Fundamentals of combat

[Overdrive]

Hi there

I've been following the forum for as long as I've had the book. I must say I love the game :) Smooth and elegant in many ways, and not very rule-heavy (I've GM:d Gurps for years...)

Enough prelude. There are some things about combat I think need pointing out. The first is initiative, and buying it. It's been discussed on this forum, but I've found no solid conclusion, rather some thoughts and different house rules.

Take two lightly or unarmored, experienced combatants. Say, they both have 15 CP and longswords (quite capable of dealing level 2-3 wounds with just one or two successes in margin). If at any time one decides to attack, the other guy can just steal the initiative spending about 10 dice, and use the rest to cripple the poor attacker. With 10 dice the stealing is almost automatic. Is this really the case?

Of course both fighters know if they attack, they die, so they keep tossing white until one gets overconfident or they call it a day. Maneuvers like Evasive attack might do the trick, though. But against sufficiently competent opponent, it seems you should never attack first. Any solutions?

The second thing is using offensive maneuvers that reduce the opponent's CP. Take the above situation, with one of the combatants distracting the opponent with Toss. He throws red (the opponent white) and uses 8 dice on Toss. What can the opponent do? In this case he doesn't even have to buy the initiative, but just declare attack. The original attacker goes first, and succeeds by let's say 5, so he loses 5 CP (on next exchange.. so what?). Now on the same first exchange, he can attack with all 15 dice, pulverizing the poor guy again. He could have done it even had he had to buy the initiative, or even if you take the 5 CP from his pool right after the maneuver.

The combat simulator seems to allow this kind of action, and the book also indicates so, on page 77. A valid defence is attack, although the original offender gets to do the stuff first, unless the initiative is stolen.

Then there is that old sword&shield thing. The two guys are now using swords and shields, and one decides to attack with 10 dice. The other can again state his defence is "attack", but with simultaneous block/strike. This situation is a bit risky, but it does again allow a free attack against no defense.

Hmm.. I do have a suggestion now that I came to think of it. It says on page 77, "should the loser wish to attack during the next Exchange ... he may simply declare an attack. The winner attacks first..." Does this mean that the guy who doesn't have the initiative (loser of the previous exchance, the fighter who tossed white) _must_ state that he's attacking, _before_ the guy who has the initiative states his action, so he can react. This might just do the trick :) Must playtest :) The simulator is very misleading if this is the case.

Addition to the above, what if the defender wants to steal the initiative? It says (on pg. 75) that one may wish to buy initiative when a character who has previously declared defense wishes to attack. Does this mean that I can really wait for the opponent to state his attack (or maneuver) and dice, and then declare attack with pre-emptive strike?

Uh, I went haywire myself, hope you can understand what I mean :)

+Antti

[Roger Eberhart]

Just curious, if someone steals initiative, can you steal it back again? It would seem to make sense. You see your opponent is trying to strike before you, so you speed up your own attack. Unfortunately, I don't have the book with me at the moment, so I don't know if this is specifically allowed or not.

[Mokkurkalfe]

This is something I(or rather, one of my players) discovered the hard way.
One way is that if a white die is dropped, then you *must* defend. This means that you can attack in the first round at least without fear of immediate reprisal.
Another technique is to go for a beat against the weapon. Should this succeed, then the weapon is disabled and cannot attack. The beat takes effect immediately, not in the next exchange, at least in my book.*
This prevents a sim block/strike and everything else except buying initiative or someone with two weapons.
For buying initiative, you could remove the ability to raise your opponent's Ref TN. This way, buying initiative is a lot more risky.


* = I mean, that's how I would do it, not that that's what my TROS book says. Though perhaps the TROS book says it too? Don't have it with me...

[Mokkurkalfe]

OTOH, a duel between to heavily armed but lightly armoured guys would be very defensive indeed I imagine. Lot's o' hopping around, teasing, small feinting n' stuff until one side attack.

[Lyrax]

I think there's a maximum number of dice you can use to steal initiative (maybe not...).  Also, if someone attacks in the middle of a Toss, I'd probably treat the toss as a thrown dagger, and simply use a coin toss to see whether the damage is blunt or pointy.  That's a neat incentive to NOT attack in the middle of a toss.

Also, if both combatants attack at the same time, a contest of reflex is used to determine who goes first.  The loser may buy initiative.  I would also allow the loser of that to steal initiative as well.  It would then end up with whomever has the better reflex as a winner.

Also, don't underestimate the power of a counter.

[contracycle]

Of course both fighters know if they attack, they die, so they keep tossing white until one gets overconfident or they call it a day. Maneuvers like Evasive attack might do the trick, though. But against sufficiently competent opponent, it seems you should never attack first. Any solutions?

Yes.  Force your opponent to engage you on deadly ground; then they are compelled to attack regardless.

