Using held actions

[Cantriped]

That example is not in keeping with the "proper" Sixth Edition mechanics for Holding An Action (I.E. those from 6e1&2). Defender cannot in that situation decide to interrupt (or preempt) Ogre's action. Because he Held his Action "to see what Ogre will do next"; per RAW that held action won't come up until after whatever ever it was that Ogre did next. That is the default, official rule regarding Holding an Action in both CC and 6e. However, Defender is still free to Abort his Held Action if he really wants to go ahead of Ogre.

 

There is an optional rule which I think you are confusing for the actual rule. On page 20 of 6e2 it says "Typically, a character must either Hold his Action until a specified lower DEX, or to wait for a specified event...", this is the default rule, then it goes on to say "With the GM’s permission, a character can Hold his Action “generically,” without declaring any sort of precondition for acting, and then may perform whatever Action he wants to whenever he wants to." However I cannot stress enough that this is an Optional Rule (which is why it wasn't included in CC). CC is not inaccurate, it purposefully omits many of the poorly delineated, and often contradictory optional rules that made 6e1&2 such an indecipherable mess.

[Hyper-Man]

So when should we expect to see the 'Unofficial Cantriped's Champions Complete Rules Forum'?

[Surrealone]

Heh!

[dsatow]

This is just semantics.  Usually the player means, "I hold until X tries to hit me." Not I hold until after he pummels me into the ground.  So if Defender says "he waits till Ogre attacks me", I'll assume that he means Ogre is starting to throw his punch.  Not after he determines whether he hits or not.  

[mrinku]

3 hours ago, Cantriped said:

There is an optional rule which I think you are confusing for the actual rule. 

 

 

I can hardly be confusing one part of 6e text for another part of 6e text when I don't have access to 6e, just CC.

 

But I'll admit that how things were done in 4e may be colouring my opinions.

 

Having said that, point me to the part of CC that says a non-defensive held action goes second. All I've found is that when it's unclear what order actions occur, that you go to DEX rolls.

[dmjalund]

can't you have the held condition be after he STARTS his attack?

 

if so what happens then?

[Cantriped]

16 hours ago, Hyper-Man said:

So when should we expect to see the 'Unofficial Cantriped's Champions Complete Rules Forum'?

Who would visit it? I'm probably the most vitriolic poster on the forums. I need to be thinned out by an entire community. Besides, there aren't enough Herophiles to populate more than one Unofficial Forum, and Chris Goodwin already has a very nice one.

 

9 hours ago, dmjalund said:

can't you have the held condition be after he STARTS his attack?

 

if so what happens then?

No you can't because the rules for Holding An Action clearly stipulate that "He may wait until a lower DEX or until some event occurs" (emphasis added). By the strictest reading of that rule:

"I wait until he attacks", "I wait until he moves", "I wait until the Robber acts", and "I wait until DEX 15" (assuming your DEX is 16 or higher) are all legal conditions for triggering a Held Action. The first through third examples are legal because you're waiting "until some event occurs", and the third is legal because you're waiting "until a lower DEX".

"I wait until the he is going to attack", "I wait until he's about to move, or "I wait until the Robber is gonna act" (every other possible variation on these examples) are not a legal conditions because Holding An Action does not permit you to wait "until just before some event occurs". If you want to interrupt an Action already in progress, you must either Abort An Action (possibly your Held Action), or have purchased a Triggered Power that activates under that condition.

There is, however, an exception in the form of the "Guarding Areas And Ignoring Opponents" optional combat rules; which allow a character to interrupt another character's movement through a 2m radius around themselves with an attack, but only if the other character wasn't entering the area specifically to attack the character. ... and even that is marked with a caution sign. Held Actions are actually fairly limited in their potential for abuse unless the GM starts using optional rules.

 

The rules for Who Goes First should only ever come up if two characters have the same Initiative, their Held Actions have the same condition, or their Held Actions have conditions that happen to occur simultaneously (E.G. Such as if pair of characters are Holding An Action "until he attacks" and "until he moves" respectively, and a third character both moves and attacks simultaneously using a Combat Maneuver such as Passing Strike.

