Thread: Defensive Auras
View Single Post
Old 01-28-2019, 04:04 PM   #239
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Defensive Auras

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
IAs which are powers provide power parries against appropriate targets.
Sure, as an active defense. Adding Aura does not provide an additional defenses, though, so I'm not sure why it matters?

Quote:
When whether or not you waste your costly warping hinges upon whether or not there's a value in warping away, it seems like the warper would know that the attack missed and that's why they didn't bother to teleport in response to it.
The rules permit that. They don't say anything about letting you alter time. I expanded on why trying to prevent an attack that was already rolled for wasn't an interception of the attack (that's a parry or block), but an attempt to go back and stop it from every happening at all.

Besides, all you know is the time you rolled was the time it mattered. Your character was presumably doing other things at other times, it just wasn't important.

Quote:
Pretty sure Wait maneuvers are reactive too.
No, you're delaying your action until after an event. If you don't take the (Wait) delay first, you don't get a maneuver when that event happens later. Furthermore, you must describe what event you're waiting for *and* what action you'll take. If you are waiting for Z to approach, but Y decides to shoot you instead, your Wait is wasted and you don't react.

That's the opposite of Active Defenses which are done on demand, not used until needed, and chosen after you see what your opponent is doing.

Quote:
I can tell whether you missed your roll (there's no need for me to actively defend) or whether you succeeded (there is a need to actively defend). I can tell that you will hit or that you won't hit if I do nothing. What I can't tell is whether or not if I choose to react, I'll do so quickly enough to stop it.
Actually, that's paraphrasing what I said. You will only know if you get a chance to defend, which if you don't defend, will result in you being affected by the attack. There's no event to trigger your wait on here. In fact, if your opponent rolls a critical success or for some other reason no defense is possible, the GM can jump straight to telling you how much damage you've taken.

Quote:
According to which page?
Read the rules for Waits and Active Defenses. They aren't on the same page.

Quote:
You take a Wait before the turn of the person you are reacting to. It's already your turn. You've already chosen your maneuver. You're just delaying it until you react to something.
Sort of. You're delaying action until something specific has happened, to which you'll take a predefined response. I gather you've treated waits like "meh, I'll take my action later after I know what they are doing" rather than "if anyone gets inside sword range, I'll attack them with my sword."

Quote:
That something might be "an enemy throws an attack that will not hit me unless stopped or avoided" or "an enemy throws an attack that will hit me unless stopped or avoided". There's no backing up time involved.
Sure, I even showed you an example. Someone rolls for a punch that will hit. You claim you can interrupt the punch, take your action and knock them down or out. That punch that was going to hit you, now never occurred because they aren't in a position to initiate it. You can't really claim you intercepted the punch, because if the original roll were to stand, unmodified, you would get hit before they went down. It was either good enough to hit you (defend or damage, wait doesn't matter) or it was prevented from occurring by knocking them down before they made that "good hit" roll (time reversal).

Quote:
Same logic for Wait.
First off, it's a matter of game mechanics that separate different situations.

Second, it makes no sense that you could prevent the action you're supposed to be reacting to.

Third, active defenses don't prevent the attack from happening. If you were just avoiding or deflecting the attack, you'd be doing what the game calls an "active defense."

Quote:
You are able to dodge gunfire without massive penalties because
Because the rules let you, no more, no less. If the rules did not let you, you could not. The "why" is only interesting when explaining the scene. What you use for a "why" may not apply to any one else's game or game world. Your "logic" is just your description of what you see happening when you imagine it. It does not represent what the rules say any more than if I suggested GURPS bullet dodge is done that way because it's simpler than taking into account erratic movement and target speed.

Quote:
A parallel I could use would be the idea of using Obscure as some kind of Power Dodge. Obscure doesn't let you dodge attacks, but if someone was attacking you and you wanted to react by obscuring them after they began their attack but before they finished it, a successful power dodge meaning they could apply the penalty to the roll (a failure meaning they reacted too late, and can't apply it to THAT roll) sounds fair.
First off, Obscure isn't allowed a Power Dodge, since it can't get you out of the way or transform you in a way to prevent the hit. Obscure can allow a Power Block, though, and is listed as an example under Power Block. Second, popping smoke after a shot is fired won't interfere with the original aim at all, so it doesn't make any sense to try to apply a "post-aim" penalty. Third, none of the power defenses (Power Block/Dodge/Parry) apply any penalties after an attack has been made. Indeed, I can't think of a case where additional penalties are applied after a roll unless you screwed up on the calculation of the original penalties. Certainly it's too late for the target to make aiming harder *after* the shot has been fired.

Quote:
If you mean by reducing effective skill below 3, are you sure that means someone absolutely can't do something (try to grapple, drop an object, try to punch, throw something) or just that it has 0% chance of success and is an automatic miss?
Perhaps they fell down, got knocked out, or even killed. At that point, you have this ambiguous roll that was supposedly successful before you invoked your wait that you now are trying to change or pretend did not happen.

Quote:
Not if the attack is still in the process of happening. Turn interruption is a lot like how Decreased Time Rate would interact with normies.
Neither that nor ATR works in that way. You still take and follow the turn sequence.

Quote:
If someone doesn't have common sense and doesn't make attacks without rolling, there is the weird benefit that they can't critically fail (since they do not roll) which is weird, so allowing them to roll just to see if they miss normally or miss critically would be a good house rule.
It's more of a nuisance than anything and I wouldn't consider it adding to the story to know that you dropped your coffee cup or made some very odd tasting coffee while researching mummies. Critically failing the research roll, sure, that's important. Those side events, not so much.
naloth is offline   Reply With Quote