The Tactical Repertoire

[Jack7]

The Tactical Repertoire​

If you and your party regularly, or even constantly face weak or easily overcome opponents then the level of tactical combat preparation, skill, and sophistication you need to possess is small, and probably limited.

But if the opponents you face are truly dangerous, lethal, and imposing, then you, and your party, need to possess a high level of tactical capabilities, and you need to practice a high degree of combat sophistication. You cannot rely upon just luck, die rolls, and magical spells or miraculous rescues to extract you from dangerous and risky situations. You need to be prepared. Entirely prepared.

For that kind of party I am posting this thread, the Tactical Repertoire. This thread is to give suggestions and spur ideas as to how to prepare for dangerous situations, like combat, rescue, evasion and escape, infiltration and reconnaissance, “crawls,” etc.

I will give ideas over time about how to avoid dangerous situations, overcome such situations, plan for encounters, and prepare for missions. The advice will usually be general but will be easily adaptable to your particular tactical situation(s).

I’ll return to this thread occasionally, with new advice on different subjects. If you have a favorite trick of your own, or suggestions you have gained through hard won experience then feel free to post your own suggestions. I’ll start with the Mother of All Wargaming Problems – Combat.


I. COMBAT

Combat is Not Magic or Rocket Science - Many RPGs started out first as situationally and genre adapted Wargames, yet far too often, over time, these games lost most of their Wargaming emphasis. (RPGs are not usually wargames, per se, but let’s face it, how often do you play an RPG, or a video game, or so forth where combat is not at the very least an important element and often the primary element of survival?) Such games discarded basic and highly effective tactical and strategic combat skills and maneuvers for unreliable and usually easily exhausted magical and/or technological effects. Combat maneuvers and combat tactics can be practiced over and over and over again and are time-tested and extremely effective in killing the enemy. A magical spell has a (usually) one-time effect and a very limited period of duration. Good combat tactics are forever, and repeatable whenever you need them. Many RPGs have lost their real warbite in favor of flashy fireballs, purple lightning bolts, and a reliance upon luck. You don’t rely upon luck to resolve life or death combat situations. You come prepared to kill and you come prepared to avoid being killed.


1. Basic Weapons – Maximize the potential of your weaponry. Use ranged weapons at distances and in ways as to maximize killing power and to develop a rate of fire that is lethal. If you can kill an enemy before he ever comes near enough for close combat then that is ideal, and much desired. Kill an enemy up close, then that is okay, but kill him two hundred yards from you and you have demonstrated you actually understand real combat principles. For that matter maximize the effective combat capabilities of all of your weapons. Let me put it this simply, develop your combat maneuvers and capabilities in such a way as to maximize your ability, and the ability of whatever weapons you are employing to kill efficiently and quickly, and so as to suppress your enemy’s ability to close upon you and for his weapons to have any real effect upon you. It’s not heroic to stand upright and take damage in a twenty-minute slugfest just waiting to see who will drop first. It’s stupid. The point of combat is to kill the enemy or render him ineffective as rapidly as possible, while simultaneously suffering as little harm from the enemy as possible whenever and wherever the enemy is encountered. Therefore learn to kill and learn how your weapons kill. Then exercise that talent with real purpose.

