Some More Experiences With Technical Grappling

Precis: I evaluate my group's experience with Technical Grappling, and conclude that the minor permanent increase in complexity sometimes pays off but its very borderline.

Doug Cole noted that Peter Dell'Orto had been using Technical Grappling in Peter's Dungeon Fantasy game, and Peter wrote a post about his group's experience with it.

My online group has also been using Technical Grappling, for at least two years, in a variety of games: +Uhuk of the Guard's Dungeon Fantasy game, my Mecha Against the Giants, my Castle of Horrors, and now in my New Dawn game. Along the way, I've had to ask questions once or twice to get clarification on how things work in Technical Grappling. I wouldn't say I have a great grasp of Technical Grappling, but I've certainly used it.

Peter gives a great overview of the relative complexity of Technical Grappling versus the standard GURPS system, and there's nothing in there that I really disagree with. Technical Grappling is a little more book keeping, but not much more, and is sometimes a little more confusing than the standard rules, but it does let you do more.

The difficult question is whether Technical Grappling's complexity is worth it? To me, it's very much a borderline answer. In my experience, there's basically two instances when grappling occurs:

1. A specialized grappler initiates grappling, with the intent of turning the victim into a pretzel or wearing them as a hat or whatever
2. Someone initiates a grapple as the least bad option out of handle of bad options, like when someone is disarmed and goes for a grapple because it at least keeps them in a combat

In both cases, the target of the grapple has very little incentive to counter-grapple. In the first case, the target is almost certainly worse at grappling than the grappler is, and struggling with the grapple is probably a worse plan than counter-attacking with a melee weapon or going into an all-out defense and hoping allies can get rid of the grappler. In the second case, whatever the target had been doing was apparently working just fine, and there's little reason to switch tactics just because the guy who was getting the worse of the exchange tried to change the game.

This can work for the PCs, of course. +Kevin Smyth had a barbarian beetle man wrestler in Uhuk's Chaos Scar game, and he used his ridiculous lifting ST, multiple arms, and mastery of wrestling to turn kobolds inside out and once pinned a dragon and broke its back while said dragon flailed away uselessly. But there was very little that Technical Grappling actually enabled; just about everything that Kevin's character did could have been done in a slightly more binary fashion with just the core rules.

My conclusion would be that Technical Grappling slightly increases the complexity and book keeping of grappling in play in 100% of the time when someone grapples, and that complexity pays off with an interesting new result in maybe 10% of the time when someone grapples. The complexity and book keeping load is just low enough that its worth it for those 10% occasions, but I could see how a different group would find the permanent complexity not worth the infrequent pay-off.

Giant Robot Wrestling

Thursday is GURPS Day! When I remember to write something, at least.

Last night was session 6 of the Mecha Against the Giants game. In session 5, the PCs attack a fortress full of giants, and at one point the leader of the giants got shot in his left hand and left leg, dropping him to the floor and mostly out of the fight. His weapons were a repeater crossbow and a two-handed sword, and he couldn't use either of them. He still could give orders, and after a while Nate's character got tired of it and went to boot the giant in the head. The giant made a one-handed wrestling grabbing parry, and that's when things got complicated. Fortunately, that's also when the session ended, so I had some time for research.

Doug to the Rescue!

Doug Cole wrote Technical Grappling (TG) and comments on this blog, so I pinged him about some questions I had. Namely:

• Grabbing Parries are at 1/2 ST. Is this because they're always one-handed, or is that an additional penalty and a true one-handed grappling parry is at 1/4 ST?
• How do being one-handed, highly trained in wrestling, flat on your back, and twice the size of your opponent all interact in TG?
• Assuming I'm a one-handed SM+4 ST160 Wrestling at DX+4 giant lying on my back with a weak grip on the leg of an SM+2 ST85 mech that is trying to kick my face in, what are my best options for defeating this guy?

Doug was kind enough to take a half hour out of his evening to answer my questions, and then excited enough to write about it at some length. Thanks again!

Doing the Math Myself

As helpful as Doug's write-up is, I need to through this step by step and work it out for myself. I don't quite "get" TG yet, and the only way to learn is by doing.

Our Contestants

Giant Warlord: SM+4, ST 160, TrST 208, DX 12, Wrestling-18, Combat Reflexes, Enhanced Parry (All) +1, Weight 25,000 lbs, BL 5120. Wearing plate armor for effective DR 60. Currently crippled in the left hand and left leg and flat on his back, with stability from his torso, right leg, and left arm.

