Toss and Bind

[Ben Lehman]

Hey.

I noticed something the other day -- no one in my group ever uses the Toss or Bind maneuvers.  Curious, I looked at the manuevers to refresh myself and... whoa!  There's a serious, serious mathematical problem with the way that these are statted.  Essentially, it never pays to use these maneuvers except in very very exotic circumstances, and even then it isn't really wise.

Let's look at Toss, keeping in mind that Bind, as written, is essentially the same manuever with a variable TN.

classic showdown -- white and red.

The attacker declare a Toss.  He throws (say) three dice at the manuever.

Now, what is the defender's best option?  *Do nothing at all*  That's right, 0 defense.  Why?

Because, the attacker has essentially flushed two dice down the drain.  Even in the best case scenario (all dice show success) the effect is an even loss of dice.  In the most common scenario, one success, the attacker has lost three dice to the defender's one.  Any dice the defender throws into this move just serve to give the attack a win -- they have the possibility of protecting one dice, but in the act of doing so they are already expended.

Why would anyone ever want to use this move?

House Rule Proposal--

Replace Toss with the Missile pool.  Allow soft objects to do MS x 2 drain to the victim's CP.

Change Bind in one of two ways:  Allow it to drain MS x 2 from the defender's pool OR (a better solution, perhaps), leave the CP drain alone but add that the manuever halves range (like a beat) and removes both the bound and binding weapons from the "equation" for the next attack.

Is this a problem that anyone else has?  Is there something I'm missing, here, that makes the manuevers as written useful?

yrs--
--Ben

[Deacon Blues]

You make a very compelling argument for using more than three dice in a Toss maneuver.

[Trevis Martin]

I'm only speculating as I haven't played yet (will soon), but it seems to me that Toss might be a useful manuver to bleed off dice in the next round, if played on the second exchange. Throw whatever dice left at it, ( perhaps more than three)then when the pool refreshes,  you would retain initiative and advantage, particularly if your opponenet didn't defend ( your character has no competing victories.)

I could be wrong, I don't have the book on me at the moment.

[Ben Lehman]

You make a very compelling argument for using more than three dice in a Toss maneuver.

BL>  Er...  The more dice you use, the worse your exchange rate...

Trevis actually makes a good point about draining dice out for the next round.  Nonetheless, it seems remarkably difficult to do so.

yrs--
--Ben

[Deacon Blues]

I realize, in retrospect, that my first response may have been hastily flip.  I still don't believe the resolution of Toss is as endangered as you suggest, but greater math insight is needed on my part.

Let's play What If.  Two combatants, CP 10 each, top of the exchange.  The guy with Initiative declares a Toss, four dice.  Let's presume that statistics rule the day and he's going to get two sucessess.

Our defender can:

(A) Duck with four dice.  Statistically, he'll get two successes as well, but will not get initiative.  So the attacker is now facing him with 6 CP dice, and the defender's defending with 6 CP dice.  Net result: a wash - the defender gets another half-second above ground, but has not shifted the balance of the fight.

(B) Duck with more than four dice.  He gets more than two successes, so he CAN steal initiative with 2 CP.  He is now attacking with less than 6 CP, and his opponent, Sir Toss-a-lot, is now defending with 6 CP.  He probably won't hit in the return exchange, but that's not uncommon.  Most battles I've played or Seneschalled (... hell, GMed) frequently result in only a few attack dice being thrown, with a lot of defense dice being kept in reserve, by both sides.  In other words, the defender should almost always be throwing more dice than the attacker, or else someone messed up or got a lucky break.  Net result: situation normal - the attacker made his attack, failed, and lost initiative.  Blows exchanged.

(C) Do Nothing.  He gets 0 successes to the attacker's two, and loses 2 CP dice.  The attacker presses the attack with 6, and the defender defends with 8.  Net result: situation normal - the attacker made his attack, succeeded, and kept initiative ... and is now attacking with fewer dice than his opponent's defense.  Just like always.

Now, as Trevis keenly noted earlier, perhaps Toss is best used when the opponent has LESS than his maximum dice pool available, or at a point when you can sap dice from him in the next Round.  The second exchange, then, seems to be an ideal place to use Toss, if circumstances are right.

So, in situations A, B and C above, there's no serious shift in momentum.  In situation D (Trevis' suggestion), Toss is used to great effect.  So it seems that there are certain times when Toss would work very well, and times when it wouldn't be advisable at all.  Just like every maneuver in the book.

[Jake Norwood]

I should note that in the case of a bind, at least, the bound weapon is pinned down, and therefore cannot be used for defence at all in the next round, much like a beat. This is not as clear as it should be in the rules, but it's a mighty fine reason to defend oneself against a bind.

Now, about a toss...is it possible that there are some maneuvers that simply aren't very good at all? That someone who understands how the system works will choose not to react to a certain maneuver, thus breaking it? That GM's playing unskilled NPCs will have them "fall" for it, but a skilled opponent never will?

That's the idea...

Jake

[Deacon Blues]

Jake,

You are now officially my favorite game designer ever(*).

Now if only I could get John Wick to admit the same thing about certain Swordsman knacks in 7th Sea ...







(*) Well, you and Robin Laws are fighting atop a mountain at the end of the world.  But it was quiet and uncontested before that.

[Merritt Baggett]

I seem to recall using toss awhile back, unfortunately I don't have my book with me to help me recall the particulars of the mechanics involved.  Briefly, it was essentially similiar to how Travis speculated.