2 Strategic Non Reliance. – Do not rely entirely upon magical effects or technological advantage for your combat capabilities. As a matter of fact these things should be secondary or tertiary considerations in most cases. If you possess, as part of your repertoire a particularly potent technological advantage, or a particularly powerful and effective spell, then employ them. But do not rely upon them. Use such advantages tactically and judiciously, and when and in such a way as they have the very most desired and efficient effect. But remember, magic can be thwarted and technology can be defeated. If you go into every fight thinking “I’ll overwhelm my opponent with technological superiority, or wow them into submission with my powerful magical Hoodoo,” then one day you’re in for a rude and very probable lethal shock. By all means employ every capability you have, but just remember that one-day magical effects will fail and technology will sputter and falter. So when that happens don’t just stand around like a monkey testing his tailwind and wondering how you’ll get out of this now. Good and well practiced combat maneuvers and tactics are just waiting to pick up where your Roman Candle of a fireball left off. Be ready to kill because you know how to kill not just because your magic spell is supposed to do it for you. Do not rely upon any single capability, or even limited set of capabilities to do your job. In combat killing is your job, not the job of the robot you’re packing in your rucksack. The gun-toting robot, or the explosive runes spell in your scroll case, they’re both merely tools, you are the actual instrument of destruction. Know what you are doing and exactly how you will need to do it no matter what the situation. Then you’ll really be prepared. And a prepared you means a dead enemy.

3. Combat Maneuvers – Don’t just have a “Marching Order.” Instead have real combat plans and battle formations. Know how you and your party will set in case of ambush, set to prepare to receive a charge, maneuver to maximize the killing power of your bows and spears, fight in a retreat, and so forth and so on. Marching Orders are good, for marching, but they are usually a very poor way to deploy in a fight. Think about how you would deploy in a real fight, to maximize killing efficiency, to protect vulnerable party members, to create lines of defensible positioning, to emplace your rearguard to avoid ambush, etc. Then develop a few simple but highly effective combat formations that everyone understands and that can be ordered with a simple codeword. Call out “Wedge” and you know your combat formation and how to make it. Call out “Shaft” and every archer in the group flanks the party and concentrates fire forwards and inwards towards a single dangerous opponent injuring that opponent several times before it can reach to close quarters. Think your way through and prepare. Run a few practice exercises, using miniatures and common combat situations you have faced numerous times before to develop your plans and formations. Next time some monster comes stomping down the middle or some assault teams opens up on your temporary encamped position it won’t just be a rag-tag, don’t know what to do, every man for himself brawl, it will be organized and well practiced warfare, it will be real combat, and it will be the enemy who regrets he dared engage you, not the other way around.

4. Unorthodox Maneuvers and Plans – Have a set of “not just run of the mill combat maneuvers and plans.” Have some plays to run that are full of fakery, cunning, cleverness, and guile. The enemy may, or may not know you’re coming, but you know you’re coming. It’s your job. So think about how to do it in such a way as to make your opponent think you’re running straight up the middle when in actuality you’re coming up the ends and may have even already outflanked him before he knows you’re there.

5. Unorthodox Weaponry – Think about what you’re likely to face and prepare for it. If you’ll need fire, then take fire making and spreading equipment. As for myself, I often employ chemicals as a player - sulfur, salt, mercury, chlorine, and so forth. So I’m good not just at normal combat, or at combat techniques peculiar to my class or profession, but I’m also good at chemical warfare. So find ways of your own to make effective weapons out of things that are easily carried and have unusual and startling effects. Keep your enemy off guard and frightened of you. Harass him. Often, and in surprising ways. Turn what he thinks is safe against him. Have a bag of tricks no one else has ever seen before.

6. Retreat – In many games, for some reason, it is anathema, even as a combat concept. In actuality, it is a time-honored method of minimizing casualties, and living to be able to maximize damage upon the opponent at a time of your own choosing, when you are better prepared to do the killing rather than the dying. Retreat is your friend. Prepare for it. Practice for it. Know how to do it well and effectively. Drill it so that you can do it reflexively and in an organized and efficient manner whenever it is called for. Make sure everyone knows when to retreat and exactly in what manner the retreat is to be undertaken. Make your enemy regret that you know how to retreat effectively. Because once you’ve retreated out, reanalyzed your situation, and regrouped for effect then you’re coming back to finish your job. A retreat is not an admission of failure; it is a new opportunity to succeed when you are better prepared. Use it, because it is an extremely effective Combat Tool, as important as any other truly effective maneuver. If you aren’t familiar with making good use of retreat then you really don’t know much about combat.

