Combat query: combined arms

[Aaron]

Think about this for a moment-it at least takes a second or two to cock back your arm and throw something. A second is quite fast, and while throwing the object you may not think seconds are flying by, but they are. I would say in such situations you would still have a tiny bit of prep time, but aren't letting your MP refresh fully.

But Shadeling,  I thought the MP doens't start to refresh until after my arm is cocked.  Thats part of the preperation time, or have I read that wrong.  I assumed that " Refresh begins with cocking back to throw" means I have to have it cocked before refresh begins.
Aaron

[Brian Leybourne]

I hate to be the one to stick up for d20 but there aint no 50% chance to hit your mate rule in 3rd ed.

That just means that the writers of 3rd edition finally came to their senses, it doesn't make my point any less valid, in fact it affirms it :-)

That being said I was wondering if anyone had come up with a way to throw or shoot without taking any refresh time.  It doesn't seem that unreasonable for someone to throw a dagger as its drawn from its sheath or throw a rock as they pick it up without taking a second to ready.  Just look at cricketers or baseball fieldsman.  they will quite often throw a ball on a blind turn or as they grab it without taking a second to aim.

You can shoot with a zero refresh time. At minimum a longbow takes 2 seconds to draw (assuming no extra time for getting the arrow). Once it's drawn, you get your Wit in MP each round, starting right away. Also, you can spend 2 MP (that you don't have yet) to roll to reduce the time by 1 second.

So, assuming your wit is more than 4, you can reduce the time to knock and draw to 0 seconds. Assuming you have a wit of 6 (say) this means you can whip out an arrow and fire with 2 dice in no time at all, or with 8 dice in 1 second (an exchange). Not terribly accurate perhaps, but even one success lets you add the +8 bow damage. If your opponent is lightly armored it could be very nasty for him.

In general though, it *should* take a few seconds to knock, draw and launch. You'll see above that 15 accurate shots in a minute was considered pretty good, which is one shot every 4 seconds. That works out just about right in TROS. And if you think about it, even throwing something without aiming does take a second or two for your arm to come back and then whip forward.

Brian.

[Shadeling]

Think about this for a moment-it at least takes a second or two to cock back your arm and throw something. A second is quite fast, and while throwing the object you may not think seconds are flying by, but they are. I would say in such situations you would still have a tiny bit of prep time, but aren't letting your MP refresh fully.

But Shadeling,  I thought the MP doens't start to refresh until after my arm is cocked.  Thats part of the preperation time, or have I read that wrong.  I assumed that " Refresh begins with cocking back to throw" means I have to have it cocked before refresh begins.
Aaron

True, true. So you have a hasty preparation throw, plus only one second of missile pool refresh...there, your in there at only about 2 seconds.

[Brian Leybourne]

But Shadeling,  I thought the MP doens't start to refresh until after my arm is cocked.  Thats part of the preperation time, or have I read that wrong.  I assumed that " Refresh begins with cocking back to throw" means I have to have it cocked before refresh begins.
Aaron

Oops.. Shadeling and I said basically the same thing :-)

Yes, you're right about refresh, but it starts as soon as you have knocked and drawn. If my wit is 6, I get 6 dice as soon as I'm ready, then another six the next second, etc. See my example above.

Brian.

[prophet118]

speaking as someone wh does a fair amount of D&D, you only stand a chance of hitting a party members in melee if you miss your target number by 4 or less....if i remember correctly

[Aaron]

You can shoot with a zero refresh time. At minimum a longbow takes 2 seconds to draw (assuming no extra time for getting the arrow). Once it's drawn, you get your Wit in MP each round, starting right away. Also, you can spend 2 MP (that you don't have yet) to roll to reduce the time by 1 second.

So, assuming your wit is more than 4, you can reduce the time to knock and draw to 0 seconds. Assuming you have a wit of 6 (say) this means you can whip out an arrow and fire with 2 dice in no time at all, or with 8 dice in 1 second (an exchange). Not terribly accurate perhaps, but even one success lets you add the +8 bow damage. If your opponent is lightly armored it could be very nasty for him.

