Does anybody regularly use the Alternate and Optional Rules from pages 322-323 of the Edge Core Rulebook? I don't believe that these reappeared in the later Core books, and I myself have only made very limited use of them. These Include:
Anybody want to share their experiences with using these?
Edited by HappyDazeI've used One-Check Combat Resolution a few times. Nice way to quickly do the mop-up after the fun part of a big fight is over, especially if it's getting late and the players need to get going.
If you want it to simulate the results that would have happened if you'd played the fight out, though, it needs to be made a bit more lethal. As it is, wounds are only inflicted if a PC fails the one-check resolution roll. But it's pretty rare in real play for a PC to get through a round with zero wounds received.
My modification is to give each player wounds equal to the failures rolled on just the negative dice (before they're canceled by the positive dice). Otherwise the RAW works pretty well. The only awkward part is those battles where the PCs' only goal is to win. It can be difficult to come up with "objectives" that each PC wants to achieve by the end of the fight. I usually suggest things like taking prisoners alive, but sometimes it's hard to come up with good options there.
Edited by DaverWattraIf I were going to use the Passive Checks rule, I would house rule it to compare the difficulty with the number of dice in a PC's dice pool in a skill, not with the PC's ranks in the skill. As the rulebook itself says, the passive check system favors skill ranks over characteristics in a way that ordinary checks do not.
7 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:As the rulebook itself says, the passive check system favors skill ranks over characteristics in a way that ordinary checks do not.
But is that really a bad thing? If your'e a high-Characteristic/low-Skill character, you just spend the Action to roll normally. The Passive Check gives a boost to the characters that favor specialization (Skills) over broad capability (Characteristics) while the game arguably favors the opposite in many ways.
What is this passive check rule?
4 hours ago, TheShard said:What is this passive check rule?
It's an option to let a player skip rolling on an easy task (and also not have to spend an action on it). You determine how many difficulty dice are involved in the effort and if the player's character has more ranks in the skill than the difficulty, the character can succeed by using a maneuver and doesn't have to roll.
For example, a character with the Mechanics skill wants to fix a malfunctioning computer screen. The GM determines that there would be 2 difficulty dice involved in a skill check. The character has 4 ranks in Mechanics, so the GM lets the player spend a maneuver to easily succeed. If the character only had one or two ranks, and didn't qualify for a passive check, then the player could spend an action and roll the dice as usual to attempt to succeed.
Again, this is an optional rule on page 322 of the EotE Core Rulebook. It exists to help speed things along by reserving dice rolling to dramatic and/or difficult actions. But it's optional and GMs aren't expected to use it unless they feel it will help with the pace of the game (I forgot it even existed to be honest).
1 hour ago, atama2 said:(I forgot it even existed to be honest).
That seems to be what most GMs have done with all of these rules. That's why I brought them up.
I think that makes a lot of sense to give skill ranks a bit more value. It also allows you to shoot and fix a screen which is fun.
The choice to not print these in the other books is super unusual, the "speed up a forgone fight" option is really appealing to me
Edited by Wilhelm ScreamerI use the Passive check rule all the time. When getting advantages or triumph doesn't really make any difference then I let the players choose between rolling dices or an automatic success. They almost always choose the automatic success.
I think rolling dice should be done only when a result with advantages or threats or triumph and despair matters. The rest of time the GM could resolve things dicelessly.
One-check combat resolution is really handy when you have solo fights (group split for example) or for some reason it takes really long. I had one of my player, who got stripped of her equipment, and had to get in to a certain place. She's a melee assassin, but still, without weapon it would have taken forever to finish just one basic, armored guard. So we played until we had Narrative Ammo (patent pending), then I let her finish it in one check.
Edited by Rimsen