Topic: Missiles into melee

[Spectre771]

Something I just realized that we have all been overlooking.   Combat takes place simultaneously.  The results of the combat are just resolved according to the initiative order.  The same time Argor lunges at the ogre is the same time Merollin lets loose with a fireball and Robbyn the Friend of the Poor Folk lets loose with an arrow which is also the same time the ogre decides to make a grab for Argor to give him a big hug.  Once actions are declared and those dice are cast, that arrow is already in flight and the incantation is completed and the fireball is coalesced as the other actions are occurring.  A real life fight isn't "I'll punch you first, then you punch me, then I'll stand still so your friend can throw a rock at me, then we'll see who gets to punch first after that so your friend doesn't accidentally hit you with a rock when he throws it at me.  Ok?" 

Imagine two of your friends fighting and getting into a scrap and you decide you're going to shoot into the combat as they are squirming and moving around.  The reality is that you wouldn't throw a rock into a melee scuffle to help a friend out in combat. 

[Ginger McMurray]

I wouldn't. Then again, I'm not a 100-year old elf who has been training with a bow since childhood.

We use the alternate initiative system in RMCI, so things aren't simultaneous.

[jdale]

My personal experience shooting in battlefield conditions (SCA and LARP) is that you certainly can do so, but I spent a lot more time lining up the shot and trying to catch the target at a moment when they were open. Maybe it dropped the rate of fire in half. I think a penalty is a reasonable approach though. You could allow the archer to reduce the penalty by some amount for every round they were willing to hold the shot and wait.

[intothatdarkness]

Something I just realized that we have all been overlooking.   Combat takes place simultaneously.  The results of the combat are just resolved according to the initiative order.  The same time Argor lunges at the ogre is the same time Merollin lets loose with a fireball and Robbyn the Friend of the Poor Folk lets loose with an arrow which is also the same time the ogre decides to make a grab for Argor to give him a big hug.  Once actions are declared and those dice are cast, that arrow is already in flight and the incantation is completed and the fireball is coalesced as the other actions are occurring.  A real life fight isn't "I'll punch you first, then you punch me, then I'll stand still so your friend can throw a rock at me, then we'll see who gets to punch first after that so your friend doesn't accidentally hit you with a rock when he throws it at me.  Ok?" 

Imagine two of your friends fighting and getting into a scrap and you decide you're going to shoot into the combat as they are squirming and moving around.  The reality is that you wouldn't throw a rock into a melee scuffle to help a friend out in combat.

If you're using the RAW RM2 Phased combat round it's actually not simultaneous. I let people shoot into melee, but balanced it with moving target penalties as well as a solid chance that a miss might hit friendlies.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

I don't think we are overlooking the simultaneous nature of combat conditions, rather than trying to cope with them.

My interpretation is that the RAW are a simulation of combat, which is close to simultaneous, even with only two combatants, but that the complexities and randomness of combat are so great in a game that it's unwieldy to attempt without some element of "order" that the RAW attempt to instill. 

"Real-life" combat is as near simultaneous as you can get... even more so the greater number of combatants involved, at least past the initial stages. Imagine you are watching a game of Rugby (or for Americans..American Football) or virtually any team contact ball sport, lets's say a player wants to make a pass. How many variables are there? How much easier is it when the receiver is wide, still and in the open... and the quarterback isn't being charged down by three defensive lineman? What's the chance that the pass being intercepted or bounces off the head of one of an intervening team-mate/opponent even if the pass would otherwise be accurate? Or the chance that the quarterback chooses not to take that chance at all?

Whilst determining this there are another ten or so other players performing actions.. all of which could conflict, or not, with his decision to attempt the pass or not. That's why the RAW are designed as if not simultaneous, not because combat isn't.

In the end, it depends how accurate you want to get when including the multitude of possible end-results.

[Ecthelion]

For RMSS/RMFRP there is a ruling on the Rolemaster Ruling page which says "Shooting past someone and firing into melee should be handled using the partial cover modifications." It also lists the option to roll an attack on the target shot past if the initial attack misses.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

LOL Great minds think alike! (More or less)  Almost the same as what I'd suggested above for accidental hits.. Many thanks for the link, hadn't known there was an official (ish) rulings (clarification/ errata) document before.

[Cory Magel]

Something I just realized that we have all been overlooking.   Combat takes place simultaneously.  The results of the combat are just resolved according to the initiative order.

I always cringe just slightly when this topic comes up. Probably why I like either a very specific, second by second, system or a more broad, all encompassing, round (the BattleTech round). I've never understood why I'd bother with everyone rolling initiative if it really didn't impact the final outcome of the round.

I'll try to give an example of my idea of how a 'longer' round (10 second to 1 minute) goes without being long winded...