7. Ambush and Traps – Your job, when it comes to combat, is to set traps and ambushes, not fall for them. So be ready. Ready with some effective method or methods to discover, thwart, and/or avoid traps, and ready with a few traps of your own. They can be as simple as setting a trip-wire that gives you a few seconds reaction advantage. Or as complicated as making use of environmental conditions to hem in or encircle an enemy. And don’t forget to make good and effective use of ambushes. If you are not ambushing your enemy, at least on good occasion then you really don’t know what you’re doing as regards combat. Strike where they ain’t looking, meaning you gotta be where they ain’t looking. If you are blundering into every encounter face first and head on and getting your lungs handed to you regularly then there’s a reason for that. Start fighting like you know how to do it. If the enemy never sees you coming then you know what you’re doing. If he’s already set for every charge you make then you’re not thinking like a combatant, and certainly not like a warrior or soldier, you’re thinking like a battering ram. And extra heavy on the battering sauce you keep using to butter your skull.

8. Gear Up – Pack any really effective gear and equipment you will need. (Don’t carry useless and unnecessarily encumbering gear.) Keep your gear in good shape. Keep your weapons clean, oiled, honed, and effective. What a man carries is often, in an emergency, nearly as important as what he knows. Gear for effect, gear for survival, gear for necessity and efficiency. Gear to live, and so that you can be good at your job.


To be continued later…

 

[carborundum]

Nice piece! I'll be pointing my players at the section on retreating!

/subscribe

 

[howandwhy99]

Awesome thread.

I've been making up Player handouts for Goal Setting/Plans Devised and Common M.O.s. The second is a list of basic procedures PCs take, everything from listing their different Marching Orders to how they open doors, find traps, make wishes, train hirelings, etc. This is to speed up common events in game they believe they have a procedural mastery of.

My biggest piece of advice is to remember that roleplaying is a learning activity. As a DM you can teach how to play D&D by using tactics and strategies against the PCs. This works as well or better than locations that suggest interesting actions because of their design. While the second method is sort of like playing the straight man in a comedy duo, you set up the joke hoping the joke teller follows through, the first method is best when you are dealing with younger players and/or using weaker, more easily killed opponents.

I suggest using kobolds as everything from ignorant pawns to creative, mad, wargaming geniuses.

Not to mention the cultural strategies different monsters used in the old monster ladder. The kobolds to goblins to orcs to hobgoblins to gnolls to bugbears.

Bugbears are just nasty in our game. Trolls are hard to kill and Ogres are powerful, but dumb. But bugbears are bleedin' vicious killers. Even when we outnumber them it is probably better to run away at first sight than after getting torn into for a few rounds. ...given we had the brains to be in a position to sight them first.

 

[Rechan]

I think one of these would be useful for DMs too. This seems less rules specific, but I think tips on tackling strong parties would be useful.

 

[Jack7]

Thank you folks for the compliments. I also hope the suggestions presented were helpful to you.

In my next entry about combat I'm gonna present suggestions about communications, information control and information warfare, as well as guerilla tactics, and defense and counteraction.

I've been making up Player handouts for Goal Setting/Plans Devised and Common M.O.s. The second is a list of basic procedures PCs take, everything from listing their different Marching Orders to how they open doors, find traps, make wishes, train hirelings, etc. This is to speed up common events in game they believe they have a procedural mastery of.

I'm also gonna be taking up How and Why's suggestion about Goal Setting. I had intended din a later entry to take up the idea of overall Tactical and adventuring Goals and Objectives, but his suggestion made me think that I ought to also consider a section on Combat Goals and Objectives, how to set them, and how to achieve them.

My biggest piece of advice is to remember that roleplaying is a learning activity. As a DM you can teach how to play D&D by using tactics and strategies against the PCs.

This is a good observation as well.

I think one of these would be useful for DMs too.

You know that's not a bad idea at all. Maybe later or in another thread.

