So last night my group sat down and played through a couple of fight conflicts, and a couple of things came up.
The big one was this. So if I have bow, and am fighting a mouse with a sword and we both play attack cards. What happens? It seems like we roll a versus test, with the winner inflicting the difference in disposition damage.
The alternate (which is less intuitive) would be that the longer range weapon make a versus test, while the shorter ranged weapon is still independent. Which would mean long range weapons get pounded in attack vs. attack.
Why I ask is this. There are listed weapon ranges. Paw to paw, spear, missile, and bow. Do the rules mean that, unless we have equal range, attack vs. attack will always be a versus roll? In the case of equal range, attack vs. attack is two independent rolls?
1a) The same question in reverse for attack vs. maneuver, as ranged weapons make that roll independent. Are both rolls independent. Or is the missile weapon’s roll independent, with the shorter weapon rolling verses.
Secondly, if a mouse is using a halberd and is part of a three mouse team, it seems like the slow rule (-1d to defend and feint) will never come into play. If the mouse attacks he will use the halberd as axe. If he defends, feints of maneuvers, he will use it as a spear. As he is part of a team and only gets one action each round he will never have to use a defend in the same round he is attacking. Which sort of makes sense. Halberds are great battlefield weapons, but not great dueling weapons.
The former. A bow against any non-missile weapon will always treat Attack vs. Attack as a versus test and Attack vs. Attack against another missile weapon as an Independent test. This means it is reasonably safe for a bow wielder to script Attack. He’s not likely to take a severe blow to his own disposition while doing so.
Yes, this does mean that the player with a shorter weapon also benefits from this when an Attack vs. Attack comes up. However, keep in mind that when scripting, the team with the bowmouse knows that their bow will benefit from this feature if an Attack vs. Attack comes up (unless the other side also has a bow). The team with the shorter weapon will only receive this benefit if their Attack action happens to match up with the Attack action of the bow.
1a. I don’t think you’re reading this quite correctly. This interaction only happens if the bowmouse selects an Attack action and the other team selects a Maneuver action. In that case and only in that case are the tests Independent (for both teams). The reverse is NOT true. If the bowmouse selects a Maneuver and the other team selects Attack the actions are Versus as normal.
Correct. In an optimal situation it won’t come into play. But you won’t always have an optimal team. Sometimes you get separated!
I thought you could only switch weapons after each 3 action set? I thought this included switching forms with a Halberd too so the situation in Part 2 of the question would never occur, would it?
Could someone give me a good rationale for why bow weapons work this way? I know combat in Mouseguard is highly abstracted but I would like to know the reasoning behind things. The description I have (via the non-box version of the book) is:
“Against short-ranged weapons, your Attack action counts as a versus action (rather than independent) against Attack and is independent against Maneuver. Long Range:+2D to Maneuver against normal, spear or thrown weapons. Hard to Defend: Add +1D to your Attack versus Defend.”
I guess the following questions I have are:
“Short range” weapons, are these the same as “normal” weapons (like swords, axes, spears mentioned just below)?
If bows are so good at Maneuvering against “normal, spear or thrown weapons” and you get a margin of success of 3, how do you explain a Disarm? Or do you usually apply it to disarming an enemy’s Traits? Or do you just drop it down one category to Gain Position and give the next person on your team a +2D?
Yes, you can only switch after each 3 action set. On occasion, your mouse will be alone in a conflict or part of a two-mouse team. In such cases, you may end up using one of the actions for which you have a penalty…not doing so could make you predictable.
Could someone give me a good rationale for why bow weapons work this way? I know combat in Mouseguard is highly abstracted but I would like to know the reasoning behind things. The description I have (via the non-box version of the book) is:
“Against short-ranged weapons, your Attack action counts as a versus action (rather than independent) against Attack and is independent against Maneuver. Long Range:+2D to Maneuver against normal, spear or thrown weapons. Hard to Defend: Add +1D to your Attack versus Defend.”
I guess the following questions I have are:
“Short range” weapons, are these the same as “normal” weapons (like swords, axes, spears mentioned just below)?
If bows are so good at Maneuvering against “normal, spear or thrown weapons” and you get a margin of success of 3, how do you explain a Disarm? Or do you usually apply it to disarming an enemy’s Traits? Or do you just drop it down one category to Gain Position and give the next person on your team a +2D?
Any info would be helpful. Thanks!
Short-range weapons are anything that doesn’t have the “missile” quality (i.e., normal, spear and thrown weapons).
Bows have the maneuver bonuses because it’s very difficult to approach a mouse wielding a bow. Bows are very good at keeping enemies out of range. Disarms can be explained a number of ways: maybe you shoot a weapon out of your enemy’s paws; maybe they drop it as they scramble away from one of your shots; maybe another mouse on your team who’s helping is responsible for the actual disarm.