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Delkarnu
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Joined: 02 Sep 2008
Posts: 189
Location: Saratoga Springs, Upstate NY
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 Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:42 am Post subject: |
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If the enemy is acting first, and they want to dodge, its an action, if they want to do anything else they must roll it as a normal with the MAP applied.
Acting first they have the chance to kill some of the enemy before they act, and can reaction dodge to get out of return fire (i disagree witht his, but thats R&E), but if they shoot to kill three attackers, and fail to hit them, their reaction dodge is -3D(and they are probably getting nailed).
Acting last, they have the advantage of knowing if they are going to be attacked before they choose actions, so in a round they are not being shot, they could take more shots without fear of being hit. (against the same three opponents above, they all shoot at him, so he does a full dodge, while his teammate isn't shot at, so takes three shots without having to worry about dodging.
| Quote: | Example: Thannik is getting shot at by three stormtroopers: two are at medium range (Moderate difficulty, difficulty number 13), while one
is at short range (Easy difficulty, difficulty number 8.). Thannik decides to make a full dodge and rolls a 27. Now the troopers at medium range
must roll a 40 to hit, while the trooper at short range must roll a 35 to hit him.
Unfortunately, later in the round a thug attacks Thannik with a vibro-ax: a melee combat attack, at Moderate difficulty with a difficulty
number of 12. Thannik can't melee parry because he made a full dodge: he has to hope that the thug's attack misses. |
Thats from R&E showing that he has to choose his dodge and take the consequences
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McKinley
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Joined: 12 Jun 2008
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Location: Calgary, Alberta
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| Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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What if the PC's are being ambushed? If say, Stormtroopers are waiting, with cover and armed with sniper rifles, do the PC's still get to a chance to dodge?
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Ankhanu
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Delkarnu wrote: | If the enemy is acting first, and they want to dodge, its an action, if they want to do anything else they must roll it as a normal with the MAP applied.
Acting first they have the chance to kill some of the enemy before they act, and can reaction dodge to get out of return fire (i disagree witht his, but thats R&E), but if they shoot to kill three attackers, and fail to hit them, their reaction dodge is -3D(and they are probably getting nailed).
Acting last, they have the advantage of knowing if they are going to be attacked before they choose actions, so in a round they are not being shot, they could take more shots without fear of being hit. (against the same three opponents above, they all shoot at him, so he does a full dodge, while his teammate isn't shot at, so takes three shots without having to worry about dodging.
| Quote: | Example: Thannik is getting shot at by three stormtroopers: two are at medium range (Moderate difficulty, difficulty number 13), while one
is at short range (Easy difficulty, difficulty number 8.). Thannik decides to make a full dodge and rolls a 27. Now the troopers at medium range
must roll a 40 to hit, while the trooper at short range must roll a 35 to hit him.
Unfortunately, later in the round a thug attacks Thannik with a vibro-ax: a melee combat attack, at Moderate difficulty with a difficulty
number of 12. Thannik can't melee parry because he made a full dodge: he has to hope that the thug's attack misses. |
Thats from R&E showing that he has to choose his dodge and take the consequences |
Unfortunately that is dealing with a Full Dodge and Orpheus's question is about how to handle the MAP's in a normal Dodge when the bad guys go first. WEG further muddles the waters with that example as well as they imply that Thannik chose to do a Full Dodge because three stormtroopers were shooting at him, however because the Roll Actions rule states that each character declares then rolls their first action in turn, Thannik would have to decide to Full Dodge prior to the first stormtroopers shot and since the other stormtroopers have not declared yet he would not know what they are going to be doing this round.
Let me create an example to help illustrate Orpheus' question:
Side A: 2 stromtroopers
Side B: 2 Player Characters
Side A wins the initiaitive roll and decides to go first.
Stormtrooper 1 has the highest perception so he declares 1 action and announces that he will fire on Player 1.
Player 1 says he wants to dodge.
Now the only declaration that has happened is Stormtrooper 1, because according to the Roll Actions rule after he has declared, he rolls his first action. Since Player 1 has not declared yet there is no way to apply MAP's to his dodge as written.
