"In Response"

"In Response"

Shady Tradesman 01 Mar 2011 17:09

Perhaps it's because a lot of the main house gaming group over here plays Magic: The Gathering, but we frequently find ourselves doing actions "in response" to an opponent's action in combat. That is to say, dedicating the next round's dice to an action in the present. This is almost exclusively reserved for dodging, but it has sometimes also been used for evasive powers as well.

Here's a hypothetical example:

Person A: I punch person B, I get 10 successes because I dedicated my insane dice pool to the task.
GM: okay, you deal 5 damage because of Hands of death. Congrats. Person B soaked it all with their stamina + armor.
Person B: I use my gun to shoot them in the head. I get 3 successes.
Person A: uhhh shit. Can I use my next turn's dice to hit the deck as he does that?
GM: hmm . .. That doesn't make a lot of sense, but there's a precedent for that kind of thing, so I guess so. Dodge at difficulty 8 because you have no cover.
Person A: Hah! I succeed.
Person B: Okay, he skips this turn so I shoot again
Person A: I use the next turn's pool again
Person B: I shoot AGAIN
Person A: I use next turn's pool again.
Etc. etc.

here's an example that uses a power:
Ellis is the subject of a surprise attack, Pulse sees this coming, Ellis does not.

Jennings shoots ellis in the back with her taser.
Pulse, having seen the action take place, takes dice from his next action's pool to use Klashnakov 4: Carnival of Carnage (Bullet parrying). He shoots the pins out of the air as they fly toward Ellis.
Ellis survives another day.

Or here's an example that's perhaps even more dubious:
A shadow dragon wraps its jaws around a naked Dorian. Dorian takes 7 health levels of lethal damage, but is still conscious thanks to being in avatar form.

Dorian uses his turn to summon his minigun and shoot at the dragon with it.
In response, the Dragon takes its next turn's dice pool and uses Shadow Mastery 4 to become a shadow as an evasive action.
Tie goes to the defender, so Dorian doesn't quite shoot it in time. :(

Does any other cell do this? We also split current action dice pools and dedicate some of their dice to dodging frequently… On one hand it doesn't make any sense, but on the other hand, it allows characters to react to actions that, in reality, would be happening at nearly the same time as their own actions.

Re: "In Response"

DemonDream 01 Mar 2011 17:17

The way we do it in Alabama, you only have the one action, you can't borrow from the future. If you didn't save dice, and the enemy isn't dead, then you had better be able to soak it.

Besides, even if I could take dice from my future actions, I don't think I would. If you keep doing that to defend yourself, you never get to attack. Eventually, the attacker will succeed and the defender will fail…

Re: "In Response"

Bratovitch 01 Mar 2011 18:30

We do things the same way as Alabama in Portland, at least as far as actions go.

Re: "In Response"

Falthon 01 Mar 2011 18:57

We don't allow borrowing dice from the next turn. However, if you win initiative, we do allow you to hold your action until the loser has committed himself.

Example: John and George are attacked by four zombies. John goes at 20, George at 17, and the zombies at 12, 11, 10, and 8. John and George decide to wait to see what the zombies will do. The fastest zombie moves to attack George. John continues holding his action; George spends his full dice pool to shoot the zombie, killing it. The second zombie moves to attack George as well. John must now decide whether to take action or continue waiting; he does not know what the remaining two zombies will do, since they have not yet committed themselves. He spends his full dice pool to kill the zombie that is about to attack George. Sadly, both the remaining zombies attack John, tearing him limb from limb and eating his brain.

A related question. If you have multiple actions, can you use your second action to dodge an attack that takes place during the initial actions? For example, if John had two actions, could he use his second action to dodge the two zombies trying to rip him apart?

Re: "In Response"

Bratovitch 01 Mar 2011 19:16

Yes: You may declare a defensive action at any time, provided you have actions remaining in the round.

Re: "In Response"

Shady Tradesman 01 Mar 2011 19:20

That's very true about eventually failing when you're on the defensive, DemonDream. However, in practice, you usually have a team mate who will help you out before the cycle repeats more than once or twice.

