Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

[Chris-M]

The special effect I want to model is the classic scene from an old Frank Miller Daredevil or Wolverine comic book where a dozen or so ninja archers are hidden, perched atop roofs and walls overlooking a street or alley, and as the unsuspecting characters enter the trap a hail of arrows rains down upon them. In comics and movies this kind of thing tends to fill non-hero normals full of arrows, but the heroes get hit once or twice (if that) and keep rolling.

 

This would be easy to build as a power, or you could conceivably just use the standard Cover combat maneuver. But for personal taste reasons I don’t want to build this as some kind of group power, and I don’t want to have to figure out, keep track of, and apply Cover for a whole bunch of archers individually. So what I’ve decided to do is create a house rule Group Cover combat maneuver, and it goes like this here.

 

A couple of quick caveats: Obviously this is built to my personal tastes, which may be a bit more “gamey” and comic book-ish than others prefer. And this may seem complex as I explain it, but I think that in practice, once you grok what I’m going for, it’s actually pretty simple, unless my reasoning is out of sync with yours. As always, YMMV. Also, I intend to use some version of this maneuver with NPC minions I am creating specifically for a campaign I’m building, and while I don’t intend for it to be available to the PCs, I’ve included what my rules would be for PCs using this maneuver in case it sounds like something you might allow your own PCs to use in your campaign.

 

A group of three or more characters must declare to use the Group Cover maneuver (or adjust the minimum characters required to your liking). Each participating character must have the Teamwork skill and the Rapid Fire skill. As a GM option, you could require that each participating character have at least one CSL with the Group Cover maneuver (I’m going to).

 

The characters providing Group Cover move at the SPEED of the slowest member of their group, and move on the lowest DEX of the group. They must all have the same type of ranged attack. The damage rolled if a hit is scored is equal to the least powerful attack in the group. No levels can be used to increase damage.

 

The bonus to OCV from levels is equal to the smallest bonus any of the covering characters has. If one of the archers or gunmen only has one level he can apply towards his OCV, then the group as a whole only gets +1 to its covering attacks, even if every other covering character has 6 applicable levels. As a GM option, he or she can rule that only CSLs in the Group Cover maneuver can be applied (or the Group Cover or standard Cover maneuvers).

 

Characters participating in the Group Cover maneuver are automatically at 1/2 DCV, even if they have other combat maneuvers or abilities that would normally mitigate this.

 

Characters providing Group Cover can perform no other actions. If a character participating in the maneuver does take some other action after combat starts, that character is dropped out of the maneuver and cannot rejoin it later. The other characters performing the maneuver can maintain their Group Cover as long as they meet the characters required minimum mentioned above. Also, they cannot change the hexes they are committed to covering.

 

Once the characters who want to perform Group Cover are in place, they declare the hexes that they are covering. If the number of covering characters is equal to or greater than the number of hexes being covered, the cover modifier to OCV is -3. If the number of hexes being covered is greater than the number of characters providing cover, for every point by which the number of hexes being covered is greater than the number of covering characters, the cover modifier increases by -2. So if six archers are covering eight hexes, they are at a -7 OCV before they apply any applicable levels.

 

Once the Group Cover is set up, what happens if a target character wanders into one of the covered hexes?

 

Any character that moves into a covered area gets attacked with one shot at the OCV calculated above for each covered hex he or she moves into up to half the number of covering characters. So if six archers are covering an area and a hero runs through four hexes in that area, three attack rolls are made on the hero because three is half of six. If there were eight archers providing Group Cover, then four attack rolls would be made.

 

Characters performing the Group Cover maneuver can continue to make these attacks on characters who enter the hexes they are covering up to half the number of covering characters. So if six archers are covering an area and three heroes run through four covered hexes, each will be attacked three times. If a fourth hero runs through the covered area, no attacks are rolled on him at all.

 

To keep things simple, the covering characters don’t get to pick and choose which enemy characters they fire on. They don’t have to shoot allies, but they automatically must attack an enemy entering the covered area if they are able. The reasoning here is that the reason the maneuver works at all is that the covering characters are concentrating and reacting with hair-trigger reflexes, so they don’t have time to analyze or pick and choose (other than to not shoot their own allies). At the GM’s discretion, player characters performing the maneuver can tell the GM, when they declare the area they’re covering, which enemy targets they won’t fire upon, but they are not allowed to change their minds once combat begins. Additionally, if the characters set up Group Cover after a combat encounter has begun, the GM can rule that they can’t use this option at all if circumstances are too chaotic for them to properly coordinate (or maybe he allows it if they can communicate with each other and make a Teamwork roll).

 

The Group Cover maneuver continues in subsequent segments until the number of characters attacked is greater than half the number of covering characters, at which point no further covering attacks can be rolled until the covering characters’ next phase.

 

Example: Six archers with an effective 3 SPEED are using the Group Cover maneuver. On segment four no one moves into a covered hex, so they hold their collective action. On segment five, two heroes each move through three covered hexes. Each has three attack rolls made against them by the archers. In segment six a third hero runs through four covered hexes, and three attack rolls are made against him (because there are six archers and three is half of six, the character can move through the fourth hex without provoking an additional attack roll).

 

Later in segment six a fourth hero runs through covered hexes. No attacks are rolled against him by the covering archers because they’ve already rolled attacks against three targets, and the maximum number of target characters Group Cover can fire upon is half the number of characters participating in the maneuver.

 

On segment eight, before the archers’ DEX comes up, one of the heroes runs through the covered area again. The archers cannot make any attack rolls on him because their covering attacks are still used up. After their DEX comes up, another hero runs into the covered area. The archers can once again make attack rolls on that character...

