Roleplaying your character in combat

[shilsen]

I just remembered a couple of examples from games I played at GenCon this year. (I can still say "This year" for another 13-and-a-bit hours!)

In barsoomcore's DPNI game, I was playing a ninja... my attack and damage bonuses were significantly better with my sword than empty-handed, but I didn't draw the sword until the last round of the last combat of the adventure, when we were fighting the Slave Queen herself. None of the opponents until that point were worthy of the blade, y'see. So I punched, I kicked, I tripped, I grappled, but I didn't cut until the BBEG showed up

In Alenda's Halfling Musketeers game, I was given a pregen swashbuckling halfling, and it said in his description that he fought with sword and dagger. "Question," I said. "It says sword and dagger, but there are no two-weapon fighting feats on here... is that right?" "Oh," I was told, "the dagger in the description is really just flavour. You don't have to stick to that." "Ha!" I ha'd. "TWF feats are for wimps!" And I spent the adventure taking a -4/-8 penalty to my two-weapon attack rolls, and nobody could have buckled more swashily!

-Hyp.

Nice examples. Of course, you already had me at FPAATT

 

[Stalker0]

To me, this depends on the standard level of difficulty the DM uses when running combats.

If combats follow a standard progression of some easy and some hard, it gives players a chance to treat combat like role play. They can not use the most efficient spells in favor of "their character's favorite spell" or do certain stunts or techniques that aren't optimal. Then in the hard boss fight, they get serious and put everything down to win.

However, if the fights a dm uses are usually very hard, then as a player I would be annoyed if another player was constantly fighting sub optimally for role play reasons, because it puts the party in danger.

I think this is a situation where the dm and the players need to compare expectations. If the players do want to fight very much in character, the dm should consider that when figuring out the CR of encounters, for the party's CR will drop slightly to match suboptimal tactics.

 

[cr0m]

Dang, I was really hoping this thread was going to be all about players who say, "I leap into the air and stab my spear over his shield" rather than "I swing... does 22 hit?"

Interesting discussion though.

 

[DragonLancer]

I've never experienced a game (my own or one I've been a player in) where roleplaying was an important part of combat. I find that RP goes to the backburner during combat and the players focus on slaying the opponent and staying alive. As with everything, its all personal group choices and dynamics.

 

[sniffles]

You know, I only started considering that after starting this thread, since it wasn't one of the reasons I did it, but taking death out of the campaign definitely helps in this area. Naturally, it's much easier for me to play up PC personality in character generation and combat if it doesn't mean that it'll automatically mean getting the PC and/or the other PCs killed.

I hadn't thought about this as a component of the situation, but you're right. I also play in campaigns that remove or significantly downplay the likelihood of PC death. And it does make it a lot easier to use sub-optimal tactics in combat if I don't have to worry that my roleplaying choices are likely to get me or anyone else killed.