04-16-2021, 06:53 AM | #11 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
That's a pretty well-considered solution. I might steal it and tell everyone I came up with it all by myself.
I'll call it Phiwum's Rule. I'll be famous! |
04-16-2021, 09:07 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
I'm not so sure that the standard rules are all that unrealistic. The furthest gap you can cross when moving from cover to cover is 40', or about 7 sprinter's strides. Given that you really need to carefully 'lead' a quickly moving target if you are going to hit them with an arrow or thrown weapon, I suspect you'd find it very challenging to do unless it were a total 'set up job', like a clay pigeon where you know exactly where, when and the path and velocity of the target.
If I were going to make a house rule for something like this I'd: 1) only do it under a lot of pressure, as I would hate to set a precedence for something really outside the core structure of the rules and potentially manipulatable for advantages in other situations, and 2) have it work sort of like an area fire thing where you can loose a missile into a small gap between cover, but with just a gambler's chance of any one missile hitting something. |
04-16-2021, 09:47 AM | #13 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
Well, the standard rules are unrealistic at least in the sense that movement is chunky. Take an armored guy with MA 6. If the next cover is six hexes away, you have no shot at all. If it's seven hexes away, you have a shot with no penalty.
But that sort of crude outcome really can't easily be done away with. There's a tradeoff between simplicity and realism. I tend to think that there should be some chance at a shot when moving from cover to cover in one turn, but maybe it's not important enough for others. Partly depends on how often it comes up and I'm not sure it's come up at all for me. |
04-16-2021, 10:40 AM | #14 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
Quote:
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04-16-2021, 01:00 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
And that rule applies to melee as well as missile fire (I suspect an often overlooked detail!).
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04-16-2021, 02:57 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
I presumed that Steve's amendment explicitly applies only to missile weapons, not to every instance where one says he's waiting for an opening.
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04-16-2021, 08:08 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jun 2019
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
Quote:
EXACTLY!
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"I'm not arguing. I'm just explaining why I'm right." |
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04-16-2021, 08:31 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
I did, too, but it still begs the question about melee weapons. After all, what's so special about a bow that makes it somehow faster to draw and loose than one can stab with a rapier when waiting for an opening?
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04-16-2021, 08:39 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
Quote:
According to RAW, the guy who waits does get a minor advantage in speeding his action a bit, because his adjDX is one or two points higher, but I know that you're not really referring to that. I fudge the adjDX order to keep things simple in turn order anyway. If one took every DX adjustment into account, it becomes pretty tricky with a combat of eight or more participants. Anyway, I don't think it's a huge stretch to think that there's a difference between waiting for your target to come into view and waiting for an opening in melee. I might change my mind if I see it in use, I suppose. |
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04-16-2021, 08:41 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2019
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Re: Anticipating an opponent breaking cover?
Quote:
The obvious problem of making a regular attack on someone walking by between obstacles takes care of itself anyway. If the target is passing close enough for a regular attack, it's stepping into the attacker's front hex anyway and so stops for engagement. Fighting between two tree trunks doesn't change the turn sequence. As to the bowman firing out of turn in my example, note that at least it's not firing early, it's firing late. A target with a higher DX still got to act first (if they chose to do anything from their point of concealment) on the turn the shooter chose to begin Waiting. When the archer does finally shoot on a later turn, it's not acting before the target's current chance to act, it's acting one, two, or more turns after the target acted on the turn the whole waiting thing began. The shooter still had an action coming -- being slow doesn't break the system. A legit question though is, should any form of "opportunity fire" be allowed (if you're allowing it) for more than a missile weapon attack? Extending it to missile spell attacks seems logical to me. Extending it to thrown weapon attacks seems just as reasonable as missile weapon attacks, but with the DX penalties for range and the narrowness of the opportunity stacking, it's hardly ever going to result in a hit. The pain is deciding if thrown spells should be included. I can see the argument going either way on that one. Can a wizard hold a Sleep spell all set to release waiting for a guard to pass between two columns? That's a tough one to think about.
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"I'm not arguing. I'm just explaining why I'm right." |
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