 

And there you have it. Now, I haven’t playtested this yet, so I have no idea if it will work well in practice or not, but like I said, I need something like this for a specific set of minions I’m building for a campaign so that I can set up some specific encounters I have in mind that will, I think, be very exciting to play.

 

Anyway, let me know what you think.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

Shouldn't the OCV be = the lowest OCV int he covering group (presumably we want everyone to have th esame OCV to avoid complications) rather than defining tehlovest OCV bonus?

 

OCV: lowest OCV in covering group-3-2 per hex in excess of number of covering participants. Presumably range mods apply (what if moving through the covered area changes the range mod, or if different coverers have different range mods because they are not all in the same hex?). Can group covetring characters set and brace and aim (or whatever)?

 

Covered hexes: 8 archers covering 8 hexes would allow up to 4 shots on 4 characters, which is 16 shots, which is twice as many as the coverers could normally get off - is this intentional?

 

I think my concern here is that we have a potentially huge amount of rolling to do. I like the idea but I think you need to be able to summarise it in less than 10 lines to be a flier. Maybe 15

[Chris-M]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

Thanks for the feedback, Sean. Your point about brevity is well taken. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at explaining things succinctly, but I'll work on that.

 

You're right, the group OCV should be based on the lowest OCV of the group. Along the same lines, the biggest range penalty for any covered hex should be applied to the group OCV and used in all attack rolls.

 

I don't think Setting and Bracing should be allowed -- I'm trying to balance the penalties and the gain the Group Covering characters get, but what do you think?

 

You're also right that they're getting off too many shots. Maybe just do it as two attack rolls on each character who moves into the covered area, but keep the part where they can shoot at a number of target characters equal to half the number of covering characters?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

Thanks for the feedback, Sean. Your point about brevity is well taken. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at explaining things succinctly, but I'll work on that.

 

You're right, the group OCV should be based on the lowest OCV of the group. Along the same lines, the biggest range penalty for any covered hex should be applied to the group OCV and used in all attack rolls.

 

I don't think Setting and Bracing should be allowed -- I'm trying to balance the penalties and the gain the Group Covering characters get, but what do you think?

 

You're also right that they're getting off too many shots. Maybe just do it as two attack rolls on each character who moves into the covered area, but keep the part where they can shoot at a number of target characters equal to half the number of covering characters?

 

The number of attacks is not necessarily a problem - this could almost be a species of the rapid fire manouvre - I can see archers with a few spare arrows stuck in the ground, waiting to get off shots as quickly as can be.

 

The thing is that, at -3 OCV (or more) and using the lowest OCV to start with, chances are that hits of Heroes are going to be rare enough that they can almost run through covered areas with impunity. OTOH (to use your example) 6 archers who are holding actions, set and braced are at least +1 OCV (up to +3 if there are range penalties) using their highest OCV and that +4 (or more) OCV difference means that heroes are going to be worried about running through the area covered, because there is a real chance of being hit, AND each archer can either coordinate (nasty) or hold until they se the effects of the last arrow and not shoot if it drops the target.

 

If what you want is the 'hail of arrows effect' you might consider simply using the suppressive fire maneouvre but, instead of requiring autofire weapons, rule that 3 or more people using similar weapons count as an autofire attack - and so they actually lose one arrow each per segment - and they can hold their action until someone enters the target area (i.e. they don't have to be already shooting before the target enters.

[Beast]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

easiest build I can think of is to buy the area attack needing multiple agents(crew served)

 

here is what I got now granted you are going to have to have each ninja pay for it but it works and they all have to work as a group

I made it for 4 volleys then they should close to do hand to hand or enough will have been taken out to not have the advantage

 

arrows to blot out the sun: RKA 2d6, Penetrating (+1/2), Area Of Effect (10" Radius; +1 1/4) (82 Active Points); Crew-Served ([33-64] people; -1 1/2), OAF (-1), 4 Charges (-1), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), Can Be Missile Deflected (-1/4)

[ghost-angel]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

Here's how I would do this:

 

Every archer in the group makes a Teamwork Roll, everyone that makes it is part of the Covering Group.

 

The lowest OCV Archer makes an Attack Roll, calculate the Highest DCV that would hit.

(Option A: +1 OCV for every 2 archers above the Attacking Archer)

(Option B: -1 OCV for every Hex being Covered beyond the first)

 

The Area is now considered Covered. Anyone entering the Area can be attacked without a further Attack Roll, but all Archers must fire at once. If multiple people enter the area only on Hit per Archer may be done.

 

Hits can only occur on those that are equal to or lower than the DCV Hit.

At least one hit per Target in the Area, if there are more Hits than Targets (or more Targets than Hits) the Attackers choose which targets are hit.

[Chris-M]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

Those are all great suggestions. I'm torn between biting the bullet and doing it as some sort of crew-served AE attack or some combination of Sean and g-a's suggestions (with a dash of my idea).

 

I'll probably try a couple different things in gameplay and see what "feels" best for my style of game.

 

Thanks again for the feedback.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

Those are all great suggestions. I'm torn between biting the bullet and doing it as some sort of crew-served AE attack or some combination of Sean and g-a's suggestions (with a dash of my idea).

 

I'll probably try a couple different things in gameplay and see what "feels" best for my style of game.

 

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

Please let us know what you go with and how it works

[Utech]

Re: Possible House Rule: Group Cover Combat Maneuver (long)

 

The simplest solution might be to group your archers and make one roll for each group.