So, in last night’s game we barricaded ourselves in a church to create a strong point against an anticipated ghoul attack. How do you handle barriers, barricades and defenses in a fight conflict?
Our barricade was this: a flight of stone steps, topped by a barricade of furniture, and behind that a field of kneeling pews, spaced ankle-twistingly close together.
Some ideas that come to mind are:
a) Straight dispo bonus, or dispo bonus dice
b) Use it as an input to how you work out compromise
c) Making up custom weapon(s)
c1) Defend weapon
For custom weapons, it seems natural that a barricade be used as a Defend weapon. The problem with that is the time to use a barricade is early in the fight, before the enemies have crossed it, which is not when you need to Defend.
c2) A Maneuver weapon seems ideal, because you can use that to (say) deprive the enemies of their advantages. (Maneuver is a sort of general ‘prepare for what’s next’ action.)
Thing is, our party has a lot of ranged weapons, so it seems that if the barricade is a weapon, we can’t use it and our range weapons at the same time.
I would say a factor against the ghouls that get’s removed if they spend MoS in a Maneuver action to get past the barricade and pews.
eta: Possibly give the Barricade a disposition of it’s own equal to the MoS of the Laborer check to construct it, and they can spend MoS of Maneuver to reduce it’s disposition, and when the Barricade gets down to 0 disposition it’s gone. With that approach you might also allow attack to damage the Barricade (smashing it to bits instead of stepping over it).
That makes sense too. I wouldn’t call it a weapon though, I’d call it a factor. Calling it a weapon adds all kinds of weird philosophical and technical questions.
Having the group constantly looking for in-game advantages sounds like good rp to me. In games where being smart doesn’t get you anything, players (read: I) tend to give up on being smart and just roll the dice mindlessly. That’s no fun.
Note, in actual play, I gave them +2D to disposition. In retrospect, perhaps +2s might have been merited instead (they also re-sanctified the space).
The real issue with giving them another weapon is that they can each only use one, so extra weapons do them little good unless they are extremely impressive (the Paladin did get a ‘Righteous Fury’ weapon, +2D Attack against the undead for that one fight only, as a reward from his god for re-sanctifying the temple and passing his Theologian test, and that, at least, was better than his sword).
Yeah, I think +disposition makes more sense than a weapon. It also makes sense because a barricade is something they can get over, so the disposition bonus represents it’s temporary benefit without complicating things with maneuvers or having multiple weapons. For something that’s more of a permanent effect, I would still go with a factor instead of a weapon, but I think +dispo is a good call for this, imo.
Please don’t take that as me officially laying down the law as if that’s the way it should be done. I said it lies in completely in the purview of the GM.
Is it something essential to themselves that’s giving the advantage (Trait, Might, etc.)? Then give a +s or +D when it applies.
Is it something they are actively doing or using in the conflict? Then it’s a weapon that must be selected at the start of each round.
Is it something that’s getting in the way of them or their enemies? Then it’s a factor, e.g. a backpack or dim light.