Falthon: The simple answer is yes. If you spend your first action to attack and then you're attacked, you may take dice from your next action (even if that action is that same round) to dodge the zombie. This makes extra actions pretty powerful, especially because dodges here (is this true in other cells?) subtract successes from ALL incoming attacks that round; one committed doge could dodge any number of incoming attacks. We might want to change that too.

Case study: Jacques Mime. World famous mime/linguist.

Jacques may dodge as a free action each round, uses evade, has a mastery and a power that further decrease the difficulty by 2, and has a 16 dice pool to dodge. This very nearly makes him invincible to conventional weaponry, and allows him to continue taking an attack action each round. Of course, since Jacques's player spent all his XP getting all that dodge, all he can do with his other action is throw invisible rope around people (mimes are awesome).

Anyway, I'm considering putting all this to a vote up here after I get a good sense of the pros and cons. It gets to be a little OP with extra actions and dodge working the way it does here, but of course it goes the same for NPC's and enemies, so that's something to consider as well.

Last edited on 01 Mar 2011 19:22 by Shady Tradesman Show more

Re: "In Response"

BobDylan530 01 Mar 2011 19:35

I agree that it's slightly overpowered that characters can do this. Unfortunately it's the way we've always played over here since I started, I didn't realize it was done any other way. I think the reason it's done is because it adds a bit more realism to a very unrealistic turn-based combat. However, that same objective can still be achieved by the splitting of dice pools, which forces more interesting decisions on the part of the players. As much as it's saved my life many times, I do support eliminating the way we do it.

However, I do think it becomes slightly unfair for characters who don't exactly have the best defenses if they can't use their dice from an action that's in reality only a millisecond in the future to dodge. For example, John and George and the zombies are fighting, but this time one of the zombies wins initiative, and happens to have a gun. The zombie shoots John. Now, he's got cover next to him, but he can't use it because he hasn't had dice to use yet, so he dies. The obvious solution to this is to have characters who can't take a hit try and avoid combat, but what about ambushes? I suppose it's up to the GM to balance realistic enemy behavior with a small dose of fairness, but I don't like when there are things that happen that don't allow players to make choices.

Maybe a solution is that you can't borrow dice from the next round, but you can use dice for defensive actions if they are from the same round but your turn hasn't come up yet.

Some of that wording is a bit confusing, and I apologize.

Re: "In Response"

DemonDream 01 Mar 2011 19:43

@ShadyTradesman: Oh, that would be beautiful if we did dodges that way here, but we have to spend dice per attack to dodge, which makes multiple enemies or multiple attacks incredibly dangerous. Got 8 dice to dodge? Great against one or two attacks, but against 4+ attacks, you won't do nearly as well…

@Bobdylan: The way we play that sort of thing: Defensive actions ignore initiative. At any point in time, you are able to dodge, it just comes out of your pool for when you get your turn.

Re: "In Response"

Shady Tradesman 01 Mar 2011 20:14

I feel like on some level, dodging needs to be fundamentally better than parrying as it's a seperate skill completely. Sure you can dodge more stuff than you can parry, but still… maybe your dodge successes can be spent to detract the successes of attackers? So if you get 6 dodge successes you can ignore 3 incoming 2-success attacks or 1 6 success attack?

Re: "In Response"

DemonDream 01 Mar 2011 20:20

Nah, I don't think dodging needs to be any better. Even with a parry, you can't parry thrown weapons without a maneuver, to my understanding, and you can't parry bullets without a power. Dodging combines all of those into one neat package. Dex + Melee? That pretty much only works at melee ranges. Dex + dodge? You always have that available to you, unless you are caught by surprise.

Another advantage that dodging seems to have: Maneuvers. In most cases, you need a secondary skill to get some of the best maneuvers (at least you do down here). Dodge 5 is enough to get most any dodge maneuver you can think of.

Re: "In Response"

Bratovitch 01 Mar 2011 20:35

Actually, fairness weighs very little on my decisions: Granted, I don't like it when everyone is inclined to play Military-types (find them rather dull, myself), but I see no reason to assist in the survival of someone playing, say, a blind, paraplegic poet with out any useful skills. By definition, all characters are designed equally. I see no reason to give "breaks" in a system where the characters can achieve virtually any goal they can conceive of.

