"Heroes in Battlesytem combat" Topic

I have a question about house rules for heroes. I love this system, and have played several battles. Recently I have started using commanders and heroes more often, but I have found that the rules "break" there.

I had a battle recently where the armies were engaged and hammering each others. Finally, the two army leaders came face to face and engaged in battle.

The battle was still going on several turns later when the rest of the battle was resolved!

One guy had 4 hits and the other had 5 hits. The 4 hit guy had better AR and better AD, but both managed to save a good number of hits. When the battle was over, both still had 2 hits left!

My question is this, has anyone thought of a way to quicken personal combat in the game?

Should I allow every combat round to equal 3 or 4 personal combat rounds? or something similar?

There should be a section on how to port PCs into BattleSystem.

It has been a while since I played but I do remember that happening. I wonder if it would work to just resolve the combat all the way through in one round. That would likely over compensate but it would allow the leaders/heroes to fight to resolution and then move on to something else.

Well if you were talking about first edition Battlesystem, I ignore the hit die and use hit points for all creatures/PCs over 4HD. Then any damage done is counted as hit points lost. no rounding no wounding. etc.

Works great for 1st Edition.

Duane

I thought in 1st ed damage was automatically applied to heroes as HP damage at 4hp/point.

It sounds like 2nd Ed. BattleSystem. I've had the same problem. I agree: time compression is a good solution. Alternatively, as others have described for 1st Ed. games, you can convert to RPG rules, and resolve the combat that way. A "Turn", within BattleSystem could easily be considered to be 10 minutes, which is 10 "Rounds" of RPG combat resolution. Or you can just explain it away as two very high level characters duking it out -- they each have 80+ HP, and it takes a while to chop them down.

It's your game, resolve it how you prefer. There won't be any ripple waves sent out across the Multi-verse, cramping anyone else's style. ;-) Cheers!

Thanks – It is 2nd edition. I have used 1st edition, but it has been a while.

I think I will try time compression. Maybe 5 rounds of combat per turn.

I am not using it in conjunction with AD&D. I just think it is a great system and use it for more generic battles. I have already tinkered with magic a little to make it less D&D.

Yeah, 1st Ed was explicitly 1 Battlesystem turn = 3 melee combat rounds for character "duels".

Page 107 from the 2nd Ed ruleook has rules for using melee rounds for unconverted AD&D figures using role play attributes. One turn in Battlesystem equals 4 melee rounds so unconverted characters could attack 4 times. Sounds pretty much like what you are thinking of using for personal combat in your games.

Thanks m4jumbo, I had missed that!