How does combat go for you?

[arete]

I am having trouble damaging my players in combat.  I rarely get anything past a minor consequence or 2 and a few physical stress boxes checked.  I am filling all the mages mental stress boxes, but they manage to end combat right about that time.  My physical characters generally make it though combat with a few stress boxes.

I wanted to here how other GM/ST's experiences have been.

[MijRai]

What are you sending against them?

[admiralducksauce]

I ran my second session yesterday and had similar results, but everyone had fun so I didn't consider it a problem.  My players were very leery of having to take consequences so they invoked many a Fate Point to boost their defense rolls.

Did your group consider the lack of lasting consequences a detriment to the game?

I'd second MijRai's question though.  Lay out some of these combats for us.  Who was involved, what happened, and perhaps what did you expect would happen?

[sinker]

Or for that matter what are they doing? Any sort of example of the kind of combat you usually have would help us help you.

[newtinmpls]

I've only had one combat so far; ghoul threw a section of a marble slab at characters, 1 dodged (very sweet roll - she looked awesome doing it) 1 didn't & ended up with "cracked ribs". As it happened, I was working nights last night and reading up some on the Diaspora version of FATE, and there is a thing about "Severe Consequences must be carried through one complete session (from beginning to end) in which the stress track associated with the Consequence does not take any hits, and are removed at the next refresh" which I thought was very interesting.

[luminos]

Make the enemies more powerful.  If you accidentally make them too powerful to handle, the PC's can always concede.  If you accidentally make them too weak, there's not much you can do beyond sending out more of them. 

[arete]

So far i have used the red court vamp stats out of the books for the 1st adventure, and that was ok.

This fight i am referencing I used the stats from Tessa and her daughter + 5 denarian henchmen who I gave +5-6 combat skills to plus supernatural ratings in all the physical stats.  Of note I had Michael and Sonya show up to help them which ended up tying up 1 of the henchmen.

My party is at 11 referesh 37 skills.  I have 1 Wizard very focused on evocation, her mentor a Warden who is more focused on tham, a Native American Emissary of Power, and The Summer Knight.  They do a wonderful job with tactics.  Generally the 2 physical characters get into position sense they have inhuman speed, and end up slapping on an aspect or 2 while the Wizards murder the enemy.  On the few occasions field position is lost the wizards generally break a sweet.  Also important is that both of my physical characters have 3-4 athletics and 5 melee for defending plus the physical powers.

[admiralducksauce]

One thing you might try is hand grenades.    Denarians don't care about collateral damage like even maybe vampire Courts might, and their mortal goons are easily capable of being decked out in body armor and military weaponry.  With your physical PCs Athletics a little less than their Melee, you'll definitely want to keep using ranged attacks on them (plus keeping your villains out of sword, knife, and chainsaw range is a plus).

If the villains know who they're going up against, they can make sure to stay spread into multiple zones to avoid the wizards' area effects, and if they ever have a choice in the matter they can pick terrain with higher border values so the fighter-types take longer to reach melee distance.

[ironpoet]

I am having trouble damaging my players in combat.  I rarely get anything past a minor consequence or 2 and a few physical stress boxes checked.  I am filling all the mages mental stress boxes, but they manage to end combat right about that time.  My physical characters generally make it though combat with a few stress boxes.

I wanted to here how other GM/ST's experiences have been.

Are you trying to stack maneuvers?  As far as I know, the best way to land a powerful consequence is to have several attackers perform a maneuver to place an aspect on the target, then let one attacker free-tag all those aspects.

Monster A throws dirt into the targets's face (Weapons vs. Athletics maneuver to add "Sand In The Eyes" aspect to the target)
Monster B knocks over a tower of crates (Might declaration to add "Unsure Footing" aspect to the scene)
Monster C takes both free tags for a +4 to its next attack vs the target

[arete]

Good advise so far and thank you.   I would like to here stats and outcomes from other gms if others have time to post that  much info.

[sinker]

One of the things you could do is start threatening the wizards. If they start worrying about their own safety then they may start putting some of their actions (and stress) into defense, which means less for offense.

Wizards are amazingly powerful though, they tear stuff up. Try throwing it back in their face by throwing some casters at them.

[Kaldra]

to make a unfriendly encounter for a wizard:

turn on the sprinklers
lure them into a room pre-built with a magic circle
turn off all the lights ( wizard becomes a target if he summons light and friendly fire is a pain )
have lots of innocents around

to make an encounter unfriendly for the physical people:

unstable ground, loose sand, ice, knee high water, a kids inflatable jumping gym ( great fun here )
Aoe, like grenades
choke points, make them walk a path to get to the villains with pits on either side, or walk across a plank between two buildings
multi-tiered fields of combat, makes them have to split up and focus more on the movement then the beating

now to some of the above, the nickelheads fall back to a Family Fun Center (http://www.fun-center.com) you now have several engines of destruction in a giant building full of kids and parents, on can go hide in the giant climbing structure (think McDonalds on steroids then times 10 ) another goes to the lazer tag area and the other heads out side to the out side area.

inside you can make use of the sprinklers after some fire has been thrown, plenty of humans to make the wizards sweat, all of  the people will make for a hard time running anywhere, multiple floors allow for some great chases.

outside, the miniput course will provide a great place for a fun battle as you have all sorts of odd things in the way and no good straight paths.

[Amseriah]

Kaldra, you are truly evil...

[arete]

oh man those are solid ideas. Ty

[Sanctaphrax]

You could also try using multiple waves of enemies and enchanted items in the hands of nonspellcasters.

For example, you could have the PCs fight four zombies in a concert hall as a warm up. Once they win (which they will) a necromancer and his ghoul drummer walk onto a balcony overlooking the stage and a 1000-year old uberzombie runs in to attack them. The necromancer rains down evocations while the drummer uses Performance maneuvers and the uberzombie attacks the party directly. What's more, the uberzombie is equipped with potion javelins that can strike an entire zone at once.

One of the best things about this game is that the GM can control the difficulty of a fight by having NPCs take or not take consequences. Have you been using your NPCs' consequence slots?