Parrying, long combats, declaring your targets, and other fun tidbits.

[daveceaser]

Hey all, hey Chris.

I just ran my first session of Cursed Empire (It was a one shot. Trying out the system, and seeing how it works, kind of thing), and after running it, my players and I did come across a few things we weren't sure about.

1. The declaring targets part before combat: Everyone pretty much got the concept of combat happening simultaneously, so the way we did it was that you declared what you were going to do before rolling initiative. If the situation changed (like the target died or you got distracted) and you were unable to do your action, then you lost your turn basically since you had declared your action before the combat really happened. This lead to the question of in what order do you declare your target, because who ever declared their target last got a large advantage in that they knew what everyone else was doing before then. In the end, we did it where the person with the best Reflexes got to declare last. Did we do that correctly? How do you determine the order you declare your targets? Also, what exactly can you declare? For example, one of my players would say "I hit Darkun 1", while the other player would say "when my turn comes up, I hit whoever happens to be closest to me". The one who declares targeting Darkun 1 is stuck going after only that Darkun, while the second one seems to be kind of cheating by being too vague. What is a valid target selection in this case?

2. The pace of combat. We had some few issues with the pace of combat. All the players really liked the combat for the most part. The brutality of it was great, and they really like the hit location system. The only thing is, we ran out of time in our gaming session long before we finished the combat! I think part of it is that we were new to combat, so it took us a long time to make all of our roles and figure out how to do things. But one player thought that maybe it was the difficulty to hit the target. We had a Darkun in our group who betrayed the rest of the party. He had on no armor, had a 19 agility, and carried a large shield, so his parry was very high. He had six arrows shot at him in the span of three rounds, had another guy try to hit him twice, and he parried every single one because his parry was 82%! The concern was that the combat was dragged out a little to long because it was almost impossible to hit the guy. Did we do something wrong? What do you think we could do to pace things up a bit?

3. Also, there were a few other tidbit questions, like how do you grapple? The Darkun was blocking the exit and one guy wanted to push him out of the way, so how should you do that?

Anyway, we really enjoyed the game, and I personally think it is a great system. I just need to figure out these bits before I try running it again. Thanks again!

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by daveceaser

Hey all, hey Chris.

I just ran my first session of Cursed Empire (It was a one shot. Trying out the system, and seeing how it works, kind of thing), and after running it, my players and I did come across a few things we weren't sure about.

1. The declaring targets part before combat: Everyone pretty much got the concept of combat happening simultaneously, so the way we did it was that you declared what you were going to do before rolling initiative. If the situation changed (like the target died or you got distracted) and you were unable to do your action, then you lost your turn basically since you had declared your action before the combat really happened. This lead to the question of in what order do you declare your target, because who ever declared their target last got a large advantage in that they knew what everyone else was doing before then. In the end, we did it where the person with the best Reflexes got to declare last. Did we do that correctly? How do you determine the order you declare your targets? Also, what exactly can you declare? For example, one of my players would say "I hit Darkun 1", while the other player would say "when my turn comes up, I hit whoever happens to be closest to me". The one who declares targeting Darkun 1 is stuck going after only that Darkun, while the second one seems to be kind of cheating by being too vague. What is a valid target selection in this case?

Basically players need to follow the initiative order based on their initiative roll. To simplify, I get players to sit in the order of their initiative and just follow the actions around the table. Players declare their actions just as they are about to take them so no one is disadvantaged like the Darkun 1 scenario you mention above.

Originally Posted by daveceaser

2. The pace of combat. We had some few issues with the pace of combat. All the players really liked the combat for the most part. The brutality of it was great, and they really like the hit location system. The only thing is, we ran out of time in our gaming session long before we finished the combat! I think part of it is that we were new to combat, so it took us a long time to make all of our roles and figure out how to do things. But one player thought that maybe it was the difficulty to hit the target. We had a Darkun in our group who betrayed the rest of the party. He had on no armor, had a 19 agility, and carried a large shield, so his parry was very high. He had six arrows shot at him in the span of three rounds, had another guy try to hit him twice, and he parried every single one because his parry was 82%! The concern was that the combat was dragged out a little to long because it was almost impossible to hit the guy. Did we do something wrong? What do you think we could do to pace things up a bit?

Pace in combat is critical. I recommend getting players to roll all their dice at once each, i.e. if random locating, roll the d20 with the d100 and damage die all at once. This speeds things up considerably. The same goes for their opponents including d100, armour roll and damage absorption dies. What is great though is to revert to each roll when fighting the main enemy champion or NPC. This has the effect of really identifying each phase of the combat and permitting the MT to really describe the finale in gritty detail.

Your "tough to hit Darkun" should have been a lot easier to hit even with a huge Parry/Dodge score. Projectile weapons can only be parried if the shooter is visible and can only be avoided with a Perfect Parry/Dodge, i.e in your case 08% chance. However if this score was missed, then there would be a 30-40% chance the projectile would be stuck in the shield. Whatsmore, ganging-up on a tough foe is the way to bring them down as the Parry/Dodge % comes down fast:

1 foe: normal score
2 foes: -5% to the second parry/dodge
3 foes: -10% to the third parry/d
4 foes: -20% to the fourth parry/d
5 foes: -40% etc.

I can guarntee that the Darkun, as tough as he may be, will be overwhelmed if there are enough arrows and/or foes opposing him.

Originally Posted by daveceaser

3. Also, there were a few other tidbit questions, like how do you grapple? The Darkun was blocking the exit and one guy wanted to push him out of the way, so how should you do that?

Anyway, we really enjoyed the game, and I personally think it is a great system. I just need to figure out these bits before I try running it again. Thanks again!

To grapple/knock over, you need to inflict more damage, (absorbed counts also) as the opponents strength characteristic.

Glad you guys enjoyed the game,

Chris