I love the Rally Step, but I have some questions regarding its timing. So far, my only experience with the Rally Step is from A Day Late. The intro adventure in the Tome of Adventure doesn't incorporate set Rally Steps, which I find odd, as it is a new RPG concept introduced in the same book!

Anyway, the rally Step is used twice in A Day Late . Both times, the authors did a great job of stating exactly what triggers the Rally Step. But... I don't think the timing is as obvious as it appears on the surface.

My first question is: when, exactly, does the GM perform the Rally Step--as soon as the player that triggered it completes his turn, or at the end of the round? If you do it right after the player that triggered it, other players that haven't acted yet this round "could" lose their turn. I say "could" because my second question is: once the Rally Step is done, does the GM start a new round, or does he pick up where he left off in initiative order?

I think it is best to finish off the current turn and then do the Rally Step before the next turn, especially in cases where you have to roll initiative for new arrivals. Most importantly, finishing the turn means no one gets skipped. But I also think the Rally Step loses some dramatic impact if you finish out the turn in which the Rally Step was triggered.

For example, let's say that the dwarf player is first to act this round and kills the beastman leader, which triggers the Rally Step. The description of the Rally Step states "Any remaining beastmen withdraw slightly... disengaging from any PCs."

Do I run the Rally Step as soon as the dwarf player is done? If I do, then players 2 and 3 get no action this round. Or, do I finish the turn and let the remaining players get their hack at the remaining beastmen before the Rally?

Also, do the remaining beastmen get to disengage for free, out of turn, because the text states so? (Even though that defies the normal rules, I don't have a problem with that if it's for dramatic effect and the players don't interpret it otherwise.) What if the beastmen already acted--do they still get to withdraw immediately? Or should I intrepret the beastmens' withdrawal as "what they want to do on their turn, assuming they haven't already gone this round and are still alive by the time they get to act?"

Sorry if that seems nitpicky, but the outcomes could be vastly different depending on whether the GM does the Rally Step immediately when triggered or after the triggering round.

So, if this happened at ynnen's table, WWYD (What would ynnen do?)

Thanks!

Steve

ToA, pg 14, Introducing Rally Steps

"First of all, Rally Steps occur between acts. That means you have to be familiar with the structure of your acts before you can see where a Rally Step naturally fits and how to define it ... Some pauses are more obvious than others. If the characters are fending off an attack upon a manor house, the waves of attackers could be considered separate acts. Often in battle there's a brief pause between those waves, as attackers and defenders alike regroup. Those could certainly be Rally Steps. A change of scenery within a scene is also a natural place for a pause."

And so on. In the demo adventure, FFG explicitly explains having a Rally Step between the waves of beastmen. You would only run the Rally Step once all the Beastmen are fled and/or dead.

In the introductory adventure, my feeling is there are Rally Steps, but they are left up to the GM. i.e., FFG is not explicitly telling the GM between which acts to provide a Rally Step. Theoretically, you could have a Rally Step at the end of every Act, should you as the GM choose to do so.

dvang said:

Not quite. The triggers in A Day Late can occur when there are other monsters left. So, if that happens, does the Rally Step happen immediately, or at the end of the turn? For dramatically defining the end of the act, I say 'immediately,' but for equity of actions, I say 'at the end of the turn.' I'm currently leaning more towards 'immediately' than I was when I wrote the OP.

Also, I did find a reference to using a Rally Step in An Eye for an Eye . You are right that it appears the designers assume a Rally Step at the end of every act.

Having read the demo adventure (but not yet the full rules) I'm also wondering about how these rally steps are going to get used to break the end of an encounter before that encounter ends "naturally".

In the example of the first rally step in the demo, if the beastmen retreat, my players are likely gonna want to take the fight to the beastmen straight away!

How did people play those rally steps in the demos and how do they intend to explain to their players how these rally steps work and what pcs can do in them, compared to what npcs can do with them.

I think they work very well in a cinematic sense, and I really like the idea of them. I'm just not sure how they will work in practice.

If the game was a book or a film, then having the beastmen fall back to re-group and then charge again is a great break in the action, and the heroes in the book have a quick look around, bind wounds or whatever BUT if the pcs are not heavily injured, what prevents them from going after the beastmen straight away... Basically, how are people going to get their players to abide by the idea behind rally steps?

pumpkin said:

In this case, just having the few seconds to consider whether to pursue, or not, could constitute a Rally Step. Any moment to gather your wits together can do.

But, more generally, I agree with you that they can disappear into the fog of war.

monkeylite said:

Yer, thinking about this a bit more, i think i can easily rule that the sudden blasting from the horn is enough to make all the pcs stand a gawp for a second or two, a surprise round half way through combat if you will, giving the beastmen time to fade into the trees.

So the rally step kicks in immediately, in effect as soon as the horn is blown; once the beastmen have retreated the pcs get to gather theirs wits, and then the next act begins.

As long as this surprise mechanic isn't over used, i think that should be fine.

Right now i just need to get my copy so i can read about rally steps in detail!

The way I would play it is that the beatmen start retreating and breaking after the horn is blown. So in effect, there remains a few rounds of combat to play before the rally phase kicks in. The rally phase happens when the PCs are alone and unengaged, and can gather their wits.