[MA] Why no Feverish Defense with Committed Attack?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The size of the penalty doesn't matter. Sane gamers only reduce their defenses when they're sure they'll get away with it i.e. the target is unable to attack.

Could also work when you have lots of DR and you know the enemy does low damage.

Or when it's very high-priority to take them out ASAP for some reason (like maybe you can't even use active defenses to stop their attacks, like they're shooting AE stuff)

[Tinman]

My players will regularly use committed attack, however they will not use all-out unless the enemy can not attack back at all.

[thom]

Thanks all for the replies! I ran a test combat this weekend with my AoA variant, and it turns out Fred is right; even with a -5 penalty too many characters with high skills really didn't suffer any serious consequences using All-Out Attacks.

Now I'm wondering if even a Committed Attack is too powerful an option considering the low penalty involved...

thom

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by thom

Now I'm wondering if even a Committed Attack is too powerful an option considering the low penalty involved...

The cases where I remember using Committed Attack were all ones where fairly low-skilled characters felt they needed to make sure of hitting, and were willing to take some extra risk to that end.

Powerful hand-to-hand combatants don't usually need Committed Attack; they trade the number of attacks they make against Deceptive Attack penalties according to what looks best in the situation, IME.