In general though, it *should* take a few seconds to knock, draw and launch. You'll see above that 15 accurate shots in a minute was considered pretty good, which is one shot every 4 seconds. That works out just about right in TROS. And if you think about it, even throwing something without aiming does take a second or two for your arm to come back and then whip forward.

Brian.

Ahhhh.  Now thats another thing I hadn't considered.  You'd let people pay the 2 MP to reduce the time a multiple of times.  Not to mention letting them go into what would effectively be negative pool.  (I was going to query that one seperately at some stage but since you mentioned it..)
This is what I meant when I asked what people are doing.  My only further comment would be that I would think the users skill(read proficiency) could probably have an impact on how quickly the dice are refreshed as well as his WIT.  Not such an important point I admit but if someone is very good at knife throwing say prof of 12 and decided to try Brians hasty 0 second shot as outlined above there'd be a pretty good argument that he'd be better at it than someone with prof of 6.  
Aaron

[Darth Tang]

Brian, I haven't played D&D since the mid-80s.

I collect battle-ready (I.e., sharp, good steel, & balanced) medieval weapons, which I train with. There is no way you can make 120, or even 60, combat swings in a minute. Maybe if you flailed madly at a log like a windmill, but to make forcefull, aimed strikes...no way. I chose an arming sword, went out, and chopped up a float (keg-sized styrofoam dock support) while my wife timed me. There's just no way; I'm not an expert, but a strike a second is unrealistic. Two exchanges in six seconds is, IMO, borderline, but I'm willing to live with it.

As to firing into melee, that's patently absurd. I've been a police officer for over two decades, and have participated in many a 'scrimmage'. I can't count the number of times another officer or myself has swung a club at one participant only to hit someone else because in the brief interval between committing to a swing and connection, the target moved. That's a fraction of a second. Because in a melee, people dance around, duck, weave, throw punches. Move, in other words. Something, to use your example, D&D did not cover, but RoS does.

The reason I bought RoS is that I heard it had a realistic combat system. Firing into melee is the kind of 'gamer junk' I'm trying to escape.

Its obvious I'm wasteing my time here. My 'increment' Initiative system will have to serve until I think of something better.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I just played with my waster, about 1 full arm swing a second worked for me, I didnt hit 60 plus because I got tired at 15 and slowed down. Now, let me get into wrist strikes, rune strikes or krumpaus and I can go much faster. Give me an opponent wo parries my swing and immediately counter cuts or uses a master cut and accomplishes this in one blow and 1-2 second rounds is quite realistic.   although I would love it ifa guy took 3 seconds to swing at me, that would make a rookie like me have a greater life span in a duel! the reasons that 60-120 swings do not occur is because people stop, seperate and circle for advantage, this is simulated quite well in teh game. Fatigue is another reason, also handled in game. you d not need to alter the time of exchanges, it would be superfulous, but you can if you really really want to.

[Bob Richter]

Brian, I haven't played D&D since the mid-80s.

I collect battle-ready (I.e., sharp, good steel, & balanced) medieval weapons, which I train with. There is no way you can make 120, or even 60, combat swings in a minute. Maybe if you flailed madly at a log like a windmill, but to make forcefull, aimed strikes...no way. I chose an arming sword, went out, and chopped up a float (keg-sized styrofoam dock support) while my wife timed me. There's just no way; I'm not an expert, but a strike a second is unrealistic. Two exchanges in six seconds is, IMO, borderline, but I'm willing to live with it.

I'm not impeaching your experience or anything, but I have to tell you that you're wrong. It is possible to make 60, or even 120 "forceful, targeted" swings in the course of a minute. It will almost never happen in a fight (because continuous engagement with swords or even fists rarely lasts that long,) but it's far from impossible. I can easily match this pace over the short term with the weapons I have at hand: fists, a quarterstaff, a katana, and a few "boffer"swords used for mock combats. In these mock combats, I have equalled and exceeded these rates of attack and parry, as have my opponents. I shouldn't have to tell you that real fights move very fast, and three seconds is an eternity in any form of combat, whether with fists, clubs, swords, or even guns.

