Fight!

Could anyone post an example of the new Bloody Versus as well. That would be cool to see as well.

Working on Bloody Versus right now. I’ll try to do 2-on-1 and 3-on-1 later tonight.

I’ll take my best crack at this by my reading… preface this with a big “I think…”

I believe it happens immediately for most actions. Note that it makes an exception for firing a bow, etc., saying you cede the advantage in the next volley. The absence of that text otherwise makes me assume it is immediate, counting even for the action which causes you to cede the advantage.

The example that comes to mind would be if you were holding a sword-wielding opponent at bay with a spear (assume you have advantage). If you want to push him down, you have to now get inside his reach… unless you’ve won positioning using your “hands” as weapons, you’ve given up the advantage.

It seems to be so. In most circumstances, you probably aren’t going to want to choke up on a weapon unless your opponent already has the advantage (with a shorter weapon), though. The weapon speed mechanics have changed so there isn’t an advantage to alternating between weapon and pommel strikes anymore (in terms of being able to script consecutive strikes). It would actually be counter-productive… many weapons can strike 2 or 3 times in succession now (but I’m drifting from your question).

This one I’m less certain on… if the “no penalty” line under Two-Fisted Fighting is meant to describe the general state of using two weapons (with or without training), it just means there is no additional Ob penalty (beyond that for your opponent having advantage/differences in weapon length) for anyone to use two weapons. The training, then, may only grant access to “Block and Strike”, making use of the off-hand weapon. Or it may help you negate the potential Ob penalty for “switching” weapons… anyone else care to weigh in on this one?

Here’s my attempt at an example of Bloody Versus. As far as I can tell, this is correct, but, if I get anything wrong, let me know. I’d rather that these were done correctly.

Setup
Our friend the Duelist (BWG 565, hereafter referred to as Toby) is staggering out of a tavern where he’d been celebrating his victory in swordsmanship over some braggart of a noble. Of course, the nobleman called out the city guard to arrest Toby, and three of them are waiting to take him into custody outside the tavern. As soon as he steps out and sees them, Toby draws steel.

1. Intents
The guards want to arrest Toby and haul him off to jail. Toby wants to break past the guardsmen and lose them in the winding city streets.

2. Task
Everyone’s drawn steel, so it’s a Bloody Versus using the Sword skill. Toby’s got a B5 Sword. The guardsmen only have a B3, but there’s three of them, so the head guard gets 2D worth of Help from his comrades, giving the guards a B5 as well.

3. Dice Pools and Advantages
Splitting Attack and Defense
Toby’s going on the offensive. He puts 3D into his Attack pool, and the remaining 2D into defense. The guards go the more cautious route, and they put 2D into Attack and 3D into defense.

Attack Advantages
The guards wield shortswords (short), while Toby is using his trusty arming sword (long). Toby gets +1D for having the longer weapon (BWG 426).

Defense Advantages
The guardsmen are all outfitted with light mail, giving them a +2D advantage to their Defense pool. Toby is wearing reinforced leather, which gives him a +2D defense advantage as well (BWG 426).

General Advantages
Toby’s also got a Reflexes of B4 against the guards’ Reflexes of B3. Having the higher Reflexes gives Toby a +1D advantage that he can put into either pool (BWG 426). He puts it into attack (of course).

Final Dice Pools
Guards: Attack: 2D, Defense: 5D (3D +2D advantage from armor)
Toby the Duelist: Attack: 5D (3D +1D from longer weapon, +1D from higher Reflexes), Defense: 4D (2D +2D from armor)

Roll Results
The guards roll 1 success on their attack. Toby rolls his defense and comes up with 1 success as well. The guards make some clumsy strikes with their blades, but Toby barely manages to avoid getting cut. Now it’s his turn.

Toby rolls his 5D and gets 4 successes! The guards roll their 5D defense, and get 3 successes. Toby slashes with his blade and connects with one of the guards, scoring an Incidental hit.That’s a B4 to one of the guards - only a Superficial wound, but enough to give Toby the opening he needs! He darts past the bleeding guard and down a darkened alleyway, escaping into the night.

Slick. I love how there’s just enough crunch to make it feel like a drawn-out tactical conflict, while still keeping things nice and simple. This is getting me really excited for Burning Wheel Gold now!

Yeah! Bloody Vs. wasn’t a mechanic I used very often in my games, but I’m definitely going to start using it way more often, now.

Another informative example Shaun. You really should get these up on the wiki. Seems that Bloody Versus is pretty much unchanged from BWR. I wonder if the Length, Reflex and Armour advantages are hardcoded? Seeing as both parties are similarly armoured I would have ruled that neither side would have gained any dice in BWR.

Well done.

