Combat Tactics

[Ned Flanders]

I've been enjoying the turn based combat immensely. It certainly takes a lot of prep and thought. Ambushes are a lot tougher to pull off than the RT/pausable combat system of BG2.

In getting familiar with the 3.5 rules and the new combat system using BG2 combat as a benchmark, I've made a few notes which I'll share below.

Combat is tougher in close quarter arenas
1. The negative to hit modifier for partially covered targets in melee is tough to get around when firing a ranged weapon. I've often found targets further down a hallway or other narrow space are untargetable because there is so much in the way between you (shooter) and the enemy target.

2. Right now, I've got a party of eight and it seems to be too many. Again, with fighting in tight spaces, it is a requirement to set up most melee character with a spear/pole arm/etc as you can only fight two wide in hallways. I really this enjoy this tactic as I've usually strayed from two handed weapons in CRPG (for the most part). They are necessary to keep everyone involved.

3. A halfling is great for squeezing into those tight spaces. It is an exception to the rule where I mentioned above about fighting 'two wide'. My halfling Ranger/Rogue is 2'6" and she can manuever quite well in a congested battlefield really putting sneak attack to use.

4. I've had some troubles getting effective use out of entangle (forget the perma duration effect bug, actually it hasn't even been permanent for me), web, stinking cloud, grease. In open spaces, they've worked like a charm especially in the couple of battles where I had enemies approaching from more than one side. But in tight spaces, these spells seem to slow things down (see point number 1 above). I've tried leaving an alley in between area effect spells in order to get a couple of melee characters deeper into the fray but that leaves them exposed. If one enemy should get to them and deliver a heavy blow, I don't have a lot of room to support the injured character lest they themselves walk into the web or entangle or etc...

5. Building off of points 1-4, I've found having one or two characters sneaking ahead and scouting the area is obviously a good thing. However, instead of setting up an ambush to draw enemies back to, I just figure out who and where I want everyone to charge into the room. This tactic has been far more effective for me. The fact that a web or other area effect spell slows down combat too much; often to the point where lots of the group are idle, I'd just prefer to charge in even though it's more risky. Perhaps the net result is area effect disabling spells in tight quarters is a bad idea.

I've still got a long way to go in mastering the rules of the game, and to how to most effectively use those rules to my advantage. Even though the turn based combat is slow, it's a lot of fun.

Something else to discuss:

How are folks getting around dealing with the long range of ogres and other large humanoids. Putting characters on 'ready to approach' isn't good enough. The distance an ogre needs to attack a character won't trigger a 'ready for approach' attack.

[Gwalchmai]

Yes, I found Entangle to be most useful outside, but I’ve also used it to good effect inside. In the last part of the moat house, I tossed an Entangle into the big room in order to slow down everyone coming out and killing the heck out of me. I intended on shooting the few nearest the door, then dismissing the spell so the fighters could rush in and kill the rest. I was surprised to find that my Druid couldn’t dismiss the spell! Still, everyone was able to rush in far enough to attack at least one more bad guy, and put themselves in position to use projectiles. Healing was impossible once everyone got stuck, but as long as I got the enemy archers first, I was ok.

Breaking free of the Entangle seems impossible, even for Hill Giants. The never-ending bug to the spell can be worked around to good advantage.

I need to check my PHB: shouldn’t Entangle be ineffective in interior settings? This was how it worked in IWD2 (a 3rd Ed game)…