Idle Musings: Inverted Interrupts, Focus Fire, and Combat Flow

[Crazy Jerome]

How do classes that are "engaged" more often than others benefit?

It seems to read that a lot of ranged, blackup, and general non-front-line classes who it may take a round or two for the enemy to decide to attack, would be benefitting from not being "engaged", while those who would generally benefit the most(ie: the ones surrounded by enemies) would benefit the least.

The point of opportunity attacks and "threatened squares" is battlefield control. The fighter goes up front and basically makes a wall between the enemy and the fighter's allies.

It is however, very simple to fix what you're missing, which is causing a person to be "engaged" when they engage someone else, regardless of if that someone engages them in return.

Essentially, it would limit the bonuses of disengagement(which are quite strong) to immediately at the start of combat, and immediately after you drop your foe.

Part of this is answered in my previous reply. You want your goblin archer trying to ping the wizard to engage him via range, instead of ganging up on the fighter. So if working properly, opportunities to disengage will be more about numbers than position in the fight. (This has some side effects on the end of battles that would have to be addressed, though some of those effects can be good--e.g. relatively fast mop up once the fight becomes predictable.)

So given that, the fighter has the same opportunity to disengage occasionally as the wizard does. And when he gets it, he needs abilities that let him really take advantage, same as everyone else.

You can also think of this as almost inverted thinking on "marking". The rationale for basic marking is that the 4E defender is "in your face" somehow, making you pay attention or else, cramping your range of actions. Everyone else is relatively free. The rationale for "engagement" is that anyone that is paying sufficient attention to you is cramping your actions down to the normal set, and doing so is sufficiently attractive that you most of the time you will be. Then on those rare occasions when no one is paying any attention to you, you get to run wild for a moment.

So for that reason, I'm leery of engaging a foe making the actor automatically engaged as well. This should happen enough naturally. If the fighter runs up and smacks an orc, that orc (or one of his friends) had darn well better smack back, or the next round, the fighter will be free to really haul off.

Balancing the number of combatants and their effects with special character abilities, without going nuts on complications, is the real trick here.

 

[Minigiant]

Oh. And there was a disadvantage of focus fire: overkill.

Some times the target was already close enough to death that you'd be better off softening up or killing another enemy. But this is metagamey as well.

 

[Gryph]

Focus fire makes more narrative sense vs. siege engines, or dragons, or oliphants but not as much against normal humanoids in proportionate numbers.

It seems very metagame (gamist) to have 4-6 attackers target a single humanoid because they know he will be hard to take down (high hp) while ignoring the others because they look like minions. It bothers me in ttrpg and in MMOs

Ok, I sort of see this in a fight where there is 1 tougher opponent supported by weaker allies. Still, it's a natural reaction to want to take out the toughest guy on the battlefield as fast as possible and usually the fastest way possible is by concentrating fire. It's certainly metagamey in the sense that it's the smartest choice, mechanicaly; but its often the smartest narrative choice as well. By narrative I mean the from the pov of the character.

Do you have the same concern if the fight is 5 on 5 wher all 5 opponents are mechanically the same (say 5 bugbears)? How much focus fire crosses the line for you? 2 on 1, 3 on 1, or more?

I'm not trying to attack your opinion here. It's just so different from my own that I'm trying to get a fuller sense of what you dislike about focus fire situations.

In the groups I've played in over the years we've always adopted the leanings of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, "Get there the firstest with the mostest."

 

[Crazy Jerome]

So basically Five O'Knives has two attacks: Basic and Sneak. The basic attack does modest damage and can be performed whilst engaged and the sneak attack can be executed when free and does massive damage? Same goes for Wizbang with his spells magic missile "Keh!" and fireball "Ignatius yadda yadda burn". The interesting thing is what can Fred do? –Two basic attacks while engaged, maybe.

Something like that, yes. I'd think characters, at least, would need about three options for applying the hurt when disengaged, though some of these could be generic and/or situational, to keep analysis paralysis to a minimum. You want don't normally want only one choice such that a given character can be potentially shut down by gaming the system (e.g. Five O'Knives meets a disarm specialist and can't Sneak Attack without his weapon).

Generic options don't always have to be directly about applying the hurt, either. It could be that being "free" gives so much mobility that such a character can get exactly where they want to be, even in a comlicated battle. But you'd like at least one, "wind up for the haymaker and get a bonus to damage" to keep things moving.

And then on the monster side, you want it dirt simple most of them time, which might mean your run of the mill goblin gets only the generic options, a lieutenant type has one flavorful thing, while dragons, beholders, major demons, etc. are oozing options. (Dragon breath--the ultimate "everyone in this area will respect me!" effect.)