Lt. Renault in an Artillery Ritter: SM+2, ST 85, TrST 102, DX 13, Wrestling-15, Weight 12,000 lbs, BL 1445. DR 100 (DR 40 to the rear). Currently standing adjacent to the Giant Warlord with plans to render him unconscious for further questioning, with stability coming from both his feet.

How we got here

On his turn 11, Lt. Renault kicks the Giant Warlord in the face and connects. The Giant Warlord parries at -6 (-3 for prone, -2 for a grabbing parry, -1 for a grabbing parry on a leg) and succeeds. He immediately acquires a grapple with one hand, and rolls 9d for CP (one handed grabs are at ST/2 or 80, and thrust damage for ST 80 is 9d). With an average of 32 CP, he'll give a -1 DX penalty and a -16 ST penalty to Lt. Renault's leg, and a -1 DX penalty and a -8 ST penalty everyone where on Lt. Renault from referred control. Lt. Renault also unstable since he has only one ungrappled foot.

What Happens Next

The most likely thing to happen next is one of the other two PCs in line of sight fire a 25mm APEX round in the Giant Warlord's arm for 16d pi++ injury after armor with a 2d cr ex followup, blowing it off and rendering the rest of this discussion irrelevant. However, that's boring so I'm going to assume that they miss or something.

On Giant Warlord's turn 12, he can spend CP for double effect for a Force Posture Change. He gets +2 to DX and +30% to TrST for being bigger, in a contest of Wrestling or (scaled) TrST. Taking someone to the mat is a roll at -4 (or at -6 to end up on top, which would be really useful here as Doug points out). The Warlord's effective TrST is (160+48+48)/2 or 128, while Lt. Renault is at 96 (base 102, and 8 referred CP on each of the torso, neck, and head, summed and divided by 4 for 6 CP) and no DX penalty to resist a force posture change. So it's a contest of Wrestling-20 or (scaled) TrST 16 versus Wrestling-15 or (scaled) TrST-12. With the -6 penalty for the takedown, the Giant Warlord is rolling at a slight penalty, with a +1 bonus for every 8 CP spent. He also gets a +4 for his grappling weight modifier (BL 5120 versus 12,000 lbs of mecha and probably 8,000 in carried weight). If he burns 26 CP, he's still got a weak grip on Lt. Renault's leg and a decisive bonus on the quick contest, so Lt. Renault ends up face down on the ground with the Giant Warlord lying face down on top of him.

A nearby weak giant will probably run over to join the fun, but won't move far enough to have an effective attack.

On Lt. Renault's turn 12, he'll be in bad shape. The nominal leg grapple is no big deal, but as Doug points out, he's at -11 (penalty slightly offset by his Wrestling skill) on any break free or change posture attempts because there's 12 tons of giant lying on top of him. All of his weapons are forward pointing, and his weak rear armor is exposed. I'm not sure what he should do next, really. Probably take a Wait action to roll over and shoot someone as soon as the Giant Warlord is unconscious. Knowing Nate, he'll attempt to use the backpack mounted 160mm mortar at point blank range, which I'll allow because it's awesome, hilarious, and liable to do as much damage to Lt. Renault's mech as it does the giant.

On the other PCs' turn 13, they'll be in excellent position to take out the Giant Warlord with their guns. It's vaguely possible that the Giant Warlord might get missed by two attacks, but iterative probability means that by the 3rd or 4th attack, an attack is going to connect. And with roughly 1/6th his HP remaining, it won't matter how strong or weak the attack is, as long as it connects. Lt. Renault might have to spend a couple of turns crawling out from under the giant's corpse, but this threat is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

What Does This Mean?

You can be the best wrestler in the world, but it doesn't help that much in a gunfight. Which is fine. Threats that seem dangerous but that can be quickly overcome are an important part of awesome gaming.

Melee Academy: Using Your Friends to Keep Your Reach Advantage

Melee Academy is a monthly cross-blog article and link-fest among the GURPS blogs, with each article focusing on some aspect of melee tactics. There's supposed to be a theme each month, and this month's theme is using Reach.

My contribution is an extension of Peter Dell'Orto's "Keeping Your Reach Advantage." Peter focuses on individuals using a reach weapon. I'm focusing on groups.

