Question came up last session:

The dwarf was engaged in combat with the Crypt Ghoul

The barber-surgeon was also engaged with the Crypt Ghoul.

Are the Dwarf and the Barber Surgeon engaged? Can the Barber Surgeon do a skill check that requires engagement on the Dwarf?

jh

Ha, coincidentally Gallows has a post just below this where we've begun discussing engaged/engagements. After thinking and posting on his thread (and using an example identical to what you've set up here) I'm leaning towards the surgeon and dwarf not being engaged. So the surgeon would have to engage the dwarf to use his action that requires it. How do you think that interpretation would affect play Emirikol?

Edit to add: I do however think that all three are in the same "Engagement" since they currently share a common engaged target.

Yes, I also read the rules that way. You can only be engaged with one person at a time. If you're engaged with a friendly person however I would not require a maneuver to disengage.

The problem with single engagement of course is that flanking can never occur, neither can any "ganging up."

Thoughts?

jh

You can only actively engage one person at a time but multiple people may be actively engaging you. So flanking and ganging work as always.

i disagree, i see engaged as a matter of distance (say within 5ft or something to the person) i would say that if the dwarf is engaged with the ghoul and the other character is engaged with it, then they are close enough to be considered engaged with each other.

Here's a more specific question of the same example that came up:

* Dwarf and Barber-Surgeon are both engaged in combat with a Crypt Ghoul (actually there were 4 crypt ghouls)

* Is the Barber-Surgeon engaged with the Dwarf ? Can the Barber-Surgeon "realistically" use FIRST AID on the Dwarf in the middle of combat? P.64 says "such as tending to a bleeding wound in the middle of combat." Consider that they're outnumbered & outgunned. Would you throw in a couple challenge dice?

References:

* Engaged: p.53 core

* First aid check (immediate care) p. 64-65: "Medicine checks cannot be performed in the middle of combat" First aid can be used in the middle of combat. as per the example in on p.64 "tending to a bleeding wound in the middle of combat."

jh

Evilben's interpretation is perfectly valid I think. As best I can tell by RAW though, there's nothing that says you automatically become engaged with all participants in an engagement by engaging one of them. I personally feel that its a little more interesting to assume that you're not Engaged with an object or NPC until you've specifically performed the maneuver to do sowith that particular individual. So I'd say that your dwarf and surgeon are not engaged with one another. If the surgeon wants to do anything with the dwarf that requires being engaged with him he either has to disengage with the ghoul and then use another maneuver (this round or later) to engage the dwarf....or he can jump right to engaging the dwarf but suffer an attack from the ghoul. That way, its difficult to just ignore an aggressor standing there with you. Plus it just seems cooler narratively...to me of course.

So after performing all of that, can he treat the dwarf? Well, realistically, not without consequences I'd imagine. Your talking about not only trying focus on treating someone while under threat of IMMINENT attack, but the person you're treating is also being very active in combat as well. So yeah, I think some challenge dice are in order. At least a healthy dose of misfortune dice anyway.

And then, considering there's actually four ghouls...that just seems insane. Possible sure, but man you're taking some huge risks. If you go with my interpretation of Engaged/Engagement you'd have to disengage from each ghoul (I may post more specifically on this on your other thread), otherwise you're gonna get smacked around some. Yeah, it takes a lot of effort to avoid all of that through fatigue...but the alternative is getting some free attacks on you which I imagine is pretty realistic. So, you could do it, but its gonna cost severely in one way or another. Probably better to figure out some tactical way to get a brief reprieve from the onslaught first.

And I don't think there's a discrepancy in the rules concerning First Aid/Medicine checks in combat. Its pretty clear that First Aid can be used in combat. Medicine is a different check altogether though and according to the rules can't be used in combat.

donbaloo said:

I hate to put forth so many multi-posts, and now I'm even resorting to quoting myself. And to dispute myself no less!! This place needs more activity on Sunday evening. I'm having to resort to debates with myself...

Anyway, after all the thought and looking back through rules I was doing on the other thread I feel like I should point out that I was wrong with the above. The illustration on p.53 does in fact pretty much say that everyone in an engagement is considered engaged.

with this specific situation (first aid) i think the major draw back would come down to how is he performing first aid? he would need the right equipment at hand so he would need to spend maneuvers to put away his current gear, then maneuvers to find his first aid kit and maneuvers to prepare the bandages (and i would give him a pretty high penalty for trying to do this on someone who is actively combating someone else. (remember, even though the actions are done in a turn based manner, no one actually stands still in combat!) so i would say yes, he can, but at dire costs of maneuvers and dice penalties.

