Combat Movement (aka Hit and Run)

[Quetzacotl]

Hi!

I have a question regarding movement in combat.

Consider the following scenario:

A mercenary with, let's say a vibroblade, wants to attack a Stromtrooper with a blaster.
The mercenary is around 10 meters away from the Stormtrooper.
The combat begins. Stormtrooper decides to do 2 Actions, the mercenary does 2 Actions as well. Both get a -1D MAP.
The mercenary begins, he walks/runs towards the Stormtrooper.
Now the Stormtrooper moves away as well for 10 meters.
The mercenary now can't do anything, because the Stormtrooper is not in range of his vibroblade anymore.
The Stormtrooper shoots at the mercenary.

Rinse and repeat.
Since you only have one Movement per round, it is essentially impossible for the mercenary to attack the Stormtrooper (unless the Stormtrooper gets to a wall or corner and can't ran away anymore).

Is that intentional? Do I miss something here? Or are melee fighters generally screwed in Combat?

I hope you can help me!

Sincerely,

Quetzacotl

[cheshire]

Using your running skill you can move up to four times your movement if you make the difficulty roll and perform no other actions. You can also move up to twice your movement if you pass the difficulty roll and you may still take actions.

So, in that case, all the mercenary has to do is make a running check to close distance with the trooper. Now, the trooper may very well try to run away, but he better not fail that running check. Also, his armor is going to make that a bit more difficult as well. I haven't done the number crunch on what it would take on Easy terrain, but I would guess that most PCs would have an advantage on the trooper, particularly if they have a high Dexterity.
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[Quetzacotl]

But it doesn't really matter if the mercenary is faster or not. After the Action is finished he stops at that place, even if he is running for 40 meters (well ok, then he would simply run past the Stormtrooper and he doesn't even have to run).

[DougRed4]

I think you're missing something, Quetzacotl.

If both characters are moving/running, it's turning into a chase, essentially. When they start getting up to the higher movement rates (like All Out), there starts to become a decent chance that one of the characters might fail their Running test, which could result in failure (perhaps one of them falling to the ground).

The stormtrooper might choose to go only 10 meters (like in your example) for a couple of rounds, but the mercenary could go double that (in a single round) and catch him!

The stormtrooper might only take two actions, but the mercenary could opt to take three (thus enabling an attack when he gets to where the stormtrooper is).

[garhkal]

We do it differently than the rules.. Rather than havig 1 movement phase/action, where you can go cautious (half), cruise (normal), Full (double) or all out (4x) speed, you get 1,2,3 or 4 move actions you can take.

But in your situation, the bounty hunter would have been better off either going last (so the stormie moved first, then he could go at twice his norma speed), OR taking 3 actions vice 2.
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[Quetzacotl]

The the player's don't know beforehand what kind of actions the others are taking, only the number of actions...


But how exactly does your 1-4 move actions houserule work? It sounds intriguing.

[vanir]

This is handled in combat initiative.

Causally, the Mercinary wants to win initiative and then "wait and see" for the opponent to declare their actions first.
Unless the Stormtrooper uses max movement away, you'll get to declare more movement than him, so will definitely get to him.
But weapon reach is a factor. If he is also firing, by default he gets his shot off before you have him in melee reach, he can shoot in the opening phase of the round and you need to cover the distance before you can melee attack, so it has to be in the closing phase of the combat round.

Accidentally, the Mercinary can lose initiative and if the Stormtrooper doesn't "wait and see" but acts first (there is no need for this since he has weapon reach over you so it's a dumb move but you might force an NPC free action "tactics:squads" roll at easy difficulty for the Stormtrooper to realise this), but if he acts first by choice and doesn't declare enough movement, then again the Mercinary will definitely get him within melee reach by simply declaring more movement actions.

The only sure way the Stormtrooper can avoid you closing on him if he declares first at any time (ie. as soon as you win initiative and force him to), is to declare maximum combat movement away every round, no matter what.

