Going First

[Sean Waters]

Re: Going First

 

Good points' date=' the only thing I disagree with is that you can move while dodging (up to a half move) and I do not believe there are rules in the game that allow you to interrupt someones phase to do something. If you chose to hold your half phase that is a different story, but once you have started your phase you get to take your full phase. An attacker can't wait till you have taken your first half phase action (in this case the half move) then interrupt you before you can take your second half phase action (in this case the dodge action). Realistically speaking you aren't doing these things "in sequence". You don't stop dodging, run across the room, and start dodging again, your a moving while dodging, both things are always happening simultaneously (and technically you are actually moving for all of the segments between this one and your next phase).[/quote']

 

As far as I am aware you can not move as part of a dodge action, but dodging only takes a half phase so you can move before dodging. Technically if you were already dodging, you need to stop dodging to move and then start dodging again. I appreciate that seems artificial, and generally I would probably not describe it in those terms, but if you CAN interrupt another's action part way through, then it is potentially an important distinction. I think that is technically the 'RAW' way to do it.

 

As to interrupting another's action, looking at the 'Held Action' rules, one of the examples is 'I wait for him to come around the corner, then...whatever'. That would imply that the person coming around the corner does not get to complete their full action before the person with the held action can act (or at least gets a chance to act).

 

One other point: you mention actually moving through the segments between this and your next phase. I keep on saying that combat is not stop motion and therefore I am agreeing with you BUT that approach leads to logical inconsistencies. Say you are SPD 4 with a 12m move. When you act on your phase on segment 3, either you move 12m then do nothing but soliloquise on segments 4 and 5, or you conceptually move 4m on 3, 4 on 4 and 4 on 5. The problem is that there are real differences. If you move on 3 then you might place yourself behind cover. If you are in continuous movement, then someone attacking you on segment 4 might catch you out in the open.

 

In short, although I keep saying combat is not stop motion, it is.

[Greywind]

Re: Going First

 

Also it depends on which dodge you do.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Going First

 

True, true

Which dodge do you do?

Dodge on the spot

Or move about a lot?

 

Er...

 

*cough*

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Going First

 

Good points' date=' the only thing I disagree with is that you can move while dodging (up to a half move) and I do not believe there are rules in the game that allow you to interrupt someones phase to do something. If you chose to hold your half phase that is a different story, but once you have started your phase you get to take your full phase. [b']An attacker can't wait till you have taken your first half phase action (in this case the half move) then interrupt you before you can take your second half phase action (in this case the dodge action).[/b] Realistically speaking you aren't doing these things "in sequence". You don't stop dodging, run across the room, and start dodging again, your a moving while dodging, both things are always happening simultaneously (and technically you are actually moving for all of the segments between this one and your next phase).

 

I disagree. If Character A holds their action and Character B decides to make a half move towards A and then attack them I would say A could force a Dex roll to try to hit B first. Especially if A was expecting it and specifically held his action waiting for B to move into HtH range.

 

Let's see...

 

Technically, the "holding an action" rules (6Ev2p20) require the character to declare what they delay for ("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”).; "Typically, a character must either Hold his Action until a specified lower DEX, or to wait for a specified event (such as “I’ll wait until he looks at me” or “I’ll Dodge if anyone attacks me”).) However, many (myself included) allow a generic "wait and see" delay, also suggested by the rules ("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."

 

So, the attacker can certainly wait until you make your half move to use his delayed action, whether he declared a generic held action (assuming same is permitted in the game) or specified he would wait until someone (general or specific) closed to within HTH range, made a move, or what have you. Then we move to the DEX roll. However, "Regardless of the roll, defensive Actions (any the character could Abort to; see below) occur first; the need to make a DEX Roll only applies to attacks, movement Actions, and the like."

 

6Ev2p21 indicates that "For example, if a character uses Noncombat Movement to make a Half Move, Holds his remaining Half Phase Action, and then wants to Abort his Half Phase to Dodge, the GM probably shouldn’t let him do it. Ordinarily Aborting a Half Phase is perfectly fine, but in this case the character deliberately subjected himself to a ½ DCV penalty for Noncombat Movement so he could move further than usual. Having made that decision he has to live with the consequences of his actions and can’t Abort to avoid them. He could Abort to, for example, activate his Resistant Protection, but not to “reset” his DCV.

