Combat Planning for Fatemasters

[edonil]

Just in the interest of not derailing the other thread too much, wanted to answer this query here.
 

 

    Omenbringer, on 21 Apr 2014 - 10:28 PM, said:

    Character creation is definitely a fun part of the game. I'd like to know what your thoughts are about a more "combat oriented" game.

So, before we get going too far into this, I feel that I need to define the phrase 'combat oriented'. This can have a lot of different definitions, as its a highly subjective term. For me, a combat oriented campaign is one where we can expect combat encounters to outweigh social/ exploratory encounters. In number crunchy terms, I'd expect to see 1-3 combat encounters (linked by some narrative pieces) per session.

Now, these kinds of campaigns are quite fun. Most of my time doing RPGs have been similar to this style, and I'm quite familiar with it. Some game systems fit it well, others don't. Personally, for me, I think Through the Breach can manage this kind of stuff very well. One thing to keep in mind, I would say, is that Through the Breach is ultimately a more complex M2e. You have Action Points, Tactical Actions, Cast Actions, the stats are very similar, and so on. From that perspective, in theory alone, I would say that a combat heavy campaign can in fact work well.

Drawing on my experience as a Fate Master in the beta, every one of my sessions had a combat encounter. Part of that was just testing what the combat system was able to do, but that's also just my own personal style. This really did end up working pretty well, all in all. Some of my stronger sessions didn't rely so much on combat scenes, but they still ended up present.

Now, a couple of the quirks that made Through the Breach challenging as a FM for working with my players and making them feel challenged. One big thing that was strange was the static resolution of the NPCs. For characters who really specialized combat (someone who managed to swing the combination of a 3 Aspect and 4 Skill), it was quite easy for them to rapidly power through the session. For players who didn't swing quite that far on the power scale, it was easy to overbalance the wrong direction. In response to this, I ended up doing a couple things.

Firstly, I began to tweak the Peon/Minion/Enforcer settings. The Fatemaster Almanac makes mention of this, I believe. Basically how it worked would be that, if I wanted to keep my enemy count low, I would buff the enemies one level up. This would make things challenging, but not insurmountable. An Enforcer Witchling Stalker becomes an interesting challenge for people.

The second thing I tried was to really plan out my encounters differently. I focused a lot on laying out the terrain, placing the opponents carefully. I mentioned it in another thread, but I created a situation where the party was going up the stairs of a building only to run into a Witchling Stalker. Reacting just as any good player would, they smacked it on the head with a shovel... and then had a major 'Oh Crap!' moment when they realized they had just lit themselves and the building on fire.

The third thing I did, which is something I've tried to do with all my campaigns, was find unique and interesting ways for the non-combat characters to shine. So, if someone is playing a Tinkerer but doesn't have a lot of combat abilities, place a broken mech nearby that they can go repair on the fly. It may only last the length of the encounter, but it gives them a way to contribute, and there's nothing more awesome for that player than to see them turn the tide of a hard fight in a massive way.

Finally, I started making unique enemies for the boss fights. One example of this was 'The Master', a character who I based on a Steamborg Executioner. I gave him a unique attack and a bunch of extra wounds, and it turned into one hell of a tough fight for my characters. That one was the only combat encounter in a session based more around paranoia than combat. Even the Gunslinger, who was highly specialized, ended up struggling to deal with that character, but they all had a lot of fun.

Anyway, while I haven't tried doing anything like mass combats with Through the Breach, I have to say that, as a Fatemaster, I did enjoy it a lot. It took a little while to get a feel for how to do combats in a way that players were challenged but not overwhelmed, but that's fairly normal for any system that you're not familiar with.

 

Edit: I realized that I didn't answer part of the question that Omenbringer asked later on in the other thread about typical encounter mix, so wanted to answer that too.

 

It's been a while since I last ran the game, but the majority of things haven't changed all that much. I usually had about 4 players, with a decent mix of combat and magic focusers, and the occasional skillful character. In response to this, I tended to grab around four Minions and an Enforcer. If I wanted the encounter to be something really tough, I'd add some Peons just to burn through decks, or switch the Enforcer out for a Henchman. This is one thing that I have to say I'd love to see other people chime in on, because I think this part of combat planning is always going to be subjective. There's no real CL system like you'd find in DnD or Iron Kingdoms, so I would recommend just keeping flexible with your encounters and be willing to either add on the spot (or remove) to get the desired effect for the story.

