LordMidas 08-Mar-2023\

In real life melee combat, longer weapons generally grant the user an advantage against opponents with shorter weapons. This is known as “reach advantage” and is a very significant factor in melee combat. This is because, if your intent is to hit your opponent, you must get the opponent within range of your weapon - and if the opponent has a longer reach than you, they can hit you first. This makes it easier for that opponent to hit you, while making it harder for you to hit them.

While the combat system in Battle Brothers does a great job of depicting medieval combat, it lacks an appreciation of this fundamental concept. We believe that adding this nuance deepens the tactical layer of the combat - emphasizing positioning, match-ups, and crowd control. Therefore, in Reforged, we have designed a brand new “Reach” mechanic to reflect this aspect of melee combat.

Each character now has a “Reach” property which is an abstraction of the reach advantage concept. Characters with higher Reach gain or lose chance to hit during an attack depending on the difference in Reach between the attacker and defender. Reach can be modified by a character’s race, traits, perks, status effects and equipment (every weapon has its own Reach stat) etc.

• During a melee attack, chance to hit is increased when attacking opponents with shorter reach, and reduced against opponents with longer reach, by 5 per difference in reach.
• It only applies when attacking a target adjacent to you or up to 2 tiles away with nothing between you and the target (an abstraction of the idea that the two of you intend to reach and hit each other).
• If the target had a reach advantage over the attacker, it is lost after a successful hit, until the attacker waits or ends their turn. So, subsequent attacks after the first one are easier, but only during this turn.
• Reach grants no additional chance to hit when attacking an opponent who has a shield.
• Characters who are rooted have their Reach halved. Those who are stunned, fleeing, or without a melee attack have no Reach.

Currently, we show the Reach of a character in a status effect. This is a temporary thing, while we design a method of showing it in a more elegant way.

Different races have different base reach:

• Goblins: 1
• Humans: 2
• Orcs: 3
• Beasts, depending on their size (e.g. Lindwurms have 11)

Two-handed weapons generally have longer reach than one-handed weapons. Long melee weapons that have 2-tile attacks have even longer Reach. Swords generally have longer Reach than their peers. Examples:

• Dagger: 1
• Fighting Axe: 3
• Noble Sword: 4
• Militia Spear: 5
• Longaxe: 6
• Zweihander: 7
• Pike: 7

Various perks and traits have been designed to work with the Reach mechanic. Examples:

• Formidable Approach: shows that you have trained to both approach enemies and be approached by enemies in an advantageous manner. Gain additional Reach against enemies you are engaged with until they hit you.
• Sweeping Strikes: swing your weapon in wider arcs. Increases your Reach with every attack until your next turn.
• Duelist: Gain additional Reach when engaged with one or two opponents while using a duelist-valid weapon/attack.
• Huge trait: In addition to previous benefits, gain +1 Reach.

• Large two-handed weapons are now viable even in the early game as they confer skill and defense advantage against enemies with shorter reach.
• Shields are important as they eliminate the opponent’s offensive reach advantage. Breaking a target’s shield now confers a significant benefit.
• Fighting large opponents (e.g. large beasts) is now harder without large weapons (quite thematic).

To be fair, vanilla Battle Brothers did try to abstract Reach in a simple way. For example, spears have +20% chance to hit with Thrust, while swords have a higher chance to hit with Slash. However, this was a very basic interpretation - not enough to add the level of tactical depth that conforms to our vision. With our concept of Reach, this concept is more nuanced and interacts dynamically with a character's positioning, situation, skills, and equipment. To account for the additional advantage from Reach, in Reforged we have reduced the bonus chance to hit of Thrust from +20% to +10% and of Slash from +10% to +5%.

In the first iteration of this mechanic, we have kept it relatively simple. Over time we intend to deepen the concept and iron it out together with the rest of the mod's design. This includes our vision of making shields even more relevant (e.g. by tweaking how shields interact with Reach), giving one-handed weapons a competitive place and identity on the battlefield, and making the battles in Battle Brothers feel more alive and tactical.