08-06-2012, 12:34 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Germany, Leonberg
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Feints dominating fights?
Hi,
in one of the books there is the statement that there is a certain level after which it is not effective to increase a given skill. I've made the experience that this is certainly not true for (armed) combat. In my rather high powered (~300 to 400 points) fantasy campaign there was absolutely no reason (besides me forbidding it) to not increase a skill further. After all, 20 points in a skill mean that I've got a feint skill that is five levels higher than yours, and therefore I will, in all likelihood, kill you quite fast. Besides that "everyone increases the level of combat skills as fast as possible" no other combat technique but doing a feint followed up by an attack was ever (successfully) used. Several ppl came up with different styles but it either broke down to a feint + attack or was quickly annihilated. This seems to me rather boring... is this the way real fights work? So to sum it up. I got the impression that fights very much on all levels (gming a 75cp-campaign at the moment and it seems to happen again) are largely dominated by feints. The person with the highest feint skill wins (there are exceptions of course - like Knife vs plate armor which is not going to work whatever your feint skill is) and therefore everyone has got the feint-technique maxed. I'm interested in your experiences - does this happen in your campaigns, too? Is this intended? And what to do against a high skill high feint-technique fighter (besides forbidding/limiting it or having a higher feint skill...) ? Thank you in advance, makke |
08-06-2012, 01:22 AM | #2 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
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(Brief background: Cherry Blossom Rain is a samurai game with a great deal of politics, drama, and sudden, extremely violent and lethal fights. The fights are rare, but generally special when they happen) First, my players often face a mix of skilled and unskilled opponents. Yes, they go toe to toe with the heroic samurai of other clans, but they also often face their soldiers. Particularly in the latter fights, you're dealing with quantity rather than quality, and you want to cut those spearmen down quickly, rather than feinting (which is generally overkill). Even against equally powerful samurai (or more powerful!) I found feints didn't happen as often as I would think (rarely, actually). First, deceptive attacks are simply faster, and my players seem happier to pile on the attacks and try to out maneuver one another. Feints tend to happen after a period of evaluation, to maximize the benefit of that one feint followed by a combo, generally. But this assumes their opponents are primarily DX/Skill based. One of their most dreaded foes is the Executioner, who has 25 HP, high pain threshold, DR of 5 from his armor, DR of 3 from his chi field, terror, and an ice enchanted giant (legendary) zanbato (that has a reach of 4 yards, I'm not kidding). You can feint against someone like that, but he just doesn't care. He'll ignore the puny attack that comes after it, and splatter you with his counter-attack. And if you try to parry his attacks, he'll break your sword. The two characters who threaten him the most don't do it with feint. The first has a legendary katana with an armor divisor and is strong enough and tough enough to simply go toe to toe with the Executioner and whale on him. The other has an unbreakable sword, and is a master of Power Blow, and uses it to unleash devastating attacks that will make the Executioner hesitate. The Executioner isn't the only one to use alternate tactics. There's an entire clan based around enduring the hardships of battle (focused heavily on HT, they're very interesting now that we've added the Last Gasp). The point is, the trick with someone like this isn't "how do I beat his parry?" but "How do I hurt them enough to keep them down?" Feints CAN be useful here, but they stop being a primary concern. Another favorite trick of two iajutsu focused clans isn't to bother with feints at all, but simply to wait for the other guy to attack and then jump in and hit him before he hits you. Executed quickly enough, with a deceptive attack layered atop it, and this is almost impossible to stop. The dirties of these fighters just rely on fast draw. In a duel, one such samurai had his weapon out and in the other guy's gut before the other guy could even draw his weapon. A feint would have actually given the guy a chance to defend, and not what this character wanted. Likewise, we often have ninjas in the game, and the ninjas play dirty. They'll grapple your weapons with kusari, rain poisoned shuriken down upon you, and vanish in the shadows and then attack you from behind. My point is that feints, while a useful tool, are really only one tool, and they work best under a particular paradigm: Your opponent has less weapon skill than you, but enough that its hard to hit him, but a single solid hit will be enough to take him down, and time isn't an issue. Different warriors will fight (or SHOULD fight differently): They can absorb a hit, or you don't have the time to build a feint bonus, or they refuse to stick around and let you play your cute little sword games. This also ties into your concern about the primacy of Feint (and the melee weapon skill). In my discussions above, three additional skills become highly important: Power Blow (for damage against highly armored and/or highly tough characters), Fast Draw (to bring your