[Malsqueek]

What I noticed is that while the Fated are pretty screaming powerful (even if not particularly geared for combat), it is somewhat troublesome getting encounters "just right" if it is just a toe-to-toe fight. It's pretty easy for them to be glass cannons.

 

Part of the issue is if you aren't using full on tabletop, the fast and loose nature of combat makes it really easy to fudge ranges too much and get careless with the groupings.

 

I combated that by taking a page from a particular Grimdark Fantasy RPG by a particular board game company and using their model for distance, where the players had markers that were them, as did the critters, and then if they were touching they were "engaged", if they were near, but without distance markers, they were "Close" (<=4 yds), and then put a marker down between for each full 4 yds distance between a "close" group. You could also make it more granular by working some "if touching the marker" stuff in, but we didn't really find it necessary. This allowed a small amount of tactical work without really breaking the immersion that this game does so well.

 

The second thing I found challenging was that the critters scale pretty fast, and while combat characters have a pretty easy time with Enforcers, and sometimes Henchmen, the difference between a static 5 and a static 7 is pretty huge for some characters. The most flexible things that I've found are to plan encounters with environmental aspects which allow the lesser-skilled Fated to interact with the critters or with other aspects of the encounter instead of just "shoot-gun", and to use the "this critter require crit-death to kill" to make fundamentally weaker critters stronger without making them inaccessible for the weaker characters.

[Omenbringer]

These are about what I have expected and encountered. The Static resolution really makes the "combat" portion challenging to run and the mix is very important. The static resolution barely challenges players on the low end while being nearly insurmountable at the other end. Forethought and pre-planning are very good tips and I would add that building the "fear" is another one.

[Mako]

Having run a session the other night, I've learned a few things that I wasn't sure about at the start. Namely, that this game really works well with narrative combat. I gave my players something that was in no danger of killing any of them, and still made them feel like it could go the other way. That was a single enforcer against a four man party (with another NPC shouting abuse and putting them off as a bonus).

 

The static level didn't give me any trouble, as I chose to not tell them the exact values but to express how close they were with the action that actually occurred. Besides, they had no idea what level it actually was, as I didn't tell them. Sure, if its a terror tot you can make a guess, but if its a mature nephilim who's to say what rank it will be from 6-12? They can assume, but no promises they won't be wrong and get badly mauled for it...

 

I kept the creature far enough away in the first round that only the riflewoman could do anything to it, then brought it in to attack. Every member of the party interacted with it basically as their character would (mostly by their own choices rather than me enabling them, but the option was there). It didn't stand there and get shot up before getting punched to death, it wrecked the room, charged about, teleported, and generally did distracting and dangerous seeming things. The academic recognised it from history books, the drudge challenged it and soaked up the damage, and the scrapper and mercenary tried to beat it to death without becoming lunch.

 

I think I have a much better grasp now of what Mack was saying all the way through the testing, about the mechanics of the whole game being narrative rather than really crunchy and highly defined - I think that's a great thing. It makes combat in TtB totally different to the tabletop game, even if the mechanics are close. I've been in groups where it was all about the mechanics, and it made combat a very dry dull affair where you did the most tactically sensible thing rather than staying in character, and to me this feels so much better.

 

Future combats will likely be a very similar thing, I think, and I'll be expanding my use of environment and NPCs to make it more interesting, challenging, and dramatic.

 

So to my mind, the key aspects are:

 

-Go narrative, not pure mechanics, to control the perceived difficulty

-Use environment and situation to keep all the party involved and make it easier/harder

-Don't settle into defaults of having the party know exactly what they need to cheat for neutral damage

[Omenbringer]

I would agree (and have a few times across these threads) that TTB is much better as a "Story Telling" game than a "dungeon Crawl" type game.

 

Would still like to see some more specifics on how the mechanics actually played out for those of us that are interested.

