Re: Followers and Multiple Attackers

From: Stephen McGinness <stephenmcg_at_...>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:28:36 -0000

David Dunham wrote:
> >If I'm all alone and am facing a guy with 3
> >followers, there is no MO penalty since there is only one "Die
> >Rolling Entity" facing me.
>
> Hmm, that's not the way we've ever played it. Now, "ever" goes back
> to before HW so it may be wrong, but I still don't see this on p.79.

It _is_ the way we've been playing it and I think I'm going to try it the other way. One of the scenes I have in my mind is Balastor being overrun by trolls and taken down by trollkin while defending Pavis. In the current system where Pavis might have 10W3 and the trollkin are all 5W - even if you allow ten of them to attack at once the tenth one is still facing a defence of 20W and at best able to soak 25 AP from Balastor who may have transferred at least twice that in earlier exchanges.

I know the way is probably to have the trollkin listed as trollkin horde 1W4 and whittle away at Balastor's AP that way but I've never really been that sure what numbers I should use. With the 1W4 then, as the narrator, I could bid 80AP as a full frontal assault on Balastor but in some cases I don't think it gives the real feel of the combat. I'd prefer him to be whittled down. While I _could_ limit myself to bids of 10 or 15 AP I think I'd prefer going another way.

I'm thinking that when facing more than one opponent the value of the defence is reduced by 3 per opponent so that Balastor would enter the contest at 20W rather than 10W3. He is still at a significant advantage to the trollkin but not so much that he is going to be transferring AP regularly unless he spends hero points and, as the trollkin keep coming he is going to slowly wear down as I convert every AP victory by the trollkin into a hurt rather than an AP loss.

This way the heroic stand of Balastor could be recorded as he easily dispatches the first ranks of the trollkin but as they are replaced he begins to take small cuts which slow him down. As the battle goes on he takes more damage and his hero points run out before the trollkin do and he eventually caves before the onslaught...

(While this would just as easily be done by having him attacked by 'ranks of trollkin' at higher values it wouldn't be likely to whittle him down as larger AP bids would be possible)

Just my pennyworth and something I'll be trying in my game where I have a player whose Uroxi is much better at combat than his companions. If I can drag his figures down to the level of the others then they can all fight the same foes, even if he is fighting six instead of one! :-)

Stephen