I play in a group of 4 people.
I play in a group of 4 people. We previously played in guided mode, but the GM wanted in on the action, so we switched to co-op. Anyway, one small issue we have is when facing groups of adversaries, it seems unclear to us the best way to mechanically represent them. If you face a group of dangerous raiders represented as a formidable or extreme group, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they can do so much damage with each attack, yet, splitting them up into individuals also seems particularly deadly. Are we missing something? If you play in a group, how do you deal with this situation?
I envision harm as an indicator of how close the fight is to its end, not as how hard the character/enemy is hit. So when a group of raiders of "extreme" rank inflict 4 harm, it's not really one of them who dealt a blow capable of killing a man at once (which is not that unlikely if you think about it) but all of their force combined that wear the character down : you can picture it as several hits, or as the character being surrounded and running out of stamina, etc. From a narrative point of view, there's several reasons a character might be at +1 health.
ReplyDeleteOctave Immarigeon has a great response here. Damage is a bit abstracted. When you are fighting a pack, I'd try to visualize and narrate things a bit more zoomed out, so that a single exchange (i.e. a Clash) can represent a flurry of attacks and defenses. Damage to the health track can be wounds, but it is also your basic stamina and ability to ward off a telling blow. You can then zoom in and slow things down for important moment, such as when you take a hit that puts you to 0 on your health track.
ReplyDeleteWith four people, you do need to consider how to organize your enemies. Do you put them into a pack, or keep them split up? There's no wrong answer, and you can adjust based on how much you're invested in playing out the scene. 4 players will probably make relatively short work of a formidable pack. The pack can inflict an extra point of harm or two, but their overall damage potential is reduced a fair bit. Keep things abstracted (in a pack or even with the battle move) for less dramatic fights, and give the NPC's more individuality for a key scene.
Finally, always consider the breadth of what Pay the Price can mean in a fight. Harm is the obvious answer, but sometimes it's also the least dramatic. Make fights dirty and ugly and cinematic. You clash and score a miss. You get pushed to the ground and lose momentum. Now your enemy has their dagger out and they are trying to drive it into your chest. You Face Danger and it's another miss. You realize that the other raiders are now stealing away with the NPC you swore to protect, and you're stuck in the mud having a one-sided knife-fight.
This approach of mixing it up will help keep things interesting and give the players the "failure soaks" they need so that a fight with even an extreme pack doesn't put them on death's door with a couple of misses.