I had a question raised by one of my more inquisitive players upon realizing that he could disengage from combat for free and vice versa for his opponents. He said that this seemed a curiosity and I felt that his point needed to be illuminated on these most illustrious of forums.

I hereby pose the question to you, the community of Narrators/GM's,

How do you handle disengaging?

I am tempted to give some sort of check, that if passed, allows a disengaging characters opponents to have some opportunity to act or perform a maneuver targeting said disengaging character.

Don't have the books with me at the moment. Isn't disengaging a manoeuvre?

If so, it's not free. All you're accomplishing is that your attacker will have to engage in his turn. Which can be interpreted as the character trying to back off and the attacker following him.

In order to actually withdraw effectively from combat, you have to disengage and then spend fatigue (or was it stress?) to get further away. Your attacker can then choose to advance and use the same amount of fatigue to keep up with you and keep attacking.

I don't find it curious, there's plenty of RPG systems where disengaging is a non-issue.

Ralzar is correct, there is a cost of one manouevre to disengage. If you want to have a system similar to DnD I guess you could do the following (or only some of it):

- Require 2 manouevres to be spent for disengaging.
- Allow PCs to disengage for free, but with the opponent getting a free melee strike.
- Invent a couple of talents/actions relating to disengagement. E.g. an exhaustable talent that allows free disengagement, a talent that makes the disengagement cost one higher, a reaction card that allows you to get a free melee strike also vs someone who pays the disengagment cost (with high recharge).

The obvious disclaimer here is that these changes may have unwanted side effects (it may affect careers very differently), for example it will probably make ranged combat harder.

The importent thing to remember is that disengaging isn't actually the same as leaving combat. The name might imply it, but you haven't really left combat until everyone's finshed their turn and noone used a manoeuvre to engage you. It just symbolises you trying to back out of the fight and it's up to the attacker to choose to follow you.

This can be used strategically by disengaging from an enemy who is also engaged with one of the other PCs. If he wishes to attack you instead of the guy who's still right in his face, he has to spend his free manoeuvre to disengage and then a new manoeuvre (costing 1 fatigue) to engage.

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, by "free" you mean with no consequences after spending a maneouvre, not "free" as in doesn't cost anything?

Free meaning it doesn'y cost you a fatigue under normal circumstances. The first manoeuvre is free unless you're affected by some condition that says its not.

-L

Lucas Adorn said:

No, I get how manoeuvres work. It's just that saying "disengaging is free" is like saying "reloading is free." It costs a manoeuvre, even if you get that manoeuvre for free each turn.

It's not free to disengage, it's consequence free .

A "simple" change that I haven't used, but would probably help make disengaging more difficult without dramatically altering how things work, is to require a maneuver to disengage for each opponent that is engaged, rather than one maneuver only.

dvang said:

Yeah, I like that. Simple and elegant.

Ralzar said:

I be with ye boyz!

That works nicely. Lets things like a mobbing up by goblins make a difference in combat. They might not kill ya fast, but they'll bog you down for a krumpin' from da boss.

We have a house rule - disengage is as in the rules (1 manoeuvre) but the opponent can spend immediately his next manoeuvre to keep up with you. We did this to avoid the “running elf” syndrome (elf disengage shots with a bow without any penalties next turn the monster keeps up, then again the elf disengage ...).

E.g. Status engaged - PC disengages, the Beastman keeps up - Status engaged - Next time the beastman can act he has only his action left because he spend his movement already

Of curse both sides can spend as much fatigue as they like to move and follow

Lother_Storm said:

I'm not seeing the practical difference between your house rule and the RAW. Both go:

1 Elf disengages and uses action

2 Beastman engages and uses action

3 Return to 1

Except the house rule goes:

1 Elf disengages, Beastmen engages, elf uses action.

2 Beastman uses action

3 Return to 1

Quite a few Range Attacks (and spells) get an extra Challence or Misfortune die penality if engaged by an enemy.

I don't mind the archer falling back and shooting, he still gets hit on the opponent's turn. It is the turn by turn mechanics you have to accept.

Quite a few cards have a Bane or Chaos Star effect types in the line of "target can make a free manoeuvre" or "target can engage you for free if it is in close range" or "target can disengage you for free", which i find quite fine to compensate for the "elastic" mechanic of turn by turn combat

Ralzar said:

If I'm understanding correctly, the distinction is that using the house rule, the elf cannot use any action which requires that he be disengaged ( e.g. , Rapid Fire) because the beastman has stepped in and re-engaged. So the elf has a more limited selection of actions and cannot just safely step back out of the engagement to shoot each round.

Rather than trying to keep track of maneuvers being spent outside of someone's current turn... why not just house rule that condition of "engaged" for ranged attacks is determined at the start of the PC's combat turn. If they started their turn engaged, they gain a <P>. So, it wouldn't matter if the PC uses several maneuvers to flee during their turn, they would still have the penalty to certain actions.

Saying the same thing, but in a different way, you could also house rule that the actions impose the penalty when currently engaged or if disengaged during the current round.