 

[grodog]

Good post Jack7: when's the next installment of grognardly wisdom?

 

[Ydars]

Jack7; I agree that mundane tactics are very important but magic is not all about flashy one time effects. You don't need high level magic to win either, just a good knowledge of a variety of spells. The spells I describe below are for 3.5E and most come from spell compendium.

There are all sorts of useful spells to prevent the enemy gaining a tactical advantage.

For example, grapping monsters can be thwarted by using grease on your friend to lend him a +10 to escape artist. Or you can summon a low level monster and use benign transposition to swap whoever is grappled with the summoned monster. I once saved an enveloped character using this tactic after he had been engulfed by a gelatinous cube.

I also use summon monster I or Summon undead I to put a monster behind the enemy lines and then swap places using Benign transposition. Similarly, persistant blade can be used to flank enemies and is a great choice for a rogue, since the blade can't be attacked. I play a multiclass rogue/wizard so this is a favourite tactic of mine. I then escape by using benign transposition again.

Stand is also very annoying for DMs relying upon trip attacks, as it allows the tripped PC to stand up as an immediate action.

Shock and awe gives a party complete iniative (-10 to monster iniative) and is a much underused spell.

Backbiter is also nasty as it turns polearms back on their wielders for an auto-hit and if the weapon is mundane there is no saving throw.

You can also divide the party from monsters using wall of smoke that can nausate anyone passing through it. Similarly wind wall is good against archers.

Caltrops is also vicious against charging monsters as they can get hit easily (it attacks AC12 regardless of magical protection) and it halves their speed. Very useful for escaping and retreating.

I agree that attack magic is boring but spells have lots of good uses. You just need plenty of scrolls to cast spells that help the party to dominate.

Finally, there is the be-all and end all of retreating spells; wall of stone. We always carry a scroll of that to get out of those really tight battles.

My current character can only cast first level spells (Rog 7/Wiz 1) but since my caster level is +4 (from the practised spell caster feat from complete arcane) I can have some quite nasty effects. I seem to cast 3-4 spells per battle, though it does sometimes limit my effectiveness as a rogue. Having said this, it gives me something to do when we face undead or constructs as I am not so useful against them anyway.

 

[Jack7]

Jack7; I agree that mundane tactics are very important but magic is not all about flashy one time effects. You don't need high level magic to win either, just a good knowledge of a variety of spells. The spells I describe below are for 3.5E and most come from spell compendium.

Ydars, I agree, to an extent (that I will explain below), but I said unreliable, and usually easily exhausted.

Unreliable in the sense that most magic can fail or be thwarted, or countered by other magics. Easily exhausted by the examples I am about to give. (But I cannot address every different type of spell or magical effect in particular, I am speaking in generalities as to common conditions for purposes of explaining tactical advantages and disadvantages of reliance upon particular modes of attack and defense.)

Say you are in combat with another guy. You stab, stab, stab, stab him. Assuming there is no real obstacle, such as he is invulnerable to your weapon then you can stab him as much as you like. You can use most magic one time (within the confines of a single engagement, and that is what we are discussing, tactical combat engagements), and it usually has a necessarily limited duration, then it becomes either exhausted, or you defeated it at the beginning (because it failed or was interrupted or disturbed, i.e., the spell was broken) and therefore its effect is limited. Such capabilities may very well be dramatic, even highly effective, but it is limited. By it's very nature. You throw a spell it does not go on forever, but you can fight as long as you can stand, or your opponent can stand against you.

