I thought I might create a consolidated thread for this sort of thing.
QUESTION: I am attacking an opponent, but I and my three allies really only need to get past him to achieve our goal (continue the chase of someone else). I decide that I want to give him a whack with the butt end of my musket and knock him over. I want to wound him so that he is less of a problem for my friends but leaving him prone would be best. Which of the following is true?
A. I declare my Risk as an attack. I roll two (2) Raises, assign 1 to wounding my opponent and use one to create the Oppurtunity "Free passage" for all of my allies to get past the fallen opponent. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and all of my allies can move past him untroubled.
B.I declare my Risk as an attack. I roll two (2) Raises, assign 1 to wounding my opponent and use one to create the Oppurtunity "Free passage" for one of my allies to get past the fallen opponent. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and one of my allies can move past him untroubled.
C. I declare my Risk as an attack. I roll two (2) Raises, assign 1 to wounding my opponent and use one to create the Oppurtunity "Knockdown" so my allies can get past the fallen opponent. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and any of my allies who act before my oppenent can stand up can move past him untroubled.
D. I declare my Risk as an attack. I roll two (2) Raises, assign 1 to wounding my opponent and if and only if the GM offers the option can I allocate one raise to the GM-generated Oppurtunity of "Free passage" for all of my allies to get past the fallen opponent. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and all of my allies can move past him untroubled.
E. I declare my Risk as an attack. I roll two (2) Raises, assign 1 to wounding my opponent and if and only if the GM offers the option can I allocate one raise to the GM-generated Oppurtunity of "Free passage" for one of my allies to get past the fallen opponent. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and one of my allies can move past him untroubled.
F. I declare my Risk as an attack. I roll two (2) Raises, assign 1 to wounding my opponent and if and only if the GM offers the option can I allocate one raise to the GM-generated Oppurtunity of "Knockdown" so my allies can get past the fallen opponent. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and any of my allies who act before my oppenent can stand up can move past him untroubled.
G. I declare my Risk as an Intention to knock my opponent down. The GM assigns the consequences "Damaged Musket" and "Entangled" (opponent pulls me down with him). I spend one to achieve my intention and allocate one to avoid a damaged weapon. The opponent falls, regardless of his own statistics or roll, and I am pulled down with him.
H. I declare my Risk as an Intention to knock my opponent down. The GM assigns the consequences "Damaged Musket" and "Entangled" (opponent pulls me down with him). I spend one to achieve my intention and allocate one to avoid a damaged weapon. The opponent can spend his own Raises to avoid falling and if he does not fall, I do not fall either.
I. I declare my Risk as an Intention to knock my opponent down. The GM assigns the consequences "Damaged Musket" and "Entangled" (opponent pulls me down with him. I spend one to achieve my intention and allocate one to avoid a damaged weapon. The opponent can spend his own Raises to avoid falling and if he does not fall, I am thrown down anyway.
J.I declare my Risk as an Intention to knock my opponent down. The GM assigns the consequences "Damaged Musket" and "Entangled" (opponent pulls me down with him. I spend one to achieve my intention and allocate one to avoid a damaged weapon. My Raises must exceed some number associated with my opponents statistics to succeed. If my Raises are sufficient, my opponent falls and I am pulled down with him. If my Raises are insufficient, my opponent does not fall but I remain Entagled with him.
K. Some other combination of these factors.
The QS rules state "You can use your own Raises to create Opportunities for other Heroes" but does not stipulate if that player generated opportunities must benefit other Heroes. If the Intention is to damage my opponent, can I create the Oppurtunity of "Knockdown" or must the GM offer the Oppurtunity of "Knockdown?" If the latter, can I create the Oppurtunity "Free Passage" and if so to how many Heroes can it apply? Can I do any of these things as part of an attack or is "Knock My Opponent Down" an Intention in and of itself? If so, is it contested/resisted?
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
The rules don't have an answer to this problem. Your GM does in how they interpret the situation. Personally I would say:
Intent: knock the guy over - you say you want people to be able to get past him.
Consequences: become prone yourself, block the way for others, possibly take 1-2 damage depending on how martial the opponent is.
Opportunities: damage, rifle through his pockets/pouches
So long as you get two raises you can clear the path for others to go freely by achieving your intent and not blocking the way for others. Damage is always an opportunity as it is a thing you can spend raises on, but reminding players of it in the early stages of learning a new system is a good idea.
Other people will give you different answers I'm sure, but the answer is there is no definitive answer.
To me, I don't care if you declare it an attack or knock down. When you tell me you want to hit him and knock him down, I know roughly what you are going for.Depending on the situation, I might spend a point to raise your target to 15 for successes.
Roll your risk, you get two raises.
First one knocks him down. and deals the wound.
Second one can deal damage if you want.
or
second one can become an opportunity for others IF you ask to use it as such. I would probably not volunteer the opportunity but as the player, I would welcome the suggestion from you.
Okay, time to don my "unpopular opinion pants" I suppose...
