RandomCasualty2 wrote:Honestly, I'd probably eliminate most of the kiting problem, or at the very least implement some kind of facing rules for ranged combats to make it harder. The idea that you can somehow run in one direction and fire a bow in the other just shouldn't work at all.
Even if you're mounted, a passenger in a vehicle (carriage, boat, etc.), or levitating?
Is it similarly unworkable to cast an area-affecting spell that will encompass your pursuers, or last long enough at a fixed point for them to run into it? (e.g. wall of fire) You could make it totally impractical to cast magic while moving, but that doesn't leave the wizard much to do during a chase scene.
Could you alternate between running away and pausing to let off an attack? (Assuming you're fast enough compared to your pursuer to make this worthwhile.) Or maybe just literally walk backwards if your opponent is a zombie or forced to crawl or something similarly slow?
Just tossing out ideas...
RandomCasualty2 wrote:Offhand, I'd say that coming into combat from a chase means that the guy who got caught takes a penalty to movement, probably like half speed. That way he can't run away.
That could work, provided that the rules for transitioning from the combat minigame to the chase minigame have some conditions that can't be easily fulfilled when you're moving at half speed.
It doesn't seem to make a lot of narrative sense, though. You've been running away from these people, but they turned out to be faster than you, so when they catch up, you trun around to fight, and...you're at a speed penalty, putting you at a tactical disadvantage even if you weren't planning on running away. Why? You could argue that you're winded or some such, but the chase mechanics I've seen suggested so far don't appear to provide any narrative reason to believe that the person who's failing the opposed movement tests is necessarily getting any more winded than the opposition.
That also means that if you're running from a cheetah, and it catches you, and then all of a sudden a tortoise shows up, you can no longer run from the tortoise (or at least, not as effectively), even after you deal with the cheetah. Which also kind of strains narrative credibility.
Of course, not every mechanic necessarily has to make narrative sense, but my intuition is leaning more towards a mechanic that allows the pursuers to attack their quarry without anyone actually leaving chase mode, so you can hinder people with the same attacks you'd use to restrict enemy movement in combat (eventually forcing them out of chase mode if you slow them enough), or even just pelt them with arrows until they drop dead, assuming you can keep up and they never decide it would be a better idea to turn and fight.
K wrote:Manxome wrote:
4) The chase mechanics should accommodate people joining a chase mid-scene; e.g. the party is running from orcs for a while, and then a balrog shows up and everyone has to run from it.
How very....Scooby Doo.
It could just as easily be that you're chasing a thief and he calls for help and now his buddies are chasing you chasing the thief, but that involves a combination with #3, so it doesn't make for as clean an example.