Martial Arts: Facing multiple opponents

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Railstar

What is to stop them from using the same options to corner you?

Hopefully, lower combat skills and Tactics skill, so they won't choose as effective combat options and won't cooperate as effectively, as trained soldiers would do.

1 point of Brawling, for skill 10, is not exactly supposed to include professional-level formation fighting and group tactics in it. It's good enough so that you can avoid rules that apply to completely untrained amateurs, but the situational awareness and unit cohesion of such fighters still should fall far short of professionals of any kind.

And even skill 12 professionals often fail to coordinate perfectly on a second-by-second scale, not to mention that they have less-than-perfect situational awareness.

I'd make heavy use of Situational Awareness and Fright check rules from Tactical Shooting, myself. Much the same effect can be achieved by the GM just remembering to play any group of people not composed of awesomely drilled special operators as having a fairly long OODA loop, especially if unit command is informal and there is no prior agreement about areas of responsibility.

Normal people get in each others' way, carry out two incompatible plans simultaneously or otherwise waste time and effort in some way. And some will hang back to let braver members handle the fighting.

[DangerousThing]

What Icelander said. The Cold One has much wisdom.

Basically if the GM is playing a group of badly trained street punks as courageous fighters who will fight to the last man, that is being cinematic. And if the GM is giving his NPCs cinematic powers, then it's not fair to keep them from you.

You've been given some very good advice on how to fight a group.

Personally, barring cinematic rules, I'd get an extensible baton (I'd go for the brand name, the Asp if I had the need).

Now, when attacked by the special forces guys, the GM should give them tactical sense. But if he plays street thugs that act just as lower skilled special forces, then he's playing things cinematically and I would even say badly.

My players will be attacked by a large group of bandits supplemented by one low skill higher TL raider with a blaster. The players have no high tech weapons except for one monowire whip, but all of the party have staves and one has a bow. The bandits will be sweeping downhill on riding animals yelling and screaming. If 20% of them have been taken out some how or somebody does something that looks extremely dangerous, then the bandits will grab their wounded and run.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

When facing multiple foes, it doesn't matter if you step closer to a foe. It matters if you step closer to multiple foes.

So I'd restate that as "never step closer to multiple foes; only step closer to single foes to take some advantage, and only if it doesn't put you into the reach of other foes."

That is indeed a better way to say it. I won't go back and edit my post, now that it has been quoted, but my intention – which I failed to communicate – was that you should never step toward the mass of foes.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Railstar

What is to stop them from using the same options to corner you?

It's a very common conceit of action-adventure campaigns that spending FP and/or character points in combat is only for PCs. GURPS Martial Arts discusses this matter some.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kromm

was that you should never step toward the mass of foes.

Yeah...you only do that once or twice before you realize that's a bad idea. Hopefully only once.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Yeah...you only do that once or twice before you realize that's a bad idea. Hopefully only once.

I was fortunate in that one of the guys I used to run with was trained in kung fu from an early age. He wasn't especially good at it, but he remembered what his sifu said: "Run first. Fight second." It's the only kung fu I know, and it served me well on occasions when it was many-on-few. On one of those occasions, it strung out the guys chasing me just enough that I could throw one of them into a collapsed wire fence, where he got tangled and his pals stopped to help him; on all the others, I just ran away.

I've never been on the receiving end of stepping nearer to a mob of many, but I've been on the giving end, I'll admit. Some drunken "frat boy" type chased one of the punk girls in my group into a park, the worst of intentions on his mind, but didn't count on us all being there. He didn't leave, but actually approached. All I'll say is "Bad move, Chip. Boxing at Daddy's club isn't a whole lot of use here."

[Anthony]

I remember once running a 'boss fight' in GURPS with a single human against multiple PCs; this was in 3e, but it turned out that the combination of a bastard sword and a step of 2 was remarkably challenging against everything the PCs had, and it was all about positioning and kiting.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I was fortunate in that one of the guys I used to run with was trained in kung fu from an early age. He wasn't especially good at it, but he remembered what his sifu said: "Run first. Fight second." It's the only kung fu I know, and it served me well on occasions when it was many-on-few. On one of those occasions, it strung out the guys chasing me just enough that I could throw one of them into a collapsed wire fence, where he got tangled and his pals stopped to help him; on all the others, I just ran away.

I've never been on the receiving end of stepping nearer to a mob of many, but I've been on the giving end, I'll admit. Some drunken "frat boy" type chased one of the punk girls in my group into a park, the worst of intentions on his mind, but didn't count on us all being there. He didn't leave, but actually approached. All I'll say is "Bad move, Chip. Boxing at Daddy's club isn't a whole lot of use here."

My best friend knows both escrima and some kempo. The first he learned from his dad (who's been practicing it for most of his life) and the second he picked up after school watching others practice. He's good. Real good. But I never had the patience to try to learn from him when I was younger - as always, I just bulled my way, in (though I did try my hand at boxing some years later). I learned a lot of hard lessons about scrapping. Never go in alone if you can help it. Never be unarmed if you can help it - you don't have to use it, but if you don't have a knife and the other guy does... Fight dirty as hell. Anything goes. Biting. Fingernails across the eyes. Gravel or beer in the face. Whatever. Beating an aggressive target into unconsciousness or impairment tends to be a good idea. Never, ever, ever let anyone corner you. Go for the knees. And in my case - always use your size to your advantage. I'm 6'4" and 400 lbs. Even at my high school weight I was 350 lbs. I can lift fridges and carry them around with ease (yeah, I got gorilla arms). I've lifted the back end of a town car nearly half a foot off the ground stone cold calm when a friend didn't have a jack. I held it for nearly a minute before wimping out. Though none of that helps if you let your opponents tire you out. So in my experience, the best thing is to stay as focused as possible, stay on the move, and don't pull any punches. If you're in a fight, you're always fighting for your life unless it's a sports tournament or something. I detest the notion of "fighting fair." Maybe I'm jaded or just gotten rabbit-punched too much by trying to do the "honorable thing," but when it comes to any kind of fight - you're not doing that thing to impress - you're doing it to live. If you throw a punch at me and keep coming, I'm probably going to just cut loose enough to either get the hell away (3 or more opponents) or do a lot of damage before I go down.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I detest the notion of "fighting fair."

Fair fights are great when the unfairness helps the other person...

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I remember once running a 'boss fight' in GURPS with a single human against multiple PCs; this was in 3e, but it turned out that the combination of a bastard sword and a step of 2 was remarkably challenging against everything the PCs had, and it was all about positioning and kiting.

What would have happened if they gathered together and all threw AoA (Double) on the same turn?