Informing the Decision to Dive for Cover

[Sailboat]

In a Champions superhero campaign, I was once surprised at the way Dodge and Dive for Cover were ruled by the Game Master.  

 

At the start of the fight, a bad guy threw a pellet at me.  I aborted to a Dodge...whereupon it was revealed that the attack was a one-hex AoE.  So I was automatically affected (once the villain hit their hex) AND, having aborted, lost my next phase.

 

The GM said that the special effect of the attack was ambiguous, and, never having encountered it before, my character would not have known it was AoE.

 

GM has final say, of course.  And I like this GM, so I am not complaining, but seeking to understand.

 

But this ruling surprised me.  It seems open to player abuse by picking ambiguous or even deliberately misleading special effects...as well as effectively penalizing other special effects.  A fire-breathing dragon's cone AOE is obviously a good attack to dive for cover from, but costs the same as the "pellet that abruptly expands" attack I was subjected to.  Perhaps an inobvious or "Invisible Power Effects" advantage if one wants to consistently trick opponents.

 

Leaving any theoretical "Invisible Power Efffects" advantage aside, when I GMed years ago, I always specified when an attack was AoE and gave players the option of Diving for Cover.  Generally, Diving has its own disadvantages, especially if one aborts, so I didn't have an issue with it.  Furthermore, I told players the area affected, so they could choose to dive far enough to be clear of it...paying the penalty for that distance, of course.

 

My rationale was that without such knowledge ,  Diving for Covr6was not only super risky,  it also would frequent result in the hero looking stupid.  It's supposed to simulate a desperate choice under pressure, not a near-certain opportunity to screw up and look foolish.  There's already a built-in chance of failure:  the die roll.

 

In the source material the heroes either dive clear or fail to dive clear, they don't make obviously ignorant decisions as a result of a rock/paper/scissors-like decision tree.

 

Is there any official stance on this? How have you, or your GMs, been running the Dive/Dodge/other decisions and the information the players have to inform those decisions?

 

Edited April 25 by Sailboat
unfinished sentence

[Christopher R Taylor]

Generally speaking as a GM I require something subtle or sneaky to be purchased that way: An Inobvious focus, or Inobvious/Invisible power effects.  However, it is reasonable that if you are first introduced to something not clearly an Area Effect attack, you won't know what it will be until you see it go off. 

 

For example, Gegolas the Elf has different arrows, and while the gray ones do normal damage, the green ones are poisoned and the red ones are explosive.  How will you know until you see Geg fire off one of the red ones?  On the Other Hand, the Old Soldier pulls out a pineapple grenade and everyone knows that it will go boom in all directions.  Everybody knows that the dragon's breath is a huge area of some kind, but that druid's acorn that blows up might catch someone by surprise, the first time.

 

This is where special effect plays a bigger role than might initially seem obvious.  Its like how The Living Ember can light a candle with his flames, but Chill Dame cannot with her frost beam.

[LoneWolf]

I have to agree with Christopher on this.  If your character has no knowledge of the attack and it is not obvious what the attack does they may make the wrong choice.  If the character had some sort of applicable knowledge skill covering the attack they would have a chance to figure it out.  

[Sundog]

It's even got precedence in the source material - I instantly thought of the scene in Avengers when Loki catches one of Hawkeye's arrows - only for it to be an explosive on a timer.

 

[dmjalund]

foci that look like they can be dodged would more likely to be deflected even if they would explode if they hit a proper target. The trick would be to determine the deflected hex.

[Tech]

I ran across this situation this past gaming episode. A supervillainess had a TK 1 hex effect attack who used it at a hero. I explained the special effect and the player said they would dodge. At this point, I let the player know it was a 1 hex effect and decided to give them the option to dive for cover. I'm okay with this. I'm also okay with the explanations given by the previous posts - if it's not obvious that it'll be an AE attack, the GM doesn't have to tell them unless they know it's an AE attack.