High initiative vs. Multiple opponents, a house rule... Options

[Tziluthi]

Most of us have read the girl scouts vs. killer adept example, showing how anybody will lose against a full complement of melee opponents, almost regardless of skill or physical attributes. In addition to that, most of us have read the relatively common threads on how intiative has an unnecessarily low impact on melee combat.

Maybe the two have a place together. Surely someone who was really on the ball intitative-wise would have some advantage against a group of assailants. Does this sound like a viable concept, has anybody house-ruled this, or could anybody suggest viable mechanics to demonstrate this?

[Gyro the Greek S...]

At the moment, I'm seeing how it goes by dividing the friends in combat modifier by two.

[GentlemanLoser]

I've not read the Girl Scout example, but couldn't a Adpet centre away the penalties for multiple oppnents and beat 7 kinds of brick dust out of the little girls?

[Shockwave_IIc]

[GentlemanLoser]

Or here's a quick house rule that has just occured to me. (again, not sanity tested)

Have a defender gain a cumulative TN penalty (+1?) for each counterattack roll they make on passes they can't act in.

Edit: Another thought. Maybe the multiple opponent penalty shouldn't been applied unless your multiple opponents are trained at attacking a target as a team and/or delay thier attacks until they all attack on the same initiatve score.

A group of kids attacking one after another isn't that scary.

But a group of kids working as a team to take you down is...

[Jebu]

That +1 TN / combat phaze with no actions sounds quite good. The slower guy could hit back normally at first, but when the opponent keeps the fast jabs coming, it becomes increasingly difficult to hit back, or even defend well. Reminds me of the fights between Matrix agent and Morpheus, for example. High skill enables Morpheus to hit back at first, then block some hits, but eventually he get his ass kicked. Only in fights between wired 3 samurai or a melee adept, against a mundane with natural reflexes, would the TN penalty grow quite big. And this sounds logical.

[Fortune]

[GentlemanLoser]

That's a good rule.

:)

[BitBasher]

That's also wholly silly IMHO, since the act of avoiding attacks itself will damage the opponent in many, many cases. The two are integrally linked.

I keep having an unresistable urge to point that out. Sorry.

[GentlemanLoser]

And in many, many cases the act of avoiding attacks doesn't interfere with your opponent at all.

[Fortune]

[Brazila]

On a side note, I don't know about everyone else, but all the hand to hand adepts I see almost always have whirling. If the rules make it impossible to fight off multiple opponents without it, then it just seems most people who do that would have it..IMO.

[BitBasher]

[Apathy]

[shadow_scholar]

But the girlscouts kicking the snot out of the lone defender is what would really happen. We're not talking about Hollywood physics here, where each attacker waits their turn to attack after the guy (or girl, in this case) on their team gets beat down or incapacitated in front of them. All those 5 girls are gonna mob that one guy and he ends up losing all his mobility, thereby getting pinned by all those girls. Are they gonna be able to beat the snot out of him at that point, maybe, but not very easily, because they have to worry about hitting their fellow girlscouts. But some of them might not care because in a melee like that you'll have no idea who just smacked the crap out of you just to get at the lone guy.

Now, if the guy gets to go first due to his initiative his best option at that point is to move away, use his mobility to his advantage, line them up as best he can, and not allow all 5 of those girls to attack at once. Would that be the Herding manuever? Not sure (don't have the rules in front of me), but if the guy is smart he'll do his best to pick his battleground or if all else fails then he'll just run. Is running away the the badass, macho thing to do? Not really, but he'd be better off getting some ribbing for running away from girlscouts as opposed to the ridicule he'd get for losing to a squad of girlscouts.

[GentlemanLoser]

"Only if you suck. :) "

LOL!

Or if your opponent is reacting faster than you, and you can't react to his attacks...

[Brazila]

I am no Bruce Lee, but there is no way in hell I honestly expect a group of girl scouts to beat me (or any other adult male within reason) down, that is far from realistic.

[shadow_scholar]

Hey Brazila, ever play football (the US kind)? When you're running with the ball and more than one person comes to tackle what happens? More than likely you'll get taken down. Now make that 5 people coming at once to tackle you, what are you gonna do? End up at the bottom of the dogpile, that's what.

Granted, football isn't melee, but unless you've actually been attacked by more than one person at once that analogy probably has the best chance that you've been in that sort of situation.

