This is what you get when you take a abstract narrative game and stick a strict wargamy initiative system on top of it.

Holding actions is a good way to create more of a flow in combat, especially if both sides are holding. Now you've got a place to insert all sorts of things like threats, intimidation, even negotiations before combat starts up again. A more flexible initiative system reduces the action economy which also removes the pressure each player feels to make their turn the most combat effective one possible.

I allow the holding of actions in my game and simply have the PC or NPC take their action at the trigger. It has minimal impact on the game so far. From my point of view at least.

Here are my thoughts on this situation (an NPC holding action in preparation)...

If/when the PC pokes their head out the window, have them roll a vigilance check (opposing the Bounty Hunter's stealth or something similar depending on the situation); upgrade purples to reds as needed for skills (does the Bounty Hunter have ranks in Nemesis?); then upgrade one more to account for the preparation aspect of it.

If any despair (or too many threat - say, net 5) are rolled, the Bounty Hunter has an immediate attack of opportunity.

Narratively speaking, this would show the Bounty Hunter readying himself for a target, but still give the PC an opportunity to see the Hunter and tuck their head back in the window quick enough to not get shot.

Here are my thoughts on this situation (an NPC holding action in preparation)...

If/when the PC pokes their head out the window, have them roll a vigilance check (opposing the Bounty Hunter's stealth or something similar depending on the situation); upgrade purples to reds as needed for skills (does the Bounty Hunter have ranks in Nemesis?); then upgrade one more to account for the preparation aspect of it.

If any despair (or too many threat - say, net 5) are rolled, the Bounty Hunter has an immediate attack of opportunity.

Narratively speaking, this would show the Bounty Hunter readying himself for a target, but still give the PC an opportunity to see the Hunter and tuck their head back in the window quick enough to not get shot.

This would be cool outside of structured gameplay.

Inside a combat encounter, though, just give the PC improved cover (2 setbacks). If they show blank on the attack roll, the Bounty Hunter hit the PC while he was poking his head out the window.

The dice do it all for you. No need to homebrew d20 solutions.

I hope this isn't too back-and-forth for the people here. I'm enjoying this conversation, but I don't want it to devolve into a "someone is wrong on the Internet!" situation.

Hi,

I also think that there is an issue here that needs addressing.

EotE is an excellent, innovative game which IMHO sits in the same group of games as Feng Shui and Savage Worlds. Indeed I think that it does certain things much better than either of those games, which--if you know anything about me--is high, high praise indeed.

However, at heart, the combat system is pretty crunchy... Not difficult, and it certainly gives players and GM the wriggle room to describe things in a narrative as fashion once the dice results have been discerned. And that is the thing--the dice results dictate the result. This is in no way a slam, I much prefer things that way!

There is another game--Marvel Heroic---which also has a margin of player decision on the order of initiative, but the GM in that game can interrupt their careful orchestration of events by spending his resources

Holding your action, or a lightning reaction to escalating events should be allowed within the rules without falling back on narrative fiat, and table discussion which only serves to slow the game down and be the possible cause of player dissatisfaction and inconsistency.

Maybe there is a Talent that I have missed that can do this... or an NPC ability?

I do have a solution, not sure what people will think about it....

If a character or NPC, uses a maneuver to "Go on Hold" but forgoes their action for that turn, they can momentarily act out of the initiative order once but doing so will cost a point of the Destiny pool.

So my situation was as follows the Gand Bounty Hunter flings himself through a window, and then uses another maneuver (and 2 strain) to then turn and train his gun on the window. He hasn't got up or taken cover, he is just lying on his back pointing his blaster at the smashed window waiting for someone to poke their head out...

If a character does do this, he can then take a shot, but doing so costs the GM a point of Dark Destiny. Then the initiative returns to the normal flow of things and the Bounty Hunter falls back into the usual order of things...

Thoughts, flames?

Sounds reasonable and fun. I am not sure if you even need the reasonable part......

Hey guys,

Sorry to necro the thread but I thought it better than starting a new one.

This came up for me last night - a player wanted to use a Delay or Reaction (as in DnD 5e) in order to save a shot for the event that an NPC started priming a grenade (with the hope of causing the NPC to drop said nade and cause some self-harm).

On thinking about this overnight, I am wondering if an appropriate solution would be to have the player use a Destiny point to manipulate the narrative - they're angling for a specific scenario and that is the purpose of that system. So they could spend a point to have the NPC prime a granade and continue with their action.

What are your thoughts on this as a solution I could apply going forward? Would it work?

You can choose the lowest initiative slot your group rolls, not sure if that is what you mean.

Yeah, this was what I meant with my post too. Just to be sure everything is clear for the OP, no one actually has a set initiative slot. It's just set up something like:

PC

PC

NPC

PC

NPC

NPC

This is based on the initiative rolls. Every round, the actual order that each of the individual PCs and NPCs act in might be different and is only decided on at the time. So our example might look like this in the first round:

Bob

Jane

Stormtrooper

Alex

ISB Agent

Sniper

And in the second round it could look like:

Jane

Alex

ISB Agent

Bob

Stormtrooper

Sniper

This! This was complete news for me!

Thank you so much for clearing this up!

I've always been under the impression that the initiative rolls just set who goes when, not a free sort of "pc, pc, npc, pc" and then the PC's are free to pick the order.

That's gonna solve so many potential problems

Actually flipping a Destiny point is exactly the solution, when the NPC actually throws the grenade. I'll explain.

