Quote Originally Posted by lacco36 View Post
The goal in combat is to survive, defeat the opponent and not get hurt too much (the order may vary: sometimes you just fight to kill, regardless of survival). If you are familiar with the combat as war vs. combat as sports dichotomy, this game lies definitely on the "combat as war" side. I will help a lot.

Also: due to RNG element, larger dice investment does not necessarily mean success. But I accept that in theory, it gives higher probability of success.
Well, any theoretical discussion should focus on average results. The optimal choice is the one which gives the best chances.
The RNG can screw anything, but if we counter any argument with "there's a chance that things will go different" then one could just select random maneuvers in combat and trust the RNG gods.


Feint: 2 dice spent per one added. Yes.

Also: Feint works miracles when used properly - but its advantage in theoretical exercises is not readily apparent. Think of it as psychological warfare. You throw a simple cut, your enemy responds with strong parry because they think it is a feint. It is not, he squandered a lot of dice - advantage: you.

In a way, the combat system can be approached in multitude of ways: one of them is slowly and safely piling advantages on until your enemy no longer has ability to fight back.

Also: dice MAY be added during feint. They do not have to. So you can be feinting a feint... in a way.
The thing about feints is that the attacker is not actually feinting. He decides after the defender has committed if he wants to use feint or not.
So he can calculate if it's convenient or not.
From that my assuption that the defender will always have to overcommit. If he doesn't the attacker will feint.

Here I disagree: he has a chance.

Spoiler: Personal Anecdote
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Just to prove the same point I once defeated a CP 14 rapier fencer with CP 8 peasant wielding a stick and a rock. In featureless arena. The lady tried a full-on attack, I went for full evasion. She missed spectacularly twice. I threw a rock, she got hit - CP 11. After some dancing she decided to go for another attack, I parried successfully, bashed her with 1 die. After first attack she barely got any dice left and went down easily.

Do not underestimaty any enemy. As the rulebook states, you would not like a dagger in your gut: your character would neither.
Fight for your life.

When I said the fighter with less dices had no chances I meant from a pure statistical point of view.
In your example you were extremely lucky. And going full attack was actually the best choice for your opponent, the RNG gods just screwed with her.


If it's the first round, he could also open with Beat. Which is actually extremely good maneuver.

Or bind & strike, if he has a shield or off-hand weapon.

Or double-strike.

…well, too many options.
Beat and Bind & Strike needs to roll more successes than the defender in order to work, so they don't solve the conundrum. A Beat that gets succesfully countered is no different than a countered cut.
Double strike has some very interesting use, thinking about it.
The attacker could just use 1 dice for each attack and the defender would have to overcommit to both, remaining with no dices or leaving one attack open to be feinted.


Let's keep with RoS' tradition of rounding down.

I'm fine with this until we get to last paragraph.

Assuming your example goes as planned, Bob has 1 die left and Alan has 6 - so far so good - but the advantage of Expulsion is that if Bob thrusts in second exchange, Alan gets a penalty of 4 dice (his blade is thrown off-center). So: Bob thrusts with 1 die (50:50 hit or miss) and Alan actually defends with 2 dice or attacks (Bob hits first if successful).

Expulsion will have no effect on TN, so the underlined part is invalid.

My mistake, I was using Blade of the Iron Throne as reference, where Expulsion works differently. In RoS it works as you said.


This exchange could have similar alternatives (let's explore!):

Alan: 6 dice for thrust to belly!
Bob: All rite mate! Expulsion with 9 dice!
Alan: Gotcha! Feint & thrust! I'll go for the torso and add 3 dice!
--- this means Alan's CP is brought to 0. He used all his dice - 6 for the attack, 3 to add dice to feint, 3 to pay for it ---
Now they roll:
a) Alan beats Bob (highly probable): based on your assumption he hits with 1-2 net successes, with completely average stats this is a level 1-2 wound; still manageable and if you go for a break in combat you could still get your full CP in some cases; a very lucky roll could mean "through the heart" instadeath.
b) Tie: Alan retains initiative, but since he spent all his dice, Bob has 1 die to wound him in second exchange. If it hits, the same as above occurs.
c) Bob beats Alan (least probable, but could happen due to RNG dice): Alan has 1 die to attack, same as before, expulsion has no additional effect this round but a GM could rule that the penalty will flow to second round, which gives Bob nice advantage.