Shield Walls and Reach Weapons

GURPS tactics heavily favor concentration of force. Making multiple attacks from multiple sources is one of the best ways to overwhelm a target's defenses: each additional defense is at a penalty, of course, and while a Retreat gives a big bonus to Dodge and Fencing parries from a single attacker, it doesn't apply at all to attacks from a different attacker. In Dungeon Fantasy, the usual way to achieve this concentration of force is two reasonably skilled attackers making Rapid Strikes, Dual Weapon Attacks, or Extra Attacks on a single foe.

Reach weapons can explicitly be used to attack through the hex occupied by an ally (Basic p388). If two defenders with Reach 1 weapons stand in front of an allied spearman with a Reach 2 weapon, all three of them can strike an enemy adjacent to the two front characters. Even if the enemy has a Reach 2 weapon of his own, he has a -4 penalty to attack the spearmen, since the two defenders in front act as cover. The spearman can control the range easily because any foe with Reach 1 weapon has to step in Close Combat with one of his allies in order to reach him, and striking out of a close combat is a difficult business and the swordsmen still count as cover. Even if the foe decides to make a Move or Move and Attack to get to the spearman, he has to make several difficult Evade attacks to get to the spearman if he has to go through the defenders.

Taking Advantage of Reach with a Shield Wall

If the defenders have the appropriate perks (Shield Wall Training, Sacrificial Block, Sacrificial Parry, and/or Teamwork), they can even use their Defenses to defend for the spearman. Between their defenses and the use of their bodies as cover, the spearman is well enough defended that generally suicidal maneuvers such as All-Out Attacks become viable. Two defenders and two spearmen in a 2 by 2 formation can put up to 6 attacks (a normal Attack from each of the defenders and an All-Out Attack Double from each of the spearmen) against a single foe, mostly likely overwhelming any defenses.

There are a lot of variations on this tactic. Two high skill characters acting as defenders (such as a DF Knight and a DF Swashbuckler) can easily hold the line while making Defensive Attacks to improve their own defenses, while lower skill characters with Reach 2 melee weapons (such as a DF Wizard with a staff or a DF Barbarian with a two-handed flail) use All-Out Attack (Determined) to increase their odds of hitting with a big, powerful attack. Low skill guards acting as defenders on the front line can allow high skill characters standing behind them to unleash their most powerful attacks without worrying about their own defenses.

Shield walls with reach weapons are also a good trick for monsters. 8 orcs in a single line abreast are spread too thin to overwhelm a pair of PCs - each PC is attacked by only 2-4 orcs at a time. If the orcs have a shield wall and a second rank with Reach weapons, each PC can be attacked by 5 orcs, and 3 of the orcs can make All-Out Attacks. Many PCs have a hard time defending against 5-8 attacks in a single round.

Disadvantages of Shield Walls

The biggest problem with a multirank shield wall is that the characters in front can't Retreat into hexes occupied by people behind them. For some archetypes, like a heavily armored knight, this isn't a problem. A highly mobile skirmisher like a Swashbuckler who depends on Retreats to augment his defenses may find the costs of a Shield Wall to be higher than the benefits.

Another problem with a multirank shield wall is that the concentration of bodies invites area attacks. An alchemical fire grenade lobbed into the second rank of the shield wall catches at lot more people than the same grenade lobbed at a loose collection of skirmishers. 

Shield walls also invite enfilade fire: an arrow fired into the front rank may not hit the target, but there are plenty of targets beyond that it might hit. If the second rank are all making All-Out Attacks, an arrow that misses a defender in the front may hit a defenseless character in the back.

And in Dungeon Fantasy, there are a lot of things that can frustrate shield walls. A group of Acid Spiders are tall enough to walk over most SM+0 defenders, ignoring the entire question of Evade as they move to attack the relatively dangerous spearmen in the second rank. Flying, burrowing, insubstantial, and some diffuse monsters can also move past the defenders with relatively little risk.

Conclusion

Shield Walls require some investment in skill and weapon selection, but can have a big pay off in combat. Even a 4 person delving band can adopt a 2 by 2 shield wall in a narrow corridor, and more delvers or henchmen make the shield wall even better. Smart, organized monsters can also use shield walls to create a disproportionate threat.

More Melee Academy Links

• At Dungeon Fantastic, "Keeping Your Reach Advantage."
• At Gaming Ballistic, "Reach Basics."

Melee Academy: Entering a Room in Dungeon Fantasy

Welcome to (Ranged) Melee Academy

Melee Academy is a monthly cross-blog article and link-fest among the GURPS blogs, with each article focusing on some aspect of melee tactics. There's supposed to be a theme each month, and this month's theme is ranged tactics.

