Multiple attacks?

[Robin Smallburrow]

See the thread on Dual Wielding just a bit below for more discussion on this topic. Just remember that although 'nothing is impossible' a LM should point out what penalties will apply to second and third attacks - IMV a -4 penalty unless character does have a Dual Wielding specialty or is Ambidextrous.

The seperate question about being able to 'target' more than one foe with a single attack is in my view a Called Shot, and should be declared as such before dice are rolled. Although I do allow 'attacking a second target' as an option if a PC has scored a Great/Xtraordinary Success on a combat roll (depending on circumstances).

Robin S.

[Ferretz]

Well, dual-wielding is not the main focus on the kind of rule addition I'm writing. The thing my players have been asking for is if they can attack more than one enemy in a single round.

I'm setting it up as a Mastery for each single weapon (not weapon group). When you select this Mastery, you can spend Experience points to get more advantages with that weapon (you get one advantage when you select the Mastery). It takes one Fellowship phase to train an advantage.

One advantage is called Quick Strike or Quick Shot. You get to attack several times with the weapon, but for each extra attack you want to do in that turn, you remove one Success Die from all attacks. The requirement is that the weapon used har 3 or less in Encumbrance (so no Great Spears or Great Axes).

Dual-wielding is another advantage, but it can only be used for Dagger, Short Sword or Axe. Dagger gives +1 to Parry, Short Sword gives +1 to Damage and Parry and Axe gives +2 to Damage. The Encumbrance of the secondary weapon is added to your primary weapon. This is important if you also want to use Quick Strike.

Remember, both these advantages (or techniques) require a lot of training, and thats why they are require a Mastery, Experience and Fellowshop Phases. I know dual-wielding is not historically accurate, but then again, Middle Earth is not history, and players will want to use it (of course, 1700th century swordsmen used dual-wielding to great effect). Also, Hobbits seem more like 1800th century English gentlemen sometimes, and that's not historically correct either )

In the end, the main goal is to have fun with the game.

E.

[Corvo]

Ok Ferretz, about your weapon mastery: be aware that the whole "-1d6 to attack for an extra attack" is very advantageous for low Body heroes, not so much for Beornings or Dwarves.
Basically you are trading Great/extr. successes for more basic damage...

2 consequences in my mind:
1- high body heroes are a bit shafted. And body is already the less useful stat.
2-virtues like "fell handed" become, well, almost useless: +1 to great success damage is nothing compared to +7 damage for a Long Hafted Axe.

[Ferretz]

Ah, that's pretty game breaking in my book. I'll have to put that back on the drawing board.
Might be better to let players split the die pools as first suggested. But only if you have the Mastery.

E.

[Eclipse]

Multiple attacks should be approached carefully if the goal is to speed up things. If everyone gets multiple attacks, you roll the same number of times, you just cut the number of combat rounds, which, depending on the rules system, might be faster, but going from one round to next is usually not that time consuming. If the additional attacks are at a reduced skill, the number of rolls needed often increases, as misses become more common. Now your experienced fighter actually needs more attacks to kill the Goblins ... probably not what was wanted ...

Several rules systems use mooks, basically opponents that are easily taken out and can appear in great numbers because of that. Instead of probably adding more rolls via multiple attacks, you could try to do something like having damage overflow from one mook to the next. Same number of rolls, but the unused excess damage becomes useful. This favours player-characters wit high damage, of course. Another way could be to allow each tengwar rune to take out a mook; this puts more emphasis on high weapon skill.

You would have to define mooks, though. For example, the easiest way would probably be anything with an attribute level of 2. Or something more flexible, like comparing the weapon skill of the attacking player-character with the attribute level: if the weapon skill is attribute level plus one or even higher, the opponent counts as a mook. This adds more bookkeeping to the loremaster's plate, of course.

[Ferretz]

Good point.

I'm leaning more and more towards adding +3 to the TN for each extra enemy you want to attack, and then roll once. The number you roll is compared to the total TN you need to hit (stance TN, +3 per enemy, +Parry). However, you cannot target an enemy this way if it has an Attribute Rating higher than your skill with the weapon.

So to target more than one of those peske Attribute Rating 2 goblins in one round, you need at least 2 in your skill.

This represens the hero striking many times, and the roll is the overall effort and success, not just his ability to hit once.

E.

[Ferretz]

Right, so here is the rules addon I've written for our campaign regarding multiple attacks. The goal here is to make combat against many foes go quicker, and make really good warriors shine and have their "hero moments". This might result quite cinematic situations, but being a big fan of the movies, it works very fine with me! But I understand that it might not be right for all campaigns, of course.

