> well. How you resolve this I'm not sure - augmenting the 'snail's
combat
> with the Tongue's run fast (or vice versa) doesn't seem quite
right. Group
> contests seem wrong as well, and telegraph the fact something is up
to the
> players. Not sure how I would handle this - probably with a nasty
fudge like
> 'if they haven't won after X exchanges, he escapes' or rolling a
secret
> simple contest after every exchange till the tongue wins one.
OK, how about you keep the Tongues AP secret and only tell them the AP of the follower. The tongue is using an escape ability TN and probably escape ability AP plus the followers combat TN in AP.
The only problem is that it implies that the runner+guard can bid more AP than the guards TN would allow it. This is not a problem if the characters can see the runner, but if they can't, I guess you just keep the snails own "AP" secret. Hmm, also order of action... I guess the snail would act with the runners AP total.
Oh wow, it gets more complicated the more I think about it. The escapee can win the contest (escape) without determining a fate for the snail at all - that would be left entirely in the narrators hands. The only indicator that affects the follower is whether the leader loses that many AP or more, but if they "get away clean" that might not happen.
Or more accurately, I suppose, the loss of the followers conribution to AP is a signpost for the defeat of the follower. If the run fast is significant enough in the situation to achieve a conclusive victory before that happens (in the terms of a movement test), this might not imply anything about the actual fight. Its not really a combat contest that the runner has won - the chasers might be using combat TN's and AP, and might be in physical danger becuase of the blocker, but isn't it a movement contest the runner has won? In which case there is no reason to believe that any of the combatants are necessarily injured.
Gee, I guess this comes down to pacing. you might say the runner is free to bid big because they are not in physical danger, only the blocker is. If the Tongoue only had to dash a few meters to a gate that would absolutely prevent the pursuers from following (or so the "backstory" demanded), I guess the whole contest would have to be compressed into the time it takes for that dash. If the characters burst through the door to the chamber, and the contest begins, the snail menaces etc, you'd have to bring the whole thing to a finish before the tongue, say, brings down the portcullis. Hmm, I think. I suppose this suggests it would have to be done with large bids, or in "slow motion".
I guess you would then restart a contest between the attackers and
the snail, a new combat contest (although the attackers were in
physical danger in the last contest anyway, and so was the snail).
Otherwise the attackers have no AP. So as the portcullis slams down,
you begin a new contest between the snail and the characters with
refreshed combat AP.
<Evil GM> Maybe the snail gets to keep any AP the runner+blocker
combo won? </Evil GM>
Or would you say that the danger of the follower suffices to make this overall a combat task, in which case the defeat of the pursuers implies their demise, or that their demise must come about before the runner gets to the gate. Not sure about that.
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