Emirikol said:

No, you need one manoeuver to engage a target, nontheless you're adjacent to it. These characters are engaged with the same target but are not engaged each other.

Actually as I understand it you can't engage more than 1 target at a time (considering a henchmen party = 1 character in game term).

Not sure where people keep getting the idea that a character can only engage one other character at a time from? I've never seen anything in the rule that would indicate this. If someone has an actual rules example to demonstrate this, please post it, I'd like to see it.

Best I can tell from the rules, using the relative distance system of this rule set, engaged is simply a range increment that is one increment close that "close" range.

Extreme, Long, Medium, Close, Engaged... All relative range increments from one target to another. The way we run this system, an engagement can be anywhere from 2, to thousands of individuals, because the distance is all relative. This does leave room for a lot of different, perfectly valid interpretations, however once again, I've never seen anything in the rules that says I can only be engaged with one other target at a time.

In the last seesion we played, we were in a confined area, and rules of that terrain was, only 4 creature may be in an engagement at a time, anytime a new creature enters the engagement, that creature gets to choose one other creature to "eject" from the engagement moving it close range. It was a different style of encounter, and was fun to play.

I agree with evilben and BCA.

Engaged is a type of Range increment. It is a distance where you can whisper and be heard. You can have multiple people in the same engagement. Notice, for example, the Blunderbuss (and some Action cards) strike everyone in a single engagement. Yes, if you engage someone that is already engaged with someone else, you become part of that Engagement, and are engaged with everyone in that engagement.

Dvang hit the nail on the head, thats precisley what I was try to get at, but I'm lousy at keeping on point. Many of the rules/action cards/weapons/abilities all seem to indicate that an engagement is a clustering/grouping of people, and they are all equally engaged with one another, if it was not this way, trying to use a blunderbuss would be neigh impossible, as you would have to figure out levels upon levels of causality of enagement. The simplistic nature of the tactical system used in WFRP 3rd seems to point toward the idea of exactly what Dvang said.

Simple positioning tells you whether two figures are engaged or not. Blue box, pg 53: "Standups in contact with each other are considered engaged." So, if a Dwarf is engaged with a Beastman and his Human ally engages the Beastman as well, are the Dwarf and Human engaged? It depends. Are their bases touching? If so, they are engaged as well. If not, then no. So if the Human is on the opposite side of the Beastman from the Dwarf, both are engaged with the Beastman, but not engaged with each other. If they are in base contact with one another and both bases are touching the Beastman's as well, they are both engaged with the Beastman and engaged with each other.

Problem with that is we don't use the standups sent with the game, as they pretty much suck. Since FFG is not licensed to make actual mini's (Game Workshop won't give up that cash cow) we use old D&D mini's some old warhammer mini's whatever we have, and not all of them have bases, some stand on their feet, others have some excess metal they balance on, some have square bases, some have round, some are bigger, some are smaller. Its doesn't really work to use the "if the bases touch" measure. Also the bases touching mesurement is from old warhammer mini's, (maybe new too, I don't play anymore) and it worked fine in that system as it uses tactical movment, not the abstract method of this new system.

If there is a group of folks, a large mob in fact, and I want to engage one of them in the middle, how do I do it? He's totally surrounded, so there is no where I can place my standup where I am in a touching bases position without moving a different standup out of the way. Am I allowed to do that? Do I get to pick? Am I not able to engage the target? etc etc, Lots of new questions, using the KISS method, an engagement is a "Thing" that I can enter into, or exit out of using one manoeuver (dang it I hate spelling that word). Sometimes this leads to dozens of people lumped into a single "engagement" and anyone can effect any other person within it. It can get unrealistic at times, but I envision it as large brawl, and any one persons postion in that scrum can change at any given moment. This method seems to offer the most answers, and be most compatable with the rest of the rules, without several other issues having to be solved.

Even if you are using figures with different sizes and shapes of bases, it should still be fairly easy to adjudicate if two figures are touching or not. If a player wants to move his figure to engage both the NPC and an ally, I let them, but if two PC figures are on opposite sides of an NPC, they aren't engaged with each other no matter what the bases look like.

If you want to engage an NPC that is surrounded by other NPCs, then no you can't do it unless you can push one of the other NPCs out of the way. Probably need to perform a stunt to use Athletics to shift them aside or perhaps Coordination to slip between someone's legs or make a flying tackle.

