Talent states : " May spend 1 Destiny Point to disengage from engaged enemy as an out of turn incidental ". My question is when do you call out this talent ? Before the GM calls for his attack, or as a response to the GM call of an attack ? Does this make the action of the opponent fizzle, or can he call for another action instead, or another manoeuver to reengage ?
Thanks
Just like it says on the tin: immediately after being engaged. If they haven't taken 2 maneuvers already, they can spend another maneuver to re-engage. Or they can do something else. It doesn't interrupt any actions or cause anything to fizzle on its own.
As Lorne posted, the full talent text on page 106 pretty much spells out how the talent works. It only triggers on a specific circumstance, and generally speaking won't cause an attack to fail.
At first, I thought the only two possible exceptions to that would be Draw Closer and Hawk-Bat Swoop, but with Draw Closer, that talent pulls the target towards the user, so Pre-Emptive Avoidance wouldn't trigger since the enemy didn't "move" to engage, but rather you were forcibly moved to engage them.
Hawk-Bat Swoop is a bit trickier, since the user is "moving" to engage you, but their doing that as an Incidental that's part of the Action required to use HBS. Some GMs might decide that "move" in PEA means "enemy spent a Maneuver to move into the engaged range band" while others might let you use it against someone using HBS since they went from Short Range to Engaged; in the later case, the HBS user's attack would fail, since you'd have moved to Short Range via PEA.
I agree with Lorne on this one...
I wouldn't let a character use PEA to fizzle HBS since it's the same power happening.. like in WoW Trading Card Game... you can't interrupt in the middle of a Power, just before or after, but not during the power.... same for HBS.
So Pre-Emptive Avoidance can only be used if the enemy uses a manoeuver to come into engaged range, and before they attack, you call your Pre-Emptive Avoidance. Giving the enemy the chance to either use 2 strain to move again to engaged, or to do something else with is action instead of attacking you.
Thanks
That's clear.
Something to consider with this... most minions and rivals have no strain, so they suffer wounds instead. That means if an enemy moves to engage you and you immediately move away, unless they sacrifice their action to move again, you just either avoided the attack anyway, or the enemy must take 2 damage to get to you. That's a powerful effect, allowing the character to control the pace of melee combat. No small feat.
Just some food for thought.
I hadn't read the full text on the talent. That really limits the usefulness of it. It's fairly rare that somebody is going to be approaching on their second maneuver, thus allowing you to escape. Trading a destiny point for 2 strain (or 2 wound on a minion or rival) seems like a relatively poor trade. I suppose you could burn 2 destiny points if you're really desperate, one after each of their maneuvers.
It's not like the talent is useless, but it's definetly much less cool then I had thought.
It always depends on the pace of the combat...
I've seen plenty of times a character Draw his weapon, then use 2 strain to move to engage then attack... Same thing if the character was knocked down, manoeuver to get up, then use 2 strain to move to engage then attack...
There are lots of ways to make this talent shine.
Something to consider: It costs a freaking Destiny Flip!
This won't be happening every turn or even more than once or twice an encounter. Contrarily HBS can be performed every round, for no cost.
Edited by evileeyoreHBS?
I probably would allow it to counter Hawk Bat Swoop. As others have stated, this power requires a destiny point. That's not going to be able to happen all that often. It also to my mind gives this power a bit of a trump over HBS. From a strictly mechanical standpoint it also is just how I interpret the RAW.
HBS?
Hawk-Bat Swoop.
I used it because I didn't want to type out the name of said talent repeatedly in my earlier post, along with shortening Pre-Emptive Avoidance to PEA for same reasons.
I hadn't read the full text on the talent. That really limits the usefulness of it. It's fairly rare that somebody is going to be approaching on their second maneuver, thus allowing you to escape. Trading a destiny point for 2 strain (or 2 wound on a minion or rival) seems like a relatively poor trade. I suppose you could burn 2 destiny points if you're really desperate, one after each of their maneuvers.
It's not like the talent is useless, but it's definetly much less cool then I had thought.
Well as thebearisdriving noted, most adversaries are going to be Minions and Rivals, for whom taking that second maneuver either means giving up their action, or willfully suffering 2 strain to gain a second maneuver, which is translated to wounds for Rivals and can't be done at all for Minions. So against them, the talent is plenty useful because you've either prevented their attack entirely (vs. Minions) or caused the enemy to suffer damage (vs. Rivals). I'd call that a fair trade for a Destiny Point.
