Tactics that worked in Doug's playtest

More thoughts on Doug's playtest and the tactics that paid off.

Staying Together - We didn't use a formation, not by a long shot. But only one of us was away from a one-turn rush and attack from most of the others. And that guy had a long-ranged attack and was effectively screened by the rest of us.

There was at least one chance to run over and dog-pile the bandit chief for Sunshine, but it would have meant leaving a cleric and a fighter in an even-up fight with some potential to be flanks. Instead, by staying more or less in a rough line we made sure none of us could be dogpiled or flanked. Although the line was really more like a V, with Sunshine on the left, the cleric in the point, our fighter on the right, it was sufficient to keep anyone from rushing the gaps.

Staying Mobile - while the fight was still wide open, it helped that we could move. Sunshine had a chance to grapple, and didn't, because that would mean occupying him with one foe instead of threatening one, ensuring a number of them couldn't move freely to pass him. Once the fight turned enough that we had local superiority, someone did grapple, and it was decisive. But until then it denied a lot of good territory to stay mobile.

Ranged and Melee - Combined arms, basically. The ranged attack guys threw spells and the archers shot, mostly at the shieldless guys. The melee-centric guys moved up and engaged and let the ranged folks get off some extra shots. This paid off because the missile guys didn't get overrun and the melee guys weren't helpless if things went badly with melee.


We also got ridiculously lucky on the enemy attacks - they couldn't hit for anything until they dinged some weak attacks off of our armored fighter and then a critical took out one of us. Still, even statistically average hits could have made for a bloody, even fight. We failed to sneak, and they failed to detect us early enough, and we could have had a vicious meeting engagement instead of "adventurers beat up clearly drunken bandits."

But tactically, those are what turned out to be good decisions.