PC takes an initiative slot, and does stuff, then spends Advantage to give setback dice to the next NPC

NPC takes the next slot, and GM declares that a grenade will be thrown. The PC's decide to flip a Light side DP, hoping to get extra threat or a despair. If the NPC misses the roll and gets 3 threat or a despair then the PC can narrate "due to my suppressing fire the NPC stuffs up the throw, it bounces off scenery straight back at him and he is caught in the blast along with those engaged with him."

Another way would be to use the Move force power with the control upgrade to activate the grenade without the NPC taking it off their belt.

Basically there is no "Interupt" action, but the Destiny point and some of the dice pool modifying Tallents let you stack the dice against your opponents, then use the results to describe the awesome stuff your characters do.

Hey guys,

Sorry to necro the thread but I thought it better than starting a new one.

This came up for me last night - a player wanted to use a Delay or Reaction (as in DnD 5e) in order to save a shot for the event that an NPC started priming a grenade (with the hope of causing the NPC to drop said nade and cause some self-harm).

On thinking about this overnight, I am wondering if an appropriate solution would be to have the player use a Destiny point to manipulate the narrative - they're angling for a specific scenario and that is the purpose of that system. So they could spend a point to have the NPC prime a granade and continue with their action.

What are your thoughts on this as a solution I could apply going forward? Would it work?

I'm definately going to use destiny points for the whole "I wait for someone to pop out or do X" type of actions.

Actually flipping a Destiny point is exactly the solution, when the NPC actually throws the grenade. I'll explain.

PC takes an initiative slot, and does stuff, then spends Advantage to give setback dice to the next NPC

NPC takes the next slot, and GM declares that a grenade will be thrown. The PC's decide to flip a Light side DP, hoping to get extra threat or a despair. If the NPC misses the roll and gets 3 threat or a despair then the PC can narrate "due to my suppressing fire the NPC stuffs up the throw, it bounces off scenery straight back at him and he is caught in the blast along with those engaged with him."

Another way would be to use the Move force power with the control upgrade to activate the grenade without the NPC taking it off their belt.

Basically there is no "Interupt" action, but the Destiny point and some of the dice pool modifying Tallents let you stack the dice against your opponents, then use the results to describe the awesome stuff your characters do.

Ah, a much more elegant way to do it. I was this close. Plus this way, players may enjoy the benefit of their own alloted action too, using the reactionry event as a bonus.

Thanks Richard, much appreciated

There is a sidebar on page 199 of the EotE Corebook about Cinematic Combat.

To me, the simplest way to handle the Bounty Hunter out a window and holding an action would be to go ahead and roll for the action on the Bounty Hunter's turn. Their action is "firing when a head pops out the window." The attack roll should then be used to determine the results. Success is them successfully holding fire until the event (if it even happens) and hitting if it occurs. Failure may be them successfully holding, but missing the shot (a few successes on the roll, but they get canceled out) or shooting early as they mistook a shadow near the window for someone starting to look out (no successes, only failures on the roll).

For the grenade it would be similar. The PC's action is "shooting when the NPC primes a grenade." The attack roll should be made on the PC's turn and the results used to narrate what happens. Success is not firing at the wrong time (i.e. before or after the trigger) and hitting the target. Advantages can be used to hinder the NPC. Failure can be shooting to soon, missing the shot, etc. But the missed shot may still generate Advantages that can have the desired effect.

Add destiny as needed for mechanical or narrative benefits.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable house rule to me. Burn a maneuver, then hold your action until a specific circumstance occurs, like "When bad guys round corner, I'll fire my blaster" or "When bad guys take out their weapons, I'll jump down the wall", something like that. If the circumstance doesn't occur, then you've lost your action. It's basically "Ready an Action" in D&D 4e.

The only thing to worry about is that, unlike D&D 4e, there's no "Immediate Reaction" or "Immediate Interrupt" rules in EOTE, for which "Ready an Action" is a specific occurrence of. If you allow it in this instance, it might be tempting to allow it in other instances, which could very well change the dynamics of combat and take things out of balance. But that's pretty much a risk whenever you house rule something anyway

this is very similar to the way i handle such situations. on your ini-slot one maneuver can be "hold" (we really don't have a name for it) and you also have to specify the action you will take and the circumstances under which you will take it. "i'll shoot my rifle at the first guy through the door once the reinfocrements enter the room" being a very common example. your slot is used and once the specified situation occurs, you then take the action you "paid for" on your own slot. you have to stick close to your intended action though, you can't change your mind and go "whoa, it's a killdozer, my blaster is useless! i lob a thermal detonator and nuke it!" or "ugh, the third guy looks most dangerous, i'll shoot him." instead.

if we are talking about activities happening outside of combat there's no real issue here in my view. if someone sets up an ambush then they will shoot at some point. sometimes opponents might get a chance to spot the ambush and react (starting combat with a normal ini-sequence), but usually the ambush will happen and then you roll for ini.

if someone comes around a corner and there's an opponent standing there waiting to fire a gun they'd better pass a formidable vigilance check to not simply be an easy target.

Of the top of my head - almost in the rules -

• He makes a Vigilance Check during his activation in stead of the attack and the roll determines the success, for eg to add setback(s) to the check of the next person who looks through that window and with sufficient disadvantage he hits for base damage - which also provides a proper moment for destiny point upgrade.
• OR he makes an attack-roll to fire at the window "covering-fire-like" but then he would be shooting continously to discourage people from poking their nasty heads through ghastly windows.