Topic: Understanding melee attack alternatives

[Voriig Kye]

Greetings, experienced GM's and players of the forum.
Although my group uses mostly RMFRP, there are still some RM2 leftovers in the form of house rules. Initiative and combat sequence is one of them.
So we have decided to try the 3 phase round, and I will also use this opportunity to program the logic in my web application, so that all the technicalities can be solved by the computer.

In that light, there are some doubts I have about how some situations would be solved.
If any of the things I mention is to be considered as "overruled" by the RM rulings page, please let me know.

1) The Full melee attack
RMFRP P.39 Table T-3.2 lists 3 types of attack:
Making a melee attack 60-100%, Press & react attack 80-100%, React & melee attack 80-100%

Now, on P.216 the first melee attack technique is called "Full Melee Attack"
I have not found any mention of this in any other part of the book, and it does not seem to be used in the examples either.
It seems as if this maneuver is the "Making a melee attack 60-100%" from P.39
This would mean that every attack that is not press or react gives the attacker a +10 to OB.
I find it strange that it is called "full melee" when as few as 60% could be assigned to it.
So the +10 could be really useful in compensation for the -40 for using less than required.
An on top of that an additional +10 could be obtained from declaring a deliberate action.
If I understood this correctly, most attacks under normal circumstances would end up with a +20.
This would even be true if the attacker declares 100% parry, since it is still a "full melee attack", only that it would give the shield bonus to DB and a +10 to OB.
In the end, those wanting the best defense should always choose "deliberate 100% parry full melee attack" which gives +Weapon Shield Bonus to DB (and from what I understand this could even stack with a real shield on the other hand), +10 OB from deliberate action, +10 OB from full melee attack.
Is this right? Are most 0% attacks really resolved at +20?

2) Penalty for percentage below the required for the attack
If this has been discussed before, please point me in the right direction.
The books state many times that a -1 is applied when resolving maneuvers for every 1% below the amount required.
This means that a character with 60 OB attacking as a 75% action rolls at (+60-25)=35
But a character with 140 OB at 75% rolls at (140-25)=115
I find it quite weird that the rule is not to apply the percentage to the skill bonus directly, (+60*75%)=45 in the first example and (+140*75%)=105 in the second one.
I know this calculations become even more complex with missile attacks, as they range from 30% to 60%, so if using 100% OB requires 60% of the turn, using 30% implies 50% OB instead of the -30 stated in the rules.
How do you play it? In case the only reason not to do the "right" computation is to avoid wasting time with a calculator, would you like the percentage model be used if you were using an application that automatically resolves all of this?
Even if some character were hasted, or had some extra percentage from Light/Fire elemental corruption, my intention is for the application I'm developing to contain all of this information, so that the GM can tell the story, and the players can stay in character without real world calculator use interruptions.

Thanks for any and all opinions on these matters.

[Badger]

Methinks gameplay is in trouble when 'calculators' are even mentioned.

I appreciate that your system automates the number crunching, but if players can't evaluate the situation themselves, they can't make informed choices concerning what their characters should do.

I just had a situation where a player was swamped by the complexity of modifiers and I wasn't using the %action rules.

I know that I am not really addressing your queries (I appreciate your tolerance), but I wanted to take a moment to urge you to have the display/results of your program present the details so that the player can get a sense of what the modifiers are and why they're applied and when.

Otherwise they just start rolling the dice rather than visualising the situation.

Cheers,

Badger

[jdale]

We don't use #1 (unnecessary complication, seems unrealistically rigid to me) but do use #2.

#1: The limitation on Full Melee Attack is that you have to declare your target in advance. There are many circumstances where you might not end up adjacent to your target when it comes time to attack, especially if you wait till the deliberate phase. If you are adjacent at the beginning of the round, Press & Melee Attack gives better insurance you will still be able to attack them. React & Melee is more flexible.

#2: I would stick to -1 per 1%, not -1% per 1%. That way the rules will be the same if you want to do a quick check without using the software. Also, this kind of represents that a skilled character is better able to multitask, where a beginner has more trouble with it. If it was -1% per 1%, a beginner would suffer relatively little penalty for using less activity, where an expert would be severely impeded....

