Terrain rolls

[svenlein]

What Terrain roll have you given players?
What was the difficulty / activation cost / did they need more than one success?
I am looking for guidelines on what difficulty different situations are.
I want to maneuver him to the edge of the cliff.
I use this tree to avoid getting hit.
I kick this stool at him (I don't want to use toss since toss is so terrible your almost gaurenteed to have been better off just attacking, also I see toss as doing this when your very close at grips, not while running around a room as much)

Scott

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I love toss! Its one of my favorite maneuvers!  Of course I have been playing so long I forget whether or not I use th original rules or my modified.. either way, with a toss I allow every die in the margin of success remove two dice from the targets CP.  Makes this maneuver very popular as it forces the opponent to spend dice to move or to successfully defend and they almost always use more dice than  thrown at them.
otherwise I just use the nifty table to pick the values and I use mini's to depict visually what teh battle field looks like.

[svenlein]

the problem with toss, is if someone does it, I would just attack with everything.  In most situations the tosser will get run through.

[Ashton]

There are a couple of ways around this.

1) Allow feints to follow the declaration of a special maneuver. It looks like I'm going to throw something at you, but it's the tip of my sword instead. What this means is that people are going to be more likely to declare a defense against a special maneuver instead of just trying to attack through it. Especially when they don't know how many dice are in their opponents CP.

2) Allow double-strike attacks that combine a toss with something else. ex. Mr. Rapier is in a fight with a street tough. He throws his cloak out in an attempt to blind his opponent and follows at the same time with a lunge.

Of course all activation costs must still be paid, but it will keep players wary.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

except that when I use that maneuver the opponent usually has already tossed a white die and is defending. they can try an buy initiative but that is costly and not always successful. And frankly buying initiative is basically  the same with toss as with ANY maneuver so toss is no different. There are some people here who play allowing the defender to recieve the blow and elect to attack instead of defend once the blow has landed but I don't play like that. If you opt to just take the hit thats like choosing 0 dice to defend and then next exchange in the round attack with all the dice... perhaps that is why toss works for me?

[Morfedel]

If they threw a white die, they can still attack; its just their attack comes second.

Meaning, if they have any dice in their die pool when that "second" attack comes....

[Ashren Va'Hale]

yeah they can, in my reading of the book though we call that attack "exchange number 2"

so, if red die guy tosses 6 dice at white die and white die takes it up the ass and uses 0 dice to defend then he eats the 4 or so successes and loses 8 dice from the cp, then he attacks with whats left, red die guy still has dice left and has initiative so you do contest of reflex or buy initiative etc or red guy opts to defend... either way I treat it as the second exchange

anyways, thats how I play and I like it since it makes the maneuvers more usefull and what not.

another house rule, tossed items vary in effectiveness, sand in the eyes equals 3 cp lost per die in margin of success, cloak over head 4 dice, random object like a rock or dagger- 2 dice.

This makes the toss maneuver much more exciting.

[Lance D. Allen]

In my understanding, and the way I run the game, if you throw white, you've chosen to defend, not just act second. The only way you can opt to attack when you've thrown white is to buy initiative, period. In the initial exchange of combat, trying to change your mind midway through a defense is exceedingly difficult, and should be reflected in the rules, hence why white means defense. Once the exchange is begun, attacking or defending is much more of a matter of choice.

[Morfedel]

Well, if thats a house rule, thats fine but, correct me if i'm wrong Jake et al, but if a defender chooses on the first exchange to attack as his defense, it is an attack oin the FIRST EXCHANGE! In essense, you are saying "sure, I am going to go last this exchange, but i'm betting I can take what you got and take you down."

In other words:

Exchange 0: one person throws red, the other white.

Exchange 1: offense declares he is doing a toss

Exchange 1: Defense declares he is going to attack; because he threw a white die, his offense automatically comes second in the first exchange.

Exchange 1: toss is resolved; then, defender resolves his attack.

Exchange 2: as defender just probably bashed the you know what out of the attacker, he now has initiative....


Now. With that in mind, I COULD be wrong, but that is how it was explained to me from other people on the board; the idea is that a person can attack as his defense, but it comes last and, if he is badly hurt, he is going to really lose out - but against a toss, for instance, or if you are in Full Harness against an unimpressive foe, it might well be functional.

Again, if you want to houserule against it, so be it, but I thought it was important to make sure you were fully cognizant of the official rules - and if I'm wrong, someone in the know will correct me. Jake? :)

yeah they can, in my reading of the book though we call that attack "exchange number 2"

so, if red die guy tosses 6 dice at white die and white die takes it up the ass and uses 0 dice to defend then he eats the 4 or so successes and loses 8 dice from the cp, then he attacks with whats left, red die guy still has dice left and has initiative so you do contest of reflex or buy initiative etc or red guy opts to defend... either way I treat it as the second exchange

anyways, thats how I play and I like it since it makes the maneuvers more usefull and what not.

another house rule, tossed items vary in effectiveness, sand in the eyes equals 3 cp lost per die in margin of success, cloak over head 4 dice, random object like a rock or dagger- 2 dice.

