10-10-2022, 08:56 PM | #31 | ||||
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Close Combat Stress Test
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I'm still trying to work out a philosophy on how smart to play the monsters (and how kamikaze). I'm almost to the point of knowing what the good tactics are; next step is to figure out how much to dial things down in the interests of fun and realism. I'm considering stealing a page from Pieter Spronck's research on dynamic difficulty and having monsters that are color coded not so much by POWER as by NASTINESS. E.g. white spiders just Move up to you and Attack next turn, red spiders retreat when they Dodge, orange spiders move into close combat, yellow spiders cooperate to use up your retreating and grapple you in close combat, blue spiders get behind you so you can't retreat and go for the face and try to Shove you in webs, ultraviolet spiders Wait until another spider is in close combat and you've no room to retreat and then do All Out (Determined) attacks on the eyes, etc. Quote:
The first fight of the game is the ideal time to crank up the difficulty and start killing PCs (or trying to do so). It sets player expectations. Quote:
For example, if someone shoots an arrow at their eyeball, they can't block. That won't happen in this scenario but I wasn't thinking exclusively of the spiders in the cellar. Another example that could very well happen in this scenario: not retreating allows a spider or another PC to get behind you, precluding retreat later in the round before your turn, and opening you up both to next-round rear attacks and to close combat frontal attacks (because now you can't retreat). Another example: other spiders might get to step and Attack instead of Move and Attack. Allowing the enemy a free retreat to a better tactical position in exchange for negligible damage potential is a lose/lose I think; avoiding a lose/lose is a win/win. Quote:
Last edited by sjmdw45; 10-11-2022 at 08:43 AM. |
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close combat, grappling |
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