Giving the Fighters Something to do Out of Combat

[tahu88810]

Hey all,

So I'm currently running a fairly rules lite game where the party is a group of futuristic troubleshooters/mercenaries in the employ of various large, fictitious corporations on a distant planet. It's somewhat shadowrunish, I suppose.

In working on homebrewed gear and equipment, I've begun trying to push different specialties towards different roles in and out of combat: It's the beefy cyborg's job to take and dish out damage, but he won't last long if the hacker doesn't remotely hijack the guard turrets before they rip him to shreds, for instance.
In combat, this is surprisingly easy.

Out of combat, it's a bit more difficult. I'd like to push towards a little less combat- Lengthier investigations and planning interspersed with difficult, deadly fights that require tactical cunning to overcome.
Most characters already have the means to do this. The hacker who dealt with a turret midfight can access a database to gather information, the mage who buffed and healed her allies can divine the truth from clues, and most of the guys who were just diving for cover and firing off shots can talk their way out of sticky situations, move about undetected, or ensure a clean getaway in a car chase.

The only issue, is that some characters are simply built to do nothing but kill.

The players of those characters are amazing, it's just that I'm having trouble coming up with something that their characters would be capable of, and it's very hard to maintain someone's interest when their character isn't effective in the present situation.

I'd rather not throw in a combat encounter every single session just because they're around (It's a drop-in, drop-out, as you're available, sort of game), but I'd rather not leave them out to dry either.

My question is this: What sort of out-of-combat challenges might you throw at someone who is essentially a walking tank? How do you, personally, make noncombat encounters interesting for that one dude who's character doesn't know how to do anything but shoot/stab/burn stuff?
To be honest, I don't know how many more footchase scenes I can throw at them before someone throws a book at my head.

[ArcturusV]

An old, and classical, situation I used to come up with "Back in the Day"(tm) was plugging in long term goals. Which usually suggest something in addition to "beat the crap out of everyone" if you really push the players to come up with something. Most players have a vague idea at least of what they want their endgame retirement to look like if successful. You could suggest that said fighter try to find ways to accomplish said goal (Which is probably missing from his purely combat optimized class in most cases I see), which gives him a Non-Combat basis and thus a backdoor way into allowing him to do something other than Rage, Sputter, Kill.

The other solution I could see using is playing up to his combat role in a noncombat fashion. Done this one a few times as well where I'd let the "Combat" guy pass non-combat segments via combat. Doing somewhat batman-esque things like beating people up, threatening to drop them off buildings, etc, to get the results I need.

Need to find out where Bad Guy McGee is? Go to the local hive of scum and villainy. Break legs until they point out where their boss is. Break that guy's legs until he reveals the next one up, etc, etc, etc. If need be roll out combats as quick 1 on 1 encounters where the badguy might give up once sufficiently bloody. Nothing that lasts more than 2-3 rounds typically, so fights that could end in about 5 minutes on the table at most.

It might get one dimensional sooner or later but it gives them something to do other than just wait for the other characters to point him to the next fight. And I'd only go this route if he's REALLY adamant of not branching out into non-combat in any way. And at least is marginally different from a footchase so it gives you another variation.

[Doorhandle]

The easiet method would be to encourage the roleplay of the kind of mental strains and madness that would preclude this sort of thing, but other methods would help.

Mining. Strengh of arm and arms has a proud tradition in any ore-loving rock-
breaking community!

Other uses of Skill: break things include sabotage, impromptu lock-picking, improvised signalling and abstract sculpting (simply destroy every part of a stone block that isn't sculpture.)

Also, A fighter could have good business sense and would know all the best deals on arms/armour, or perhaps have a degree in military history, but this does not seem to be the case with yours.

[doc neon]

It seems like you're using quite a bit of homebrew. Perhaps you could rule that being a walking tank gives bonuses on the "Intimidate" part of talking your way out of a situation?

[Chilingsworth]

Spoiler

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The other solution I could see using is playing up to his combat role in a noncombat fashion. Done this one a few times as well where I'd let the "Combat" guy pass non-combat segments via combat. Doing somewhat batman-esque things like beating people up, threatening to drop them off buildings, etc, to get the results I need.

