Mordred Dragon of the North
Posts : 2518 Join date : 2011-08-19 Age : 38 Location : London
| Subject: Manifest Destiny Combat Rules Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:22 am | |
| (Please just use the OOC Rules section if you want to discuss these) As the meta game is humming along nicely, we have begun to consider the rules for combat itself and have come up with the following. Please note these are very much a work in progress, and that they will continue to be added to / tweaked / removed as we test and get experience with the system. Many, many thanks to Saeros and Iskar for their input on creating this system. They did most of the leg-work! The Battlefield- Spoiler:
Combat will take place on a hex grid, with different hexes being designated as different sorts of terrain, ranging from forest, to swamp, to grassland, etc. These are the currently available terrain hexes (Hex Colour = Terrain Type = Terrain Stat);
Black = No-access = N/A Dark Green = Forest = Light Cover, -1 Cavalry Charge Light Green = Grassland = N/A Orange = Settlement = Either Light Cover, Medium Cover or Heavy Cover depending on fortification. Bonus to both melee and ranged. Dark Blue = Deep Water = No access to ground troops. Light Blue = Shallow Water = Access to Galleys and ground troops. Exposed. Yellow = Beaches = Difficult Brown Lines = Hexes with a Road N/A = Hills = Light Cover. Bonus to both melee and ranged. N/A = Mountains = Medium Cover. Bonus to both melee and ranged. N/A = Steppe = +1 Cavalry Charge
These will be added to over time. N/A colour has not yet been defined.
Each hex may hold up to a maximum of 100 soldiers! Pendor / Order Special units MUST remain in their recruited 100 men units, while Order Knights and Retainers may be split into squads of 1 - 100 men. For the purposes of easier garrisoning, you may split Pendor units up, HOWEVER they may only march to war as a full unit! Unless of course they are the garrison under attack. Combat Rules- Spoiler:
Basic concept:Group 1 with N 1 soldiers with efficiency e 1 fights against Group 2 with N 2 soldiers with efficiency e 2. The efficiencies e i for all soldiers involved are always numbers between 0 and 1, will be calculated from their proficiencies and are (roughly) explained below. Main Cases:- Case A: Group 1 attacks Group 2 without immediate counteraction.
After one generic battle time interval N1 and N2 have changed to N1' and N2' resp. in the following way: N1' = N1 and N2' = (1 - [N1/(N1+N2)] x e1) x N2. After that they fight on mutually, which is described by Case B (e.g. after a cavalry charge) or there is another uncountered attack (e.g. another volley of arrows) which is again described by Case A.
- Case B: Group 1 and Group 2 fight against one another.
In this case the numbers after a generic battle time interval are N1' = (1 - [N2/(N1+N2)] x e2) x N1 and N2' = (1 - [N1/(N1+N2)] x e1) x N2.
Remarks: Numbers calculated this way will in general not be integers. To get the actual numbers for the roleplay just round those you have calculated. According to this concept, whether A or B is the case remains to be decided by the gamemaster. Examples for Case A: - Archers firing on non-ranged enemies.
- Cavalry charging archers, infantry or cavalry that does not countercharge.
- Any kind of flanking or ambush attack.
Examples for Case B: - Archers skirmishing with other ranged troops.
- Two units of cavalry charging against one another.
- All usual melee fighting.
- Cavalry charging a group of spearmen that are prepared for the impact (Phalanx, etc.).
Efficiencies:- Ranged troops (indicated by r for ranged) attacking any kind of troops (indicated by t for target):
er = [trr/(trr+ tat + d + tb + tc)]
With tr = total ranged value ta = total armour value d = distance, measured in generic length units (hexes?) tb = tactical bonus (for units who know how to move against archers, like EG knights or a Legion testudo) tc = terrain cover (terrain modifiers)
- Cavalry (index c) charging any kind of troops (index t):
ec = [tmmc/(tmmc + tat + dit + tb + ti)]
With ta as above di = discipline tb = tactical bonus (eg, pikemen will get this when fighting cavalry) tmm = total mounted melee ti = terrain impedance (terrain modifiers)
- Any troops (index m) inflicting melee damage on any kind of troops (index t):
em = [tmm/(tmm + tat + tmt)]
With all variables as above except for tm = total melee.
If we have e.g. a cavalry force fighting a melee force after a charge, we can use the third formula for the cavalry unit's efficiency by replacing the melee values by mounted melee values. Analogously this holds for the ranged efficiency and horse archers firing on enemies. Terrain Defence- Spoiler:
As you can see a number of different terrain modifiers give a different level of cover, these are applied as following; Exposed = -2 Difficult = -1 N/A = 0 Light Cover = +1 Medium Cover = +2 Heavy Cover = +3
Some cover applies to both melee and ranged. This is noted for each terrain type. Movement- Spoiler:
Each unit may make one action per round, either movement; Infantry move 1 hex Cavalry move 2 hexes Turning 180 takes 1 move, otherwise it doesn't cost anything. Attacking takes one action. Units may attack once per round.
Actions may be carried out in any order, ie move-attack or attack-move for cavalry. If they move-attack in melee, this constitutes a charge, with all their lovely boni.
Attack of Opportunity: A unit may move out of combat, however their opponent will get a free attack against them if they do so. Mounts- Spoiler:
Many of the Orders have a mount, and these give a range of bonuses.
Hunters give +1 to Charge Light Warhorses give +2 Charge Heavy Warhorses give +3 Charge Dragon Destrier give + 3 Charge Ironbred give +4 Charge Netherworlds give +5 Charge
Dragon Destrier +1 Armour (when mounted) Ironbred +1 Armour (when mounted) Netherwords give +1 Armour (when mounted)
Hunters give +1 movement Command- Spoiler:
Command is a way of defining how many troops a player character may oversee in battle. Note, for the purposes of the Meta Game, only specially created NPCs, who were present during the RP may count as a battlefield officer. Therefore Sir Snidely of the Raven Spear, a long serving officer during an event may command his own units (played by a game master), while Sir Simpleton the made up NPC who has never before appeared may not. Also, NPC officers may ONLY be created by the game-masters, NOT players.
Each PC character has a value of 1. If the character is designated the supreme commander for that combat, they recieve +1 If the character is the grandmaster they receive +1 Command ratings may be modified through RP and Meta Game improvements.
There are also some methods to temporarily modify command values; Buying Battle Standards BEFORE the battle, for 5,000 RP increases command by +1. These may be used for one battle only. May be stored until needed. Killing signal bearers provides -1 command. Note, this is hard to pull off! Dividing enemies causes them to need more units, and thus reduces command efficiency.
Example; Sir Commander has a leadership of 1. He is the commander for that battle (+1), and also has a battle standard (+1), making a final value of 3 for that battle.
Each command point allows control of 100 men OR one unit. Whichever is the higher. Therefore Sir Commander can command 300 troops total, or 3 hexes worth of men. For every 100 or every hex over this figure he will suffer -1 to their command rolls.
And my simplified rule: a) Command value shows how many troops one can lead x 100.
b) Sir Commander may therefore command 3 hexes of 100 troops.
c) However, show he choose to divide one of his hex units into two, then he will have 2x 100 and 2x50, meaning 5 hexes worth of troops and a -1 command penalty because he has spread his troops too thin.
c) Command penalty applies to all commanded troops, not only those over the limit.
Attention: this is not a morale issue. Troops won’t run away. They will be at the mercy of the GM, who will decide what is best in that context. It may happen that the unit misinterprets the orders and does the opposite; acts randomly; joins the nearest larger unit; freezes until it receives further orders, etc.
So: CommandValue = MaxNumber x 100. BattleValue=CommandValue in that specific situation. IF BattleValue > 0 THEN nothing happens. IF BattleValue = 0 THEN nothing happens. IF BattleValue < 0 THEN X% chance of all divisions misinterpreting orders, calculated separately (X% being = inverse BattleValue x 10).
| |
|