Even against a Nemesis it's useful, since they're still burning strain in order to be able to make that attack, and if said Nemesis has defensive talents that require strain to be spent to work, such as Parry or Reflect, by forcing them to spend that 2 strain, you've cut into their defensive resources, which can also be helpful from a group perspective even if your PC doesn't get quite as big a boon from it.
Would it be possible to use it twice. The target moves up to you burning their first maneuver. You flip a destiny and move to short. They use their second maneuver and move again, you flip another destiny and pull back a second time.
That's really expensive, but there are times when it might be worth it. I could see a Jedi kiting the big bad while the rest of the party takes out the henchmen.
Would it be possible to use it twice.
Nothing in the descriptions against it. So, as long as you've got Destiny Points to flip, you can keep skipping around little by little from each opponent that engages you.
Would it be possible to use it twice.
Nothing in the descriptions against it. So, as long as you've got Destiny Points to flip, you can keep skipping around little by little from each opponent that engages you.
I believe you're limited to flipping one DP per "action" (pg 26) or "check" (pg 27). So I think the spirit of the rules would dictate that you can only use the power once per enemy action/maneuver that you're reacting to. I would think that if another enemy attempts to engage you later that round, then you could flip another DP to use the talent once again.
I believe you're limited to flipping one DP per "action" (pg 26) or "check" (pg 27). So I think the spirit of the rules would dictate that you can only use the power once per enemy action/maneuver that you're reacting to. I would think that if another enemy attempts to engage you later that round, then you could flip another DP to use the talent once again.
Good point. So far the only exception to only being able to flip a single Destiny point for an action/check has been the Signature Abilities, so it's probably the case that one can only use PEA once per turn, and if the enemy does manage to spend a second maneuver to re-engage, then the player is SOL.
I believe you're limited to flipping one DP per "action" (pg 26) or "check" (pg 27). So I think the spirit of the rules would dictate that you can only use the power once per enemy action/maneuver that you're reacting to. I would think that if another enemy attempts to engage you later that round, then you could flip another DP to use the talent once again.
Good point. So far the only exception to only being able to flip a single Destiny point for an action/check has been the Signature Abilities, so it's probably the case that one can only use PEA once per turn, and if the enemy does manage to spend a second maneuver to re-engage, then the player is SOL.
I'm not following your logic here. You can use a Destiny point only once per action/check, so you couldn't spend two when engaged once, but if you move away, and are then engaged a second time, that would be a separate instance/usage. I see no reason that you couldn't spend another DP to disengage again.
yeti1069,
Under "How Destiny Points Are Used" in each of the rulebooks, there's the following sentence: "a player can only spend one light side Destiny Point during a single action, and so should think carefully about how to use destiny before doing so. The GM is likewise limited to spending only one dark side point per action."
This is what OggDude was referring to in his post, and it's been clarified by the designers (including Jay Little aka the very intelligent chap that designed the core game mechanics) that it's not a single Destiny Point per skill check, but one Destiny Point per the entire turn on both sides. So if a PC spends a Destiny Point to upgrade their attack roll, they can't then spend a second Destiny Point to activate a talent such as Anatomy Lessons or Targeted Blow to increase the damage of the attack. And as I observed, so far the only documented exception to only being able to spend a single Destiny Point during the course of an action/turn are the Signature Abilities that cite the need spend 2 Destiny Points to activate the effect.
And it's probably not in the errata as the FFG staff figured that most people were smart enough to figure that out on their own without it needing to be spelled out in exacting detail. Sadly, systems like D&D 3rd/4th edition and GURPS, which pretty much do spell everything out in exacting detail have resulted in players and GMs that need every rule in other systems spelled out for them.
yeti1069,
Under "How Destiny Points Are Used" in each of the rulebooks, there's the following sentence: "a player can only spend one light side Destiny Point during a single action, and so should think carefully about how to use destiny before doing so. The GM is likewise limited to spending only one dark side point per action."
This is what OggDude was referring to in his post, and it's been clarified by the designers (including Jay Little aka the very intelligent chap that designed the core game mechanics) that it's not a single Destiny Point per skill check, but one Destiny Point per the entire turn on both sides. So if a PC spends a Destiny Point to upgrade their attack roll, they can't then spend a second Destiny Point to activate a talent such as Anatomy Lessons or Targeted Blow to increase the damage of the attack. And as I observed, so far the only documented exception to only being able to spend a single Destiny Point during the course of an action/turn are the Signature Abilities that cite the need spend 2 Destiny Points to activate the effect.
