From reddit, Michael Curry said:
"The bit in Parry and Riposte about still needing to perform these Maneuvers on your turn is being removed, so you can do those even if it isn't your turn.
Basically, if you are spending Raises to prevent yourself from getting hurt, you can do it even when it's not your turn."
https://www.reddit.com/r/7thSea/comments/5fay8h/my_first_session_impress...
I think I'm gonna go cry of joy now TT. Jokes aside, one of my players said it reminded him of Vampire, when someone had the celerity discipline active when you didn't or the other way around and said a lot of games state, in the rules, that your character simply stays put being hit until 4 or 5 hits later, he says: "yay! my turn! the time freezing spell is over and I can finally act".
Can't say I disagree with him... more or less.
Huzzah! If only they were to release an erratta document about this so we don't have to keep hitting Reddit. . .
"Smilies exist because no one's bothered to create a sarcasm font." --Lost_Heretic
I'm sure I read somewhere they were going to release it as a pdf on their website... Can't remember where though...
Mike Curry has promised such a document is forthcoming. Be patient.
By comparison, I've been waiting 4 years for an errata document for Witch Hunter 2nd edition. I have every confidence that JWP will beat this target.
4 years.... by then it will be 1672!
We have been doing this in our game and it makes for more dynamic and exciting duels and combats. I think an exchange between a hero and villain duelist spent a total of 6 raises on one "Action" between the stroke, riposte, iron reply, parry, etc...
Yup, but thats going to create really long combats. Please Mr. Curry testtesttesttesttesttesttesttest... ad nauseam.
Also it can be a really good moment to check the most ussual houserulings...
Actually it no impact on the length of the combat. It just consolidated several 'Actions' that would have occured anyways at one time. Instead of waiting until later to do the "Riposte" and "Iron Reply" the hero and villain used their Raises immediately. Then they were each left with 3-4 fewer raises and everyone else went.
It may have sped things up because the Wounds caused and prevented were immediately resolved.
Usually the people don´t use prevent damages in my sesions, because they forgot use that cumbersome movements. Now, everybody is going to do it. So, the combats are going to be longer, almost in my table. For sure ;P.
I believe there is a difference between long combats and one sided combats.
The effect will be same as if they had rolled the same raises. One attacks, the other ripostes, the first parries, the other attacks and so on. The difference is that they will be burning raises even if it is not their turn so if they don't plan ahead, they will end up receiving a one sided beating anyways. Moreover... Combats normally last an average number of 2 rounds. If they are given the chance to counterattack or survive when all odds are against them I believe it's fair game.
When I ran the quickstart adventure, the duel between Zyta and Ennio lasted 3 minutes... 3 minutes! and that's including rolling dice, counting raises, thinking and describing and we weren't familiar with the system. I think 1 more minute is not that bad compared to other games or old school games where combat could very well last 1 hour or more.
I guess I don't understand what appears to be an overall 'disparaging' of combat...cinematic combat (Action Sequences) is a part of just about any movie ever used as inspiration for 7th Sea. I'm not sure why combat is looked down upon so much that people want it done in less than a minute. If your combats are that fast, why even bother? Just narrate how you want the combat to go? Why bother having Dueling Schools and combat advantages if the goal is to have combat take 1-2 minutes out of a 4 hour event?
In my opinion and it seems shared by our players, is that if you're going to bother having combat, make it enjoyable and make it worthwhile. Which, in many cases means more than 1-2 rounds of it. The last fight we had in our group was probably 15-20 minutes or so, but it was fun (at least according to everyone). There were three distinct fights going on, with brutes, a couple henchmen, a monster, and the ability to rescue people.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why does it seem like everyone is so against having Action Sequences (Combat) in this edition to the point of trying to finish them in less than a minute or two?
TAJ-07: Technopriest And Justicar Of 7thSea2e
I think I may want to steal those war mechanics you got there :P
Would you mind sharing them?
I'm not against it. Like I said... I used to play LOTR, Advanced D&D, Far West, 7th Sea first edition and some more games where combat lasted a lot.
What I mean before was that 3 minutes is surprisingly fast. It's true that it was a 1vs1 duel and when those kind of things happen I get a bit nervous because I don't want to leave the other players without doing anything (unless they are doing something).
When they fought against Brutes, the combat lasted around 10 minutes or so (it was very easy). I think the way this game works, I'd rather have a combat of 30 minutes, where players are having fun describing what their Heroes do than a 2 minute combat where you get the feeling there is something lacking in that scene.
