1 hour ago, BrickSteelhead said:

You got it, dude. And something touching armor, but then being deflected away from that armor, makes it *not* successful, by the measure of the intention of the attacker, the desire of the attacked, and the emotional attachment to this story beat by everyone around the table.

No, it doesn’t make it a failed attack. This is because even if no damage is done, there is still the potential for other effects brought on by weapon qualities being activated by spending Advantages. A failed attack does not even have that potential. It completely misses the target. As such, most active weapon qualities cannot be activated to affect the target.

For instance, I can activate a Knockdown with a Brawl attack if I successfully hit my target and have the Advantages required, even if I do no damage because of the target’s Soak and/or Defense . However, if I get no net Successes at all, or net Failures , then nothing happens to the target at all. The attack has absolutely no effect at all on the target because no contact was made . The attack missed . Therefore it has no potential to affect the target. The only weapon qualities that can affect a target without hitting him directly are Blast and Guided; the former because it’s an area effect , the latter because it grants the missile a second chance to attack, and potentially hit, the missed target. If there is contact there is an effect either on the target, the weapon/projectile, or both. Armor can cancel out the damage , but not the other potential effects .

6 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

And thisnis why you atre backwards.

Not all contacts are successf. Butnall successes are contacts.

No. You are the one who has it backwards. The rules are specific. An attack roll must be successful for it to hit. The attacker must roll one or more net Successes for the attack to hit . Therefore, a hit is a subgroup of Success, not the other way around. A successful Combat Check is a prerequisite for a hit.

There is no rule in the book that allows a failed attack to hit . A hit requires a Successful Combat Check.

You are wrong.

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, it doesn’t make it a failed attack. This is because even if no damage is done, there is still the potential for other effects brought on by weapon qualities being activated by spending Advantages. A failed attack does not even have that potential. It completely misses the target. As such, most active weapon qualities cannot be activated to affect the target.

For instance, I can activate a Knockdown with a Brawl attack if I successfully hit my target and have the Advantages required, even if I do no damage because of the target’s Soak and/or Defense . However, if I get no net Successes at all, or net Failures , then nothing happens to the target at all. The attack has absolutely no effect at all on the target because no contact was made . The attack missed . Therefore it has no potential to affect the target. The only weapon qualities that can affect a target without hitting him directly are Blast and Guided; the former because it’s an area effect , the latter because it grants the missile a second chance to attack, and potentially hit, the missed target. If there is contact there is an effect either on the target, the weapon/projectile, or both. Armor can cancel out the damage , but not the other potential effects .

Roger that. So we're back to Tramp thinking "touch" and "hit" mean the same thing. Which must have been interesting in the days of pugil sticks.

9 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:

Roger that. So we're back to Tramp thinking "touch" and "hit" mean the same thing. Which must have been interesting in the days of pugil sticks

It's like an exercise in making distinctions, but not following through properly.

Whatever floats his boat. It'd be easier to understand and follow him if he used clearer sentence structures, less editing (no bold words), and bullet points. Perhaps. Maybe not easier to sympathise with his perspective, or reasoning, anyway.

10 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

There is no rule in the book that allows a failed attack to hit . A hit requires a Successful Combat Check.

Incorrect. Blast (see page 168 AOR CRB) allows just this. I mean, pedantically I can agree that the wording isn't identical , but the result and meaning is . That is, the book doesn't state that spending [AD][AD][AD] on a missed check with a weapon having the Blast quality results in a hit, only that they suffer damage equal to Blast rating. However, the content of this discursive statement and the effective in-game result, is the same as a "hit". Hence your sub-groups, categories, and o perationalization s, end up being void of meaningful and useful content. Your obsession with semantics and arbitrary distinctions doesn't mean you're "right", it only mean you can creatively justify your perspective, but do not expect consensus or agreement just because it makes sense to you. That is, sadly, not how communicative action functions.

Beyond that, you're shoehorning a flexible system into a very inflexible understanding. All the power to you if that works for you, and if it makes your games better and more enjoyable for your players and you, but you're not going to convince anyone by repeating your point of view ad absurdum.

12 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:

"touch" and "hit" mean the same thing. Which must have been interesting in the days of pugil sticks.

Isn't the case in English ? English being a foreign language for me, I've always thought to hit an to touch were more or less synonymous when used for combat situations.

48 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

Isn't the case in English ? English being a foreign language for me, I've always thought to hit an to touch were more or less synonymous when used for combat situations.

Not exactly, there is nuance between the two. In fencing, yeah pretty much synonymous as far as I am aware (I'm not exactly a fencing aficionado).