[CanvasBack]

I think the example is inherently flawed. The attacking/evil physad shouldn't have to face the friends in melee penalties in the first phase he attacks. Not all of the other girl scouts have entered into the melee! They are merely "on the scene" when one of their own is viciously attacked! As the first phase progresses, the other girl scouts could either attack individually on their own initiative (and have their asses handed to them like their friend) or the surviving girl scout with the highest initiative delays her action, using a free action to speak something along the lines of "Let's rush him girls!" Then everyone in the troop knows to delay until their slowest member acts... From that point, and only that point in the first phase, should the friends in melee rules apply.

At this point the physad MAY be toast, (I sort of doubt it depending on his maneuvers and whether or not he even bothered to use combat pool on his initial attack). A well constructed martial arts physad is going to throw a helluva lot of dice compared to the scouts. In anyevent, the troop will have one less member if the evil/physad attacks first from what I can see...

[BitBasher]

[GentlemanLoser]

LOL! I consider myself a lump! ;) I'm just not built for speed.

But, you could consider the extra phase attacks due to initiative continued offence on part of the attacker, with the defender only being able to cover, defend reactively against as series of fast blows...

"In fact, in some ways it was easier because you can make it appear as if you have an exploitable hole in your defense and the person will go for it and get Clizzubbed™ in the process."

Nice word! ;) But, in this example, wouldn't you be using a maneuver to sucker your opponent into attacking an area you wanted them to, and were waiting for?

;)

[mfb]

you can pick apart some of the details of the girl scout example, but you can't change the basic fact that five barely-trained girl scouts have a solid chance of taking down a grown man whose training and magic are both focused on hand-to-hand combat.

[Dawnshadow]

[CanvasBack]

The physad in the example doesn't appear to have Improved Combat Ability...

Which IMHO doesn't make him a Marital Arts/Warrior's Way adept at all.
No whirling maneuever? What's up with that?

That guy should be rolling 12 dice without even having to think about using his combat pool.

So I don't buy that this represents a broken rule mechanic, the adept in the girl scout example obviously follows the Path of the Strawman....

[mfb]

so, because a bunch of 12-yo girls can beat up a grown man with a black belt in the martial art of his choice, but not a physad with a black belt and improved ability, the rules aren't broken. think about that, man--you're saying that only someone with high-end magical powers should be able to beat up a girl scout pack.

[hahnsoo]

It depends on what merit badges the Girl Scout pack has...

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

uh, okay. i admit, my experience in booting girl scouts in the gut is pretty limited, but that's ridiculous. there's no way five girl scouts with two weeks of karate classes should be able to take down a healthy, untrained adult in a fair fight, much less an athletic adult with years of unarmed combat experience.

[hahnsoo]

Somehow, this example reminds me of the game/comics "Lunch Money".

[Dawnshadow]

[CanvasBack]

[mfb]

there's no way, in real life or in SR, that a girl scout with 2 str and karate 1 is going to knock down anybody with a body of 3+. in SR, even if they use the knockdown attack option, that's still only TN 4, and you only need one success to keep from going down. in real life, unless the man is a total spaz, there's no way a 12-yo girl is going to knock him down if he's expecting a fight.

[GrinderTheTroll]

I personally don't like the penalty for facing multiple opponents. There are two things you do when facing more than one person at a time:

1) Explode outward in an attempt to hit as many oppoents in short period of time that you can. These attacks are nasty things like chops to the throat, inverting knees, eye rakes, etc. Your priority is to get out of being surrounded.

2) Position yourself and opponents so don't face more than one at a time. This is the ideal situation because you can better control over your opponents. The goal here is not get surrounded and if that happens see #1.

The obvious is not to get surrounded, but facing more than one oppoent just means you need to hurt them fast and change the situation from #1 to #2. Standing in the middle of 6 attackers is not a good idea.

I can see what SR is doing with the multiple opponent penalty due to the abstract nature of melee combat in SR, but for a more detailed and realistic system, I'd remove it.

[mfb]

[Dawnshadow]

[CanvasBack]

I can see what Grinder is saying, but...

The SR system simply reflects what happens when you FAIL to take his suggestions on how to get out of the situiation in question.

If you can break out of the Multiple Enemies in melee situation, you can choose between running away or taking out one of those enemies one on one until the next set of initiative passes.


-----

Edit for MFB

You really don't need to be a martial arts expert to figure out whether or not surrounding and individual opponent is a good idea, do you?