I'd already intended to write the following article, which is loosely tied to ranged tactics. But it's not very appropriate for the theme, since the tie-in is rather loose.

If you want a better article for (Ranged) Melee Academy, please read my excellent post on Skirmish Archer Tactics that I wrote for May's Melee Academy, when the theme was closing the distance. I just can't get the timing right on these articles.

Tactics Example: Entering a Room in Dungeon Fantasy

Tactical principles are best demonstrated through a concrete example. In this case, I am illustrating the tactics of entering an enemy occupied room in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, using my sample delving band.

Tactical Principles for Entering a Room

• Scout ahead
• Prepare before opening the door
• Proceed cautiously
• Stay together for defense and to overwhelm the foes' defenses
• Don't panic when things go wrong, but try to get back on track

These are all pretty basic. A closed door presents an unknown situation on the other side, so it makes sense to get as much information as is reasonably possible before proceeding. Listening at the door is easy and generally safe if performed by stealthy characters, but other actions such as sending rat familiars ahead or casting Earth Vision to see through walls are possible.

After the delving band has scouted ahead, they should prepare. People with multiple weapons should choose which ones they have ready depending on the available information. Archers should prepare their weapons, and spellcasters should consider casting and holding a Missile spell. Alternately, casting expensive buffs such as Great Haste before the fight starts is better than waiting for it to start. The delvers should also figure out who is going to open the door and line up to give themselves the best defense possible.

Upon opening the door and entering the room, the temptation to charge forward should be resisted. Moves and Attacks with melee weapons are low success, high risk maneuvers in GURPS. Charging an orc only to miss him and then get backstabbed by the hidden ninja is an embarrassing way to go in Dungeon Fantasy. It's generally better to the let the enemy come to you.

Moving slowly also makes it easier to stick together. A well designed DF delving band has several members with Sacrifical Parry, Shield Wall Training, and/or the Deflect Missile spell, all of which work best on a reasonably compact group. Staying together makes it harder for the enemy to get easy hits in from the flank or rear, and easier for several delvers to attack the same foe together to overwhelm his defenses.

Finally, when things go wrong, and they will, it's important to not panic. If the martial artist ran forward to get a flank shot on an ogre, the rest of the delving band should move up near him and try to form a defensive line (the martial artist should also be moving back post-haste). If the knight takes a critical hit and falls over, everyone should try to defend him while the cleric moves to cast Major Healing. GURPS can have a death spiral, but if the members of the group support each other, the spiral can be halted and reversed.

Specific Example

This example uses rooms 1 and 2 of the Hidden Fortress from Mirror of the Fire Demon. The first room contains 6 orc soldiers and 3 tough orc soldiers, along with a sprinkling of furniture. In the adjacent room, there are 3 orc sergeants, an orc shaman, and an ogre.

The door to the first room is closed, and the delvers can't see their foes. The orcs aren't paying attention either, so the delvers can prepare without alerting them. The first step is scouting: Simonne and Grumbly use Stealth to sneak up to the door while the other delvers stay way back. At the door, Simonne and Grumbly then make Hearing checks to listen, and the GM tells them they hear many orcs, arguing over something. Simonne and Grumbly sneak back to the others with this information and everyone makes plans.

Isawa knows that he casts a Missile spell now, he can prepare a larger spell without interruption than he'd be able to in combat. Since he suspects there are living foes, he's tempted to cast Concussion, but decides not to since the massive area of effect (10 yard radius stun effect) might hit his allies if the room beyond the door is too small. Instead, he elects to cast a 6d lightning bolt, and convinces the others to wait 10 minutes so he can recover some of the expended energy.

The entire delving band then draws weapons and sneaks up to the door. At the door, they arrange themselves as best they can in the narrow corridor: Sir Allen and Simonne are in front, with Simonne covered by Sir Allen's shield. Sister Jane, Grumbly, and Isawa are in the back, with Sister Jane covering Isawa with her shield. Isawa is a more of a threat to the band as long as he's carrying the lightning bolt, and Grumbly has better defenses anyway.

When everyone is in position, Simonne sheaths her sword and checks the lock on the door. Sir Allen and Grumbly take Wait maneuvers to attack anyone on the far side of the door - precaution in case one of the orcs open the door. The door isn't locked, so Simonne quietly warns everyone that she's about to open the door. As a Ready maneuver, she opens the door and immediately Fast-Draws her sword. There isn't an orc on the other side of the door, so Sir Allen's Wait is wasted, but Grumbly can see an Orc and converts his Wait maneuver into an Attack and shoots him. The orc, surprised, drops immediately with an arrow in his back. Isawa declined to take a Wait maneuver, since his Innate Attack is much lower than Grumbly's effective Bow skill, and he wants to have a clear shot before launching his most powerful attack.