 

This seems to imply pretty clearly that taking a normal half move would not preclude aborting to Dodge. So if the defender wants to Dodge, he is entitled to Abort to do so, overriding the DEX roll. Now, if the Held Action is declared prior to the half move being taken (ie timed to match him starting to move, or while he is moving), I think the defender needs to choose whether to Abort at the location he's at when the DEX roll is made - if the Abort happens when the defender has moved only two meters, he doesn't get to finish that half move. He gave that up to Abort.

 

A case not addressed (or not located in my brief review) is what happens if the DEX roll takes place, the Defender loses and now wants to Abort instead of continue. I would be inclined to rule that he can still Abort, given the rules clearly favour the ability to take a defensive action first. However, I would suggest that an equally valid interpretation would be that, with such simultaneous actions, both characters must commit to a chosen action, and can't change their minds based on the results of the DEX roll. ie the Defender has chosen to try to rush Attacker before he can get his attack off, so it's too late to abort when Attacker beats Defender to the punch.

[psyber624]

Re: Going First

 

The rules actually do state that if you actually make a DEX roll you cannot abort.

If two characters use DEX Rolls to determine

who acts first, the loser of the roll cannot then

choose to Abort to a defensive Action — committing

to the roll means the chance to Abort is lost.

6e2 19

 

This just means if you want to abort you have to do so before the DEX roll, you can't wait to see if you win THEN abort.

 

bigbywolfe your comment about moving and attacking makes sense to me. Are you aware if it is in the rules or not? I cannot find an example stating that it is allowed, although I agree it would make sense that it should be.

[psyber624]

Re: Going First

 

doublepost

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Going First

 

The rules actually do state that if you actually make a DEX roll you cannot abort.

6e2 19

 

This just means if you want to abort you have to do so before the DEX roll, you can't wait to see if you win THEN abort.

 

bigbywolfe your comment about moving and attacking makes sense to me. Are you aware if it is in the rules or not? I cannot find an example stating that it is allowed, although I agree it would make sense that it should be.

Thanks. As to rules stating it is allowed, I think Hues' post pretty much covered that.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Going First

 

Interesting:

 

 

..................

 

So, the attacker can certainly wait until you make your half move to use his delayed action, whether he declared a generic held action (assuming same is permitted in the game) or specified he would wait until someone (general or specific) closed to within HTH range, made a move, or what have you. Then we move to the DEX roll. However, "Regardless of the roll, defensive Actions (any the character could Abort to; see below) occur first; the need to make a DEX Roll only applies to attacks, movement Actions, and the like."

 

6Ev2p21 indicates that "For example, if a character uses Noncombat Movement to make a Half Move, Holds his remaining Half Phase Action, and then wants to Abort his Half Phase to Dodge, the GM probably shouldn’t let him do it. Ordinarily Aborting a Half Phase is perfectly fine, but in this case the character deliberately subjected himself to a ½ DCV penalty for Noncombat Movement so he could move further than usual. Having made that decision he has to live with the consequences of his actions and can’t Abort to avoid them. He could Abort to, for example, activate his Resistant Protection, but not to “reset” his DCV.

 

......

 

 

What if someone wants to noncombat half move then dodge, no abort: legal? I'm not sure why not. If that is, preventing you holding and aborting is silly.

 

I would be very wary of this: I'd look carefully at acceleration/deceleration rules and make sure that, occasionally, a villain was holding his action and took advantage of the lowered DCV, but it seems arbitrary to preclude the combination. Hmm, not arbitrary as such - I can see the reasoning - but unnecessary. Flag it up as a warning.

 

OK, not the point, but I did think it worth mentioning.

[Tasha]

Re: Going First

 

Interesting:

 

 

 

......

 

 

What if someone wants to noncombat half move then dodge, no abort: legal? I'm not sure why not. If that is, preventing you holding and aborting is silly.