 

However, for the sake of argument, if you chose to allow "I wait until he starts to attack", "I wait until he is going to move", and similarly phrased conditions: Both characters are attempting to act simultaneously, and the rules for Who Goes First apply. Unless one of their actions is codified as a Defensive Action (under Aborting An Action) both characters must roll initiative, and the winner goes first. So even under the most liberal interpretation I'm willing to entertain. It is still impossible to interrupt an action (such as an attack) with a non-defensive action (such as to attack your attacker first, or to Teleport away from your attacker without using Dive for Cover), without first making a successful initiative check.

[Cantriped]

14 hours ago, mrinku said:

Having said that, point me to the part of CC that says a non-defensive held action goes second. All I've found is that when it's unclear what order actions occur, that you go to DEX rolls.

There isn't one, you misunderstand.

The defensive quality of the Held Action itself is irrelevant to when the action normally takes place. Held Actions only allow you to wait "until an event occurs" or "until a lower DEX". If you pick an event they always occur after the event specified (and before some other event you don't know about yet). That is just how Held Actions work, they cannot interrupt an action already in progress (I.E. that has been declared, but not yet resolved). However, if two characters have Held Actions whose conditions are fulfilled simultaneously (such as if both characters wait "until DEX 1" or "until Ogre attacks", and that happens), then after that event occurs the rules for Who Goes First applies; whomever was performing a defensive action (as defined under Aborting An Action) automatically goes first, otherwise everyone involved rolls Initiative and the winner goes first.

[mrinku]

I think we'll probably have to agree to disagree on this one, Cantriped. I'll keep using the 4e method I think.

[Hyper-Man]

Removed

[Armory]

I think Cantriped's interpretation is simply semantics.  To say that "until an event occurs" means a Held action can't be used offensively until after a certain event has occurred is way too strict a reading.  In fact the player doesn't have to lock in a condition at all when he holds an action, he simply states that he's not using his action just yet, but he's ready to.  Seems to me that means he can act at any time, under any circumstances, until the beginning of his next Phase.  That includes attempting to interrupt an attack.  That's the whole reason of delaying an Action, to see what might happen between now and his next Phase that might require a reaction.

 

You seem to be reading "until a lower DEX or until an even occurs" as a list of only two specific options, when they are just two examples.

[Cantriped]

18 hours ago, Armory said:

I think Cantriped's interpretation is simply semantics.  To say that "until an event occurs" means a Held action can't be used offensively until after a certain event has occurred is way too strict a reading.  In fact the player doesn't have to lock in a condition at all when he holds an action, he simply states that he's not using his action just yet, but he's ready to.  Seems to me that means he can act at any time, under any circumstances, until the beginning of his next Phase.  That includes attempting to interrupt an attack.  That's the whole reason of delaying an Action, to see what might happen between now and his next Phase that might require a reaction.

 

You seem to be reading "until a lower DEX or until an even occurs" as a list of only two specific options, when they are just two examples.

You would be correct in that it is a semantic argument (I.E. "logic concerned with the meanings of words). All rules debates are, by definition, semantic arguments (yours are no exception), so calling my "interpretation" semantics is little more than an ill-reasoned attempt to attack my credibility. Regardless, the issue is that you clearly do not understand which part of the rules for Holding Actions are optional rules, and which are not. You may Hold An Action "until a lower Dex", or "until some event occurs" (CC 138, 6e2 20). Period. Those are not examples of Held Actions, those are the basic rules for declaring Held Actions. "I wait until he strikes" and "I wait until he comes around the corner" were the examples given of legal Held Actions (they even put them in both quotes and parentheticals in 6e just to make it crystal clear which section was the explanatory text). 

What you are describing is the Optional Rule described in 6e2 on page 20 (bottom of the 4th paragraph): "With the GM’s permission, a character can Hold his Action “generically,” without declaring any sort of precondition for acting, and then may perform whatever Action he wants to whenever he wants to."