I do agree that if you are engaged with one other person in a mob then you are part of an engagement for purposes of ranged attacks and other things that affect an engagement. However, just because you are engaged with one (or more) of the individuals in a mob doesn't mean you can freely attack someone on the other side of the mob that is separated from you by one or more intervening individuals.

For the record, my interpretation falls in line with mac40k. I personally think that if it was officially clarified that FFG would go to say that all opponents in an engagement are engaged though. As I said, that's more in line with the simplicity of the abstract range system. It seems a pedantic reading of the illustration to say that the standups actually have to be in contact with each other to be engaged, but I do like the implications of that reading. Besides the matter of simplicity, the illustration of the engaged characters clearly shows the standups not being literally in contact with one another. That's why I think their intent was just that a bunched up group is not only an Engagement, but everyone's Engaged as well.

But like I said, I bet the official answer would be that everyone's engaged. The rules don't get very specific about the possibilities of being in an engagement but not engaged (thus actually close range), and I think they would have went into more detail if that was the intent. Still, I share mac40k's interpretation.

In our game PCs/NPCs are engaged individually. So to change target it takes one maneuver even if it's right next to you.

Single engagement per group also means that there's less tracking. It could get pretty complex is A is engaged with B and B is engaged with C but C isn't engaged with A. If you're close enough to interact (the definition of Engaged IIRC) then you can interact with the whole group or engagement.

Rorschach Six said:

Yeah I suppose, but I'm weird that way... I have it all in my head. Just like I read though a scenario once and run it without looking in the book. But it's also easy to see if you look at the table. Characters engaged stand close together. For all others we simply have a bit of distance (without a dinstance token of course). This creates small groups on the table where it's easy to see who is engaged with whom. We never had any issues with it. But then again even in V1 and V2 we never used grinds... we have always used this more free form type of presenting the fight on the table.

I was hoping to simply go with If A is engaged with B, and C is engaged with B, then A is engaged with C. Taking it a step further, engaging anyone in an already established engagement means engaging all in the engagement. I was hoping to be able to go this way just for simplicity sake.

When A is Close to B, and C is Close to B, What possibilities are there for A to C? A and C can be Engaged or Close for sure, but can they be Medium, Long or Extreme? Perhaps Medium seems plausible, but likely not Long or Extreme.

Looking at A Day Late...Act I, A Chance Meeting, the Ungor, Gor and Rutger all start enaged with the coach. They are also all engaged with each other right? It does say that the Gor and Rutger are battling so I assume they are engaged for sure. Even Klaus is engaged with all of them and if he had a weapon he could attack out of the coach windows. Let's say a PC tries to climb on top of the coach. To do so requires the PC to engage the coach, which means being engaged with all the others engaged with the coach. Once on top of the coach the PC is still engaged with all the others engaged with the coach. Wouldn't this mean the PC could not shoot arrows at anyone from up here who is also engaged with the coach?

I guess once large objects or perhaps creatures start to be a part of an engagement, then there might be the need to allow for multiple seperate engagements based on positioning, but I was hoping to avoid this kind of tracking.

Just to throw my 2 cents in,

I am in agreement with BCA (and others). Per RAW (emphasis mine)....

"To reflect two or more targets close enough to interact directly with each other, there is a special status called engaged." Pg 53. Clearly you can be engaged with more than one target at a time.

The rule on page 52 (which is where i presume this only engaged with one target argument falsly originated) says "If a target is already with close range of a character, the character can perform a manoeuvre to engage with that target. Once engaged with an opponent, a character must perform a manoeuvre to safely disengage, otherwise they may be attacked. Characters do not need to perform this manoeuvre to leave an engagement consisting only of friendly characters or allies." This statement is not exclusive. It is NOT intended to dictate that you can only engage "that target" but rather HOW to engage "that target". This wide open system was left for you DM's / GM's to interperate how you see fit and apply the rules given judiciously and fairly - NOT to be restrictive. The rule defines how to engage, by spending a manoeuvre, and thats it. Taking the rule on Pg 52 even further - you can extrapolate that engagements can consist of multiple enemies because they specifically state - "Characters do not need to perform this manoeuvre to leave an engagement consisting only of friendly characters or allies." Thus, by extrapolation, we can presume that even a PC engaged with multiple enemies needs spend only a manoeuvre to disengage from all the enemies in the engagement.

