Does Combat work without Charms?

[IanPrice]

As a side story to a game I had a while back, I ran a group of players as mortal gunzosha troops. It provided a great opportunity for the use of lots of non-charm-related combat tactics and stunting. A lot of different things came into play:


- There were weak, strong, and relatively even opponents.


- Position modifiers were useful, or painful, depending on who had access to high ground to attack from.


- Surprise and re-establishing it were used extensively.


- Coordinated Attacks worked well.


- Using the terrain to provide cover, or control range for who could attack whom, was important.


- Controlling whether combat was conducted as individuals or mass combat units (again using terrain to thin out or bunch up enemies) came up a few times.


- Disarming was used very effectively in combination with other tactics to reduce the target's DV, especially to deprive dangerous exalted opponents of powerful weapons.


- Darkness, blindness, and unstable terrain modifiers all affected the battles at different times.


I never felt like it came down to a coinflip, even between equal opponents, because the group was acting as soldiers. They fought dirty, and fought together, and if the fight was even (let alone against them), they did their best to choose a better fight instead. It was particularly impressive when they managed to get the Abyssal commander's Grimscythe away from him, so he couldn't parry the artillery they had called in from Skywolf at the start of that skirmish.

 

[MorkaisChosen]

It was particularly impressive when they managed to get the Abyssal commander's Grimscythe away from him, so he couldn't parry the artillery they had called in from Skywolf at the start of that skirmish.

I love this game... :lol:

 

[ThatBlueGuy]

It was particularly impressive when they managed to get the Abyssal commander's Grimscythe away from him, so he couldn't parry the artillery they had called in from Skywolf at the start of that skirmish.

I love this game... :lol:

Seconded.

 

[IanPrice]

Objective. Objective, objective, objective!
People always forget that you're generally not trying to fight just to kill the other guy, you're fighting the other guy to achieve some thing you could not otherwise. (snip)

Also, this. The only times I've actually seen a fight where simply beating the opponent down was the objective for the PCs in games I've played, it's either been in martial arts tournaments or when hunting down a hated nemesis. In the former case, some tournaments change things up by giving the fighters some kind of athletic objective like "bring this trinket, hanging from a high platform over the ring, to the victory square and declare victory," meaning movement, tripping, and grappling to throw become important factors. When hunting down a big enemy, many small-time foes will usually get in the way, giving you the option to mow them down (possibly giving your big enemy more time to prepare/finish their doomsday weapon/escape), or try to punch through and move on (leaving enemies alive behind you to box you in!), or try to go around (possibly stealthily).


To borrow an example from video games, take the end of Halo: Combat Evolved, versus the end of Halo 2. At the end of the first game, you had to destroy XYZ objectives, then escape using a vehicle to get from point A to point B before the giant explosion you set in motion could get you. Along the way, lots of enemies kept trying to kill you, and you had to kill some, evade others, and ignore still others. The second game had a boss fight, with a kind of boss that could easily exist in exalted: usually invulnerable, unless a brief window to hurt him is opened up, and he has a lot of health so just one window of opportunity won't be enough. Halo 2's final sequence was much less interesting because of this. The same principle can be used in Exalted games, or any other game really; instead of a largely stationary slugfest, use the reasons already laid out by the previous story and action to get the fight moving and give the PCs more objectives than just "kill this guy/these guys."


Some example generally-applicable objectives:


- Manses are perfect for "set the reactor to explode, then escape!" because of essence buildup. If none of the PCs have the geomantic knowledge to set a manse to self destruct, you can always put an AI contruct/guardian spirit in the Manse which knows.


- Vehicle missions! Whether exotic mounts or artifact transportation, these give characters an unusual range of abilities beyond the normal hack-and-slash to work with in their action scenes.


- Escort quests are good to keep focus on "don't die," as in "don't let NPC X die." Particularly tense when the focus of the mission has to do something dangerous that nobody else can do. Perhaps stopping essence buildup in a Manse somebody else set to self-destruct (on purpose or not), disarming a first-age weapon, or negotiating with a powerful and ornery spirit.


- Snatch-the-macguffin scenes put the focus on moving fast and defending rather than hitting guys. Attacks tend to be focused on slowing opponents down rather than hurting them.


- "Escape from certain doom" is a possible theme, but it can be tricky to communicate to players the certainty of their doom and the necessity of escape. Less usable if you have stubborn people in your group who tend to dig in their heels and not admit being outclassed, though if you and the rest of the group don't mind killing off those characters who are stubborn at the wrong time it still works fine.


- "On the fifth day, look to the East." Have them hold out against wave after wave of bad guys, or possibly hold off a smaller number of superior foes, knowing that help is on the way.

 

[Malekith]

Dont reward their xp for boring play!

Maybe you should set up fights where they have to move around. Slowly collapsing towers and such. Active-but-broken factory-cathedrals with conveyor belts. You know?

That's a little hard to pull off all the time. What do you do when the plot calls for solid ground?

 

[Virjigorm]

If all else fails, have no fear. Boring combat ceases to exist as PCs get more age and exp. It took me almost no effort to set up a battle in Skullstone's Onyx Harbor. There were naval mass-combat units maneuvering around Essence-charged exalted battling while running across the harbor, all in the shadow of a city-sized sea dragon (a Lunar PC )taking artillery fire from shore emplacements firing pyreflame. I did not set any of this up. The PCs were capable of this because they are 500+ exp Celestial Exalted with a lot of stories behind them. The charms they have can knock down fortresses and lay waste to landscapes and ideas alike. When perfects of various types are flying on both sides, the whole battle becomes a contest of creative and descriptive one-ups-manship.


The simple truth is, at about 400 exp, all Celestial Exalted are pretty much equal. Raw numbers don't work anymore after a point and situational factors combined with good stunting and creative tactics are all that counts. Perfect attacks come into regular use even before Essence 6, and after that point, perfect defenses are cheap and plentiful. Funny enough, if combat looks flat without charms, it's pretty much the same with all the charms. The nice thing is that the combat mechanics encourage good role-playing over tired roll-playing.

 

[cyl]

Exactly, once your players are tired of using the same techniques over and over again and are sure that they can kill on sight pretty much whoever they want to... they'll start to explore combat as an art out of boredom.


I had a player once who got tired of hacking people in half with his grand klave and who decided to use it to the side and not the edge, as a blunt weapon, sweeping opponents off their feets or knocking them out... because his character felt he had a long list of kills was content, and so it was time to stop being a butcher...


When his opponents were dangerous enough he would flip his blade to the edge and start cutting them again.


Obviously, that guy had a lot of inspiration from Zaraki Kenpachi. :twisted: