How valuable is Dexterity?

[Hugh Neilson]

19 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

The guy with the higher DEX.  Because he'll act before player 2 can make a presence attack.

 

17 hours ago, ghost-angel said:

A PRE Attack takes No Time and thus may be performed at anytime, not even on your Phase. You can just declare to make a PRE Attack before the DEX Order even comes up. Assuming the PRE Attack does roll enough, which it will in Hugh's example, they will most certainly go first.

 

Exactly.  The high DEX character must surprise the high PRE character to go first.  Anyone surprising the high DEX character also gets to go first.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

If two characters want to make a presence attack at the same time who goes first?

 

I disagree with this interpretation in any case.  Your DEX is when you act in a phase, no matter what the action is.  Your phase doesn't start until your DEX unless you can abort.

[ghost-angel]

27 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Your phase doesn't start until your DEX unless you can abort.

 

Except for Actions that Take No Time; the rules literally spell out this can be done at any time, your action or not, even on phases you don't have an action. Any time. Specifically spelled out as such. It's not interpretation. It's the rules.

[dmjalund]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

If two characters want to make a presence attack at the same time who goes first?

the first person to declare it, i suppose

[ghost-angel]

I would arbitrate as the person with the high Presence Score, personally.

[eepjr24]

A few snips to give context:

6e2, 18 (emphasis mine)

Quote

a Phase is a Segment in which a character can act, i.e., perform an Action. During a Phase, a character may perform one or more Actions, depending upon the nature of those Actions and the order in which he performs them. There are four basic types of Actions:

 

Summarizing, the four types are: Full Phase Actions, Half Phase Actions, Zero Phase Actions and Actions which take no time.

 

6e2, 18 again, Actions which take no time

Quote

For instance, a character could perform an Action that takes no time on a Segment when he doesn’t have a Phase, after performing a Full Phase Action, in the middle of attacking, before making an  attack, after attacking, or the like. Examples including making a Presence Attack, making a soliloquy, or making a roll at the GM’s request.

 

And finally, 6e2, 19

 

Quote

Who Goes First?
If there’s some question as to the exact timing of Actions (for example, a character is trying to Desolidify when someone’s trying to hit him), the GM should resolve the situation by having both characters make DEX Rolls. (At the GM’s option, a character with Fast Draw could use that Skill instead of a DEX Roll in appropriate circumstances.) The character who succeeds with his DEX Roll by the most gets to act first; if both characters succeed by the same amount, the Actions go off simultaneously. Sometimes this means a character gets hit just before he manages to use a Defense Power or take a defensive Action, but c’est la guerre. A character can Abort to a defensive Action (see below) to guarantee that it takes effect before he gets hit (similarly, a Held defensive
Action always takes place before an attack; see below).

So your answer here is that they would end up in a contested DEX Roll. There is obviously room for some interpretation, for instance if the character was declaring the PRE attack in the segment BEFORE the phase in which the attack was supposed to occur. But at that point the two would really be unrelated since she would not know that an attack was being launched for sure. 

 

I think this is another minor way in which DEX does justify it's 2 point cost. As always, YMMV.

 

- E

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, ghost-angel said:

I would arbitrate as the person with the high Presence Score, personally.

 

Hmmm...what about allowing both PRE attacks to act simultaneously, and operate as opposed PRE attacks?  Just for discussion - I haven't researched the rules or considered the possibility in any depth, but Cap rallying the troops against seeming=insurmountable odds seems like two PRE attacks colliding directly and simultaneously.

[ghost-angel]

That's a really valid and interesting idea. I like it. Not just opposing, but it's possible the 'losing' (or lesser) PRE Attack modifies the effects of the winning attack, so it's not just highest roll wins. If Cap gets PRE+40 to rally the troops, but the opposing force gets PRE+15 to cause a route, perhaps that modifiers Cap's roll down to PRE+25 instead. Not as effective, but still good.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Presence attacks are powerful enough without letting you bypass initiative and speed.  Not in my game.

[Hugh Neilson]

24 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Presence attacks are powerful enough without letting you bypass initiative and speed.  Not in my game.

 

Do you also prohibit speaking outside of SPD and DEX order?

 

It seems like a fellow struck by a huge attack and standing unshaken, seemingly unscathed, is a good reason for a PRE attack.  Tack on a soliloquy and away we go. 

 

It seems less than dramatic to force both the soliloquy and the PRE attack to wait for the target's next action, and disconnecting the PRE attack from the soliloquy even less reasonable.  "Oh, he was not impressed until your DEX" doesn't really cut it.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I personally feel that TTRPGs need to be less afraid of simultaneous actions.  It's surprisingly difficult to have a mutual knock-out in most systems, HERO included.  Despite that being not uncommon in fiction! 

[Toxxus]

14 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I personally feel that TTRPGs need to be less afraid of simultaneous actions.  It's surprisingly difficult to have a mutual knock-out in most systems, HERO included.  Despite that being not uncommon in fiction! 

 

They are unbelievably rare in actual combat sports though.  Less than one in a thousand fights ends this way and they usually make the news when they do.

[Surrealone]

On 6/21/2019 at 2:33 PM, dekrass said:

Do Dexterity rolls and skills and such come up more than other types in most games?

 

Is initiative really a major deciding factor in a lot of combats?

The only fair answer to both question is: it depends.

 

If you have a highly dexterous Speedster, Dex rolls and skills likely do come up more than they otherwise would.  If, however, you have a slower, Brick-type character, then probably not. As to whether initiative is really a major deciding factor in a lot of combats, the answer is similar to the above -- it can be … or it might not be -- depending on what archetype you're playing, how you play it, etc.

 

I played a Cosmic power pool-based, mage-like character for 3.5 years. For two of those years he was Dex 8, SPD 2, and in year 3 I raised his SPD to 3 and his Dex slowly climbed to 20.  This was a 5er game where CV was tied to Dex, no less -- so, as you can imagine, AoE type effects were really his schtick in the firs two years.  His low Dex and Speed were used to offset his flexibility/toolboxiness -- allowing a sort of balance, as he could do amazing things with the pool, but only a max of twice a turn (late in each Segment on which he had a Phase, no less) -- resulting in every choice mattering a great deal in combat because he got so few of them.  The GM had but to make me Abort to take the character mostly out of the picture, if he wanted, so I was very careful about what spells/effects were active even out of combat.  (All spells/effects were pre-written and pre-approved before any game play, btw, so I simply had to pick from a list.)

 

Sure, he could make himself faster and more dexterous if needed, but it meant not doing other things for the group.  Most of the time I ran him at his base Dex and SPD without issues or concerns -- but doing so entailed careful play using cover and thinking 6-8 moves ahead at all times (yes, outside of combat … because starting position and active powers in combat was hugely important to this low speed, low Dex character).

 

I guess what I'm getting at is that initiative matters only as much as you make it matter to a particular character/build.

 

 

[Cassandra]

DEX important because it's used not only for skills, but both offense and defense in combat.  Most characters in comics rely on it to avoid being hit (sometimes with Martial Block or Dodge) rather then taking the damage.

[ghost-angel]

12 minutes ago, Cassandra said:

DEX important because it's used not only for skills, but both offense and defense in combat.  Most characters in comics rely on it to avoid being hit (sometimes with Martial Block or Dodge) rather then taking the damage.

 

This only applies to 5E and earlier when OCV/DCV was tied to DEX. This discussion involves 6E Pricing, which does not include CVs or SPD.