Combat help

[Guest Fall]

I tend to have everything save this part figured out. It says that most of the actions that can be taken are 1/2 phase. yet the book says that any type of attack or block actions are considered full phase unless you move first right?

 

Now what is messing with me is the whole held actions and aborts. It says you can hold an action or a half phase action to be used later. I am assuming that means a defensive action that accures not in the chars normal phase, tell me if I am wrong on that.

 

The book also says that you can abort to a defensive action by sacrificing your next action but if you have already acted this phase then you can't. That makes no sence to me at all.

 

Pretty much if someone has a simplier way of explaining the battle system in this game I would be gratefull

[Steve Long]

Since this isn't really the sort of rules question the board is for, I've moved it to the Discussion board so Herodom Assembled can offer its tips and wisdom.

[DrFurious]

Re: Combat help

 

Originally posted by Fall

I tend to have everything save this part figured out. It says that most of the actions that can be taken are 1/2 phase. yet the book says that any type of attack or block actions are considered full phase unless you move first right?

Attack actions are Phase-ending actions - they end your Phase even if you have a 1/2 Phase left.

 

Originally posted by Fall

Now what is messing with me is the whole held actions and aborts. It says you can hold an action or a half phase action to be used later. I am assuming that means a defensive action that accures not in the chars normal phase, tell me if I am wrong on that.

A held action is not necessarily a defensive action. Basically this allows you to delay taking your action to later in a segment or in a different segment.

 

In actual play, I avoid this since it can slow things down. For held actions, the player must phrase the held action as:

"I hold until ___ then I _____"

e.g. "I hold until he steps out from cover, then I shoot him."

If the event doesn't happen, the held action gets wasted - at least until your next Phase.

 

Originally posted by Fall

The book also says that you can abort to a defensive action by sacrificing your next action but if you have already acted this phase then you can't. That makes no sence to me at all.

There is a distinction between phases and segments. You have 12 segments to a Turn, each segment in which you can act according to your speed is your Phase. E.g. a character with a speed of 4 can act on segments 3,6,9,12 - i.e. his Phases are 3,6,9,12.

 

During the course of combat, say we are in segment 6. This is your phase and you fire at an opponent. Later in this segment, one of the enemy mooks fires back at you. Since you've already acted this segment, you cannot abort to a defensive action.

 

Consider the situation where the mook had a speed of 3 (Phases on 4,8,12). Your character fired on segment 3, on segment 4 the mook gets an action. In this case, you decide to abort to a defensive action. Since you have not acted on this segment (you acted on the previous segment), you are allowed to abort.

 

Hope this helps.

 

!DrFURIOUS!

[Lord Liaden]

Being new to this system and having difficulty with some of these concepts is completely understandable. Let me see if I can help clarify this for you:

 

Attack Actions are those which require any kind of Attack Roll, including Dodge and Block. Some require a half Phase to perform, others a full Phase. Any Attack Action has to be the last one that you perform in a Phase: you can perform a non-Attack Action requiring a half Phase before an attack, such as a half move, and you can perform any number of 0-Phase actions like turning on a Power; but an Attack Action has to be the last thing you do in a Phase, even if it's the only action you take in that Phase.

 

You can Hold any Action when you have an action Phase so that it occurs on your regular Phase on a lower DEX than your character has, or on a later Segment when you don't normally have an action Phase. This is useful when you want to coordinate your attack with an ally who has a lower DEX or different SPD from your character's, or when you want to wait for some event to occur, like an enemy coming around a corner so you can take him by surprise.

 

Aborting is essentially "using up" your next action Phase to take a defensive action. On a Segment when you have a Phase, this lets you act sooner than your DEX would normally allow to protect yourself from an attack. It also lets you act on a Segment when you normally wouldn't have a Phase. The prohibition on Aborting after you've taken an Attack Action only applies to the one Segment on which you've already attacked: you can't take two Attack Actions in a single Phase. If you've already used your Attack Action in a Segment when you've had an action Phase, you would have to wait for the next Segment before you could Abort to another defensive Attack Action.

 

If that's not clear enough, please post a follow-up and we'll see if we can make more progress.