Speed up High Level Combat

[Garydee]

I'm new to the system and I was wondering how do you quicken up combat with characters who have 100% skill or above in their combat styles? It seems like it's a parry fest.

[lawrence.whitaker]

If one opponent has a skill >100, the Combat Style is reduced to 100, and the number of points above 100 are subtracted from the opponent (see page 51 of Mythras). So if Anathaym has Spear & Shield 120%, and she's fighting Bestatrix 98%, Anathaym effectively fights at 100% and Bestratrix fights at 78%. Bestatrix now has about a 25% chance of failing a roll, while Anathaym has a 5% chance of failure: Anathaym should win a Special Effect and cause damage much more frequently than Bestratrix - and it's the Special Effects that actually speed up combat.

This means that very long combats are quite rare in Mythras. Plus, when one factors in the rules for weapon reach and fatigue, high skills can be whittled down moderate numbers quite quickly. Good use of Special Effects, such as Overextend, also reduce an opponent's ability to retaliate; while other effects, such as Trip, Stun and Bash, can be used to eat-up a high-skilled opponent's Action Points, denying them the opportunity to fight effectively.

Our advice for newcomers to the system is always to try the rules as written first, and study the many options one has in combat. You should find that we've anticipated the situation of highly skilled opponents drawing combat out, by building in a number of different ways to either reduce the skill of an opponent, or their effectiveness in other combat areas.

The Combat Training modules: Breaking the Habit and Take Cover! are very useful in helping you get to grips with Mythras combat, as they're designed to show you hwo to make the best use of situations, reach, Special Effects, and other tactics that help you gain the right kind of edge.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4057/Design-Mechanism/subcategory/8030_32283/Game-Aids

You'll also find some very engaging discussions about combat and tactics on the TDM forums: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/designmechanism/rules-and-mechanics-f6/

[Garydee]

Thanks for the advice. So much to learn.

[Garydee]

Thanks also for pointing out another Mythras forum. I didn't know about that one.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Garydee

[Raleel]

Mythras also has a Discord server https://discord.gg/RqwyHdG there is also the Mythras matters podcast and the Opposed Roles podcast - the latter of which I’m half of and we discuss some of these issues. 

[pachristian]

Combat Special Effects Table.pdf

The main thing for speeding up combat is player familiarity. Encourage your players to read the rules, and pay attention to what's going on. Use miniatures or tokens to avoid long arguments discussions about "where did my character actually move". 

I use this (attached) sheet in Roll20 for my players; it's a one-page reference for combat special effects. Having them all on one side of one page speeds things up for the players. 

Advance preparation speeds up combat: Have a method of tracking actions per round, either a turns sheet where you check off actions and combat turns, or some other tool. On the tabletop, my players use tokens to count their remaining actions and luck points. 

Use those fatigue rules! 

[soltakss]

11 minutes ago, pachristian said:

The main thing for speeding up combat is player familiarity.

I would agree with this.

Also, having an idea of what you want to do before rolling helps. Rolling the dice and then looking through a sheet to see what you can do slows things down. Knowing that if you using Trip Opponent would help and then seeing if your roll allows it really speeds things up.

13 minutes ago, pachristian said:

I use this (attached) sheet in Roll20 for my players; it's a one-page reference for combat special effects. Having them all on one side of one page speeds things up for the players. 

Thanks, that is very useful.

 

[Raleel]

I love the special effects table. I am passing it to my players immediately, even though most of them are pretty familiar. 
 

I would consider putting firearms in on the drop foes special effect

[g33k]

Another thing that often doesn't occur to new players is an "emergent property" of the Action-Point system.

It's pretty obvious to most players how the 3-AP character has an advantage over the 2-AP character, etc.  What many don't realize at first is that a series of 1:1 duels which use 1:1 AP superiority is often a sub-optimal way to fight -- the entire party has an AP total, and this can be leveraged to great effect.

Sometimes it's as simple as "our party has 17 AP's, theirs has 15 AP's," but look closer:  which character(s) 2 AP's do you want to bring to bear?  Where do you want to apply them?

