9 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

Totally. I love the narrative dice for the options they give you. They make it easy to balance the ongoing encounter, giving the GM options while simultaneously not making victory seem too cheap.

But if the group is having fun, then that's quite literally all that matters.

Yep. I'd deliberately not inflicted the poison on anyone earlier in the battle, despite having gotten dice results which allowed me to do so, because I wanted the encounter to be dangerous but not so much that PCs were being poisoned left and right. They were already having enough problems with bad dice rolls of their own. I knew that this particular attack was the last chance the critters would have to use their poison and I wanted to demonstrate to the players just how dangerous the creatures are and how lucky they'd been to survive the run-in with them. In essence, the victim was the "red shirt", showing the audience how the monster works.

Everything worked out as I'd wanted. The group got beat up some (nothing that some stims can't fix up), felt that they had a close call, learned a few things IC, and had fun doing it.

9 hours ago, Hinklemar said:

Immobilized is the game term for "cannot use maneuvers" and I'd focus on the effect rather than the name. Maneuvers are defined (iirc) as things which aren't consequential enough to need a skill check.

I like this definition.

9 hours ago, Hinklemar said:

Want to draw that gun while you're tied up? Make a coordination check to access it. Want to move to somewhere in short range? Make a resilience check to fight through the poison's effects. That type of thing.

I have serious issues with this. For starters, if the player hadn't already failed a Resilience check they wouldn't be suffering the effects of the poison. In general, neither this game system (nor many others) allows players to re-roll failed checks. This system has a specific mechanic for doing so: rather expensive talents that can be bought. Allowing players to roll to ignore adverse consequences in effect very much cheapens the value and reduces the need for such talents. Another factor to consider is that if players want to try to do what you're suggesting there are two other mechanics that exists in the game for that. The first one is Destiny Points. Want to fight the poison? Burn Destiny to be able to move, suffering strain while doing so. Burn Destiny to be able to make that Coordination check to draw your weapon (and suffer strain for doing so). The second mechanic is Triumph and advantages. Failed the check but got a Triumph? You can still move, but at a cost in strain. Got an advantage? Reduce the strain cost to move, or delay the onset of the poison's effects for a turn.

In summary, players should not be allowed to roll again on failures, and certainly not for free. There are plenty of mechanics in the game system that allow players (and GMs) freedom to ignore or ameliorate negative consequences of failures.