Topic: Do "Running & Attacking" rules contradict "Charging" rules in RM2/RMC?

[C.Tozer]

Hi all

Happy Halloween.

A question I have been trying to get my head around is how do the moving and attacking vs the charging rules work in RM2/RMC.
My understanding is a character can move (any thing up to a run or x2 base moment rate (BMR) as per p.30 RMC Arms Law) to 50% of their action and then attack with a maximum of 50%. In other words a PC with a BMR of 55 could run at 50% of their action for 55’ and a then use 50% of their OB to attack.

Sure, that kinda makes sense; you can move a bit during your 10 seconds and then attack a bit. Neither will be super effective but sure you can do both.  But this means you can’t run more than 50% of your action as you need 50% of your action to attack.

However, on p.28 RMC Arms under the Charging Rules it seems to directly contradict the above rules.

The charging rules seem to say that you can move more than a run (x2 BMR) ie “The combatant must use a Pace of AT LEAST Run to close with their foe” my own emphasis).
AND not only does there not appear to be any restriction on the amount of percentage you can use in your attack but you also get a bonus of however many feet the charge has been capped at +50/50 foot. Also, yes, the defender also gets the same bonus gets reduced from the charging characters defensive bonus but still these Charging Rules seem out of whack no?

The Charging Rules seem to contradict the normal move and attack rules or have I missed something?

So what is the answer?

How do you play “Move and Attack” and “Charge” in your games please?

[Majyk]

Answered on FB, too, but figured I’d post here since it may help others with the difference:

“So, for charging, you’re getting the bonus due to impetus relayed from using all of your move and ending your turn next to your chosen target.

You still track and take a negative mod for every percentage of activity used to move in this way, but it is offset by the bonus of +1/foot moved in a straight line into your target.

For Move and Attack, you can use any combination of percentage activity to reach your target - up to 50% of your movement - but it then allows you to use whatever else is leftover once you reach said target:

Target is 20’ away and your PC has a BMR of 50’/rnd.
Whatever pace you decide upon gets you to your target and you opt for a bare minimum 50% attack.
Once resolved, your turn doesn’t *have* to end and many people forget this...you can still use up whatever amount of % activity is left from 100%-% activity used.

So if you have 25-30% leftover after reaching and attacking your target, you can take the Disengage action and get away in a type of Drive By attack without any kind of “AoO”.

If your GM doesn’t use sticky combat, you can just leave with whatever % activity you have left for free.”

[markc]

I did a search on the ICE Forums for charging and came up with 10 pages of results, you may want to look at the past posts as I seem to remember a lot of discussions about this topic.


MDC

[markc]

I also seem to remember a min distance you need to move to charge discussed but do not remember where or when but you may want to look at rules for that.


I also remember some of the rules for charging tended to be very powerful in the terms of providing an OB bonus that you may want to limit in some way that is not just move X and get Y bonus no matter what skill you have.


Mounted Combat rules for charging should be different then a person charging, IMHO.


You also might want to think of ways to allow defenders to offset the bonus from charging as it can be a large bonus compared to others in some combat rules.


I myself always wondered just how effective charging is in combat vs how it is represented in some RPG rules. To me the open ended bonus I seem to remember being discussed was very overpowered when looked at in terms of animals that can move very quickly in any environment.


MDC

[Hurin]

I think much of the discussion was about charging in RMU. IMHO you have to tread a fine line between making charging helpful but not unrealistically strong. In real life, flat out charging is not as useful -- at least not versus a skilled opponent -- as it is sometimes portrayed in popular media. There was a reason Spartans advanced into combat at a brisk walk rather than a run.

RMU offers a way to make charging more realistic: adding a size advantage. This imho makes for a more realistic charge, because you can make it hit harder (size advantage) while also making it less accurate (OB penalty).

[C.Tozer]

Belated thanks for the answers folls.