Use Terrain and Hostages

[Darren Hill]

And I think that hostages are probably best handled through some sort of terrain-based contest, where the hostage-holder has a lower TN than the attacker.

This sounds like a case where both sides would be able to devote dice to the terrain roll, and the higher one wins, something I'm not normally in favour of. It could work well here though.
It's still not clear to me how to handle the accidental injury of the hostage.

Hmm. Maybe the attacker must declare his intention to attack.
Then they make the opposed terrain rolls.
If the attacker wins, his attack applies against the villain. (Who can defend if he has any dice left, or reflexively stab his hostage, or whatever)
If the defender wins, his attack applies against the hostage.

Quick and dirty, which is good. How does that look?

[Bankuei]

Hi guys,

Going with the Hostage = Terrain roll option, I would just lower the DN for the hostage holder by 1 for each success he got on the grab manuever.  More successes = more control of hostage = better chance of using them as cover.

If the rescuer still wants to attack, and risk the hostage getting hit, with each attack, they have to beat the number of successes the hostage taker has beat them by in Terrain rolls.

For example:

-Baron Bad grabs Victim, with a solid 4 successes.
-Sir Rescue pull off 2 successes to Terrain, while BB with the lower DN gets 5, making for a margin of 3 favoring BB.
-Sir Rescue decides to chance it, and attacks anyway, targeting an arm, leg, or some area that's at least partially exposed.
-Sir Rescue needs 3 extra successes above the normal amount to hit BB, otherwise Victim catches a bad one.

Chris

[Darren Hill]

That's a good idea, Chris. So it's not an all-or-nothing proposition, and each success might matter.

The way the initial 'grab' comes about might modify the method you suggest, as might further movement afterwards.
The hostage may be voluntarilily hold still (or allowing himself to move) because he has a knife at his throat or something similar. The same method as you suggest could still work - instead of wrestling, the weapon proficiency could be used for successes: these kind of situations will most likely come about because the victim was surprised, so the roll is just for how well positioned the attacker is.

If Baron Bad attempts to move with his captive, perhaps heading for the door or a horse, he'll probably have to devote a couple of dice to Terrain rolls for that purpose, separate from holding the captive in position.

It's definitely looking good. Thanks everyone.

[Morfedel]

That works if you are wrestling for control of the hostage in question too. I just have three questions when using that method, however:

1) What if the victim is unconscious? You won't have to wrestle with the hostage then, as they aren't fighting back.

2) What if the victim has a knife to their throat, and isn't fighting back? See #1

3) What about the size of the victim? A small child provides less cover than a grown man.

[Bankuei]

Hi M,

If the victim is unconscious or not fighting back, you don't have a resisted roll, therefore it should be way easier to stack up the victories.  A roll should still happen, as human bodies don't make the best of shields.

If the victim isn't fighting back, again, unopposed roll.  Although in this case, I'd always leave the option open for the hostage to steal initiative, since the taker may drop their guard a bit after the hostage fails to resist.

Smaller victim?  Hmm, how about it requires an extra success or two on the part of the taker to use them sucessfully as cover?  So Baron Bad grabs Little Girl with 3 successes, but she only provides -1 cover, making it the equivalent of 2 successes for BB.  A baby might only provide - 2 cover.

Does that work?

Chris

[Morfedel]

Interesting.

And what about after that grab roll? In theory, especially if they arent fighting back, you are no longer grabbing them - but perhaps some form of wrestling roll, to represent your wrestling them into position, might be what you would aim for - with a lower DTN for small figures, again.

[kenjib]

What if you had the defender use the block maneuver, with a penalty based on an opposed grapple.  It seems very similar to using a shield, in effect.  If the defender successfully blocks, the meat shield takes the hit without any chance to defend.

[Morfedel]

I think either way would work fine.

In fact, I think terrain works for manuevering the hostage between you and shield block for physically thrusting the hostage in the way of an incoming blow.