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Old 07-31-2018, 07:40 AM   #1
bluekitsune13
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Default What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

I came up with a weird situation when reading through the rules. From what I understand, DX is fluid. Things can change during the course of the turn that can raise or lower your DX. I basically made a little scale on a piece of paper starting at 20 and counting down to 0. You start at the top and check if anyone is DX 20. If not you move the tracker down one and so on.

The weird situation is when you make special attacks that lower your DX. For example doing a wild swing I think it's called, with a 2 handed weapon. It says it lowers your DX by 4. So say my fighter has a DX of 12, and now it's my turn. If I want to do a wild swing against the 2 enemies in front of me, could I do it now? Or by declaring it, would I have to wait until DX 8 to act? If I have to wait, what if I change my mind after an enemy acts? Would that let me cut in line and act or am I locked in?

Another situation is two weapon fighting. The rules say you can make the first attack at normal DX, but the second is at -4DX. Do both attacks happen on my current turn, or do I make one attack now, then wait for the 2nd one? I know that having high DX with bows let you fire two arrows, and the rules mention that the 2nd shot comes at the end of the round in DX order. I don't see anything like that mentioned.

Can anyone help me out?
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Old 07-31-2018, 07:42 AM   #2
Terquem
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Idaho Falls
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

Adj Dex, at the time you act in the round is based on the value it is at the moment. Making attacks that effect your Dex simply effect the target you need to roll under

At least that's the way I always played it.
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Old 07-31-2018, 08:02 AM   #3
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

Hi BlueKitsune13,
We played it that if you make a special attack that lowers your DX, then the attack goes off at the new adjusted DX.

So in your example, the DX 12 fighter does something that lowers his DX by 4, then he would attack with the DX 8 figures.

***

We prefer it this way, because it makes it risky to do special attacks. A really high DX bowman can fire at arms, legs, heads, etc. But let us say that we have:

Archer: ST 11, DX 18, IQ 9.
Target: ST 14, DX 13, IQ 10.

If the archer wants to fire at the target's head, the archer will go AFTER the target has gotten a chance to smash the adjacent figure with his massive weapon of smiting.

So there is a trade off, a tough choice. The archer can make a tricky shot that is devastating, but the downsize is that his friend gets smote. Tough choices make the game more interesting to play.

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 07-31-2018, 08:37 AM   #4
Kirk
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

This is an excellent question, and more than likely is house-ruled differently by groups.

What is needed is a way to distinguish DX modifications that apply to your Speed vs. Accuracy.

I hope SJ addresses this in the new rules, because it fundamentally affects the game, especially the tactical combat aspect.

Some DX changes are more obvious than others, some could go either, or both, ways.
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Old 07-31-2018, 09:00 AM   #5
bluekitsune13
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

That makes sense to have any negative modifiers affect your turn order. A large heavy swing would take a moment to ready, or to take careful aim at a body part. It might just be hard to keep track of though.
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Old 07-31-2018, 09:02 AM   #6
RobW
 
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Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

Yes, this is a really good question. In this case, we always played it straight up, first attack DX12 both for order and to-hit, second at DX8 for order and to-hit.

But there are more questions just like yours, eg range modifiers. I'm a DX18 longbow shooting at a target far away, adjDX = 16. Does my attack go off at 18 or 16? At DX18 I can fire twice a turn, but what about in this case?
We always played that range modifiers didn't affect order of action, just accuracy, but not sure why!
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Old 07-31-2018, 09:11 AM   #7
Nils_Lindeberg
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

The rules are pretty clear. You decide when you want to act, so if you get hit and that lowers your adjDX and then you get a buff and you decide to hit someone in the back instead of another in the front, your adjDX will jump up and down. But you always take your turn according to a count down, except for pole weapons and such.

In practical play it can get bogged down in a large melee, and many, myself included go with the base adjDX you have at the start of the turn. And anything that happens after that or choices you make that changes the actual roll doesn't count for speed purposes. We took this from the optional rules about delayed actions. One advantage is that you can be seated around the table in adjDX order as well.

They mention that delayed action is a problem to be avoided if possible, but they are not a problem if you do count down and that rule mentions strict DX order. Probably not RAW or RAI, but practical. Sure there might be a tactical choice that we miss, but we get have time for more fights so we will have more options that way instead. :-)

Another tricky thing about delayed actions would otherwise be that people don't take their turn as an archer at their appropriate adjDX, but waits for their slower friends claiming they intend to do an aimed shot or some such. Then when enough people have acted and they can see where their shot would be of most use, they chose their target, and takes no aimed shot. And according to the rules they can use their full adjDX. And this without using the optional Delayed action rule. And that is RAW as far as I understand it. Just feels strange to me.

When it comes to the rules for two weapon fighting where you make a second attack at a lower DX, there are none I think. But I would assume it follows the same rule as archery secondary attacks. That is in DX order at the end of the turn.
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Old 07-31-2018, 09:16 AM   #8
RobW
 
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Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

So Nils do you feel the rules are clear that adjDX penalties for range affect order and possibility of second bow shot?
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Old 07-31-2018, 09:48 AM   #9
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

It is an excellent question.

We almost always played that modifiers that are just about doing something difficult simply reduce the chance of success, but not the time when they happen. This means figuring out exactly which modifiers affect action sequence and which do not, which is not spelled out in the rules so you need a principle and a ruling for that, but we found this pretty easy to figure out.

The advantage of doing it this way is simplicity for the sequence of actions. If you allow all modifiers to affect action sequence, then instead of every figure having a clear time they can act, each figure may have MANY times they could act (opponents with different facings or on the ground giving attackers to-hit bonuses, options such as aimed shots and sweeping blows, and especially ranged attacks where each target has a ranged DX modifier...). I usually embrace complexity, but this can quickly get more complex than I want, especially because it doesn't entirely make solid sense to me.

However some people do have all DX modifiers affecting action sequence. It does add another dimension to decisions, as Rick described above.
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Old 07-31-2018, 09:58 AM   #10
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default Re: What happens if you have an action that lowers your DX on your turn?

The way I always played it was to ignore those DX adjustments that came from choices when figuring order of action. So if I have a DX16 warrior wearing chain (-3) and having suffered a blow (-2) last turn then he acts with an adj DX of 11. If, when his turn to act comes, he chooses to make an aimed blow for -4DX, he still acts in order at DX11 but needs to roll 7 on the dice. That seemed a lot simpler to me, and I like to keep it simple.

Having said that, when I split DX into two it became a non issue as Agility covered when you acted and Dexterity covered whether you hit or not.
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