Some actions allow players to "disengage for free" or "perform a maneuver" .. why bother? I have found it very difficult to fully realize the potential with maneuvers. If player disengages from combat all what happens on the enemy turn is that they engage again.

How have you made this work? Some tips required. My group is getting frustrated with worthless maneuvers. I'm trying to make settings more elaborate so that maneuvers would have "targets".

Messanger special ability: "When fortune refreshes, gain extra maneuver". Oh come on!

Roadwarden: no training in ballistic skill?

jh

stanmons said:

It depends on how the battle is set up. If you have three people attacking one creature, and it's hitting one guy who gets wounded, he might be able to disengage for free or disengage for free AND move back for only one stress rather than two stresses. Depending on its type, the creature then might be more likely to attack someone actively hitting it, and therefore the poor wounded first guy might catch a break. Alternately, your player could use the maneuver to toss an item at another player, take a second to look at the monster to see if there are weaknesses, or yell directions at another player.

You can always, if you disengage, do a perform a stunt to run away.

You can always use actions that state taht you can't be engaged, which is very useful...

You can do some actions that engage you with an opponent, or change melee to help a friend.

You can use a skill or an action without getting some black dice, 'cos you're not engaged...

Pretty sure we can find other interesting situations!

Ghor²

Thanks for your comments and ideas.

To keep it deeply routed in the game mechanics (mainly dice pools) I plan to allow maneuvers to both able to hinder enemy actions (misfortune die) and aid friendly actions (fortune die) if no other better purpose is to be found.

I'm still not seeing anything supporting except for remote examples. This is still too weak. As the allthetime GM, I need something I can use.

I'd like to see some more house rule solutions.

jh

I suggest the houserule 'being engaged in combat is a manoeuvre.' It makes free manoeuvres and free disengages essentially worth one fatigue point.

Free maneuvers can be great depending on the situation. Assisting an ally or reloading a weapon can be crucial. Also, backing away and making the enemy burn his maneuver to get to you makes it so he can't perform an assist either. Alternatively, use the maneuver to Intimidate the opponent and if you're the GM, allow the intimidate to affect the outcome of the battle, maybe causing morale damage to the enemy.

As far as Career special abilities being very crappy, no advice. Our Commoner switched out of his career very quickly due to its weak nature.

monkeylite said:

I like this as a concept, it can also be used to deal with the "step back-fire" tactic of ranged weapons that some others have complained about.

I am already house ruling a 3 manoeuvre limit per turn rule, but i might use the idea above to further limit the over use of manoeuvres in a turn.

Do you actually use this in your game Monkeylite, or is this just something you have come up with as a possible solution to the OP's problem?

I use it after one of my players tried something similar to the step back-fire thing.

Having thought about this a bit more, i might "fine tune" your house rule by simply making it 2 manoeuvres to disengage. These can be spent across multiple turns just like moving from medium to long range, but you aren't considered disengaged until the second manoeuvre is spent.

that way, the PC does get to use the free manoeuvre for other stuff (assist, manage equipment, prepare etc) without spending fatigue and only takes the fatigue hit if they want to disengage in a simgle turn...

Cheers for the idea.

monkeylite said:

This sounds interesting, but how then do you handle someone who is engaged and doesn't use their manouvre to be engaged? Then they'd be in a limbo, not being engaged or disengaged?

Mordjinn said:

If you're engaged then you have to spend that manoeuvre. If a character wishes to make other manoeuvres then he has to start burning fatigue.

monkeylite said:

So another way to look at it / phrase it would be: "Each player gets 1 free manoeuvre every turn, unless they are engaged ." That would replace the current rule in the RAW of "Each player gets 1 free manoeuvre every turn."

If the GM puts down multiple location cards for a fight, there ends up being a bit more reason to manoeuvre around. The more dynamic you make your battlefields and scenes, the more likely they'll need to move around.

Admittedly, though, eventually a character will end up on the most useful location for them, and then want to stay there. If I was happy with the engagement and location I was in, I'd use the free manoeuvres for assists, or to set up situational penalties / bonuses. In the session I ran last week, we had PCs doing this sort of thing quite often.

"I provide an fake opening so he'll focus on me, and that creates an opening for my ally."

"I nudge closer to my ally and cover his back. He doesn't have to worry about attacks from that side, so he concentrate on offense next round."

"I move so there's a tree between him and me, trying to make his next shot harder."

"With my free hand, I throw some of the debris at the enemy. Not enough aiming or force to really hurt him, just enough to distract him a little and make him duck."

"I jump up on top of the big rocks to get a height advantage."

"I force him back towards the cliff, so now he's distracted by paying attention to his footing."

etc

r_b_bergstrom said:

I really like that !

I think I'll use it.

r_b_bergstrom said:

This got me thinking. Maybe you can use your maneuver as a taunt. Since its up to the GM to decide what monster attacks what player. In this way an Ironbreaker could rush in and take the heat off say a priest or mage. I'm currently using the "You influence the target" as a taunt but this might work better.

r_b_bergstrom said:

No this also has the consequence that you cannot do anyother manoevre while engaged - draw a weapon, assist an ally etc. You need to make it cost 2 manoevres to disangage & they must be spend together. Or just say it costs 1 fat (sounds like Chivalry & Sorcery) to disengage.