Interesting fights?

[Alberic Strein]

Hello again! The worse GM of the year is again asking for some advice!

This time, the issue is fighting scenes. More precisely, how to make them interesting for players. We're using MRQII, which is not the bestest system, it's long, it's deadly (and my players don't like to feel like they'll die) and, worst of all, it's difficult to balance.

Long story short, it's difficult, unless you have more actions than your opponent, to reliably inflict damage. You need to succeed in your attack, your opponent mustn't succeed in his defense, or not attempt one (the difficulty of his defense not being modified by your attack, it's rather easy to succeed) and last, the size of the weapons impact what amount of damage is blocked, one handed weapons never go further "medium", medium being enough to block all damage from small and medium weapons, and half damage from large ones, but no damage frome huge ones. After that, you deal your damage, which, unless you use a two handed weapon, should be around 1d8+1d2, decide where you land the attack, substract the armor, which for my players is 6 (3 normal + 3 magical). So, to actually damage them, I need to roll, and roll well, a few times in a row, if one roll is bad, then no to almost no damage is inflicted.

There is no malus for wounds unless a big amount of damage is inflicted on a localization, and even then, it's a HUGE malus, which is almost tantamount to "you lose"

So if I raise the damage from their opponents to reliably bypass their armor, if I roll very well, I might one shot them, or almost.

The boring aspect is also that, as long as everyone has actions, nothing happens. Player A attacks, Enemy A defends, both succeed, nothing changes. Repeat until Enemy A runs out of actions and get floored.

Tarantino once said that action scenes were the most difficult kind of scenes. Fight scenes in RPG just might be the same.

How can I make one interesting? Did you ever come across an extremely interesting fight scene and want to share? What do you enjoy in a fight scene? What are the things to avoid?

Thanks a lot!

[supermonkeyjoe]

The question I have to ask is Why are you using that system if the DM doesn't like running it and the players don't like the way it plays?

[Incorrect]

While I can say nothing about the system, I usually try to include:
- The option of changing the battlefield.
- Interesting terrain, giving options and advantages.
- More than one type of enemy.
- Objectives other than murdering the other team.

[Alberic Strein]

We've been on that system for over two years, it took me a while to see the issues with the system, then two years trying to correct them. I'm not sure if my players like or dislike the game system, and I have no idea how I should convert to another game system, or even if that would solve the issue at hand.

And I liked the basic premise of that system, enemies are not bags of hit points. Too much hit points tend to bother me in RPGs. "Sure, you whacked the orc barbarian good with your two handed sword and got some huge damage, but hey, it's still fine! A few more should do the trick though!" I mean, it's a humanoid, if you deal the maximum amount of damage with a sword which, in real life, was liable (in optimal conditions) to sever limbs or have a fair shot at cleaving someone in two, then I like the rules to reflect that and not simply deal some "okay" damage, which will have no impact whatsoever on the enemy until you finally kill him.

MRQII gave, gives that. As long as you fight a humanoid, you fight an enemy with humanoid endurance. The better he is, the harder it will be to take him down, but in the end, even a mighty hero can be killed in one strike if he is caught with his pants down and you stike hard enough with a big enough weapon. While in D&D and such systems, even naked he will still have his "through the roof" hp and will still take a long time to take him down. Same for guards. When the guard of the fortress has enough hp to survive a few claymore strikes, the spy that takes him by surprise and goes for a stealthy takedown will be met with "okay, with your sneak attack, you deal 36 damage, the guard seems wounded, roll initiative."

When stealthily slicing the throat of an unaware guard is met with a 1d4+2d6+4 damage, the discrepency between reality and the system blocks me completely.

And this system had a more realistic touch to it.

Ps : @Incorrect : Duly noted!

[inexorabletruth]

I kind of have to agree with supermonkeyjoe here, but to answer your question:

Real duels with weapons are usually a series of blocked attacks and one, maaaaybe two hits. Because those hits are the thing that wins the match. So think about that when you imagine the battle playing out.

For instance:

Your [adventurer] dips low, bringing a vicious backhand chop to the knee with his [weapon], but the swipe is a just a hint too high and rebounds with a clamor against the defenders armor, leaving no trace but a small dent where the [weapon] struck.

You can mix it up with parries, having the defender swing a defending sword, blocking arm, or shield or whatever in the way to give it color. But that's the general idea.

In cases of ranged attack, you have fewer options, but I like to describe the unsuccessful attack based on how narrowly they missed. For instance, if they missed by a point, I say it grazed their ear, or shot off a wisp of hair, giving the impression of a near miss. If the shot is way off, I say it ricochets off the dirt or flies wide, embedding itself in a tree or some other piece of background setting that is appropriate for your game.

[ElenionAncalima]

I don't know about the system, but perhaps you could spice things up by describing combat a little more.

