Glad to hear things are going well for you guys.
The new Cluster Colors look great.
I wanted to toss in some perspective I had on the earlier discussion of Zellbrigen. Perhaps it is because I haven't read the books but I never saw Zellbrigen as saying you could not use terrain. Half the rules of Zellbrigen are establishing who you should challenge to a 1 on 1 duel and that group combat in general should be broken up into duels. Yes the Kit Fox can refuse to fight the Dire Wolf if there is a Adder he could fight instead, if there is no one else left he is SOL.
As players we seem focused on the idea that Zellbrigen is one player challenges another to a duel and that it is the rules for how that Duel is fought. But Zellbrigen is actually the rules for how battles are fought, EVERYONE challenges someone to a duel, and when those are decided the victors challenge each other.
The actual rules of engagement themselves seem to revolve around making sure a Clan Warrior: Fights his own battles, Doesn't back down or shrink from the fight, doesn't behave in a way that could be seen as cowardly and doesn't take it easy on his opponent.
Look at the actual prohibitions:
- No Aoe weapons or team based systems.
- No Intentionally moving out of the line of sight of the opponent
- No Moving out of weapon range
- Failure to fire a weapon when possible is prohibited
Players seem to consider not leaving line of sight to mean you can't use terrain. But if you look at the common theme I would interpret it to mean you don't Hide or back off from a fight. Once the foe is engaged the fight is nonstop, you do not lay off them, you do not give them quarter, you don't give them a chance to rest or cooldown, you keep attacking whenever you can. Can you vie for better position to attack from? Certainly. And given how long ranged clan weapons are you can actually fight at pretty long range so long as you don't retreat further than you can keep shooting. You should be able to use terrain to your advantage as long as you are not using it to hide, none of the poke a gun out, snipe and shrink back behind the same rock stuff, I don't think you should be able to hug a single piece of cover or use terrain to hide sneaking all the way around behind them, but you should be able to dive behind it to absorb a few shot and move into a more advantageous position, just don't sit or stop behind it.
As for the Trail's of Position, I know the Clans are all about personal combat, but I don't see why you couldn't add another leadership trial that had to be passed before before a member could challenge for a leadership role. Have to first prove that they can successfully lead a Lance in battle by doing so (because we can't group in Stars yet.) before they can challenge for the position to lead one, take command and lead an entire team successfully in battle before they can challenge for higher ranks. but I don't see why you couldn't add another requirement leadership trial that had to be passed before before a member could challenge for a leadership role. Have to first prove that they can successfully lead a Lance in battle by doing so (because we can't group in Stars yet.) before they can challenge for the position to lead one, take command and lead an entire team successfully in battle before they can challenge for higher ranks.
You have to think, their ranking structure was developed in an environment where everyone they fought used Zellbrigen, so there was no need for commanders who really knew how to co-ordinate group battles, the convention was everything was going to be fought as duels anyway. Once the fighting started everyone was essentially on their own anyway. Rank fulfilled more of a role as a social status than of battlefield command until they hit up against the group tactics of the IS. With Combat being a series of duels having your best duelist with a special status that helps him call out the best duelist on the other team probably doesn't hurt either.
Edited by Kreisel, 07 January 2014 - 02:05 PM.