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BESM System Review
Combat Suggestions
These combat suggestions are all written mostly from the player's perspective, and are basically ways to get your combative character/character group the greatest benefit with the fewest losses, within this system. You don't need to use all the suggestions, of course -- just use what works for you. Also, you should keep in mind that using too many of these suggestions will potentially imbalance a game, since the system has no checks and balances designed into it.
This means a persuasive player can easily take advantage of an overworked GM and end up with an imbalancing and unfair amount of power, in comparison to the less pushy players. Keep in mind, it's one thing to "share the wealth" when it comes to GM concessions -- but it's another entirely to try to hoard it all for yourself.
On the other hand, GMs reading this should also keep in mind that it's damn easy in a system like this to abuse your players. This system has little to no granularity. This means that instead of (N)PCs slowly and smoothly increasing in power, there are, in effect, two settings: the lower-powered folks, and the over-powered ones. Be careful, if you are a GM, that you haven't made all your villains too tough for your player characters to affect whatsoever.
Finally, the rulesbook encourages GMs to use this system for what is, basically, a rules-light game where the demands of the story are more important than consistency. GMs should remember that in such a game it is neither fair nor right to penalize a character, just because you're momentarily unhappy with the player. This is true, no matter how self-justifying or in-game-sounding your excuses may be. If you're unhappy with a player, take a moment to be a good GM and be impartial... and roll some dice instead of making it up as you go.
That being said, here are the suggestions.
Push for bonuses; make it up as you go
There are a few possibilities in the rules that can be exploited so you can exercise different strategies while in combat. However, mostly you'll have to make it up yourself, figuring out creative reasons you should get more bonuses and coordinating with your fellow players as you go.This means interpreting any and all of the player suggestions falls rather heavily upon the GM. While still attempting to objectively run the NPCs as well, the GM must also decide on the fly what player requests might work, what sorts of penalties and bonuses they might confer, and any other mechanical or other ramifications of these actions.
Needless to say, this is a tough job. Therefore, as responsible players it behooves us all to be alert, plan ahead of time, explain clearly and concisely to the GM, be ready to work together promptly on whatever plans we have, and be politely sympathetic to the (possibly flustered) GM's situation.
Understand and use the "Expanded Combat" options
Please note: I consider teamwork an important and integral part of a good game! Thus I am differentiating between possible strategic rules or skill usage to benefit your team, and simply buying up an increased power for your character. However, regardless of how you use them, you will definitely want to understand and implement as many of the specialized powers or attributes allowed by the "Expanded Combat Rules" (ECR) as you can talk your GM into. Without them your PC will probably be frustratingly ineffective in combat.You'll find the entire list in the ECR section on pg. 223 of the BESM second edition rules book. Some of them, like the mecha rules, are apparently intended to be used only in games with mecha, so be sure which you're using. They comprise seven pages in their entirety.
The ECR include options for: Extra Aim, Attacks with Two Weapons, Called Shots, Fast Draw and Attack, Striking to Wound, Firing Personal Weapons from within a Mecha, Extended Range Modifiers, Throwing Heavy Things, Total Attack, Wrestling and Grab Attacks, Total Defense, Shock (being stunned), Critical Injury (bleeding), etc. I would recommend all these options be used for a game-combat experience with more texture. However, some of the options in the ECR are quite... um... cinematic and the GM should carefully consider if all of them are appropriate for their game.
Create teamwork within the system
There are fortunately a few things you can do to coordinate with teammates during a fight, to increase your odds of taking down an opponent. You'll need to use specific abilities from the ECR, so this assumes your GM has okay'd their use. I'll refer to them by the names the book gives them:Called Shots
The "Called Shot - Disarming" attack skill allows you to shoot or knock your opponent's weapon out of their hand(s). This is nice, because the gained benefit for doing so (minuses for the opponent's attacks) extends to the entire character group. If you're not strong enough to grab an opponent, this is a viable means to help your team.Weird side-effect: the noted exception is if you use a flexible weapon to disarm with, your opponent is automatically disarmed. That's helpful!
Wrestling and Grab Attacks
If you can successfully grab and hold an opponent you will give it penalties on all its attack and defense rolls. This means any of your team striking the person you've immobilized will have the benefit of those penalties also.Weird side-effects: While all the variants of "Wrestling and Grab Attacks" perform roughly the same, you should note one or two specific cases:
First, 'Disarming via Wrestling' seems somewhat counterproductive from a teamwork perspective -- why not grab the bad guy instead, considering you have a better chance of doing so? If you've grabbed a weapon you potentially get penalties to the opponent's attacks -- which is the same benefit as a "Called Shot - Disarming." However, if you grab the actual opponent you get penalties to the opponent's attacks and defenses. Thus I can't recommend trying this unless a) you're not strong enough to hold the opponent, or b) you have a friend who's already grappled the opponent, and the weapon is extremely dangerous.
Second, while you're holding your opponent for your partners to pummel, note that 'Strangling' is automatic damage from the "holder" to the "holdee." Those sound like good odds to me -- why not try it? 'Biting' also could be useful, if you have fangs, although you should note that it's not automatic damage.
Third, 'Throw' sounds good in the book, but defeats the purpose of pinning someone for your teammates. If you throw your opponent, they're loose again, and you and your team have lost the benefit of penalties on your opponent's attacks and defences.
Fourth, the longer you can keep your opponent pinned, the more your teammates can pummel the opponent. Under those circumstances, you might as well use 'Pinning' as well, especially if your opponent is nearly as strong as you.
