Hey guys! I’m gonna master Legacy 2e soon but I don’t really get how combat works. My players and I are used to the typical DW action and the one in Rhapsody of Blood seems more closely related to the experience than Legacy Core. Are threats supposed to dealt out with just one blow? It’s quite confusing, we like dragged out, engaging combat , specially against large threats.
Hey guys!
Hey guys!
Open combat against someone your weapons are well-suited to dealing with is resolved in one roll, yeah. To make things more complex, add things they’ll need to do before committing to the assault: storm a fortified position or find a vantage point with Forge a Path, use Defuse to hide from the enemy and get in a good position, and if your weapons can’t hurt them use Unleash Power or Unearth Forgotten Lore to find a way to use tech or the environment against them. Or even subdivide the threats in the area such that a single Fiercely Assault can’t deal with them (squads flanking you, very different enemy types, etc). Not to mention the opportunities provided by playbook moves to add more texture to the story of a fight.
But it’s true, Legacy isn’t that interested in the precise blow by blow of the fight. Instead it’s more about what fighting costs you and where the story goes from there.
I think one roll combat resolution requires seeing it in play, especially from someone who “gets it”, in order to really understand.
One of the tricks from Uncharted Worlds that might come in handy if you want more protracted combat is the separation of threats. If I have some soldier type with a machine gun, yeah she can take out the six guys over there with one roll. But the scientist guy? Naw, if he rolls he’s taking out at best one of them.
Obviously, tell them how many they can deal with in their prescribed manner – it’s not fair to yell “gotcha” when they think they’re taking out the lot of them.
Yeah, that’s fair. And part of adding texture to one-roll combat is making weapon tags matter – if they don’t have the area tag, they can’t face down a group, unless they get creative.