My opinion is that movement in a round is very fluid or abstract. Two combatants are constantly moving to some degree, repositioning, feinting attacks, looking for openings, changing their stance, checking their surroundings, etc.  But the attack roll itself is 'the' opening that they feel they have the best shot of landing a blow and is, therefore, the one they roll for.  The greater the skill the more opportunities they may (feel they) have - i.e. multiple attacks. Therefore, while two miniatures may be sitting still in two hexes facing each other, in reality they are bobbing and weaving and so forth (implied movement).

As a small example, Rolemaster gives a third attacker a bonus. If you are fighting two foes you are most likely going to put them on your right and left forward flanks. Therefore if a character is standing looking East, and two foes approach from the West, I'm going to allow the character to turn and face them for free. When faced with three opponents the player is going to need to chose if his character is directly facing one foe, giving the two others rear flank attacks, or facing two foes (right and left forward flanks) and giving one foe a direct back attack advantage. (We're assuming an open battlefield, if there were walls or obstacles each side could use them to their advantage obviously).

However, from there, the initiative determines who gets that first jab in. Which of the two sees their first opening. When a ranged attacker sees a good 'lane' open up to their target. Etc.

In this way you slightly abstract movement, but not attack actions. This does away with the idea that the damage you do is 'a series of blows' since that doesn't jive very well with how Rolemaster attack and critical tables work. But allows for the explanation of a lot of other things that might happen over the course of the round.

This way initiative really means something.

Imagine two of your friends fighting and getting into a scrap and you decide you're going to shoot into the combat as they are squirming and moving around.  The reality is that you wouldn't throw a rock into a melee scuffle to help a friend out in combat.

I'm with jdale on this. Simulate it as a penalty to keep it simple.

Allow the player their roll, just make it less likely to hit. Keep the same, basic, balance, but let the player to continue to feel more engaged.

[Skaran]

Our house rule was to rule the target as protected by either partial or full soft cover depending on the gms call of the situation. We did not use hard cover as we felt everyone was moving and sometimes the target would have cover and sometimes not. If the target was 'missed' by the value of the cover or less then some other target was automatically hit (we use the original attack roll for this but the auto hit does not get any cover mods, it was auto hit) If the target was missed by more than this a luck roll is made, bad luck means a target was hit good luck no one else was hit.

[Majyk]

I used to rule like this with “autohits cover” until cover was a Dervish with AT4(MAGIC) and a DB of 50+ vs the original target with AT2(damn you crappy Robes!) and a DB of 10...

Crunch, babee. 
Get some crunch in there regarding map positions or PCs will always Shoot into Melee which means NPCs will - and we know that means curtains for the Players way more often just due to pure ratio of combats they survive vs their never-ending supply of enemies!

[Hurin]

I like the quasi-official ruling of partial cover and a chance of hitting allies on a miss.

Overall, i tend to see the system the same way that Cory does too. The only part where I think the concept of treating combat as a kind of 'best aimed blow of the round' rather than a flurry breaks down is when characters are fighting creatures that aren't moving or dodging (e.g. a stone sentinel, or held creature) or fighting inanimate objects such as a wall of ice. The fact that the system doesn't allow you to make more effective multiple attacks against them suggests that combat is more of a flurry of blows than a sequence of dodging and weaving to get to a single good opportunity per round. No one who is sane is dodging and weaving around the wall of ice until it lets its guard down.

I do also like what JDale said about shots taking longer to line up when foes are in melee. I think imposing a cover penalty that can be reduced or eliminated by taking more time on the shot is both realistic and tension-building, so i think I will adopt that as a house rule. In fact, i would even like to see it as a core rule in RMU (which has reduced the time needed to make a ranged attack): maybe make a missile attack into melee cost 4ap, to help produce a balance between missile and melee more like that of earlier editions.

[MisterK]

I like the quasi-official ruling of partial cover and a chance of hitting allies on a miss.

Overall, i tend to see the system the same way that Cory does too. The only part where I think the concept of treating combat as a kind of 'best aimed blow of the round' rather than a flurry breaks down is when characters are fighting creatures that aren't moving or dodging (e.g. a stone sentinel, or held creature) or fighting inanimate objects such as a wall of ice. The fact that the system doesn't allow you to make more effective multiple attacks against them suggests that combat is more of a flurry of blows than a sequence of dodging and weaving to get to a single good opportunity per round. No one who is sane is dodging and weaving around the wall of ice until it lets its guard down.

It also breaks down for missile weapons - the 'best aimed blow of the round' makes little sense when there is only one. Mind you, it fits the actual rate of fire more or less (accounting for time to aim at least a bit and try to hit a moving, actively doding target). I think the explanation is only applicable for melee because one strike in melee is much faster than the 1 attack/10 seconds rate RM uses as default. Rather, I understand it as the "only strike attempt that has a realistic chance to connect". But this is not always practical, especially for dueling with light, precision weapons, where you could actually have several hit chances in that same span of time. Similarly, it also breaks down somewhat when there is a large skill difference.

