Basic combat questions

[gentlemansavage]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, all.

Santa has brought a few (very basic, I hope) combat questions for you.

1) Do the majority of combats involve a Surprise attack roll at the beginning. I get the sense from the rules the answer is yes.

2) What happens when a player rolls an Eye of Sauron on their Opening Volley shot. Does it function like an Eye of Sauron in close combat, where the next enemy attack directed at the player is a Called Shot?

3) After engagement, is it possible for a hero to attack an enemy engaged with another player? For example, three heroes are ambushed by 6 Forest Goblins. One of the heroes goes into Rearward stance (she's an archer). The goblins then divvy themselves up so that four attack one hero and two attack the other hero. The hero will only two foes quickly kills one and wants to direct his attacks at the horde attacking his companion. Is this possible? If not, does the hero have to finish off the opponents engaging him first? Then how does the LM handle repartitioning engagements mid-battle? I don't believe I saw any rules on that.

4) In the above example, did I handle the archer correctly? You can have a hero in Rearward stance as long as there are two companions in close combat stances, no matter the number of enemies, right? However, if a second hero wanted to be in Rearward stance then that would require 4 companions in close combat stances. Correct?

Thanks for taking the time to answer!

[Stormcrow]

Do the majority of combats involve a Surprise attack roll at the beginning. I get the sense from the rules the answer is yes.

Not in the games I've played. The rules don't encourage the Loremaster to set up ambushes; they just provide rules for when he does.

What happens when a player rolls an Eye of Sauron on their Opening Volley shot. Does it function like an Eye of Sauron in close combat, where the next enemy attack directed at the player is a Called Shot?

Ehhh... It's not defined in the rules; I'd be inclined to say yes, why not.

After engagement, is it possible for a hero to attack an enemy engaged with another player? For example, three heroes are ambushed by 6 Forest Goblins. One of the heroes goes into Rearward stance (she's an archer). The goblins then divvy themselves up so that four attack one hero and two attack the other hero. The hero will only two foes quickly kills one and wants to direct his attacks at the horde attacking his companion. Is this possible? If not, does the hero have to finish off the opponents engaging him first? Then how does the LM handle repartitioning engagements mid-battle? I don't believe I saw any rules on that.

Each round you assign heroes and foes according to the rules. Suppose heroes A, B, and C (rearward) are fighting foes U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. On round 1 the Loremaster assigns U to fight A, and V to fight B. There are still four leftover foes, so he also assigns W and X to fight A and Y and Z to fight B. He cannot assign four foes against A and two against B because no more than three human-sized foes may attack a hero at one time.
U,W,X <--> A
V,Y,Z <--> B
* <-- C

During the round, B kills V, but no other deaths occur.

Now it's round 2, and the heroes have chosen the same stances. There are still more foes than heroes, so the foes get to choose their opponents again; the heroes cannot choose. The Loremaster could move the foes around, but he chooses to keep them where they are:
U,W,X <--> A
Y,Z <--> B
* <-- C

The heroes can only choose their close-combat opponents when there are no more foes than heroes.

In the above example, did I handle the archer correctly? You can have a hero in Rearward stance as long as there are two companions in close combat stances, no matter the number of enemies, right? However, if a second hero wanted to be in Rearward stance then that would require 4 companions in close combat stances. Correct?

If there are more than twice the number of enemies as heroes, you cannot choose a Rearward stance. There were 6 foes and 3 heroes, which is twice the number, so you're okay. If there were 7 foes, a hero could not choose Rearward stance. If, in that case, a foe were killed in round 1, there would be only 6 foes left on the next round, and one hero could take a Rearward stance then.

[gentlemansavage]

So helpful, Stormcrow, thank you. I forgot about the max of 3 enemies/hero rule, and that perfectly explains the use of the Rearward stance. I totally missed the fact that you perform engagements at the beginning of each round. Cheers!

[gentlemansavage]

Another question that I'm interested in hearing the community weigh in on: Is 3 ranks in a weapon realistically the minimum? In other words, do you create characters, and do you recommend your players create characters, with at least one weapon skill at rank 3?

In my test combats, 2 dice has been quite iffy and one die laughably bad.

[Stormcrow]

Three dice are necessary for a warrior, but not every character is a warrior. Your test results sound pretty much spot-on.

Don't forget that this isn't a combat game. The rulebooks recommend one combat every two sessions.

[Angelalex242]

Well...the 2D characters (the ones who spent all their initial xp on common skills...must spend all their time in forward stance and even then might not hit. It's hard to survive with only 2D melee. 2D archery is all sorts of useless, as you can't use archery with forward stance. Average target number for an archer is going to be between 16 and 19. You only sometimes hit that on 3D, and you really need 4D to make archery work.

[Rich H]

Well...the 2D characters (the ones who spent all their initial xp on common skills...must spend all their time in forward stance and even then might not hit.

Not always. My 2 dice melee characters go into Defensive Stance and just make themselves difficult to hit, accepting that they won't be either.

[Rich H]

Don't forget that this isn't a combat game. The rulebooks recommend one combat every two sessions.

Would definitely agree with this - TOR isn't anything like D&D or an MMO in this respect. For me, combat should have a definite narrative driver behind rather than just being there for it's own sake. A random or non-narrative encounter is okay every now and then just to add an unpredictable element though.

[gentlemansavage]

I don't mean to suggest TOR is like D&D or any other combat-oriented RPG by asking at what rank a weapon is considered adequate.

A couple other questions: Will enemies engage an unconscious hero? Let's say a hero was knocked unconscious by reaching 0 endurance. If there are only two other heroes battling more than 2 enemies, will one enemy from the overflow coup de grace the unconscious hero or is that not allowed because enemies only engage heroes in close combat stances? I assume the unconscious hero will be killed in this circumstance.

Combat looks brutal. I just ran a mock battle with Lifstan, Caranthir, and my own new character against 6 forest goblins. The company managed to kill two goblins and drive one off by taking advantage of its Craven ability using Intimidate while 2 of the 3 heroes were knocked unconscious. That's basically a TPK.

[Angelalex242]

That's as may be, Rich...

But the object of battle is to win, not stalemate your opponent. You can't ever win a fight unless the sharp part of your pokey object goes into the other guy.

And absolutely yes! If there's more bad guys then good guys, one of the bad guys should always make very sure he's coup de grasing downed heroes. A dead hero can never challenge the Shadow again. An unconscious one probably will.

Consider it from Sauron's point of view:He's always got more orcs breeding, but heroes are much rarer. Every chance his monsters get to kill a hero tilts the balance in his favor just that little bit more. Otherwise, the group of orcs he used on the heroes is pretty much wasted. Thus, for Loremasters, ABC...Always Be Coupdegrasing!