Another Sorcerer Combat Question

[Calithena]

Hiero is fighting Gurk and Gookin. Hiero has five dice, gook and gurkin 3 each.

They roll off. Hiero gets 65442; Gurk gets 543; Gookin gets 331.

Hiero goes first. His declared action was to hack Gurk. Gurk decides to tough it out and rolls a 5 on his one die of defense. So he gets hit, and takes a two-die penalty on his next action (one immediate, one lasting).

Now Gurk attacks back. When Gookin attacks back next, he’ll use the 331 he rolled at the start of the conflict, and Hiero will get to roll his five dice against that.

But what about Gurk? He sucked up the attack so he could continue with his counter; he took 2 dice in penalties; he has Stamina 3. Hiero still gets his five dice to defend, but what happens to Gurk's original roll? Is Hiero defending against

(a) the 543 he rolled at the start of the round, so Gurk only starts applying the penalty to subsequent rolls, or

(b) should Gurk reroll his attack on only one die, because of the two-die penalty, or

(c) something else?

My initial guess would have been (a), except for one thing: if Hiero had gotten 2 victories for a total of 4 dice of penalties, maxing Gook’s stamina, I would have had Gook go down immediately (because his Stamina was maxed) and not get his counterattack at all.

The reason I would have done this is that if you don’t rule that this way, then it seems as though when you shred someone with eight dice of special damage lethal or whatever they can just decide not to abort and get to counterattack you anyway even though you’ve reduced them to a haze of red mist after winning initiative.  That seemed counterintuitive at first, but I can see why you might do it also - it keeps the possibility of two people scoring a 'simul-kill' wide open. But I'm not sure.

The general question is just this. If everyone’s doing something proactive, and someone gets wounded during the round but not badly enough to put them down, do they keep their original roll, roll a new offensive roll taking penalty dice into account, or something else? And ditto - if the wound is bad enough to take them own or kill them, but they didn't abort, do they still get to see their action through?

[jburneko]

Ron can correct me if I'm wrong but something to keep in mind while playing Sorcerer is that all equations in a conflict balance.  That is, a penalty applied to one side can become a bonus applied to other and vice versa.  This is especially useful if the bonus or penalty comes into play AFTER the dice for the action have already been rolled.

That is Gurk's roll of 543 stands but Heiro gets to defend against it with SEVEN dice.  Five for his Stamina plus two for Gurk's "penalties."

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

Jesse gets a hole-in-one.

Best,
Ron

[Calithena]

Damn. Lightning-quick customer service. Thanks, Jesse and Ron.

A very elegant solution to the problem, by the way! It takes into account the wound while still keeping open the possibility that mutual gruesome damage will ensue.

[Ron Edwards]

Ia ia Currency! Currency fthaghan!

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

LOL. Cut it out, damit! :-P

Mike

[Lxndr]

It also works if you forget something.

"OH yeah, he was only supposed to roll 2 dice this round, huh?  Well, I'll roll two more dice for his opponent, then..."

[colin roald]

Ron can correct me if I'm wrong but something to keep in mind while playing Sorcerer is that all equations in a conflict balance.  That is, a penalty applied to one side can become a bonus applied to other and vice versa.

This is a useful way to play it, but they aren't actually mathematically  equivalent, for whatever it's worth.

For example, consider two guys rolling off at 6 dice against 6, when one of them absorbs a five-die penalty.  Applying it as a penalty to the hurt side, you get a roll of 6-vs-1, which expects three successes(*) and has a shot at Total Victory.  If you apply it as a bonus to the other guy, you get 11-vs-6, which expects a bit less than 1.6 successes.  I think.  At any rate,  I'm pretty sure I know which one I'd rather be rolling.

(*)  So the guy rolling one die expects to roll a 5.5.  The guy rolling six dice expects half of his dice to be higher than that, thus, three successes.  I think the general formula is

Code Select Expand

# successes = A / (B+1)  
if my argument works.  It's a symmetry argument, though, and it looks a little funny in the boundary cases, so I'm not completely sure that it does.

[Mike Holmes]

This is a useful way to play it, but they aren't actually mathematically  equivalent, for whatever it's worth.

That's known, but irrelevant. It doesn't change behavior at all. Two dice, applied anywhere are still better than no dice, or one die. So players will still want them in at the appropriate time. Further, I don't see any opportunity too minmax it. And if there are, well, it's not really a bad thing in this case.

Changing what dice you use changes the odds some, too, but not so that anyone notices. It's not "accurate" in the first place, so there's no accuracy to maintain.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Yeah, Colin, Mike's nailed it. What you're saying is correct, but not important for purposes of play.

Best,
Ron

[Blind Hero]

Ron can correct me if I'm wrong but something to keep in mind while playing Sorcerer is that all equations in a conflict balance.  That is, a penalty applied to one side can become a bonus applied to other and vice versa.  This is especially useful if the bonus or penalty comes into play AFTER the dice for the action have already been rolled.

That is Gurk's roll of 543 stands but Heiro gets to defend against it with SEVEN dice.  Five for his Stamina plus two for Gurk's "penalties."

I was running Sorcerer tonight and I came into a related problem.  It seems fit on this thread and expands on the initial question, so I'll post it here.

Let's say Hiero struck Gurk for a total of 2 penalties (one immediate, one lasting), like before.  But Gurks declared action was to strike at Gookin instead.  Gookin decides to tough it out and roll only one dice.  Keeping with currency, can Gookin add those two penalty dice as bonus dice to his defense roll, even though it's the special "one die roll"?

Thanks

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Yes, big yes.

The "one-die" is not an upper limit, it's only what Gookin's score was dropped to for purposes of that roll. If something pops it up for some reason (e.g. those two penalty dice of Gurk's), then hey, it goes up. So in this case, Gookin rolls three dice to defend.

Best,
Ron

[Blind Hero]

Thank you very much, Ron!