This makes the toss maneuver much more exciting.

[Morfedel]

In my understanding, and the way I run the game, if you throw white, you've chosen to defend, not just act second. The only way you can opt to attack when you've thrown white is to buy initiative, period. In the initial exchange of combat, trying to change your mind midway through a defense is exceedingly difficult, and should be reflected in the rules, hence why white means defense. Once the exchange is begun, attacking or defending is much more of a matter of choice.

There is a rule in the book that specifically says you may also attack as your defense for an exchange... but that attack will automatically come after the attacker's manuever, period.

If you need to know, I will find the specific page. About 2 weeks ago, I was a dissenter and someone else on this board pointed it out to me.

[Jake Norwood]

And so it is. But any dice lost from the second attacker due to the first attacker's action are taken out first, as if it was the next exhange. In other words, CP loss is instant in such cases.

Jake

[Lance D. Allen]

I thought it was the rule.

Fine then. I think it's nonsensical to allow someone to attack after throwing white. What's the point in even throwing dice for initiative, then? You might as well simply have them do a roll off to see who goes first instead, because that's what it amounts to if you're not bound by your decision to defend.

Consider this: Both throw white.. But I decide to attack instead! It doesn't make sense, and it's not consistent. If you throw white, you defend or buy initiative, period.

If I'm the only one who plays it this way, then so be it.

[Jake Norwood]

Consider this: Both throw white.. But I decide to attack instead! It doesn't make sense, and it's not consistent. If you throw white, you defend or buy initiative, period.

That's a really good point, Lance. I find myself largely convinced.

OTOH...

White is defined as "waiting to recieve" in my book. It means that you choose to respond instead of being proactive. If I decide to respond by attacking, then fine. But if I have nothing to respond to? Then I wait for stimulus, or until the next round.

That's my take on things.

Jake

[Ashren Va'Hale]

lance, you wont be the only one. Jake, I thank you for making the rules so flexible that lance and I can do one thing and be fine with it and others can do it the other way. Some creators are really uptight on that sort of thing so we players appreciate you creating the game like this.

[Morfedel]

Wolfen: nothing wrong with your method of handling it, and I wasnt insulting you. I just wanted to make sure you knew what the official ruling is.

Personally, you do have a point. I think the reason I like being able to attack with a white die, though, is for the following:

We were playtesting the combat system when I first picked it up, and we took a different combination of guys. Many times, we made sure their combat pools were even, before things like armor.

The guys in full harness had a heck of a time doing anything. If he threw a white die, he was always on the defensive, because he could never wrest initiative from his non-burdened opponent. Barring his opponent getting a massively bad roll.

If he threw red, the unarmored guy, if he threw white, simply parried and took initiative anyway. And we went back then to the first case.

Full Harness certainly slowed you down a BIT over someone without armor, but the armored guy simply couldnt find a way to attack... if he was forced to perform only defensive manuevers.

And why should he? Lets face it, in real life, there is no physical law that FORCES you to parry and parry and parry until your opponent screws up - you CAN be risky, and you CAN be daring, and attack regardless of your foe's tactical advantange. You just take the risk of getting skewered.

But that is a risk that someone in full harness can far more easily take. He can choose to hope his armor is adequate, and charge in.

And yes, I know, you can both throw red first round, but this doesn't account for later rounds, once combat is going on.

You need a method for a guy to be able to be risky and counter. And again, I know, there are manuevers such as Counter, but again, if your dice pool is lower than your foe's, your chance of really succeeding at anything is difficult, and I find this both burdensome and unrealistic; if I think my armor might absorb the hit, I may well be tempted to take that hit in order to take down my foe if he doesn't have his own protective gear.

Unless you want to make a new manuever: Suck It Up. :)

The point being, yes, a less skilled foe is in a lot of trouble, but there has to be a way for a normally-skilled foe burdened by armor to still be able to attack, otherwise, it seems like the advantage of wearing armor is a disadvantage in any case except huge spinning melees with unknown attacks from unnumbered assailants, and I do not think armor was THAT bad. It was worn for a reason.

Hm.

This gives me an idea. What about a new defensive manuever (I'm half tempted to call it Suck It Up, but thats almost too irreverant... how about Risky CounterStrike): allow the defender to roll his combat pool UNMODIFIED by is armor, against a TN equal to 13 - the armor value of the armor (the better the armor, the better the protection); each success takes away one success from the attack, and if he has more successes than his foe, he gains initiative at his best range, and one additional die to his next attack for each success he had more than the attacker... but each time this manuever fails at 0 or less, the next time the TN is one harder than before, and he takes +1 to the injury check for sucking it up?

Again, a thought that just now occured to me.....