped in somewhere and severed a strap, etc. Anything is possible. The answer is that one wolf versus an armored man is very very likely to result in a dead wolf and an unhurt man (just like in real life). Several wolves against the man, and it's a different story - they start using the pack tactics outlined in Of Beasts and Men, and the man is probably screwed. Again, just like in real life. They still have a problem getting their claws through his defenses, but with the various special animal-only tactics and maneuvers, they'll wear him down soom enough and eventually he'll probably succumb.

Brian.

[Claymore]

they start using the pack tactics outlined in Of Beasts and Men, and the man is probably screwed. Again, just like in real life. They still have a problem getting their claws through his defenses, but with the various special animal-only tactics and maneuvers, they'll wear him down soom enough and eventually he'll probably succumb.

There were attacking in a pack, and I made the ruling because I don't have access to a playtest copy of the supplement.


Claymore

[Brian Leybourne]

There were attacking in a pack, and I made the ruling because I don't have access to a playtest copy of the supplement.

Well, the book is basically completed (I sent the last chapter to Jake last Friday), and of course it still has to go through the second draft process and then editors etc, but hopefully it shouldn't be too far away.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

I had one question concerning spiritual attributes though. The total amount of points a character can have in a single spiritual attribute is 5, correct? The rest go into a "bank" for character growth, I assume?

Thanks,


Claymore

Not exactly. There is no bank. You keep them in your SA's or spend them (*then* they go into insight...after they're spent).

Now I get the hard cap.

Jake