The GM reports that the orcs are visibly stunned and many of them don't have their shields on or their weapons out. The group has an immediate decision to make: whether to charge into the room to slaughter the defenseless orcs, or to stay back and cautiously whittle them down with Grumbly's archery. Charging into the room exposes them to unseen traps or hidden enemies, and is really not a good idea. Unfortunately, Simonne is Impulsive and Overconfident and decides to charge into the room anyway. Since she has a high Basic Speed, she gets to act immediately after the GM notes that the orcs are surprised and stunned.

The other delvers move after her, figuring its better to spring a trap than to leave Simonne exposed and unsupported. It takes a few seconds for everyone to move through the hall and form a line of battle. Sister Jane takes position at the open corner so she can't be flanked and Sir Allen moves to cover Simonne with his shield. Grumbly moves to the other end of the line to get some open space to shoot from. He'd move past the orcs to shoot at their flanks, but the room is too small and cramped for that kind of tactic. Isawa moves up and holds onto his lightning bolt, evaluating the situation. He knows it's the biggest attack they have and he wants to hold on until a worthy target appears instead of wasting it on some random orc. In the meantime, his fire elemental can contribute to the fight by lobbing fireballs. He doesn't close up behind Simonne since she may need space to retreat once the orcs start attacking.

Unsurprisingly, several of the orcs die before they manage to recover from suprise and take the Ready actions to pick up their weapons. Grumbly focuses on shooting orcs at a distance, trusting the melee fighters to handle the ones who get close. The orcs, in turn, try to move torwards him, either with direct shield rushes or by trying to overwhelm Simonne. Grumbly is forced to retreat from a shield rush and the delvers are temporarily surrounded. At this point, the orc sergeants and the ogre come out from Room #2, having heard the shouting and fighting.

The delvers don't panic but instead begin re-establishing their line. Isawa moves back and begins aiming for the ogre while letting his fire elemental move up to melee the orcs. Grumbly steps back and shoots his bow at against the orc who charged him, and the melee fighters combine to open up some space around themselves. Meanwhile, the ogre and the senior orcs charge in, with the shaman preparing a spell.

Grumbly moves through the delver's line to get a clear shot on the shaman, knowing that Sir Allen has Sacrificial Parry on a Reach 2 weapon and should be able to defend him even at a distance. Simonne, Sister Joan, and Sir Allen move to follow and protect his flanks without exposing their own. Isawa and his fire elemental keep backing up while attacking, throwing their most powerful attacks (Isawa's held 6d lightning bolt) against the ogre.

The ogre can't do much offensively against Isawa and the fire elemental. Now that he is no longer holding a missile spell, Isawa can absorb an attack per round with his Iron Arm blocking spell, and the Fire Elemental is diffuse and mostly immune to the ogre's massive damage. Their combined attacks quickly bring the creature down. Even though the delvers' line has been breached and they've been forced to separate, the remaining opposition just isn't that credible.

More Melee Academy Links

• Douglas Cole at Gaming Ballistic starts off with a review of muscle powered ranged weapons.
• Peter Dell'Orto at Dungeon Fantastic discusses how to use enfilade fire to guarantee more of your shots hit

Melee Academy: Fundamental Tactics Principles

Welcome to the third installment of Melee Academy!

The last time we had a Melee Academy, I riffed on +Douglas Cole's post on melee positioning, giving suggestions on how to do what he recommended but better. That worked pretty well so I'm going to do it again, but this time I'm going to reinforce what he said.

Doug's advice is simple, but good: stay close to to your allies, compensate for each other's weaknesses, focus your attacks on your enemies to overwhelm them, and protect your allies when they're wounded. Those are all great basic tactical principles. But if you're part of a group in which each person goes off haring by themselves and gets ambushed and surrounded by enemies, you may wonder how you can put those principles in practice.

Communicate

Role-playing games are meant to be social and co-operative experiences, and its strange how people will stop being social in combat. As soon as the GM starts setting up the initiative order, everyone begins assessing the table and planning their own actions, but at most tables, people don't ask each other what to do.

