Challenging Tanks Without Slaughtering Squishies

[YankeeGamer]

My favorite way of taking out a tank is a bazooka...
Seriously, there are times when you can get the tank out of his/her armor. Doing it too often feels contrived, but occasionally, it makes sense.
Camp gets raided--when the tank is asleep. Wakes up--no time to don armor.
Party gets invited to fancy event--an honor they can't refuse, or will take serious reputation hits if they do.
Of course, sometimes, the big shindig is a chance for some social roleplaying. If the playrs aren't into that, just say, "You meet with the generalmonarch/etc." A few rolls to avoid fatal gaffes, and back to the action. But, one of these revels might be a time for an assassination attempt. No time for armor--might have a dress sword, or might need to grab the weapon from a very freshly deceased royal guardsman.
A need to get int tight spots, or be quiet to catch the ratfolk/guild thieves, etc are all possible.

Getting the player to decide to take off some of the armor tather than force him to is desirable. "It'll take a minute to get the armor off, hide it, and we can cross the rope bridge--or two hours to go around."

There's some ideas for you

[mr beer]

I had a tank PC attacked while asleep by several skillful assassins wielding shortswords. He killed them all but got horribly cut up without his usual full plate protection. In armour it would have been a trivial encounter.

[PK]

Here are some suggestions that don't unfairly penalize the tank -- because the person who chose to be hard to hurt should be hard to hurt, while the people who chose to be squishy should have to deal with that decision. It would be unsporting to just arbitrarily choose fights that equalize the two every time via armor-ignoring attacks, etc.

1. Allow Roll With Blow (the technique from GURPS Martial Arts) and have lots of enemies use crushing damage. The tank can just soak it, while everyone else has to get flung around.

2. Allow cinematic extra effort, including Feverish Defense (+2 to any defense roll) and Second Wind (every 1 FP spent heals 1 HP after getting hit). Everyone who can't soak damage will blow lots of FP to stay alive, while the tank can save FP for Mighty Blow, etc.

[PK]

Originally Posted by mr beer

I had a tank PC attacked while asleep by several skillful assassins wielding shortswords. He killed them all but got horribly cut up without his usual full plate protection. In armour it would have been a trivial encounter.

If that happened in his bedroom, I could understand. When on the road in strange locations, though, most adventurers sleep in their armor (something that's actually 100% realistic).

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by PK

If that happened in his bedroom, I could understand. When on the road in strange locations, though, most adventurers sleep in their armor (something that's actually 100% realistic).

I can't remember exactly where it was, not out in the woods or during an involuntary one night stop-over at Castle Sinister though.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Another way to approach this is to provide more varied sets of opponents. For example, have the party be attacked by a big ogre in fairly heavy armor, and a bunch of weaker, but still dangerous, things, like goblins or dire wolves or something. Then, the big tank character has to step up and deal with the single strong opponent, because he's basically the only one who can take a hit from them, while the weaker party members have to contend with the small fry. Making the smaller creatures specialize in mobility (spider-climbing on walls, being small enough to duck under the tank character, just being too fast to be easily blocked, etc.) is a good way to make sure that the tank can't effectively barricade the route and prevent them from sneaking past.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

So, one PC is a high-strength warrior in field plate mail. He's hard to damage and kills ordinary folk with a single blow. One PC is a squishy mage. There are also a few less-powerful NPCs in the party.

I'm looking for ideas for fights that will be a challenge for the warrior, without autoatically killing the mage.

Have a fight where the heavy damage bad guys can't reach the mage without going through the warrior (light damage missile types can target the mage but will bounce off the heavily armored fighter).

[PTTG]

As an aside, go with moderation. Don't go so far as to make the tank feel like he's paid a lot just to get a lot of armor-piercing foes thrown at him. Above all, when he's countered, make it seem like his enemies are just making rational decisions about how to deal with him with limited resources.

[VariousRen]

So here are some thoughts for interesting fights that challenge both the knight and the wizard type characters:

1) Highly skilled, low DR enemies. With high active defences the knight will have trouble landing a blow. A wizard usually has access to spells that will either help lower those defenses (tanglefoot, grease, etc.) or attack an area instead and avoid them entirely. Use the enemies high skill to hit the knight in vulnerable places: the hands, feet, face, or if all else fails, stab him in the eye.

2) Enemies with alchemist's fire, or your local equivalent. Anything that's equivalent to a Molotov cocktail only uses DR/5, which makes plate a measly 2 or so DR. A knight who takes a pot of alchemist's fire to the chest might have trouble putting themselves out, but a wizard with extinguish flame will have a chance to shine.

3) Enemies with armour piercing halberds (See Low Tech Companion 2 for rules on AP weapons). The reach on the halberds keeps the knight away, and lets a whole horde get attacks on the knight and overwhelm his defenses. The armour on the knight still helps greatly against damage (DR 10 plate is still reducing damage by 5, which is 10 less injury from an impaling attack!) but they are on a more even playing field with characters who rely on active defenses more.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

So, one PC is a high-strength warrior in field plate mail. He's hard to damage and kills ordinary folk with a single blow. One PC is a squishy mage. There are also a few less-powerful NPCs in the party.

I'm looking for ideas for fights that will be a challenge for the warrior, without autoatically killing the mage.

Ok in terms of specifically getting past or negating armour stuff already been suggested.

But I'd go another way, part of having a party with diverse builds is to leverage that so these different builds can cover each other and protect one's weakness with another's strength.


So yeah your tank has spent a lot of points in becoming a tank, so let them be a tank and protect the squishy mage from physical threats. It would be a bit unfair to set up all encounters to protect the squishy mage from one hit kills but in a way that negates the tanks strengths. It also starts to get a bit obvious "oh another gas trap ambush by wrestling goblins in a swamp".

My first thought here is if your player party is varied in ability and concept, make your opposition similarly varied. Make the party work to match the right party member to the right threat. The players will work together to cover weaknesses, have you opponents do the same.

But also try and avoid automatically setting all encounters up to be sets of concurrent comic book style evenly matched one on one duels of ability. Your squishy mage clearly lives in a setting with heavily armed and armoured physical threats it's they who should have a plan for that that isn't just "where's my meat shield".

And if they don't than it's fine to make them sweat, if they are unencumbered they should at least be able to run faster!

Basically there is a price to specialization.

Originally Posted by Humabout

Explosive damage is considered Large Area injury and uses the average of torso DR and the lowest DR, which at low TLs is pretty much always 0 for the eyes.

Huh do the eyes count for that purpose? I mean they are a location so I can see it, it just seems a bit harsh, since barring ballistic visors that's Hightech TLs as well. (EDIT: although full body significant DR vs. Cr is pretty rare at all TLs and even more so at HT TL's so I guess it's kind of moot)