Side note: this skill-set was part of the reasoning behind my character in the former DNAnimals/Tamashi game. My PC was extraordinarily tall and strong, although not the best fighter in the group. However, if she could successfully grab an opponent she could pin them against herself, immobilizing them -- and her more damage-dealing teammates could attack the opponent more successfully.
Total Defense
This is basically your character doing nothing but defending. It may not sound very exciting, but think carefully about the tactical implications of doing this. Your opponent will be, in effect, wasting attacks against you -- which means the opponent is not attacking your teammates! Not only are you unlikely to be damaged, but also your teammates can gang up on the opponent more effectively.
Those are the only three ECR abilities that allow you to engage in teamwork. If you've used Hero system before, you've doubtless recognized them all... some of the names are even the same. Fortunately, there are a few other things you can do to promote teamwork and effective combat within the parameters of the rules.
Buy the two teamwork-oriented attributes
The "Gun Bunny" (pg. 30) and "Kensei" (pg. 32) attributes give special powers to characters who have bought those skills, and enhance their ability with some of the Expanded Combat actions. Check and be sure you've bought the right option for whatever your teamwork-oriented ECR abilities are... you don't want to waste points. Keep in mind these two attributes alone, however, are specific to a single character; i.e. they alone don't really benefit the team tactically in combat.Two curious side notes: first, both the above involve some pretty amazing abilities -- yet are considered "normal" attributes. I presume the term "normal" is being used in an anime sense here?
Secondly, the "Kensei -- Blind Fighting" attribute says you receive no penalties when fighting blind. Unfortunately there's nothing clearly in the rules about what penalties should apply to someone fighting while in the dark or blinded.
The closest thing I can find is under the Special Attribute "Invisibility," on pg 108 of the second ed. rules. There it states that if the invisible character does something to betray their presence, i.e. shouting or firing a gun, then melee attackers suffer a +2 penalty to hit the invisible person. I mention this because it would be useful so that the GM could make up appropriate penalties for night fighting, since the rulesbook does not appear to specifically do so.
Gang up on your enemies
On pg 209 in the second ed. rulesbook, where defensive actions are being discussed, there's a small but important thing to note -- how to gang up on an enemy. Defenders can defend from as many attacks as they want... but there's a cumulative +2 penalty for every attacker past the first one. This wonderfully imbalancing technique means with enough attackers you can make it literally impossible for the defender to successfully defend. Remember this next time your group is faced with a boringly god-like NPC!Use held actions to set up teamwork
Holding your action (pg. 203) may not sound that exciting, but, used creatively, it can be a useful combat technique within a team. Here's an example: assume a team with someone slow but strong, and someone fast who can deal out a lot of damage -- if they can hit. If the fast person holds his action, allowing the slower person to grab their mutual target, then the fast person can be sure of delivering damage to the restrained target. There are many other ways to use a held action creatively as well, of course.Use area attacks
The one other thing that's difficult to defend against is area attacks. Check out pg. 161 for 'Weapon Attack Abilities - Area Effect.' Here's another reason area attacks are nice -- unless there's a very solid barrier (GM's discretion) between the defender and the area effect, the defender will take half damage even if they make their defense roll.Get more armor
Then there's the basics for individual characters -- get armor! Armor can help tremendously if you are the target of an area attack. If you've already got armor, get more! BESM doesn't have enough complexity to penalize your character for huge amounts of armor, so I guess you might as well help yourself to as much as possible. Besides, this is an anime system -- it'll look cool. :-).Use the lack of granularity in the system to your benefit
The last thing you'll really want is to make sure you've bought as many things as you can get away with to raise your character's relative power level in-game. As a good friend who's actually played BESM put it, "The system runs smoothly; the problem lies in power level. You're either Musashi [i.e. possibly the most famous Japanese swordsman ever] or you suck, with very little in between. It's really easy for a favorite villain to just knock the taste out of your mouth."This lack of granularity in the game (i.e. either you're fantastic or you haven't much of a chance) is due to the sharp bell curve on 2d6 (the table showing the percentage chance any particular number will appear in a 2d6 roll). If you have a one-point advantage on your opponent in any opposed roll, you have a clear advantage. A two-point advantage is an almost certain win. This is not a guarantee, however, since any single roll of 2d6 still has a fair chance of rolling in either extreme.
Another thing to remember is most rolls in BESM are not opposed, i.e. you don't use them to directly affect each other's rolls. For example, the attack/defend roll are not opposed rolls. You roll to attack, and your opponent rolls to defend. Your skill on attack does nothing to reduce your opponent's ability to defend. This means that two high-skill characters could fight for quite some time without hitting each other. Yes, this can get tiresome. ;-)
So when it comes to the damage you deliver, the weapons you carry, or any physical advantages you may be buying (like strength, speed, etc.), consider carefully if you think combat will be an important part of your character and/or the game you'll be part of. If you think it will be important... buy that stuff up. There's a reason it all costs more, after all -- the game authors don't want players buying it!
Most villains are designed somewhat like "one trick ponies," i.e. most of their points go into whatever their specialty is. Keeping that in mind, you really might want to consider strongly whether or not you want your entire group of characters to be vague generalists, like most individual players design their PCs -- or whether you might be better off with you and your fellow players selecting roles in which to specialize, i.e. the strong, slow, tough fighter; the multi-skilled, intellectual mage that can't dish out much in the way of damage; the fast, light, but heavy-damage-delivering fighter; the lightly armored, light-damage thief/tactician/persuader, etc. Not only will that give your characters a good reason to hang out together for mutual support (and GMs love that!), but your character group also won't end up being repeatedly trashed by a single, frustratingly lopsidedly-designed villain.
That's it for combat suggestions. Next -- personal opinion stuff. Probably pretty boring... feel free to skip right to the combat example.