If I were Alan, I would do something else:
Alan: 6 dice for thrust to belly!
Bob: Ha! I know this trick! You'll feint! Expulsion with 9 dice! …that's 11 total…
Alan: You guessed well but still fail! Feint & cut - I'll go for the arms! That's +1 to my CP. Oh, and your expulsion is now a standard parry! Let's see… I'll add just 1 die…1 set aside (8 CP spent, 5 CP remaining).
Bob: I rolled 8 successes… damn, for nothing. Single die to attack, huh? Diagonal cut.
Alan: Yeah, keep the initiative… you paid for it.

Remember: expulsion works only against thrusts and weak cuts with 4 dice or less. Feint & cut can easily turn an expulsion into parry.

I didn't know you could invalidate Expulsion with Feint. That's really interesting.
But it seems to make Expulsion a little useless.
If you have no secondary weapon/shield to use Block Open & Strike what should you do against a weak attack?
BotIT has the Overrun maneuver, which works similarly to Block Open & Strike, but it's not present in RoS.


…cut to arms? +1 die for the attack will move into 9:6 territory, which is pretty devastating.
…disarm? Activation cost 1 for some weapons, still 7:6 (or 7:4 if Alan decides to counter; can't use expulsion in this case)
…just straight up attack? 8:6 is good odds and it's not really possible for Alan to launch an attack without suffering a hit…
If dice obey the 50% probability, this is actually a good way for Bob to win the match.
My question was about what Alan should have done to not get under in dices, not how Bob could have won once he had the advantage.
Also, it's just me or striking to the arm seems too good? +1 dice for free, unless the opponent is armored only on the arms why should you aim at any other point?

So from viewpoint of risk management: if you can manage a set of powerful attacks, the opponent is less likely to be able to counterattack, but if dice fail you, you are most probably dead. So, full attack is a valid tactic, but not universal.

It helps when the GM takes the opponents as people/characters. They also do not wish to die.
Yeah, but from the PoV of the players characters are just a series of numbers. If acting reckless makes you live longer (because you kill the opponent before he can kill you) cautios characters will act reckless, even if it makes no sense in fiction.

Which is actually my major point: in RoS, you - or the players - have to choose their battles. If you are standing against a swordsman with equal CP, the same weapon and stats as you, without advantage… tell me, in RL: why would you do that?

Aside from proving your abilities in sports (e.g. HEMA), this makes no sense.

The system is built with this assumption in it. Breaking it down to maths will lead you to exactly what you found: if you have 25 dice and everybody has 10, you will crush anybody.

Now if you took into account terrain rolls & terrain, added spiritual attributes and extended the experiment to different builds, weapons and armor sets… you would get a different beast. You would have to fight for survival, for love, for your country or your ideals, your oaths and maybe against a hated enemy
Well, any RPG where PC's death is a real option works the same. The main selling point of RoS is it's combat system, from there the wish that "I roll to attack every single time" is not a thing (ok, technically you are doing that, but you get my point )

Question: did you have any chance to test this system? Or are we talking pure theory so far? Only Core RoS or are we talking Flower of Battle?
I hadn't the chance to try the system in practice, but maybe I will in short. I'm not using Flower of Battle, but I could try to get it if necessary.
Anyway I'm thankful that I can clear my doubts before trying to run a campaign.

But let's make the test we should have done since the beginning: if I have an optimized PC with Reflex 7 and a dice pool of 14, armed with sidesword and dagger, which strategy is always to assume offensive stance and attack first with a full dice Cut to the arm... can you make me a situation, in whatever terrain and against whatever opponent, where this tactics is going to backfire?