[Jake Norwood]

I think its interesting to see different "schools" amongst TROS players. Like the old masters some advocate recieving your opponent (throwing white), others say that the agressive approach is superior (throwing red). Others will then come out and talk about the lack of balance that throwing red/white is plainly superior and that if a player does X then he'll always win. Funny thing is that I see it argued both ways.

Niether is better than the other...it's just how you use it.

Jake

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I agree with you on taht one jake, I find that the numerous maneuvers available make this doubly true. Will there be more maneuvers in any of te upcoming supplements?

[Jake Norwood]

ill there be more maneuvers in any of te upcoming supplements?

Yes, the Flower of Battle, due out, uh, by Origins or Gen Con, will have more. Yipee!

Jake

[Irmo]

ill there be more maneuvers in any of te upcoming supplements?

Yes, the Flower of Battle, due out, uh, by Origins or Gen Con, will have more. Yipee!

Jake

Any teasers? ;)

I personally love counters, it's most in the line with the "don't just defend, but use your defense to prepare the attack" philosophy

[Lance D. Allen]

I know Jake has already stated that Iai will be one of the new maneuvers from TFoB. I'm definitely interested in seeing that one, though I think he's even posted the rules for that maneuver somewhere, if I had the desire to go searching.

Also, my ruling on things like Toss is that, if the aggressor (ie, whoever has initiative) is the one doing the Toss maneuver that the CP penalties applied to the defender apply immediately to the dice that the defender is using that round, even if the "defender" is attacking. I decided this was the only right way to do it after Julianos tried a Toss against Tiberius, and Tiberius stabbed him in the arm instead. It's going to be a lot harder to attack accurately when someone is tossing a hat in your face, after all. If I decided to blow most of my CP on attacking, and still manage to score a hit with whatever dice remain after the Toss anyhow, beanies for me. Whoever had the greater success margin still has initiative though, so I'd better hope it's not my opponent.

[Spartan]

Also, my ruling on things like Toss is that, if the aggressor (ie, whoever has initiative) is the one doing the Toss maneuver that the CP penalties applied to the defender apply immediately to the dice that the defender is using that round, even if the "defender" is attacking.

This is my ruling as well, for any similar situations, such as an "attack" defence against a Bind and Strike.  It forces the Tosser/Binder to commit enough dice to account for a strong counterstrike... declaring a Toss or Bind with only a couple of dice becomes VERY dangerous... your opponent can merely attack with all his CP... a good Falchion hit to the legs in such a situation works wonders... it's often resulted in amputations in my playtests, and lots of Knockdowns.  Very cool. :)

-Mark

[Overdrive]

Thanks for the replies, but I still havent got the answer I needed.. so:

I think its interesting to see different "schools" amongst TROS players. Like the old masters some advocate recieving your opponent (throwing white), others say that the agressive approach is superior (throwing red). Others will then come out and talk about the lack of balance that throwing red/white is plainly superior and that if a player does X then he'll always win. Funny thing is that I see it argued both ways.

Niether is better than the other...it's just how you use it.

Really? Consider this: Two guys duelling with longswords, no armor and both with CP 13. The pools are full, and one has taken the initiative (by any means, throwing red vs white or by winning the previous exchange) and attacks happily with 9 dice. A serious threat, right? With 13 dice, the defender can now just steal the initiative (using say, 9 dice, pretty much automatic) and slash the poor offender's head off (with 4 dice and a longsword against no armor, pretty much automatic as well). Was it worth attacking, or am I missing a rule or two?

Antti

[Jake Norwood]

I think that, while you're on to something, you still aren't reading the rules.

You can only increase an opponent's TN by a number of dice equal to your Wit.

First, the buyer has to spend a # of dice = to opponent's Per.

For example, that's 4 dice.

Then the contest of WP vs. Wit is made. The opponent's TN is = your Reflex (let's say 6). If your Wit is 6 (that's possible), then you can raise him by 6 for a TN of 12. You have 3 dice left in your pool, and you have initiative. Not too bad a deal, actually. So while you're off in your example, you have a point about the unbalancing factor here.

Can the other guy buy initiative now...sure he can, because now he's the slower one. That's where things get messy.

I will readily admit, however, that it's a messy part of the rules, and if anything needs reworking, Buying Initiative does. In certain (common) circumstances, it can really throw things off more than it was meant to. All of that is intentional *except* for the "common" part.

Jake

[Mokkurkalfe]

How about making Buying Initiative more risky for the buyer?
Or you could make it a maneuver(Buy Initiative and strike), where you'll allot dice to hit before the opponent and then allot dice to the attack itself. All during one exchange. The first roll would be against the original attacker's attack, with a TN equal to the opponents Ref for the buyer, and the ATN for the original attacker. Something like that.


On a side note, does the reach modifier apply for ref contests? I house ruled that they did, since a dagger guy will have a hard time buying initiative from a spear man at "spear range".