Can you use Social actions during a Combat encounter?

(In a Combat encounter you roll Agility for iniziative)

It depends.

Use common sense - some social actions have combat effects printed on the card (Winning Smile) - but it has to make sense. In the Demo Adventure one of my players tried to winning smile the Gor to have it delay attacking for a round - I didnt like it, but since I was new and not comfortable with the rules I let it slide - in hindsight I would have outright refused it, although in some situations I would allow it, and in others I may allow it with negative modifiers.

Some of the social actions clearly have no combat applications and shoul dbe treated as such.

As a side note, some day I would like to prepare a good duel between a PC and a villain which is a mix of actual combat and witty repartee. Sort of like THATsword fight in a Princess Bride.

Necrozius said:

Best fight ever!

And there should be room for Slayers (or pitfighters, etc.) to intimidate their foes or slick characters to win over enemies to their sides mid fight, etc. etc.

42! said:

Particularly charming protagonists need to win over the pretty daughters of the main villains (ever see Willow?).

Necrozius said:

Isn't there an action card called "Insulting Strike" that uses a mental characteristic?

Mordenthral said:

That's right there is.

What I meant was that I'd like to run a duel that was both combat based AND using a Social Progress Tracker at the same time.

Sort of like- the PC may not actually have to KILL the antagonist if he can defeat him with words.

Kaptain O said:

I dunno, I could see some brazen hero step forward and bare his pearly whites while the Gor ***** his head in bewilderment at the fact this this human isn't running away like all the others he's slain! Of course after the initial delayed turn I'd give the Gor a couple extra fortune dice as he enrages and tries to beat that silly smirk off that smug gits face!

- Mordak

Mordicious said:

I can't.

Why not give more Challenge dice to social actions? And if they fail...they only piss off their enemy even more...?

Sarim Rune said:

In some situaions I may, but I wont ever let a winning smile stop a Gor from attacking again

What if the baring of ones teeth is some sort of Beatman social interaction and the Gor is slightly confused by what the Human is trying to tell him?

There are a ton of 'what ifs' that could arise - I would always allow an action like that, but would add a ton of challenge dice to it and if their winning smile fails? Well, the Gor gets to his him with his axe...

Kaptain O said:

As alakazam suggestions: barring teeth for animals is a sign of aggression. I do not see it so much as interpreted as the beastman gives the PC a wink and the ol' finger gun back to the PC. But instead, brays and yells and does his own puffy chest yell. I would give the player some extra Challenge dice (cuz it's extra dangerous) and explain to them that there will be additional potential problems for Banes and Chaos Stars, beyond what the card says. Also they need to be in Engaged because the Gor will never even see it otherwise.

If they succeed, the Gor is 'stunned' and pissed at this display of aggression. Maybe it misinterprets it as a challenge to his authority which requires his own posturing. If the action gains some Banes, then the Gor gets extra Fortune or Exptertise dice. If the action gains a Chaos Star, the Gor gains an immediate follow up attack right then and there.

But I would make sure that the player understands those are the conditions. If they still want to do it, I would let them.

I'm sorry thats just retarded, if it wasn't written on the card who would ever say "hey I want to use my charm skill to smile at the Gor to try to stop him from attacking". All of your forced justifications for why it *could* stop a Gor from attacking are just that, tenuous forced ways to let the card be played just for the sake of playing the card. Why would a high elf envoy even think for a moment that its a good idea to do? It's completely gamist metagaming "well its on my card so I should be able to do it" - It isn't roleplaying, it doesnt make sense and no number of "what ifs" will make it make any kind of sense.

If you want to try to challenge the Gor's authority then Perform a Stunt and describe what you are actually doing and the goal then the gm can make a common sense decision but Winning Smile doesn't make even remotely make sense.

Since the discussion has gone into using social skills in combat, I originally refused to let someone use intimidation in the midst of combat, with the logic being that the threat of violence was already well past. In hindsight, I think I should have let that one through simulating trepidation.

This brings me to another issue. Social effects in social context, which is definately a story mode event. Since there are social cards with cool down effects, does this mean initiative has to be rolled when doing something like haggling or pumping people for information?

Well... when it comes to SKILLS that are social.. It seems skills like Intimidation seem to work in alot of combat situations (again, depending on what kind if enemy/creature you're up against). The adventure (an eye for an eye) in Tome of Adventure p 76 seems to imply so in top left corner about the Beastman Battle Progress Tracker. But some other skills definetly seems wrong to use during combat... I'd say "Charm" is a bit late to use once combat has begun.

When it comes to ABILITY CARDS that are social... it seems to very much depend on what kind of card it is and what the GM feels makes sense. A social skill that i think would be pretty ok to use in the midst of combat would for example be "Inspiring Words".

Some other social ability cards just feel very very strange if they where usable during combat. The card "Conundrum" for example... who would even listen to their enemy recite some kind of riddle in the middle of a fight to the death and begin to ponder what it means...???