That is to say, you can stab as often as you like. (In game terms anyway, in real life stabbing gets exhausting after awhile. And of course you can also defeat physical, tactical combat attacks - but then you just change tactics, quickly, easily, and if you are well practiced, without any preparation or drawing resources away from your attacks to other endeavors - such as readying spells, etc.) Now in 4E you can more easily rely upon more innate magical effects, and you can possess a wider range of them, but their effects tend to be, generally speaking, one time effects, not repeatable in the same sense as stab, stab, stab, and spear, spear, spear. (I'm not interested in an editions war, that's probably a useless statement given other threads that just mention the subject, but it is true. But, for example, in AD&D you knew exactly what types of magical effects you could bring to bear because magic was so limited as to repeatability and tightly regulated by class, in 4th you know exactly what powers you can bring to bear because they are so varied and overlapping between character classes or professions. But in either case you know you can usually stab a lot faster and for longer than you can employ magic.) The spear thrust might not do as much damage as the fireball, but continuous spear thrusts will kill and such tactics never fail due to saving throws or spell failure, though they can be turned aside by good defenses. Something I will address later. Good combat tactics though, to use a real world example are like a rate of fire from a semi-automatic weapon - pop, pop, pop, pop, and they are easily repeatable, fluid, adaptable, and highly effective, and their effect is cumulative. Most magical spells, using this example, are something like a shotgun blast - boom! slower moving, more time to reload (or you may only get one shot), and they may be devastating, but then again maybe not, depending on the situation. In short good combat tactics for physical engagements tend to be fluid, easy to modify on the spot, and easily repeatable.

But I did not say do not employ whatever combat resources and capabilities you possess, (you should, see Sections 2, 4, 5, and 7) I said do not rely upon your spectacular abilities to the exclusion of highly effective, easy to employ, easily repeatable, and well drilled combat tactics. If anyone is drawing the conclusion that I am saying disregard capabilities of any kind they are mistaking my point. I'm saying just the opposite, do not overlook, good, solid, reliable combat tactics and maneuvers and techniques in favor of magic, or reliance upon technology - do not in the rush to be flashy and spectacular, overlook, fail to use, or fail to improve your most basic combat capabilities, your tactical repertoire.

As a matter of fact, using a modern analogy, magical powers (in fantasy type settings) might be considered unconventional warfare techniques, and standard hand-to-hand combat tactics might be considered as methods of conventional warfare. the very best method of conducting combat, given such circumstances, would be battle tactics and battle formations which seamlessly integrated both methods into a common combat form, in which both unconventional techniques and conventional techniques were applied in such a way as to balance and compliment each other in both tactical power and in overlapping fields of capabilities. I had already intended to discuss this idea of conventional-unconventional overlap and integration in another, later posting, and so I shall, but I didn't want to give the impression that I am saying, or was saying, don't use all your capabilities in the best way possible. I am saying don't rely upon unconventional methods and certainly do not divorce them from your standard battle tactics. Instead seamlessly and fully integrate them as combat tools into your already developed tactical repertoire so that when you do apply such methods they can compliment (rather than seem to operate separate, or isolated from) your more common combat tactics and maneuvers so thoroughly as to seem one consistent, coherent set of combat techniques. Indeed they should be. But if unconventional methods do fail then you will have steady, reliable methods to fall back upon which are not subject to failure unless the character himself fails, or dies.

In other words your tactical methodologies should start first with what is most basic, with what everyone in your party can do (well or poorly), such as stab, stab, spear, spear, shoot, shoot. Then build ever more complex layers of combat capabilities atop those basic and fundamental aspects of combat techniques. Learn what is basic first, then build upon it, and improve upon it. It would be foolish to turn aside or eschew magical capabilities (in a fantasy game) when they could make you that much more effective, but it is equally foolish to rely upon such capabilities, or to skip straight to wanting to learn how to fire a phosphorous round from an Abrams if you can't even load and properly discharge your own sidearm. So I'm really saying, first things first. Don't let the fact that you can throw a fireball delude you into the mistaken idea that fireballs will solve every combat encounter (or non-combat encounter for that matter). If you learn the basics properly then you are prepared for anything, even if your tank gets stuck in the mud or runs out of gas, you can still jump out with your rifle and be ready to do your job.

Good post Jack7: when's the next installment of grognardly wisdom?

