Questions on Extended Conflicts

[Alan]

In an extended conflict, on a player's turn, how many things can he do?

My interpretation of the rules is that a player _either_ rolls their exchange, or rolls an augmentation, AP lend, or other unrelated action.

But I noticed on one of the pre-gen character's descriptions that the character can use his "Strength" to augment combat as a free action.

Also, can character's augment abilities _before_ entering an extended conflict?  Here's an example: the warrior uses an affinity to give himself "Armor of Woad" when he thinks he's about to enter battle, but before a conflict starts.  How would that work?

- Alan

[Mike Holmes]

Some of my posts in the Actual Play forum have some notes about my struggles with the issue. See threads marked "Hero Wars in an Alternate Setting". Also, a search in this forum will bring up a lot of notes on the subject.

And lastly, HQ is supposed to put some of the ambiguities to rest. So if you can wait...

Me neither.

Mike

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi Alan,

This is how I handle this.

How many things a hero can do in a turn depends on how long the turn is. No, I'm not being sarcastic or anything. In Hero Wars a turn can be anything from a few seconds to a few decades. Your post suggets, however, that you are talking about some kind of 'combat time', where rounds are measured in seconds, not minutes. In these kinds of contests, I generally assume that a hero can do only one 'thing' each round, where 'thing'=using one ability.

My interpretation of the rules is that a player _either_ rolls their exchange, or rolls an augmentation, AP lend, or other unrelated action.

Yes, I agree.

But I noticed on one of the pre-gen character's descriptions that the character can use his "Strength" to augment combat as a free action.

HeroQuest will clarify this. Meanwhile, I suggest that you allow free actions for augments whenever they make sense. A Strong hero is always Strong, and should receive an augment for his Strong as a free action whenever appropriate.

Also, can character's augment abilities _before_ entering an extended conflict?

Yes.

I hope this helps,

/Peter N

[Alan]

Peter and Mike,

Thanks for your replies.  They've helped greatly.

I've also just discovered the Advanced Magic chapter at the back of the Hero Wars book.  It has suggested increases in resistance for extended duration, number of targets, range, and other features of magic. Extended duration might be used to prepare an augmentaion in advance of a conflict.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Peter wrote,

I suggest that you allow free actions for augments whenever they make sense. A Strong hero is always Strong, and should receive an augment for his Strong as a free action whenever appropriate.

Our long-term play of Hero Wars used this interpretation extensively. It brings Relationships in particular directly into the center of play.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I like this idea, but the only problem I have with it is that it seems to me that it gives a terribly powerful incentive for players to always describe traits in terms of things that are "Always On" and hence require no time to activate.

Thus, a GM might rule that Acrobatics is usable to augment combat by taking some time and doing a flip to attack the defender from behind (assuming a rather cinematic game). But I can also take the ability Agile, and argue that it helps me all the time in combat. In fact, some players might argue that they use Acrobatics constantly in combat. In the absence of knowing what the GM will do in such a situation, it seems to me that the player will err on the side of the more consistent Trait.

If you are liberal with allowing AO activations, where does it end? How do you rule that one sort of ability use in one situation is Always On, and another is not? This has always seemed problematic to me. Wouldn't it be better to just say that any ability that's applicable is OK to roll "pre-conflict", and that taking further time in combat represents an investment that can get additional augments, even from the same Abilities?

The balanced way is to say that the player is limited to some set number of "Free Augments" before a conflict, and can use anything. Thus, if I have Strong, Quick, and Passionate, in addition to my Swordswinging Ability, then I can use two of the three Abilities to augment for free (assuing a limit of two). Basically if I'm using Strong and Passionate, these sorta "interere" with my ability to be quick. Or assume it, or replace it, whatever. The idea is that you can only co-ordinate so many of your abilities successfull in a unit time.

In any case the idea is that I can only use a limited number pre-conflict. Then, during the fight, I can use Quick to augment by taking a round to "set up" my opponent or something, thus gaining the further and temporary augment. Or I can wind up and get yet a further Strong augment.

Now, using something like Jump as an always on sort of Ability may seem odd in Combat. But the player could describe it as using their Jumping ability to get an advantage by leaping around the battlefield. As usual, the GM should penalize this if he thinks it's absurd or unlikley to be effective. But it at least makes all abilities theoretically equal if the player has the right to try to use any of them "always on".

This is what I've been doing for a while, and it seems to work out for me. One can tweak the number of AO Abilities pre-confllict to suit their game; the particular number isn't all that important. The only downside I can see with this is that a player may tend to keep using the same abilities repeatedly to augment, and not get to some interesting lesser abilities. But that's a problem in general with the system which is only solved by throwing Conflicts at the character that will bring these Abilities out.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

Yeah, that's what I do too. The limitations you mention are real, but they are kept very minor when the situations faced by the character vary widely among social, intellectual, physical, cultural, and magical problems.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Good point. That's key. Vary the challenges.

Mike