Mass Combat

[Fuseboy]

Stigni, Countercheck is working on a set of rules called Burning Banners that approaches the matter very differently, you should definitely check those out once they’re available.

[Countercheck]

Yeah burning banners is a bit closer to that. I want to do one more play test and expand on one or two of the components before I open it to the world. Maybe next week?

[Ten_of_Swords]

@Fuseboy

So yes, as Tim says, we’ve been playtesting with much larger forces. The downtick isn’t meant to win the battle, merely to cause stress and ensure things are always heading toward closure. Minimum dispositions for interesting battles is probably around 12-16. I’ll have to tweak this, and I think Countercheck is on the right path.

In Harm’s Way only adds a risk of injury, but this wasn’t emphasized enough. I’ve tweaked this. Injury is a possible, optional, additional result if the GM choose to apply it.

Because the players’ actions are meant to be representative of the wider battle, having a player fail a steel test and leave his action unused is a death sentence and not what I was intending. An injured player, for example, drops out of the turn sequence - he doesn’t have to spend his actions groaning uselessly while the enemy savages the army’s flank. My inclination would be to have characters facing terrifying foes test steel to claim a turn, otherwise it goes to the next player on the roster while the coward shrieks or runs away. Missing a whole turn is too much.

Versus tests are just ordinary versus tests. For the purposes of affecting disposition, you do not need to meet any other obstacle beyond what the enemy sets. Now, if you’re treating a mortal wound and you need, say, Ob 6 or whatever, you won’t cure your patient by beating the enemy attack that generated 1 success. In truth, we haven’t had this scenario come up in playtesting - a versus test where the task normally has a very high Ob. Sorcery, Faith, and Treatment are the obvious candidates here. I will ponder this.

I recommend doubling or tripling low dispositions to get them in the high teens to twenties range for maximum satisfaction.

I don’t think it would work to have one player knocked out by a Steel test and the next scripted action move forward, as this would desynchronize the scripts. How about adding a “vs. no action” ob to the chart?

You could use the “army size” Obs for Strategy rolls as independent Obs for some actions vs. no action, like Fight Enemies vs. No Action?

I don’t understand why a failed Steel roll is a death sentence for your side (or why it shouldn’t be… coward!). Is a bad roll in a versus test also a death sentence? The other day I rolled 7D and scored 0 successes in a simple test that was part of a negotiation with an elven king. I wouldn’t have done any worse if I’d swooned.

I don’t like that versus tests ignore the independent Ob of the action. I don’t like that a surgeon making his patients worse or a sorcerer failing his spell and suffering tax can defeat an enemy attack. Feels wrong. Why is it necessary to have two separate Obs?

BTW, in the Battle Actions table, does I mean 1? So if both sides script Attack, they are attacking at Ob 1, with all successes detracting from enemy Disposition, just like in DoW?

[larkvi]

@Ten_of_Swords

I don’t like that versus tests ignore the independent Ob of the action. I don’t like that a surgeon making his patients worse or a sorcerer failing his spell and suffering tax can defeat an enemy attack. Feels wrong. Why is it necessary to have two separate Obs?

I see it as a matter of representing the general success of the surgeon of getting the wounded back on their feet versus the amount of damage the enemy is inflicting–can you keep up?–rather than as representing a specific surgery, but there is definitely a bit of disconnect with individual actions here.

[Fuseboy]

The mismatched Obs thing is something that I’m thinking about, it’s the least satisfying bit of the system to me.

The business of using medical skills to defend against an enemy troop attack is of course ridiculous! I’ll make this clearer in the next revision, but the players should be describing their action first, then the GM decides what his/her scripted action means. It must be something appropriate, meaning that it needs to be a sensible challenge given what the player’s action is, and it needs to be something they can perceive.

Where it helps, there can be a degree of indirectness in how the GM and player actions interact narratively. The surgeon is obviously not on the front line, pitting scalpel against sword.

“You pull Barnaby out of the mud, and wipe away what you can to make the gash in his chest visible. Blood oozes everywhere. There’s a crash from downhill, and you see the line shudder as the warg riders bash into the shield wall.”

<roll>

“Barnaby coughs. There’s blood everywhere, but you’re able to stop it and drag him uphill to safety.”

OR

“A cry of dismay goes up, and the line falls. Wargs pour through as the shield wall breaks, then collapses entirely. You’re forced to drop your surgical tools and make a run for it, leaving Barnaby behind, screaming for you as the wargs trample him.”