Friends in Melee? Options

[lorthazar]

[Shockwave_IIc]

LOL sorry my bad. Just reminded me straight up of thundercats.

I never was any good at Biology.

[Gambitt]

I was there and i swear that damn lion had wired reflexes 3! :eek:

[Edward]

[Ol' Scratch]

I'm assuming the midgets have no Melee Skill, which is the general assumption for all average metahumans.

Base TN 4 for both parties. Midgets get the Friends in Melee bonus, but suffer from a Strength defaulting penalty, evening out their TN to 4. The lion is a skilled combatant using Reaction like other critters and has Whirling to offset his penalty due to all the midgets (giving him a +1 penalty to his attacks but not to his counterattacks). He also has a total Reach advantage of 2 (+1 for him, -1 for the short-limbed midgets) which he uses to lower his own TN. Thus the lion's final TN is 4 +1 - 2, or 3 or a TN of 2 on his counterattacks. Without Whirling, his TN is 4 + 4 - 2 or 6 both ways.

With Whirling, the midgets are dead, no contest. Each time one attacks the lion, they're pretty much going down due to the superior target number alone even if they use their max Combat Pool (and that's me being nice by letting them using Combat Pool despite being unskilled), as they'll only average 3 successes versus the lion's 5 or so, which is enough to stage his attack to Deadly.

Without Whirling, they midgets have a shot of whittling the lion down, but its going to take a bit of time and there will be quite a few losses.

[Edward]

If the midgets have no melee skill and are defaulting to STR then they can not apply there combat pool to there melee skill, so they are well dead wether or not the lion has whirling.

I maintain that I can see no way for the lion to get whirling, it is a martial arts tequnique and as far s I know critters cant get them.

The article specified that the midgets where a fighting league, it is assumed that skills key to your occupation are at 3 for average metahumans, as members of a fighting league 3 in unarmed combat is the minimum I could see them having.

I dispute that midgets have -1 reach, I don’t recall anything having that including small stocky animals but it makes no difference as it is the difference between target 7 and target 6 for the lion which we all know is no difference at all.

The 2 key differences of opinion we seem to have are.

Can a lion have whirling?
Do the members of a professional combat league have at least 3 in unarmed combat?

If you’re right the lion wins
If I am right the midgets win

At least in SR.

Edward

[John Campbell]

If we assume that the midgets are Bod 2, Str 2 (small human specimens, not dwarves), Reach 0 (dwarves don't get a Reach penalty, so I don't see why midgets should) and unskilled, and the lion is using the Tiger stats from Critters - Bod 8, Reac 6, Reach +1, 10S damage, 6 CP, no maneuvers (critters don't use Martial Arts) - I think the midgets are going down, but it'll take a while.

The midgets can't use Combat Pool when defaulting to attribute, so they've only got two dice to throw. Their friends-in-melee bonus offsets their defaulting penalty, but they need to get past the lion's Reach, so they're throwing 2 dice at a TN of 5, and averaging 0.67 successes.

The lion, as a critter, uses Reaction without defaulting penalty, so he's throwing 6 dice at a TN of 8 (friends-in-melee penalty), and averaging 0.83 successes, giving him a slight edge in any individual contest. On top of that, the lion gets to use his combat pool, so he's got 6 more dice with which to selectively tip the balance on some of those contests. Further, when hits do land, the lion's resisting 2M Stun with 8 Body dice plus any pool he wants to use, while the midgets are resisting 10S with only 2 Body dice plus pool, so the lion's got pretty good odds of completely soaking hits, while the midgets are all but guaranteed to take at least an M on a successful hit.

On the other hand, the midgets have, cumulatively, a lot more Karma Pool than the lion does.

If we assume that the midgets have at least a couple of dice in Unarmed, though, the lion's going down. The lowered TN plus ability to use pool gives them a hefty edge in average successes in every contest. They might lose one or two midgets to lucky swipes before they can get past the lion's ability to soak damage, but they'll win.

Assuming that they're not human midgets, but average dwarves (Str 5, Bod 4) also gives them the edge, even unskilled. They don't get the better TN, but they have high enough Strengths to basically bury the lion in dice, and 5M blows can't just be shrugged off the way 2M blows can.

[Ol' Scratch]

Just as a note, dwarves have full human-sized torsos. Midgets do not. Reach -1 makes perfect sense based o that.

[Reign Maker]

What if the midgets take some kamakazie...... damn dopers!

[Crimson Jack]

That its fake takes nothing away from its comedic value. If anyone is interested, you can read about its fakery at snopes.

[lorthazar]

If this was even remotely real the midgets would not be untrained Brawling 3 with close combat would approximate a rookie wrestler.

[weblife]

Even assuming the midgets are capable fighters, the lion will win.

You do not take into account that the lion will quickly be against a wall, thus limiting the amount of midgets that can surround it.

Secondly, the lions longer reach and swift reactions will seriously demoralize any unarmed combatant trying to get close to it. If the midgets do not swarm the lion, then the lion will cap off the closest one every time they move in.

And swarming anything deadly, in a world with no magic healing, is not something people just do.

Humans, or midgets, use weapons to win. You'd have to grab a broken leg from one of your fellow midgets and stab the lion with the pointy end to have a chance to defeat it.

In short, lion wins.

[lorthazar]

Your grasp of what humanity does is tragically wrong. We kill. We are the deadliest predators on this planet. Not becuase we make tools, weapons or think. It is becuase we as a race will do things even Ants don't do. If hundreds of thousands of us die in taking out an enemy we feel it is justified. Unarmed people have been known to swarm over machine gun nests, riot cops, and national guard units. So don't think for a moment we would not swarm a lion.

[scoundrel]

[Arethusa]

Yeah, uh, I think we definitely are the baddest motherfuckers on the planet because we make tools, use weapons, and think.

[Ol' Scratch]

Emphasis on the last one.

[mfb]

sometimes.

[Dawnshadow]

[Edward]

Ants will do this, there was a documentary on ants that I endured while working at the petrol station one night that showed a type of African army ant (swrafu????) that had trails hundreds of meters long, could kill and strip the flesh from a man if he was unable to run and villages where only safe because they spent all night sweeping them away from the homes with burning rolls of newspaper.

The footage of the ants taking down a chicken wis quite apt, the chicken eater 10 before one managed to get past, and 50 before they took it down.

Edward