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Old 07-10-2016, 07:44 PM   #11
Ronnke
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Australia
Default Re: Mass Combat 4e - Misfortunes of War

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
But having the enemy Force Commander rally an ad hoc reserve, Catch your force when it is disordered by the pursuit and carve it up thereby winning the battle does make sense.
In which case, your friendly force would suffer some casualties and result in the appropriate Misfortunes of War roll. But, what if that enemy Force Commander completely failed and was not able to inflict any casualties, what then?
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Old 07-11-2016, 06:42 AM   #12
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Mass Combat 4e - Misfortunes of War

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Originally Posted by Ronnke View Post
In which case, your friendly force would suffer some casualties and result in the appropriate Misfortunes of War roll. But, what if that enemy Force Commander completely failed and was not able to inflict any casualties, what then?
I'm having a little difficulty understanding your intent or thrust of the question...

When GURPS handles the battle rolls, it is always a contest of skills. Technically (if I am remembering correctly) there isn't even the possibility of a critical success or critical failure in contest of skills roll, just a margin of success/failure relative to your skill being compared against the margin of success/failure relative to opponent's skill.

Per the rules, the only time an enemy can't inflict casualties on his opponent's forces, is when either the circumstances of the battle do not permit it, or the opposing force makes no errors at the same time your forces make too many, or some combination thereof. I've read battle reports where an enemy force takes severe casualties (war of 1812 based battles to be exact) and the defender suffers no casualties at all other than wounded (no fatalities and minor injuries). Those results are relatively rare. GURPS makes it such that it only happens when the combined "success" on the part of the winner is combined with a major failure on the part of the loser (a contest that is won by 15 or more). That would mean at minimum, the winner of the contest making it by 8+ an the loser losing by at least 7+ give or take. On a 3d6 system, with characters who do not have high skill levels, that is REALLY hard to do.

Example: Skill 11 character going up against a skill 12 character...

Skill 11 rolls a 3 (making it by 8) going up against a skill 12 character - blowing it with a roll of 18, which is by 6. That results in final "success by 14" Both are 1 in 216 probabilities, or roughly a .5% x .5% or roughly a 1 in 40,000 chance of occurring (based on the situation as outlined above).

It shouldn't happen often, and I'm guessing in the context of this battle, that the Enemy commander took risks that resulted in him falling in battle. THAT in turn, lowered the secondary commander's skill capabilities for the remainder of the battle (which historically produces a result that seems to have been generated in the actual battle).

As GM, I also noted that the side with the most PC's taking risks, generally wins. As a consequence of this observation, I try to keep it balanced by granting each and every PC on the battle field, his nemesis (those few times I've used Mass Combat rules) so that they are more or less kept in balance. Otherwise, the side with the most heroes will generally win.
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Old 07-11-2016, 07:14 AM   #13
Ronnke
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Australia
Default Re: Mass Combat 4e - Misfortunes of War

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
I'm having a little difficulty understanding your intent or thrust of the question...
The crux of the issue is with the Misfortunes of War roll required at the end of every round of mass combat. The table provided has no entry for the Base Chance if the battle resulted in a side taking 0% casualties. The first entry in the table is for 5% casualties. How is this to be interpreted (mechanically)? Should the 5% line be interpreted as 0% - 5%, or does it mean no Misfortunes of War roll should be made? The text itself mentions a misfortunes roll happens at the end of every round of combat. It doesn't then make any clarification like, "except when a side takes 0% casualties", which is something you would expect given it's a pretty important exception to the general rule.

Our group has ruled, no roll is required, but I'm interested to see the community consensus or even some official clarification should the powers that be read this thread.

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
That would mean at minimum, the winner of the contest making it by 8+ an the loser losing by at least 7+ give or take. On a 3d6 system, with characters who do not have high skill levels, that is REALLY hard to do.
It's not that hard when you factor all the possible modifiers to the battle skill roll.
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Old 07-11-2016, 08:45 AM   #14
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Mass Combat 4e - Misfortunes of War

Just out of curiosity, do you recall what the modifiers were that you used in game play?

Better yet... *teasing grin*

Write a narrative of the battle and indicate in a subtext or after the narrative, what your mods and die rolls were as best as you can.

The last time I used Mass Combat in a game, was for a Harnworld campaign where one character took as many of the older less experienced squires as foot soldiers to take a diversionary attack on an underground lair/fortress of gargantuan (hatbox orcs hatched from oversized eggs). Another character took a small force of knights to act as a delaying force to keep the hunting parties of gargantuan caught outside the lair when the siege was initially set in motion. His role was crucial in that the gargun attempted to send a relief force from within their lair to let the hunters back in. The player wisely chose a fighting retreat and led a sizable force of gargun away from the defense of their home. The seige turned into essentially three separate actions that permitted the main force to press against the main highly defended gateway. It was a near close victory at start, but when the fighting got to near the gargun queen's chambers that the gateway defense crumbled. The squires lost a fair number of their brothers in the corridor fighting underground, and nearly broke when the gargun took to devouring the fallen squires - some still living as they were consumed! But for the dogged leadership of the squires, they would never have help carry the seige. To this day, a kinship remains of those who survived the seige of Fana, and they still revere the knight who led the diversionary attack that almost netted them the gargun egg laying queen.

Of course, there were a lot of dice rolling and near defeats. The players all came together during that session and felt wrung out from it. Had the one player not chosen the retreating battle option, his small force would have been overrun. Good thing he had the needed mobility, or he'd have seen his character end up as gargun food.
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Old 07-11-2016, 05:11 PM   #15
Ronnke
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Australia
Default Re: Mass Combat 4e - Misfortunes of War

The GM of that particular session posted a summary here:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...91&postcount=9
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