It seems too easy. since it only costs one manuever to escape to short range, and the penalty for not leaving engaged range is so huge for ranged attacks, i feel like this is a major failing in the game rules.

I think maybe there should be an athletics check, or some other measure or risk element to make disengaging riskier, instead of the most obvious no brainer.

Alternatively, could there be a maneuver that lets you block the path of some one engaged with the character? An advantage spending option that prevents moving away?

What have other people noticed?

Thebearisdriving said:

We've noticed no problems whatsoever because melee combat is such a small part of [the way my table plays] the game AND the equivalent ability of the melee attacker to re-engage with a simple maneuver.

Out of curiosity, how much of this concern comes from issues noted during game-play experience and how much comes from reading the rules?

-WJL

I have had no issue with this - although I feel that the one time you're standing on the edge of a long drop, it should be more than 1 manoeuvre to move past and out of engagement with your opponent. Athletics, coordination or some competitive/opposed roll for this. Perhaps even turn it into an action, changing positions, so that your opponent is suddenly standing on the edge of oblivion, or just a really, really, long drop. I'd even let someone being knocked back or down on such a precipice get a coordination/atheltcis roll to hold on to the edge - or some stone sticking out further down. It is making it more roll heavy and less simple - sort of - but these cinematic scenes should involve something more than simple manoeuvres to get away from. If you catch my drift.

The intent, for me, is not to reproduce AoO or such stuff or make this more into a tactical game. I do on the other hand, want options for those scenes and encounters where positioning matters. Where the one closest to the edge risks falling, a lot of this can be - I assume - solved through creative use of difficult terrain, requiring more manoevuers due to smaller and a lot more risky area to move on… and a coordination/athletics check to not fall. I think its all there, just not spelled out.

As for the normal disengage manoeuvre, I think that is fair. I mean, sometimes you cannot really move away from them… due to risk of falling into fire, oblivion, acid or spiky doom.

To block the path I would argue that could be a manoeuvre in conjunction with a melee attack - or an action to automatically attack anyone trying to pass by - although that is reminiscent of holding initiative and readying actions, which this system doesn't really need or have… perhaps it needs some stuff akin to it though?

Jegergryte said:

I think it's fair, and haven't observed any problems. As LD said, it might only be one action to disengage, but it's also one action to re-engage, and if the ranged attacker is spending his free maneuver on disengaging, then he either isn't aiming or is suffering strain - either way the melee character is winning. I see it as kind of akin to the 5 foot step in d20 games, and at the very least it keeps the combat somewhat moving rather than remaining static.

In terms of the ledge, the rules already cover that scenario - it's the character being surrounded by impassable terrain (the ledge on one side and the hostile opponents(s) on the other, so it requires the normal manuever cost (2 if it's also ruled as difficult terrain), plus an action and appropriate roll (in this case, as you suggest, athletics and coordination seem appropriate) to navigate through.

gribble said:

I don't recall that rule, could you provide a page number or other location?

The rule makes perfect sense. I'm just curious where it is so I can go right to instead of wasting time searching for it… stupid dissertation…

-WJL

LethalDose said:

I don't have the book handy to provide a page number, but Impassable Terrain is in the "environmental effects" part of the combat section, from memory.

If you're referring to the fact that a character backed against a ledge would have to move through Impassable Terrain, then that isn't in the rules as far as I'm aware, but it stands to reason that a ledge certainly would count as impassible (i.e.: requiring an athletics check to "climb") and a hostile enemy should also be Impassable (i.e.: requiring a Coordination check to slip past or an Athletics check to push/jump past). That's the way I'd rule it at my table anyway.

gribble said:

Yes, I'm specifically referring to the rules equating "tactical opponents" with "Impassable terrain." Because without that , you can't claim this situation is already covered by rules:

gribble said:

I think this statement is misleading because the rules you refer to (pg 138, impassable terrain) only discuss environmental barriers.

I want to be clear that I agree with your interpretation . I don't agree that you can make the statement "the rules already cover that" scenario."

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Except the text you refer to starts of with "In terms of the ledge" which is clearly an environmental barrier. I probably could have been clearer in my distinction between treating the ledge as impassable terrain (which clearly is covered by the current rules) and treating the opponent as impassible terrain (which is applying a bit of interpretation to the rules as written, rather than mindlessly applying rules 100% as written - which IME is something that no GM can ever do 100% of the time anyway).

I guess I wasn't clearer because the existing rules do *cover* that situation nicely. Sure, they may not have a 100% black and white piece of text saying "treat enemies as impassible terrain", but it's not a big leap to say that opponents who don't want you moving through them should be impassible, especially given the description/rules of impassible terrain.

LethalDose said:

I think exercising that rule is really important in certian situations and terrains.

To answer LD's original question, this issue actually came up in play.

here is the scenario:
A bounty hunter Tor cordel was attacking the PCs, who had activated their ship and were firing ship based laser blasts at him. He flew into the ship hot on the tail of the las PC to jump on board, and was swiftly critically injured by the trandoshan bounty hunter, having his "flamethrower arm" actually crippled (via the critical hit). That hit adds one difficulty to any flamethrower attacks (attacks with that arm), but since the attacks were all short range and the bounty hunter had very high skill, a single manuever dropped the difficulty from 4 to two to flame blast the heroes and activate the blast quality.

Now, pretty quickly after the session I realised that inside the ship probably should ahve been engaged, or at least auto matic levels of cover for ranged attacks do to the cluttered and confined nature of the ship (ghtroc). that was my mistake and i have that filed away when combat takes place on a ship (or a small confined space) in the future.

Neither did any of my PCs try to cut the bounty hunter from escapiong via maneuvers or actions. They did waht they could, but it ended up being a TPK (not actual death, but everyone was incapacitated).

What would have made a big difference was IMO was someelement of game mechanic that gives a melee attacker a small edge in this kind of situation. game called cthulhutech has a "disengage" action and that has a steraight 50/50 chance to get out of melee. I feel like something that would give the melee fighter the advantage is really needed. Especially once you close to engaged range. No AoO, but something that prevents someone from just taking a step back and getting a one difficulty shot on the huge wookie that just charged to engaged range.

It makes for a stupid sort of "i back away." and "well, I move forward." round after round after round.

Put another way, with the increased difficulty of shooting, and the negatives of staying in engaged range, it is (90%) always effecctive to spend the maneuver to disengage at 0 risk, and then take the one difficulty shot. It's so stupidly obviously a good decision that it makes it a non-decision, which i keep hearing that is bad in game design.