Now, on Dodge: I usually will allow a Dodge to be used against more than 1 attack provided it is not a series of attacks. If you are ducking behind cover against a hail of gunfire, then it stands to reason that dodge successes could be applied without "splitting" the dice pool: you either make it or you don't. A series of shots would be another thing entirely, requiring a dodge on each.

This is why the Maneuver system is so vital: takes away a lot of the "Hmm…maybe, I don't know". Case in point: The Leaping Dodge maneuver allows you to incorporate a jump into your dodge roll. It stands to reason that if said jump removed you from danger, then Combat ends regardless of how many more attacks an opponent may have. At the least they are going to have to burn through some actions to reach you. An elegant & simple mechanic that solves much of the problem.

Much of what has been occurring concerning called shots, dodges, etc. is due to the incomplete maneuver system. In absence of that, Cells make whatever rules call they need at the time. However, once the maneuver is purchased & balanced, there is no more need to question: It just works, regardless of which Cell you're in, no matter who is running.

Re: "In Response"

Shady Tradesman 01 Mar 2011 20:55

My only worry about the maneuver system so far is that I don't want players to have to buy specialized maneuvers to do mundane actions. I mean, your character might have to buy a maneuver to do something WELL, that I completely embrace. The only specialized maneuvers that we commonly use over here are evade, quick-aim shot, quick-aim strike, and heavy strike. Most of the time people just save their XP and go for an increased difficulty in the action. This isn't an option for ALL specialized maneuvers, but some feel like anyone should be able to attempt them.

Let's take parrying thrown weapons for instance. Let's say that Spencer has 3 dex and 0 melee and he's trying to block an incoming projectile (that he's rolled to spot probably) with his katana. Taking such an action would be Dex plus melee, difficulty 6, +1 difficulty for not having any points in melee, and +2 or 3 difficulty for blocking a thrown weapon. That brings the difficulty up to 9 or 10 (depending on speed/size of the thing he's blocking), but he can still attempt to block it. He's just going to almost always fail unless someone just as incompetent is throwing the thing. If he wants to get really good at blocking thrown weapons, he spends his 2 xp on a maneuver and can ignore that +2 or 3 difficulty that stems from blocking a thrown weapon. I'd probably set the requirement lower too, requiring something like 3 or four melee,

And of course that doesn't go for all maneuvers. Just glancing at the list I could see damage-increasing melee maneuvers would be excluded from such rulings, damage block, etc. I would allow it for something like shooting someone in the head, which Spencer could also attempt to do without buying a maneuver (he has 0 firearms as well), but I'll be damned if he wouldn't TRY. Same with leaping dodges.

Last edited on 01 Mar 2011 20:57 by Shady Tradesman Show more

Re: "In Response"

Bratovitch 01 Mar 2011 21:30

Granted: like many things, the system is largely cinematic. By the same token, "Spencer" could jump 8' straight into the air with a 2 Strength/2 Athletics.

You certainly CAN do things that way. Just bear in mind, not everyone will make the same "judgement calls" as you, & without the invested xp, you haven't got a leg to stand on if something that works with 1 GM doesn't with another. The list goes on & on. Case in point: I allow called shots without maneuver's with a general Difficulty modifier of +1 to +5 depending on what is attempted. However, even with this modifier, I don't allow extra damage dice: you simply strike the target area, deal damage (possibly bypassing armor), & if the target (a Zombie, say) has a weakness there, that is applied as well. Other people add damage, or even Stun. Some people don't offer any changes beyond flavour text. All of these are potentially "correct" decisions.

The MOST correct decision, however, is the Maneuver. Why? Allow me to demonstrate:

Tomas Night is the most bad-ass Vet shooter who ever lived. He rolls a whopping 33 dice to hit, & has numerous powers & effects to advance that roll further. It has been categorically proven that anything vulnerable to firearms can be 1-shotted by Night. With this ridiculous amount of skill, why would Tomas need to purchase a maneuver like Head-Shot? Couldn't he shoot the wings off a gnat, much less shoot someone in the head?

