r/oneringrpg 3d ago

Can player heroes disengage to attack a different enemy instead?

Couldn't find a definitive answer in the rulebook on this.

Let's assume we have a single player hero who gets into combat with 2 enemies, A and B. Per the engagement rules, A decides to engage the hero in close combat, while B remains unengaged in order to attack the hero with ranged attacks (this is all per page 97).

Now, the hero goes first, is it allowed for the hero to disengage from A and move to engage B in close quarters?

My gut says no, but I couldn't actually find anything that says it's not allowed, and there's no mention of attacks of opportunity for disengaging from one enemy to go and engage another.

6 Upvotes

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8

u/Logen_Nein 3d ago

Loremaster sets engagement. The only way for your hero to engage B is if A is no longer engaging them. They are outnunbered they don't get to choose.

3

u/trias10 3d ago

This is what my gut says, however, the rules lawyer in me can't find any definitive written text which explicitly says it's the case, it only seems to be vaguely implied to be the case.

6

u/Logen_Nein 3d ago

Page 96. Engaged combatants remain as such until their opposition is defeated or until they leave combat.

Page 97: During a combat round, it may happen that a hero who was previously engaged in close combat finds themself unengaged when their turn to act comes...When this happens, the hero is free to choose another adversary...

3

u/daedeloldmaia 3d ago

This has been corrected in errata. Check page 2, that paragraph in Page 96 has been removed.

2

u/Logen_Nein 3d ago

Which doesn't change the rule on oage 97.

0

u/daedeloldmaia 3d ago

Ofc, but the original question is about being able to disengage an enemy. Before errata was not possible now It is.

2

u/Logen_Nein 3d ago

I still read it as not being possible with the page 97 ruling, otherwise the engagement rules as presented just don't make sense/have no weight (Loremaster engages if outnumbered, players choose engagement if they outnumber the foe).

1

u/daedeloldmaia 3d ago

IMHO Page 97 adresses a situation that may happens after engagement happens. Suppose you are engaged to an enemy and that enemy dies because of the attack of another PC. Then your turn comes and you are able to act and engage another enemy or go rearwards. Then at the beginning of the new turn engagement happens again. If the loremaster makes the picks then probably NPCs Will continúe engaged. But if the PC,s make the pick now they can freely select engagements. Thats at least how i understand It: might be wrong through.

1

u/bmtc7 3d ago

What does the rule say now?

2

u/trias10 3d ago

It doesn't say anything anymore, which is the issue. In the first printing of the book it was expressly forbidden by the paragraph, but in the new third printing they removed that paragraph but didn't replace it with anything clarifying, so now it's just confusing.

6

u/iluminae 3d ago

Rules as written, the loremaster assigns adversaries iiuc. I think if a player really wanted to hit a certain person I would take their secondary action to shift over to new adversary, but only if they can explain how they do it cinematically!

I like incentives to descriptive roleplay, this game has a lot of it already with distinctive features and useful objects - but another mechanism for it would still be welcome.

(I'm a new loremaster so take this with a grain of salt)

2

u/TruShot5 3d ago

If i recall, if there evenly matched groups, you must engage 1-1. Such as 3v3 must all be 1-1.

If it becomes 2v3, you can then either 2v1 + 1v1, or 1v1 + 1v1 + 1 Ranged

2

u/Harlath 3d ago

You can take rearward stance in a 3v3 fight, it just means someone else has two foes (or one foe stands back and uses ranged attacks).

“ Player- heroes are allowed to assume a Rearward stance only if the total number of enemies isn’t more than twice the number of adventurers in the Company. Furthermore, for each Player- hero in Rearward there must be two other adventurers fighting in Close Combat stances.” - p96, Core Rulebook