And it's probably not in the errata as the FFG staff figured that most people were smart enough to figure that out on their own without it needing to be spelled out in exacting detail. Sadly, systems like D&D 3rd/4th edition and GURPS, which pretty much do spell everything out in exacting detail have resulted in players and GMs that need every rule in other systems spelled out for them.
This seems like something that really should be spelled out, given that "action" has a mechanical definition for the game, and as such has an implied effect of being usable when a character does something. That we have effects that are fueled by DP and that are not tied to actions, but to maneuvers or incidentals muddies those waters considerably.
I'd wager that none of the posters before Ogg's comment would have considered being unable to use Pre-Emptive Avoidance if they had used a DP to upgrade a check during their turn.
It has nothing to do with being "smart enough." There's nothing in the DP pages to indicate that "once per action" should be read as "once per turn, " and implying that people who don't see that are not smart is offensive.
In the point of PEA, it takes place on somebody else's turn, an is a reaction to a specific event (said other person moving to engaged with the Force user), so there's generally no "well, I already spent a Destiny Point to upgrade my skill check" to have even been considered since it's not the Force users turn.
It is also nothing new that we've got talents that require a Destiny Point and would trigger on the same turn as when the PC had spent a Destiny Point to upgrade their roll, and has been around since the EotE Beta.
And frankly, I've seen a number of posts with folks pretty much demanding "official FFG answers" to some of the most obvious things, such as "how does Pierce work?" or "is the price for dueling pistols in Suns of Fortune for a single pistol or a pair of pistols?" or "How do I acquire/use Force powers?" or "How does damage to minions work?" And no, I'm not joking on that last two. And many of those questions are of the type that can be very easily answered with a little bit of actual thought, or that other posters have already taken the time to answer. I actually feel sorry for Sam in his capacity as official answer guy, as he's got to have moments of "Really? You really need me to answer this for you?" in terms of what sorts of questions he gets asked. And it seems some people ask some pretty stupid things simply so they can say "FFG officially answered my question!" instead of trying to come to their own conclusion. While Fiddleback was far more venomous about this sort of behavior (GM's spending more time pestering official designers of various RPGs for "how do i run this?") in a Twitter conversation I had with him a while back, he's got a perfectly valid point in that it seems that GMs who cut their teeth on systems that held the GM and player alike by the hand have lead to a crop of GMs that simply can't or won't trust their own judgment on how to resolve something in the game, either during the pre-game prep session or worse yet freezing up during the game when an unexpected situation comes up and there's nothing in the book that pertains to that situation. I was a player in one Saga Edition game where the GM at a local game day event was so unable to function without specific rules for an oddball situation that the entire table (which included one of the event organizers) unanimously voted to have me take over GMing duties so that we were actually playing the game instead bickering about rules interpretations.
The bit on Destiny Points was one that had been overlooked as this thread indicates, just as there have been various other elements of the rules, both specific to the Force and Destiny Beta and to the system as a whole, that have been equally overlooked. OggDude posted a reminder of "hey guys, you might want to keep this in mind." I happen to agreed that he's got a perfectly valid point, and that in the instance I mentioned, the player being able to flip two Destiny Points during their turn (with the talents in question being Active: Incidental in terms of their Activation requirement), so there's already been an established precedent that "action" does not specifically equal "Action" with a capital A. So again, not exactly a new concept since this sort of thing has been around since Day 1 of the system being released to the public.
There's a big difference between demanding an answer (at all) on how something is priced when it should be obvious, and in discussing a particular interpretation of the rules that has no support within the books.
In the point of PEA, it takes place on somebody else's turn, an is a reaction to a specific event (said other person moving to engaged with the Force user), so there's generally no "well, I already spent a Destiny Point to upgrade my skill check" to have even been considered since it's not the Force users turn.
It is also nothing new that we've got talents that require a Destiny Point and would trigger on the same turn as when the PC had spent a Destiny Point to upgrade their roll, and has been around since the EotE Beta.
Reading what you wrote here, it sounds like you're on the side of being able to activate PEA as often as it's triggered: if someone moves to engage you, and you use PEA, and they move to engage you again, by this reading, you should be able to activate PEA again, since it's a separate action (lower case 'a') triggering the ability.
There's absolutely nothing in the rules that spells out any sort of restriction on DP usage except for the line about not using more than one per action (lower case 'a'). That doesn't translate to, "Once per turn," or, "Once per interaction with another character." If Jay Little's intent was for there to be such a restriction, then that is something deserving of errata, since it's not indicating by anything in the text at all--it's not a matter of being clear, or not, it's simply not there.