[mfb]

except that a guy with 6 points in any unarmed combat skill is almost never going to be standing wrong if he knows he's in a fight. karate 1 is not enough to take advantage of someone else's bad stance--hell, at karate 1, you've still yet to master your own stances.

edit: just because surrounding your opponent is a good idea doesn't mean that a bunch of girl scouts will be able to execute such a manuever properly against a man who's trained in hand-to-hand combat.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

i'd argue that fighting kids is not a matter of detail. more one of taste.

Dawnstar, that assumes that the man is just going to sit there and watch them come. what kind of idiot is going to let himself be surrounded like that? it's not like it'd be much of a challenge to boot one of the girls in the head, then hop out of their little ring of doom through the gap he just created. wash, rinse, repeat: five girl scouts who now need medical attention.

[CanvasBack]

Forget Karate 1, forget Strength 2.

The little girls whose friend got pimp slapped by a stupidly constructed adept find their inner bitch, get an adrenaline rush, surround him, and kick the living shit out of him. Lone Star arrives, clears the girls away, and pistol whips the stupid freak to death as an example to others. In a surprise to everyone in Seattle, ORC and MOM actually endorse this policy.

End of story. :P

[James McMurray]

Grinder: wouldn';t you always want to end a fight as quickly as possible? I know I do. If I'm fighting someone I'm not going to play around with attacks that are not eye gouges, groin kicks, throat shots, etc.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

you really shouldn't need maneuvers to kick 12-yo tail.

[algcs]

Funny topic. I coach a soccer team with 5 teen girls on it that also do/did girl scouts together. They are 13-15 so a little older than the usual age of scouts. A few of them do karate.

It wouldn't be a contest if we fought. I would stomp them like the girl scouts they are. If I had my glasses on it would be a ugly fight but I'd still walk away. And all my melee train comes from kicking my brothers around years ago.

If it were the boys it would be a different story.

[Dawnshadow]

[GrinderTheTroll]

Remove the combat penalty for multiple opponents and it's a completely different fight.

I've also toyed with the idea of difference in skill affecting your TN vs. an opponent. I know folks don't like the idea, but there should be no case of Girl Scouts vs. PhysAd at all, period.

[CanvasBack]

[mfb]

[James McMurray]

The only way we're going to solve this is to find 15 black belts, and 75 slightly trained girl scouts. Pair them off in groups of 5 vs. 1 and let them go to town. After they've recouperated redo the fights with different groups of 5. I'd suggest a total of 100 fights so we can get a good sampling.

Just be sure to bring plenty of waivers so you don't get sued by a bunch of irate moms.

[Dawnshadow]

[shadow_scholar]

Upon further reflecting I think it all comes down to how the initiative falls. In the first round of combat turns everyone gets to go, so we're assuming the Man (talking normal human male with some Martial arts training at 6) is going to go first. Depending upon his skill level he can try to strike the multiple opponents, or can just take out one very solidly. Once he does that it all comes down to how the girls take their actions. Do they all roll separate initiatives? If so, the Man is going to pwn them as they attack one at a time (very stupid). If they all roll the same initiative and go at the same time and rush the guy, he's done for. All they have to do is grab onto him, some will make the rolls and some won't, but eventually he'll lose his mobility, which means he's done for.

[mfb]

the only way a kid that young is going to score any sort of blow that is going to even slow down a healthy, combat-ready adult is if they get lucky and punch him in the crotch at just the right angle. a decent pair of jeans will reduce the force of most blows--even most blows to the crotch--to the point where they're no longer a threat. in real life, a quality combatant will be able afford to straight-out ignore three or four of the girls while he stomps the one or two directly in front of him into goo. the three or four to his sides and back won't have a clear shot at anything important long enough to expect any of them to get a solid hit in.

[James McMurray]

This is not how the initative system works. Even if they all go on the same initiative they still take their actions one at a time.

[mfb]

[shadow_scholar]

[mfb]

right, because a 12-yo girl is going to do so much damage to a grown, combat-hardened adult in the two or three seconds it takes him to stand up again.

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

your back and sides are the least-vulnerable, most-protected areas. the girls shouldn't be doing any damage to the guy unless they get a 1-in-a-hundred shot. the knee is a possibility, but you're assuming that the girls would know to do that. the eye is not a possibility, because they can't reach it.

[shadow_scholar]

[Austere Emancipa...]

shadow_scholar: Yes, someone has. This message is also referenced in the opening message of this thread, and the author him/herself quoted the pertinent parts of the message in the 14th message of this thread, the one right above your first reply to this thread.