Agreed. To me a cool 30 minute combat with lots of descriptions, environmental things, and good RP is better than a 2 minute 'crush brutes' combat. The latter case could be handled by exposition.
Two minutes of mechanics/rolling, twenty minutes of epic storytelling, five minutes of reacting. That's the sort of madness I like as well,which is why I'm loving the way this works out.
"Smilies exist because no one's bothered to create a sarcasm font." --Lost_Heretic
While I agree that this change will probably speed up combats in general, since not only is the attack and defense resolved in the same action, but it also removes some of the chess element of being a Duelist, where you at times had to weigh "should I use my Parry now, or suck up the damage and do something else instead?" under the current rules.
It could also make things harder on a group of Heroes that only has a single Duelist and are facing off against a high Strength Villain Duelist with a large dice pool; most Heroes probably aren't going to get above 10 dice in their Risk pools unless they hyper-focus on that Skill, while a Villain could easily roll above 10 dice and have plenty of Raises to spend. If the non-Duelist Heroes simply spend all their Raises at once for one big attack, then the Villain can very easily just spend a Raise to Parry as a response, negating much of the damage outright and eventually leaving the other Heroes to just twiddle their thumbs as the Villain and Duelist Hero go at it. Or, they parse out their Raises in drips and dabs, doing only a couple of Wounds at a time, which may make the combat feel like it's dragging on since only the Duelist PC(s) are able to dish out any serious damage.
I'm going to reserve judgement until after I've gotten a chance to see this particular change in play. While I don't see it making too major of a change in a one-on-one duel, it's the instances of party vs. powerful Duelist Villain that I can see being the problem; even just having Student of Combat would seem to skew things towards the Villain's favor unless more than half the party has access to Duelist Maneuvers.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
While I agree that this change will probably speed up combats in general, since not only is the attack and defense resolved in the same action, but it also removes some of the chess element of being a Duelist, where you at times had to weigh "should I use my Parry now, or suck up the damage and do something else instead?" under the current rules.
Keep in mind that, as written, this doesn't lift the limit of repeating maneuvers, but rather grants defensive actions "out of turn" (like the interrupts in 1st Edition).
So, as an example from one of my sessions: the player had 13 raises thanks to Glorious, while the henchman (Strength 5 Villain) only had 4 raises. If the player opens with Slash, I could counter with a Parry. If he then performed a Feint (which I ingore) and then a Slash, my only defensive options would be Riposte or spending Raises on a 1-for-1 basis.
If anything, I rather like it because it adds a new element to the game of chess: "Should I use my Parry now, or suck it up and save the Parry for the next big hit?" Also, using Raises defensively now slows down when you'll take your next action, which really makes tactical choices more interesting.
I'm rather fond of it as you can now use Riposte/Iron Reply whenever you take a hit instead of waiting (im)patiently for the opponent to land a blow.
It could also make things harder on a group of Heroes that only has a single Duelist and are facing off against a high Strength Villain Duelist with a large dice pool; most Heroes probably aren't going to get above 10 dice in their Risk pools unless they hyper-focus on that Skill, while a Villain could easily roll above 10 dice and have plenty of Raises to spend. If the non-Duelist Heroes simply spend all their Raises at once for one big attack, then the Villain can very easily just spend a Raise to Parry as a response, negating much of the damage outright and eventually leaving the other Heroes to just twiddle their thumbs as the Villain and Duelist Hero go at it. Or, they parse out their Raises in drips and dabs, doing only a couple of Wounds at a time, which may make the combat feel like it's dragging on since only the Duelist PC(s) are able to dish out any serious damage.
Thing is, having multiple duelists against one Villain makes the fight end too quickly anyway, so having a way to prolong it wouldn't hurt. It also adds to that chess element again; should you spend your villain's manuevers blocking attacks from the non-duelists, or should they be saved for the Hero with the consistant damage thanks to Duelist Academy?
Even if the Duelist Villain uses Parry against an action from a non-Duelist, they now have to use a different action before being able to Parry again. . .which could add to that game of chess mentioned before. It literally makes every action count in a way that is a bit more dramatic. How is that wrong?
Granted, I haven't run into this situation too much yet due to my previous group being almost all swordsmen (and the lone non-swordsman focused on changing the environment, making opportunities, and/or spending Hero Points to assist allies when he wasn't using Glamour), so the new rule implementation might be more beneficial.
