Jockying for advantage is really cool, and I love the way it encourages the use of actions like beat, charge, and the use of stances (since your advantage/disadvantage is more durable than in BWR). And yet… all that goes away when the combatants are using equal-length weapons.
Makes me want to assign a minimum penalty of +1 Ob for not having the advantage, that way there’s something positioning-related to fight over, even in a sword fight. In that case it corresponds not just to weapon length, but footing and balance and so on.
I just ran a Fight with a new player. He was using a knife, and my wolf his teeth. The wolf had the Advantage, but without any Disadvantage penalties to the player, of course.
The player – fairly new to the system – scripted Beat and rolled big. I had to say, “Sorry, but that didn’t actually DO anything.”
Yeah, that sucked.
I ran another Fight scene with another new player. Hands versus knife, one on one. We were like, why even bother with engaging or positioning at all? It seemed kind of lame.
Positioning is actually a fun part of the system, but if the weapon lengths are equal, positioning is only necessary to disengage. It takes away some of that fun uncertainty when the fight is on equal footing. Yes, it’s the lower uncertainty of an equally matched fight that it’s supposed to represent, but it’s the uncertainty that’s fun, IMHO.
When both combatant’s weapons are the same length, the advantage effectively lies with the character with the greater skill…
Surely that should be enough to encourage the lesser skilled character to switch to fists, lock, use stances etc…of course if he’s also weak, slow and short-legged then you’re counting on dumb luck!
Beat still makes your opponent’s next action harder though. That is something. But yeah, you no longer have the option of putting yourself at lunging to be defensive.
Oh, and the fun of accidentially closing too much and having to switch to your sword-hilt. A little bit of the chaos is gone.
When using similar weapons, the incentive switches to Disarming, Beating and Locking your opponent, in order to take an advantage. Same as it ever was, gents, just a bit different.
I haven’t had the chance to play with the new fight yet, but I am looking forward to it. Only testing positioning each exchange seems like a good change and I really like the new advantage system - it’s harder to make it impossible for someone to strike you. While +5 ob is functionally impossible for most, it’s still better than completely impossible. Spears feel less like the best weapon of all time now.
I like polearms, myself. No more than +2D or +2 Ob either way, IIRC.
The thing I like most? Sorcerers can no longer sit at “Out of Range” and blast away with impunity. Oh, what’s that? You cast a spell and now you cede advantage? Sucks to be you!
