Two on one combat

[hector]

Since all we know about the skirmish rules is from the teasers, I was wondering if there was any advice for what would happen if two combatants chose to engage one combatant in melee. I would be tempted to say that it would work something similar to how TRoS handles many-v-one battles, but some sort of official ruling (or at least, advice from people who have analysed the rules more thoroughly than I have) prior to the one shot I plan to run would be nice .

[thirtythr33]

I think this is all covered p109 of the beta?

I haven't really thought through the implications, but my intuition says that generally the lone combatants wants to commit as many dice as he can to the positioning roll such that he won't be a huge underdog to the single weakest opponent (assuming noone opposes the roll). This is because the positioning roll reduces the enemies combined combat pools on a 2 to 1 basis if they each want to oppose it, which is a better rate that he will get anywhere else even if he ends up losing.

[higgins]

33 is correct.

And the rules should be in there for that.

Skirmish handles all ranged combat and movement for characters that aren't in melee. Once you're in melee, you use melee rules.

[hector]

OK. So, how about when the melee happens? I mean, do you get a phrase on the turn of each combatant in a given melee?

[thirtythr33]

It isn't spelled out in the rules yet, but I gather that everyone rolls d6 white, d6 red or d10 white to determine Sequence in a Skirmish. When the first person in the melee comes up the entire Phrase in that combat is resolved and then the other people's rolls for Sequence in the same melee are skipped over when they come up.

Alternately, each melee rolls as a group for Sequence... but that requires that noone be switching between melees or ranged combat to make sense.

But speaking of 2v1 combats... what on earth do you do with Reach advantage in a 2v1 situation? It would lead to so many rules contradictions it might just be easier to say "reach advantage never applies in 2v1", but then again the 1v2 situation is really one of the places a Spear should really shine.

[hector]

The fighter with the longest weapon gets the bonus dice? It means that if you have one person with a spear and one with a dagger versus one person with a sword, the one with the dagger isn't at the disadvantage they should be, but then one could argue that they're taking advantage of the fact that their opponent has to focus more on the longer weapon in order to find an opening.

[thirtythr33]

But it all falls apart as soon as someone with a shorter weapon lands a blow.

Say its swordsman and daggerman vs spearman. Spearman starts with reach advantage.
If the swordsman lands a blow, do both the daggerman and swordsman gain reach advantage in the next round?
If it is reverse and the pair already have advantage over the spearman, does he automatically get reach on both for landing a blow against either one?

Or even more headache inducing would be swordsman versus swordsman and spearman. Does one swordsman get reach over the other because the spearman has a longer weapon?

God forbid its a weird combination like daggerman and spearman versus swordsman.

If you don't make the assumption that any successful strike give Reach Advantage to your whole team, things get just outright not playable trying to track who has reach in each combination. And then it matters that you can only use the reach advantage dice you gained against specific enemies.

And what happens to reach if some of the combatants are in a grapple and others aren't? Reach doesn't apply to people in the grapple but it does to people attacking the grapplers?

[Benedict]

And what happens to reach if some of the combatants are in a grapple and others aren't? Reach doesn't apply to people in the grapple but it does to people attacking the grapplers?

From personal experience I can testify that when hand to hand combat comes down to a grapple its extremely difficult and risky for a third guy contributing without the risk of striking his friend instead. I don't know how the rules cover that, if at all, but in such a situation maybe its more like firing into a melee if you want to retain your reach advantage?

[higgins]

It isn't spelled out in the rules yet, but I gather that everyone rolls d6 white, d6 red or d10 white to determine Sequence in a Skirmish. When the first person in the melee comes up the entire Phrase in that combat is resolved and then the other people's rolls for Sequence in the same melee are skipped over when they come up.

This. But general rule of thumb is three phrases. Can be less if someone goes down before the three is up.

As far as the reach control issue is concerned... First, it's reach control, not reach advantage. Calling it reach advantage might get confusing as it does not grant you advantage as per the game mechanical term.

As for the other one, I'd rather not make an official ruling while traversing a German autobahn at near-flight speeds. And yes, Rammstein is the perfect soundtrack for doing that.

[Korbel]

As for the other one, I'd rather not make an official ruling while traversing a German autobahn at near-flight speeds. And yes, Rammstein is the perfect soundtrack for that.

Totally why? The best moment to create rules! And after all you can add a text under the ruling: "this rule was written in Germany, while having a party in a speeding car"

OK, seriously now - do you have an official solution in mind, or some ideas? Because this one is quite tough, I tried to come up with something but failed (this is why I don't design games )

[higgins]

OK, seriously now - do you have an official solution in mind, or some ideas?

Well, by far the easiest is to simply call it a mess and ignore it. Second option would be to apply reach control after the positioning roll, but that sucks since it breaks procedure. Every other option I can think of is way too complicated and reach control should be a dead easy step.

So, let's break it down in real life terms. That's what we do if there's no obvious path.

When the fight is one on one, reach factor is huge. When there's a third person in play, reach will still help, but it's being outmaneuvered that does you in.

With that in mind, the third option would be to simply give the reach control to the longest weapon. So, your strategy would be to kill or tie down the longest weapon first, until YOU have longest weapon to keep the others at bay. If the opposing team matches your weapon reach, nobody gets control as normal.

I'm liking that the best since a) it still makes reach a factor and b) it's a realistic tactic to use.

Successful strikes with shorter weapons is still a bit of a head scratcher, but I'm inclined to ignore them both for the sake of simplicity and because of the fact that realistically, the longest weapon will always be the biggest nuisance in such a bout.

While it's true that you can close in to the polearm, tie it down and have your buddy finish the job, I think in this case that's better modeled by successful teamwork aka winning the positioning roll and have the poor sod split his pool four ways, rather than gaining the reach control over them.

/posted from the autobahn/

[nemedeus]

You were in Germany? Shoulda said something, i would have treated you to a Schnitzel or something.

[higgins]

You were in Germany? Shoulda said something, i would have treated you to a Schnitzel or something.

Passing through on the autobahn. Just pee breaks and scratching my head wondering how come Germany is the only country I've seen so far that has Travel Pussy vending machines in its public bathrooms.

[Korbel]

Travel Pussies? Is it still the "two on one" topic, or some variation, like "one and alone"? Don't know what about you guys, but I' afraid this game is not intended to model this kind of f(r)iction. We're about combats with swords, like... I mean, real swords.
Too much Rammstein, Henri!

[higgins]

LOL

No more Rammstein. I'm in Poland now. If I hadn't forgotten my Behemoth albums, I'd put them on right now.