Yes on both. But! What does it do when he Headshots somebody? Up to GM as always, because of necessary variation in House Games & differences of opinion. Mind you: it's probably a moot point with that much damage, but humour me.

Basic Head Shot: No maneuver, I'd say +2 Diff., no extra damage, special effects depend on target. Why no extra damage? The skull is a pretty hard target, not like a belly shot. Even though a person can't soak lethal, it stands to reason that you will get less penetration aiming at hard targets than soft ones. Higher calibers will overcome this, but that is already covered in their higher damage rating. As successes are added to damage with firearms, your roll will determine how successfully you strike the target: you might get a "head shot" without declaration, by simply killing the target outright. Backgrounds like Lethal Accuracy make this even more likely.

Real Head Shot: Maneuver
You start at a +1 bonus for buying the maneuver. Start installing the Negatives: Prerequisite, Committed, Slow, etc.
Likely Positives would be: Extra Damage, Stun, Destroy Brain.

This way, our boy Tomas has had a lot of practice shooting zombies in the brain pan. He can destroy a brain with every shot if desired. The mechanic is precise & need not slow play. We already know exactly how it works. Even better, I don't have to dictate draconian rules to all the other cells: you do things your way, unless someone spends the time to refine their techniques. Since the maneuver system is self balancing, it works no matter who is running.

That being said: it is optional. The primary reason it exists is to protect players from the fancies of the less rigorous GM's. Once you have the maneuver, you know that it will always work that way, & is not subject to GM interpretation. This isn't the problem it used to be, but is still a major factor.

Re: "In Response"

Narsham 01 Mar 2011 22:02

@bobdylan: The idea is that combat rounds in House Games are extremely short (2-3 seconds, perhaps), and most people can only do so much in a given amount of time. You can respond with the time you "have left" in a round if something gets initiative on you, which allows the squishy non-combat sorts a chance. With a simple maneuver like Running Dodge, you can avoid an attack AND get out of an exposed location as a single action (always assuming you don't botch someone or make it only part-way to cover).

If John spends his time in combat round 1 blowing away a zombie, he can't dodge the second zombie that's charging him (at what's practically the same time) because he spent his time shooting the zombie instead. If he wanted, he could split his pool to save some dice to dodge, at the risk that he doesn't end up getting attacked at all and those dice end up unused.

Letting John spend his full dice pool from round 1 killing a zombie and THEN use his whole pool from next round in round 1 dodging an attack effectively permits him to spend 4 seconds worth of actions over a 2 second period.

The present system makes being outnumbered a very bad thing unless you can soak enemy attacks reliably. I like that result. Allowing action "borrowing" allows you to leverage a dice pool advantage because you can theoretically go all out in round 1 and still have your full dodge.

I do think Dodge needs a slight adjustment given the advantage granted a melee character who splits attacks. If I'm dodging attacks from a single foe who swings a sword at me four times instead of just once, dodging the first attack really well shouldn't necessarily open me up to the other three. (I suppose Running Dodge or other maneuvers are the solution to this problem.)

Re: "In Response"

BobDylan530 01 Mar 2011 22:39

Well, as far as fairness goes, all I'm concerned with is that you can use your dice from the round to dodge regardless of initiative. Which appears to be the system already, so shows what I know.

Also, Dylan Zimmerman is NOT paraplegic. He's just a blind poet with not very many relevant skills. :P

Last edited on 01 Mar 2011 22:39 by BobDylan530 Show more

Re: "In Response"

Bratovitch 02 Mar 2011 00:12

Demon is correct: If a power does not specify a roll, then it does not usually require an action. If it does, then you split dice normally. The Concentration merit does not assist in this kind of thing, as it doesn't allow that kind of multi-tasking. It only reduces the penalty you might otherwise suffer from interference (Attempting to hack a computer while being actively shot at would warrant a penalty: Concentration allows you to ignore it).

