Roll to notice foe's All Out Attack

[seycyrus]

In your games do PCs (or NPCs for that matter) automatically know if a foe All-out-Attacks?

I guess the general question is, do you announce the combat options being taken, disguise it in verbal camouflage, or do you make some sort of roll?

How do you avoid the following,

GM: The orc chieftain howls in rage and swings his sword twice in fury!

Player 1: All out attack eh? I attack the chieftain.
Player 2: I attack the chieftain.
Player 3: Attack chief

[cdru]

IIRC, only Feint can't be detected (If it succeeds). All other maneuvers are obvious

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

How do you avoid the following,

GM: The orc chieftain howls in rage and swings his sword twice in fury!

Player 1: All out attack eh? I attack the chieftain.
Player 2: I attack the chieftain.
Player 3: Attack chief

In general, you avoid that happening by not having NPCs you don't want to take several attacks take All-Out Attack maneuvers, or only doing so when there are few or no enemies in easy reach of them. Or just give them the stats to survive being hit several times - against a group of fantasy PCs, buy some DR and a lot of HP.

[sir_pudding]

All-Out Attack best represents attacks that in real life are pretty obvious and that put a fighter out of position to effectively defend.

[roguebfl]

Here is some Kromm Quotes that should help

Originally Posted by Kromm

The only maneuver that shouldn't be obvious is Feint. Everything else is meant to be stated openly. All-Out Attack would be zero-risk if it weren't obvious, and Concentrate over multiple seconds wouldn't be the drawback that the rules for spells and powers assume it is if enemies weren't aware of it. Another way to put it is as follows: The rules assume that everybody on the battlefield knows everybody else's maneuver, save Feint. If you don't play it that way, certain things become unbalanced.

Originally Posted by Kromm

The following results in combat are obvious without any dice rolling:

• Knocked back.
• Knocked down.
• Stunned; the heart attack mortal condition; and the agony, choking, daze, and ecstasy incapacitating conditions.
• Crippled.
• Hallucinating incapacitating condition.
• Retching incapacitating condition.
• Seizure incapacitating condition.
• Dead; unconscious; the coma mortal condition; and the paralysis, sleep, and unconsciousness incapacitating conditions.

However, it would require a Concentrate maneuver and a skill roll to distinguish between two conditions on the same line above in a fight (stunned vs. daze, dead vs. merely unconscious, etc.). Ditto to distinguish between two causes of the same condition (knocked down by failed HT roll vs. knocked down by failed DX roll, mental vs. physical stun, etc.). And ditto to identify shock (the penalty due to injury), irritating conditions (coughing/sneezing, drowsy, drunk, euphoria, nauseated, pain, or tipsy), or wounds (missing 1 HP vs. missing 4 HP, etc.).

I would allow several skills to work here. Diagnosis is obvious, but other possibilities might be Body Language (to notice shock, tell types of stun apart, etc.), Physiology, Streetwise (to spot drunk, euphoria, etc., and to distinguish ecstasy/daze due to drugs from combat stun), and anything else the player convinced me made sense. For instance, I'd let a boxer make a Per-based Boxing roll to assess the results of his beating. The important part is the turn spent scrutinizing the target, not the skill. I'd probably give a bonus equal in size to the largest relevant penalty to notice irritating conditions and shock, too; drunk, with -4 to self-control rolls, would be +4 to spot, compared to +2 for tipsy. Likewise, -4 in shock would give +4.

However, the simple answer about stun is, "Yes, it's obvious when somebody is stunned." In general, if somebody wants to fake still being stunned (or any other status above), the onus is on him to win a Quick Contest vs. observers' IQ or relevant skill.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by cdru

IIRC, only Feint can't be detected (If it succeeds). All other maneuvers are obvious

In my games everything is detectable, including Feint. Feint is just rolled when it's actually needed, rather than when it's initiated.

