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.