Although, realistically, the 12-year-old girls should probably have BOD and STR of 1.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Feb 15 2005, 10:16 PM

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

your arguments hinge on low-probability freak occurances. that's not what's happening, here--in the SR rules, the girl scouts will spank the adept nine times out of ten. the girl scouts shouldn't just happen to hit the guy's knee at the right angle every fight; they shouldn't just happen to get in that lucky groin shot every time; they shouldn't just happen to be tall enough for an eye gouge (that they haven't been trained to use) every time.

[vapor]

here's the thing... the rules for multiple attackers are not meant to cover the girlscout troop-- using the canon rules of course it's going to seem silly. friends in combat is designed to cover a typical fight-- between adults.

i'm the head bouncer at one of the busiest nightclubs in the city, and at 6'3, 200 i'm one of the bigger guys (which isn't saying much). when a fight does break out we never handle it alone, we all carry flashlights for the express purpose of signaling everyone who works there to drop everything they're doing and get there. we've taken down monsters and kung fu'ers, not with any real fighting skill but with numbers. i'm pretty sure that's what the designers had in mind when they wrote the rule...

[shadow_scholar]

Thanx for the link, Austere. In the first example it seems to go down like it should if the girlscouts surround the guy. In the second example he uses his movement to great effect, plus they added in the rule for the friends in melee which I think skewed the outcome. Their version of how the friends in melee worked by not allowing the friends in melee bonus count for those Girlscouts who hadn't gone yet isn't perfect. Those girlscouts are still going to threaten an area and limit the Adept's mobility, so I think that really skewed the combat in his favor, if he had stayed in the middle of the pack. But when he started moving and using hs speed and manueverability to his advantage he started owning the girlscouts, as it should be.

One thing that neither of the situations accounted for was the Adept's armor. If he were smart he would have had some impact armor and reduced the power of the Girlscout's attacks, stacking the odds even more in his favor.

Now that I've seen the specifics of the Friends in Melee rule I don't see anything wrong with the rules at all. They do a decent job of dealing with what the outcome would be if an Adept fought a group of Girl Scouts, and that outcome depends on whether he fights wisely and picks his battleground, or if he's a moron and tries to stand up to 5 Girls Scouts surrounding him.

Oh, and as for the Girl Scouts having a Body and Strength of 1, I don't agree, I'd think that would be more indicative of a small child or extraordinarily weak or infirm person, not a growing, active adolescent. Remember that the human adult average is 3, an average that includes both men and women. I would say a 2 hits the mark perfectly for the Girl Scouts.

[Dawnshadow]

[James McMurray]

[mfb]

the girls will be attacking against TN 2; most of their rolls, they're going to get 2 successes, for a base damage of S. the adept is only soaking against TN 2, sure, but it's impossible for him to soak that down to nothing unless he uses combat pool. with a TN of 8 to attack and counterattack, he's going to be spending quite a bit of combat pool just to get a hit in. the girls will wear out his combat pool, then start getting in L hits.

[Rev]

The house rule where anyone can simply choose to ignore an attacker and avoid the friends in melee bonus seems very simple and balanced. Basically one chooses not to fight some opponants, and to just take whatever, hopefully weak, blows those land. No melee skill roll at all. Doesn't matter much if you let them use combat pool to soak or not, I think I would, but they would run out of it fast anyway.

Basically you are going to be able to ignore those who can barely hurt you to concentrate either on reducing their numbers, or taking out the really dangerous people. This is well balanced by the fact that you have vastly fewer dice to resist with, and cannot counterattack ignored opponants. Even if they can just barely hurt you they can start to win by attrition.

If I was fighting a half-dozen 12 year olds to the death my strategy would be to take them out one after another while basically ignoring the others. They aren't strong enough to hurt me much from the sides or behind (without weapons), while every attack I make is likely to incapacitate one of them (at least momentarily).

On the other hand if I was fighting a half-dozen 12 year olds with knives, even if they knew no more about fighting than me I think I would be in big trouble. However my orc street sam could still safely ignore 4 of them and take out two of the others in his first attack. With some bad luck he might pick up a light wound or two, but that is good because that is why he can beat up 6 feral children, but not 100 while he could beat up 1000 angry infants.

[hahnsoo]

Now we just need to pit 5 Girl Scouts with Hold-out pistols against a troll with a Panther Cannon. Then our data will be complete...

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

yes. Str(M) base, staged up with 2 successes for Str(S). unlike ranged combat, you stage the damage up first from the attacker's successes, then soak based on the staged damage. so, the girl scouts get 2 successes, and the adept will get 0 more often than not. that means he needs 6 successes to soak that to nothing, which is not possible for him to accomplish without combat pool (in the original example, the adept has 5 body). his combat pool's going to get eaten up, and then he's going to start taking L wounds.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Dawnshadow]

The adept will get 1 success, more often then not.