 

I would be very wary of this: I'd look carefully at acceleration/deceleration rules and make sure that, occasionally, a villain was holding his action and took advantage of the lowered DCV, but it seems arbitrary to preclude the combination. Hmm, not arbitrary as such - I can see the reasoning - but unnecessary. Flag it up as a warning.

 

OK, not the point, but I did think it worth mentioning.

 

I would allow the "abort" I would just half the whole DCV including dodge. (ie a DCV 5 +3 DCV Dodge = 8DCV/2 =4 DCV). Also if they had a half phase Delay, I am not sure that I would call it an Abort. I would just treat it as if they took their half phase action to do a defensive action. Since they decided to move Non combat speeds, that penalty would be dominant.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Going First

 

The rules actually do state that if you actually make a DEX roll you cannot abort.

6e2 19

 

This just means if you want to abort you have to do so before the DEX roll, you can't wait to see if you win THEN abort.

 

Thanks - not sure how I missed that. And a sensible ruling.

 

What if someone wants to noncombat half move then dodge' date=' no abort: legal? I'm not sure why not. If that is, preventing you holding and aborting is silly.[/quote']

 

Don't you have to spend a phase beforehand getting to noncombat speed? In any case, I dislike the idea that a character can take an action that halves their DCV (or otherwise places them at a considerable disadvantage), then instantly make the problem go away. Why wouldn't everyone do so? I like Tasha's solution, combining the DCV impact of all actions taken on that phase - even if he aborts to Dodge after that half move at noncombat speed.

 

I would allow the "abort" I would just half the whole DCV including dodge. (ie a DCV 5 +3 DCV Dodge = 8DCV/2 =4 DCV). Also if they had a half phase Delay' date=' I am not sure that I would call it an Abort. I would just treat it as if they took their half phase action to do a defensive action. Since they decided to move Non combat speeds, that penalty would be dominant.[/quote']

 

I think the use of the half phase to dodge is only an "abort" in that it can override the usual DEX roll when two characters want to act at the same time.

[psyber624]

Re: Going First

 

I think what Sean was talking about was, without aborting or any other sort of delay shenanigans I am going to, on my phase, do a half move at noncombat speeds as my first action, then dodge as my second action. In that case Tasha is right, it is perfectly legal but your dodge bonus is halved along with any other form of DCV you have (from CSLs, etc.) Taking a dodge as the 2nd action in your phase doesn't in any way "reset" your combat modifiers.

 

Just like if you do a non-combat half move you then cannot pour your csl's into OCV for an attack as the 2nd action of the turn. Non-combat sets your OCV to 0 and that takes place after everything else (so if you tried that you would still be OCV 0 for the attack, even if you put 4 CSL's into OCV and used a Martial Maneuver with +2 OCV, your final OCV would STILL be 0.) Of course that is just base RAW, there are a number of options listed in 6e and the APG's for changing this ruling if a GM wants to.

 

As far as the example goes with the held half phase aborting to a dodge afterwards, the wording on that is clearly a GM option ("probably shouldn't"). In that case I would allow it but he would only get half his DCV bonus from dodge (and I would recalculate his total DCV then half it, not state that it is automatically 2 DCV for normal Dodge (3 divided by 2 rounding up) and 3 for Martial Dodge (5 divided by 2, rounding up)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Going First

 

As far as I can see, the rules are a bit...cloudy...on taking a half phase noncombat move and then taking some sort of combat action in the second half phase. It does say this (6.2.24):

 

While moving at Noncombat Movement velocity, a character is at ½ DCV and 0 OCV (and ½ DMCV and 0 OMCV, if appropriate). (my emphasis)

 

I suppose if you half move at non combat then dodge, as i think we have established, you are no longer moving, at combat or non combat speed and therefore the injunction would not apply. Mind you, it continues:

 

(If the character wants to make an attack, the 0 OCV counts as his base OCV, and can be modified from that point.) If the GM wants additional “realism,” he can use Velocity-Based DCV (see below) to determine the character’s DCV, but the OCV of a character using Noncombat Movement is always 0. Thus, a character using Noncombat Movement can still fight, but at the lowered values. Of course, to attack, the character must limit himself to only making a Half Move with his Noncombat Movement.