There is an example prior to yours that might be stretched to apply, here is the first half of it (page 90 2nd R&E):
| Quote: |
Thannik is being shot at by a stormtrooper, so he decides to dodge. The stormtrooper is at short range: Easy difficulty, with a difficulty number of 8. Thannik rolls his dodge of 6D and gets a 27. Now, the stormtrooper must roll a 27 or better to hit Thannik. Anyone else who shoots at Thannik in this round must also roll a 27 or better. However, if someone makes a brawling attack on Thannik, the difficulty is still Very Easy (difficulty number of 5); if Thannik wanted to block the attack, he'd also have to make a brawling parry roll....[ the rest of the example goes on to talk about how range has no effect on the dodge, everyone's ranged attack has the same difficulty to hit Thannik (his dodge roll)] |
Now to me it seems that the main reason for this part of the example is to illustrate that a dodge doesn't apply to melee/brawling attacks, but it doesn't talk about MAP's at all and Thannik is using all of his dodge dice (we know from a previous example that Thannik's Dodge skill is 6D), so it must be dealing with the situation we are talking about with Orpheus' question. If we accept this to be true then we can say that WEG is saying that the reaction skills used before declaration do not pay MAP penalties for the future actions as they have not be declared yet. So I believe it would go like this in an extension of the R&E example: Thannik dodges (0 MAP's), he then decides to Brawling Parry to avoid the Brawling attack (-1D MAP), now moving forward he get's to his declaration and decides he wants 2 actions (his skills would get -3D in MAP's).
| McKinley wrote: | | What if the PC's are being ambushed? If say, Stormtroopers are waiting, with cover and armed with sniper rifles, do the PC's still get to a chance to dodge? |
Here is the Surprise Rule from page 96 2nd R&E:
| Quote: | Surprise
When characters are surprised, their attackers can automatically take their first action before the "surprised" side can act. The "surprised" side cannot roll defensive skills to dodge or parry this first action.
How Do You Figure Out if Someone is Surprised? When characters are laying an ambush, simply have each character make a sneak roll. When the targets of the ambush come with in range (just a couple of seconds before the ambush is going to be sprung), roll search or Perception checks for each target character: if they roll equal to ro higher than any of the attacker's sneak rolls, they spot that attacker and will not be surprised by the attack. If none of the characters spot the attackers, the target characters are "surprised" (Ambushes are a good place to use "Secret Checks" as discussed in "The Rules") |
Hope that covers your question McKinley. |
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McKinley
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Location: Calgary, Alberta
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| Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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Sure does. Thanks Orion.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| McKinley wrote: | | What if the PC's are being ambushed? If say, Stormtroopers are waiting, with cover and armed with sniper rifles, do the PC's still get to a chance to dodge? |
As was discussed by me a while back, if a person is successfully surprisd, they get no reaction / dodge. In otherwords the ambushers get an attack at base range diff.
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| McKinley wrote: | | Sure does. Thanks Orion. |
Np, McKinely, just glad I could be of help to you.
| garhkal wrote: | | As was discussed by me a while back, if a person is successfully surprisd, they get no reaction / dodge. In otherwords the ambushers get an attack at base range diff. |
Perhaps, I'm reading this wrong, but you seem to be implying that there were dissenters to this rule. If so, do you have a link, as I would be curious to read their reasons. |
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Orpheus
Lieutenant
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Posts: 80
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | Delkarnu wrote: | If the enemy is acting first, and they want to dodge, its an action, if they want to do anything else they must roll it as a normal with the MAP applied.
Acting first they have the chance to kill some of the enemy before they act, and can reaction dodge to get out of return fire (i disagree witht his, but thats R&E), but if they shoot to kill three attackers, and fail to hit them, their reaction dodge is -3D(and they are probably getting nailed).
Acting last, they have the advantage of knowing if they are going to be attacked before they choose actions, so in a round they are not being shot, they could take more shots without fear of being hit. (against the same three opponents above, they all shoot at him, so he does a full dodge, while his teammate isn't shot at, so takes three shots without having to worry about dodging.
| Quote: | Example: Thannik is getting shot at by three stormtroopers: two are at medium range (Moderate difficulty, difficulty number 13), while one
is at short range (Easy difficulty, difficulty number 8.). Thannik decides to make a full dodge and rolls a 27. Now the troopers at medium range
must roll a 40 to hit, while the trooper at short range must roll a 35 to hit him.
Unfortunately, later in the round a thug attacks Thannik with a vibro-ax: a melee combat attack, at Moderate difficulty with a difficulty
number of 12. Thannik can't melee parry because he made a full dodge: he has to hope that the thug's attack misses. |
Thats from R&E showing that he has to choose his dodge and take the consequences |
Unfortunately that is dealing with a Full Dodge and Orpheus's question is about how to handle the MAP's in a normal Dodge when the bad guys go first. WEG further muddles the waters with that example as well as they imply that Thannik chose to do a Full Dodge because three stormtroopers were shooting at him, however because the Roll Actions rule states that each character declares then rolls their first action in turn, Thannik would have to decide to Full Dodge prior to the first stormtroopers shot and since the other stormtroopers have not declared yet he would not know what they are going to be doing this round.