Like Donbaloo said, even in the illustration on Pg 53, the standups are not touching bases, but yet two PCs and a beastman are all in the same engagement. It takes a manoeuvre to "Engage or Disengage from an opponent" but it does NOT take a manoeuvre to obtain the "special status called engaged".

For example, on page 53 another use of the "engaged status" is to climb aboard a carriage. So four passengers climb aboard a Four Seasons coach (each engaged the coach). Now you have four passengers inside a cramped cabin all engaged with the coach but not with each other ? Ridiculous ! They (and the coach) are all in an engagement together and thus have the "special status called engaged". Otherwise what would happen if I wanted to interact with someone inside the coach ? Need I disengage the coach in order to engage the target of social interaction. What would happen ? Would I suddenly fall off the coach because I wanted to give the pretty lady in seat 2B my Winning Smile ?

All that being said, I would advocate using some common sense. If a target is enormous - its possible for those engaged with it to NOT be engaged with each other - another example given in the book is a hunter engaged with a tree to hide behind it (page 53). If the tree a large oak with an elf hiding at the top - they are both engaged with the tree - but not with each other. Or in your examples of flanking large creatures. But these are exceptional circumstances dictated by the environment.

That was probably far more than my 2 cents worth. I owe ya a dollar now !

- Inquest

In the demo, I would rule that while Rutger and the Beastman Gor are both engaged with the coach and each other, neither is engaged with Klaus although he is also engaged with the coach, because he is inside it. The coach is between the NPC inside and those engaged with it on the outside. If someone hops on top they are now engaged with the coach, they are still not engaged with Klaus for the same reason, but I'd rule that they are engaged (can hit or be hit with melee weapons) with those outside the coach since the demo describes the Ungors as pulling packages from the top of the coach, so it can clearly be reached. I'd give the person on top fortune dice for advantage of ground and misfortune dice to someone trying to hit him due to partial cover provided by the coach/awkwardness of attacking someone on top of a coach. That just seems like common sense to me.

My original answer to the OP was "it depends," but rather than focus on the tactical placement of figures or stand ups as to why, I guess my real answer is it depends on the second PCs intentions. Did he want to engage both the enemy and the fellow PC? If so, he does. Was he trying to flank the enemy? Then he's not engaged with his ally. Placement of the figures or stand ups in base to base contact is just my way of tracking those decisions from round to round so I don't have to rely on memory.

I support both options of the two PCs being engaged with a foe, but either with each other or not, as circumstances and player desires dictate. I'm not wiling to make a hard and fast rule that it's all engaged all the time. That just doesn't make sense to me and would limit my or the players' options at some point. If one PC is holding off a group of NPCs in a doorway, I want to allow a PC to engage his ally and use First Aid without worrying about becoming engaged with (and melee attacked by) the horde of monsters on the other side of the door. I also want to be able to surround a big bad with minions forcing a PC that wants to engage the main adversary to fight his way past the minions first. Neither scenario is possible if "engaged with one, engaged with all" is the default. It also forces nonsensical situations where a PC on top of a building can be engaged by melee attacks if enemies contact the building at street level. Clearly that makes no sense, so now you've got to arbitrarily decide at what distance do you "break" engagements and if you can't melee attack someone on top of a 10 foot building, then you shouldn't be able to hit someone on the other side of a swirling 10 foot mob of people in a brawl either. Since range is abstract, I'm not going to set an arbitrary distance in feet or yards, I'm just going to adjudicate engaged or not based on what makes sense at the time. Again, I just use placement of figures to help me remember the decisions made, not as the deciding factor.

I think Mac40k's answer is pretty solid - use your judgement (and player intent) to determine engaged status. Its a good way to handle it.

That being said, I did want to point out that while you say neither scenario is possible in the "engaged with one, engaged with all" event, that's not exactly true. There are ways to manipulate the scenarios you gave without messing with the original "engaged" status. For instance, to protect a big mob with his minions - you could, for example, give the minions a reaction with the trigger: "When boss is targeted" and have it target the minion instead, or add misfortune dice for the intervening minion - or any number of other ways the minion can interfer with the players attack - all while preserving the "engaged" status of the boss so that things like a blunderbuss blast are still threatening (I would personally chuckle at any encounter clumped up like that - grenade anyone !).

Just saying that you CAN design those encounters without messing with engaged (maybe not with the core 30ish baddies presented in the core books - but with a little creativity on your part).