I agree that people shouldn't be quite so reliant on answers from the devs, particularly in such a narratively-driven system such as this, and especially since many of the questions you mentioned are addressed suitably on the forums (although, I will say that I first read Pierce as X amount of damage that always punches through Soak, and only realized I might be incorrect when I read someone else's comment on this in a recent post, which spurred me to search through the forums to see what the prevailing opinion was), but the suggestion that DP has some further restricted usage isn't a matter of opinion, it's an issue with RAW and, apparently, RAI without anything pointing to that intent.
Now, there could be an errata on how DPs work, or just on how PEA works, perhaps saying it can only be used once per enemy per turn. We've had other talents that may have had this issue, such as Contingency Plan, but I haven't come across any threads discussing whether this can be activated multiple times, and it hasn't come up in my game yet. As far as the RAW goes, I would say that it could only be activated once per incident of something occurring, but could be used in response to more than one thing per turn (think about Saga Edition's rules for Reactions, or MTG's rules for the "stack"--you can't respond to your own response, but if something else occurs, you may respond to that). So, if you wanted to use it on your turn, then again in response to someone shooting at you, and again in response to their moving to engage you, there's nothing that indicates to me that it shouldn't work that way. Besides, DPs are a fairly limited resource that has to be shared across the whole group, and that can have some negative consequences when overused--there are checks in place.
As far as the talent goes, I'm reserving final judgment until I actually see it in play.
Though as things currently stand, you couldn't be more wrong in how I see it. As based on OggDude's post, I'm of a mind to treat it as the PC's singe allowed usage of a Destiny Point during that turn. And if the bad guy still managed to engage with the PC, then not only can the PC not activate the talent again during that turn, then I'd say they're also not permitted to flip a Destiny Point to upgrade the attacker's difficulty.
And on the subject of rules interpretations, RAW, RAI, and needing clarifications, in general, sometimes winging it just isn't an option (Pathfinder Society, kind of), or is unsatisfactory to part of the group, which can lead to a halt of the game as arguments ensue.
My biggest pet peeve with EotE (aside from how awful the layouts of the books are), is that there's too much that gets left up in the air. Now, when I'm GMing a game, I don't have a problem winging it if a rule isn't known and can't be quickly found, but the person GMing the Star Wars game isn't all that adept at doing so, and I'm sure there are people that are worse. Additionally, I've played with people who have pushed very hard for certain (fallacious) interpretations of the rules in a system that's much better defined than EotE is (D&D 3.5). Maybe it is because I (we) come from a background of rules-heavy games, but that's not a reason to be dismissive of the legitimate grievance that there are many things in this system that are poorly spelled-out, or not addressed at all, and that this nebulousness can be cause for problems at the table.
If you want to talk about how to acquire Force Powers, the developers could have easily added in a few words to specify that any character with a FR of 1 or higher can purchase Force Powers...they already have a ridiculously vague and unhelpful line that reads:
A character must be Force-sensitive to select certain specialization trees (this is actually not true, as there are no trees that have such a requirement) and particular talents (also not true, as you can select Force talents, you just can't use them). In addition, certain talents and abilities may affect Force-sensitive characters in different ways than they affect characters who do not have a Force rating (do we have any such talents so far?). There are some abilities that only affect Force-sensitive characters, and there others to which Force-sensitives are effectively immune (again, do these exist anywhere?). When this is the case, it is noted in the description of the talent or ability in question.
How hard would it have been to add, "Force powers may be purchased by any character with a Force Rating of at least 1"?
As far as the talent goes, I'm reserving final judgment until I actually see it in play.
Though as things currently stand, you couldn't be more wrong in how I see it. As based on OggDude's post, I'm of a mind to treat it as the PC's singe allowed usage of a Destiny Point during that turn. And if the bad guy still managed to engage with the PC, then not only can the PC not activate the talent again during that turn, then I'd say they're also not permitted to flip a Destiny Point to upgrade the attacker's difficulty.
I wasn't claiming that your view was otherwise, but that the section I quoted from you reads as though you're on the other side of the issue. "It happens on someone else's turn as a reaction to a specific event," is the argument for allowing the usage of PEA for each instance of being engaged, since each one is a separate, specific event, as would be the attack against you from the foe that reengaged.
Reserving judgement is fine. Saying that, in your game, you'd rule in a certain way is fine, but saying that it's supposed to work in a way that isn't indicated anywhere within the rules, and then implying that anyone who couldn't see that isn't very smart is not fine.