weapon out quickly enough to face instant threats) and Observation (to detect a stealthed target who is trying to slip close enough to strike you). I haven't discussed other skills that have turned out to be pretty vital too, but an Unarmed skill is requisite (You won't always have your weapon), Tactics (for broader combat, to understand what your opponent is doing, and to offer assistance to your allies in combat), Acrobatics (to improve defenses and mobility), Stealth (to be the one getting the drop on your opponent), Leadership (to rally your allies. Remember, it lets you improve self control rolls and fright checks!) and a host of cinematic skills. Despite having no caps on their skills (I'd happily let my players improve their combat skills to 30), I have yet to see a player take their skill higher than 22. They're too busy broadening their capabilities, particularly in the forms of Chi powers and cinematic skills. I find this is fairly common, actually. If your players are fixating on just their melee weapon skill, you've allowed the game to become too narrow. If everything is a duel, the players will fixate on how best to win that duel. In real life, combat rarely comes down to such precise conditions, though. Combat is messy and strange and you need a variety of tools to deal with it, and being highly skilled at getting past someone's melee defense is only one of those tools. Consider branching out in your encounter design. In fantasy, this is particularly easy. In my game, all foes need to be more or less human (though there are a couple of demons trotting around). In a fantasy game, you can throw stone golems or insubstantial spirits or swarms of goblin archers at them. This sort of scenario will force them out of the dueling paradigm and into something broader.
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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08-06-2012, 04:54 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Feb 2012
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
I run harsh reality games with 125-200 pt characters.
No one of my players uses much feints. The strongesy warrior prefers armed grapple with his falcata. Overall, however, there aren't superpopular techniques over others. It depends mostly from situation. Duels are different from mass battle, one vs one is different from two vs four. You can fight in a river, in a corridor, in an alley, in a square or in a wardrobe. Your opponent can be mounted, or perhaps you have to protect your girlfriend/son/etc during the fight. You can have armor or not, your opponent can be a thug from slums with a club, a praetorian with lorica segmentata, large shield and gladio, a fisher with a net and a knife or a leppard escaped from the cage. I see often deceptive attacks, telegraphic attacks, slams and strikes from the back. A good technique is counterattack maximized with technique mastery (I HR that, with TM perk, you can't simply obtain an higher skill roll with a counterattack; you must trade the exceeding skill points in deceptive attack, rapidstrike and so on). It's the only way to aument your chances if you are fronting several opponents: in this situation is crucial to overthrow quickly the overnumbered enemies. Why do I bring this example? Because this is a situation - seen frequently in my games - when feint is a bad, bad tactic. Probably it's different if you run 300-400 pts superhuman cinematic games. I can image situations a là D&D, with combats planned to be a manageable menace: fighting overnumbered opponents is in the frame of "hero vs minions", characters wear armor even in a inn, they have almost all the time their special enchanted weapons and so on. But, in harsh realism, feinting is a good tactic only in duels, and duels are only a small portion of combats. Last edited by Ji ji; 08-06-2012 at 04:59 AM. |
08-06-2012, 06:00 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: The ASS of the world, mainly Valencia, Spain (Europe)
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
Mailanka, I've GMed 500+ points Dungeon Fantasy and 1k+ point Supers. I must say that yeah, Feint reigns supreme, as long as:
Ways to avoid this:
Feint shines when you can make a full skill feint and then attack again on the same turn. |
08-06-2012, 06:07 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
In a moderate gritty fantasy campaign (150 pt start value)...
Most characters are "well rounded" as there is a good bit of non-combat action and matters can be solved at times without the battlemap coming out at all. (So as much as 1/4 to 1/3 of points not directly combat related). Feints can be useful...I have sometimes used them in combat (ST 11 fencer)...Rapier 18 Edit also Picked up WM Rapier mid-late career Primarly my combat side of the leger has focused on developing DWA Rapier/Raper Tech to equal my Rapier skill (effectively an extra attack)... Second Focus was to get TA Rapier/Eye up to max value (-4 to skill)... Once I got there being able to do 2 eye attacks on 14s was in my comfort zone. My most common combat option other than base DWA attack however was Cross Parry (MA 121) combined with a Riposte (MA 124)...particullarly when against one skilled opponent. I would lower my own (Cross Parry) by 2-4 and leave myself a makeable number while shoving his weapon out of line. Next turn a DWA with both attacks on him (-1 to defend plus -2-4 to Parry from Riposte) makes it hard to make 2 defenses with those penalties... But Straight Feints work too just there are times I am leary to use an attack to get the benefit if I can trim a defense and not give up the attack...