[Omenbringer]

Edonil can you give some more detail on these two things and how they caused issues;

 

 

...Now, a couple of the quirks that made Through the Breach challenging as a FM for working with my players and making them feel challenged. One big thing that was strange was the static resolution of the NPCs. For characters who really specialized combat (someone who managed to swing the combination of a 3 Aspect and 4 Skill), it was quite easy for them to rapidly power through the session. For players who didn't swing quite that far on the power scale, it was easy to overbalance the wrong direction. In response to this, I ended up doing a couple things.

 

Essentially what I am asking is how exactly did the static resolution of the NPC's cause issues with the fated at both ends of the spectrum?

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The second thing I tried was to really plan out my encounters differently. I focused a lot on laying out the terrain, placing the opponents carefully. I mentioned it in another thread, but I created a situation where the party was going up the stairs of a building only to run into a Witchling Stalker. Reacting just as any good player would, they smacked it on the head with a shovel... and then had a major 'Oh Crap!' moment when they realized they had just lit themselves and the building on fire.
 

 

How difficult was it for your party to dispatch the enhanced Witchling Stalker? In other words how effective was the alteration of the Witchling's rank in increasing the challenge?
 

 

Finally, I started making unique enemies for the boss fights. One example of this was 'The Master', a character who I based on a Steamborg Executioner. I gave him a unique attack and a bunch of extra wounds, and it turned into one hell of a tough fight for my characters. That one was the only combat encounter in a session based more around paranoia than combat. Even the Gunslinger, who was highly specialized, ended up struggling to deal with that character, but they all had a lot of fun.

 

Would it be possible to detail the combat specifics a bit more? Why was it challenging for the players?

 

 

Anyway, while I haven't tried doing anything like mass combats with Through the Breach, I have to say that, as a Fatemaster, I did enjoy it a lot. It took a little while to get a feel for how to do combats in a way that players were challenged but not overwhelmed, but that's fairly normal for any system that you're not familiar with.

 

Now that your more familiar with the system how would you approach "mass combats" within the system? What do you think an ideal mix of NPC's for a typical fated party oriented toward combat play would look like?

 

 

If I wanted the encounter to be something really tough, I'd add some Peons just to burn through decks, or switch the Enforcer out for a Henchman.

 

How effective was the addition of Peons to combats? Specifically looking to address the deck cycling aspect of their addition and why it increases the challenge?

[edonil]

Sorry for the delay on getting these answers to you. I hope these are helpful.

 

The static resolution creates an interesting set of issues. For someone who is combat effective, against the same rank and type of foe they will always be that effective excepting bad luck. For someone who is more skillful, they will always be that challenging in the same circumstance. This can make things a little hard to adjust the combat on the fly to find a balance point, and I think that Fatemasters will, for a time at least, err on one side or the other at the beginning of the campaign. Now, at the same time, since I last did Fatemastering in the Beta, average player stats has gone down, and some of the things that made this really difficult have changed. But someone with an Acting Value of 6 and a Positive Twist to attack is going to hit most Minions reliably, and possibly some Enforcers. I would combat that by placing terrain and obstacles and other such things to make things harder for the Fated. A scenario includes the location as a hazard, along with any NPCs they're fighting.


I actually haven't run an enhanced Witchling, honestly. That was a regular one, and it became a threat above its weight class because of the context of its location. By putting it in a contained environment with difficulty reaching it, but everyone standing nearby, it became a hazard just when it exploded.


The Master was a difficult fight for the players because of a couple reasons. One is that I significantly upped the wounds. It was the single opponent of the combat, and that definitely affected things. The other is the Steam Cloud action, which created a cloud of cover, making it harder for players to shoot him. The last thing was that I added an action where he would move his charge in a straight line, and anyone he ran over/past would get hit, as he trampled over them. This action meant that he could still threaten even the ranged characters as he acted, not just the melee characters. I might write up the whole session notes for this one, in terms of planning. Sadly, I don't have any notes from running it, so I can't give any more detail than that.


At this point, I'm not sure how I would deal with a mass combat situation. I do think that a combat heavy Fated team should have at least an Enforcer facing them off. One fight that I do remember being successful, once again way back in the Beta, was a Mature Nephilim and three Young Nephilim. I kept the Young moving around threatening the caster/shooter, while the Mature went after the melee characters. Right now, I think this might be a better one for someone else to answer.