-k

It is very similar, but advantages (general, and specifically to your attack or defense pool) are laid out explicitly (then you can argue for a further situational advantage die from there, I’m sure). It also gives good guidance on how to ferret out the results… whether one, both, or neither party hits.

So, how do you know who gets their intent? Compare adjusted attack results or something?

At its core, it comes down to “Who took a wound?”, and if both participants did, “Who is hesitating?”.

Posted by Verax:
[b]I believe it happens immediately for most actions. Note that it makes an exception for firing a bow, etc., saying you cede the advantage in the next volley. The absence of that text otherwise makes me assume it is immediate, counting even for the action which causes you to cede the advantage.

The example that comes to mind would be if you were holding a sword-wielding opponent at bay with a spear (assume you have advantage). If you want to push him down, you have to now get inside his reach… unless you’ve won positioning using your “hands” as weapons, you’ve given up the advantage.[/b]
That’s what I thought at first too, but then I thought of another example–suppose I have a sword and you have a spear, and I have the advantage. If I want to punch you in the face with the pommel of the sword, I cede advantage–so somehow you got back out to spear range because I… raised the weapon a slightly different way? It seems like it would make more sense in this case if I ceded advantage AFTER my pommel attack, instead of immediately(at least to me). The whole thing seems odd when I think about it that way, hence my confusion about it.

So. no positioning then? Would it then make using maps and miniatures easier? I’ve taken Sean’s excellent write-up of the Duellist vs. Assassin fight, and mapped it using miniatures. I’m not talking about the preamble to the fight (the searching, wandering, rolling for surprise), but rather once the players are in the fight proper.

Just a thought.
John

It’s more streamlined. In vague terms, Engage replaces Close, Vie for Position replaces Maintain, and Disengage replaces Withdraw. The physical locations are still abstract.

Actually, based on my reading of the Positioning Advantage chart, the bonus is based on the difference in length of the weapon. So if two swords are facing off, and sword A has the advantage, he gets no bonus in positioning. If a Sword and a Knife are facing off, whichever of them has advantage this exchange gets +2D to his positioning for next round.

But a Polearm vs. Spear only grants one of them a +1D to the next positioning test. The difference is not large enough to give a large advantage.

If you’re both fighting with weapons of the same length, neither of you has advantage. Don’t test to engage (p. 430 “Same Weapon Length”). You only need to test between exchanges if you’re trying to Disengage, and your opponent is not, or vice versa.

Or if one player is disarmed, then I think it’s assumed that his opponent has advantage until the next positioning test.

Also, in that example of a corridor, the positioning advantage of long, longer, and longest weapons is -1D. Also, the Disadvantage imposed by these weapons when they have advantage is reduced by 2ob. So the Roden should NOT have had the +2ob leveraged against him during the exchange. This represents the difficulty of using a long weapon in a small corridor.

However, if the corridor was 10 feet wide (as pictured) it probably wouldn’t count as corridor terrain (That makes me think more like 5 ft wide hallways).

Edit: BTW, those two examples are really helpful! Thanks for going through that.

No, it’s the rule that if you succeed in the Disarm, you gain Advantage. (p. 449, Disarm), no assumptions necessary!

If you lose advantage immediately when you script push or charge, that makes those actions very difficult to pull off. If your opponent has stats at 4 and so do you, and you both have swords, then if you charge you’ll be rolling 5 dice against ob 4 (1/2 stat = 2 + 2 Ob for your opponent having the advantage). You’ll be failing that most of the time and that means your opponent gets two free actions against you. Push is in even worse shape in terms of the odds, but at least it won’t cost you another action if you fail. I guess the moral is that you don’t use your hands in a swordfight!

I was also wondering about using brawling for push and lock instead of power. If it’s a vs. test, say brawling vs. power, you use skilled vs unskilled rules, but if it’s a standard test against 1/2-stat then you don’t? So using brawling over power is either a big advantage (doubling your successes) or not much advantage at all depending on what your opponent scripts (assuming your brawling is about the same exponent as your power)?

Ceding (or taking) the advantage is part of the effect of that action: It happens in the immeasurable sliver of an instant between the Charge/Tackle (or Push) and the following action. Enjoy your difficult power test, and live with the consequences (i.e. that’s what Artha’s for).

In which skill or stat would you like that test, and what are you willing to risk for that Brawling test? How well do you think you know your opponent’s scripting strategies? The longer you play with Fight, the more layers you can introduce: strategizing to end up on one knee at a disadvantage to try a Throw Person to get that Power test you need to get it to B8 without dying is risky but perfectly valid play.

Oh yeah, I know that there’s reasons to choose either (or both in the same fight to get tests for both abilities). But it seemed odd that if your brawling and power are both B4, and the script is lock vs lock then you basically double your successes by choosing brawling, while if it’s lock vs strike then there’s no difference in what you choose (aside from advancement).