House Rules for Charge Attacks
by Joel Lovell, Michael A. Bott & Brian Potter
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 13:25:27 -0400
From: Joel Lovell
Reply-To: rolemaster@tower.clark.net
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: [RM2] Riding situations
>1. Damage from a running-attack: If a rider using, say, a broadsword,
>charges up on an opponent, how do you adjust their OB to reflect
> (a) the greater difficulty of hitting while riding all-out and
> (b) the fact that a successful hit should do more damage than if the
>rider were standing still?
CHARGE ATTACKS
Charges: If an attacker is moving into a foe for an
attack, the attack is considered a charge, it is resolved as soon as the
distance closes to within melee range. However, in a charge attack, the person
with the fastest attack is the one who gets to "strike" first .
Exception: Grotesquely longer weapons will automatically win initiative. (In
the case of a mounted lance or spear vs. a shortsword wielding character, etc.)
Ranged attacks will always win the initiative when vs. a non ranged attack. A
good definition of grotesque is when the weapon is 1/2 again as long as the
other, or if the attacker has obvious reach over his foe. Only one charge can be
attempted per round.
Charge Attack Damage Multiple Increase: With this optional rule, movement
speed effects the amount of damage a target takes when hit by a foe moving at
fast speeds. This rule applies to any charge attack, mounted attack, or ram /
tackle type maneuver. In the case of mounted attacks, use the mounts speed.
Simply take the relative velocity in feet per round (which would be both
combatants paces added together if running toward each other, subtract one from
the other if one is chasing the other, using the faster of the two if moving
perpendicular). This is the total speed. Divide this total by 100.
This result, times 0.5, is the damage multiple added to an attack base damage
multiple of X1 (round to the nearest whole number before adding to the x1
multiple). The referee must interpret the attack result to determine whether the
slower attacker in the charge gets to finish his attack (whether with the damage
multiple or not.)
Example: Booger the Troll is cruising along at 5 x his base rate, for a total
of 450' per round. Booger plans to charge into Wy Lee at full speed and smash
him to a pulp. 450' per round divided by 100 = 4.5, and multiplied times 0.5 =
2.25, which is rounded to two. This means that the normal x1 dmg attack now has
2 added to the damage multiple, making it a x3 attack. If Booger hits Wy Lee, he
will do 3x normal damage (concussive hits) with his charge.
What Booger didn't reckon with was that Wy Lee would act first in the charge
(basically his Sweep/Throw was faster than the trolls bash), so Wy Lee's attack,
if successful will be doing the x3 damage, first. Booger is going to either hit
the floor or Wy Lee really hard! Wy Lee's attack is successful, and the critical
indicates a fall, so the GM decides that Booger does not get to resolve his
attack from the charge at all...
>2. Over-riding your horse: Last night, a city-slicker rode his horse to
>the breaking point on exhaustion. I just played it that the horse became
I ride trail a lot. Frequently, when riding horses out of shape, they tire
quickly, and this is a simple progression of what happens:
- They get cross, a novice rider might find it fights the bit, wants to go
where it wants, or stops in it's tracks.
- They start getting lazy, their feet drag (starts clicking against rocks,
etc. because they aren't picking their feet up.)
- They start tripping, catching newbies unaware they might take a nasty
spill as the horse goes down, sometimes all the way. Horse could get hurt too.
In essence, require manuever rolls periodically for handling, using the
riding skill. Failure should occasionally result in injury, using a combination
of manuever rolls to avoid harm, with failure indicating falling damage at
speed, krush criticals, etc.
food for thought, in the state of Oregon alone I was told that there are two
horses to every person living here. An emergency room doctor (treating my wife
who was injured in a horse related accident) told us that they get twice as many
horse injuries in than bicyclist injuries....
A good horse article is badly needed for gamers. I'm working on one which
details a lot more stuff about the quality, care, mishaps, use of the riding
skill, manuevers, etc, horses in warfare, long distance travel, etc. GM's are
missing out on a lot that horses can offer a campaign. Horses are greatly taken
for granted.
If anyone has specific questions, I'd be more than happy to offer my opinion.
I am really rushed right now and could only throw out a few tidbits...
Joel
=====================================================================
| email: jwlovelx@ibeam.intel.com Joel Lovell |
| cell: (503)539-2085 Intel Corporation |
| office: (503)264-3792 2111 NE 25th Ave, M/S: JF2-74 |
| fax: (503)264-8100 Hillsboro, OR 97124 |
=====================================================================
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 16:08:55 -0400
From: thor!mbott@netcom.com
Reply-To: rolemaster@tower.clark.net
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: [RM2] Riding situations
> 1. Damage from a running-attack: If a rider using, say, a broadsword,
> charges up on an opponent, how do you adjust their OB to reflect
> (a) the greater difficulty of hitting while riding all-out and
> (b) the fact that a successful hit should do more damage than if the
> rider were standing still?
Their base OB with the weapon can never be more than their mounted combat
skill. To reflect a successful hit, modify the OB (after a successful attack)
with a roll on the combat manuver static man. table. (+30->, +15->, etc.)
-Mikey
***********
* * Michael A. Bott
* ** * Integrix, Inc.
* * * * 2001 Corporate Center Drive
* ***** * Newbury Park, CA 91320
* * * * Tel: 805.376.1000 x111 Fax: 805.376.1001
* ** *
*********** email: mbott@integrix.com
i n t e g r i x
***********
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:30:22 -0400
From: Brian Potter
Reply-To: rolemaster@tower.clark.net
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Riding attacks, play-test results
A short while back I posted some questions about combat from horseback.
One had to do with how an OB should be modified for different paces (attacking
at 1x normal versus attacking at 3x). This question prompted me to consider
making riders at any pace do a maneuver roll with their riding bonus, and using
the resulting % on the maneuver chart as the % of their OB they can use (this %
is in place of the usual use of riding bonus as a % of OB). The maneuver
difficulty could be increased for faster paces, effectively reducing the OB.
(Joel Lovell posted some rules for increasing damage from a successful hit, and
these would result in charging attacks causing more damage when they do hit.)
I did some quick play testing of the maneuver-chart idea, assuming that where
RM would just use Ride bonus/100*OB I would require a Medium maneuver at -50
plus Ride bonus. I used a 3YORNG (3-year-old random number generator, meaning my
son rolled the dice for all of these) and did 20 rolls each for riding bonuses
of 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, and 85. The following are the results:
Ride Bonus average % from table std dev. of table results
5 18 22
10 14 13
20 24 28
30 20 20
50 35 20
85 68 27
In short, it appears that this method allows beginners to hit more easily
(about 20% of OB) and advanced riders improve more slowly. The break-even point,
where the RM method and my maneuver method balance out, is somewhere around
20-40. The maneuver-method also allows for greater variability in attack
efficiency.
Just some food for thought. I don't think I'll use this method, as it adds an
extra roll to every mounted attack, but I thought someone else may be
interested.
Brian Potter
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