All in all, I think the explanation is only suited to medieval melee combat with medium to heavy weaponry, at least on one side. I think it was both the implicit intent and the implicit limitation of the system.

[Hurin]

Yes MisterK, I think you are right. The flurry of blows can really only apply to melee combat (and i think thats all it was ever meant to apply to).

RMU makes things significantly better imho by reducing the length of the round by half, to 5 seconds, and by allowing quick attacks for 2ap (essentially 50%activity) at a penalty. This gets us very close to being able to do away with the flurry idea altogether. I also houseruled RMU to allow 1 ap attacks (-75 penalty), which allows us more or less to do away with the flurry concept altogether.

[intothatdarkness]

Yes MisterK, I think you are right. The flurry of blows can really only apply to melee combat (and i think thats all it was ever meant to apply to).

RMU makes things significantly better imho by reducing the length of the round by half, to 5 seconds, and by allowing quick attacks for 2ap (essentially 50%activity) at a penalty. This gets us very close to being able to do away with the flurry idea altogether. I also houseruled RMU to allow 1 ap attacks (-75 penalty), which allows us more or less to do away with the flurry concept altogether.

I've actually gotten to the one attack = one blow model, but I'm using a damage limiting mechanism instead of an attack penalty (works out the same, perhaps, but I bias more toward attack strength for this). And I also agree the flurry of blows has NEVER worked for missile and was one of the major flaws in the RM combat system.

[Hurin]

Yes MisterK, I think you are right. The flurry of blows can really only apply to melee combat (and i think thats all it was ever meant to apply to).

RMU makes things significantly better imho by reducing the length of the round by half, to 5 seconds, and by allowing quick attacks for 2ap (essentially 50%activity) at a penalty. This gets us very close to being able to do away with the flurry idea altogether. I also houseruled RMU to allow 1 ap attacks (-75 penalty), which allows us more or less to do away with the flurry concept altogether.

I've actually gotten to the one attack = one blow model, but I'm using a damage limiting mechanism instead of an attack penalty (works out the same, perhaps, but I bias more toward attack strength for this). And I also agree the flurry of blows has NEVER worked for missile and was one of the major flaws in the RM combat system.

Interesting. What is the damage limiting mechanism?

I ask not only because that is an interesting concept, but also because RMU already has a damage limiting mechanism baked into its core rules: namely, size reduction. That would be easy to implement.

[intothatdarkness]

I reduce damage based in part on the old SpaceMaster Mark mechanic, and it's also linked to the AP cost of an attack. A 1AP attack does the least damage, because you're sacrificing hitting power for speed. The next step up is a 2AP attack with average damage potential. A 4AP attack goes into the top damage range, but since I use an AP count to determine who acts when, you're attacking close to last in the melee scheme of things. I'm also tying crits to fighting style instead of having separate attack tables for each style. Obviously my own rules instead of core RM of any type, but I think some of the concepts would transfer.

[Hurin]

Those are interesting ideas. The SM mark mechanic is essentially the same as the RM2 size mechanic (for natural weaponry) or Martial Arts rank mechanic. But it is also not that different than the RMU size mechanic. That got me thinking about using the RMU size mechanic to handle quick attacks in RMU: e.g. a 2 ap melee attack might be reduced a size category or two, rather than suffering a -50 penalty (as is the current rule in RMU). I know my players hate suffering any OB penalty to their attacks, so rarely use quick attacks. But if the penalty were just a size reduction, I think they would use them more often.

I'm not sure exactly where that gets me, but it is a new and interesting place to contemplate, or even playtest.

Similarly, I would like to try the idea of applying an optional, extra AP cost for firing missiles into melee, on the basis of JDale's experiences actually firing missiles into melee. We might for example say that if a normal missile shot (not into melee) costs 3 ap, a shot into melee might cost 4 AP. That is effectively making it a -25 attack, but allowing a character to take an extra 1.25 seconds to aim or wait for an opportunity to get a clean shot without hitting an ally.

[intothatdarkness]

I still prefer moving target modifiers as opposed to increasing AP costs, but I know that for some unknown reason RM seems to be constitutionally opposed to the idea.
I have an increased AP cost for an Aimed attack, but that's a somewhat different concept.

[KPadish]

I like the idea of giving the target additional DB (Call it partial cover or whatever, it's harder to hit).  I would then inform my players that a miss has a certain percentage of hitting one of the other combatants.  I use 20% for every other combatant in that melee (including other enemies if there are any). 

You can also use RM "deliberate action" to help shoot into combat but that would depend on your initiative system and how you want to work that.  If you want to get realistic, it depends on how close the archer is and how long the arrow will be in the air.

All of that being said, my players know not to shoot into combat unless there's a large size difference between the attackers and the attackie (i.e. troll or giant).  Every archer should have a backup weapon that they employ when things get close and personal.

[Ginger McMurray]

You can also use RM "deliberate action" to help shoot into combat but that would depend on your initiative system and how you want to work that.

Where is that?