[VladD]

With just an absolute penalty the beginner (skill below 100) would suffer harder and the skilled (100+) would scoff at penalties. With percentage penalties, the relative penalty stays the same!

The problem is math. It is much easier deducting 25 from your roll, skill or both, than 25% from your skill.

In my first RM group we had a rule that said skill = below 100; use penalties, skill = above 100 use percentage penalties. This was in the time that rules said: -20%. This rule does mean you are at a disadvantage every time.

[markc]

 #2, I asked about a long time ago and was told that the subtraction was put in place for ease of use vs. the multiplication. ie subtraction is easy even if it gives a bonus to those who have skill values over 100.
  If I was going to make my own combat system and program it out I would use the multiplication method as it seems better to me.


MDC

[MariusH]

1) Using "full melee" while parrying 100% is usually sound (though not always!). However, when you actually want to attack, think closely before choosing "full melee". If your opponent is moving away (either by a "disengage from melee" action or by other means), you'll not be able to follow him if you had declared "full melee". With "press and melee", you'll always be able to follow and attack. In my opinion, "press and melee" is often the better choice. "React and melee" is even more flexible, and should be used when you don't know who and when you want to attack, or if you want to attack a target that is a distance away. The best thing about "full melee" is that you can do it at less than 80% action. You can, for instance, attack with 75% in snap, and disengage from melee with 25% in normal - leaving your opponent with no target for his "full melee" attack in deliberate phase (this happens in our games some times). Or if you're hasted, this allows you to attack in all three phases (80% + 60% + 60%) - as examples. Try combining this with 2 weapon combo and "adrenal move strength" for a very lethal combat round...

[Voriig Kye]

So far it seems that the interpretation of the rules is correct, but that as is always the case in RM, not many groups use them as written in the books.
Since I intend to create software to handle the rules, I will try to start with the official resolution of things, and then move up from there by adding customization options and maybe some fields for "other modifications".
Thanks to all those who answered, and please continue to provide your opinions and application of the rules in question. If enough people house rule things in a particular way, it is almost certain I will consider programming those variations as soon as possible.

So far the RMFRP Round initiative declarations looks like this:


I may still tweak it a little bit to reduce complexity. Yesterday I received a suggestion to eventually let the players access a module from their smartphones where they can declare their actions, so that the GM need not do all the job in this window.

[choc]

Are you guys really sit in a comfortable roleplaying round, listen to the stories of the characters and the GM narrator and when it comes to a combat situation everyone uses a smarthone?
;(

dudes, I feel very old ...

[jdale]

Are you guys really sit in a comfortable roleplaying round, listen to the stories of the characters and the GM narrator and when it comes to a combat situation everyone uses a smarthone?

No, not at all. We use a laptop. From that perspective, a tablet or phone creates less of a barrier between the GM and players, so it could be an improvement. And, in turn, the laptop is less of a barrier in my opinion than the old-fashioned GM screen.

But in any case, the only person in our game who uses the device is the GM. Players tell the GM what they are doing and what they rolled, the GM tells them the result. I think this actually keeps the game more immersive (and definitely faster) for the players than the common RM alternative where the players are assisting with table lookups and such.

(Sometimes we also have a player or two taking notes on a computer. Most of the players prefer to take notes on paper. We do have a notebook that gets passed around for that purpose. I end up typing all the notes up ultimately, so it's faster for me to just take notes in that form from the start. But typed notes are searchable, which is really handy when the campaign has lasted a long time and hundreds of pages of notes.)

[Merkir]

+1 for the laptop.

It snaps open the minute a combat encounter starts, then snaps shut the minute it's over. My old folder with dozens of printed tables no longer gets opened (not quite true because the resistance roll table is still in there - I should take that page out). Tracking of all the combat damage remains on the laptop, so the players don't even need to track their own wounds if they don't want to. 

Btw, I use different software than that shown above, but no doubt similar.