Ambushed! Did I do it right? (+ initial positioning tie)

[Berandor]

Second time, now in the right forum.

So in my first game, the player characters tried to ambush (with ranged weapons) a couple of orcs on a clearing. Here's what I did:

1) I had the players roll Stealthy vs. Perception, which they made.
2) I gave the players +1D for the initial positioning test (treating the Stealthy test as a linked test)
3) I then had the orcs make a steel check vs. surprise, which they failed
4) then the players rolled positioning for their PCs vs no dice from the orcs (hesitating), leading to the players having five successes and using 4 to aim and 1 to shoot (9 dice to roll for the shot killed one orc)

I thought this was pretty hefty, but then, in a Fight! and not Range & Cover, the orcs would have hesitated for 5 actions and probably run away or given up. But I'm still not too sure if I did this right.

Also, if the initial positioning test is a tie, what distance do the opponents start in then? I had both parties roll single d6s until one had a success and another had none and declared the first one the winner then.

[luke]

Patrick,

You handled the ambush fine. If the Orcs were hesitating, I'd have just given the PCs either a free shot or allowed them to choose their starting position. Ambush is a good tactic! It should result in a tipping of the scale.

On a tied initial positioning, the GM sets the starting distances.

[Berandor]

Thanks!

[jchokey]

Here's what I did:

1) I had the players roll Stealthy vs. Perception, which they made.

Did you remember to double the number of successes the PCs got on their "Stealthy" roll, since the orcs were using Perception, rather than Observation?

That's an easy point to miss because it isn't spelled out in the ambush rules on p. 166 of the brown book (where it only says that ambusher an target make an Inconspicuous/Stealthy vs. Observation/Perception roll).

However, the descriptions of both "Inconspicuous" and "Stealthy" in the Character Burner make clear that if the spotting characters don't have Observation, they use Perception at a double-obstacle penalty (i.e. Beginner's Luck). In a versus test, that means doubling the number of successes the other side got.

I messed that on up in the first ambush I ran....

[Berandor]

In fact, I didn't, because the players rolled "beginner's luck stealthy" :) But yeah, I remembered that.

I hope I also did it correctly that the Perception was not open-ended then (I don't think there was a six in the roll, as I rolled awful) because it was only a "fake" Perception roll.

[Z-Dog]

Cool, thanks for pointing that out. Ambush be deadly!!!