Let me create an example to help illustrate Orpheus' question:
Side A: 2 stromtroopers
Side B: 2 Player Characters
Side A wins the initiaitive roll and decides to go first.
Stormtrooper 1 has the highest perception so he declares 1 action and announces that he will fire on Player 1.
Player 1 says he wants to dodge.
Now the only declaration that has happened is Stormtrooper 1, because according to the Roll Actions rule after he has declared, he rolls his first action. Since Player 1 has not declared yet there is no way to apply MAP's to his dodge as written.
There is an example prior to yours that might be stretched to apply, here is the first half of it (page 90 2nd R&E):
| Quote: |
Thannik is being shot at by a stormtrooper, so he decides to dodge. The stormtrooper is at short range: Easy difficulty, with a difficulty number of 8. Thannik rolls his dodge of 6D and gets a 27. Now, the stormtrooper must roll a 27 or better to hit Thannik. Anyone else who shoots at Thannik in this round must also roll a 27 or better. However, if someone makes a brawling attack on Thannik, the difficulty is still Very Easy (difficulty number of 5); if Thannik wanted to block the attack, he'd also have to make a brawling parry roll....[ the rest of the example goes on to talk about how range has no effect on the dodge, everyone's ranged attack has the same difficulty to hit Thannik (his dodge roll)] |
Now to me it seems that the main reason for this part of the example is to illustrate that a dodge doesn't apply to melee/brawling attacks, but it doesn't talk about MAP's at all and Thannik is using all of his dodge dice (we know from a previous example that Thannik's Dodge skill is 6D), so it must be dealing with the situation we are talking about with Orpheus' question. If we accept this to be true then we can say that WEG is saying that the reaction skills used before declaration do not pay MAP penalties for the future actions as they have not be declared yet. So I believe it would go like this in an extension of the R&E example: Thannik dodges (0 MAP's), he then decides to Brawling Parry to avoid the Brawling attack (-1D MAP), now moving forward he get's to his declaration and decides he wants 2 actions (his skills would get -3D in MAP's).
| McKinley wrote: | | What if the PC's are being ambushed? If say, Stormtroopers are waiting, with cover and armed with sniper rifles, do the PC's still get to a chance to dodge? |
Here is the Surprise Rule from page 96 2nd R&E:
| Quote: | Surprise
When characters are surprised, their attackers can automatically take their first action before the "surprised" side can act. The "surprised" side cannot roll defensive skills to dodge or parry this first action.
How Do You Figure Out if Someone is Surprised? When characters are laying an ambush, simply have each character make a sneak roll. When the targets of the ambush come with in range (just a couple of seconds before the ambush is going to be sprung), roll search or Perception checks for each target character: if they roll equal to ro higher than any of the attacker's sneak rolls, they spot that attacker and will not be surprised by the attack. If none of the characters spot the attackers, the target characters are "surprised" (Ambushes are a good place to use "Secret Checks" as discussed in "The Rules") |
Hope that covers your question McKinley. |
The example that you gave is exactly what I've been having a problem trying to adjucate. Delkarnu's example. quoted from the book, isn't confusing in the least though, since Full Dodge's are the easiest reaction skills to deal with since there are no MAP's.
Really, my question comes down to what to do in the case of the use of a normal dodge/parry when not acting first in a round.
Screw it! I"ll probably just drop reaction skills, for the most part, from my first game. Thanks for your suggestions everyone, especially Orion. 
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Delkarnu
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 02 Sep 2008
Posts: 189
Location: Saratoga Springs, Upstate NY
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I don't use reaction skills, every roll is a MAP. I say if they want to shoot back after being shot at, they get a partial dodge with MAP. If they are acting first, they can shoot with a MAP to be able to dodge later, or get their full D to shoot the target, but if it survives to shoot back, they're probably getting hit.
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| Orpheus wrote: |
The example that you gave is exactly what I've been having a problem trying to adjucate. Delkarnu's example. quoted from the book, isn't confusing in the least though, since Full Dodge's are the easiest reaction skills to deal with since there are no MAP's.
Really, my question comes down to what to do in the case of the use of a normal dodge/parry when not acting first in a round.