As far as the Peons go in combat, I'd use them as a way to burn through the players Twist hands and provide more targets. The more targets that players are fighting, the more resources they're going to expend. Part of my philosophy for designing combat is that a normal fight should drain no more than 50% of starting resources, such as Twist cards, Wounds, Ammunition, and anything healing afterwards. So, if players are spending ammunition and cards to kill the Peons or avoid being injured by them because of bad luck, the Peons are serving their purpose. But I wouldn't run a fight of only Peons unless the goal is to give the Fated a really easy combat.

[Omenbringer]

Very much appreciated Edonil, glad to see some familiar challenges and thoughts up there.

 

Approaching the pre-planned encounters like the TTG, including a pseudo crew selection would seem to be the best method for the combats. Getting that all important mix has proven fairly difficult for me though, I agree that the inclusion of at least one enforcer level NPC is a virtual requirement. My biggest challenge thus far has been an unplanned, mass bar fight that erupted.due to the players actions.

[Malsqueek]

Very much appreciated Edonil, glad to see some familiar challenges and thoughts up there.

 

Approaching the pre-planned encounters like the TTG, including a pseudo crew selection would seem to be the best method for the combats. Getting that all important mix has proven fairly difficult for me though, I agree that the inclusion of at least one enforcer level NPC is a virtual requirement. My biggest challenge thus far has been an unplanned, mass bar fight that erupted.due to the players actions.

 

I've gotten a lot of mileage from a Guild Guard analog with 4-5 Desperate Mercs as the guild issue 1-h combat encounter.

 

Also: Doppelgangers are your friend. They are a great way to stymie a combat focused group without being heavy handed in terms of danger.

[Ratty]

I wonder if you could mess around with an Enrage mechanic, where you keep the Static number hidden, but certain criteria alters that number on the fly. Eg.. When an enforcer gets down to half health, if he is shot at, if the party decide to bums rush him.

[Mako]

I had mine teleporting at specific wound points, so I don't see why you couldn't - good way of changing up the fight, especially if it gets wound into the narrative

[edonil]

That would actually make things very interesting. I do know that for some systems, they recommend planning out ahead of time tactics and such that match the NPC's personality, that sounds like a similar thing.

[Kadeton]

Our group had an encounter with a Nothing Beast where the effective "number of cards in hand" for the NB's controller went down by 1 every turn. It ramped up the difficulty quite nicely.

[Omenbringer]

I wonder if you could mess around with an Enrage mechanic, where you keep the Static number hidden, but certain criteria alters that number on the fly. Eg.. When an enforcer gets down to half health, if he is shot at, if the party decide to bums rush him.

 

A sort of "Fight or Flight" response, what a novel approach to the issue and one I think really has some merit.

[Malsqueek]

I wonder if you could mess around with an Enrage mechanic, where you keep the Static number hidden, but certain criteria alters that number on the fly. Eg.. When an enforcer gets down to half health, if he is shot at, if the party decide to bums rush him.

 

The positively gorgeous thing about this system is that the amount of effort it takes to do a thing like is essentially nil. I had a player ask if he could get possessed by a necromancer from the first opening of the breach so he could play with the magic system for a while. About an hour later, we had a system for the two minds taking control of the body, and some modifiers for certain types of skills depending upon who was "driving" at the time. It works a charm.

 

As a fun related note: I have a friend who is fascinated by probabilities and I asked him about the comparative value of positive twists versus TN increases. In a pair of fresh decks doing an opposed flip, a single positive twist is worth approximately +2.5 TN, two positives are worth roughly +3.25, and the third only +4.

 

Of course, since each value only occurs four times, a live deck has far wackier probabilities, but as a rough comparison, I found it VERY helpful as a Fatemaster to know that as a generality, +2/-2 is roughly offset by a single positive or negative twist (respectively).

[Kadeton]

It's worth noting that twists are way, way more powerful in TtB, simply because of the way they're applied. If your NPC opponent gets a to shoot you, that translates into a on your Df... so no cheating for you.

 

(In general, that's my only beef with the " = +2 value" equivalency above - the far more significant aspect of fate twists is their effect on your ability to cheat.)

 

Flipping at a makes even fairly weak combat opponents very scary. This then encourages both players and FM to use the fate modifier actions (Focus, Defensive Stance, etc) far more than you would normally see in a game of Malifaux. I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing or not.