After a certain point, "it's all up to the GM" is a cheap and lazy answer for a system to provide. It gets hailed as this enlightened and liberating statement: it's not. It's not at all. "It's all up to the GM" isn't a permissive statement, it's a dismissive one. I already know it's all up to me as the GM; I do not need the permission of John Wick or anyone else to run my game as I see fit. I could replace the entire mechanical system with one based on interpretive dance if I wanted to. It's always been up to the GM.
I didn't buy a book to tell me that. There is a reason books often have titles like "Gamemaster's Guide;" I am not kneeling at the feet of JWP hoping they will hand out commandments, I am looking to a team of professionals to provide guidance. I have hired JWP as a team of consultants to help me run my game. In any other facet of life, if a consultant simply told me "it's up to you, boss" every time I asked a question, they would be fired post haste. There is a reason "do what thou wilt" doesn't actually provide any guidance and "to thine own self be true" came from the lips of a philosophically bankrupt blowhard. I don't need to be told "do whatever you want;" if that were a satisfactory answer, I wouldn't need to ask the question.
"It's all up to the GM" is held up as this indication that it allows the GM to be so creative; that too is a lie. Every second I devote to figuring out how the hero might knock down his foe is a second I have not devoted to making the story or experience better. Like Fascism and Communism, Rolemaster tables and "It's all up to the GM" are not opposite ends of a spectrum but very close points on a ring because both force the GM to spend more time on the rules than on the story.
People like to distinguish between "system" and "setting;" I don't find this to be very useful. Well developed systems reflect their setting and vice versa, creating something even better, a world. Is it a world where a single gunshot will kill a PC or can the character get stabbled like a pincushion and rally to do something heroic? Those questions are both system and setting questions. The physics of the world matter and logical inconsistencies interfere with both a believable story and a fair game... and yes, I do believe that fundamental fairness is critical for a game to succeed. The rules ought to work the same way for one character or player as they do for another, otherwise the players can never find their sea-legs within a system and never accurately tether actions to outcomes. "It's up to the GM" isn't liberating; it translates to "it's your problem; figuring it out, remembering it, applying it appropriately... it's all your problem."
Now I am not asking for a system to give me everything, but I do think it is reasonable that for the one "crunchy" aspect of the game (combat), it would provide me enough guidance so that I don't have to reinvent the wheel or recall precisely how I invented the wheel last time. The question above is pretty basic: "how do I do something to someone other than wound them" and "How do Opportunities, one of very few mechanics in this system, actually work." I know a bunch of different answers; I typed up 10 of them. I don't need the system to tell me "eh, whichever." I would prefer the system to have guidance.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
But what if the guidence is whichever you prefer? All of those ARE options... thus, they are giving guidence. Can't type up much right now, but figure that question was good.
I am not suggesting the people posting are providing bad answers, I am suggesting that the system should have the answer without it being left up in the air. I appreciate all the suggestions and the reasoning behind them.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
Um...wouldn't this be a contested roll to some degree? Ok, one raise to wound. But one raise to knock him down so that all your companions can get passed? Nope, sorry. Here's a raise to counter that. Your opponent is going to have X raises of his own to spend, so I'm not going to let you off that easy.
Right, you would think that, but then going first is actually to my disadvantage, as when I act, he has a full compliment of Raises to use and knows exactly how many he needs to allocate, whereas if he goes first, I am more likely to accomplish my goal. I could easily see it turning into one of those moments from Assassin's Creed where everyone is just standing there. waiting for someone else to attack so they can parry. Also, if it is resisted, are their complications to his resisting? Should there be complications to my Intention to knock him down?
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
Well, I think it would be part of an action sequence, so just because you have the most actions doesn't mean you ave to go first. Also, the only way to be assured of your intent is to bid ALL of your Raises towards it. So if your goal is to trip up the villain so your compatriots can escape, that's what you have to do. If you're just going to put a raise towards it as an afterthought, you have to expect the GM to react.
Well, the main rules might explain this.. we don't quite know yet. Also, if I remember right, they got rid of contested rolls... but even so, based on how they worked in the first iteration of the QS, IIRC, was that during such rolls, whoever had the most Raises acted first, and had to state how many actions were going towards his intent (rushing the guy to knock him down, I suppose), consequences (slipping as he got there, falling down on the enemies weapon... being thrown to the ground by said villian) and creating an oppertunity for others (distracting the villian so the others can get by.) So, if the villian had three raises, for example... and the player had 4 (like in the book), the player could donate 2 to the intent, 1 to avoid one of the consequence, and 1 to create the oppertunity.. So, the villian could spend his three to ensure he stays upright, or since it is contested, it would be to knock the PC down... so he could succeed on that before the PC could, but would then miss the oppertunity to notice the players.. or he could get knocked down, but instead create different oppertunitys for himself, or change it a bit (such as both falling off the side, but the villian using a raise to grab the rail.)
I understand what your getting at, in terms of having a bit more structure in the way these might be handled, and we could do with some rule clarification, such as just how large an intent should be (example I think in the KS was "getting the king to hand over his crown to me" as being an intention... and thus 1 raise means the king does that (since you know.. one raise wins.) but I would probably have labeled THAT a contested roll, and the consiquences would probably have been most dire, depending how he went about it. But really, I think intents are smaller objectives.