>>>As to firing into melee, that's patently absurd. <<<

That depends on what you call a melee. Fistfights occur at arm's length. Sword-fights occur at swords-length. This gives the combatants a lot of separation, and in the fraction of a second it takes for a projectile to cross a few dozen yards, not much will have changed. Police snipers are often actually EXPECTED to perform this kind of shooting, and the much harder task of hitting a suspect engaged in grappling with a victim.

Have two guys go at it with bofffer swords. Try to hit one (but not the other) with a kickball. I think you'd be surprised how EASY it is.

[Bob Richter]

[Think about this for a moment-it at least takes a second or two to cock back your arm and throw something.

Tell that to a major-league pitcher. :)

A second or two?

You mean like one-mississippi two-mississippi?

like that?

That's a long, bleeding time.

[allahlav]

Brian Leybourne wrote

You can shoot with a zero refresh time. At minimum a longbow takes 2 seconds to draw (assuming no extra time for getting the arrow). Once it's drawn, you get your Wit in MP each round, starting right away. Also, you can spend 2 MP (that you don't have yet) to roll to reduce the time by 1 second.

Well, not according to the example (page 83 revised rulebook).  The example has the archer ready but with no arrow nocked.  She grabs an arrow from the ground and nocks it, taking the 2 rounds, and then her pool fills over the next 2 rounds.  She does not get her 6 Wit dice instantly, she still has to wait one round before she gets any dice.  Granted that the way the rules read could be interpreted either way, but I've been going with the example.

[Shadeling]

[Think about this for a moment-it at least takes a second or two to cock back your arm and throw something.

Tell that to a major-league pitcher. :)

A second or two?

You mean like one-mississippi two-mississippi?

like that?

That's a long, bleeding time.

Ever seen a 'pitcher' wind-up...to me that is a second or two of prep time.

[Darth Tang]

[That depends on what you call a melee. Fistfights occur at arm's length. Sword-fights occur at swords-length. This gives the combatants a lot of separation, and in the fraction of a second it takes for a projectile to cross a few dozen yards, not much will have changed. Police snipers are often actually EXPECTED to perform this kind of shooting, and the much harder task of hitting a suspect engaged in grappling with a victim.

Have two guys go at it with bofffer swords. Try to hit one (but not the other) with a kickball. I think you'd be surprised how EASY it is.

Point taken on the fatigue factor; I fixated on the 'whole minute'. Still, I'm sticking with six seconds broken into two three-second engagements.

As to police tactical rifle operators, no, we do not train for that. The first rule: body-to-body contact means you take the shot only if both are motionless (defined as less than 3 inches of slow body movement at 50 yards or less with no deflection possibility).

In the Academy we use paintball markers to show that its a bad idea to fire into a struggle, even at close range and only two people moving. The other problem with it, is that its very difficult to fire with an  effective backstop under those condition, even in good light. In other words, to see what will be hit that is behind, in case of a miss or over-penetration. Admittedly, over-penetration in medieval missile weapons is not a fear, missing definately is.

But I had already placed very negative possibilites for firing into melee. I've got the system stripped down & rebuilt to my liking, save the group intiative problem. This is going to be especually important with area-effect spells, so I think splitting each round into ten segements, and the d10 (modified, high Agility means a negative modifier) indicates which segement you go on, until you are engaged in melee. Segments 1-5 will be the first engagement, and 6-10 the second. Since my players are unlikely to fire into melee (as they've learned in previous campaigns), once melee is joined, the duelists involvement in overall melee will no longer matter. Once one (or both) drops, they can rejoin.

Plus, having used the segement system elsewhere, I've tracking forms.

