Players with Guns vs Melee bad guys

[jezter6]

This sort of ties into the ravenloft thread, but is generic enough that I thought it deserved it's own thread.

What can be done about players with guns taking on bad guys without guns? It seems very lopsided that the PCs will win unless you stack the odds by placing more bad guys than they can kill.

This becomes even more of an issue if you want to go with 1 big bad vs the PCs in the big climactic battle. If you close on the group and go hand to hand, they will likely die. If you stay back, they can fire from cover and basically kick ***.

What can be done to make it not only even and fair, but enjoyable?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

And I thought most GMs had the other issue (melee PCs vs ranged NPCs), which is in my signature.

Use a smaller battlefield, like indoors, with plenty of cover. The melee villain can move around the cover until they can close with a PC and basically kick the stuffing out of them. I sure hope some of the PCs have decent melee capability so they aren't flattened.

The right battlefield can offer opportunities for stealth, like drop kicking a PC from behind some crates.

On another note, you should use more than one villain, just in case he gets dropped on round one due to failed save vs massive damage.

 

[jezter6]

Depending on how lethality works (I've never had this kind of situation come up), I may bump the MAS to 15+con bonus+feats.

In the game I plan, the 1 big bad will be undead, so no worries about him going down on round 1, but I don't want to have too many foes on the battlefield. You're right though, that any PC worth his salt will have SOME melee skill, or will probably end up dead.

Since I'm running d20modern through Ravenloft, which might be too deadly, I was thinking of using the 'Advanced Training' origin from Blood & Vigilance to give the PCs some extra feats to try and compensate...maybe if I give them that with the notion that I pick the feats for them (thereby giving them some melee feats for free) that they would stand a better chance.

Not worried about CR and balance, so much as making them competent to not get killed immediately.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Hrm. I usually place a balance of things in there ... some melee guys that can outflank the PCs or a few more mooks than they can reliably kill ... because I've got a melee guy on hand.

My Airships game, all of the PCs were ranged-based. This is an age-of-sail campaign, though, with muzzle-loaded firearms that they didn't have time to reload in-combat, so everybody had SOME sort of melee weapon ... other than the wizard, who took his role as artillery seriously ... that and he was a BCCS magic user, so I think the one time he got threatened by a melee guy he manifested a hurricane-level blast of air and sent the guy on his way.

In my Modern-modern games ... I've made it a sort of "theme" when the PCs were entirely ranged. Dark*Matter, for instance, I made sure they all had Personal Firearms Prof (Pistols) with a special Training feat ... and nobody had melee. The zombies, then, were a threat BECAUSE they had to drop them at range before they could get close. It became the point of the combat.

There's enough that modern characters can do with ranged weapons close-in, though ... pistol whips and simple 5' steps. A dedicated ranged combatant with double-tap, for instance, would probably still take a step back and tap even if he had a sword and the feat to use it.

In that era, though, I imagine alot of military people still trained some with the sword ... could offer it as a bonus-bonus feat and think up additional feats for the other Starting Occupations.

--fje

 

[jezter6]

Well, since chargen hasn't started, I can sort of guide them in that direction of having a little of both proficiencies.

However, when being confronted by big bad melee dude (BBMD), a 5' step and some pistol whips aren't going to cut it. Shooting into melee of course makes things much more dangerous for the guy who tries to stay outside of combat and shoot. (or at least the guy in melee who might get shot accidentally)

Although it's horror victorian, I wouldn't mind a little swashbuckling action. To see a PC shoot all the bullets out of his gun, then grab a rope and swing across the room and kick Strahd...would be a bit exciting.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Depending on how lethality works (I've never had this kind of situation come up), I may bump the MAS to 15+con bonus+feats.

In the game I plan, the 1 big bad will be undead, so no worries about him going down on round 1

Eevn so, the heroes could do 8d6 damage in one round if they all hit. Maybe he has DR or something, I don't know, but I still think it's risky.

Only my most recent campaign has all-ranged characters; other than this one, every group of PCs have had at least one melee guy. I think it fits well, even in D20 Modern. As a result, they never ended up in a situation where they'd get slaughtered that way. (Mind you, I did once trap a Gunslinger between a pair of washing machines and crit her with an axe... ranged/melee mismatches did occur to the detriment of the PCs, just not frequently.)

 

[Starglim]

What can be done about players with guns taking on bad guys without guns? It seems very lopsided that the PCs will win unless you stack the odds by placing more bad guys than they can kill.

That hasn't been my experience in Victorian, modern or future settings. After the first round, a melee-oriented bad guy is extremely dangerous and will probably take out a PC a round, unless the PCs have at least one durable melee fighter to hold him off.

 

[Corsair]

This sort of ties into the ravenloft thread, but is generic enough that I thought it deserved it's own thread.

What can be done about players with guns taking on bad guys without guns? It seems very lopsided that the PCs will win unless you stack the odds by placing more bad guys than they can kill.

This becomes even more of an issue if you want to go with 1 big bad vs the PCs in the big climactic battle. If you close on the group and go hand to hand, they will likely die. If you stay back, they can fire from cover and basically kick ***.

What can be done to make it not only even and fair, but enjoyable?

Think movies. When does this work as a valid tactic for the badguys?

1) Superior numbers / limited ammo. Zombie movies for instance.

2) Superior movement / tactics. Aliens anyone?

3) Physically superior (able to take the punishment at range while closing). Most big bads from monster movies. Godzilla among others.

4) Uncanny skills differential. Experts with pistols vs trained ninjas. I suspect your players are not playing Uzi-toting loremasters though.

 

[takyris]

Clarification: Modern-modern or Victorian-modern?

In Victorian-modern, ammo is a much larger concern -- a few rounds of combat, and they're out.

If you're fighting a vampire, the first thing I'd have that vampire do is come in via gaseous form or invisible or bat-form or something and then pop into normal form and attempt a disarm. With a vampire's strength bonus, that disarm check has a decent chance, and if it succeeds, voila. No more gun.

If you've got undead bad guys, your three friends are darkness, darkness, and darkness. Anybody who lights up a lantern is a nice big target, and the undead can see just fine in the dark. This gives you the classic "circle of heroes in the light with undead closing in from the darkness" feel.

This is all pretty high-level stuff, but if you can give more detailed information on the campaign world, I can probably help you make the fight challenging. I've dealt with this in a few different games with varying levels of magic and firearms.

It all really depends on how you want the game to feel. If you want swashbuckly, then you let the players blast a lot of bad guys with guns and use most of their ammo before the big bad villain even shows up -- and then you give him high enough DR that they need a good damage roll to hurt him at all. (DR10, for example, in a game where guns do 2d6 base.) If you want a horror-feel, then you put in lots of cover and darkness so that the kicker isn't the bad guy's DR -- it's not knowing where he is or when he's going to rise from the shadows and snap somebody's neck. If you want a more game-y feel (which isn't bad), you have the bad guy fight smarter and use illusions or decoys to get the PCs to waste ammo, and you DEFINITELY have minions swarm in and surround the PCs so that if they DO fire, they're taking AoOs all over the place while doing so.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Indoors, a melee fighter can always quickly get dangerously near.

The main problem is usually that a single NPC always has trouble against a party of PCs, even if he is considerably tougher then they are. The NPC has one action per round, the PCs have 4+ actions per round. This is always a considerable advantage, and it doesn't really matter wether they spray him with bullets or stab him with swords or do a combination of it. He gets quickly in trouble.
A NPC using ranged weapons would probably find himself suddenly surrounded in melee, since disarm, grapple or trip (and the AoOs from shooting in melee) considerably hamper the NPCs combat efforts.