Screw it! I"ll probably just drop reaction skills, for the most part, from my first game. Thanks for your suggestions everyone, especially Orion. |
Orpheus, don't give up just yet. The stretching of the example in the book, gives an interesting change to things, which I was hoping that you would try. I'll re-quote the example and bold the part about how the MAP's work.
| Orion wrote: |
There is an example prior to yours that might be stretched to apply, here is the first half of it (page 90 2nd R&E):
| Quote: |
Thannik is being shot at by a stormtrooper, so he decides to dodge. The stormtrooper is at short range: Easy difficulty, with a difficulty number of 8. Thannik rolls his dodge of 6D and gets a 27. Now, the stormtrooper must roll a 27 or better to hit Thannik. Anyone else who shoots at Thannik in this round must also roll a 27 or better. However, if someone makes a brawling attack on Thannik, the difficulty is still Very Easy (difficulty number of 5); if Thannik wanted to block the attack, he'd also have to make a brawling parry roll....[ the rest of the example goes on to talk about how range has no effect on the dodge, everyone's ranged attack has the same difficulty to hit Thannik (his dodge roll)] |
Now to me it seems that the main reason for this part of the example is to illustrate that a dodge doesn't apply to melee/brawling attacks, but it doesn't talk about MAP's at all and Thannik is using all of his dodge dice (we know from a previous example that Thannik's Dodge skill is 6D), so it must be dealing with the situation we are talking about with Orpheus' question. If we accept this to be true then we can say that WEG is saying that the reaction skills used before declaration do not pay MAP penalties for the future actions as they have not be declared yet. So I believe it would go like this in an extension of the R&E example: Thannik dodges (0 MAP's), he then decides to Brawling Parry to avoid the Brawling attack (-1D MAP), now moving forward he get's to his declaration and decides he wants 2 actions (his skills would get -3D in MAP's).
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I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and I find it intriguing. I actually wish that I had paid more attention to the way the rules were written when I first started playing as I misread them and ran them in the manner that garhkel mentioned, everybody declares then the actions start. Running it this way causes a subtle change in the way you look at winning Initiative, that is right now people look at it and say "do I want to go first or last", but this changes that to, "do I want to be offensive or defensive". Here's what I mean:
Let's say that the characters are walking along and stumble across an E-Web nest with a pair of stormtroopers in it, it's a case of mutual surprise, not an ambush. The range is 60 m when both side discover each other and the players were walking. If the PC's win initiative they can choose to be defensive and let the E-Web shoot at them but use their full dodge dice, then when their turn comes they declare two actions (-2D MAP's), 1 to run forward 20m and 1 to toss a frag grenade as they would then be in range to do so, but all under cover of their dodge. The trade off for being defensive, in this case, is losing 1D (when compared to acting first) from the grenade and running skills, but if they acted first they would lose 2D(when compared to acting last) from their dodge skill.
So as you can see winning initiative and going last is a lot more appealing, at least in certain situations. It also means the attackers won't want to declare quite as many actions as they know that if their target dodges he will get his full dodge skill. Going first against stormtroopers would mean they are dodging with 4D. It even brings a little bit of realism in as it is generally easier to defend then attack.
In any case, I hope I have presented an intriguing enough case for you to try it. If you do, please let me know how it worked out. As for the thanks, they really aren't needed as I have learned at least as much about these rules, from this, as you have, so it is I who will thank you for providing the inspiration to do so. |
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Delkarnu
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 02 Sep 2008
Posts: 189
Location: Saratoga Springs, Upstate NY
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:43 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Example: Thannik is getting shot at by three stormtroopers: two are at medium range (Moderate difficulty, difficulty number 13), while one
is at short range (Easy difficulty, difficulty number 8.). Thannik decides to make a full dodge and rolls a 27. Now the troopers at medium range
must roll a 40 to hit, while the trooper at short range must roll a 35 to hit him.
Unfortunately, later in the round a thug attacks Thannik with a vibro-ax: a melee combat attack, at Moderate difficulty with a difficulty
number of 12. Thannik can't melee parry because he made a full dodge: he has to hope that the thug's attack misses. |
The way I interpreted this is since Thannik used his full dodge D (no MAP) he was unable to do anything else in the round. If Thannik knew that he was in melee range, and therefore was open to melee attack, he could not use a full dodge if he wanted to do anything else as well, which means he would have to use his dodge at a MAP.
