peteradkison
11-28-2010, 05:49 PM
Let’s say a fight breaks out. Any guidelines on how close the contestants should be to jump directly to Fight! rules versus having to close via an R&C sequence first? My instincts are that if you’re in a small building (like a bar or shrine) or in a typical dungeon crawl you can immediately jump to Fight!. Or perhaps you’re in an open area but the parties have approached each other to converse and then something goes sideways and a fight breaks out. So, in any of these situations is it okay to jump immediately to Fight! even if a player with a bow or spell lobbies for R&C first?
Assuming I’m correct on jumping immediately to Fight!, the next concept I’m trying to get my head around is whether there is some sort of advantage accrued to the individual who decided to escalate the encounter from “just talking” (if I can borrow some Dogs in the Vineyard nomenclature) to lethal conflict. Let’s say the PC’s and the bandits are within 10 paces of each other, chatting each other up and the bandits have underestimated the PC’s and are only halfway paying attention. Suddenly Notwen decides to cast The Fear to clear out the mooks so the party can rough up the leader.
It looks to me like I could/should immediately go to Fight! and roll initial positioning tests. But what if they are 20 paces apart? 30 paces? What's the rule of thumb for how far apart the parties should be before it's okay to skip R&C and jump immediately to Fight!'s initial positioning roll?
Going on, let's say we go directly to Fight! and the player lobbies, “Wait, shouldn’t I get some sort of time advantage because I started the fight? The bandits didn’t know I was going to cast The Fear and they didn’t think we were a threat because we’re with a smuggler, so how can they react before I do and get Too Close to Shoot by winning the positioning test?”
It does seem there should be some sort of advantage for the individual (not necessarily the entire party, just the one character) who attacks first. My instincts are to go right to initial positioning but give the individual who escalated the situation an advantage die or two based on how well I think he got the jump on the other party.
Thanks in advance,
Peter
Assuming I’m correct on jumping immediately to Fight!, the next concept I’m trying to get my head around is whether there is some sort of advantage accrued to the individual who decided to escalate the encounter from “just talking” (if I can borrow some Dogs in the Vineyard nomenclature) to lethal conflict. Let’s say the PC’s and the bandits are within 10 paces of each other, chatting each other up and the bandits have underestimated the PC’s and are only halfway paying attention. Suddenly Notwen decides to cast The Fear to clear out the mooks so the party can rough up the leader.
It looks to me like I could/should immediately go to Fight! and roll initial positioning tests. But what if they are 20 paces apart? 30 paces? What's the rule of thumb for how far apart the parties should be before it's okay to skip R&C and jump immediately to Fight!'s initial positioning roll?
Going on, let's say we go directly to Fight! and the player lobbies, “Wait, shouldn’t I get some sort of time advantage because I started the fight? The bandits didn’t know I was going to cast The Fear and they didn’t think we were a threat because we’re with a smuggler, so how can they react before I do and get Too Close to Shoot by winning the positioning test?”
It does seem there should be some sort of advantage for the individual (not necessarily the entire party, just the one character) who attacks first. My instincts are to go right to initial positioning but give the individual who escalated the situation an advantage die or two based on how well I think he got the jump on the other party.
Thanks in advance,
Peter