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My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.-Foch America is not perfect, but I will hold her hand until she gets well.-unk Tuskegee Airman Last edited by Witchking; 08-06-2012 at 06:46 AM. |
08-06-2012, 07:31 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
I was in an Arena game...PvP. People looked for every edge in combat on order to win the battle and not have your character killed...and then have to make a new character.
I was, against all reason, the longest lived character in that Arena and was pretty successful, despite being a low ST fencer up against Ogres and who knows what else. There were some characters that used feint a lot. There were some that used other techniques. I had really good skill and feint so people didn't try to feint me much. On the other hand, I didn't feint much either. Rather, I used my superior mobility and tactics to get the foe from the rear or side, with a deceptive DWA to the vitals. As Mailanka said, it is a combination of players and GM. Sometimes players get into habits...none of them think Feint is worth it, so none of them use it...all of them decide that techniques are the way to go and they all go that way. This is compounded by GMs who don't give the players a good variety of combat. If all combats are situation A, then the tactics that work best in situation A will be the ones you see all the time. Give the players more variety, they will react with more variety. And lastly, I'm not a stat normalizer. I tend to let players put their points where they want within the overall campaign frame. But I tell them, there will always be consequences for those PCs who are too lopsided. And then I proceed to exploit any lopsidedness. If a PC has a weapon skill of 30, there are gaps in that character somewhere else, I will throw challenges to those areas. The players end up being well rounded in the end. Oh, I also don't let players increase any thing they haven't used in that session. So, if there is a session where there was no combat...then they can't put their earned cp into their combat skills. So then we have PCs with a greater variety of skills that reflect what they've done. |
08-06-2012, 10:03 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
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Second, I've found that targeting hit locations is often more important than making rapid strikes, as Trooper6 points out. Third, Martial Arts combos and Trademark Moves have a rule that if you use the same move over and over again, your opponents gain a +1 to defense, and that excessive use of a move can result in a negative reputation that your opponents can exploit for a bonus to defense. I definitely recommend this if you find people do the same thing over and over again. And I really don't see the value of your technique. Assume we both have rank 20 broadsword, Weapon Master and Combat Reflexes, and you have Extra Attack (Multistrike) for 30 points and Feint +4 for 5 points. If I Evaluate and then you attack, making 3 attacks (-6). You'll beat my skill by 4 points, on average, so I'm at -4 to defense (Dropping me from 14 to 10). However, my Evaluate reduces this by 1, so I'm only down to 11. I can retreat for 12. Your first attack is 14 vs 12, your second is 14 vs 10 and your third is 14 vs 8. I can spend fatigue on this last to push it up to 10. This sounds fairly dire... but you have 35 points on me. Let's say I'm using a two-handed weapon or a fencing weapon (Katanas are two-handed and Legendary Katanas count as Fencing weapons). That means my defense is 12, 11 and 10, which isn't nearly so bad. And if we use Chambara retreats, thats' 14, 13 and 12. And if we take Grip Mastery for 1 point, I can slide into Defensive grip the moment you do this, which means I have 15, 14, and 13 (note that one handed weapons count as 2-handed for the purposes of defense while in defensive grip, so even if I'm wielding a vanilla broadsword, I can still get the above benefits thanks to grip mastery). Which you're not going to penetrate (For good measure, I have a house rule that states that Evaluates get a +1 to defense, because that seems to make good sense to me, and it makes Evaluates even more useful. This might not be important with the Last Gasp being added to my game, but we'll see). If I screw up a roll, most characters have luck, and will just use it to survive that one screwed up roll. If I have a high dodge, paired with my high weapon skill, this doesn't work at all. Assume a Basic Speed of 7, that gives me a dodge of 11. On a retreat, that's 14, and that 14 doesn't go away because of your rapid strikes. Essentially, you're trying to win by stacking defensive penalties (the multi-parry penalty) and hoping I screw a roll. But in my experience, the problem is that defense is TOO HIGH to just hope for failure. You need to do something like this: So you just attacked me three times and failed to hit after I evaluated for 1 turn. This means I'm now at skill 21. If I do this for two more turns, the outcome will be the same, and I will have skill 23. Then, after the last attack, I will Counter Attack (6 points) to give you a -2 to your defense. This STACKS with Deceptive attacks (unlike Ripostes), and