I would generally say that he would have to know how many actions he was going to take to figure out the MAP before he rolled anything for the round. In this example, Thannik could decide to do two actions (dodge and attack, but not declared), roll his partial dodge at -1D for MAP. After the dodge, someone attacks melee. I would say he has two options, use his second action for the parry (-1D MAP) since he did not declare what the second action was, or use a parry as a reaction skill at -2D and still get his attack, but at -2D.
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Delkarnu wrote: | | Quote: | Example: Thannik is getting shot at by three stormtroopers: two are at medium range (Moderate difficulty, difficulty number 13), while one
is at short range (Easy difficulty, difficulty number 8.). Thannik decides to make a full dodge and rolls a 27. Now the troopers at medium range
must roll a 40 to hit, while the trooper at short range must roll a 35 to hit him.
Unfortunately, later in the round a thug attacks Thannik with a vibro-ax: a melee combat attack, at Moderate difficulty with a difficulty
number of 12. Thannik can't melee parry because he made a full dodge: he has to hope that the thug's attack misses. |
The way I interpreted this is since Thannik used his full dodge D (no MAP) he was unable to do anything else in the round. If Thannik knew that he was in melee range, and therefore was open to melee attack, he could not use a full dodge if he wanted to do anything else as well, which means he would have to use his dodge at a MAP.
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Your quoted example is not same as my quoted example though they are similar. Also your example comes right after the rules for Full Reactions, whereas mine precedes those rules. They shouldn't be referencing rules they haven't introduced yet in my example.
| Orion wrote: |
Thannik is being shot at by a stormtrooper, so he decides to dodge. The stormtrooper is at short range: Easy difficulty, with a difficulty number of 8. Thannik rolls his dodge of 6D and gets a 27. Now, the stormtrooper must roll a 27 or better to hit Thannik. Anyone else who shoots at Thannik in this round must also roll a 27 or better. However, if someone makes a brawling attack on Thannik, the difficulty is still Very Easy (difficulty number of 5); if Thannik wanted to block the attack, he'd also have to make a brawling parry roll....[ the rest of the example goes on to talk about how range has no effect on the dodge, everyone's ranged attack has the same difficulty to hit Thannik (his dodge roll)] |
Note that your example says Full Dodge and mine just says Dodge. In your example, you are correct he can't do anything else as he is Full Dodging, but in mine he is just Dodging, for further proof I will quote the rest of the example, because it talks about varied ranges, but if you will note the number to hit does not change due to range, like it does in a Full Dodge.
Here is the continuation of the example I quoted on page 90 2nd R&E:
| Quote: | | One round later, three stormtroopers are going to shoot at Thannik. Their difficulties are Easy (difficulty number 6), Easy (difficulty number 8 ) and Difficult (difficulty number 17). Thannik decides to dodge and gets a 14 -- now all three troopers must roll a 14 or better to hit him. |
Now it does not specifically mention range as the reason for the difference in difficulties, but since they have not yet dealt with Cover yet, what else is there to account for the Difficult difficulty number. Furthermore, even if there is something else causing the differences in difficulties, the rules for Full Reactions state that the reaction rolls adds to the difficulty number, so in the example I just quoted the difficulty numbers would be 20 (6+14), 22 (8+14), and 31 (17+14), if it were a Full dodge.
Here are the Full Reaction Rules, for those people that don't have a copy of 2nd R&E, page 90:
| Quote: | Full Reaction. A character can make a "full reaction." A full reaction -- dodge, melee parry, brawling parry, lightsaber, vehicle dodge or starship dodge -- can be the only action the character makes in the entire round.
The character rolls his dodge or other reaction skill and adds it to the difficulties of all attacks made against him that round. |
Now to respond to the rest of your post:
| Delkarnu wrote: | | I would generally say that he would have to know how many actions he was going to take to figure out the MAP before he rolled anything for the round. In this example, Thannik could decide to do two actions (dodge and attack, but not declared), roll his partial dodge at -1D for MAP. After the dodge, someone attacks melee. I would say he has two options, use his second action for the parry (-1D MAP) since he did not declare what the second action was, or use a parry as a reaction skill at -2D and still get his attack, but at -2D. |
I would have agreed with you prior to this discussion, but I have not been able to find a single rule or example that indicates that you must declare the number of actions you will take in order to dodge. To the contrary, the rule dealing with this, the Roll Actions rule, states that you do it in turn according to initiative and perception order, having a reacting character declare(by this I mean, decide the number of actions taken, as that is all the Roll Actions rule states to do) would be out of that order. I wish that WEG had more clearly defined this, but since they didn't I am left with the interpretation that I have put forth. It's the simplest way to deal with it, with the least impact on the rules as written, you just calculate MAP's on the fly, until the Characters turn comes up and then add the declared actions to the reactions and calculate MAP's. |
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garhkal
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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I thik from here out for my games, i will require all decelarations before init is rolled, including dodges. Makes it easier.