Certainly, if 5E used this idea, you would want some simple base choices and then some more involved options for people that really enjoy getting tactical.

Edit: Related to other discussions, one option is that "Save or Die" effects might normally only be available to disengaged actors.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In the groups I've played in over the years we've always adopted the leanings of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, "Get there the firstest with the mostest."

"Concentration of mass" evolved into "concentration of fire"--the rifles of the US Civil War (and the Crimean War, and the 1870 French/Prussion conflict) being roughly the 30 years over which it solidified into the new form--before machine guns and tanks shuffled it around again. You get there firstest with the mostest so that you can make the other guy have some bad decisions.

But even "Concentration of mass" was not about ganging up on a single target. It was about having more shots being delivered in a given area than your opponent. If the Roman Legion is disciplined enough to fight in a tight formation, there are more sword whacking people in a given area than otherwise. If your archers can shoot over the line, on top of your swords in the front going one-on-one, you have more firepower. But it is still relatively spread out.

What you don't want is to totally ignore the calvary or slingers trying to get around your flanks. Someone better get on them. This leads to interesting decisions. Maybe those cannon up on the ridge are a serious enough threat that you'll charge them anyway, even though that leaves the infantry on their left free to wheel into your flanks. But in return for taking those cannon out, your guys are going to get hit hard.

Of course, "hit hard" is relative. If the foes are a dragon and his 9 common kobolds, you might prefer +50% or +100% damage from the kobolds over several rounds to letting the dragon last any longer than absolutely necessary. Or you might not. Or you might be ok with that once you've whittled them down to 4 kobolds. Or you were ok with it, until the dragon cast a spell on the kobolds and made them hit that much harder. Thing is, most of the time, you do have a decision to make. It isn't, "duh, dragon, kill it!"

I don't know of any real-world or story-based combat situation where some thoughtful participants thought it was a good idea to let any competent combatant run free for any length of time--except the ones in RPGs or clearly derived from them. There are a few instances were it was deemed a "lesser, necessary evil" than the alternatives available, but not "good".

 

[Gryph]

See a couple of good answers in quote below, plus, as implied in Minigiant's reply, heavy focus fire skews the game by causing an arms race--we better get your tough guy, healer, glass cannon (whatever is deemed most effective) down before you do the same to our most effective guy.

Most fights in my D&D experience are fights to the death so I'm not sure how much you can accelerate that arms race

A more subtle but pernicious effect of the gamism is to often make sensible actions in fiction sub-optimal. In reality and much of the fantasy fiction, there are times for the sensible course of "you, me, and Fred go hold off the orcs while Wizbang and Five O'Knives take out the evil cleric." This practically never comes up organically in RPGs, but has to be drug kicking and screaming towards that end by mechanics that can only do so much, by definition.

This makes sense, though I don't think its an effect of the current rules. Given an opportunity for 2 or 3 party members to hold off a greater number of opponents while the other 2 or 3 party members start slaughtering casters and other scary opponents; my group will jump on that every time. So maybe I've just been lucky in not experiencing the extremes of too much or too little focus fire, so I've never run into it as a problem.

Don't get me wrong, I like 4E-style marking as a very effective example of such a mechanic, but the thing it is trying to solve--don't let the enemy gang up on the wizard or other "softie"--would largely go away if focus fire has sufficient disincentives. Sure, the enemy would still try to get someone on the wizard--or else. But the same thing would now apply to the fighter!

I would prefer more naturalistic positioning and facing rules (even as abstract as 1e was, if you ran past the fighter to hit the wizard you got hit in the back as a free attack with +4 on the attack roll) than the 4e style marking. I honestly don't think you can disincentivize focus fire enough to stop it, without making the combat rules seem arbitrary. Even little kids will adopt "kill the guy with the ball" playstyles almost instinctively.

Take two orcs in a corridor, coming around the corner and seeing a fighter a few steps ahead of a wizard. This puts a risk on everyone. If the orcs gang up on the fighter, the wizard will fry one of them fast. If they gang up on the wizard, now the fighter will smack one of them fast. So they quite naturally split. Now, if the fighter tries to gang up on the orcs confronting the wizard, the orc on him will hit that much harder. And same if the wizard, perish the though, should ignore the orc on him to help the fighter out.

There might be special abilities that will help some--almost assuredly will be, since characters will often be out-numbered. It's possible that the fighter, for example, merely by being in front, can force a round of engagement on anyone passing them. An orc can charge the wizard at the cost of diminished actions when he gets there (possibly next round, not now). So maybe 3 orcs versus this party is a better example. Those are the devilish details.