This is a bad habit, but it's an easy to break. Before making any plans, ask the other players what they intend to do. The rogue may want to run forward and stab someone, but the wizard may want to fireball all the enemies clustered together. A few words from the rogue's player or the wizard's player can be enough to stop the confusion.

Be Patient

A good step to not haring off alone is to not go haring off at all. A lot of players want their characters to close with the enemy as quickly as possible. In a way, this is reasonable: each player's turn is their time in the spotlight, and it can be hard to resist the temptation to do something that seems proactive. A simple declaration of "I wait here for the enemy to approach" doesn't feel proactive and means giving up the spotlight almost as soon as the player gets it. But if almost every player makes a simple declaration, the turn goes by fast, and the spotlight returns to each player quickly.

The advantage of staying still and waiting for the enemy to approach is the PCs are generally aware of their immediate surroundings and in something approaching a formation at the start of a fight. If they all charge toward the enemy, they move into an area that hasn't been scouted, with unknown potential traps or ambushers. At the same time, unless the players are really good at co-operating, differences in character speed can cause formations to break up.

Another advantage to staying put is that PCs generally have superior ranged options to their enemies. In DF, the PC Scout probably has a higher accuracy, better damage, and a faster rate of fire than most enemies, and the PC Wizard can use all kinds of nasty spells to control the terrain and damage incoming enemies or channel their approach that most enemies don't have. Use those comparative advantages well, by making the enemy to come to the PCs and extending the amount of time that the PCs' ranged specialists can rain doom and destruction on the enemy.

The final advantage to waiting for the enemy, at least in GURPS, is that the Wait maneuver provides a huge tactical advantage when used well. Melee opponents who have to make Move and Attack maneuvers to reach the PCs are already at a disadvantage, and if the PCs can strike the enemy as the enemy moves into reach, things are even better for the PCs. Enemies who slow up as they approach spend more time under the eye of the Wizard and Scout, and have to do it at can't miss ranges.

Make A Plan

After a group starts communicating with each other, they can move to the next step: making a plans. Plans don't have to be complicated or involved, and they don't need to have a lot of contingencies. A reasonable plan can be made after all the PCs have acted once, and should cover what the PCs intend to do with their next actions. This should be simple stuff: "The Scout should shoot the big enemy who just shield-rushed the Knight, because the big enemy can't shield block this turn and the Scout has a good chance of killing him. The Knight needs to get off the ground and the Cleric needs to heal him. The Wizard needs to turn around and cast Create Fire in the hallway behind us to hold off whatever is running up from behind. The Swashbuckler needs to engage those two orcs before they get to the Wizard." Each plan just covers a single set of actions, and is mostly guidelines and objectives and less specific actions.

Support Your Allies

What to do if none of this works? If you yourself are telling your allies what you intend to do and they don't respond, and you stand still and wait while they go off in separate directions, and no one makes a plan or sticks to it, what can be done to improve the situation?

If nothing else, each player should try to support their allies. If the Barbarian goes charging off into unknown territory, its probably better for everyone else to follow him - or for at least one or two people to follow him - then to let him get killed all alone. If the first three PCs to act each move in a different direction, the fourth and fifth PCs should probably follow one or two of the first three rather than find their own new directions to go. That's true even if they both see a threat in a different direction than any of the directions chosen thus far.

More Melee Academy

• +Peter V. Dell'Orto gives more concrete details on tactics for being a berserker's wingman at Dungeon Fantastic.
• +Douglas Cole provides basic tactical principles at Gaming Ballistic.

Melee Academy: Tactical Positioning via Waits and Retreats

+Douglas Cole has a Melee Academy article up on Gaming Ballistic about Combat Grappling and Waits. A lot of what he writes is interesting and useful, but there's some advice that's a bit sub-optimal. There are good ways and bad ways to use the Wait maneuver in GURPS to allow a grappler to attempt an attack on a foe, and people should be aware of the good ways.

This article uses some mechanics from GURPS Martial Arts. It's an excellent book and an excellent set of additional rules for melee combats.

Closing the Distance (The Less Optimal Way)

Doug describes a simple Wait system for grapplers: Wait until the foe moves 1 hex away, and then step into close combat and attempt a grapple. As Doug himself notes, this isn't a very good system: the grappler's foe can attempt to Dodge and Retreat, at a minimum, and depending on his weapon, may be able to Retreat and Parry. And no matter what the grappler's foe does, he'll be able to use his shield DB to defend himself since the grappler attacked from the front.