Instead of:
Bob attacks.
Bob misses.
Steve attacks.
Steve hits.
Monster dies.

Have the players describe how they try to hit the monsters. Then describe to them how the monster either evades or get hit.

Other than that, I would just suggest keeping things varied. Don't just switch up the monsters, but also their tactics and terrain.

[valadil]

- The option of changing the battlefield.
- Interesting terrain, giving options and advantages.


It's all about the terrain. You know what's awesome about terrain? It's free.

I can add a half dozen archers to the fight and it'll give the players more of whatever your system uses for XP. Or I can put those archers on a tower and now the PCs have to waste actions and do some work to get to them. Or I can put those archers on 6 different towers to make them (relatively) wizard proof.

What's the cost of all those towers? Nothing.

I'm not saying you should spam the "add tower" button on every fight. Just put things in there that give the NPCs an edge. Figuring out how to take that edge away will give the PCs something to do. Once they do take that edge away, the dynamic of the fight changes and it'll feel like a different fight.

[Earthwalker]

I am unsure what version of runequest MRQII is, is that like 6 or something.
2,3 and 4 are the only versions I have run. I sympathize with your issue, when skills get high combats do take a lot longer. Some suggestions.

Copy from RQ3 and have some system of fatigute (FP = con + str) every round of combat you lose 1 FP, when it gets negative you start taking penalties. Equiment carried also reduced FP) this did start taking effect with long battles for us.

Magic should be able to help out a bit, if you have bonuses to damage from magic (bladesharp and bludgeon) for when you hit to get past armour)

You can make things much more deadly, by saying you need a critical reaction to block a critical attack. This does make things very deadly indeed, and crits just take people out.

For interesting combat ideas. Change the terrain up a bit. Fight on a ship and make both sides of the fight use one reaction a turn to stay standing on the stormy seas. Less reactions more hits scored.

Make sure you are giving bonuses or penalties to rolls depending on positioning. (You can abstract things, as you are fighting on a burning ship, you can get bonus +x to hit if you are fighting with higher ground, but that ground is closer to the fire so there is a random chance each round you will be hit by fire)

Oppersition – make the oppersition none human, go for the many chaotic creature (maybe broos) give them a load of weird chaotic features to mix up the combat a bit. Fighting something that can breath fire. Or explodes on death certainly mixes thigns up a bit.

[Airk]

Hate to say it, but you're shackled by your own desire for 'realism' here; Yeah, you can try to mix it up with the suggestions in this thread, but at the end of the day, none of them (except possibly 'give the PCs a victory condition that doesn't involve killing all the bad guys') are going to solve or, indeed, even much compensate for the fact that combat in your system 'of choice' feels like a slog. (Airquotes added around 'of choice' since you sure don't make it sound like your PLAYERS even want a deadly system.)

Layering on fatigue rules won't really help either unless fatigue ONLY gives a penalty on defense. If penalties apply to both offense and defense you've just added more bookkeeping by adding a -1 to both sides of the equation. Not much point in that.

There are lots of systems out there that have combat that is reasonably quick and brutal (since to me, it seems like THAT is what you want, rather than a 'realistic' system. Though it's not even clear to me that your players want a deadly system) without turning into a yawnfest. The 'problem' of assigning damage to a guard having his throat slit is more a matter of knowing when not to use 'combat' rules than it is a problem with a game's combat system.

Maybe you should discuss this with your group and see if they are enjoying combat, and what they would prefer.

[Slipperychicken]

Layering on fatigue rules won't really help either unless fatigue ONLY gives a penalty on defense. If penalties apply to both offense and defense you've just added more bookkeeping by adding a -1 to both sides of the equation. Not much point in that.


That does help represent other things, like sitting around on the edge of a fight, waiting for both sides to tire each other out before backstabbing one of them.

[Airk]

That does help represent other things, like sitting around on the edge of a fight, waiting for both sides to tire each other out before backstabbing one of them.

Yeah, because nothing makes combat more fun than sitting around for 90 minutes saying "I hide in shadows and wait for a good opportunity" while other players are doing things that take significant amounts of time to resolve.

It may represent other things, but it sure isn't going to make fights more interesting.

[truemane]

Everything Incorrect said is everything I do.

Especially more enemies and difficult/interesting terrain.

I don't think I've run a combat without SOME kind of terrain modifier in years. Piles of rubble. Big rocks to provide cover and block visibility. Tall grass. Water. Pits. Thorns. Trees. Hills. Loose soil. Towers. Stairs. Fences. Temples. Anything and everything.

Any and all of this just adds an additional layer of decision making on everyone, and provides lots of opportunity for improvisation. And you'll find yourself making calls on the fly as your players ask questions no rules book has ever covered, and you make a call, and you go on, and it's a whole big pile of fun.

And instead of fighting one BIG BAD you make them fight a big-ish bad and a whole bunch of little bads. More bad guys = more fun.