On the flip side: what if your high Strength Villain scores more successes than your non-Duelist heroes (or even a Duelist). Having the ability to defend yourself at each attack instead of taking multiple hits before being able to reduce damage is much more dramatic than one side getting 3-4 hits in before the now-victim can finally do something to alleviate it.
"Smilies exist because no one's bothered to create a sarcasm font." --Lost_Heretic
I agree with thi^.
I have found that the new rules (Which we were using prior to the official ruling) really added MORE of a choice to the duelists...do they use their Raises now to defend or same them for later.
In the original rules, if you had fewer raises than your duelist opponent, you really had nothing to think about...you might get hit 2-3 times before you could even do anything. Now the first time you get hit you need to make a choice to defend then or wait for something later to do.
In the original rules, if you had fewer raises than your duelist opponent, you really had nothing to think about...you might get hit 2-3 times before you could even do anything. Now the first time you get hit you need to make a choice to defend then or wait for something later to do.
This is exactly why I'm happy with the change. Even if you rolled poorly, it was frustrating not being able to do anything, even defend, until your action. With this rule in place, I could have done some ripostes and parries with a Strength 5 Villain that may have let them survive the 13 Raise onslaught from one of my players. Might have made the fight a bit more interesting (albeit still one-sided) and last more than one round.
"Smilies exist because no one's bothered to create a sarcasm font." --Lost_Heretic
So my group gave this change a brief whirl in our past session, at least in regards to a one-on-one duel between two trained swordsman (my Hero with Duelist Academy, a minor Villain with Student of Battle and Bash as his bonus Maneuver).
There is still that chess element in that as the defender you need to decide "do I spend a Raise now to lessen the damage, or tough it out so that the other guy doesn't get an additional chance to act?" It does cut down on rules exploiting by having a Duelist use a low-damage Maneuver (or Pressure) just before their target can act, denying them the chance to use Parry/Riposte.
Granted, if your opponent has a substantial Raise advantage over you (3 or more), you're about as hosed as you'd be before the Errata, since they could hit you with at least two Slashes, forcing you to either only Parry one of them, or spend both your Parry and Riposte and hope that the second one slows down their onslaught a bit. In the test fight, my Castillian Duelist had 7 Raises plus Quick Reflexes vs. his Eisen foe's piddly 3 Raises, and frankly the Eisen didn't have a chance.
What is going to be interesting is Mirelli's Revision, which can be used as either a Bash or a Parry. With this errata, does that mean a Mirelli duelist can use their style bonus to Parry as a response to taking Wounds? If that is so, then a Villain with Mirelli could potentially stonewall a group of non-Duelist Heroes as I posted above.
Also, abilities that let you react sooner in the round (such as Quick Reflexes or the Flash Glamour) will have an impact, especially if they help close the gap in Raises between you and your opponent... or can help increase the gap if the Duelist with those abilities has more Raises than their opponent.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
Indeed. Parry and Riposte out of turn makes sense and it is something that even if it changes combat a bit, the change is better and welcome. Moreover, it is something some people have been talking about for months when they realized this problem, even if they did not test it before.
Funny thing is... it is something some of us said and some of you were against it, with reasons that made no sense... now it seems some of you have changed your minds.
I'm still reserving judgement until I test this update in fights of non-Duelists vs. Duelist Villain, especialliy one using a defense-orientated style such as Torres or Valroux, as that's going to probably be the primary stress point. A Strength 6+ Villain with a sufficiently higher number of dice to roll (either from Influence or Danger Points) is going to be able to very easily shut down a small group of non-Duelist Heroes that spends all of their Raises for one big attack.
So don't get too smug about how "I told you so" just yet. I suspect part of the initial reason to have Duelists required to use Parry/Riposte as their Action instead of as an immediate response was to keep them from being too powerful, especially if it's a Villain with a significant Raise advantage over their non-Duelist opponents. While it might not be the norm for some, there are groups where not every Hero is a Duelist, and I'm sure there are groups where none of the Heroes have the Duelist Academy Advantage, and this change may well put a Duelist Villain with a dice pool that's sufficiently larger than what the Heroes are rolling (by at least 4 dice) out of their capability to defeat, as by the time they're able to start inflicting Dramatic Wounds on the Villain, he's probably already handed out a few to the Heroes, especially if they've spent all their Raises in vain attempts to deal damage.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/