But that's why smartly equipped close assault troopers typically carry not just melee weapons, but a few grenades and a holstered sidearm. Vibroaxe one hand, heavy pistol or a grenade in the other. He winds up still out of reach at the end of the round, throw the grenade.

[DougRed4]

Though you don't know (necessarily) what each person is going to do each round, you do know what speed they're moving at (based on what they were just doing and if they are increasing or decreasing, which can only be done incrementally).

So in your example, if the stormtrooper is doing a slow walk (Cautious Movement), then he can clearly be seen to be only walking, and he's only going to move 5 meters. Your mercenary could then choose to follow at that speed, or let him move for two turns and catch up with him all in one (by moving at Cruising and going 10).

If the stormtrooper is moving at Cruising, he moves 10 meters. He can now be seen to be doing a full walk, and the mercenary can choose to follow at either Cruising (going 10), or could even go faster, catching up with the trooper quicker by running (High Speed). Remember that a character can do a "partial move" and go up to half of their move speed. So in this case, instead of 20, the mercenary could run after the walking stormtrooper and catch up with them very quickly.

And if the mercenary has been stymied (by the stormtrooper moving first and staying out of reach), the merc has the option of taking that extra action (to strike when he arrives) or deferring to go second (allowing the stormtrooper to get the shot off first, but then attacking with the second action after arrival). Of course he'd better dodge that blaster shot while running at him, but he is (after all) the one bringing a knife to a gunfight!

[vanir]

Ogads I never use vehicle movement rules for character movement. The truth is you can bound to maximum sprint within a couple of steps, I can, you can, anyone can.
I just use freely declared movement actions any given round for characters, and progressive movement in the slow/cruise/fast/all-out style only for vehicle movement.

I thought everyone did that.

[DougRed4]

I've always used the RAW and have never found them to be difficult (or run into the situation Quetzacotl has given).

I think the movement system works really great and is one of the neat features of the d6 system, allowing for fun chases whether on foot, in a speeder, or in a starship!

[Quetzacotl]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean...

Since it's a turn based system, it doesn't really matter if I am faster then the other Person or not.

Even if I can move for example 30 Meters and the other one only 10 and we are 10 meters apart, if I move first, then I have no means to get to him and hit him if he decides to run away because of the turn based system.
Unless I declare morce actions then him, but doing that, i also diminish my chances of hitting someone (because of the MAPs).
If the enemie is able to move after my action, I can't possibly reach him (following the RAW).

I also suggested to some of my group that you could, in case of an enemy running away as soon as you approch him, use any remaining move to chase him while he movee (i.e. when I can move 20 meters and the enemy only 10 and I am 10 meters away from the enemie, I use my move action to get to him, using 10 of my 20 meters. If he chooses to run away and he can only move 10 meters (regardless of why that is the case now), then I couold choose to automatically move the remaining 10 meters with that enemie (of course that would only work on the enemie I diceded to approach)). Unfortunately, that would be a houserule, following the RAW I would move 10 meters and "lose" the remaining 10 meters after that....

[vanir]

Okay well generally you need higher skills than an opponent to have higher averages of combat success than him. If you want to live it pays to attack people less skilled or otherwise more vulnerable than you in combat.

And in the scenario you describe you have to declare more actions than your opponent. If you are both doing an attack action and a movement action, you need an extra movement action within the combat round to get to him, otherwise you're right, you can never close the distance.

If you're unwilling to do that then instead of attacking in melee carry grenades as well like I said, and if the Stormtrooper bolts instead of chasing him, just toss the grenade. If he doesn't bolt, run at him and chop him.

[DougRed4]

Another thing to consider is the tactics of the opposition. I don't know about the rest of you, but stormtroopers have usually been cannon-fodder in my games, and definitely not elite special forces ("These blast points are too precise for sandpeople; it can only be the work of Imperial stormtroopers!).

Thus they tend to be more straight-up fighters that don't use sophisticated tactics.

[Quetzacotl]

Well ok, then it's as I thought... and well, I only used the Stormtrooper for the example. Might be anyone else intelligent enough to do that.

Thanks all for the clarification!

[vanir]