Well, having looked at it a fairly new player, I considered most of the
effects being mentioned as rather free form, being usable in a number of
general ways, yet being not too strong. So, they can mostly be used as a
bonus, improving your skill, and sometimes as actual effect. And what
sort
of effect depends on high fantasy campain the campain is. That and how
skilled you are. A feat at 17 is one thing. At 10w2, you can do a bit
more.
The HedKoranth Lightning Sword feat might be truelly vile when you have
10w3
skill, and you're playing a high magic campain. *boom*boom*booom*boom*
But mostly it's a sword bonus. Whee. I need it. I'm a hunter, not a
warrior,
Well.... I'm going to have to be warrior as well.
Now, I have to admit some of the weirder subcults might be very troublesome.
> However, resigned to the fact that it's gone to the printers, so too
> late anyway, how about giving me a couple of bits of advice:
> 1) How to handle an ambush. Simple Contest Ambush vs. Detect Ambush,
> followed by whatever is dictated by the results? Or Close Combat
> augmnented by Ambush straight into an Extended Contest?
Extended combat:
You've stolen the Great Gem of Foo from the Secret temple of Foo in the
mist
of the Dismal Swamp. You're being chased by endless hordes of
assassins.
Extended contest between your runaway/fight and the assassin's Find
Infidels.
Getting a utter defeat: that gem's curse of having thieves eaten alive
by
crocodiles was true.... A simple defeat:Maybe they brought you back to
the
temple for a sacrifice. Maybe you can escape. That or you lost your
pack as
you run. You escape poor and hungry. With no gem. A minor victory: You
get
out, but you're run ragged, hurt, and never wanting to see mud ever
again. A
complete victory? Either you just walked out, taking time to smell the
flowers, or you've wasted the assassins so badly, there isn't enough
left to
ever go for you again.
A edge to the combat:
You duck down into the sides of the road in order to get the jump on
some
fellows.
Roll ambush va detect Ambush. Well, some skills that can do. Hide vs
scan.
Winner gets a bonus to their combat skill. Enemy gets a bonus if they
they
win the roll: they figure you out, and counter ambush. That or they
have a
change to draw back, avoiding your ambush.
A complicated situation:
Your players are setting up an ambush for something more powerful then
they are. They do traps, firing lanes, prepared spells, paths for
escape,
blocking their paths for escape, advance scounting, setting up hidden
blinds/shields, etc.
You'll have people rolling all sorts of bonuses, and such, and deciding
how
the combat goes. They also get to decide on some of the contests. As
well,
if they pull it off, they may get a couple free round of archery. Where
the
AP loss is counted as dropped followers. (Now, maybe not killed, but
ineffective in the combat.) And well, if they do thing right, you'll
have
more followers falling into pit traps/snares and finding wounds are no
fun.
Especially since they are out of the combat for just enound time for the
other followers to get wiped.
And well, as people walk into that, I suspect they start rolling their
detect
ambush vs some GM decided estimation of the ambush difficulty to see
when
they notice. They might have an change to draw back from the wolf's
jaw.
Or maybe not. Major levels of victory against them might lead to more
rounds
of free hits.
What you'd get rule system wise is a lot of people with massive boosts,
villains unboosted, free rounds of abuse, extra armour (Cover), people
distracted (villain can't use close combat after failing his detect pit
trap),
and heros able to do things like escaping over that swamp afterwards,
while
the remaining villains can't chase(Good old Orlanthi Feat: Run over Mud)
Also, you have RP situational stuff like finding the villains unable to
flee
since they are surrounded. So that a defeat means they have to
surrender or get killed instead of fleeing or doing a fighting retreat.
But that's RP
stuff. Unless you use Advance Squad Leader as your rule set. :)
I suspect a good part of things is how detailed you want/need things. Everything from an abstracted group of ambushes, to a very detailed tactical ambush worthy of the Black Company.
> 2) Am I right in assuming an attack on a helpless opponent (0 AP, or
> Ambushed for instance) is just a matter of piling on all the AP you
> have, with no potential reply?
Ambushed people aren't completely helpless. Now you might have a
couple free
rounds of no reply as they dither, trying to find their swords...
And, AP 0 isn't quite helpless. You're lost the fight. Now, they can
take a
parting shot. That might drive you down really low, right to
injured/dead.
But what sort of defeat depends on the situation. Might be running
away,
might be down with muskateer's sword at your throat, etc.
For example, in a fight against some _fast_ dogpeople, we drove a
couple of
them negative. Some enough to be injured, knocked over. But they did a
retreat, a couple of the ones who weren't down to 0 AP helping
shield/drag
off the injured.
It then turned into a bit of a fleeing contest, seeing if we could get
a
couple more blows in to take down the ones moving. But they were
_really_
fast, so nope.
It didn't help that a couple of them led us chasers off, keeping us away from the wounded.
Now, latter, when we secretly tracked them home, and ambushed them
_hard_, we
got a couple rounds of free strikes, while they sat there with mouths
open,
and scurring around inneffectually, trapped. It was a slaughter.
> I'm still worried about archery too... I AM an arrow counter, you just
> can't carry more than a dozen or so around usefully ready to shoot,
> I've tried!
I suspect this is part of a roleplay situation? How often does it
actually
matter?
THe mechanims you use may depend on the situation:
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