if I make a thrust, my defensive grip doesn't penalize me (if I'm using a one-handed weapon, I'll just switch out: I won't be able to switch back this turn, but I shouldn't need to if this works). The Counter Attack puts you at -2 to your defense, dropping you to 12. I make a deceptive attack of -10, dropping me to 13 to hit you, which is decent. You're dropped, then, down to 7. On a retreat, that's 8, with a fatigue point, that's 10. Not bad... but for 7 points (Counter-Attack n+0 [5] and Grip Mastery [1]), I'm slightly more likely to hit you than you are to hit me than you did for 35 points. What you need to do to really defeat a skilled opponent who is turtling isn't to "grind" them, it's to stack as many penalties as you can. You'd actually be much better off making a single deceptive attack after your feint: At skill 20, dropping to 14 (I never drop lower than 13 unless I want to gamble), you can stack up a -7 (-4 from the feint, -3 from the deceptive attack). That's one more than you'd get from the rapid strike at its best. You might say "Oh, but the extra attacks makes it more likely for me to hit you," but I don't think that's true. That's the nature of the bell curve. A -1 to someone with a 15 or a 16, even if its several attacks at -1, don't really add up to much. But if you can turn those several -1s to a -3, then your opponent drops to a 12, and you have a much better chance of hitting him. Leave rapid strikes where they're meant to be: Against multiple opponents. I haven't found them terribly useful outside of that, unless you've built a combo, in which case you get "penalties for free," but you're paying for that. EDIT: Now, you'll note I have a few martial arts options turned on. If we were using my Cherry Blossom Rain rules, your attack would be even less effective and you'd really need to do something with a deceptive attack. Once you start playing with options, you need to fine tune them. Your Feint+Rapid Strikes is an artifact of the rules you're using (and, frankly, not even the best use of those rules). An adjustment should make that go away.
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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08-06-2012, 10:46 AM | #8 | |||||||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: The ASS of the world, mainly Valencia, Spain (Europe)
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
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08-06-2012, 12:01 PM | #9 | ||||||||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
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Note that your ruleset is allowing several of these at once. Specifically, Heroic Charge effectively gives all characters high mobility, so there's no reason to put extra points into some ability that lets you move quickly. Quote:
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(EDIT: The comment about 9-12 defenses was incorrect. I was sporting 13-15 defense) You don't have primacy. You're LOSING. I gave you a best case scenario and still beat you. You're trying to shift the odds while forgetting that I've given you a huge point advantage. The fact that you can exploit that point advantage is not the proof of your supremacy, it's the proof of your higher point value. The PROBLEM with Extra Attack is that it costs THIRTY points, unless you're a dual wielder, and then you can't take advantage of the dual-wielding trick, unless you're feinting with your feet, in which case you need Karate or Brawl at equal levels with your skill, and all of that only saves you 5 points. Sure, yes, Extra Attack is a big deal. It's thirty points worth of big deal. 6 points of DR is also a big deal, as it 7 levels of skill. But your approach is absolutely not superior, because you're not really stacking benefits and you're assuming a very rigid scenario. Yes, Feint > Deceptive Attack if you can Feint and Attack in the same turn, but that costs you lots of points. To put this in perspective: Skill 20 + Feint 4 + Extra Attack is an average of -4 dodge and, ultimately, -6 to parry (average victory of 4 on the feint, -2 total from the multiple parries, assuming your opponent doesn't have sufficient dodge that he doesn't care). By contrast, 27 skill is an average of -7 to defense, and +3 to my own parry. OR, it's the same skill level (20) with Will+7 Power Blow. Or... Well, you get the idea. Incidentally: Quote:
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. Last edited by Mailanka; 08-06-2012 at 12:08 PM. |
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08-06-2012, 12:13 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Feints dominating fights?
You know, the more I think about it, the more it bugs me:
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I mean, the case you're ACTUALLY describing doesn't center on the feint-and-grind, does it? It starts with it, but then flows into other techniques as soon as that doesn't work. It's a tool in your belt, but not the only one. And that's not really a case of "reigning supreme," at least in my book. So even in YOUR game, while it maybe an SOP, it doesn't exactly dominate the game, does it?
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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