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Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Thu 09 Jan 2020, 04:23
by PencilBoy99
Thanks.

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Thu 09 Jan 2020, 11:46
by Mr Oldtimer
Also, trolls are a great way to let those with ranged weapons, spells and great at using surroundings shine. Since trolls smell, your typical tank will become broken in agility quite fast, leaving combat to the others...

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Sun 12 Jan 2020, 20:46
by Ebrim
Maybe give him some other orc fighters with similar talent banks to fight as well. There’s always someone better out there, he’s not unique.

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 14:41
by Alucard89
Also, remember the orc will probably fall down and drop his weapon when he becomes broken. Next round he need to spend one action to get up and another one to get his weapon/draw new weapon. Being such a strong fighter most enemies might consider him their first choice for their next attack, thereby breaking him again. If this happens he will rapidly run out of WP and can't use his ability again. 
This is house rule and very bad idea. Broken is already a bad state for everyone in party. Creating such house rule just to counter combat-monsters is dangerous for other party members-  you create a deadly loop, where players getting up from Broken (via spells, talents, Healing, whatever) can't defend themselves with dodge or parry (because you force them to use Fast Action to pick their weapons up) and they go down again, and pattern repeat. And even if you do it, it's easy to counter by player- simple crafting for attaching two twines/ropes at the end if his weapons so that they bind his wrist all the time and he won't drop weapons. Such "Arms Race" between player and GM is useless and leads nowhere.

Also he does not need to spend Action to get up. As Unbreakable talent says (apart from corebook not saying you need to spend action to get up from broken..): "you can spend Willpower Points to immediately get back on your feet".

Corebook says NOTHING about any further repercussions of being Broken than what is stated in text. In short- no, by rules you don't drop weapons and you also don't need to spend Fast Action on getting up like in Prone state, because Prone and Broken are different state. I am not developer but reason for it is to not make Broken character life even worse, as being broken and vulnerable for both Critrs and Coupe De Grace is already bad. It's says you can crawl etc. but says nothing that you must drop what you hold in hands. If you look at movies - many times you can see someone down on battlefield and crawling his way, but still in his sword/weapon in his hand, clutching to it as his only way of survival. Again- if rules doesn't say so- it's house rule. Good or bad? Depends on people. Bad in my opinion.

@PencilBoy99[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)] [/color]The fact is that it's very easy in this system to make combat monster, be it terrific damage dealer (Dual Wielding + Path of Blade 2 + Swordsman 2) or tank (the kind of yours player have). Also Orcs are always extremely tanky so nothing you can do here. At some point (as in any RPG) players will be getting very powerful. For now those are the advices I can give you:

1. Try to target his WITS with Fear attacks. Of course, he may start to invest in Fearless talent to counter it, but that is the way of RPGs. 
2. Monster attacks can't be parried, only dodges (most of them, some can be parried). Attack with those. Of course that will make him invest in Fast Footwork 2 but still it's worse than his parrying. 
3. Don't bother with humanoid enemies being too weak. At some point any decent combat character can deal on average enough damage (especially with Path of Blade 1 ignoring armor) to pretty much one-shot any humanoid enemy. Monsters should be your main 'threat". Humanoids I like to leave as just "minions" or some sort of story part. My party is after around 20 sessions and humanoid enemies don't posses any real threat to them and I am fine with it. I play my cards with monsters, puzzles, curses, investigations etc.
4. Play more with roleplay "threats" for this character. Not to "defeat him" but to make interesting challanges - someone tries to manipulate him, he has to make performance tests maybe or place him in situation where Stealth or Survival would be great but he has none. Just to place some challanges. 
5. Worst thing you can do is try to challenge combat monster with combat. I mean- this guy is MADE for combat. It's hard to imagine combat being big threat for him, where his specialization lies in it. Remember this- anything in combat that can kill combat monster will most likely just insta-delete rest of the party. Let him shine in his field. That's why try to place some interesting story challenges in front of him that is not combat. And when it comes to combat- just accept the fact that it's his place to shine. Make other players shine in their fields. What, all your players are combat-based?  Play with his personal story, create some interesting quest connected to his past. Don't try to fight fire with fire.

