Partial Evasion Initiative Question

[Paul Heinz]

The rules for Exchanges of Blows (p76-77) state that the winner of the contest (usually an attack vs a defense) can take the initiative (i.e. attack) on the following exchange. For defenders, they must gain more successes than their attacker since ties stay with the attacker.

Under Evasion (p84), it states that taking Partial Evasion means the defender may take iniative on the next exchange for 2 CP, or if the opponent fumbles or fails completely.

I'm unsure how this interacts with the previous statement.

It seems to imply that (provided the evader survives :-), they make take the initiative for the cost of 2 CP even if they didn't get more successes than their opponent.

If that is the case, I can't see why anyone would ever want to buy initiative as it would be cheaper to partial evade with just 1 CP, survive (and that could be the tricky part), and then just pay 2 CP.

Alternatively, it may mean that a partial evader need to gain more successes that his opponent AND also pay 2 CP. But this doesn't seem to match with the 'fumbles or fails completely' statement which would imply the usual taking of initiative if you have more sucesses than your attacker.

How do others interpret this?

[Brian Leybourne]

You're getting confused because you think that evading comes under the same umbrella as defending.

It doesn't. There are three things you can do in combat - attack, defend, evade. That's why in the book evading is in a section all of its own.

So, when you defend, you get initiative as long as you beat the attacker, just as you said.

But when you evade, that's not the case. Evading has it's own rules:

Full evade - nobody gets initiative because if the defender wins you start again from initiative dice. If attacker wins, he keeps initiative as normal.

Partial evade - the attacker keeps initiative unless the defender successfully evades AND pays 2CP to get initiative (or if the attacker gets 0 or fewer successes on the attack), otherwise the defender is just leaping backwards really fast and doesn't have a chance to swing back.

Duck & Weave - specifies in the description thay you get initiative if you win (and the other benefits as well).

Jake will corfrect me if I'm wrong, but I'm quite sure this is right.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

I consider a "successful evasion" as one where you didn't get hit. I realize that that may not be clear in the rules (sorry). If you get 3 successes on an evasion and your opponent gets 5, he still hit you (just not as well), and you can't reall say that you successfully evaded.

Jake

[Paul Heinz]

I consider a "successful evasion" as one where you didn't get hit. I realize that that may not be clear in the rules (sorry). If you get 3 successes on an evasion and your opponent gets 5, he still hit you (just not as well), and you can't reall say that you successfully evaded.

Right, so you have to both beat your attacker's sucesses and then you can pay 2 CP to gain the initiative after evading. Does the evader have the option of buying initiative if they draw (i.e. have equal successes) with their attacker?

So essentially, to gain the initiative after partial evasion is harder than after blocking or parrying since you have to win the contest AND pay 2 CP. That makes sense.

I also see now that buying initiative is only really useful when you want to pre-empt an attack on your self and get one in first - a very risky strategy.

[Irmo]

I also see now that buying initiative is only really useful when you want to pre-empt an attack on your self and get one in first - a very risky strategy.

Depends on the circumstances, though. If you know that you risk not being able to make ANY attack anymore after the other guy hits you, getting in first might give you a fighting chance.