Re: [DL] What do i do wrong? (High Targets and booring long Combat)

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Thursday, December 19, 2002, at 04:57  AM, Patrick Jungbluth wrote:

> My group and me where playing CL original 3 times yet and while in the 
> beginning they where quite excitet about the system now 3 of 6 players 
> dont want to play anymore and the rest has the opinion of "lets see 
> one more time then we decide if we play again"
>  
> While they are quite happy with the background they have BIG problems 
> with the rules. one thing is that the target numbers appear really 
> high. a target of 5 is somthing that is rarly beaten and 9 or 11 is 
> allmost impossible. i am not so sure but i guess its not supposed to 
> be that hard. do we do somthing wrong by taking Skill Dices and count 
> just the highest? but i guess that is somthing that i can change by 
> just generally lowering each and every target roll by 1 or 2.

It may be your PCs. My group rarely misses that. Most 'skilled' 
gunfighters will have a 4d6 MINIMUM to shoot with, and more likely a 
5d10 or better. On a 5d10, missing a basic shot is almost unheard of, 
with the exception of one character in my HoE posse who just isn't at 
all combat oriented.

Are the players possibly building their characters weird? I think I 
remember reading that some Marshalls had trouble because all of the 
charcaters in his posse had ridiculous quickness scores to get the most 
action cards, but let other scores suffer. If your group has this 
problem, it's time to remind them that balanced characters are 
important. Using some 1-card-per-turn-per group mooks works well, to.

Also, considering the genre, the 'average' types with guns will miss a 
good bit, but the gunslingers should be much more accurate. If they 
aren't hitting a close-range mook with at least two out of three shots, 
I'd be worried...

> the other and more serious problem is that combat has the tendency to 
> bore all the players to death. as soon as someone draws a gun you can 
> be sure that this will be the last scene in that session since combat 
> never took less then 3 or 4 hours. most of the time everyone shoots 
> just air and never hits and if the hit the do no or just 1 wound and 
> then you still have to see where the shoot lands how much wind the 
> shot does and so on. we where using the mook rules from the revised 
> edition but i think of giveing the hit point rules from the original 
> rules a try since there even shots that dont do a single wound still 
> do up to 5 hits.

My first rule of deadlands combat is 'keep it moving." The characters 
are taking actions over the span of a few secons, so if the can't 
decide quickly, they don't get to act.

Also, i delegate a lot of responsibility to the players. They manage 
their combat deck, and as I gradually re-add stun (see blow) they can 
handle those, too. I call Aces, and they'll usually chime in with the 
group's high card to get things whittled down.

We usually do 1 'big' combat plus a couple of minor commbats and maybe 
a few 'single action, don't touch the deck' shooting/brawling attempts 
in a session, and that was my previous weeknight sessions (6-10 or so, 
figure 3-4 hours of actual playing time when you figure in dinner). 
We've been in a low-combat HoE adventure (Urban Renewal) recently so we 
haven't seen what we can fit into the group's Sunday sessions where we 
play a solid 6-7 hours.

> i am also seduced of removing the stun and recovery checks cuz they 
> just slow down combat even more when the affectet player looses 
> another round of actions and me for my part most of the time just 
> forget to check for the npcs.

I avoided these at first, but I'm adding them back in gradually. Mooks 
skip them, though. It's not a huge deal as far as i've noticed, but for 
a powerful posse the stun checks can be  a good power-control factor.

> anyone has some idea how that would affect overall playbalance or any 
> other advices how to streamline combat a bit more so it becomes 
> playable in a manageble time. or does anyone came up whit a more fluid 
> and faster combat system? i remember reading somewhere in the web 
> about an alternate combat system which was using poker hands to handle 
> iniciative but sadly i have not read more of it and i seem unable to 
> find it anymore

There was a recent discussion about using cards for d20... This was 
basically a way to use the Classic Deadlands system in d20, for a kind 
of 'best of both worlds' setup for those who like the advantages of 
d20, but want the flavor and niftyness of classic. Personally, I think 
using poker hands would slow my group down, as most of us don't have 
the hands at the level of instinct yet, so we have to noodle through 
them...

One thing is that, as mentioned above, I don't require full initiative 
rounds for the 'first round' which can, with good gunfighters, be the 
last in some fights. If Billy Bob draws a pistol to take out that 
cheating cur he was losing to poker at,  the two make quickness rolls, 
high roll goes first, loser responds (if able) and then we start normal 
combat if it's necessary. Keeps things moving, and means that the first 
response to the situation will be the character who's getting shot at, 
not one of his posse mates who's across the bar. Modify as needed if 
someone is keeping watch for this kind of thing, of course.

Also, I am pretty strict about not wasting time on looking for rules. 
If I don't know a particular rule and it's going to be hard to find, I 
make up something acceptable that doesn't screw the posse (That should 
be the job of the story, not the rules). Special powers (Hexes, 
Harrowed Powers, whatever) get looked up, but I skip looking for that 
weird rule I saw last week, in one of the boos in my 3/4 complete 
Deadlands and Hell on Earth collection, somewhere.

The Classic Deadlands system is somewhat slow in combat, but it speeds 
up once everyone knows it, and i think it's faster in many 
circumstances than d20 combat. 'Boss' fights can be very quick 
sometimes, as there's no ablative hit points to nick down. (Note: I'm 
talking D&D here... I believe Deadlands d20 uses a modified 'massive 
damage'' mechanic to make this a bit less frustrating.)

Of course, abominations are all different, and a fight with a true 
abomination may take a while if the posse is stuck trying to find a way 
to kill it. I always make sure to indicate that their shots aren't 
doing anything in an appropriate manner.