Disengage from melee

[rsarres]

Disengage from melee is a 30% action that removes the player from combat. I find it strange that it is not a maneuver/skill, it is a instant success as I understood. Am I missing a maneuver somewhere in the book?

Anyway: I am thinking about ruling that it requires an acrobatics or AG roll on the maneuver table and the difficulty is based on the agressiveness (OB/DB ratio) of the attacker: 0-10%OB=routine, 11-20%=Easy, ...  90%OB+=Absurd
I think is very difficult to distract a very aggresive foe and run away.
What do you think?

[Hurin]

It is an interesting idea, and I think you could make it work.

I might tie it more to the attacker's total OB rather than OB/DB split, or else it will be a harder maneuver to disengage from a feeble Wizard with a dagger (OB total of 10 but all 10 spent on attacking) than a skilled swordsman (OB 150 but reserving 10 of that 140 for parry).

RMU has a section on Withdrawing that was added (imho) due to player demand for a bit more clarity on how one withdraws from another character's zone of control ('combat zone' -- another new addition), though still nothing quite so well defined as D&D's Disengage. To fill the gap, I've added a D&D style disengage action to my own games, which is just a 1 Action Point (25% activity) with no roll required, but I allow attackers also to 'Press' (reserve 1 AP or 25% activity) so they can pursue the person disengaging.

I think JDale also uses opposed checks for this sort of thing, so that might be an option as well.

[brole]

There is Feinting skill in Arms Companion p71, with option 1 is a way to 'skill' disengaging from melee.
And/or use MM as needed, such as dash, tumble evasion.

[Wolfwood]

I've kind of house-ruled this: if someone wants to disengage, they have to commit to full parry. They get a parry bonus for this and if they manage to avoid all melee attacks coming at them, they are considered disengaged on the next round and can continue withdrawing.

Of course, their opponents may declare that they will follow and then it will be up to their movement speeds etc.

[marseu77]

This as been partially treated in Q&A Section of Arms Law RM2.
This is the way we do tryng to follow that indication:
If a combatant tries to flee in the manuver phase, while engaged in melee, the opponent makes a manuver roll on MM Table to see if he can attack the fleeing enemy and with wath portion of is OB.
Obvisuoly if the fleeing character turns is facing, the attacker also has position OB bonuses for this attack.
Anyway the attack is made in the Manuver phase, so then the attacker should not attack in the melee phase, unless hasted etc...

[Frabby]

Disengaging as such isn't the same thing as running away though. And it certainly doesn't indicate you're turning your back to the enemy. That *could* happen if the player announces it as their action, and try to sprint/run away at max speed hoping their pursuer won't have a high enough initiative to pursue.

Instead, we've always treated this as a full parry action that seeks to increase distance between the combatants to beyond melee range. It will work automatically in many cases, depending on the declared action of the other party. But if your opponent declared "Press and melee" then you're out of luck... however your opponent may find they're now out of position. My players have in fact used this as a tactic to lure out stupid opponents to allow for other PCs to get flanking or rear attacks.