Re: [DL] Handling Combat with Undead

["bruce boragine" <gamr4evr@bellsouth.net>]

if you have a normal party, that sounds fine. my group is more combat
hungry; it consists of: 2 gunslingers, 1 injun who's sorta a tracker, 1
jorunalist who likes to shoot things, a M/S who likes to blow things up, a
blessed doc  and a shootist who is a sharpshootin' marksman with  a
belogins' rifle. the shootist can usually drop 1 undead a round, as long as
he get 2-3 actions. he speed-loads his 1 shot bolt action rifle and then
aims, i don't recall the name but it's outta either law dogs or texas
rangers, it does 4d10 per shot. then he goes for a head shot. if he has too,
he uses an action to cast the hex deadpan/brainpan. and on really long shots
he aims again. he's modified his rifle, with a better scope and had the
barrel modified also. most of his called head shots are at -1 maybe -2. and
he has like 3 or 4 d10 to hit.  he's great at range. in close or melee he's
worthless. but the 2 gunslingers just blaze away then. .both of them are 2
fisted, but only 1 is a 2 gun kid, so they either got -1 or -2 to hit, they
usally go for the guts to put it down, and either blow its herad off later
or let the bloodthirsty injun cut its head off.  and then the injun goes to
town with his tomahawk.

now as far as finding clues or figureing out stuf... the journalist is the
only 1 with a chance at thinkin', and she and the blessed doc are about to
quit playing when they go back to the university in 2 weeks..

i just hope the clueless mad-scientist don't blow them up too soon. he wants
to make a dynamite launcher so badly.. he's almost frothing. ;-)


marshall kt



----- Original Message -----
From: TobyAkers@aol.com
To: deadlands@gamerz.net
Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: [DL] Handling Combat with Undead


Here's how I handle it.  I use the 2nd ed. "mook" rules.  Npc's take 5
wounds to put down.  You still roll location, but it only really matters for
extra damage dice/cover or armor.  For undead I take the damage you do and
1/2 it unless you hit the bugger in the head (or whatever it's focus is).
The second part is a suggestion made in the Book O' the Dead.

In a message dated 8/17/02 8:35:51 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
pjungbluth@arcor.de writes:



Yesterday i finally had my first round of DL after having the books standing
in my bookshelf for a couple of years.
In general everyting was ok until combat startet.
I was running my PCs trou "The Last Stop" a Demo adventure that is supposed
to take 3 or 4 hours.
After maybe 1 hour of getting known to each other and snooping around the
szene 9 Undead came blazing into the train waggon and a figth startet.

That was where the problems began. Since there where 9 Undead i decided
using the simplified damage system from HOE for them( all wounds are
considert to the guts, but since they are undead and are only killed trou
head hits and Damage is halved) But combat was just taking way to long.
after 4 hours of rolling dice finally the last undead was down, but also the
interrest of the group in the adventure was compleatly gone. But i still had
that feeling that the fight would last much longer since besides 2 light
wounds to the head all other hits where in arms guts and legs. so if i
understand the rules correctly if i would have used the detailed system they
would still be up and running with allmost no penaltys.

I thougt about using the original DL system for damage to extras ( instead
of wounds each extra can stand size times 5 damage) but again undead dont
take wind and only go down on head hits so that system would also not work
correctly ( masses of undead attack and they go down after pumping a lot of
lead into them, but when only 1 or 2 attack (and i use the detailed damage
for them) they only go down after head hits??)

so anyone found a way to handle groups of undead whitout slowing down combat
to a painfull crawl?