Some Powers do allow Extra lines of Concentration to be maintained, or extra actions. On Extra Action: No power should grant Extra full actions unless that's ALL it does, with the possible exception of certain Template specifics. The Standard for "super speed" powers is Celerity, which grants 1 Extra Action per level, but that is all (& that's enough!). Some powers grant Extra actions within their scope but are limited in some manner (Mental Actions only, or has a "cool down" period). Even then, that should only be at higher levels.

You might be wondering: without extra actions, aren't I dead meat? The answer: yes. Even so, extra actions are not essential & should not be a "default" gift for every character. Clever characters can easily develop abilities that circumvent these limitations without becoming "carbon copies" of the others.

Re: "In Response"

Mr Sleep 02 Mar 2011 01:02

For clarity's sake, unless otherwise specified, an Extra Action cannot be split. One action, one Dice Pool, one roll.

It not only prevents a monster from making thirty seven and a half attacks a round, it also keeps the game from being bogged down.

Re: "In Response"

BobDylan530 01 Mar 2011 22:45

Another question that I had that's similar to this is whether or not you need to split your dice pool between mental and physical actions. For example, lets say Ellis is being attacked by a guy with a sword. He wants to parry, but he also wants to trigger a bomb to explode using his mind, which does not require a roll for him. Does he have to stand there and get hit while he triggers the bomb, or does it subtract two dice from his parry, or can he do both? Another example: Ellis is attacking someone with his sword. He wants to also roll Perception + Investigation (or Medicine, maybe) to look for a weak point to strike at. Does he have to split his dice pool between these two actions? Also, how would the Concentration merit affect either of these circumstances?

Re: "In Response"

DemonDream 01 Mar 2011 22:49

I think the clincher there would be whether or not the power needs an action. Since it doesn't require a roll for you, I'm thinking it probably doesn't, so you'd be able to do that without splitting your dice pools. But if it does require a roll, its a matter of concentration. Its hard to do two things at once, so unless you have a power that allows you to follow multiple threads of thought at once, you'd probably have to split your dice.

Re: "In Response"

BobDylan530 02 Mar 2011 05:11

So, just to be super clear, Ellis is NOT allowed to throw a bomb and mystic fireworks it in the same round without splitting his dice pool?

Re: "In Response"

Shady Tradesman 02 Mar 2011 05:20

Like he needs to be any deadlier.

Ellis is the guy you call in when you need a few hundred (or thousand) damage applied to something.

Re: "In Response"

DemonDream 02 Mar 2011 05:24

Demon is correct: If a power does not specify a roll, then it does not usually require an action. If it does, then you split dice normally. The Concentration merit does not assist in this kind of thing, as it doesn't allow that kind of multi-tasking. It only reduces the penalty you might otherwise suffer from interference (Attempting to hack a computer while being actively shot at would warrant a penalty: Concentration allows you to ignore it).

I think this was meant for this thread, but the reply button has gone all weird on us lately. If Mystic Fireworks does not require an action (no dice roll) he can use it freely, without concern for the rest of his action. Essentially, this is a free action. If it does require an action (dice roll specified), then you'll have to split your pool as normal.

Re: "In Response"

BobDylan530 02 Mar 2011 05:24

I'm not objecting to not being able to do both, I just want to understand how things work.

Re: "In Response"

BobDylan530 02 Mar 2011 05:27

Fortunately, Ellis no longer needs to throw his bombs, so this isn't particularly an issue for him. It's just good to know how things work.

Re: "In Response"

Shady Tradesman 02 Mar 2011 05:33

I like Ellis because he's the epitome of high-risk high-reward. Whoever goes first wins.

And all those happy memories of us crowding around you as you rolled a few dice that would decide all of our fates… that happened a few times. :)

Last edited on 02 Mar 2011 05:34 by Shady Tradesman Show more

Re: "In Response"

Falthon 02 Mar 2011 05:34

"Usually" is the key word. Check with your regional GM or with Mark for a definitive answer about a specific case.

The Reply button is on the original post; you have to reply to the first post in the thread you're answering.

Re: "In Response"

Shady Tradesman 02 Mar 2011 05:35

Yes, for instance Carson must spend an action to explode a tree even though it requires no roll.