Need to find out where Bad Guy McGee is? Go to the local hive of scum and villainy. Break legs until they point out where their boss is. Break that guy's legs until he reveals the next one up, etc, etc, etc. If need be roll out combats as quick 1 on 1 encounters where the badguy might give up once sufficiently bloody. Nothing that lasts more than 2-3 rounds typically, so fights that could end in about 5 minutes on the table at most.

It might get one dimensional sooner or later but it gives them something to do other than just wait for the other characters to point him to the next fight. And I'd only go this route if he's REALLY adamant of not branching out into non-combat in any way. And at least is marginally different from a footchase so it gives you another variation.

You mean, like this guy?

[JaronK]

The combat guys could be good at detection, because they're cool under fire and used to being attacked. Thus, giving them abilities around spotting things, detecting when people are lying, and so on works well. That way, it makes sense for them to accompany the talky characters while standing back and being the strong, silent type.

JaronK

[randomhero00]

For the killbots:
holding open heavy blast doors as they try to shut
car chase: hitting or throwing something at the road to create craters to slow the pursuit
creating a makeshift defense out of super heavy debris

Stuff like that maybe? Basically rearanging the environment to their advantage.

[nedz]

I quite like the Thug variant. This could easily be customised to select any four skills, and make them class skills.

Also you could just refluff the Ranger ?
Or use the Urban Ranger ?

[obryn]

I would suggest giving them more skills, frankly. Patch the game and fix the problem, rather than trying to come up with ever-unlikelier situations.

-O

[Friv]

I quite like the Thug variant. This could easily be customised to select any four skills, and make them class skills.

Also you could just refluff the Ranger ?
Or use the Urban Ranger ?

*cough* They're not playing D&D.


On-topic: I would probably make sure that people designing characters who did nothing but combat was lightly discouraged, as much as people designing character who could do nothing in combat.

How does the system work, generally speaking? How much combat do you have to sacrifice for social skills, say?

[RedCloakLives!]

I like what ArcturusV said - to use the characters' forte, whatever it is, to solve any given problem, similar to Belkar Bitterleaf.

Also consider this unwritten rule: all plans must go astray. For example, they're pulling a heist at a museum. All of sudden, an unexpected group of elementary school students on a special after hours field trip interrupts the fighter (who was on guard), and mistakes him/her/it for the museum docent who was supposed to meet them. So now the fighter has to guide them around! And has to come up with all kinds of humorous, erroneous things to say about the exhibits. And when one of the little kids gets out of line, the fighter is right there, grabbing him by the collar, "The sign says NO TOUCHING. You want a broken nose?"

So, while the GM can maneuver them into position, obviously part of the roleplaying is on the players.

Also, the fighters can tag along with other players as their bumbling assistants, and cause trouble, have humorous accidents, make serendipitous discoveries.

[themocaw]

Watch an action movie.

No, seriously.

Action movie heroes are all "fighters," but they all have things that they do outside of just beating up people.

Examples:

- Conan the Barbarian: Conan is a warrior, but also a thief.
- The Expendables: Barney is a soldier, but also an aircraft pilot and a tactician.
- Yojimbo: Sanjuro is a samurai, but also a "face" with strong ranks in bluff and persuade.

Even in classic D&D, Fighters were expected to do more than just swing a sword around: they were expected to be rulers and leaders.

In the case of your characters, however, I'd look more at how action movies treat the "dumb muscle" side characters. Challenges that require feats of strength are good, as are ones that require intimidation (Jayne from Firefly interrogating the Alliance cop in the pilot).

Keep in mind that like attracts like: people with a reputation for being hard men who can get their hands bloody could have contacts in organized crime or the military. Calling up an old war buddy to ask for a favor over some beers could be a fun bit of roleplay.

[Eric Tolle]

My solution is to avoid the problem entirely; make sure that all characters, even the combat oriented ones, have skills that can be used in non-combat situations. Take Leverage for example: Elliot may be the combat guy, but even he can pick pockets and bluff people. Similarly, a good warrior ought to be good at deception and detecting deception, even have leadership ability.

So don't let characters be one-note thugs-make them have noncombat skills.