Assuming two foes with roughly equal skills in the 14-18 range, and the attempted grapple victim carrying a DB2 medium shield, the system method succeeds about 1 time in 5. While this isn't any worse than other comparable combat actions, it could be a lot better.

Closing the Distance (The Better Way)

This is a more complicated system, but it works better.

1. Grappler declares a Wait and attack, triggered when the foe moves to Reach 1.
2. The foe starts more than a hex away and steps up to the grappler to attack. Both grappler and foe are facing each other at Reach 1.
3. During the foe's action, the grappler triggers the Wait and converts it to a Step and Attack maneuver. He then steps forward and to the side, moving toward the foe's weapon side. For his Attack, he uses the Feint attack option.
4. The grappler's foe makes his attack. He can't respond to grappler's movement because he already made his step.
5. Assuming the attack hits, the grappler Parries and sidesteps, moving to the foe's weapon-side flank.
6. On the grappler's next turn, he steps into close combat with the foe and attempts an Arm Lock. At a minimum, he is attacking from the off-shield flank, depriving the foe of shield DB and imposing another -2 on Parry and Dodge attempts for people without Peripheral Vision. People with Tunnel Vision (because they're wearing fully enclosed helmets or the like) can't even defend, since the attack was launched by an attacker they could not see when the attack started. The grappler's foe's defenses may be further compromised by a successful feint, and the foe has to retreat away from the grappler in order to get any bonuses - which may force him to open his back or flank to the grappler's allies.

An important point here is that in Step #3, when the grappler feint's, the foe cannot attempt a Retreat or other action to reposition himself. It's also important that the grappler's allies do not attack the foe between the grappler's sidestep and the grappler's attack, since in doing so they would give him the opportunity to Retreat and probably move to a less disadvantaged position.

Responding to an Attack and Fly Out

The grappler's foe doesn't have to Step into the grappler's Wait and get surrounded and flanked. He could try some other tricks, like making a Committed Attack to Step two hexes, advancing toward the grappler and then stepping away while turning to face the grappler square on. Doing this keeps the distance open at the cost of the foe's Parry and ability to retreat, as well as a -2 on all defenses. From the grappler's perspective, it's nearly as good as getting to the foe's flank. On his turn, the grappler can make his own Committed Attack, taking two steps to move into the foe's hex.

Sidesteps Are Not Just for Grapplers

This nasty little trick is not just for grapplers. Anyone with either a good Dodge, an excellent Active Defense from skill or shields, or a fencing Parry can attempt it with a reasonable degree of success. Characters with a low Block and Parry, a low Dodge, and a non-fencing weapon probably want to preserve their Retreat to back away at +3 to Dodge or +1 to Block or Parry.

The biggest problem with the Wait and Sidestep combination is that if the grappler's foe has allies, the grappler has generally moved away from his own allies and closer to his enemy's allies. The grappler has to be careful about not opening his own flank or rear to his foe's allies. If the grappler and his allies outnumber their foes, this can be an excellent trick for establishing a grapple or other damaging attack on an unwary and unfortunate enemy.

More Melee Academy Links

Other contributions in this week's Melee Academy series on Waits and Timing can be found at:

Dungeon Fantastic - +Peter V. Dell'Orto writes about Stop Hit
Orbs and Balrogs - +Christian Blouin writes about creating and holding combat initiative
RPG Snob - +Jason Packer throws down about combat pacing
Gaming Ballistic - +Douglas Cole starts a conversation about Wait tactics and Grappling

The Effectiveness of Knights in Dungeon Fantasy

The Effectiveness of Knights in Dungeon Fantasy

This is part of the Melee Academy series with +Peter V. Dell'Orto at Dungeon Fantastic and +Douglas Cole at Gaming Ballistic writing about shields and +Jason Packer at RPG Snob focusing on two-handed weapons.

Introduction

Knights are an interesting template in Dungeon Fantasy. On the one hand, they have a very straightforward combat role: masters of armed melee slugfests. On the other hand, they have rather limited utility outside of combat. By default, they lack supernatural powers, but they have enough points available for customization to buy a full lens from another template and still have points left over. Overall, how do they rate?

The Basic Chassis

Knights start with solid physical attributes and low mental attributes, which is reasonable for a physically oriented template. They have excellent combat skills, with reasonable amounts of unarmed ability, missile and shield skills, and primary weapon skills in the 17+ range. Knights also have a good selection of weapons, with a variety of sw/cu choices available but also flails and spears.

