On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 11:27:02 -0000, Adrian Price <AdrianFPrice@...>
wrote:

> I agree with you, but what about when the SMG guy wants to shoot at
> two or more guys with his SMG? Seems a reasonable request, and
> that's what I'm having trouble with.

If a dude with an SMG wants to shoot two dudes, he rolls in an exchange
vs. both of them, but each of the two dudes takes a +1 for outnumbering
SMG-dude. If SMG-dude beats both of them in the resulting rolls, the GM
might rule that autofire allows him to damage them both, though the
default rules state he can only damage one person per exchange in
multiple-person combat. Additionally, if he gets beat by both people, he's
going to take two damage effects - could be pretty nasty for him in the
end.

> This brings up a related question I have about your point of seeing
> the damage track as a progress track toward a PC's overall goal
> (which I found helpful BTW).

At least someone did. :)

> I had a bit of a think and I could see
> how the SMG guy could just define his goal as being to take out
> *two* guys, which seems in line with your examples about seeing the
> damage track as goal-achievement status rather than strictly damage.
> This might be reasonable, since he has got an SMG after all.

Yes, it is. In such a case, he'd just be rolling the exchange vs. both
dudes as per the normal rules and/or as per the above example.

> This seems reasonable on one level, but on another the
> guy's getting a lot of bang for his buck, 2 kills instead of 1 for a
> Taken Out result.

Well, no. He'd still have to, according to the normal rules, get a Taken
Out result on both people. Even though the player could announce such a
goal, each opponent specifically is given his/her own damage track. It's
sort of the same thing as the swordsman taking out the sniper at range -
to achieve that goal, he has to achieve the goal of closing the distance
first.

> The same could apply to a swordsman trying to take out 2 guys
> quickly: -1, as well as suffering from the opponent's bonuses due to
> outnumbering, but successes affect both opponents instead of just
> one.

This is something that's going to be handled differently depending on what
genre you're in. In my Hong Kong Action Theatre Fate game, I have a couple
of "mook rules" that I use whenever the characters are fighting nameless
thugs. They are:

(For more gritty, slow-paced HK action) If the PC is fighting a group of
mooks, he can damage as many of the mooks as he beats in the exchange and
it just gets narrated into the resolution of the exchange. So if he's
fighting four guys and gets MoS on three of them, three of the thugs take
the appropriate damage effect, and the PC takes the damage from the last
thug that beat him. Normally, I don't give thugs outnumbering bonuses
either, but that's GM discretion.

(For really over-the-top cinematics) A group of mooks gets statted as a
single challenge grid and attacks as a single entity. Their numbers almost
don't matter. As the PC gets boxes marked off on the mooks' challenge
grid, they get narrated as dropping out of the combat. When the challenge
grid is filled out, all the mooks are gone. In fact, if it's dramatically
appropriate, the GM can continue narrating mooks into the scene as they
take damage - the challenge grid is really only measuring, at this point,
progress until the end of the scene. To parallel the normal damage grid,
you can assign the mob -1 penalties as you go for losing people or just
being damn scared of the mook-trashing PC.


-Landon Darkwood