Maximum number of people in close combat

[Michael Thayne]

B392 says, "Any number of people may participate in close combat in the same hex." This seems like obviously a rather silly rule. Taken literally, it seems to imply that fist fights can bend the laws of space, allowing huge crowds of people to cram into a 1.2 square yard area. So what should be the real limit? I can think of plausible reasons for making the limit anywhere from three to five. And in cases where three or four people are ganging up on one target (if you even allow that), should some of the attackers have to enter the target's hex from the "back" of the hex?

[evileeyore]

I basically limit it to 'seven'. One in the hex, 6 entering from the surrounding hexes.

Granted there have been some very large and hairy scrums where positioning was just handwaved, so it's not like this is some hard and fast rule for me.

[jason taylor]

In a formation fight there will probably be more people per space. Even so it is hard to imagine a yard allowing more than two abreast.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

B392 says, "Any number of people may participate in close combat in the same hex." This seems like obviously a rather silly rule. Taken literally, it seems to imply that fist fights can bend the laws of space, allowing huge crowds of people to cram into a 1.2 square yard area. So what should be the real limit? I can think of plausible reasons for making the limit anywhere from three to five. And in cases where three or four people are ganging up on one target (if you even allow that), should some of the attackers have to enter the target's hex from the "back" of the hex?

In part, it depends on the type of hex. For typical land hex, you can have one person prone in the hex, two more standing and up to two "helpers" for each of the standing persons, so seven total, maybe eight, if you squeeze in one more person sitting on the prone person; and that could be 7:1 if they're all ganged up on the prone person.

In zero-G or underwater, you've got the entire underside of the hex available, so you could fit another six or seven on that side for a total of fifteen persons in the hex. All that assumes that everybody is roughly the same size as everybody else.

If one side is markedly smaller by a factor of two or three, then you can fit two or three times as many people in, making it 28:1 or 42:1 odds in that single zero-G/underwater hex. Which granted, is getting a bit overwhelming, but presumably they don't have anything better to do.

[RyanW]

My first thought would be to analyze the death of Julius Caesar, but Shakespeare was very lazy about providing game mechanics in his campaign logs.

Rolls a 14 against HT 11.

Oh, I am slain.

Dies.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I basically limit it to 'seven'. One in the hex, 6 entering from the surrounding hexes.

Granted there have been some very large and hairy scrums where positioning was just handwaved, so it's not like this is some hard and fast rule for me.

Hmmm. What do the multiple close combat rules mean when they say, "A good compromise is to allow a fighter to declare himself in close combat with an opponent while still in an adjacent hex"? Is the figure "really" in the opponent's hex, or "really" in the adjacent hex? If the latter, I wouldn't mix rules, and I'd set the limit at 6. But this option seems to effectively turn Reach C into Reach 1. Which might not be a bad thing because the rules on close combat are kind of confusion.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

In a formation fight there will probably be more people per space. Even so it is hard to imagine a yard allowing more than two abreast.

If even that. I tried looking up the width of Roman shield wall formations, and it seems the shields did not overlap, and were two to three feet wide, with "three feet" being the most common answer. I found another source that described a 19th century rifle formation as being quite tight yet still having slightly less than one soldier per yard of length on the front.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

In part, it depends on the type of hex. For typical land hex, you can have one person prone in the hex, two more standing and up to two "helpers" for each of the standing persons, so seven total, maybe eight, if you squeeze in one more person sitting on the prone person; and that could be 7:1 if they're all ganged up on the prone person.

I'm definitely interest in land hexes. On the specifics of your answer, I'm not sure I understand the logic behind the "helpers". Certainly you can have a lot of people on one target in event of a football-style pileup, but I think GURPS assumes the marginal benefit of adding a fourth person to the pile is small, and furthermore at that point people are going to start spilling out of the hex.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

If even that. I tried looking up the width of Roman shield wall formations, and it seems the shields did not overlap, and were two to three feet wide, with "three feet" being the most common answer. I found another source that described a 19th century rifle formation as being quite tight yet still having slightly less than one soldier per yard of length on the front.
.

Yeah. Phalanxes actually had a much tighter formation than the Romans did which meant the Roman formation could turn much more easily.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Hmmm. What do the multiple close combat rules mean when they say, "A good compromise is to allow a fighter to declare himself in close combat with an opponent while still in an adjacent hex"?

That's for when you run out of space for the miniatures on the battle map to fit into the hex.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That's for when you run out of space for the miniatures on the battle map to fit into the hex.

Sure. But is it meant to be, like an optional rule where close combat doesn't require being in the same hex, or just an easier way to represent "many people in one hex" on a hex map?

[Michael Thayne]

A few arguments for different answers to the "how many people in a hex" argument:

Three: Four per hex might work for an elevator or subway car, but if people want to move, three should be the limit. GURPS Zombies limits even the most densely packed zombie mobs to three per hex. It's enough for two people to grapple a single target. For pins, people don't need to all be in the same hex, since a prone human takes up two hexes.

Four: The rules say you can fit four people to a hex. And three people are supposed to be able to cooperate in a pin. Also allows the old "two people restrain someone, a third guy punches him."

Five: This is a slightly excessive number of people, but they don't have to all literally be 100% in the hex. At least in a four-against-one scenario, if the one wiggles free, you only have four people in a hex, which isn't too crowded.