Combat Tasks to help archer in small Fellowships

[zedturtle]

And I guess once they kill a single opponent, the archer can start shooting - or? I'll start reading the book. I really like what I've heard and read about this system in general

Maybe the fact that I'm an archer myself also plays a role here to be honest

Well, at six opponents the archer could shoot from the start. But ,yeah, sometimes I'd throw seven or eight at them, so that the pressure is on the drop an enemy or two to free up the archer.

[Glorelendil]

In prior discussions on this topic a recurring complaint is the absolute nature of the rule. That is, instead of saying "it's really hard and/or dangerous" it just says "you can't".

So maybe a middle ground would be that for each opponent above two with which you are engaged, you suffer cumulative penalties. So if the archer wants to let his companions get swamped so that he can hang back and shoot, that's his decision.

[zedturtle]

I don't know... I'm pretty good with a sword (though admittedly not a professsional warrior, but neither are most characters in TOR) and I doubt if I had two enemies engaged that I could prevent a third from rushing my archer buddy. I'm sure that there are scenarios (narrow staircase, PCs have the high ground) where it might be feasible, but generally speaking I'm ok with the rule as it is... a front-line fighter keeping three foes from attacking (while possible defending another companion) is pretty epic.

Heck, I might even propose the following chart to help with the "Defensive stance, all the time" problem:

Forward: Up to three foes engaged.
Open: Up to two foes engaged.
Defensive: Only one foe engaged.

[Robin Smallburrow]

I also think skill with the weapon should be considered here - for example, I would be more prepared to allow an archer with skill 6 in a bow to do a ranged attack despite being engaged in melee than an archer who only had skill 2

Robin S

[JoeArcher]

Perhaps I just need to embrace this more abstract combat. I really like the idea of not moving miniatures around the table. I'm used to wfrpv3, and while it tries to be a bit abstract, it really isn't and is very cumbersome.

[Glorelendil]

I don't know... I'm pretty good with a sword (though admittedly not a professsional warrior, but neither are most characters in TOR) and I doubt if I had two enemies engaged that I could prevent a third from rushing my archer buddy.

I was not so much suggesting that the close combat guys prevent the adversaries from attacking the archer; more that the archer is letting his buddies do the heavy lifting so he can stand in the back and shoot arrows if he really wants to.

[zedturtle]

I don't know... I'm pretty good with a sword (though admittedly not a professsional warrior, but neither are most characters in TOR) and I doubt if I had two enemies engaged that I could prevent a third from rushing my archer buddy.

I was not so much suggesting that the close combat guys prevent the adversaries from attacking the archer; more that the archer is letting his buddies do the heavy lifting so he can stand in the back and shoot arrows if he really wants to.

Can you unpack this a little for me? Usually, we're on the same page with a lot of this stuff and I feel like we're reading from two different books right now... maybe they're telling the same story in a different way, maybe not?

[Glorelendil]

I don't know... I'm pretty good with a sword (though admittedly not a professsional warrior, but neither are most characters in TOR) and I doubt if I had two enemies engaged that I could prevent a third from rushing my archer buddy.

I was not so much suggesting that the close combat guys prevent the adversaries from attacking the archer; more that the archer is letting his buddies do the heavy lifting so he can stand in the back and shoot arrows if he really wants to.

Can you unpack this a little for me? Usually, we're on the same page with a lot of this stuff and I feel like we're reading from two different books right now... maybe they're telling the same story in a different way, maybe not?

Maybe I'm not making sense at all, but here goes:

1) I think the rules are fine.
2) Some people complain that they don't like rules that say 'you can't do X', they'd rather see rules that say 'Here are the odds for trying X...'
3) So for those people, I'm suggesting that instead of just saying "You can't shoot your bow unless there are fewer opponents than X" it could be: "If you use your bow when there are more opponents than X, here are the penalties..."
4) Unless you are playing Legolas in a Peter Jackson movie, the penalties for shooting a bow while somebody is hitting you with a sword would amount to "You invite the Orc to stab you repeatedly". Therefore, I think you still have to be in Rearward Stance, so the penalty has to be something that occurs when you assume R.S. against more opponents than 2xFellowship.
5) So my proposal is that "If you don't step up and take your share of all those opponents in close combat, all of your friends who are in close combat stance are going to have a rough time of it."

But....I just realized there's a problem with all of this. A hero can only be engaged by 3 adversaries (fewer for large adversaries.) If you have exactly 2 close combat heroes for every ranged hero, when the number of adversaries is equal to twice the size of the party, each hero in close combat will be engaged with exactly 3 adversaries. So if more adversaries joined, none of those adversaries would be able to engage one of the heroes in a c.c. stance, because they'd each already have 3 on them. So for the archers to remain out of melee, some of the adversaries would have to be standing around doing nothing.

So, um, nevermind. There are three choices:
1) Keep the rules.
2) Go all Peter Jackson and allow archery against melee attacks.
3) Start a domino chain of rule changes.

I'll stick with #1.

[zedturtle]

Yeah, that was kind of what I was driving it. An archer is going to get involved in close combat when the odds are against them, not because they're lazy, but because of they're being bum rushed by opponents and there's nobody to stop the opponent from closing with the archer.

[JoeArcher]

After thinking about it, I like the way it works. Taking away this limitation would actually reduce the tactical complexity and disadvantage of being overrun. I think I'm starting to like the RAW. I just need to keep an open mind and not let my past experiences with more traditional combat systems get in the way of grasping the beauty of this system. Thanks for this thread, has given me a lot of points to ponder