The character I was playing was unarmored and was wielding a rapier against an opponent in full armor wielding some hideous two handed sword (I believe the one that does str+4 damage).  Oh, and since this was a test combat, neither of us were using SAs at the time.  I don't remember the actual CPs involved but basically while I had a respectable advantage in CP, his armor made it very difficult to get enough successes to hurt him.

As I recall (I wish I could remember the details better), I had just parried his all-out (read: he attacked with all of his dice) attack in the first exchange of the current round and so I had about 5 or so CP left for the 2nd exchange.  Not confident that I could do any real damage to him at that point, I believe I tossed my hat at him with my remaining dice.  The successes gained here set me up for the next exchange in the new round; I attacked with all of my dice and managed to land a level 3 wound against his rather weak parry (I can't quite remember but I believe it was weak due to his lowered CP rather than any holding back on the dice on his part).  Between the prior round's toss, his parry and now his level 3 wound, he now had no more CP and so the second exchange was essentially a non-event with my retention of initiative.

In retrospect, maybe I should have responded to his all-out attack with a counter.  Being new to the game at the time, I believe my thinking was influenced by the following:

1. I wasn't confident that I could wound him without using all of my dice to attack (perhaps counter could have gained me a similiar amount, not sure).  Indeed later on in the match when his CP had been wounded away to virtually nothingness, I still kept scoring level 3 wounds on him consistently.  In a real fight I probably should have backed off and let him bleed to death but I wanted to test the rules; perhaps I should have grappled him and ripped his helmet off!

2. Even with an all-out attack, I wasn't at all sure I could finish him. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I needed the toss to help set-up an all-out attack such that he wouldn't be able to strike me back in the following exchange.  With his strength and choice of weapon, if he had gotten even a single point of margin of success, I would have been done for.  Fortunately, things played out as I had hoped and he wasn't able to capitalize on my extreme vunerability following my all-out attack.

So, in conclusion, toss happened to work but maybe there were better options that could/should have chosen?

[Lance D. Allen]

Deacon,

You leave out an absolutely vital possible response to a Toss.

Our defender can:

(D) Attack with 4 dice. If you use the same ruling I do, that the consequences of the faster offensive action in a double-offensive engagement are applied to the pool of dice from the slower offensive action, then there is some small risk to this. We'll play it out with your statistic results. Tosser gets 2 successes, which immediately subtracts 2 dice from the "defender's" action, leaving him with 2. Statistically, he gets 1 success, and hits his opponent. Who came off worse in this exchange? Imagine if the "defender" attacked with more than 4 dice? Maybe all of them?

On the other hand, if you play that the dice subtracted from the CP don't take effect until the next exchange, then it would be absolute suicide to toss, ever, unless the opponent is so low on CP that it would be smarter just to attack and finish him off.

People often forget that you don't have to defend when you don't have the initiative.. But if you attack, you accept the risk of your opponent's attack hitting you before you do. Buying initiative is an option, not a must for attacking.

[Ben Lehman]

I should note that in the case of a bind, at least, the bound weapon is pinned down, and therefore cannot be used for defence at all in the next round, much like a beat. This is not as clear as it should be in the rules, but it's a mighty fine reason to defend oneself against a bind.

BL>  We have been playing with that as a "house rule", but that's a very important revision for the second edition, eh?

Now, about a toss...is it possible that there are some maneuvers that simply aren't very good at all? That someone who understands how the system works will choose not to react to a certain maneuver, thus breaking it? That GM's playing unskilled NPCs will have them "fall" for it, but a skilled opponent never will?

That's the idea...

BL>  If this was your original intention as a game designer, you are one slick S.O.B., and I want to have your babies (well, in a sense, I already have with my TROS based system hacking, but that's neither here nor there...)
 In your experience, is the toss of a cloak or hat generally useless in duelling?  Or, rather, that the appropriate response is to either do nothing or respond with a quick attack?  Does ARMA even do sword-and-cloak fighting?

yrs--
--Ben

[Paganini]

Now, about a toss...is it possible that there are some maneuvers that simply aren't very good at all? That someone who understands how the system works will choose not to react to a certain maneuver, thus breaking it? That GM's playing unskilled NPCs will have them "fall" for it, but a skilled opponent never will?

Jake, I don't quite get this. I mean, I like the idea of having some maneuvers just not be as good as others... but... we're talking about throwing sand in the other guy's face here. Isn't that a pretty well-documented historical dirty-trick? Isn't it pretty hard to fight with sand in your eyes?

Hah, the sim in me says that the effectiveness of the "toss" maneuver should depend on what you're tossing. A lady's hanky might just make your opponent laugh. But hit him in the face with some swamp mud...

[Overdrive]

Then why not house rule that mud has a lower ATN than the hanky? I would perhaps suggest even lower ATNs than with the bind or beat maneuvers. A toss with ATN 5 could be very good indeed, but not in every situation.

[Mokkurkalfe]

You might say that a successful toss prevents your opponent from attacking in the next round, even if he has dice left to do so, and you have not. He's tangled up by that bundle o' rope, or blinded by the desert sand in his eyes. This is of course only if you have something distracting enough to throw.
This would make it useful if your opponent would just ignore a normal attack due to armor or whatnot.

Also, if you're lying face down in the dirt with your sword five feet away after a counter, a toss might be all you have...

[Jake Norwood]

I really like Mok's house rule suggestions.

And yes, I intentionally had several "bad" maneuvers in the system, but I threw most of them out. Tossing, in my experience in sparring, etc., works great on new guys, and almost never on experienced fighters.

Jake

[Spartan]

BL>  If this was your original intention as a game designer, you are one slick S.O.B., and I want to have your babies

Get in line, bud. :P

-Mark