Sukiyaki Western Django Part 2!

One of the things I wanted to talk about in Sukiyaki Western Django was the last fight. It's a huge fight involving multiple factions and even people you wouldn't think would become involved do so with a huge cost to the town and all of the people that the viewer has been introduced to.

But it's also a long fight.

With the gunslingers, there are several moments when they are forced to seek shelter and reload and gather new weapons.

How would that work in a game like 4e?

In 4e, this could be done as a series of combat encounters and skill checks. The combat encounters should be fairly simple. The GM would allow several groups of enemies access to the players untill they are overcome or the players retreat. The GM can allow the players the ability to retreat earlier by introducing a skill check.

In this last big fight, the leader of the red gang is running around with a chain machine gun and a heavy suit of armor that protects him from non-specifically aimed shots. If the players want to move out, they can make a skill check to avoid the chain gun and allow the chain gun fool to shoot into the other enemies.

Now that may seem like a cop out, but it's actually something used with some frequency. For example, in the Dungeon Siege 2 game, when fighting the big bad, there is actually no way to damage him outside of activating an ancient technology that does damage to him. Would that be attacking the big bad or a skill check? Probably skill check.

The other problem becomes the mapping. The GM should have several generic maps set up of the battlefield ahead of time and be ready to run those maps over and over and provide variety by changing the positions of the maps by reversing them or holding them upside down. The only exceptions to this should be specific monuments or other unique locations in the town.

A long running battle can be exhausting to run and can take a lot of time but with 4e, the characters innate ability to recover their abilities, outside of their dailies, makes it more worth looking into than in previous editions where most characters with special abilities like spells, are not going to benefit from a fifteen minute rest.