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

[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.