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03-20-2021, 03:20 PM
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#11 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: How limiting is cowardice?
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Combat/Fight is possibly more broad than "danger". I could as a "No Head" DR 100 superhero be in "combat" with a ST 100 human who has no chance whatsoever of inflicting 1 HP to me ever: in theory Combat Paralysis would still trigger (we're grappling) even though I'm in no danger, so Cowardice would not. This however would require me to to absolutely nothing if I had ST capable of injuring myself: since critically failing on an attack/parry can result in you inflicting thrust crushing to yourself. another exception would be if I was holding anything capable of harming me if I dropped it (like a 100d burning grenade) since B580 has a "drop anything he is holding" crit success result, not to mentioning intentional Disarm attacks. When it's an unresisting (ie sleeping/comatose) foe I wouldn't think it counts as combat/fight any more than it would with target shooting. In that case I don't think you need to worry about a critical failure so long as you have an effective skill of at least 15 and a TDM of at least +3: you don't bother rolling per Psionic Powers (bicycle rules) so you don't need to worry about critical failure results and self-harm. IE if you're base skill 10 spending 60 seconds (+7) aiming a pistol 1y away at a firing range, the GM isn't going to actually obligate you to roll to hit, you just do. Same with buttering your bread, so long as you give enough time to get an effective skill of 15 to insert your butterknife into your peanut butter jar and to grapple your whole-wheat-slice. The major difference is when you ping a target, it stays an immobile target, whereas a sleeping target whose throat is slit is probably going to wake up and thrash around, at which point combat probably does occur. Exceptions might include if you inflict a major wound (>50% HP loss) and they fail their HT roll for Knockdown by 5 or more and pass out: if a foe passes out then I think combat (at least in respect to them) can be considered to have ceased until they awaken. I guess in that context they don't even spasm, which is kinda strange... If it were a standing foe with MoF 5 they would still fall down, which is movement that could complicate a followup attack. Someone already lying down can't fall but it's kinda weird they won't spasm... Maybe "fall unconscious" from a lying position is like a 0-yard fall and we could still roll some kind of damage based on that for spasming as one "falls" unconscious? Turning the metaphor into crunch so to speak. That involuntary action could then cause secondary attack effects: if it's enough to cause crushing damage then you could let them Roll With Blow (even while uncosncious) to mitigate the spasm's crushing damage (DX protects unconsciously?) and consider even an unconscious use of "roll with blow" to be "combat" for at least that one second, whether it succeeds or not. This would mean any instance of something suffering crushing damage could count as combat (moves them around, instinctive RWB) or any attack which inflicts a major wound (prompts a fall, even a 0yd fall, instinctive RWB) creates a spasm that counts as combat. We might need something to cover non-spasming things suffering major wounds though. It's a major wound to a slice of bread when I cut it in half but I don't think it's going to thrash around in any appreciable way that counts as combat. Maybe one way to do that is to require at least an effective skill of 3 for Roll With Blow to trigger. It's not technically an active defense so "can try at 1 or 2" policy need not apply. This way, the slice-of-whole-wheat-bread with merely DX 1 or 2 couldn't RWB (unless they bought up the technique) and so that combat option doesn't exist for them. Buying up techniques probably requires that you are sentient (minimum IQ of 1) so non-sentient bread could probably not specialize in Roll With Blow. I think there's also that "you need DX 1 or higher to make any kind of movement whatsoever" absolute rule which would prevent IQ 1 RWB+6 bread slices from using RWB with DX 0. I probably should've just written blueberry muffin. - - - If a sleeping human is merely merely stunned by a goblin neck-slice (failed HT roll by only 1-4 points) and taking Do Nothings and defending at -4, I still think that would qualify as "combat" so Combat Paralysis would apply, and Cowardice probably applies (even though the human can't "Attack" the goblin until Stun ends and they can make a different maneuver choice) because it's actually possible for active defenses to be harmful: if a human uses an Aggressive Parry (net -5 to parry during stun) against a Goblin they could actually harm the goblin: they're in danger! I could see something akin to Precision Aiming (HT26) being allowed, if not for striking, at least for grappling, if we could extend that to melee weapons. Instead of allowing beyond-limit enhancements to the Aim maneuver, instead for the Evaluate maneuver. Basically at some point, if given enough time, you should be able to put your hand around someone's throat, or put a blade against their throat, without needing to worry about missing. This just probably happens so slowly that you can't use Striking ST based damage, because that implies some level of speed. So a goblin throat-slitter who wanted to make sure he wouldn't miss the neck should probably (if allowing this "Precision Grappling" kind of house rule) use "Armed Grappling" with 90 seconds of prep (+7 to hit) to place the knife against the throat, and then roll thrust based on his Lifting ST (x 0.5 for one hand) to apply Control Points (per technical grappling) and then inflicts 0.5 points of basic damage per control point, or more simply 1 cutting per -1 to ST he inflicts on the neck. After the first instance of damage the foe is likely to wake up (unless maybe he has neck armor you need to saw through?) so you wouldn't bother with this "Precision Aiming" ripoff: it'd be a waste of time. |
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