6 dice has a VERY high probability of giving 1 six, which in turn is VERY likely to give a 2 or better.

Or, alternatively, the probability of the adept NOT scoring any 6 or above is:
5^6/6^6
with the probability of the six becoming a 7, instead of an 8->12, as 1/6

for the probabilty of the adept having no successes as:
5^6/6^7
which is 0.0558, or approximately 6%.

Similarly, the girl scouts only have a 69% chance at scoring 2 successes. (5/6 * 5/6) 5 successes on the body test for the adept to soak.

They've got a 13% chance at having 1 success, which is 4 sucesses on the adepts body test to soak.

They've additionally got a 3% chance of botching entirely (since that's the only way they can get no successes.

[John Campbell]

In ten years of SCA fighting, I've been in a lot of large-scale melees, involving all sorts of local and general mismatches in numbers, at all sorts of skill levels. I've been an adept, and I've been a girl scout.

My experience is that one good fighter can cut his way through a rabble in any numbers. If they engage him as individuals, they're toast.

But two newbie fighters who are barely competent to throw a good blow, but who stick together and move as a team are an even match for anyone. Three newbie fighters who stick together and move as a team will slaughter any single combatant they come across.

My only problem with the Friends in Melee rule is that it doesn't make any attempt to account for the ability to work together being a learned skill, which it most assuredly is. I'm thinking that it might make sense to have the maximum benefit capped by the group's best melee skill or Small Unit Tactics skill.

[mfb]

those probabilities change rapidly once the adept takes an L wound--which given the number of times in a round those odds will be tested, he's more than likely going to. next round, his TN to hit and counter will be 9, and he might have taken out one of the girls. that makes it even more likely he'll take an L wound or two, and less likely that he'll take out another girl scout. even if he does, on the third round he's still at TN 8, meaning he'll probably take another L, putting him at TN 9 again. the odds continue to go down from there.

[Dawnshadow]

[BitBasher]

Remember if a girl scout rolls a single one with a skill of one they botch.

[Dawnshadow]

[mfb]

okay. it was also run in the original test, and the girl scouts won. that's 1:1. the second test fits right in with the argument i've been maintaining all along: it shouldn't take an adept to whup some girl scouts.

edit: only if the girls aren't using combat pool, bitbasher. if they are--and given the low skill, they ough to be--they'd need to roll two 1s. easily possible, but not probable--it'll probably happen what, once or twice in one five-round combat?

[BitBasher]

[Dawnshadow]

[theartthief]

Just a quick note on the reality of the EP and the Girl Scout Troop.

In Lima, Peru there are street gangs of the under twelve crowds called piranas (yes, named after the flesh eating fish) that can easily take down a grown man and hand him any body part they choose. They often simply take his wallet, coat and shoes. Since this happens in RL, why not SR?

Oh, and yes, I have spent time in Peru, but no, I was never attacked by gradeschoolers.

- theartthief

[Kanada Ten]

All the adept needs to do is inflict a Light wound to drop each girl from combat. Unless these are highly motivated girls, in which case a moderate. Using a multi strike the adept will likely remove two girls from combat before Friends in Melee even takes effect.

[Dawnshadow]

[GrinderTheTroll]

We said, BUY MORE COOKIES DAMNIT!!

[Rev]

[mfb]

[Kanada Ten]

[In actual use, a highly trained mundane] can simply use Intimidation before combat starts. *POOF* No more Girl Scouts.

[Dawnshadow]

[Tziluthi]

Maybe only one modifier should apply. Instead of creating six point disparities, only one (ie. + or -) modifier should apply. Against equally skilled opponents, a +4 modifier is still able to kill you, but you still have a chance to get in a lucky shot if there is a high skill discrepancy. Although I tend to agree with the sentiment behind the original rule, this should definitely put an end to the mass of physad beatings by girl scouts.

[shadow_scholar]

[Lafcadio]

I think the problem with the example of the girl scouts ultimately comes down to the reach difference. If there is only a difference of 2-3 inches between combatants, it still makes a huge difference in the fight. With the girl scouts duking it out with the physically elite adept I would think this would become even more pronounced, perhaps an average of a 4-6 inch reach difference, but the rules only cover reach for weapons, or metas that tower over the normal human by a meter or more. If instead you insert an average height cubical accountant that gets tired walking two blocks to the bus stop and gets uncomfortable carrying his 15 pound breif-case to work fighting along with his tofu sampling club against the adept, it still sounds like an ass-whooping for the tofu aficianados, but not as silly/unlikely as with the girl-scouts. Getting too complicated with the rules will slow things down too much, but try adding a -1 TN for the shorties, which is quite realistic, and it may take things out of the "ridiculous" range and into the "tolerable" range.

