About the Rally step (yeah, i know, another one of those posts)...

From page 14 (Tome of Adventure):

"The characters are after a crooked merchant. They trick or bully their way into his manor house, and find themselves face to face with the man himself. What do they do? It's natural to pause for a second here - the dilettante straightens up, the ratcatcher dusts off his clothes, the mercenary clears his throat." ... "This confrontation could indicate a progression into a new act, which allows the GM to introduce the Rally step."

So far everything's ok, right? Well... by following the rules of the Rally Step it could simply read as follows instead:

"The characters are after a crooked merchant. They trick or bully their way into his manor house, and find themselves face to face with the man himself. What do they do? It's natural to pause for a second here - the dilettante suddenly realises that now is the perfect time to start bandaging his friend the ratcatcher who has been injured the entire time, the mercenary realises that he's hurt too and starts bandaging himself . From the crooked merchants point of view this is totally normal behaviour. Three strangers just tricked and bullied themselves into his manor house and when they stumble into his chamber they totally ignore him and starts to take care of their wounds instead. He simply waits for them to get done, before he confronts them about what the F#?% they are doing in his manor. "

All the different things a player can choose to do during a Rally step (Perform one manoeuver, Attempt Resilience/Discipline check to recover fatigue/stress, Re-roll initiative, perform an action with the Rally trait) seem quite fine. Its like the characters are catching their breath, focusing on the task ahead, etc. They all seem to fit quite well in their context except for the one that allows a player to " Attempt a First Aid check on himself or another engaged target ".

This action is simply way, way out there in some situations (like the one above) and just makes the whole situation seem very very strange, however i try to visualise it... Am I totally misreading how the Rally step works, or is there some exception rule that i've missed?

It's not like you're going into your kit and pulling out bandages, then dressing a wound all field medic or Boy Scout style. First of all, that would be two maneuvers since I'm assuming the PC wasn't running around with bandages already in hand and fishing some out would be a manage equipment maneuver leaving them unable to perform the First Aid check, which is using a Skill, which is also a maneuver. The mechanical effect is to recover a couple wounds (or ignore the effects of 1 crit for rest of day), but the wounds are an abstraction and the First Aid check can be viewed as nothing more than quickly applying pressure to a small cut to prevent another character from bleeding on the baron's rug. Properly dressing wounds is more the type of activity represented by the bonus Fortune dice a First Aid check can apply to a Resilience check after resting. Which again, doesn't presume the character rested for 8 hours, then you tried First Aid; rather it represents you having tended to them while they were resting or having given them proper treatment prior to them resting.

Play it up. Run with it. The evil merchant will behave differently in the heroes bust in, gleaming with Sigmar's glory, untouched by the merchant's guards, than if the heroes stagger in, taking advantage of even a few seconds lull in the running battle to cinch a sleeve tight around a seeping wound and yank a crossbow bolt out of the dwarf. Like Mac40k said, this isn't the type of first aid where you sit down and carefully do a good job. It's the 'stop the bleeding and keep fighting' quick and dirty first aid you do when you can get two seconds to yourself without someone swinging a sword at you.

As a GM, I would inform the players that they may perform a shortened Rally step.

They may do anything except extended or complex actions (like using First Aid or all out lying on the ground and resting).

Necrozius said:

Resting is not an option during the Rally Step. The Rally step is already shorter than a normal turn since the players can only perform one maneuver and don't have the option of performing additional maneuvers by taking Fatigue. The application and results of using First Aid during the Rally Step (or combat) is already less benefit than using First Aid at other times because it does not represent an extended or complex action when used during the Rally Step, whereas when used in conjunction with Rest or Long Term Care it does.

mac40k said:

The question still remains though... what does Rally step IN combat mean?

SOLDIER: "During each Rally step IN combat..."

WAYWATCHMAN: "During a Rally step, you may..."

What's the difference?

If you compare these two career abilites, they seem to trigger under different circumstances. The Waywatchman ability seem to trigger during ANY Rally step, while the Solier ability seems to specify that it triggers during Rally steps but only if it is IN combat. The question is... what does the "in combat" mean in reference to a Rally step.

As mentioned above, a rally step can very well happen between two non-combat acts (according to how it is described in ToA). I definetly don't think such a Rally step could be defined as being IN combat...

But when does it trigger then? Does it mean that it is just triggered if the Rally step follows directly AFTER a combat-act? Does it require the Rally step to be directly followed by another combat-act to be counted as a Rally step DURING combat? So many questions...

Use your common sense, apply it to the situation.

Freiduin said:

It means exactly what it says it means. A Rally Step in combat is a Rally Step between two acts in a combat encounter. If another combat act will not follow the one that is ending, then it is the end of an encounter, not a Rally Step.

mac40k said:

Finally a clear answer. (At least one I got). Thank you!

(Guess I was totally overthinking it, making it unnessecarily complicated.)