I'm trying to do more mapless combat in my DF Felltower game, especially because it's hard to get a combat map of every place in Felltower up for the PCs to fight in.
In order to make mapless combat work quickly, but also to avoid player demands to used mapped to not lose out on perceived advantages of their characters, I am thinking of the following rules.
In these rules, the term "narrative reason" is used a few times. Only the GM will decide if there is a narrative reason for an exception to occur.
Melee
Mapless combat will assume that fights are in a rough melee, with multiple combatants able to engage one another more-or-less freely. If narrative reasons dictate it's more of a series of small duels, that will occur instead.
Flanks, Back shots, and Runarounds
These only occur if a GM-ruled narrative reason explains them. Exception: Backstabs work normally, but require the appropriate rolls and situational prerequisites.
Retreat
Each character can Retreat once per turn, unless it is prevented by some GM-ruled narrative reason that prevents it (backed into a corner, especially tight formation, etc.) or rule that disallows it (Grappled, Rooted Feet, took a Maneuver that forbids it, etc.). No actual "movement" takes place.
Range Bands
Characters in melee will be treated as using the Melee ranged band with one another. Characters outside of Melee are at Short range to the Melee, and either Short or Medium to foes also outside of melee depending on the GM-ruled narrative situation.
Movement
It takes a Move or Move and Attack to close from the back ranks into Melee, or from Melee to the back ranks. You can't move "partway" in order to reduce spell penalties; penalties are fixed by range band.
Reach
Weapon reach is essentially a non-factor. You cannot use your longer reach weapon to keep a foe at bay or "step" in order to keep reach. Neither can your opponents. You're just in melee and able to strike at will. Close combat still works as written, for attackers and weapons that require it. Optionally, there can be no Close Combat unless you're grappled, but I'm concerned this creates a big difference between mapped and mapless resolution results for attackers that depend on CC.
I think as an accepted basis of the game, this can work. You can't get flanked. You don't have to worry about "leaving room to Retreat" becuase you just get that bonus once per turn. It should just work, especially for fights that can't be easily mapped. My approach would be to use this by default, and used mapped for cases where it seems like a big potential set-to.
I'll see what my players think of this and try to give it a formal go during our next game.
I’m all for it!
ReplyDeleteWill be interested to hear how this works out.
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting. Mission X is going to have something like this, some differences, naturally.
ReplyDelete* I liked Fate/Fate Core's engagement zones, which allows a battle to be broken down into several smaller fights. It was still semi-abstract.
* Flanking, etc: Reasonable. While I never really suggest Technical Grappling, the concept of winning a Quick Contest to maneuver to a foe's side or rear hexes (more movement is more penalty) might be one narrative reason...though you'd have a really, really rough time (like "no") in a 1-1 duel on infinite featureless plain.
* Mission X does "focused defense" which gives you basically the retreat bonus and your DB vs one particular foe...but costs you your DB and you can't block on all others. Or something like that. You gain something, but are vulnerable to other things. You choose the focus on your turn.
* Range bands, rawr. Might take several turns of Move to change a range band at larger distances.
* More Range bands: I elected to always use the highest penalty for the range. With the sort of heroic skill DFRPG or aiming with a gun provide, it was a good choice in playtest.
* Losing the benefits of Reach (but gaining avoiding the penalties) makes me a bit sad, but streamlining is probably worth it here.
* Entering into CC might require a QC, just like taking side/back, as "gain an advantageous position." Entering to *grapple* is of coruse still an attack.
"* Losing the benefits of Reach (but gaining avoiding the penalties) makes me a bit sad, but streamlining is probably worth it here."
DeleteI think you can see how trying to find a way to keep them complicates matters a lot. If it matters for Reach 1,2 then it should matter for Reach 1, for Reach C,1, or Reach 1-3, all in different ways in relation to the other. If you can mapless "move" to keep reach, then you need to be able to mapless "move" to close reach, and then we're back to needing a map. Better, I think - and you seem to agree - that keeping the mapless GURPS Combat Lite approach of just flat-out ignoring Reach is the best of the options.
Yah, what one would have to do - and it's not awful but it IS bookkeeping - would be to win a QC of skill to, as Fate Core would say, "Create an Advantage." Then you could leverage your reach. Of course, having longer reach is offset if they get inside your donut of death, and that starts to get weird.
DeleteMaybe if you are trying to work in a range that they don't have you get a bonus for the QC in a Feint or something. This would say that (for example), Fighter A with Reach C, 1 fighting Fighter B with Reach 1, 2 would each have the potential to work into a Feint position that the other can't deal with. A would say "I'm stepping inside to C" and if they win the QC of Feint maybe they're there and the other guy has to do something (win a QC in a Feint) to counter it.
