Everyone get +4 for free against berserkers

[joppeknol]

Originally Posted by Kromm

s – but that's death for you. The real issue here is with Berserk, not All-Out Attack, and whether it's fair to get +4 all the time. I tend to agree that it isn't . . . personally, I think that switching Berserk to Committed Attack would be the fairest tweak.

I'm thinking about telegraphic attack. It's a coordinated carefully lined-up attack as if in a stress-free situation. Can you do that in a situation where a big drooling insane fighter intending to kill you runs up to you, or would you need a will roll to be able to? (not sure what the exact house-rule-for-protection-against-telegraphic-attack should be, but something like this.).

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Anthony

If a maneuver translates as 'why would I ever use this', it's not fine. Unless you're basically untrained, all-out attack is a terrible option.

Unless you absolutely must kill your opponent right now no matter the cost, in which case it's the only reasonable option.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by joppeknol

I'm thinking about telegraphic attack. It's a coordinated carefully lined-up attack as if in a stress-free situation. Can you do that in a situation where a big drooling insane fighter intending to kill you runs up to you, or would you need a will roll to be able to?.

No you shouldn't need a roll you wouldn't need for a normal attack, which also has to be as carefully lined up (on an actual target) and requires extra planning to account for defenses. That bit about stress free situations is effectively fluff text, explaining why the bonus is +4, what you are doing is ignoring anything about the opponent and throwing your reflexive (intensively practiced) attack without modifying it for the actual situation as you normally would to be able to penetrate defenses. If anything to make it worse, I'd raise the defense bonus, it's set at half the +4 for balance (inverting the Deceptive Attack rule) more than realism. Of course that doesn't help berserkers at all.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by joppeknol

I'm thinking about telegraphic attack. It's a coordinated carefully lined-up attack as if in a stress-free situation. Can you do that in a situation where a big drooling insane fighter intending to kill you runs up to you, or would you need a will roll to be able to? (not sure what the exact house-rule-for-protection-against-telegraphic-attack should be, but something like this.).

Uh, no, it isn't. Telegraphic attack is compatible with full active defenses, which one doesn't use in a stress-free situation. Telegraphic is half a carefully lined up stress-free attack. The other half is All Out (Determined).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Unless you absolutely must kill your opponent right now no matter the cost, in which case it's the only reasonable option.

There are other cases - your confident nobody has weapons that will punch through your armor or other passive defenses, you have so many hit points you don't care, your defenses aren't going to be very useful anyway (your opponents all attack by flooding the surrounding hexes with poison gas), or you aren't going to survive to next turn anyway (once this surprise turn is over, these 30 guys with SMGs are going to kill me, might as well take one with me)

Letting berserkers take Committed Attack sound like a decent solution to give them some odds of surviving. The other approach I might consider is allowing somebody who All Out Attacks a defense roll at a large penalty only against the individual he attacked, so you're still defenseless against his buddies, but one-on-one your weapon might be in his way enough to count as a parry.

[martinl]

I like the committed attack approach simply because historical berserks often used shields. Maybe cut committed attack berserk down a few points though.

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There was in 3e. Shields gave "Passive Defense" and you could try and defend with your PD alone even without making an Active Defense (forbidden to characters with Berserk).

This makes me wonder: shield arm is always considered to be behind cover (-4 to hit instead of -2). Is there a way to use shield as a cover for torso? (cover is the real passive defense for me - it just makes it harder to hit you)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Refplace

So saying it should not be allowed because it is not right for all situations is silly.

Yes, exactly. It's actually a very, very useful tactic for some situations. In most, forgoing defenses is a bad decision. In others, makes a lot of sense. Off-hand, here are some where it's a good idea:

- attacking a foe that can't reach you.
- attacking a foe that can't hurt you.
- attacking a foe that can't retaliate (unready weapon, for example)
- attacking from total surprise.
- attacking when your defenses aren't good enough to matter anyway.
- attacking when you're confident that your extra offense will nullify the chances of being attacked back (or attacked back effectively).
- attacking when your allies can keep you safe from harm.
- attacking a foe that can't really bother with you.

So the question "Why would I ever do this?" is "Sometimes, it's a good idea." It's never been a good idea to do it all the time, but that goes for a lot of maneuvers. It would only be worth getting rid of if it was literally never useful, and other maneuvers filled its niche in a superior way. It's conditionally useful, and nothing fully replaces it.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Gnomasz

This makes me wonder: shield arm is always considered to be behind cover (-4 to hit instead of -2). Is there a way to use shield as a cover for torso? (cover is the real passive defense for me - it just makes it harder to hit you)

I've considered this but I haven't found a satisfactory way to apply it in all cases - not without ditching DB and saying shields are just cover. Which I've never playtested myself that I can recall.

3e with PD was a different beast. I still cringe remember how combat effective one PC was - he had a magic shield (PD 6) and wore magic armor (PD 6), and would just all-out attack and depend on his 12 or less to defend. If it got really hairy, they'd put Shield +5 on him for PD 17, and he would never actually defend, nor get hit. It seemed a bit . . . iffy. Although it was a fun campaign.

Still, treating the DB of a shield as some form of cover, or saying that attacks into your front arc either get the DB of the shield (if you're actually defending) or give a penalty to hit equal to the DB of the shield (as if it was cover) doesn't, on the face of it, seem unbalanced. Miss by the cover penalty and you'd get hit on the cover (the shield, in this case). You'd probably need to let people aim at locations that it couldn't cover without penalty - it shouldn't mater that you've got a medium shield on when I try to hit your foot or sword arm or hand, I suspect. I'd have to try it out before I'd know if it was fair.

[roguebfl]

I allow shield as cover vs range attacks, if readied as such.