SavageWorlds v4.5 in public testing available

[Ikael]

Further updates to the ruleset:

• [Feature] New option: Auto-apply Ganging Up modifiers
• [Bug] Dropping dice on CT entry should only roll against the given target. Fixed

[flynnkd]

Those are some awesome improvements, thank you very much!

Just to push the limits, does the Parry thing include Casting? Could it be an option? And what about shooting at a third party while adjacent to an enemy?

[XpressO]

I didn't want to create a new thread for this so I'm just replying to this one. First of all thank you Ikael for the amazing work with the SWD ruleset! My only wish would be to get an up-to-date User Guide sometime after 4.5 comes out. The current one for example doesn't explain the Effects window like what the lightning bolts do, but I found the info by searching the forums. It would just be super helpful! I'm not saying you Ikael should do it but if anyone could, I'm sure all new to SW ruleset would appreciate it! Thank you again for the great ruleset! Much love <3

[Skellan]

OMG - auto apply gang up modifiers! Awesome! How does that work? do you need to target friendlies or something?

[Mortar]

No gang up bonus for you Skellan!

[Ikael]

OMG - auto apply gang up modifiers! Awesome! How does that work? do you need to target friendlies or something?

You enable the option, then you fight.

gangingup_1.jpg

The feature is based on factions (friend/neutral/foe/none~green/yellow/red/none). Say, in the screenshot there are three red/foe enemies and only two green/friend opponents. The sample orc attacking Ikael will get +1 Ganging Up (displayed as -1 parry in chat) because Ikael is adjacent to three orcs. If the same orc would be attacking fiendly A, it would not get ganging up bonus because A is oly adjacent to two enemies but has Ikael helping him.

In more technical answer the calculation logic is based on following:
- Which faction (A) is attacking
- Who is being attacked (faction B)
- How many faction A members are adjacent to attacked faction B member
- How many adjacent faction A members are countered by their adjacent faction B members
- profit

[Mask_of_winter]

Ikael, where have you read that allies will lower gang up bonuses?
According to the core rules, there are no mentions of what you're implying. Taken straight from the Core Rules: "Ganging UpGanging up on a foe allows attackers to flank, exploit
openings, and generally harass their outnumbered opponent.
Each additional adjacent foe adds +1 to all the attackers’
Fighting rolls, up to a maximum of +4. If three warriors attack
a single hero, for example, each of the three warriors gets a
+2 bonus to their Fighting rolls."
In your example above, the gang up bonus is +2 to Fighting. Not -1 to Parry. Unless I missed an obscure rule or errata somewhere.

[Ikael]

Ikael, where have you read that allies will lower gang up bonuses?
According to the core rules, there are no mentions of what you're implying. Taken straight from the Core Rules: "Ganging UpGanging up on a foe allows attackers to flank, exploit
openings, and generally harass their outnumbered opponent.
Each additional adjacent foe adds +1 to all the attackers’
Fighting rolls, up to a maximum of +4. If three warriors attack
a single hero, for example, each of the three warriors gets a
+2 bonus to their Fighting rolls."
In your example above, the gang up bonus is +2 to Fighting. Not -1 to Parry. Unless I missed an obscure rule or errata somewhere.

From my understanding the answer is in "outnumbered opponent". Which means that you should detect if attacked person is outnumbered where s/he stands during the attack. And I know Ganging Up grants bonus to Fighting, but the way how SavageWorlds ruleset handles dice rolling results, its more convenient to reduce parry for that one attack, than give bonus to attack rolls (it's the same effect, either increase offense or reduce defense). For instance if you would do Sweep action and attack several foes, you would see only single die roll result which is compared multiple times against each foe; and if you get Ganging Up against only few, the output would be a mess.

However, I am open ears to hear/read official answer is someone can pinpoint me to right place

[flynnkd]

I'm not sure the lowering Parry gives exactly the same results as increasing Attack, but the difference is too subtle for me to actually verbalise. Something about different dice type rolls vs lower Parry and Raise possibiltiies makes me nervous. BUT! I think it is likely so minor that I am happy to have something that is automatic and let maths experts ponder the details. Allies supporting you, and reducing gangup, is not in the technical rules but I tend to use it anyway, and like it in actuality, so happy for that. We can always not use the option if we don't like it.

[zarlor]

From my understanding the answer is in "outnumbered opponent". [snip]

Actually that is just descriptive text. The actual rules part is "Each additional adjacent foe adds +1 to all the attackers", and that's all that needs to be figured out (well that and that there is a +4 cap to the bonus). It doesn't matter if your character is flanked by two friends attacking someone across from them flanked by two allies, your character would simply get a +2 to their fighting roll against that foe since there are two other adjacent allies to that foe. The rest of the paragraph also notes the only use case of note "If three warriors attack a single hero, for example, each of the three warriors get a +2 bonus to their Fighting rolls." There is even an example in the answer to this post on the Pinnacle archive forum that shows a full +2 even with adjacent enemies in the mix (although the question is not exactly about that). Also, if you think about it, the FFF nature of SWD is usually to go for the simplest math, in this case just adding the adjacent allies to the enemy you are attacking, figuring out the additional question of how many allies they also have just makes things a bit too tedious, IMHO (although obviously not when you are using a computer to figure it out!)

I do agree that subtracting the bonus from Parry should effectively be the same thing, though, so probably no problems there (unless there were something that did a multiplier to bonuses but I can't think of anything like that in any official sources.... or any sources I've seen, for that matter, but that's not to say I'm not just forgetting what that would be.) Raises are covered by a difference in the attack total minus the Parry, so subtracting from the Parry just gives the same result so I can't see any issues there.