[Jake Norwood]

DT-

A couple of notes:

(1) I'm glad you're modifying things to your liking. I want people to do that. The system is built for a few tastes, and I've always been a fan of things like Legolas firing into the crowd and taking out his man...so I'm "okay" with that. As a Police Officer I'll bow out to your knowledge on the probabilities of that IRL.

(2) On the sword end, I'm going to back up my +/- 2 sec. round. I'm an avid and world-ranked HEMA practicioner. In short bursts I could easily throw 3 hits in one second...aimed, forcefull, and to more than one target (and I am certainly inferior to our ancestors who fought like this life-or-death). That being said, it's fatigue that keeps me from doing that for long. A "real fight" general consists of several short (5 seconds or less, genearlly) furious bursts of action followed by either a dead man or circling--where nothing is happening. In TROS game terms, that's a sudden burst of about 3 rounds (6 exchanges) give or take, one of which ends in a Full Evasion and several rounds of circling as both parties ditch and fatigue that's built up. Then another burst. If your players are going through full-blown combat rounds for more than 10 seconds, then you're probably not using fatigue rules (which are a little cumbersome, as fatigues rules always seem to be, but they also solve your problem).

Finally, on a technique note, hitting so much in a short time requires the use of *Duplieren, Schnappen, cuts with both edges, wrist and half-arm cuts, and especially rundstreichs. This all assumes a blade or weapon of proper (period) balance and weight. Also, I'll admit that if you struck an opponent solidly that would generally (but not assuredly) slow things down...that's left out of the system, since a round is meant to be an elastic time frame.

When it comes down to it, a second is a long time. 3-second rounds are fine, but a 6-second round starts to sound like boffer fighting or SCA combat (which is essentially a sport). Remember, though, sometimes it's 1 second, other times it might be 3 seconds. The "2 seconds" is a good generalization when calcultating in other's initiative (such as missle weapons). Don't forget the MP modifiers for hitting "erratically moving targets," like fighters.

Jake

*Note: I'm not just "throwing around" terms here. I'm assuming that you know what those are as a user of "battle-ready" swords (which usually aren't, but that's another debate). For the rest of our listeners, Duplieren is doubling the blade around the opponents, schappen are sudden snapping strikes made following a disengage, and rundstreichs are cuts made using the momentum of the last cut, so that the sword wheels around instead of stopping or changing direction suddenly. Those are rough definitions, but they should work.

[Darth Tang]

Jake, I'm familar with the terms (but still impressed); I've a steadily growing library on the use of my weapons. I'm confident in the 'battle-ready-ness' of my weapons, although you're right, many out there are junk. The mainstay of much of my purchases are Del Tin (sharpened, of course), with a couple Paul Chens, some Iberia, and some Kris (don't let the prices fool you-they're solid).

I test all of them on Boer goat carcasses (I buy 'em alive, since the local stores don't carry goat, put  them down, dress them, and then test my weapons before skinnin' & grillin').

But to my six-second rule: first, I've used it in both campaigns I've run lately (all six of my players have played in both), and secondly, I feel its more realistic (split into two three-second engagements). I lack (& envy)your formal training in the art of the blade, but on the other hand I've had scores of non-leathal encounters with and without blunt impact weapons. The latter has caused me to length the round to take into account what I call the 'fumble factor', which is the wasted time you get from adreilin-clumsy fingers.

And also, it allows a reasonable amount of non-combat activity to occur as well; I can count on a fifth of the PCs run in my campaign to avoid violence at all costs, and thus the round has to take into account what they will be doing as well. Plus, as stated, the tendacy towards missile fire in my campaigns. Once melee is joined, the missile troops either jump in as well, or blaze away at the enemy missile troops. Or wait and watch: if a PC gets knocked down, the archer will then have a reasonable clear shot, and a chance to prevent the coup de grace.

And I always modify systems. I'm going to use the RoS game system, with RM Spell Law, in the War Hammer world setting, adding a class & level system of my own design.