> In raw game mechanics terms, it's all down to the number of APs
they and their
> opponents gain/lose. Everything else can be narrative.
Yeeees... but thats the problem I'm trying to address, how you relate AP's to the particulars of missile combat.
> Every time I describe what is happening in an Extended Contest, the
description
> is contextual. I decide based on the location I've narrated, what
But here the context tries to hold you to absolutes, becuase no matter how abstract you want archery to be, you would probably find a player with a single quiver firing a thousand arrows ridiculous. Thats the problem with ammo, a problem which does not arise in H2H combat. The nature of ranged combat - distance, ammo - tends to pull us in the mechanically determined direction.
> If the archer has APs left, he still has arrows and an opportunity
to fire. If
Well, that is a strategy I considered, but I had a problem when applied to a range of circumstance. If the loss comes about as an AP transfer to an opponent, surely the issue is moot. If it is a forfeit, well that feels like "missing", but surely a player could argue they are standing next to a barrel of arrows and thus, whatever else may happen, running out is not on the cards. What if the character is engaged in close combat, do you carry the same AP over despite any difference between the close and ranged combat skills? If the result of losing all AP (and thus the contest) is to be reduced to no arrows, then are not archers unkillable if they enter an archery (as opposed H2H) contest?
I considered correlating AP with ammo, but the only way I could see this working was to detach them.
> Well, running out of arrows is something the narrator might use
when the
> contest is over (i.e., the archer has no APs left), not for a loss
Right. And yet, would you then rule that a character who lost all their AP's in an archery contest was still unable to resist an opponent, even if that opponent is, in context, a hundred yards away? After all they have been defeated. What if they were a better swordsman than archer, but began the contest at range - would you take AP from ranged combat or close combat?
> Mind you, at least if you've got a wet bow string, you might have a
spare in
> your bag or under your hat.
Yes, perhaps. But I'm not too keen on relying on happy chance for this sort of thing. What if the scene I'm running has a stark naked archer, for whatever reason? Obviously, the context can dramatically limit the narrators options, and I'm not keen on a sort of "gee, uh, how do I explain the AP loss THIS time?" experience.
> It's only necessary if you make it so. For HW, I tend to look at
Hmm, I think there has been sufficient debate that I don't think its that clear at all.
> Or the warriors have Augmented their Close Combat skill with Ranged
Combat. Or
Possibly, but do you make all the hundred rolls? Take an average? How do you apply that to player characters who are on the receiving end?
> used Ranged Combat in the first round of the Extended Contest and
then switched
> to Close Combat.
Then they would/should use their RC for AP purposes, which I don't think feels right.
> Or you could roll a Simple Contest of Ranged Combat vs Running as
the enemy
> close to see how much the volley of fire affects them before the
hand-to-hand
> action starts.
Which introduces the conflict between the simple contest within an extended contest.
> I think the existing rules can cover these situations without
adding more
> permutations that I have to remember. I have enough trouble
remembering all the
> names and keeping the story straight, guv. ;)
Sure, but I don't think that the rules as they stand really do describe it elegantly, becuase it seems to require a rules call on every case. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and if you are happy with it, cool, I'm just shooting the breeze about a difficulty I have with the rules as they stand. I really don't like the idea of having to rationalise this stuff on the fly without at least some sort of systematic guideline.
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