 

From this we can imply that if you move at noncombat speed you are, indeed, as Tasha has said, stuck with combat modifiers for the whole phase.

 

You'd think. However, if you foolishly move on to page 25, you find the rules on acceleration and deceleration. Did you know that accelerating or decelerating is a zero phase action but you can only usually do it once per phase? That would explain why you ARE still technically moving at non-combat speed if you half phase noncombat move from zero velocity: you can accelerate but not, technically, stop. You are still going, and will probably have to move several metres int he same direction next phase in order to actually stop.

 

I would be amazed if anyone actually uses those rules. It does say the GM can chose to ignore this and just let you move from rest at point A to rest at point B. Golly. Why do we need the acceleration/deceleration rules then?

 

However, it leaves this intriguing possibility open. Buy your movement with the 'noncombat acceleration/deceleration modifier' and:

 

1st phase mess about then half phase accelerate to noncombat velocity and move as far as you can.

2nd phase half move at noncombat velocity and decelerate to zero - you are now definitely not moving at all, let alone non-combat, so your CV is no longer modified, then dodge.

 

Let us look: noncombat acceleration/deceleration modifier allows you to (6.1.157):

For a +1 Advantage, Noncombat Acceleration/Deceleration, a character may accelerate or decelerate at a rate equal to his full meters of Noncombat Movement per meter (and thus can reach his full Noncombat velocity in one Full Phase and one meter of space).

 

Actually you are moving at your noncombat velocity after one metre of movement, you just need that extra metre on your full phase to do a full non-combat move. No: actually, how can you add time and distance?

 

Anyway - stick this in a multipower with your normal combat move or somesuch:

Flight 5m, x32 Noncombat, Noncombat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1) (50 Active Points)

 

That is a 160m move, 80m half move (or 79m half move if we knock off the extra acceleration metre). So you get to move 79x2=158m, over 2 phases, ending stationary and therefore NOT still moving noncombat, and arriving in time to deliver some sort of combat manoeuvre without penalty, even if it is a dodge.

 

Cheating? Probably not, but munchkin as all hell. Mind you you WILL find opponents getting wise and delaying to attack while you are moving noncombat. Them's the breaks. It is not that nasty anyway, given that for the same cost you could have 50m of flight, and be able to move 75 metres over a phase and a half anyway. Still...

 

Anyway, just ranting, but the movement rules do seem unnecessarily complicated in this area, and not as clear as might be desired.

[psyber624]

Re: Going First

 

Honestly I have always thought of "Non-combat movement" as less about speed than about focus. When moving at non-combat speeds you are putting everything you have into moving fast, you aren't ducking and weaving, you aren't paying much attention to what is going on, you are simply MOVING. This is why you have combat penalties. Your goal is speed so your not focused on aiming (that would slow you down). You also aren't actively trying to avoid attacks (as that requires you to pay attention to whats going on around you so that you can move appropriately). Hence the combat modifiers. A person's "top speed" is always as fast as they can move with their non-combat speed, people with extra multiples of this are simply stating that they can move much faster while NOT paying attention to anything else than normal. Someone with 80m Running and the standard x2 NCM cant run any faster than someone with 20m and x8 NCM. They can just maintain a combat level of focus at much higher speeds than the 2nd example.

 

If your GM for some reasons likes to use the acceleration/deceleration rules in general these really don't affect the combat modifiers. If you are going for "All out movement" then the NCM modifiers apply, even if you don't move very far in your half phase.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Going First

 

The trouble is that the rules are not very clear. You have to make assumptions based on examples rather than having a one line rule:

 

If you half move non-combat the noncombat move modifiers remain until the start of your next phase.

Simple, but sadly absent, or at least I did not spot it.

[psyber624]

Re: Going First

 

True, however the rules do state that if you want to make an attack you have to do so at the 0 OCV for moving non-combat speeds, which would mean that you are still 1/2 DCV as well I would say.

 

There is also the fact that if that is not true then why say non-combat movement is 1/2 DCV in the first place? if the penalties end at the end of your phase you are basically almost never going to have them apply.