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

[Frostmarrow]

There's this wargame called Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles that looks interesting. In that game units must pass a leadership test before acting. Fresh well trained units succeed on a d10 roll of 10 or less (auto). When the units get fired upon they get suppressed and their chance to act becomes less reliable. The point is to keep your enemies from acting while you move your own units to better positions or within assault range. I think the designer of that game where of the same mind as our OP.

 

[Minigiant]

There's this wargame called Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles that looks interesting. In that game units must pass a leadership test before acting. Fresh well trained units succeed on a d10 roll of 10 or less (auto). When the units get fired upon they get suppressed and their chance to act becomes less reliable. The point is to keep your enemies from acting while you move your own units to better positions or within assault range. I think the designer of that game where of the same mind as our OP.

Yes. OP's idea adds a more online shooter aspect. The PCs makes sure everyone is shot at so they can't look down the scope and are constantly occupied.

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.

Rogues/Assassins can't Sneak/Death attack when engaged?
Full round spells cant be casted when Engaged by someone with a melee weapon?
Power attack deals double damage when free?
Smite Evil is a full round action instead of standard action when engaged?
Favored Enemy/Hunter Quarry is halved when engaged?
Bardsong usages are doubled when engaged?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Yes. OP's idea adds a more online shooter aspect. The PCs makes sure everyone is shot at so they can't look down the scope and are constantly occupied.

I prefer to think that the online shooters and I are coming from the same source. In my case, I've never played an online shooter, but I was reading a lot of military history before personal computers were around.

Well, that and most of my favorite fantasy authors were either before RPGs begin to so heavily influences peoples' expectations of how things would work--or despite being later, resisted the push from such games.

 

[KesselZero]

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."

Hopefully you haven't adopted any of Forrest's other, er, "leanings."

 

[jodyjohnson]

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.

I think the overkill scenario was most seen in group initiative with declared actions. The more recent initiative rules allowed everyone to just move to the next target.

 

[jodyjohnson]

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.

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."

After thinking about it, when I say narrative I really mean - following book or movie narrative conventions or tropes.

The rules support what have become the standard D&D tropes or conventions. Such as: Kill the wizard/healer first, go for the first round kill on the villain, never take prisoners, let nothing escape, fight to the death, basic "If I were an Evil Overlord" type stuff -- i.e. smart play.

If D&D were a James Bond spy game he would end every movie with a sniper headshot from 1000 meters and when Bond ever got captured one of the lackeys would just double-tap him in the back of the head.

It's really group social contract type stuff but the rules work against it most of the time.

 

[Minigiant]

I think the overkill scenario was most seen in group initiative with declared actions. The more recent initiative rules allowed everyone to just move to the next target.

It happens still.
Especially which PCs with good ranged attacks or strong but limited attacks (spells). People tend to think twice about nuking things they think might be more than half dead. The third elemental murder spell is rarely casted on the guy who survived 2 already if another fresh foe is nearby.

 

[Mokona]

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.

Is focused fire a problem? Yes it is.

The winning strategy for PCs, currently, is to focus fire. The winning strategy for monsters is, also, to focus fire. When the social compact is broken, and focused fire becomes easy/default, the game gets distorted. PCs have to be given enough hit points that DMs complain there is a lack of "tension". Monsters are given enough hit points that it is a slog to kill them even when you focus fire.

 

[Gryph]

"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.

Scales down pretty well to small unit tactics as well. A fair amount of my 4 man fire team training covered concentration of fire at the squad level and smaller.

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".

And this is where the disconnect started. You are absolutely right about not ignoring competent foes running around the battlefield (though sometimes you have to take a risk and hope you get lucky, but those are intersting situations ). The only time my current group tried that, the result was a TPK. Unexcusable really since they had 2 healers and 2 marking defenders <shrug>.

I have so rarely seen players attempt to dogpile 1 foe and ignore the rest that I don't see the need for rules designed to help guide players away from making that decision.

Even the kobold/dragon scenario I would let 1 or 2 of the party absorb all of the kobold attacks rather than spread them out; because that's how I think kobolds would act in that situation.

 

[Gryph]

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.

I prefer the term "Triggered free action" myself.

Without using a reactive action of some sort characters need some way to enforce the line. How about somethisng as simple as if two allies are within 10 feet of each other and opponent cannot move between them, a wall counts as an ally. (the wall case is for the wizard/fighter scenario).

I'm still reaching for simpler and naturalistic in feel.