Giving Ground

[Telarus_KSC]

Ha! That's true, I don't think I've seen many NPCs flee in the ED games I've been a player in either.

I'd like to see some sort of Morale mechanics, even if it's just "use this or GM judgment", so that groups of enemy namegivers react to changes in how the battle is going. When I GM, I try to have the enemy namegivers react appropriately, but too often I get locked into the "never retreat" mindset (because that's what the players do). After I realized this, I would have bandits, etc retreat (& the players would receive full Legend for "defeating" all of them). I've been playing and researching oD&D and have decided to implement some Morale mechanics myself.

[Etorian]

That's a good point that I need to start using more often. Mooks or not it still burns time to wipe a foe out that should really be scared and fleeing. Sometimes I'll tell the players they are in a "free form" combat after it becomes obvious they have clearly overmatched their foes but I may try to do a little behind the scenes moral system and add a little more realism. Nice thought.

On a semi-off topic note the only time my group ever retreated from anything was when I was playing and we bit off WAY more than we could chew stumbling onto a horror we had no business fighting. I was only able to convince them to retreat when we weren't "retreating" we were "Giving Ground for a tactical advantage at a later date." The horror was added to a one item checklist of things to go back and "finish later". Giving Ground has now become and inside joke in our groups for years now so this thread made me chuckle when I saw it.

[Kasbak]

The group I GMed for likewise only retreated once that I can recall. They were exploring a breeched kaer, and stumbled upon the storage for the bulk of the former inhabitants; the horror had made them all cadavermen, and had the bulk of his now army sized mass in one main chamber. The players paused only long enough to drop a Life Circle of One on the doorway to slow them down before bolting back down the looong corridor of trap chambers they had just navigated. This gave rise to one of the campaign's famous quotes from the Archer: "Don't worry guys, I'll sprint ahead and close all the chamber doors behind me so they can't get through!"

[Grov]

[Ryval]

My group has only used it a fraction. I mean only 2-3 times in the past 2 years, and NEVER before that. I like that it's there, but isn't really an option that my group explores.

[Rogan Rubyeye]

Hasn't been as commonly utilised as Defensive Stance or the preferred Aggressive Attack by my players, but some have used it. Generally, the ones with more tactical acumen or who are playing swordmasters - many of whom have LARPed, so there;s some real experience of reality in their character action choices.

I believe that as others have stated already this option really has a connection with the no retreat, no surrender hack'n'slash mechanics of combat. The rules work well when boshing the foes/PCs until they exceed their Death/Unconsciousness ratings and the PCs have the driving seat when attempting to wthdraw from a combat not going their way. Although, admittedly, most of my players haven't done this and usually fight until the last character gets knocked unconscious. Then again, its rare that the opponents retreat and many GMs are probably seeing defeat as the Death rating rather than OK, these guys'll fight for X rounds or until they get a Wound. Having a section on morale would e useful, especially as to how to handle such decisions for a new GM and even moreso as the Earthdawn syste uses quite a bit of Social talents/cabilities/defence.

[Antra]

Morale has always been something I've felt was lacking in any game. In the real world, most people don't fight to the death. They will fight until overwhelmed/wounded and then either retreat or surrender. These rules do give players options, especially for those of us who are tactically minded as Rogan stated.

[Telarus_KSC]

I just re-read the current Giving Ground rule in 3rd, and it's actually really 'clunky'... i.e. you have to declare Giving Ground during the Pre-Initiative/Combat-Options phase and you get -2 to Attack and take 1 Strain. And then your Init test determines who controls the movement, you or your opponent. Then, you can only move the amount you declared, getting +1 PD for each hex (2 yards), getting your attack first.

If I understand the background in these "withdrawal from combat" rules, they go back to the D&D 1-minute round Fighting Retreat/Withdrawal rules and similar war-gaming roots.... These rules are all slightly different across various D&D editions and retro-clones.

Most of these early games (& some retroclones) keep some things that helps these rules make sense - side based Initiative and the idea of 'sticky' melee combat, i.e. if you were engaged in melee combat it required a defensive move action to break away and take movement. This defensive move (in B/X D&D) gave you 1/2 Move but you could still attack & use your shield, which was much better than the full Retreat option (no shields, +2 to enemy attacks, enemy gets a free "attack of opportunity", but it did grant you a full Move). The only other way to disengage was to kill the other side or force them to make a morale check and run/break/surrender. In early D&D you didn't just run through skirmish lines because you had better Initiative... (*eyes some Warrior players of his from previous games*).

These rules and maneuvers don't make quite as much sense at 10 second round scale with Earthdawn uses. Maybe time-scale and action economy needs to be considered.

This is also not what I think of when I think of the rapier wielding t'skrang striking and then vectoring off (doesn't have to be straight back) and giving ground to preserve a physical defense advantage (you have to _work_ to get him). I get that it's modeling that you are breaking away from melee combat range with an opponent, but any notion of striking and withdrawing suddenly, or striking and moving gets caught up in the current rules. Navigating the initiative/forced-movement portion of the mechanic, but mainly because this maneuver has to be thought of a round ahead, and then declared before rolling initiative.

I'd prefer a version that can be declared on the fly, "I'm Giving Ground!" because that opens up the option to flat out run the next round if the opponent doesn't follow... (*hm, an excuse for the change-of-action-penalty, so strip an attack penalty out of it and it can be declared before initiative or reactive during the round?)

[Henghyoke]

[kosmit]

Are you planning to do something with Declare Action phase?