Using Extra Effort when Physical/Mental Stunned?

[thom]

In the last session one PC ended up Stunned and kept failing his checks. While being attacked, he asked if he could use Feverish Defense to get around the -4 penalty on his Active Defenses (I allow Extra Efforts in my game). First time I ever had someone ask that! I couldn't find an answer anywhere, so for MGF I allowed it. But now I come to the wisdom of the group <sg>.

Has anyone ever had this come up? And how would you handle it?

thom

[Refplace]

I wouldnt allow it myself, if your stunned your not able to focus enough to defend yourself properly or take any action till you recover. Seems to me your too distracted and out of sorts to push yourself hard to do Extra Effort of any kind.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by thom

Has anyone ever had this come up? And how would you handle it?

thom

Never come up and it sounds like a situation you use Luck to avoid in the first place. Or maybe even just a decent HT Roll.

[thom]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I wouldn't allow it myself, if your stunned your not able to focus enough to defend yourself properly or take any action till you recover. Seems to me your too distracted and out of sorts to push yourself hard to do Extra Effort of any kind.

In hindsight, I agree; it does seem one needs to focus a bit in order to use EE.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Never come up and it sounds like a situation you use Luck to avoid in the first place. Or maybe even just a decent HT Roll.

Dead right about Luck-but he'd already used it for the day (you might suspect he was having a bad one <eg>); and he doesn't have Combat Reflexes. Somehow he couldn't seem to roll his Health to save himself!

thom

[Varyon]

I'd allow it. Someone desperately trying to throw themselves out of the way of an attack while still reeling from a previous attack (or otherwise being Stunned - say mentally stunned from the start of combat, where they can't really tell what's going on but they do know they need to get the heck away from that thing that keeps coming toward their face at high speed) doesn't break my Sense of Disbelief anymore than Feverish Defenses would in the first place. Heck, in a case where the character just keeps failing to recover, I might let them burn 1 FP for a +4 to shake it off.

[Plane]

I always thought it'd be interesting if tapping into extra effort required a will roll.

I also figured if you were mentally stunned there ought to be some kind of IQ penalty wherever checks were relevant.

Like if you are effectively -8 to DX (to be -4 to parry) then why not also -8 to IQ?

That'd be on the same level as Slave Mentality (B154) in ability to take voluntary actions.

In this way we could just look at being stunned as being twice as bad as the worst kind (-4 to DX and IQ) kind of shock.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

I always thought it'd be interesting if tapping into extra effort required a will roll.

It normally does - I believe the authors opted to waive the roll for Extra Effort in Combat to cut down on excessive rolling (roll against Will to use Mighty Blows, roll against combat skill to attack, possibly roll on the Random Hit Locations Table and/or 1d to see if you bypass armor with partial coverage, on a hit the enemy rolls against Will to use Feverish Defense, then rolls against their effective defense to avoid the hit, on a failure you then roll for damage, if a Major Wound is scored the enemy then rolls against Knockdown and Stunning... all for one attack). Personally, I prefer the rules as they stand - burn FP, get a reliable benefit, keep playing.

[RGTraynor]

I'd allow it myself. I've seen similar things happen in MMA. Desperation is.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by thom

In the last session one PC ended up Stunned and kept failing his checks. While being attacked, he asked if he could use Feverish Defense to get around the -4 penalty on his Active Defenses (I allow Extra Efforts in my game).

I'd certainly allow it in a cinematic game. It's the classic comic book, "Must. Escape. Before. It's. Too. Late!" text in a jagged thought balloon shtick.