2 on 2 fights are almost as much a special case, tactically, as 1 on 1s. Probably better to start with at least 3 on 3 when evaluating the effects of focus fire on a combat scenario.

That said, I think there are simpler ways to model the fighter/wizard scenario. Some simple facing rules would be a start. If the orc moves past the fighter in a fairly narrow corridor give the fighter a free attack with combat advantage. If only 1 orc goes past the fighter, then the fighter would have to make the choice between ganging up on the wizard's orc and getting hit in the back by the other orc, or accepting a pair of 1 on 1 fights and hoping the wizard can handle himself.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This makes sense, though I don't think its an effect of the current rules. Given an opportunity for 2 or 3 party members to hold off a greater number of opponents while the other 2 or 3 party members start slaughtering casters and other scary opponents; my group will jump on that every time. So maybe I've just been lucky in not experiencing the extremes of too much or too little focus fire, so I've never run into it as a problem.

My implications probably weren't clear on this. It is not that opponents never get held off. But what you get instead of "you, me, and Fred" doing the holding off is "Sir Tin Can the Paladin" goes and does the holding off while me and Fred go help Wizbang and Five O'Knives murder those scary opponents all the faster. In other words, the fall back from "total focus fire" is "near total focus fire with the bare minimum detailed for other functions." This is because "focus fire" is disproportionally rewarded and ignoring other opponents is disproprortionally safe--a double whammy.

It's true that you can contrive situations where the above isn't true. But you'll have to contrive them every time to get anything different--or do something such as have a social contract that max focus fire, all the time, is nonsense in character, with an agreement not to do it.

Plus, remember we aren't saying no focus fire at all. It is still rewarding to get it. In fact, one of the reasons it takes so much extreme focus fire to put opponents down is that the designers know that focus fire will happen, and thus every viable combatant has to have at least some defense against it (such as lots of hit points) or attacks have to be muted somewhat. What really ought to happen is that if, despite dangers and hinderances to doing so, if the party manages to focus fire anyway, they should really hit hard.

That's what I meant earlier about the "arms race". Right now, focus fire is expected, and thus you are punished for doing anything else. In a system with more options, there are times and places to focus fire anyway, and picking well is a reward.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That said, I think there are simpler ways to model the fighter/wizard scenario. Some simple facing rules would be a start. If the orc moves past the fighter in a fairly narrow corridor give the fighter a free attack with combat advantage. If only 1 orc goes past the fighter, then the fighter would have to make the choice between ganging up on the wizard's orc and getting hit in the back by the other orc, or accepting a pair of 1 on 1 fights and hoping the wizard can handle himself.

That's an interrupt. It might be that the best system that can be devised along the lines discussed in this topic is inferior to basic interrupts. But for purposes of exploring whether such a system can work or not, and how well, no reflex inclusion of interrupts is allowed.

 

[Iron Sky]

If "free" creatures had a big bonus on their first attack against previously "engaged" creatures, that would be a pretty good incentive to lock them down and get your strikers "disengage".

It could be a simple Advantage (say, +2 to hit) against "engaged" targets while you are "free", with strikers getting bonus damage when they have Advantage and Defenders getting free attacks(or bonuses on their next attack against them, or whatever) against enemies trying to "disengage".

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If "free" creatures had a big bonus on their first attack against previously "engaged" creatures, that would be a pretty good incentive to lock them down and get your strikers "disengage".

It could be a simple Advantage (say, +2 to hit) against "engaged" targets while you are "free", with strikers getting bonus damage when they have Advantage and Defenders getting free attacks(or bonuses on their next attack against them, or whatever) against enemies trying to "disengage".

Yep, that's one way to handle it. Note that in your terms, what I was pushing was more or along the lines of everyone has "striker" powers, which you must be "free" to access. Then if there were still explicit striker and defender rolls, the difference would not be in the damage on these powers, but on bonuses to "engage" versus "getting free". A fighter is somewhat harder to get away from, and a rogue is somewhat harder to keep pinned, but if either one of them is allowed to roam free, it is equally nasty.

That, of course, may lead to strikers getting a few extra "free" shots over the course of an adventure, but they will need to work for it--and sometimes take risks to get it.

I think that may lead to more clarity on "control" effects, too. In this system, control effects can "engage" without attacking (e.g. charm) or remove the need to do so (e.g. wall of stone separating some foes from the battle). That guy on the other side of the wall is not engaged, but no one cares right this moment.