Archery and combat

[Nekira Sudacne]

Hi,

I'm a long time fan of the palladium fantasy series, and I own nearly every book printed for it. However, I'm still a very new gm. I have a group of players wanting to play. We made characters this weekend and for fun we did a practice combat round against some orcs I just made up stats for.

I noticed a few gaps in my knowledge. One of the players has chosen to play a long bowman. In the practice match I had the orcs run up to his character since when I set the scene the orc wasn't more than 40 feet away from him. His character got two arrow shots off before the orc caught up to him. I didn't know if there was rule or penalty for using his bow at point blank range. It seems like there should be however I can't find anything in any palladium book I have. Does anyone have any recommendation?

There is no penalty, actually. In fact, it's much easier to aim--on the other hand, if the other guy is in melee range they can use a standard parry to simply knock the bow away from them instead of having to spend an action dodging.

One thing he thought of was the idea of running away from a melee situation and then firing some arrows. I had forgot how the speed attribute worked at the time but I'm thinking I could make it a competition between speed attributes?

For example he has speed 24 and the orc has a speed 16, both have two actions per melee. They start at melee distance.
Then one melee round would be spent by the player running so he is now 24 yards away from the where he was, and the orc chases so now he is only 8 distance from the player so then depending on initiative either the long bowman fires or the orc catches up. Either way next melee action the long bowman could run away again. I guess this could work but it seems awkward and basically would make this character immune to melee combat as long as he always was faster than his opponent.

How's that a problem? a guy with a speed of 24 is good enough to compete at the olympics for track and feild. He damn well SHOULD outrun just about every orc on the face of the planet.

In fact, hit and run tactics are used for _precicely_ this reason. They're used so often in every military in the world precicely because they work.

The problem? he's on foot.

start putting enemies on Horseback and watch his speed advantage not only negated but a charge bringing them all to melee range with him before he can act.

He mentioned something from D&D called an attack of opportunity, which i've heard of before but mostly I hear how much a pain in the neck they are. Luckily, that was just a practice session to show what combat was like so I've got some time to get ready before I run the actual campaign. Anyone have any recommendation on how to run his retreat tactics fairly?

He's an olympic level sprinter. the ONLY fair thing to do is to actually let him outrun 90% of the entire planet every time.

but remember that people fight on HORSEBACK for a reason, because the average horse is faster than the fastest human to ever live.

[AlanGunhouse]

You can also pro rate the movement for actions, if you can run at 24 in two actions you should be able to move 12 in one.

And yes, as long as your enemy is slower, you can do that kind of thing (in real life as well as in game). Mind you, some people in game can have speeds of 30 or higher, after physical training.

[verdilak]

At Point Blank, I do believe people at -10 to dodge gunfire, so at least half should apply to arrows.

You are right, dodges use up attacks. However in D&D the defense is completely passive, meaning you have a 15 for defense and if the other guy gets above it, you are hit. Personally,I prefer the active defense that PB uses. Also, remember that autododges do NOT use up a melee attack if his character has it.

A Spd of 24 means that he can run 24 feet per second. If you have 4 attacks per 15 second round, then he will be going 90 feet per round (dont use ROF for this, use melee attacks)

Attacks of Opportunity are basically that when an opponent moves by you or around you, then you get a free attack. Personally, I wouldnt use it, unless you use mini's religiously to show where everyone is during combat. However, PB doesnt work out well to using mini's easily since it's all in feet, and not squares (which is what the majority are used to).

As far as fair retreat tactics, what I do when I GM is state that as long as you dont run your full length (if we are using the above example, that would be 90 feet), then you can run AND shoot as 1 action. Now, I will normally say you can run up to half your max and still be able to shoot on the run with it only using one attack. Remember that if players can do it, so can NPC's.

[AlanGunhouse]

Using a bow in Melee usually gets the bow broken in stories.

[verdilak]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

The one issue still not completely answered is the combat rules for the archer in a point blank range situation.

Long bowman in PF don't get an automatic dodge. Therefore like in the situation mentioned the long bowman who had not switched weapons by the time the orc got in melee range. When the orc attacked it was the long bowman aka the PC's choice to either dodge or parry. Parrying successfully with a bow I would imagine result a in a broken bow. That was how it went that roleplaying session anyway. Can you parry a metal weapon with a wooden bow with no appreciable damage to the bow? Would there be minuses to parry?

