[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Plane

An interesting question for example: what would happen if I was suddenly stunned and forced to take a "Do Nothing" on my next turn?

So would that mean....

1) someone who is stunned is forced to spend AP to decelerate to 0?
or...
2) a stunned person maintains their momentum in the direction they were traveling?

The maximum acceptable Move for a Do Nothing is 0. You can't move at all...

As a GM, I'd could see a justification either way, depending on how he was stunned. Mental stun is probably #2, while physical stun is probably #1. I'd probably tack on a slow non-AP cost deceleration for the mental stun, and for the physical stun they'd be rolling vs. DX to avoid tripping and falling down if they had to burn the AP. Stunning seems like it would be VERY hard on your AP in general.

Stunned people CAN make active defenses at -4 though... as well as roll to maintain a grapple (if someone tries to Break Free) at -4, and those things DO consume Cole's Action Points... so a Do Nothing wouldn't necessarily mean an inability to spend AP...

Doing "Nothing" at -4 does seem like a common occurrence. I'd be ok with allowing an evade at an additional -4 , perhaps with the caveat that its capped at 9 or something.

That still leaves us with possible collision damage though.

That's why I'm thinking maybe the solution is some sort of "you consume 1 AP per second to remain standing" type thing, but somehow mitigated by a role penalized by your present rate of travel, so that the faster a speed you maintain, the more AP you lose, while it costs less AP to keep your balance while moving at slow speeds (or not moving at all).

That's a rabbit hole all of its own, but it might work. That's a LOT of rolling though.

Good point, though I've never liked the "front-left and front-right take just as much effort to enter as front-centre" weirdness. I begin to picture a guy sprinting around a central hex somehow at just as much speed as he can go forward. That's not how momentum works =/

Limiting the free hex direction change to 1 per second seems like a good compromise.

Since what we're talking about would not be an intentional slam (where I would roll at DX to hit you) but more like an accidental hit...

"Striking Into a Close Combat" (B392) begins that you strike into close combat at -2... then the last paragraph talks about how if you miss, you may accidentally hit something else...

I'm thinking of this example. Let's say I am Dorothy running down the Yellow Brick Road... let's say a brick is 6 inches long, that rounds up to (B19) SM-6 (for 7 inches) and +1 for being an elongated box would make it SM-5...

B404 allows Trampling if your SM exceeds something by 2, so Dorothy can Trample that Brick using an Attack. This would be at the usual -5 to hit it, but with -2 (since the brick is sharing a hex with other bricks) it is -7... and if Dorothy misses stepping on her intended brick, she then follows SIACC rules to see if her Trample attack hits a different brick instead...

This is rolled randomly to determine which target (which seems kind of strange, you'd think there'd be a higher chance to hit the more adjacent bricks, much like "Scatter" rules) and the lower of 9 or Dorothy's modified Trample skill (DX10-7 = skill 3!) is used to roll to see if she hits those other bricks...

Ultimately this would mean Dorothy would possibly miss ALL the bricks (not enough likely exist in a 1 yard hex to guarantee she'll roll three ones to get a critical success, the only way her Trample could hit!) and somehow Trample nothing at all...

This also leads to problems like if a hex was full of mice (literally no space free of a mouse) that even though you should miss the one you intend to squash, you ought to squash some other one (there being no place to aim free of mouse) with the only solution basically being that either you treat the mice as a collective entity (swarm) so probably the solution to make sure Dorothy will definitely trample one brick is to treat a brick road like a Swarm.

B461 "Any attack against a swarm hits automatically. The swarm gets no defense roll."

That's a weird bit though... ie you can automatically Stamp Kick a swarm of rats even if that swarm is occupying the same hex as their Rat King master, there's no chance of accidentally stomping on Rat King's foot or leg?

The problem with automatic hitting is there's nothing to apply the -2 to, and no way for a miss to result in a 9 or less roll to accidentally hit other targets in the hex... IE to accidentally knock into you when I'm just trying place my foot on a piece of the Yellow Brick Swarm...

Maybe swarms should just be +4 to hit, like if you were to target the hex containing the swarm (B414 Attacking an Area) ...

Perhaps moving through an area could function somehow like a Bombardment AE? Like there's a random chance (8 or less, modified by Size Modifier) of bumping into every target occupying that hex, which they can actively defend against?

Perhaps since it's like a "melee bombardment" it could be defended against at +2 like it was a Telegraphic Attack?

RPGs have always struggled with dense formations. Which is odd, given their roots.