[TS] Slicing the pie, a question?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Langy

Sure, but why is that a bad thing?

I just quoted a wall of text showing what happened back when a similar free lunch was available and what was bad about it.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

But its not a free lunch the chap waiting without moving gets a +2 bounus on the cascading wait QC that quite a lot in cases of roughly similar levels of combatants.

The step and wait cutting the pie is a compromise solution when facing a potential waiting opponent on the other side of the door between:

A). moving in normally (and more quickly) and attacking, and getting hit by a waiting opponent

and

B). Standing there with you own wait not moving.


Cutting the pie is normally down by those initiating the action, doing so against opponent who can sit and wait is a compromise. This is shown by the relative -2 disadvantage.

For me step and wait is kind of like the half way house between wait and not waiting, in the same way as defensive attack is compromise between AoD and standard attack.

Basically a free lunch assumes there's no down sides to doing it, and that not the case. Your limited to a step, your limited in your target choice (you concentrating on the appearance of target in a specific place) and your disadvantaged against a waiting target who's waiting for you.

There are no down sides to doing it. Let's compare:

• Wait gives up the right to attack immediately (risking characters in the turn sequence between A and B doing something to influence it, among other things) and the right to move before the Wait is triggered. A Wait is wasted if the external condition doesn't occur (e.g. nobody steps into your range).
• Attack gets to perform the action immediately, with a step before or after it. It also is vulnerable to Waits (i.e. a Waiter gets to act before the Attacker).
• A Step-and-Wait does everything the Attack does and more, with no downsides; plus everything Wait does (though you move your Step to before your Attack). It gets to attack immediately by setting up a trigger condition that you yourself fulfil by stepping (so you never waste your opportunity). It gets a free ride to become 'tied' in the initiative order with someone who has the initiative. It gets the mobility of Attack. It is not any more vulnerable to Waits or Step-and-Waits than a Wait, and is always a priority over an enemy Attack.

Really, Step-and-Wait gets the best of both worlds, and no or nearly no drawbacks in exchange for it. If you have the right to make Step-and-Waits, you'll probably never ever need to perform normal Attacks ever again.