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Orion
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Posts: 146
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:32 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I thik from here out for my games, i will require all decelarations before init is rolled, including dodges. Makes it easier. |
Disclaimer: I just want to take this opportunity to state that I am not trying to tell people how they should/must run their games, I firmly believe that a GM should run their game according to their's and their players' tastes. I am only trying to interpret what the official rules have to say on the matter.
As stated in my disclaimer, how you run your game is up to you, but I would like to point out that the method you mention will remove some of the flexibility that the players have, that is inherently built into the game system as written. Leaving aside my interpretation of the reaction rules, the Roll action rules clearly state that declaration is done just prior to the rolling of that characters first action. This means that characters that act later in the round can benefit from the information that is gained up until that point in the round. What your suggesting will force them to think into the future about what they are going to do (not necessarily a bad thing), without even knowing if they will win the initiative or not. I'm just wanting to make sure that you understand that the change you propose will have an effect on your combat.
As for making it easier, I'm not sure what it is that you find difficult about it. Reactions work the same way, it's just declarations that change in relation to them. Allow me to illustrate:
Example 1
A PC wins initiative and decides to go first. He declares 1 action, which he uses to attack (0 MAP's), latter in the round a bad guy shoots at him and he decides to dodge (-1D MAP), even latter in that round another bad guy moves close enough to melee/brawl and does so, so the character decides to Melee/Brawl Parry (-2D MAP's).
Example 2
A PC wins initiative and decides to go last. A bad guy shoots at him, so he dodges (0 MAP's). A second bad guy moves in and Melee/Brawl attacks, so he decides to Melee/Brawl Parry (-1D MAP). His turn comes up in the initiative order and he declares 1 action, which he uses to attack (-2D MAP's).
The MAP's in the above examples are exactly the same, that is: 0 MAP's for the first action, 1 MAP for the second action, and 2 MAP's for the third action. All that changes is which rolls are suffering from which penalties. In Example 1, the characters normal skill use gets the benefit of the least penalty and his second reaction skill suffers the most. In Example 2 the character first reaction skill gets the benefit of the least and his normal skill use suffers the most. To make a generalization out of it, if a character goes first in the round his normal skills will suffer the least penalties, if he acts last then his reaction skills will suffer the least penalties and his normal skills will suffer the most. All that declaring more than one action does is change whether you start with MAP's and gradually escalate or start with no MAP's and rapidly escalate, at the end of the round the number of MAP's it the same.
Example 1-2
A PC wins initiative and decides to go first. He declares 3 actions, which he uses the first to attack (-2D MAP), latter in the round a bad guy shoots at him and he decides to dodge (-3D MAP's, provided he doesn't use one of his declared actions), when initiative comes around to him again he uses 1 action to move (-3D MAP's), even latter in that round another bad guy (free action)moves close enough to melee/brawl and does so, so the character decides to Melee/Brawl Parry (-4D MAP's), when his last action comes up he uses it to attack (-4D MAP's).
Example 2-2
A PC wins initiative and decides to go last. A bad guy shoots at him, so he dodges (0 MAP's). When his turn comes up in the initiative order and he declares 3 actions, and uses his first to attack(-3D MAP's) A second bad guy (free action)moves into Melee/Brawl attack range and does, so he decides to Melee/Brawl Parry (-4D MAP, provided he doesn't use one of his declared actions). During the next 2 initiative passes he uses 1 action to move and 1 to attack (both at -4D MAP's).
As you can see the total MAP's remain the same it's just the progression that changes. Now because defending characters will be using their full dodge dice (a lot of the time), attacking characters with not be inclined to declare a lot of actions, a character with 6D Blaster when declaring 2 actions would get his first shot of 5D at say a stormtrooper with 4D in dodge, declaring a 3rd action would mean it would be dead even in dice. Characters that were defensive and dodged would be declaring actions at a rate of 1 action=1 MAP rate. So a character with 6D Blaster that dodged, declaring 2 actions would take their first shot at 4D. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14034
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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Only the latter skills get penalized with maps though. All skills should. I feel if you hold off declairing reactions till needed, then maps should acrue higher than normal to offset calling for them ahead of time.
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