Combat Systems of Sword World 2.5

[@Taranchule]

I kinda love how Simplified Combat emulates classic JRPG formations. That said, I personally prefer "Theater of the Mind" play so I'm still debating which system I'd prefer.

[@adzi6164]

all 3 systems are ultimately about how much detail you put into tracking characters' and enemies positions. Consider how much effort you put into that when playing "theather of mind"... A good thing is that, aside from a few features of the optional Tactician class, choice of using any of the three systems doesn't impact the way how various classes' abilities and spells work, thanks to the concept of Skirmishes. You can switch between systems across the campaign depending on what the situation entails. For a quick "random encounter" brawl in a plain location, the Simplified system would suffice. If enemies were coming from two direction, Standard combat would be enough. If you wanted to portray enemies coming from multiple directions, and a battlefield with rich terrain affecting and/or blocking lines of fire and movement (or just merely a more spacious situations that would make it would actually matter if someone was fighting in the middle, or on the left, or stuff like that), Advanced Combat it is. It helps that, unless you make the situation really complex, you don't have much to track except where the melee is taking place. Trying to apply "theather of mind" to SW's combat is probably a better idea than applying it to D&D combat. Two things help with that: - Skirmishes - when people are fighting, they basically turn into a reasonably-sized area of melee where their exact positions aren't tracked (mechanically they are all considered to be in the middle) - Movement blocking - if a creature is trying to move in vicinity of its enemy, that enemy can make a short move to intercept it and stop it, unless that enemy is already tied up in a melee and heavily outnumbered. As such, a character has a reasonable radius in which it can stop enemies from passing by, making tracking the exact position unnecessary in many cases rant time: "theather of mind" is copium invented by early non-wargaming newbies to D&D who discovered the game, but didn't possess miniatures, while D&D on its own didn't really explain how where they supposed to be exactly used, nor provide them or cheaper equivalents

[@Breasil131]

The simple combat is perfect for theater of the mind play

[@spademagna2672]

Thanks for the explanation because i couldn't wrap my head around it just reading it.

[@guidedbycardia]

Very welcome!

[@paulofrota3958]

You guys not only gave us this amazing game through your flawless translation but now are also giving us one of the best RPG channels on YT... THANK YOU. This is amazing and I hope you get all the recognition you deserve.

[@Zeithri]

I love the cute Elf-portrait

[@thatguy846]

A bit off topic but the unnatural intonation of the voice (going up at the end of each sentence) is killing me 😂

[@LimakPan]

How TF a niche JP RPG ends up wtih AI videos already.

[@guidedbycardia]

Our teams feel more confident with AI voicing our videos than ourselves. Other than that, script and video are done by humans.

[@shermanlittle6312]

P r o m o s m

[@Jimalcoatl]

The skirmish system is the weakest part of Sword World in my opinion. Especially Advanced Combat, it adds a whole bunch of extra complexity without any benefit. Western TTRPGs do map combat far better than Sword World. Simplified combat is fine, but if I want a more "tactical" battle, I find just using a D&D like battlemap system to be far more intuitive and to flow much better than muching around with skirmishes.

[@Chris3s]

true, and measuring all those meters instead of just squares. I also hate feets being used in american TTRPGs though, would rather prefer something more universal since US still wants to cling to their measurement

[@AnActualRealPotato]

@@Chris3s Here is a pro tip: You can use a square map and use that as your measurement tool. Plus, the rules explicitly say you don't have to be precise with your measurements, so you can just eyeball it as well. Also, the degree of freedom this allows is always nice. Doing 3m or 5m per square is perfectly suitable. With big enough squares you could even do 10m per square if you really just wanna eyeball it. Or use a hexmap. Also works great. My group does this and it flows real well.

[@AnActualRealPotato]

I disagree. Skirmishes were really weird and unusual at first, but after actually playing Advanced Combat for the first time, this basically became my favorite way to do TTRPG combat. You have a great degree of freedom, skirmishes add a nice abstraction to the way engagements work, movement blocking always made way more sense to me than stuff like "attacks of opportunity". Overall I feel that Advanced Combat is a lot more dynamic and intuitive than most other rulesets I have seen that tried map combat. The main complaint I have heard around Advanced Combat is that it is "too complex" but honestly, most of the rules relevant to skirmishes are just to cover edge cases that rarely come up during play (In like a year of play, I had to merge skirmishes twice, for example). Its nice to know there are rules that govern these oddities for when they happen, but for the most part, I'd say Advanced Combat is only marginally more complex than Simplified even.

[@Chris3s]

@@AnActualRealPotato while that is true and works for many GMs, I still prefer concrete rules that dont rely on GMs. It is also posible to just use 1m squares but there is something missing for me in this system. I agree though that this can work for many GMs

[@Zeithri]

Why just not simplify it as " _You can move 5 Steps per turn in a normal move, 7 steps with a full move, and 3 with a half move._ " And then just keep the squares. Easy peasy healer squeezy.