The combat line

Over the past three months I've been experimenting with using a VTT for combat. These experiments were failures; a VTT is no good for my purposes. So here I'll show you how I have run combat before and after the experiment. I think it's pretty good; give it a try!

Unless one or both sides of a melee are suicidal or chaotic, everybody is going to form up into lines.

If you don't form up, you are sure to be out-flanked and attacked where you cannot defend.

If your line is shorter than the other side's line, you'll want to spread out a bit so you can avoid being outflanked. (They're probably not going to want to advance into the gaps in your line, because any of them who so advanced would be flanked.)

To keep track of where everyone is, I open a txt file and make two rows like so:

The top line is shows the players. There's an asterisk on the retainer in the middle, showing that they are holding a torch. The bottom line shows the enemy, specifically, their HP. (In this example I assume all the enemy have the same AC, but if it differed, I'd record that here too.)

The players have a shorter battle line than the enemy, so for some players (Norris, Steve) there's two enemies in front of them.

If instead the players are flanked by the enemy, I'd represent the battle line like so:

If Norris is right-handed, he probably gets his shield bonus against 23, but not against 8. Moreover, 8 gets a bonus to attack for flanking. He can probably attack either 8 or 23. If the retainer on the right is right-handed, they can use their shield against 12 and 18.

If the players don't have a second line in their combat, 8 and 12 might be able to slip behind Norris and the second retainer and attack from behind. If the enemy won initiative, they'd be able to do it for free on their turn. If the players won initiative, the enemy would have to make a maneuver check to slip behind them.

Note that the side that wins initiative gets to pick the initial point of contact between the two lines. So if the enemy won initiative in the first place, I'd expect them to pick the second configuration for the first round of combat, and then slip into backstabbing position on the second and future rounds. Meanwhile if the players won initiative, I'd expect them to thin their line and pick the first configuration.

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