Combat is not the only "challenge" that Forbidden Lands or any RPG has to offer. I don't see many people complaining that someone makes Empathy 4/5 based character who wins every manipulation test, took Incorruptible 3 and can't be manipulated and can break people with Sharp Tongue 3 considering average Empathy among NPCs is 2. Yet everybody are loosing their mind when combat-focused-character makes combat as trivial as manipulation guy makes manipulation trivial.... Combat is not the core of threats in RPGs for gods sake. You can make Survival-based character who can auto-succeed on everything related to it, making whole "survival" part of Forbidden Lands non-existent. Stealth character with 6 Agility that will have on average 4 successes per roll and can steal anything with his Slight of hands etc. If someone specialize in something- well, guess what- he will be great at it no matter what you do. 

Don't fight fire with fire, try to use a water perhaps :)

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 15:24
by Fenhorn
If you are 'knocked senseless' and 'can only crawl' (strength), means that you are not standing up. The same can be said if you 'collapse from exhaustion' and 'can only crawl' (agility). You don't stand up if you collapsing and again here as well, if you can't walk, only crawl, you aren't standing up and if you aren't standing you are...
This is not a house rule, this is what being broken means.

Whether you drop your weapon or not is a GM's interpretation of the situation and as such can vary from one situation to the next, what critical injury the broken target got and what weapon he is holding. For me, in most situations if a character collapses for example, he is not doing so keep holding his spear.

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 15:46
by Alucard89
If you are 'knocked senseless' and 'can only crawl' (strength), means that you are not standing up. The same can be said if you 'collapse from exhaustion' and 'can only crawl' (agility). You don't stand up if you collapsing and again here as well, if you can't walk, only crawl, you aren't standing up and if you aren't standing you are...
This is not a house rule, this is what being broken means.

Whether you drop your weapon or not is a GM's interpretation of the situation and as such can vary from one situation to the next, what critical injury the broken target got and what weapon he is holding. For me, in most situations if a character collapses for example, he is not doing so keep holding his spear.
Yes, that's what broken means, but show me where it says in rules that you need to spend action/fast action to stand up from broken? And as I pointed out- Unbreakable of orcs says precisely that you "get back on your feet immediately", so for Orcs is even more clear here. I understand what you want to say from "narrative perspective" but mechanics don't always go along and simulate all realistic states, because it's still a game and it needs to have a good and fair flow on mechanical aspect. So while I know you want to make Broken even more dramatic- your right at your table, the corebook mechanics already make it dramatic as much as needed without messing with mechanical aspect of the game. Mechanics will never reflect "realism" 100% in any game.

As for weapons drop- precisely, it's just GM interpretation, but since it DOES affect mechanical flow of combat (because it does impact mechanical aspects like action economy) - it's a house rule, because you directly alert combat RAW, where there is nothing mentioned about that. I am not saying you can't do it - it's your table who agrees on house rules, not mine - but please if you post it to someone as answer to their issue/question, make sure you tell them it's your house rule, because that's quite important.

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 16:23
by Fenhorn
In my world when you are knocked senseless or has collapsed you are prone and can only crawl (because you are broken and can't stand up). Clearly in your world it doesn't mean the same thing.

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 16:29
by Alucard89
In my world when you are knocked senseless or has collapsed you are prone and can only crawl (because you are broken and can't stand up). Clearly in your world it doesn't mean the same thing.
Nope, it's the same for me but I don't punish players further with some additional difficulties and actions spending to stand up/pick up weapons, because I remember it's also a game, not a real life simulator. And as a game- it has rules to follow. But again- each to his own table. I just mentioned it for OP so he knows what is RAW and what is not. Every table can play as their agree upon. 

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 16:44
by Fenhorn
I don't punish my players, we as a playing group has always thought it is logical that you end up prone if you are knocked senseless or is collapsing and can only crawl. If someone that has collapsed would still be standing up (sounds so strange) wanted to move, he would have to change stance so he can crawl (you can't crawl while standing up).

Re: Managing Combat with "Broken" Combatants

Posted: Wed 15 Jan 2020, 16:56
by Alucard89
I don't punish my players, we as a playing group has always thought it is logical that you end up prone if you are knocked senseless or is collapsing and can only crawl. If someone that has collapsed would still be standing up (sounds so strange) wanted to move, he would have to change stance so he can crawl (you can't crawl while standing up).
Again, you and your players agreed on it - fine. That's your group decision. But again - it's not RAW. It's house rule. By punish I mean you added additional difficulties to broken state like picking weapons costing fast action. If punish was a wrong word, you can say "difficulties", "additional challenges" etc. That's what I meant. I don't care how other people play at their tables, but when we talk RAW- let's stick to RAW. When we talk how we interpret/house rule stuff- let's make it clear too. That's all.