The player complained about his choices which I admitted I wasn't too sure about myself. He had played D&D so he was probably used to a passive defense. Needless to say the next role playing session which was last week he adjusted by being more careful about choosing the right weapon for the situation.

The other part of this question is what kind of bonuses or penalties apply to firing at a target which is attacking you. I'm not really sure if hitting a moving target right in front of you would be easier or harder. Would a successful attack from the orc result in a botched attempt to notch and fire an arrow? Perhaps rate of fire would be reduced?

The player is not forcing the issue thankfully but I'd like to have some good guidelines to follow if he's ever in that situation again.

I don't use a grid but I have a large white board which I usually use to sketch battle scenes and track positions. Its not super accurate but fast and easy so I can give the players something to work with. Since that incident I've given all my npcs a speed attribute to work with. Its been working out nicely because I can say given whatever scale we happen to be using on the board at the time whether or not they can engage other npcs that turn.

1st, about the parrying of the weapon with a bow. I only say that a weapon breaks another if during a parry it would have been a nat 20 or with bonuses 20+. This is because you can parry an axe or a sword without having to hit the blade part. You could smack the sword away, stop the sword at the handle, ect. You are the GM, but thats what I do.

2nd, about moving... if the enemy is moving in a straight line at you and you fire an arrow at him, you dont have any penalties to shoot, but the enemy should have some penalties to dodge.

If the enemy is zigzaging, then the penalty to shoot should be yours, or at least give the enemy a bonus to dodge.

[Iczer]

Hi,

I'm a long time fan of the palladium fantasy series, and I own nearly every book printed for it. However, I'm still a very new gm. I have a group of players wanting to play. We made characters this weekend and for fun we did a practice combat round against some orcs I just made up stats for.

I noticed a few gaps in my knowledge. One of the players has chosen to play a long bowman. In the practice match I had the orcs run up to his character since when I set the scene the orc wasn't more than 40 feet away from him. His character got two arrow shots off before the orc caught up to him. I didn't know if there was rule or penalty for using his bow at point blank range. It seems like there should be however I can't find anything in any palladium book I have. Does anyone have any recommendation?

The really tough thing is that this is the only guy in the group who's ever done any tabletop role playing before, but he did D&D and is reluctant to try anything different. Needless to say he was kind of upset to discover that his character couldn't dodge without spending a melee action. He did parry with his bow but obviously that ended up destroying his bow.

One thing he thought of was the idea of running away from a melee situation and then firing some arrows. I had forgot how the speed attribute worked at the time but I'm thinking I could make it a competition between speed attributes?

For example he has speed 24 and the orc has a speed 16, both have two actions per melee. They start at melee distance.
Then one melee round would be spent by the player running so he is now 24 yards away from the where he was, and the orc chases so now he is only 8 distance from the player so then depending on initiative either the long bowman fires or the orc catches up. Either way next melee action the long bowman could run away again. I guess this could work but it seems awkward and basically would make this character immune to melee combat as long as he always was faster than his opponent.

He mentioned something from D&D called an attack of opportunity, which i've heard of before but mostly I hear how much a pain in the neck they are. Luckily, that was just a practice session to show what combat was like so I've got some time to get ready before I run the actual campaign. Anyone have any recommendation on how to run his retreat tactics fairly?

Look. The problem with D&D is always that every little step has to be gridded out. It's intensely tactical, which is not really heavilly appealing, and worse, forces dependence on miniatures and the hordes of 'battlemaps' to support the game. Palladium is more fluid, but that's where your problem arises.

Close combat: I house rule that any attempt to perform ranged combat while in melee range is futile. It's a wild shot (and applies the normal penalties as if moving and shooting) and the defender is allowed to autoparry the weapon arm/weapon and throw off aim.