[Tomsdad]

Generally speaking I don't announce stuff in game terms. I certainly adjust my descriptions based on them though. I also tend to play up situational awareness and evaluate bonuses for combatants who look to assess whats going on around them. For me these combat options are relative to each other and also include a hefty random variation, both of which would make it hard to act on perfect knowledge of them on a second by second basis

This isn't RAW, but it's pretty much how I've always run combat. For a similar reason I run combat as fast as possible, and also don't necessarily tell the players the game mechanics results of their actions as they happen*. Basically I try and get away from combat being a series of leisurely choices made while sitting around a table in god view mode. For me all this is part of the same desired end result

But yeah my games are skewed towards the similationist end of the spectrum


*e.g. Ongoing fire fight in a busy built up urban area:

"he pops up from behind the wall 30 yards away, you shoot at him and he drops out of sight"

vs.

"he pops up from behind the wall your shot hits, you hit the torso but I rolled a 1 so that's vitals yeah he takes a 32pt injury his HP are 11 and he fails his death save"

(yeah OK that's an extreme comparison for effect, there is a middle ground there!)

[Tomsdad]

To go into a bit of detail on the point I referenced above about actions being relative and variation getting in the way of people in fights recognising what exactly their opponents are doing.

Take the following range of attacks at different strengths:

AoA(S), Committed Attack (S), normal Attack, Defensive Attack

Now in games terms of an attack that's based on 1d damage that's +2, +1, 0 and -2

So says it's a ST11 chap with an axe in one hand that 1d+4 (5-10), 1d+3 (4-9), 1d+2 (3-8) and 1d (1-6). So in terms variation in felt effect there's overlap between all four. That overlap is further obscured by the other variables that are wrapped in the random dice roll.

And that's with the same ST stat, what if he's ST12 doing a Defensive attack, what if he's ST10 doing a committed one, what if you don't know what his ST is?

So one argument is you recognise the difference in effort, well OK but I suggest different ST scores that are closer or further away from the MinST stat of the weapon will obscure this.

Another argument is well you'd recognize the gap lefts in effective defense by these different attacks. Well maybe in theory, but the base line effective defense is also a variable based on a combination of stats and effects you won't know. Moreover since it's a range how will you know what this chap's defence looks like when they throw a defensive attack if you don't have a normal attack to compare to?*

I also find it odd that we assume that we can finely judge the difference between opponent's attack options by visual clues like gaps in defence and how much effort they put in. But if that's a norm in combat won't combatants know that and try to obfuscate it (trying to keep your specific intentions hidden is pretty standard practice)?

Which actually brings up a point, if your throwing telegraphic attacks then I tend to let your opponents know what your choice is as a well.

I've only used one example of a range in combat options here, but similar arguments can be made for most of them.

i.e. what does a 'wait' look like compared to 'concentrate' or 'evaluate'?
Did that chap just do committed attack (d), or is he just two points higher in skill than I thought, or did he just roll 2 less on his 3d6 than average, etc, etc



There is another argument that comes up on this, is that fo game balance, i.e these different actions are balanced against each other in the system on the assumption that knowledge of them is known. And well since that's not an argument of 'realism" or simulation that pretty trumps my points above which are based on that. But well then we get into a personal opinion of what kind of games we run and the 'right' answer is the one that gives you individually the game you want.




*again I don't make this kind of analysis impossible, but the point is I don't make it automatic

[sir_pudding]

Just use the Untrained Fighter rules, that constrains their manuever choices already.

[Skarg]

In a game without house rules, I either do let the maneuver be known, or describe it so someone who knows the rules can probably figure it out (or someone who doesn't will get a useful clue), or I make a ruling based on the observer and what they were doing whether they noticed or not.

With house rules, everyone has a (default, at least) Combat Sense skill, and that's used to determine how aware of details one is, as well as what maneuvers one is allowed to take oneself. Realizing the person you are fighting did an All Out Attack is easy (+4), but only +2 or +0 for people you're not focused on or are obscured.