ATTACKING MULTIPLE FOES

Player heroes will often find themselves outnumbered by orcs and other foul things. To make up for this, a skilled warrior can choose to attack more than one foe in a single turn. This is of course much harder than attacking a single foe.

Attacking several foes in this way can involve quick attacks with smaller weapons, sweeping cuts with larger ones, arrows shot in quick succession or even the impaling of more than one foe on a single thrown spear!

First, determine which enemies you want to attack. Your skill with the weapon you are using must be equal or higher than all the enemies you are targeting. Then, for each extra enemy after the first, you add +3 to TN of the Stance you are in.

Now roll for attack once, and compare the result to the TN needed to hit each of the foes. For each one you hit, determine damage as usual.

Attacking like this can also be attempted in Opening Volleys.

Rolling Gandalf’s Rune in attacks like these, results in an automatic success as usual.

Example: an Elven Warrior with Spear 4D and the Virtue Shadowbane, faces off against two Orc Soldier with Attribute Rating 3 and an Orc Guard with Attribute Rating 4. The Elf goes into Forward Stance, which activates Shadowbane. The base TN to hit these foes is at 15 (6 for Forward Stance + 3 for each foe).

The Elven Warrior rolls a 10 on the Feat Die, and 6, 5, 3, 3 on the Success dice. With Shadowbane, which gives +3, the result is a mighty 30. This is then compared to 15 + Parry for each Orc. Since no Orc has a Parry of 15, the Elven Warrior hits them all. And since the attack was a Great Success, and resulted in a possible Wound, the Orcs most likely fall dead at the Elven Warriors feet.


-E.

[James Harrison]

Your skill with the weapon you are using must be equal or higher than all the enemies you are targeting

You need some more words their for that to make sense

I personally Far prefer splitting your dice pool; as your rules are very much all or nothing: I can see an elf specked with shadow bane having about a 50/50 chance to hit 3 fores... or miss them all - and the hits are more likely to be killing (as hits need high number = more likely when you roll 6's)

And with the possibility to spend hope and gain 3 peircing wounds - just seems very powerful

As for opening volleys? Why not try and hit all the goblins - TN would be very very high, but you have a 1/12 chance of piercing blow every foe?

Finally a weapon rank usually results in +3 parry (you move up a stance)... now a weapon rank results in +1 foe hit... which significantly increases damage output

Splitting dice pool keeps multiple attacks on the table without making them silly

[Ferretz]

Ah, something was lost in translation there. It should of course say that the skill must be equal or higher than the Attribute Ratings of all enemies targeted.

Well, it's all or nothing if you roll very low or very high. The idea here is to have combat move quicker with fewer die rolls. The idea is that your roll is the effort of all your attacks, but I see your point.

It's meant to be a quicker way for a very good warrior to defeat lesser foes. In our campaign, Attribute 2 and 3 foes are not much of a threat, but they take a very long time to fight, since they usually come in greater numbers.

Hmm.. how about this: instead of a +3 to your TN, you remove one Success Die for each extra foe after the first you want to attack? You roll once, as before, but now Attribute Rating won't be a limit (since higher Attribute Ratings means higher Parry anyway).

So the Elven Warrior in the example with Spear 4D would now roll 2D to attack all the enemies. This makes it easier to hit lesser foes, but lessens the chance of getting Great or Extraordinary Success. Also, in an Opening Volley, it's possible to actually hit.

I see the point of splitting die pools, but I feel that it clutters the game with too many die rolls. I'm a strange sort of GM: I like using the rules, but I dislike rolling too many dice. For some reason, players love rolling dice all the time.

Edit: Ok, here is my new take on it:

First, determine which enemies you want to attack. For each enemy after the first you want to include in the attack, you remove one Success die from your die pool.

Now roll for attack once, and compare the result to the TN needed to hit each of the foes. For each one you hit, determine damage to enemies you hit as usual.

However, if you roll above the Edge of the weapon you are using, select one of the enemies you hit. This enemy must roll to avoid Injury.

Attacking like this can also be attempted in Opening Volleys.

-E.

[James Harrison]

I like that more; the "Extraordinary success killing everyone" syndrome goes down quite a lot - less dice = less 6's. And piercing blows being applied to one target is also good. And yes the attribute level of foes does not need to be considered - your skill affects how many attacks you can make due to die loss.

Depending if you want highly cinematic or not: I would consider giving out Extra damage from Great/Extraordinary success as you do wounds (allowing an extraordinary success to be split into 2 great successes if you wanted).

But yes a much nicer rule, with minimal change.