Thinking of buying -- two concerns about combat

[Lance D. Allen]

On outmaneuvering:

An idea that came to me.. The single combatant can choose to attempt to outmaneuver his opponents. He chooses a number of dice to use.. Then the others can choose to either attempt to outmaneuver him, or not. If they choose to, they must meet use the same number of dice, or more, but not less. So if the sole combatant uses 3 dice, any others who try to outmaneuver him must commit 3 or more, or simply not outmaneuver. Whoever beats the sole combatant's roll can fight him, but those who match or fail to beat the number of successes are outmaneuvered. This keeps Less committed combatants from rolling a single die and just getting lucky. If they want to fight, they'll have to have the same level of commitment.

On Toughness: My interpretation of toughness (either as it's own attribute, or composited into Brawn, as in the QS rules) is that it's not simply beefiness or the ability to take a beating. I see it likewise as a certain instinctive knowledge of how to lessen the impact. In the case of the club to the head, the character, seeing the blow coming and realizing that they cannot totally avoid it instinctively reacts to lessen the impact. They move their head directly away from the blow, and/or tilt it in such a way that it only glances. If not for the helmet, it still would have been enough to crack their skull (level 4 bashing wound... ouch?) But with the helm, it just makes a rather loud clank (no-doubt muffled by whatever padding is inside the helm) and does no harm.

[toli]

This keeps Less committed combatants from rolling a single die and just getting lucky. If they want to fight, they'll have to have the same level of commitment.

I think some thing like this is a good idea.  I would go so far as to give less important NPCs some sort of TN to initiate a fight (at the discresion of the seneshal of course).  A type of moral role or something that might cause them to surrender or flee when hurt.

I once read a book on Roman warfare.  To a certain extent the book pointed out that eventhought the Romans had well organized armies and tactics, individuals (especially centurions) were still highly important in the course of battle and that often the actions of only a few men could dictate the course of a battle by demoralizing or invigorating the ranks on either side.  

This overall view was backed up by US army studies from WW2, Korea and Vietam.  One point these studies made was that in a combat situation, relatively few people are actually trying to win the battle (something like less than 5%).  The majority are 'surviving'.  That is they respond to attacks and fight when attacked but lack initiative in a sense.  

One reason a character could fight two or more NPC's and get away with it would be that the NPCs don't really have the initiatve to create a combined attack.

NT

[toli]

For example, is it too difficult/time consuming to run a melee say with 10 or so fighters going at it?  

For this it might also depend on whether the fighters are NPC's or some are PC's.  I the system can easily handle combat between NPC (say henchmen and followers or the PCs vs. bad guys).  We had a 'semi' - mass combat in one session.  We ran the PC combat as normal.  However we used a sort of 'Pendragon' approach for the NPCs vs NPCs.  We paired up NPCs and rolled all the dice in their pools, subtracted the high from the low for each pair and did that much damage minus armor and toughness to the loser....then rolled a d10/2 to determine how many rounds that actually took (so that free NPCs could aid PCs or vica versa....)

NT

[Brian Leybourne]

This overall view was backed up by US army studies from WW2, Korea and Vietam.  One point these studies made was that in a combat situation, relatively few people are actually trying to win the battle (something like less than 5%).  The majority are 'surviving'.  That is they respond to attacks and fight when attacked but lack initiative in a sense.

I read a US Army report a year or two back where they were discussing the "usefulness" of combat troops. I think this was with an eye toward a possible war with China, whose troops are, frankly, more disciplined and determined than current day US troops (don't shoot the messenger, I'm just telling you what the report said).

Anyway, the eventual determination was that out of every seven men, only two would be effective in a battle/fire fight situation. Two more would be cowering down in fright and would only shoot if they had to (because of a direct threat), two more would be running away and be unlikely to do any shooting at all, and the last one would be literally paralised with fear, lying down with his eyes closed and praying for god or his mommy.

The concern was that their estimation was that the Chinese troops would be 5/7 effective rather than their own 2/7, because of the methods used to train their troops, compared to the "namby pamby" way US troops have to be trained these days (the days of screaming seargeant majors, beatings and harsh punishments being basically over).

TROS connection? Well, tenouos, I must admit. But the point was that morale plays an EXTREMELY massive role in any battle.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

I've always felt that what makes TROS combat more "heroic" than all the systems so dubbed, is that it requires real "heroism" in the face of danger--the virtue that the 2/7 posess. It's the PC's that make the choice to be part of that 2/7 (not the mechanics that do it for them, as has been discussed). On the other hand, this is great advice for seneschals and those wishing to throw dozens of screaming suicidal masses at their PCs...not many will really stand up to a fight.

Jake

[Brian Leybourne]

On the other hand, this is great advice for seneschals and those wishing to throw dozens of screaming suicidal masses at their PCs...not many will really stand up to a fight.

IMG, it's a rare NPC who doesn't throw down his weapon as soon as a) he gets wounded, or b) the PC's look like they're quite prepared to fight to the death. A town guard just isn't going to lay down his life for 2 copper pieces a day.

But there's that occasional guy (one of the 2/7 *grin*) that surprises the PC's by going for in balls-and-all.

Brian.

[Michael Tree]

IMG, it's a rare NPC who doesn't throw down his weapon as soon as a) he gets wounded, or b) the PC's look like they're quite prepared to fight to the death. A town guard just isn't going to lay down his life for 2 copper pieces a day.

And the rare one who does probably has a high Conscience, or some sort of SA related to duty, to help him to defend his post.