Burning Wheel

[wilrich]

Inspired by this thread, I've started to check out Burning Wheel, and it sounds interesting. One thing that sticks out as a potential issue, however, is combat, and I hope some veterans of the game could speak to it. On the one hand, it seems that combat is much more interesting and involves more tactics and thinking and tension than D & D combat, however on the other hand . . .

My impression is that combat would take a loooong time to resolve, in part because it is so detailed, that the game couldn't handle a fight with say 16 participants (4 PCs v. 12 bad guys) (i.e. that the rules are really set up for eqaul numbers fights), that running combat for the DM would be a tremendous headache, and creating NPCs would be terribely burdensome.

Again, overall, I very interested and am "this" close to purchasing, but I'm wondering if someone could speak to the above.

Thanks!

 

[lukzu]

Hi WillRich,

That game I mentioned in my previous post? It took about 3 hours to play. Admittedly, it was only two players, but there was a lot of action. Two social conflicts (which play the same as "combat") and one big fight that included a human sorcerer, two Elves, and two great spiders. It bears noting that we started and finished the adventure/scenario in those three hours and had plenty of time for roleplaying to boot.

The conflict moves like lightning. The seeming "rigidity" of the rules dispenses with the majority of the nonsense that makes us bored at the table and focuses on the cool stuff -- like what you're character is doing.

HOWEVER, and that's a big however, Burning Wheel is different from that game you're playing. Whatever it is, it's different. The level of detail, the intensity of conflict and the inherent risks in every throw of the dice make for more intimate situations. I'm not saying that a huge brawl can't be fun now and again, but I am saying you don't need to stack the odds every time just to make an interesting fight.

And for those big brawls BW runs just fine. But those moments better be the big guns, because unless your characters are sweet and l33t, you're going to have trouble. 4 vs 12 fights are ing epic in BW. Which is, in my opinion, how it should be.

Even so, judging an epic battle is also just a matter of knowing when to apply the rules. For the dramatic "blast through the guards and burst into the throne room" scene, we use the Bloody Versus Test rules and just get it over in one roll. But when confronting the Red Wizard on his throne, his concubine-assassin and his samurai thrall, we go to the Fight! mechanics. Because they are dramatic, fun and cool.

-Luke

 

[silburnl]

For the dramatic "blast through the guards and burst into the throne room" scene, we use the Bloody Versus Test rules and just get it over in one roll.

Just to chip in that this is that one-roll combat mechanic I mentioned upthread. Each combatant divvies their dice into an attack pool and a defence pool, rolls off their attack vs their opponents defence and whatever condition you're left in once you've figured out your wounds is how things turned out once the fight was done.

As I also mentioned, I share WillRich's concerns about handling time and GM-load in combat. However I will note that, as Lukzu said, the game tends to be rather tougher than a D&D dungeon-thrash and fights against significant odds are going to be painful for the outnumbered side unless they have some serious mojo on their side (such as grey-scale wound thresholds or the like). Having said *that*, whilst the mechanics tend towards fights where one decent hit is all it takes to finish a combatant, the game is less immediately deadly than D&D, where you fight at full power until you fall over and the last hit (especially at higher levels) is likely to kill you stone dead. A BW combat between well matched opponents is likely to end up with a bunch of people at varying levels of impairment but not that many actually dead (at least, not immediately).

Regards
Luke

PS
A different luke from the game's author.

PPS
What's with the handle Lukzu? Was Abzu taken?