Keeping your distance: Much harder in a 'fluid' system like palladium. as a rough rule, once two combatants are locked in melee, you stay in melee until the opponent breaks off or the ranged attacker escapes. simply stepping back (D&D will use the term '5 foot step') is not sufficient, as any attacker will step just step forward (combat is after all simultaneous in nature, involving a lot of normal walking weaving and swinging) roughly as soon as the character is further away from an opponent than that opponent's Spd score (in feet, in your orc's case 16 feet).
Now this gets ...muddy, very quickly. Palladium movement is based on the minute scale, not the action scale, so it can lead to a lot of logistical nightmares. A simple method could be for the attacker to roll a d20, and add his spd score. The defender does the same (if he wishes to advance). the difference is the number of feet seperating them (but it's an action for both parties)
Vagrancies in position, obstacles etc are accounted for in the randomness of the roll (and if the PC has some sort of movement advantage beyond simple spd, then he can try to get a bonus by the usual GM bribery).
I don't agree with using ground speed to work out how far a person could move in an action. it feels funny in play (I've tried....a character with 4 actions and 20 spd vs a character with 6 actions and 24 spd. The faster character (24 spd) moves in 6 bursts of 4 while the slower character moves in 4 bursts of 5. seemingly faster for the first 4 actions) and besides I think it's illogical to have the instant accelleration needed for it as well as silly to turn one's back on one's opponent, sprint and then turn back. anyone turning their back on me in a sword fight is getting kidneystabbed if I can help it.

Attacks of opportunity: To summarise them for those who haven't had the D&D experience (and frankly if you have palladium, you probably don't need it). each character can perform one attack of opportunity per round of combat. If an opponent is within threat range (about 5 feet, but varies depending opn the length of your weapon and personal size) and he does something that lowers his ability to defend himself ( bends over, checks his wristwatch, casts a spell, uses a ranged attack etc) then the threatening character gets a free shot at him. moving five feet (only five feet) or making a calculated retreat is enough defensive saavy to avoid having some sword-orc hacking your fae off. many D&D archers have developed the 5 foot ballet where the enemy advances and attacks, the archer moves 5 feet back and shoots, the orc steps 5 feet forward and hacks, the archer moves 5 feet away and shoots...etc....

it looks silly on a battlemap let me tell you.


So house rules for palladium that fixes this form me.....

1) firing while in melee range of an opponent is a wild shot, and can be 'parried'
2) An opponent can move his spd in feet and still attack, or twice that if he just wants to move in
3) escape rolls as an action (as detailed above)
4) if an opponent wants to do something stupid as an action, you may want to consider giving his opponent an attack (reduces his actions on his next round by 1) as a sort of 'aha! gotchya!' attack. works pretty much like a dodge like that.
5) Wean your players off D&D. tactical is great for selling miniatures, but not for running games.

Batts

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. Okay, I'll mention my personal thoughts on the last two questions. First, can a bow parry a sword? While in reality I'll grant it would probably be difficult at best, and a broken bow may be likely, for the game I would say it's possible. A) There doesn't appear to be any penalties for a wooden staff parrying it. Now, I'll grant that a staff is designed for melee combat (staff is thicker and sturdier while a bow is thinner and designed to flex/bend more) and not the same, but just a mention of wood vs. metal. B) Far more importantly, look at the Weapon Proficiency (page 59), there is a bonus to parry. I haven't been able to figure out how you can get a bonus to parry if you can't parry with your bow. *Shrugs.* If someone else can explain that game mechanic to me I'll gladly listen. So I'll say it can by the game mechanics (even if it doesn't simulate reality). If someone ignores that fact I wouldn't blame them, but thought to at least point it out.

Secondly, as for the penalties at firing in melee range, I don't much see the problem. I'll agree that a melee combatant can try to parry the bow without penalty (usually -10 to parry/dodge). That's because you're parrying the bow and not trying to defend against a fast moving arrow. That is its own penalty. Additionally, if you play with most characters start with 4 attacks per melee (3 attacks for HtH: Assassin) as the other systems were later updated, which I personally do, that gives an additional handicap. At early levels the archer would get few shots and no P.S. damage bonus (it applies to Hand to Hand, not range). Ah well, that's at least my opinion on the matter. Hope you all have a nice day, take good care. Farewell and safe journeys.

[NMI]

If you look at the "math" for the speed attribute in the beginning of the book (near attributes), it basically boils down to a PC/NPC can move their speed attribute in feet per second.
Speed times 20 is the number of yards that the character can run in one minute.

Let's look at a speed of 24 (as in the case of the original post of this thread)
24 x 20 = 480
This means 480 yards per minute
Converted to feet, this is approximately 1440 feet per minute.
There are 60 seconds per minute so:
1440 feet divided by 60 seconds equals: 24!
24 feet per second or 360 feet per melee.
Wanna figure this out per attack (how many feet running, can this player reach in 1 attack?)
Divide the feet per melee by the number of attacks. Say 5 attacks per melee.
360 divided by 5 = 72
72 feet per attack (assuming 5 attacks per melee).

[Tinker Dragoon]

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