Sometimes it's as simple as "ganging up" on a foe.  Sure, a couple of over-100% characters may be in for a long-ish duel... but if one of them has an ally or two, such that the foe has to spend AP's defending more broadly (even if the allies are lower-skill)... well, it doesn't bode well for the outnumbered combatant!

Sometimes -- and I'll allege it's pretty frequent, actually -- having one character "step in front" to parry, or otherwise "defend on behalf of" another is a HUGELY advantageous action.  It frees up the defended-person's Action Point(s) that they may then be able to use to MUCH better advantage, e.g. if they have a ranged-attack, or an area-effect attack, Etc Etc Etc.  Sometimes you want them to apply their AP outside the immediate duel-like constraints (of the guy coming at them with a sword) -- they need to pour the flask of Holy Water over the Candle of Undeath, or whatever.

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by g33k
clarity

[Raleel]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

the entire party has an AP total, and this can be leveraged to great effect.

Most definitely. When I get asked about how to balance fights and I toss in the action point metric, I make sure to tell them to total both sides. skill times action points = some arbitrary white box combat effectiveness rating. It's very simplistic, but assuming same levels of armor and damage, it works pretty well.

[pachristian]

10 hours ago, Raleel said:

I love the special effects table. I am passing it to my players immediately, even though most of them are pretty familiar. 
 

I would consider putting firearms in on the drop foes special effect

I supposed I should wander over the the Design Mechanism site, and put it up there, too.

My game's a strict swords-and-sandles, so no reason to put in firearms - besides - there isn't any room left!

 

[Raleel]

1 minute ago, pachristian said:

I supposed I should wander over the the Design Mechanism site, and put it up there, too.

My game's a strict swords-and-sandles, so no reason to put in firearms - besides - there isn't any room left!

 

Do you have an editable version that could be shared?

[pachristian]

Sure. Here's an .rtf version of the same document.

The heading font is "From" created by Russ Herschler, and available on "www.dafont.com".

 

Combat Special Effects Table.rtf

[Bilharzia]

Thanks for the sheet.

For those that use it, the rtf document can be pasted perfectly into a Roll20 handout.

[pachristian]

On 6/13/2020 at 12:22 PM, pachristian said:

Sure. Here's an .rtf version of the same document.

The heading font is "From" created by Russ Herschler, and available on "www.dafont.com".

 

Combat Special Effects Table.rtf 236.04 kB · 6 downloads

The heading font is "Crom", not "From" created by Russ Herschler, and is still available on "www.dafont.com"

[pachristian]

On 6/18/2020 at 9:39 PM, Bilharzia said:

Thanks for the sheet.

For those that use it, the rtf document can be pasted perfectly into a Roll20 handout.

I use it as a Roll20 handout

[rsanford]

On 6/11/2020 at 1:27 PM, g33k said:

Another thing that often doesn't occur to new players is an "emergent property" of the Action-Point system.

It's pretty obvious to most players how the 3-AP character has an advantage over the 2-AP character, etc.  What many don't realize at first is that a series of 1:1 duels which use 1:1 AP superiority is often a sub-optimal way to fight -- the entire party has an AP total, and this can be leveraged to great effect.

Sometimes it's as simple as "our party has 17 AP's, theirs has 15 AP's," but look closer:  which character(s) 2 AP's do you want to bring to bear?  Where do you want to apply them?

Sometimes it's as simple as "ganging up" on a foe.  Sure, a couple of over-100% characters may be in for a long-ish duel... but if one of them has an ally or two, such that the foe has to spend AP's defending more broadly (even if the allies are lower-skill)... well, it doesn't bode well for the outnumbered combatant!

Sometimes -- and I'll allege it's pretty frequent, actually -- having one character "step in front" to parry, or otherwise "defend on behalf of" another is a HUGELY advantageous action.  It frees up the defended-person's Action Point(s) that they may then be able to use to MUCH better advantage, e.g. if they have a ranged-attack, or an area-effect attack, Etc Etc Etc.  Sometimes you want them to apply their AP outside the immediate duel-like constraints (of the guy coming at them with a sword) -- they need to pour the flask of Holy Water over the Candle of Undeath, or whatever.

 

Wow! That was very insightful. That signals a depth that other BRP games don’t have.