Alot of them would very much be dependant on what kind of enemy your fighting too. Some fit better against certain enemies than others.

When it comes to recharge tokens on social ability cards, i don't see any problem. If I understand the rules correctly... the only way to recover recharge tokens outside of combat is during rally steps (which removes one recharge token from each currently recharging card). Recharge tokens aren't reset during non-combat acts. I always saw this as a way to limit things like healing from be spammed outside of combat until everyone is at full health again (as well as giving combat a bit more variation, since a new combat directly after a social act might still start with players having some abilities on "cooldow" since last combat). Am I wrong with this interpretation, and if so.. where can I find the rules that states the contrary?

Freiduin said:

Well, more appropriately, where can I find the rules that state it works like that? This appears to come down to your misunderstanding of the word "act" - I tried to spell this out before. Acts occur within encounters not vice versa, you get "rally steps" in the pauses in action inside an encounter (aka while in encounter mode) - then when the encounter is finished you back into story mode.

A Social encounter can either be run in encounter mode or more abstractly in story mode - if its a simple conversation do a story, if you want to go into more detail, have people roll social initiative and "zoom in" to encounter mode.

Kaptain O said:

Heh.. Now i finally got what you where talking about with the act definition. It was one of those wonderful "Aha! That's how it works"-moments.

But still, the question remains... do recharge tokens "reset" duing story mode, or perhaps between encounters.. or do they require combat rounds/rally steps to recover (1 point for each ability each time)? I can't find anything anywhere about a reset. (page reference please)

No books at work so no page ref

But im pretty sure during story mode there are no rounds, no initiative, no tracking tokens placed on actions or talents, no manoeuvres spent - its all pure narrative. There is an end of encounter step where you remove fatigue/stress equal to TOU/WP (I believe) so maybe it goes into more detail there. I think essentially all the trappings of encounter mode just get picked up and disregarded at that point. It just makes not sense conceptually that you cant block at the start of an encounter because you blocked a sword blow last week.

Don't the rules say that during social encounters Fellowship is used for Initiative, so certainly you have encounters in the iniaitive system using social skills.

What we're talking about is "can you mix social and combat encounter"?

Rob

valvorik said:

I'm not sure who that was directed at, or what you were trying to say, I did mention this a few posts back:

A Social encounter can either be run in encounter mode or more abstractly in story mode - if its a simple conversation do a story, if you want to go into more detail, have people roll social initiative and "zoom in" to encounter mode.

As to your question "Can you mix social and combat encounter" do you mean in the same adventure? If so, then yes of course you can - and probably should.

So you did, sorry, missed that. I didn't mean having both types of encounter in an adventure (yes of course that should be done), rather having an encounter that was both. Thread is about "can I use social action in combat encounter", what about 'combat action in social" (my brilliant nap shot with arrow by his ear cowes him). In effect, are you locked into one mode or another?

It seems to me that combat trumps in that "once it's clear you're trying to wound/kill, your charm and diplomacy are much less effective". That said, allowing those actions to have some effect in combat seems fun and believable.

Rob

I was not saying that you should never be able to use social actions, just that you shouldnt *always* be able to use them. you cant flirt with a beastman to make him stop attacking you.

Common sense should prevail.

How it seems to me:

It's best to say yes and allow a player to attempt something, which is why there are difficulty dice that represent how crazy a task the player is attempting (more on that below). Most Social cards can't be effectively used in combat encounters - maybe the Support ones can.The charging mob of beastmen are coming to kill the players, not engage them in pleasant conversation. Likewise, combat actions used in a social encounter would pretty much, I suspect, end the social encounter and start a combat one.

Remember that regular Social actions count as Average (d1) difficulty checks in NON-combat situations. Social actions attempted after combat initiative has been rolled, if allowed, should no longer be Average difficulty checks. When enemies are more than hostile, they are actually attacking, a Hard difficulty check would seem to be appropriate. So, in that case, a Winning Smile with 3 difficulty dice attached to it for trying to charm beastmen who want to eat you seems appropriate. Against a Daemon, a Daunting (d4) check would seem in order, with all the accompanying banes/chaos stars illustrating how much it strains the character to even attempt it against such an enemy.

Social encounters use Fellowship for initiative instead of Agility (ie the argument in the Shillings demo) where everyone can use a skills with maneuvers and use action cards on their turns. But just as a Troll-felling attack against a merchant you're trying to negotiate with isn't the most productive thing you could do, a Winning Smile against a slavering daemon coming to get you isn't effective either. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't have the Combat designator on it, and perhaps even represents an attempt to bend the rules.

Still - it's better to say yes and increase the difficulty than it is to say no. So sure, I'd advise allowing it, but bearing in mind that this is no longer an Average (1d) difficulty task.

Still makes no sense, no matter how well you roll t shouldn't work.