Ran some test battles last night and most things ran pretty smoothly but I was left with a few questions.


Does Shield Rating stack with Armor Rating in the Zones a shield protects? (Same with Helm/Chain Coif)

Also do you HAVE to spend all of your CP every round? What is the definitive point of the round ending and the next round beginning?

Bogie_71 wrote: Ran some test battles last night and most things ran pretty smoothly but I was left with a few questions.


Does Shield Rating stack with Armor Rating in the Zones a shield protects? (Same with Helm/Chain Coif)

Also do you HAVE to spend all of your CP every round? What is the definitive point of the round ending and the next round beginning?

Thanks that clears up the armor thing.

On rounds I am still slightly confused (but less confused) so let me try this:

Thug attacks Soldier
Soldier goes all out on his defense but the Thug spends half his dice on the attack.

Soldier successfully defends but now he is out of CP and the Thug still has 5CP left - if I am reading right the Soldier would have an opportunity to go on the offensive but he has no dice left, so does this mean the Thug gets to attack for free?

yes,

Barring death from the first blow, or both parties blowing their entire pool in the first exchange, there will always be two exchanges in each round.

Each exchange involves 1 character attacking and the other character defending. It is possible for the same character to be the attacking character in both exchanges with the other character not able to attack at all.

An exception to this is the very first exchange of a new engagement, or the resumption of an engagement after a disengagement. This is where the Red Die / White Die and postures comes in. In these exchanges it is possible to have 2 defenders (circling to no effect) or 2 attacker (almost always very bloody) in addition to 1 attacker and 1 defender.

At the end of the second exchange the round is over and pools refresh even if either or both sides still has dice left (something I was doing wrong until Jake corrected me). I had been going to zero dice which is actually kind of cool, but made the decision of how many dice to use really drag.

Thanks everyone! I get it now. :)

Ahh excellent. Good reason not to blow all your dice on the first exchange attack, unless reasonably assured you can drop your opponent in that attack.

I have a different take on that...

As with your example, at the end of the first exchange, the soldier, since he has succesfully deffended is now considered the agressor but unfortunately has no dice left. The thug has some dice left but cannot attack since he is defending.

My solution would be for the thug to "Buy Initiative," if he is able. Looking at this situation, I see the second option of the rule appropriate for this situation.

Spikor wrote: I have a different take on that...

As with your example, at the end of the first exchange, the soldier, since he has succesfully deffended is now considered the agressor but unfortunately has no dice left. The thug has some dice left but cannot attack since he is defending.

My solution would be for the thug to "Buy Initiative," if he is able. Looking at this situation, I see the second option of the rule appropriate for this situation.

This was discussed on another thread...

Page 77:

"Finally, should the loser wish to attack during the
next exchange(normally impossible) he has two choices.
First, he may simply declare an attack. The winner attacks
and resolves damage first; if the loser has any dice left,
he can attack. This is a foolhardy maneuver. The second
choice is to buy initiative"

In other words, if you want to attack without buying initiative, go ahead. But your opponent will hit you first, so you better have some armor.

In this case however, the opponent has no dice to attack with, so it will be like this:

Seneschal: The thug swings his club at your midsection with five dice.
Player: I defend with all my twelve dice!
<Dice are rolled>
Seneschal: Alright, you win by six dice. You get initiative.
Player: I attack with...Uuuh.
Seneschal: You realise that you have overcommited your block badly and left yourself open to an attack. He swings his club at your head with his remaining six dice.
Player: oops...

There doesn't always have to be a defender. Hell, it doesn't always have to be an attacker! I could just say "I pass over initiative", something that could be wise to do in a few situations.
The defending guy can, at anytime, attack instead. However, the aggressors attack, if any, will come first, unless you buy initiative.

Thanks. That clears up even more.

I can see clearly now...The rain has gone...

::opens his mouth to answer::

...

::sees that Mokkurkalfe has already answered::

...

Um, right. In addition, it is actually sometimes a *good* idea to attack rather than defend. One such situation which cost my opponent the duel, is when he attempted a Toss maneuver. I attacked anyhow, and wounded him. If his Toss had been more effective, he could have canceled my attack (at least as I interpret the rules now) but it wasn't.

Also, on that point.. This is the ruling I make in situations like this: Anything done on the first initiative in a round that would reduce the CP of the opponent I apply first to any dice committed for attack or defense. The reason for this being is that many such things could be totally useless if they are not done this way.

Example:

I have 12 dice, and I attack with 6 of them, despite my opponent having the initiative. He hits me, and his attack does.. say, 5 shock. If I apply them to the non-committed 6 dice still in my pool first, then I still get my 6 dice of attack. Now assume I am using a high-quality greatsword, and I'm a strong SOB. I cleave him in twain in one hit. His having the initiative was useless to him.

Example 2: same situation, but with the ruling I made. My opponent hits me for 5 shock. Those dice come straight away out of my attack dice (if I got nailed that hard in mid-swing, it'd detract from my ability to successfully complete the maneuver, for certain), meaning that I only have 1 die to roll for attack. This makes it actually useful for the quicker guy to BE quick, and makes it so that the slower guy will have to think about how he makes his attacks... As it should be.

I think you reached the right outcome lance but backwards. As far as I know you don't actually choose how many dice you're going to roll until you roll it.

In other words we both declare a simultaneous attack...I select and roll my dice first. You don't select and set aside your six dice yet...you don't do that until its your turn to attack (assuming you survived). Therefor there is only one pool to take the dice from. But if you had 12 dice and were going to spend 6, but lost 6 due to shock, you wouldn't be at 0 dice for the attack...you'd be at 6 dice total in the pool and could still spend some number of those on your attack.

Valamir wrote: I think you reached the right outcome lance but backwards. As far as I know you don't actually choose how many dice you're going to roll until you roll it.

I think it's the other way around, Valamir. You declare the amount of dice once you've declared your attack. If you're the slower of the two, then you declare first (p 74, top right), giving the quicker combatant time to respond.

You're right. Interesting. In all the times I've read through that section for some reason I interpreted the top of page 74 to be the order that all attackers would declare in in a multi participant battle, and never applied it to two attackers in the same engagement.

In fact, the way I've been playing, I've been making reflex rolls to see who gets first attack right after the 2 red dice dropped. Then I treated the loser as a defender with a zero dice defense.

Even though its technically wrong, I might continue to do it that way, because it seems to me that it would play much faster (skip the joint "how many dice should I use" step) and not require that workaround rule above.

Come to think of it, we had a Red Red exchange in the demo I played with Jake...I'm trying to remember how we did it, but I don't recall setting aside dice in advance...maybe thats just because it was 3AM at the time.

The thing is in a red/red situation, it doesn't really matter unless maneuvers start happening. In a red/red situation, the slower guy says "I'm doing X," after which the faster guy says I'm doing Y, then there's the contest of Reflex for who really gets to do what.

This is only important if you're using simul block/strike and evasive attacks, generally.

Even then, its importance is negligable.

Jake