Shove

[mallet]

Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere or sometime before, but I did a search or two and couldn't find anything. 

 

So surprisingly enough, over the years of playing 6th edition none of the Players in my campaigns have ever Shoved an NPC. But now it has come up and I have been reading up on it and have a couple of questions, and might have found a discrepancy in how Shoves are resolved, or at least maybe an error in an expansion on the rules/example. 

 

In the write up on Shove in 6E2 79, it says the target gets Shoved back 1m for every 5 STR of the Shover (on a successful attack), it then goes on to say the person being Shoved can resist using their Strength as per resisting Knockback as per 6E2 117. In that section is says that if the person being Shoved declares (s)he is resisting it (before the Shove attack) and it is a 1/2 Phase action (and their DCV drops to 1/2), and they take 2m off of the Shove for every 5 STR they have. 

 

Question 1) Can you Abort to resist Shove? If they do, is their DCV 1/2 when the Shover makes his/her Attack roll? 

 

Continuing on, as an example combat resolution,  a 40 STR character Shoving (on a successful attack) a resisting NPC with 20 STR, the NPC would not be pushed back as they would resist the full effect (40 STR = a 8m Shove, 20 STR resisting = -8m vs Shove). No dice roll needed (except for the attack roll).

 

If that is correct, then all good so far. 

 

But while reading Shove (and Root) the books directed me to look at the APG pg 170 for additional rules. 

 

My concern is in the Example in this section. In the Example it:

 

A) has the Shover (and target(s)) rolling BODY dice based on STR to determine how far they might be Shoved, which isn't part of the main Shove rules in 6E2 79. Is this just an error or should Shove be resolved by BODY dice rolls?

 

B )  the targets do not seem to be Aborting to resist the Shove, nor declaring they are resisting it. Is this just to keep the example shorter? Or if using BODY dice rolls, you do not need to declare or spend 1/2 action to resist?  

 

C) The Shover in the example has 40 STR and the combined lifting STR of the bad guys is 20 STR, under the 6E2 79, rules wouldn't they cancel out? 40 STR = 8m Shove, 20 STR = -8m vs Shove? 

 

Because how I read that example (minus the BODY dice roll, and the fact that the thugs don't declare they are resisting/have already attacked that Phase) that all three thugs should have been Shoved back 8m by Cheng Fei (under the 6E2 79 rules)

 

Or am I just completely off the mark here and missing something obvious? 

 

Thanks!

 

[Steve Long]

You're not missing something completely obvious. I'm the one guilty of that (see 2-4, below).

 

1. A character can Abort to resist being Shoved (unless, of course, the GM rules otherwise). After all, 6E2 117 specifically notes characters can Abort to resist KB, and protecting one’s self from Shove is basically the same sort of thing.

 

2. APG 170 is in error due to a mistake on my part. I was adapting earlier rules for Shove from 4E/5E, but forgot to adapt them for the new 6E Shove Combat Maneuver. Everything works fine until the rolling of BODY. Ignore that and just use STRs as discussed on 6E2 79 (and 6E1 41 for “combined STR”).

 

3. Again, the example is in error due to my not properly updating old 4E/5E text, where STR Versus STR Rolls were involved. The example needs to be rewritten to state that they’re Holding an Action, or were Aborting.

 

4. Again, the example is in error due to my not properly updating old 4E/5E text. Instead of STR Rolls being involved, the two STRs would in this case cancel each other out, as you note.

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention! The next time I update the APG errata, I will update this example to clarify things.