I'm sorry Grodog. I've had a really tight working schedule now that the ho the Thanksgiving holidays are over. I plan on getting something out as soon as possible though.
Thanks to everyone for their interest, comments, and ideas.

 

[Ydars]

Jack7; I agree with you that mundane tactics are far more reliable than magic (my comments are 3.5E specific at present) with two caveats.

The first is that for tactics to work well you have to have;

a) a high degree of tactical skill amongst ALL the players because if one screws up in combat it can mess up a well rehearsed retreat or manever very quickly. This is less true of gaming-tables where the DM is lenient about player-player communication during combat. I have been in a number of games where no player was allowed to help another player during combat; we could only exchange information that we could have done as our PCs.

This is a big problem for many groups because of that lurker guy who has been coming to the game for 2 years but still doesn't know what the hell is going on. He is fun to play with and all but tactically a nightmare.

b) lots of different tactics to use in the same situation because DMs are human and if you keep using the same tactic for situation X then they are going to develop a counter-tactic that could lead to the party ending up on their backsides.

So I like using LOW-LEVEL magic to annoy and counter the enemy. Don't get me wrong, we use tactics as well but we use magic as part of that. It has to be low-level because then the enemy can't be bothered countering it because it seems a tactically better option to attack the fighter with his +3 sword of stabbing than it is to dispel me, casting benign transposition and saving someone who is prone from getting 5 attacks of opportunity when they stand up. I like it when, it is only after the battle that people realise how pivotal some of my little spells have been in saving people's bacon.

But spells run out right? Not if you have an everwand (Magic item compendium). For the paltry sum of 840 gold you can cast almost any first level spell an infinite number of times. Since the caster level is one, this is not a good choice for attack spells. as they don't deal any damage, but with an everwand of benign transposition, nerveskitter, backbiter etc they are a brilliant tool and can allow you to defeat the nastiest monsters with a bit of battlefield skullduggery.

Oh and this is a great thread by the way; I look forward to seeing what tactics that incorporate magic and formations you advocate.

 

[Jack7]

9. Rolling the Dice – Die Rolling is not a method of combat, nor is it a combat technique. All rolling the die achieves in-game is to simulate what is often informally called “friction,” or to put it more accurately, it is merely an in-game method of resolving certain unexpressed or unknown variables of action through a mechanism of chance. There is nothing wrong with this idea in and of itself, for every form of simulation must have a method of simulating (or imitating, or mimicking, or representing) what in the real world would be settled by the results of actual activity and situational context. In combat the die represent nothing more than the mechanism through which the element of chance is expressed when measured against other variables that are relatively well known and quantifiable, such as the level of skill of the combatant, the armor or defensive capabilities of the defender, the relative state of injury or health of the various combatants, the entropy of battlefield decay, and so forth and so on. But no player, and no DM or GM, should ever confuse the mechanism of combat simulation with the real mechanism of combat, or with real methods of combat, or with real combat techniques.

In short the dice are not mechanisms of combat technique. They are mathematical and statistical probability expressions of chance in combat. Now in combat, real or imagined, the (real) aim (when considering the element of chance) is to reduce the ratio of chance or misfortune to the lowest level possible through the efficient and productive application of training, skill, logic, planning, preparation, and technique, while simultaneously increasing the ratio of positive fortune through the same means. To that end you do not simply “roll the dice” and wait to see what comes up in order to successfully execute an engagement of combat.

