Performance combat is one of the few mechanics in the game I have difficult wrapping my head around. Can someone try and walk me though it please?
Also, is there ANY value in performance combat in typical battles at all?
shameless dot
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I experienced some performance combat while playing The Ruby Phoenix Tournament module.
Specific events trigger a check to be made. If successful, the crowd attitude toward you improves. A failure will worsen their attitude. A good relationship with the crowd give you bonuses, a bad relationship will give penalties.
Some checks are mandatory, others optional.
If you manage to get an early good relationship going, then the bonuses can certainly matter. Failing checks can strip you of bonuses and give you penalties, so sometimes it's better to skip an optional check depending on the DC.
Charisma buffs, gladiator weapons, BAB, Perform skill etc. offer bonuses to the check.
In short, you're collecting cheers or boos from the audience, and it affects your ability to perform.
How it benefits play depends on the situation, really. The party I played with in the module was so powerful, we just blasted through everything, so there was little opportunity to develop a very good or very bad relationship with the crowd.
It's probably more up to GMs to figure out how to best make use of it and give players the incentive to take advantage of it.
Just attempted reading through the rules for it again.
I think I get the general idea now, but there are SO MANY checks for SO MANY different situations, some are optional, some are mandatory, some require swift actions, while others require immediate actions or no action at all, and you have the option of changing the action by spending resources. Not only are the checks seemingly highly variable, the DCs look like they CONSTANTLY change too based on a long list of variables that are spread out throughout the section.
It's no wonder I'm having trouble with it. Short of memorizing everything, the system is so unnecessarily complex as to be impractical, much less really useable (if a group tried, game play would be SO slow as to be unfun).
but it seems like it would be so cool if done up right