[mrinku]

Cantriped (or anyone else with access to the 6e text), given that one of the main differences between 6e and CC is that 6e is bloated by a large number of specific examples that were left out of CC, could you advise what the specific example(s) regarding the 6e2 p20 standard rule actually say? The text of the 4e rule seems to basically be the same as the 6e one (hold until a later DEX or other specified event occurs), and in the 4e example Defender is waiting for a specific event (i.e. waiting to see what Ogre does), so seems to be following the standard 6e rule conditions. It's the resolution of that (specifically DEX rolls to see if Defender can act before Ogre once Ogre declares his action, or Ogre always going first) that is really the point here, not "being able to perform any action whenever he wants", which we both agree is only an optional, GM permission rule. 

[Cantriped]

This is the rule (and it's examples) in both CC (page 138) and 6e (page 20):

Quote

He may wait until a lower DEX or until some event occurs (“I wait until he strikes”; “I wait until he comes around the corner”).

At the end of the section for Holding An Action, there is a long example of the Optional Rule involving Defender and Ogre which annoyingly never explicitly identifies itself as being an example of the optional rule and not the standard rule. This example allows Defender to Hold An Action "generically" (I.E. without him declaring what he is waiting for). And when Ogre charges him, the example allows Defender to use said Held Action to attempt to interrupt Ogre's attack with his own. Since both characters want to act simultaneously, Defender and Ogre make Initiative rolls. Because Defender wins, he gets to go first. All of which is consistent with the optional rule I quoted above and how it should interact with the rules for Who Goes First.

[Armory]

On 11/19/2017 at 2:19 PM, Cantriped said:

You would be correct in that it is a semantic argument (I.E. "logic concerned with the meanings of words). All rules debates are, by definition, semantic arguments (yours are no exception), so calling my "interpretation" semantics is little more than an ill-reasoned attempt to attack my credibility. Regardless, the issue is that you clearly do not understand which part of the rules for Holding Actions are optional rules, and which are not. You may Hold An Action "until a lower Dex", or "until some event occurs" (CC 138, 6e2 20). Period. Those are not examples of Held Actions, those are the basic rules for declaring Held Actions. "I wait until he strikes" and "I wait until he comes around the corner" were the examples given of legal Held Actions (they even put them in both quotes and parentheticals in 6e just to make it crystal clear which section was the explanatory text). 

What you are describing is the Optional Rule described in 6e2 on page 20 (bottom of the 4th paragraph): "With the GM’s permission, a character can Hold his Action “generically,” without declaring any sort of precondition for acting, and then may perform whatever Action he wants to whenever he wants to."

 

It wasn't an attempt to attack your credibility at all, calm down. You said yourself, "under the strictest reading of the rules".  I just stated that I thought you were reading too strictly.

 

I maintain that it doesn't make sense to me to rule that a Held action cannot be used until after a specified event (unless that's what the player intends; and even then, it doesn't compute to disallow him the use of his held action if circumstances change).   To me that violates common sense and dramatic sense.  So what you call optional, I call essential to the maneuver.  And I'm my GM. 

[mrinku]

6 hours ago, Cantriped said:

This is the rule (and it's examples) in both CC (page 138) and 6e (page 20):

At the end of the section for Holding An Action, there is a long example of the Optional Rule involving Defender and Ogre which annoyingly never explicitly identifies itself as being an example of the optional rule and not the standard rule. This example allows Defender to Hold An Action "generically" (I.E. without him declaring what he is waiting for). And when Ogre charges him, the example allows Defender to use said Held Action to attempt to interrupt Ogre's attack with his own. Since both characters want to act simultaneously, Defender and Ogre make Initiative rolls. Because Defender wins, he gets to go first. All of which is consistent with the optional rule I quoted above and how it should interact with the rules for Who Goes First.

 

Right.

 

So the prime example they use to explain it is basically identical to the 4e one, with the same result.

 

Good enough for me.

[dmjalund]

also it is an example of a held action being used to interrupt or prevent part of an action. arguments above would have you believe Defender would have had to wait until after Ogre has charges before he could use his held action

[mrinku]

51 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

also it is an example of a held action being used to interrupt or prevent part of an action. arguments above would have you believe Defender would have had to wait until after Ogre has charges before he could use his held action

 

Well, the example has Defender act totally before Ogre, so it's not quite saying that. In the example he blasts him, but if he wanted to attack in HTH he'd have to move himself.