That's if you want the detail, which you don't. Out-reaching a foe IS a big deal (says the 5'7" guy who regularly fights someone 6'3") but it's not the end-all, be-all.
I'm not actually saying "we need something to account for reach" so much as bantering back and forth good ways to account for reach deltas that are still mapless.
The concern I have is the same for, say, a Quick Contest to get Flanking. It's okay for some small combats, but for all of them? If you "Create an Advantage" versus one foe, does that affect all of them? A vs. B is a lot easier than A, B, C, D, and E vs. F-Z in a big brawl . . . where if B gets advantage over F and F decides to attack A instead, what happens? Would you have to roll vs. a group, and what if that group is mixed (as all PC groups are.) It's probably trackable, but it's easier to track that by far by using a map, and placing minis on a map.
DeleteIt's really tricky to try to take a mapped effect and put it into a non-mapped situation without needing a map. It's why spells (-1 per yard) and range bands (broad ranges of penalties) had been such a problem. I only ever "solved" the issues by putting my foot down and saying, basically, we're just doing this even though some people don't like it. Other things just add a lot of tracking. Tracking isn't a problem per se, except that I tend to have large fights. 20-30 combatants makes tracking *anything* an issue, even if it's just HP and dropped weapons.
At this point, I don't want a solution to be workable in play, I want a solution to be trivial in play!
BTW I recognize that this is much the same as an offensive or defensive Feint . . . except that using reach requires movement on the map. It's odd if mapless you can avoid any of the downsides of movement to keep reach, but can get the benefits with a roll . . . but only versus one person. Mapped, it can (and often does) work against multiple foes. Dealing with one vs. many contests will likely be annoying. And it also means more rolls, in a way that causes a noticeable difference mapped vs. mapless.
DeleteGetting rid of reach differential means you lose out with a longer weapon vs. a short weapon armed foe, but putting it back in with an ersatz approach that requires a roll means you can only benefit if you have a higher skill. Flipping the roll to "reach always works UNLESS you win a QC" on the attacker means they suddenly have a very different calculation to make just because I don't have a map out.
This is also why I'm loath to allow roll-to-flank without just making it a backstab, using the appropriate rules.
In the end, it's simplicity vs. detail, and keeping detail is going to cut down on simplicity. Add enough detail and players will rightly ask for a map because it's too hard to keep track of otherwise, and they'll feel disadvantaged without one. I'd rather everyone lose a little bit of special stuff (reach, flanking via numbers, rundarounds, Step differential, etc.) and resolve it all more speedily than to add in lots of little bits to simulate the effects of a map without a map.
Hopefully how this approach plays out provides some useful data for your Mission X approach, besides just letting us get through combats in a single session or less.
I've played lots of "mapless" combat in different editions of D&D over the years and it has always worked well, although the detail level of old school D&D combat is usually much lower than GURPS. Still, it worked great even in AD&D 2nd edition with all the options turned on. But we didn't use range bands, we used range approximation: distances between groups were marked down and if characters moved different speeds we noted the distances to each group of characters from the main group of enemies (always rounded to 10' increments). Archers might say "I stay back 100 feet'" while the melee types charge several rounds while the enemy hurl spears as they close...
ReplyDeleteI'm relieved your range bands method is simpler than Traveller's. That is one part of the default Traveller rules we never use, preferring the optional detailed positioning and movement. But in your range bands I wonder about ranged weapons and spells. The ranges of different weapons can be quite different so medium for a thrown weapon is still much less than short on a composite bow. The number of range increments and thus the penalty in games like GURPS or d20 changes if one person shoots a longbow, one casts a targeted spell, and one hurls a throwing knife and that seems like the biggest difference players might object to collapsing into "you are at short range for all weapons."
They're essentially the ones from GURPS Action, if you're familiar with those, with penalties for spells added in by me. We've used them behind the scenes before, and they worked well enough that no one felt compelled to argue too much!
DeletePlus in GURPS (from 3rd edition on, at least) you all have the same table, same penalty for range for all weapons. 10 yards is -4 regardless of the weapon. So it's less of an issue.
I think that to make Reach more useful you can add "battle lines" and formations (as described here: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46805/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tip-visualizing-combat).
ReplyDeleteThen Reach would allow a fighter to attack more opponents or to fight from the second line.
Of course, if the line is broken and the general melee begins (or if there was no line from the start) the Reach becomes useless.
That's a possibility, but I do want to stick as close to by-the-book GURPS Combat Lite, with only modifications to allow for range bands to make penalties crystal-clear and predictable. So while that might make a good expansion of the rules, I don't want to start with any additional complication. If it all works out and something like that makes sense, we'll give it a go.
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