How exact should a wait maneuver be?

[MrFix]

Failure on Perception roll just means "You can't ID who's coming through". If you then choose to shoot, you may suffer friendly fire. If you choose not to shoot, you might let an enemy slip through. That's it. You must specify that you won't attack automatically before you take your Wait, thus accepting -2 to hit on any attack you do or do not make.

By default, you MUST attack the first target through the door. You must specify not attacking automatically.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

What happens if you fail the Per roll? Does it depend on who comes through the door?

You could -- if the group agrees when you bring up this question beforehand! -- make that part of the specification. In fact, what to do in the unknown case falls naturally out of typical English phrasing. Consider the difference between:

"I attack the first hostile to come through the door" -- a failed Per roll means you don't identify the enemy as hostile, so you don't attack. If a friend walks through first, a failed Per roll also means you don't identify the target as hostile, and still don't attack. (A failed roll doesn't mean you get a definite, opposite answer. It means you're not certain. The Wait might only trigger in a certain case.)

"I attack the first person to come through the door, unless it's a friend" -- a failed Per roll on a friend means you don't realize that it's a friend, and so attack.

Or you can just explicitly ask what to do on the default roll. Maybe that feels more like programming. (The computer programmers out there will recognize the earlier phrasing and have even more specific ways to notate the default case.) Or maybe it's simpler than trying to parse subtleties of phrasing as with the above.

The third option's been covered earlier -- just defer the question until it comes up, and let the player choose at that point. This gives the player a lot more scope to change their mind based on the current situation, but avoids all the write-the-wish-contract-not-to-get-screwed legalisms.

So, choose your poison... any of them will work as long as the group is all on the same page.

The thing not to do is avoiding settling on an answer until the question actually comes up in game, when you find out that different players have different feelings about how mechanistic that rule needs to be and how maliciously the GM is supposed to twist the wording. The problem's not going to be with any interpretation of the rule; the problem is going to be with the arguments that ensue in the heat of battle.

[RyanW]

Not a Wait, but a similar situation.

I once had a group of PCs moving slowly through a totally empty (but very creeping) building and the gunner of the crew turned a corner and saw someone. He made a Per roll and failed, so I told him basically "armed person coming around corner at far end of room" and nothing else and asked him what he did (and subtly implied that stopping to identify the target any better than that would risk allowing the target to act first). He opted to open fire, since all friendlies were accounted for, and anyone else in the building had no business being there.

He absolutely destroyed that mirror.

[transmetahuman]

I would consider bonuses and penalties to that PER roll based on familiarity and anything about the "target" that makes it distinctive to even the most casual glance - or anything particularly generic, stealthy clothing, or whatever. If the Big Bad is teenage girl in a glowing, glitter-bedecked cheerleader's uniform with a palpable aura of cosmic power, you're probably not going to mistake her for your male poker buddy who might be coming back with that beer around now.

[lugaid]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

I would consider bonuses and penalties to that PER roll based on familiarity and anything about the "target" that makes it distinctive to even the most casual glance - or anything particularly generic, stealthy clothing, or whatever. If the Big Bad is teenage girl in a glowing, glitter-bedecked cheerleader's uniform with a palpable aura of cosmic power, you're probably not going to mistake her for your male poker buddy who might be coming back with that beer around now.

This is, in fact, a part of why uniforms were invented.