The way I was reading things, most of the time the NPC is not rolling. So, option G in the OP. Brutes defintely would add the consequence of huting you, and possibly activate their own special abilities. Villains have the option to contest with their own roll, but those rules are in flux because they were a bit of a slog in the QS.
Most Action scenes vs. NPCs can be dealt with via a single Risk. Only when more important people come along or there are more things to do does it become more challenging. The challenge for the players is getting used to using intentions other than "we win." Some people get this quickly, others struggle forever. For people who want to make things more explicit, you might try putting a required number of opportunities on a scene before the intention "we win" can be used. Then speedy people are still contributing, but not stealing all the glory from slower people.
My interpretation from the Quick Start is the same as yours, Sal. You could declare either intent and still spend raises one way or the other. The key difference, is that if the stated intent is to knock the guard over, you can always then spend your remaining raises to wound, while if your intent is to wound, then knocking the guard over has to be presented as an opportunity, and since you can't create an opportunity for yourself, you might have to bargin with the GM for them to allow it.
Of course whether or not this is how it will work in the final ruleset...
I've got a quick rule question (if there's a better thread for these, please let me know!):
If I have an Eisen character who I want to be trained in both panzerhand and two-handed weapons, does he suffer a penalty if he's wearing the panzerhand (on his off-hand) while using the two-handed weapon?
We should likely differentiate between 1ed and 2ed questions. As for your question: Is he planning to take the Eisenfaust school?
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
Great, thanks for the info!
And yes, maybe a separate thread for 1e and 2e questions would be ideal.
Loring. It's the Loring school.
As for Heavy weapons, I believe they are automatically 2-handed, on account of the fact that many Heavy Weapon school offers the benefit of being able to use a specific heavy weapon 1-handed.
Finally, I'd be a bit dubious of being able to use a Zweihander while wearing a panzerhand.
I would totally allow him the use of wearing Panzerhands while weilding a Zweihander. I mean, he doesn't get any sort of mechanical benefit by wearing it, and it's basically an articulated metal gauntlet. I might take issue if he tried to pick a lock while wearing it, but using a sword, especially a large sword where you have two hands to help you manuver and manipulate it? Nah.
Even if we examine this from the "would this work in real life" route, yeah it totally would. What you really need is the protection to the back of the hand and fingers. You can actually grab a sword with your bare hands without cutting yourself if you know what you're doing (although you wouldn't want to grab and hang onto it, it's more of a quick grab to move the weapon to a more convenient location.)
As for the two-handed heavy weapons go...yes as far as "the rules" are concerned, heavy weapons are two-handed, but it's really more for the sake of simplification. You would never use a "broadsword" (*cough* longsword *cough*) in one hand; while it's possible, it's really awkward and not particularly effective. If we were talking about "reality" all of the schools that talk about using a "broadsword" one-handed, would use what we now call a "hand-and-half," which features a shorter grip, slightly shorter blade, and can be used either one-handed or two-handed. However, for the sake of simplifying the rules, it's easier to just say "Heavy weapons are two handed, but if you're specifically trained to use them one-handed you can," rather than making things that specific. I believe there are a few Heavy Weapons that can be used one-handed, but have a penalty to parrying. I know that there's a similar exception with cutlasses, where it uses the Fencing skill and deals 3k2 damage, but has a penalty to Parry (although, personally, I always just treated cutlasses the same as any other Fencing weapon.)
For me, the critical question here is "for what purpose?" As Kevin rightly states, a Panzerhand is just a specialized gauntlet and I see no reason why simply wearing one (or two) would be an issue. Now, what I would not allow is for any of the specialized moves without the Eisenfaust school (Players Guide, 126-127). That school is specifically allows characters to use the Panzerhand in conjunction with a Heavy Weapon and, by implication, using a Panzerhand as an "off hand weapon" while weilding a two-handed weapon without the school ought to incur some penalty if allowed at all.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
I would fully allow them to attempt to use any of the Swordsman Knacks; it would just be an unskilled roll which means no exploding dice and +10 to the TN for them to attempt it.
"A Heavy Weapon requires both hands to use."
- Player's Guide, pg 155
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
Arcana:
Activating a Hubris gives you 1 Hero Point.
The Wheel Hubris: Unfortunate - gives 2 Hero Points if you choose to fail
"I Fail" - Gets 2 Hero Points.
Activating the Hubris gets you 5 Hero points? Once per session, so maybe not too overpowering.
Or would you rule activating a Hubris to fail is not the same as "I Fail"?
Ooh, and for a Virtue go with The Tower: Humble - get an additional Hero Point when you activate your Hubris.
"...for it is the deeds of weak and mortal men that may tip the scales one way or the other..."
Hey, bonus points to JWP for letting characters have both a Virtue and Hubris. I think that's something just about everyone wanted.
By my read, if you have both, the first time in a session you deliberately fail a significant risk you get 3 hero points instead of the normal 1.