Hi,

I have a couple of questions, after reading the books two or three times.

Just to be sure, when you make a rolln boon & bane cancel out each other (As success & failure does), right? So you can't trigger boon & bane effect in a specific action use, right?

Regading action cards, just to be sure i understand well, when the check is Something vs Something, the default difficulty is 1 purple die, right?

When the check is Something alone, the default difficulty if 0 purple die, right?

For the improved guarded position, the check would be Discipline (WP) with 0d difficulty, right? But for action that include an opposition (melee, ranged or other), it would be 1d difficulty?

So when the opposition chart mentionned in the rules comes into use? Shoudln't be this table used in all vs check? (If opponent attribute less than twice acting character attribute, roll 0d, etc...)

Finally, about the rally step, I have a hard time to understand how it'll come into effect. I read the examples but most of the fights doesn't includes this kind of situation, so no rally step? More than that, the fortunes points given by the GM to the party are after the encounter, so rally step in a combat is pretty rare. Sometimes, when there's multiple waves of ennemies, it can be used, otherwise...

It's also mentionned that you can remove recharge tokens, recover stress or fatigue, ... during a rally step, but when most of the encounters end, the game will shift into story mode, right? So token are automatically removed, stress and fatigue are recovered by the recovery rules, and so on... the rally step will only be useful when there's quick paced action with multiple fights one after the other, right?

Thanks for your answers,

Ghor²

Boons and Banes cancel each other out, so you won't be triggering both effects in the same check.

When a test is Something () vs Something () the difficulty depends on the relative values of the somethings. See the table and example on p. 43.

When the check is something alone the difficulty should be set by the GM, but it starts at 0. See the table on P. 41.

Yes, Improved Guarded Position would be a simple check with no Challenge unless you wanted to add some for whatever reason, but Melee and Ranged Attacks have a default difficulty of 1, p. 58.

The Opposed rolls in combat thing is left to the GM and the situation ("The GM may decide the action in question is better served as an unopposed or opposed check."p. 58). Personally, I use the Opposed Check table (p.58 and p.43) whenever it's a 'fair' contest and the defender is squaring up to his opponent or is very aware of the attack and trying to avoid it, etc. But if the defender isn't directly trying to avoid the attack, eg when he's suddenly being fired at and doesn't know exactly where the attacker is, or someone's charging into the flank, etc, then I use the default 1 difficulty.

Yeah, unless you have distinct stages to an encounter, it can be hard to squeeze the Rally Step in. Try to use it at the smallest excuse, whenever there is the slightest pause for breath. If you imagine a combat as a mad clash with no time to think, at all, then even a few seconds to collect your thoughts can be beneficial.

So Melee and Ranged attack are basically different than other versus check, as they have a fixed difficulty of 1d, other are based on the opposed table (Not taking into account situational modifier imposed by the situation/GM)?

Any idea why it's fixed diffculty? Because of target defense taken into account (So theoratically, attack are easier than other actions, as only one challenge dice will be added and maybe some black dices, as in the other opposed check, the diffculty can range from 0 to 4 challenge dices)?

For the Scrutinize action card it oppose observation with Guilde (Fel). Guilde is a skill, not an attribute, but I didn't see anywhere something mentionning that having the skill trained add more misfortune/challenge dice. Did I miss something out there?

Thanks for your answers,

Ghor²

Ghorghor said:

When action cards refer to "vs. Target Defence" it means that one Challenge die and a number of Misfortune dice equal to the target's defence are added to the dice pool.

The GM may add a number of additional Challenge, Misfortune and Fortune dice as fits the situation!

If the opponent has trained the Guile skill a Misfortune die is added to the dice pool (see page 58).

I missed this one, thanks for pointing it out!

Attacks are fixed challenge rating because there are already more detailed mechanisms to change their difficulty based on the target - defence ratings and active defenses. Some people do prefer to decrease the hit chance, but I wouldn't recommend using the opposed roll rule as it massively skews the balance towards characters with high combat stats.

I think all combat rolls should be against a 1d, even if something crazy is going on the way to modify the success based on factors good or bad is with fortune or misfortune dice not difficulty dice. We've played a couple times and this feels right... using the opposed rules would REALLY shift combat... making easy fights ridiculously easy and making a fight against a tough opponent - one better than the characters - impossible.

Rally steps are still important. You don't recover all fatigue and stress at the end of a fight. The most you ever recover is your toughness in fatugue and your discipline in stress. That seems like a lot, but based on the types of characters it might not be. A troll slayer or anyone with an aggressive stance can easily wind up with more stress/fatigue than that. So even after the end of a fight he will still have a couple fatigue on him going into the next act.

I think I have to test how it works, in practice, but fortune/misfortune dice should do the trick. And it's right that combat is more detailed...

Wait and see.

Thanks for answer and feedback.

Ghor²