For secondary skills, knights get low levels of Armory, Tactics, Strategy, and Leadership. These aren't bad skills, but they are mental skills that the knight isn't particularly good at, which lowers their effective utility. An optimized wizard with IQ17+ can have better Armory at default than the trained knight, which can make many knight players ask why they bother.

One interesting quirk of DF is that Carousing, the skill of gathering rumors in taverns, is an HT skill. There's something slightly weird about the way that the knights and barbarians of DF are the ones who find most of the potential quests. Still, it gives the physical templates a way to contribute in the pre-adventure planning, so it's probably for the best.

Advantage Selection

All knights have Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold, which are nearly mandatory for focused combatants: Combat Reflexes helps avoid hits, avoid surprise, and avoid being scared by monsters; while High Pain Threshold means a knight can take hits and keep fighting. They also have 60 points to spend at their discretion, and a good list of advantages to buy. A knight can add an entire lens to give themselves slightly more versatility, improve their basic attributes, or add Luck and Weapon Master to give themselves the daredevil attitude and stupid damage abilities of the swashbuckler.

One often overlooked advantage choice that more knights should take is increased Basic Move. Knights are usually at Medium or worse encumbrance, slowing them down quite a bit. All of a knight's great combat abilities mean nothing if the combat is over before the knight arrives at Move 3 or less.


Knight! or Not

The option to use Wildcard skills requires some interesting choices from the Knight. On the default template, knights have 51 points allocated to knightly skills, so a Knight! can have Knight! at stat+2 and 3 points left over. It's basically a trade of ridiculously high primary weapon skills for improved mental skills and the ability to use a lot of weapons. Knights who anticipate acting as heavy cavalry should definitely take this option, since the 3-skill set of Broadsword, Lance, and Riding (Horse) gets bought at stat+2 anyway.

For games that are using Wildcard skills and the destiny point rules from Monster Hunters, Knight! is a much simpler decision. The 4 destiny points that can be spent in combat are very valuable, and are probably worth not having skill-20 in a single weapon.

Knights and Race

In games using the Tolkien family of races, knights are mostly going to be humans or dwarves. Dwarves get Pick-axe penchant, for cheap increases skill for axes, and cheaper dwarven axes. Elves and halflings don't bring as much to the table.

In games using the full range of DF races, there are a lot of fun but sometimes expensive options. Gargoyles have inherent DR and wings, reinforcing one of the knight's strengths and improving their Move and maneuverability to get around one of their weaknesses. Coleopterans have 4 arms, which means a Knight! can reasonably carry a pole-arm, bastard sword, large shield, and a slung crossbow or bow, and use each and every one of them as the tactical situation demands. Half-ogres are stupidly strong and can be bought with Weapon Master (primary weapon and shield) and Luck out of the starting point budget.

Equipping Knights

The basic choice for a knight is either medium shield and axe or flail versus two-handed sword. Knights who can buy perks have the option of Reach Mastery, which opens up pole-arms as a cheap and versatile version of the expensive two-handed sword. If perks are available, Sacrificial Parry is nearly mandatory and Shield Wall Training is de rigeur for knights with (large) shields. Knights with shields generally want to use thrown weapons for ranged attacks, since the mechanics of strapping and unstrapping a shield take too long. Two-handed swordsman can use crossbows and bows as they please.

For armor, the simple choice is knights want as much armor as they can afford, counterbalanced against the need to have a Move of 4+.

Knights in Play

The role of the knight is to find quests while drinking in taverns and to destroy mortal enemies while exploring dungeons. The knight is the go-to guy for fighting animals, corporeal undead, and constructs. A reasonably constructed starting knight can defeat even deadly monsters like Siege Beasts or Sword-Armor Golems.

Despite his strengths, the knight needs a fair bit of support in typical delving situations. While he's nearly immune to surprise and resistant to fear, he doesn't have the ranged firepower of the scout and tends to move slowly, so powerful ranged combatants at a distance are a problem. He has no good way to deal with diffuse opponents, so things like flaming skulls, erupting slime, and toxifiers are a problem. A Low Will score makes him vulnerable to mind-affecting supernatural foes. Still, in most games, these are less common threats that the hordes of melee focused monsters, so the knight is usually a valuable member of the team.

As mentioned upthread, the knight has less to do out of combat. He can bash doors and lift heavy loads, but most people want a bit more pep in their utility than "loud skeleton key" and "mule". Armory has some uses for identifying treasure, but with skill-11, I've seen Knights fail to notice that a silk jacket was actually made of Giant Spidersilk. Knight! helps here.