[GentlemanLoser]

Just incase people have been skipping the first page. ;)

"Another thought. Maybe the multiple opponent penalty shouldn't been applied unless your multiple opponents are trained at attacking a target as a team and/or delay thier attacks until they all attack on the same initiatve score.

A group of kids attacking one after another isn't that scary.

But a group of kids working as a team to take you down is..."

[Apathy]

When I originally created the prior post, I was asking for feedback on a possible home-made rule I was considering:

Proposed rule: A combatant can ignore friends in melee modifiers by choosing to attack just one opponent out of the group. However, if he does this he cannot defend against any attacks from the other opponents. In this case he can't use his melee skill or his combat pool when being attacked, but he can try to soak the damage with a body roll.

If I remember correctly, the first scenario I talked about was more 'realistic', with a troll pitted against a group of humanis thugs with clubs. Then the troll gets to make a choice: "Fighting 1 vs 4, I'll never hit any of them, but if I just try to throttle one, maybe I can take him down before the others can beat me unconscious..."

The most common scenario I see this cropping up in game is the watcher attack pack.

The girl scout scenario came up later when I tried to take the scenario down the slippery slope to an absurd degree.

The proposed home rule didn't get very good reviews, so I decided not to use it in my games, but I'd like to hear anyone's suggestions on a better variation.

[Dawnshadow]

I suggested that rule as an option actually.. I like it myself?

The girl scout example is fun.. you'd need another half dozen girl scouts I'd think to actually slaughter the adept, maybe another dozen though.

[Rev]

The only change I would suggest is that the charachter be able to ignore any number of opponants, and defend against any number, not just one. So if they are fighting two security guards and two girl scouts they can ignore the girl scouts and fight the security guards with a single friend in combat modifier.

I think it would work great.

Ahh, you also have to prevent them from switching who they are ignoring whenever they want. For example you don't want them to be able to fight everyone for thier first phase, then ignore some people who have no more actions for the rest of the round. Make them choose who to ignore at the start of the round, or something like that.

[James McMurray]

I don't think there's a need for any house rules at all. All you need is a GM that knows not to bother running a fight with girl scouts versus adepts (or anyone with high unarmed). Then you're left with only having to use the rules when they make sense: against enemies that are actually a threat.

[DrJest]

I think John hit it on the head with his comments on training making the difference in massed attacks. I don't have his level of qualification (for the record, I'd say in Silat terms I've got around Pentjak Silat 3-4 with the whirling manoeuvre - they teach you that kind of movement pretty much as soon as you start training in the silat form I studied) but I've been a student for about three years and done my share of bar brawling as well.

The average group of antagonists don't attack as one. I know it's popular to pooh-pooh the Hollywoodism of "everybody attack one after the other", and it's a massive exaggeration, but with untrained opponents they really do tend to attack in a sort of ragged, staggered way. This is, if I understand it correctly, because they have to build themselves up to the attack. Fighting a group of five or six (which is never advised, btw, so don't think I'm backing the "invulnerable martial arts master" path) you'll get probably two at most moving at the same time. Granted the hang time between "waves" is tiny, but it can be enough to make a difference, especially if the defender comes up with a display of massive and ruthless ultraviolence on the first attacker in. The best advice I ever got for facing more than one person (assuming retreat isn't an option) was "pick the biggest one, hit him as hard as you can with the biggest thing you can." If you're lucky, you might make them rethink the situation. And if you're unlucky, well, at least you got your licks in.

It all falls apart on the defender when his attackers have training, especially if they've trained together. Now they don't have that psychological need to build up for the attack and they have a good idea how to exploit each others' movements.

I like John's idea of having the Friends in Melee modifier limited by the skill (combat or tactical) of the enemy. I also like not applying FiM for anyone who hasn't had their action yet, since it reflects the ragged attack pattern - it's a short-duration thing anyway, they'll all be engaged after one turn.

Incidentally, whirling really does work very well. I expect anyone who hasn't seen something like it in operation will find it hard to believe, but watching the sparring matches between our teacher and three or four of the more advanced students was an exercise in humility :eek: