Combat Facing Variant Question [Archive] - Wizards Community

Combat Facing Variant Question [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
The_Levitator
06-12-06, 01:42 AM We've recently made some major changes to our combat system to incorporate more opportunities for strategy and realism. We have incorporated both the Vitality/Wounds variant and the Combat Facing variant. My question is regarding the Combat Facing variant.

We had a session tonight that turned basically into everyone circling each other to get into rear attacks. According to the CF variant, a player can change facing before moving into each square, unless only moving their 5' step. Under these rules, a player can sidestep (to keep the defender from getting a +2 flanking bonus on their AoO) and then move into the defender's rear square, moving only 2 squares in the total movement. Even with the AoO's, it became a merry go round type of combat. My players felt that it was unrealistic that an attacker could move into a defender's rear position without them also changing their facing. They found it plausible to move to an opponent's flank, but not to their rear.

Does anyone have any experience using this variant that could shed some light on it application? The group absolutely loves the facing variant, but there is some question on certain movements, especially moving to an opponent's rear so easily.
Arcade
06-12-06, 12:56 PM I haven't played with this as written, but I did use it back in 2nd edition and Combat and Tactics. In that version, characters were allowed to change their facing once at any time during the round.

The UA rules say to change facing is a free action. I would say change it to an immediate action instead. As someone circles around you, you are going to circle with them. Unfortunately, you cannot keep changing your facing as multiple people keep circling you, so you can only keep up with one. You can use this to either make it so the character attacking you is now facing your front or to hold your AoO until they move to their second square and then change facing to get an AoO on their flank while you are facing them (though this will likely allow them to still move to your rear).

As another option, you can also allow someone to change facing when they make an attack of opportunity. They are only allowed to change their facing to face the person they are attacking and they have to make the attack of opportunity first, but afterward they would be facing their opponent.

Finally, if you still think it is being abused, when you make an AoO for movement, you could consider the square being moved from and moved to and take the best attacker facing and the worst defender facing from those squares to determine facing for the AoO, though this seems a little extreme to me.
The_Levitator
06-12-06, 02:45 PM Changing the facing from free action to immediate action is brilliant! :D It would make AoO's a little better too because they wouldn't always be attacking into their flanks at -5. I guess to adjudicate this I would give the defender a chance to state their intent when the attacker begins to circle around them. Would you still allow the immediate action of the defender changing facing with the attacker if the attacker were a rogue using tumble to get into a rear position? I'm thinking that allowing the immediate action of matching facing would only apply during normal movement and not for special moves like tumbling and other feats and/or stunts.

One of the members of our group suggested that a successful AoO against an attacker trying to circle would stop their movement for that round. I guess that would treat circling more like a special attack like sunder, trip and disarm.

Thanks a ton for the great ideas! We'll be playing again this week and I'll be happy to share our experience with the new ideas! :D
polt
06-12-06, 03:30 PM You might wanna check this thread out: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=651273
Arcade
06-12-06, 05:01 PM Changing the facing from free action to immediate action is brilliant! :D It would make AoO's a little better too because they wouldn't always be attacking into their flanks at -5. I guess to adjudicate this I would give the defender a chance to state their intent when the attacker begins to circle around them. Would you still allow the immediate action of the defender changing facing with the attacker if the attacker were a rogue using tumble to get into a rear position? I'm thinking that allowing the immediate action of matching facing would only apply during normal movement and not for special moves like tumbling and other feats and/or stunts.

That case sounds too specific. I'm not sure if this is a good solution, but take a look at it:

If someone provokes an attack of opportunity from you, you may designate that person to be your facing target. This is an immediate action. If the facing target moves before the the start of your next turn, you may change your facing so that they remain in your front facing. If the facing target moves before your next turn and you do not change your facing to keep them in your forward facing, the person is no longer considered to be your facing target.

I can understand the idea is to let rogues do their thing without getting nuked by an immediate action every time. I'm not sure how balanced it is to let rogues get sneak attacks so easily, but they can always fail those tumble checks, so it might balance out.

One variant on the above rule is that if you designate someone as your facing target, instead of keeping them in your front facing, you have to keep them in whatever facing they were at the time you designated them. So if someone is on your flank when you designate them as the facing target, you can only move to keep them on that flank, not in your front facing.
Verelor
06-12-06, 07:24 PM Combat Facing might sound cool on paper, but I think that in practice it is a gross overcomplication of the rules, and just isn't fun enough to be worth much merit. :)

You are, of course, free to rebut this short comment.
The_Levitator
06-12-06, 08:12 PM There is a bit of disagreement in the group. It's always a struggle as a DM to find the right balance to please everyone. It seems players want tons of options available yet still want combat to take seconds. 1 player in our group definitely just likes to swing, swing, swing, swing. He claims to want strategy, yet when we add it, he just swings, swings, swings. I think he fears that if combat becomes too tactical it will expose his weakness of thinking in that area. But other members want it to be more strategic, so I'm trying to find a balance that offers more than swing, swing, swing, without getting overly complicated.

They seemed to be in agreement with the idea of allowing each defender to engage one opponent and be able to match facing with that opponent as an immediate action. That would only apply to normal movement, to keep the feats and special abilities, well, special.

We had incorporated the Attack and Defense Challenges from IH and I think that might have been a little bit of overkill with this group. They seem to definitely want facing, I think we just want something a little clearer that offers options without slowing everything down to a crawl. What's ironic is that compared to when we gamed pen and paper, we fly through combats now that I use DM Genie and its autoroll option. Me thinks my players are getting a little spoiled! :P

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The_Levitator 06-12-06, 01:42 AM	We've recently made some major changes to our combat system to incorporate more opportunities for strategy and realism. We have incorporated both the Vitality/Wounds variant and the Combat Facing variant. My question is regarding the Combat Facing variant. We had a session tonight that turned basically into everyone circling each other to get into rear attacks. According to the CF variant, a player can change facing before moving into each square, unless only moving their 5' step. Under these rules, a player can sidestep (to keep the defender from getting a +2 flanking bonus on their AoO) and then move into the defender's rear square, moving only 2 squares in the total movement. Even with the AoO's, it became a merry go round type of combat. My players felt that it was unrealistic that an attacker could move into a defender's rear position without them also changing their facing. They found it plausible to move to an opponent's flank, but not to their rear. Does anyone have any experience using this variant that could shed some light on it application? The group absolutely loves the facing variant, but there is some question on certain movements, especially moving to an opponent's rear so easily.
Arcade 06-12-06, 12:56 PM	I haven't played with this as written, but I did use it back in 2nd edition and Combat and Tactics. In that version, characters were allowed to change their facing once at any time during the round. The UA rules say to change facing is a free action. I would say change it to an immediate action instead. As someone circles around you, you are going to circle with them. Unfortunately, you cannot keep changing your facing as multiple people keep circling you, so you can only keep up with one. You can use this to either make it so the character attacking you is now facing your front or to hold your AoO until they move to their second square and then change facing to get an AoO on their flank while you are facing them (though this will likely allow them to still move to your rear). As another option, you can also allow someone to change facing when they make an attack of opportunity. They are only allowed to change their facing to face the person they are attacking and they have to make the attack of opportunity first, but afterward they would be facing their opponent. Finally, if you still think it is being abused, when you make an AoO for movement, you could consider the square being moved from and moved to and take the best attacker facing and the worst defender facing from those squares to determine facing for the AoO, though this seems a little extreme to me.
The_Levitator 06-12-06, 02:45 PM	Changing the facing from free action to immediate action is brilliant! :D It would make AoO's a little better too because they wouldn't always be attacking into their flanks at -5. I guess to adjudicate this I would give the defender a chance to state their intent when the attacker begins to circle around them. Would you still allow the immediate action of the defender changing facing with the attacker if the attacker were a rogue using tumble to get into a rear position? I'm thinking that allowing the immediate action of matching facing would only apply during normal movement and not for special moves like tumbling and other feats and/or stunts. One of the members of our group suggested that a successful AoO against an attacker trying to circle would stop their movement for that round. I guess that would treat circling more like a special attack like sunder, trip and disarm. Thanks a ton for the great ideas! We'll be playing again this week and I'll be happy to share our experience with the new ideas! :D
polt 06-12-06, 03:30 PM	You might wanna check this thread out: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=651273
Arcade 06-12-06, 05:01 PM	Changing the facing from free action to immediate action is brilliant! :D It would make AoO's a little better too because they wouldn't always be attacking into their flanks at -5. I guess to adjudicate this I would give the defender a chance to state their intent when the attacker begins to circle around them. Would you still allow the immediate action of the defender changing facing with the attacker if the attacker were a rogue using tumble to get into a rear position? I'm thinking that allowing the immediate action of matching facing would only apply during normal movement and not for special moves like tumbling and other feats and/or stunts. That case sounds too specific. I'm not sure if this is a good solution, but take a look at it: If someone provokes an attack of opportunity from you, you may designate that person to be your facing target. This is an immediate action. If the facing target moves before the the start of your next turn, you may change your facing so that they remain in your front facing. If the facing target moves before your next turn and you do not change your facing to keep them in your forward facing, the person is no longer considered to be your facing target. I can understand the idea is to let rogues do their thing without getting nuked by an immediate action every time. I'm not sure how balanced it is to let rogues get sneak attacks so easily, but they can always fail those tumble checks, so it might balance out. One variant on the above rule is that if you designate someone as your facing target, instead of keeping them in your front facing, you have to keep them in whatever facing they were at the time you designated them. So if someone is on your flank when you designate them as the facing target, you can only move to keep them on that flank, not in your front facing.
Verelor 06-12-06, 07:24 PM	Combat Facing might sound cool on paper, but I think that in practice it is a gross overcomplication of the rules, and just isn't fun enough to be worth much merit. :) You are, of course, free to rebut this short comment.
The_Levitator 06-12-06, 08:12 PM	There is a bit of disagreement in the group. It's always a struggle as a DM to find the right balance to please everyone. It seems players want tons of options available yet still want combat to take seconds. 1 player in our group definitely just likes to swing, swing, swing, swing. He claims to want strategy, yet when we add it, he just swings, swings, swings. I think he fears that if combat becomes too tactical it will expose his weakness of thinking in that area. But other members want it to be more strategic, so I'm trying to find a balance that offers more than swing, swing, swing, without getting overly complicated. They seemed to be in agreement with the idea of allowing each defender to engage one opponent and be able to match facing with that opponent as an immediate action. That would only apply to normal movement, to keep the feats and special abilities, well, special. We had incorporated the Attack and Defense Challenges from IH and I think that might have been a little bit of overkill with this group. They seem to definitely want facing, I think we just want something a little clearer that offers options without slowing everything down to a crawl. What's ironic is that compared to when we gamed pen and paper, we fly through combats now that I use DM Genie and its autoroll option. Me thinks my players are getting a little spoiled! :P