On the other hand, especially in a game or simulation you have to take into full account what is occurring as a result of the friction of the interplay between good fortune (when things go well for you) and misfortune (when the dice are against you). When the dice are in your favor, and assuming you are employing good combat techniques, nothing else need be really considered. Both you, as the combatant, and the element of chance are maximizing positive potential for the greatest possible expression of desired effect. In short everything turns in your favor, both your training, how you are executing your capabilities, and even the element of chance. So there is no need for me to comment upon that set of circumstances any further, except to say that even if fortune stands totally in your favor, this is not an excuse to fail to maximize your own potential through solid execution of your innate abilities and trained capabilities. Indeed the one sure way to squander the beneficial effects of good fortune is to execute your training and abilities in a lax, slipshod, unprofessional fashion, relying upon the fickle nature of fortune to settle your affairs in an affirmative manner. (Who among us would say to his friend, when faced with a problem, “well, why put any effort into solving this for yourself, just wait and see what happens? Maybe you’ll just get lucky…) You do not waste good fortune, or take it for granted; you exploit it for full benefit.

However, if you are engaged in a game combat and the dice are against you, so that misfortune, instead of good luck, rules the field and discolors your every effort at success, do you then merely accept the dictates of blind chance by submitting placidly to the dice as if they, instead of you, control the full measure of your tactical and problem solving capabilities? Of course not, such a false conclusion is patently absurd. Who, in a real combat or real war would submit to chance as the sole arbiter of whether they would be victorious or vanquished, live, or die? What then to do? Why, the same thing(s) you would do in real life to mitigate the baleful influence of severe or unforeseen misfortune. You’d change the terms and conditions of your engagement.

There are many things that can and should be done if a person or a party find themselves engaged in a combat situation and good fortune seems to have abandoned their cause. I’ll mention only a few, but all are easily achieved combat maneuvers that can radically alter the nature of an engagement, mitigate malignant misfortune, and improve the prospects for ultimate success against your enemy. 1) Retreat off the field, or at least temporarily disengage. Give yourself time and distance to disengage or withdraw from direct engagement until such time as you suspect the odds will be favorable or at least even, or the dice may fall in your favor. 2) Take effective actions that you know are not so much subject to the vicissitudes of chance. For instance almost all games include some form of chance to determine combat but many games place far less emphasis on the role of chance in the successful execution of magical powers or psionic powers. When the dice are against you, abandon them, as they have abandoned you. 3) Concentrate your fire. If two, three, or four combatants suddenly combine their attacks against a single opponent then the overall odds of at least one attack striking successfully are increased. So concentrate several combatants against a single opponent and the odds are very good the situation will change in your favor, at least against that single opponent. 4) Break certitude. (You can change chance by rechanneling it.) Redeploy against opponents who are in less favorable circumstances than yourself, or simply pick a new and different target. Turning to attack another opponent often breaks both the psychological and statistical certitude that tends to adhere (at least momentarily) to a bad or unfortunate engagement. 5) Try something new. There is no method quite so effective at ultimately assuring failure as to merely continue ad infinitum at fruitless actions awaiting a possible change of fortune or a Deus Ex Machina, that may, or may not, ever appear. When things go against you break the ties that bind. Go in a new direction, no law exists that says you are bound to fortune, or her in-game representatives, in order to generate an acceptable conclusion to the success or failure of your endeavor. Find a way. If you want to truly and ultimately succeed at anything it will be through effort, not accident. Break the shackles of uncertainty. Cut away the Gordian Knot of the unforeseen and the unintentional.

Good combat tactics account for the element of chance but are never slavishly or ignorantly bound to it. Good combat tactics exploit good fortune fully, and seek to suppress, mitigate, exhaust, change, or alter misfortune. So can you.

Remember rolling the dice is not a Combat Maneuver, not a Combat Technique, and it is most definitely not a Tactical Tool. It is a problem, a potential obstacle, and an aspect of combat you must consider, but then again you must never be blindly and hopelessly bound to it either. Develop Misfortune Countermeasures as an integrated element of your overall tactical repertoire. Know what to do when bad luck dogs your heels, do not just await the bite of a gamble you could have controlled and tamed. Then while others languish in uncertainty awaiting the roll of the die and the turn of the screw to determine their fate, you will instead be a hammer in search of the anvil that will beat out the Sword of Intention with which you will conquer in every circumstance.