Typically, if you're shot, punched, bludgeoned, etc. your choice of words isn't going to be "Oh yeah, he touched me." In fact, I don't think I've ever heard someone use it that way (I'm touched! I'm touched! The fighter pilot yelled as his plane spiraled towards the farm fields below, missing a wing). Touched is typically reserved for "she touched his shoulder" or "he touched the hot stove and instantly regretted not listening to his mom."

Hit generally involves speed and/or force and often hostile intent, touch generally has a more relaxed, gentle, or "slow" connotation (minimal force), or else is a fairly literal "X made contact with Y."

If you say "he touched me with a baseball bat" you are going to be taken to mean that he gently prodded you or tapped you lightly. If you mean "he swung it at my head, giving me a serious concussion and brain damage" you were literally correct, but will have been misunderstood (unless they can guess given your current appearance). The proper phrasing there would be "He hit me with a baseball bat" unless you want to look for a more colorful word like "whacked" "bludgeoned" "clobbered" etc.

41 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

Isn't the case in English ? English being a foreign language for me, I've always thought to hit an to touch were more or less synonymous when used for combat situations.

Sure, you'll find them somewhat overlap here " hit " vs " touch ". Doesn't mean that they are equivalent or signify the same things. I mean, they can, but it's an assumption that should be established and clarified, because logic and reasoning allows us to distinguish between the two.

One way to look at it, is that being "hit" would, one could argue, be a more or less solid connection between attacker and target, that has a impact (transferring kinetic or other physical energy that is the source of any potential damage). I.e. an attack the connects and causes damage - beats the base difficulty, any defence sources, and only has to deal with soak.

Being "touched" would be a connection that has little (to no) impact, like a connection from a melee weapon that is deflected away due to qualities of the armour, and for instance direction and angle of the attack. I.e. an attack that would connect if not for the defence (from armour or other source) of the target, where setback dice produce sufficient failures to cancel all successes.

This aspect of the narrative dice system was explained by Jay Little I believe, in some old blog post somewhere, where he explained that it was not only the symbols that should/could enter into the interpretation of the rolled dice, but also the type of and source of one or more dice. So, setback or boost dice could inform the interpretation if present and yielding decisive results, where as if your proficiency dice all came up blank, but ability dice granted you the success, it wasn't the training but raw innate ability, if the decisive die was a boost die, then it was the aim, or some other environmental factor that assisted and became deciding of success, and so on... similarly with failures and the source of the "decisive" failure. If it was a setback dice, it was the environmental factor that caused the fail.

Sure, this isn't hard and fast, and rigid, and it opens up for interpretations, but that is kind of the point of this game and this system. I believe.

4 minutes ago, Jegergryte said:

This aspect of the narrative dice system was explained by Jay Little I believe, in some old blog post somewhere, where he explained that it was not only the symbols that should/could enter into the interpretation of the rolled dice, but also the type of and source of one or more dice. So, setback or boost dice could inform the interpretation if present and yielding decisive results, where as if your proficiency dice all came up blank, but ability dice granted you the success, it wasn't the training but raw innate ability, if the decisive die was a boost die, then it was the aim, or some other environmental factor that assisted and became deciding of success, and so on... similarly with failures and the source of the "decisive" failure. If it was a setback dice, it was the environmental factor that caused the fail.

Sure, this isn't hard and fast, and rigid, and it opens up for interpretations, but that is kind of the point of this game and this system. I believe.

I cancel the symbols on the Challenge/Proficiency dice first, then the Difficulty/Ability, and then the Setback/Boost.

Another way to look at it that might be more clear is that I compare remaining Success/Advantage to the dice. First the Boost, then if there's anything left, the Ability, then if there's anything left, the Proficiency. Same for Threat and Failure.

As for the difference between "hit" and "touched" here, I'd say an attack deflected by armor is still a "hit" in the literal, not game mechanical, sense of the word. It makes contact with force. That force is successfully neutralized, be it through deflection or what have you.
As for the game mechanical sense of the word, when hit is used, it is used for clarity's sake. Tramp is reading too much into it. The only question is whether the attack is successful or not, and then as a subset, why or why not is it successful.

For example: Brawler tries to attack a soldier, and fails with multiple Advantage. He uses 3 Advantage to disarm the soldier. In my opinion, that is best narrated by making physical contact with the blaster either through a kick, grabbing it, or whatever. Sometimes I think a failed attack with certain Advantage results is best represented by an "alternative attack." The character didn't succeed at task X because he had a better idea and tried task Y instead.

4 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

cancel the symbols on the Challenge/Proficiency dice first, then the Difficulty/Ability, and then the Setback/Boost.

Another way to look at it that might be more clear is that I compare remaining Success/Advantage to the dice. First the Boost, then if there's anything left, the Ability, then if there's anything left, the Proficiency. Same for Threat and Failure.

Yeah, I'd just see if the boost and/or setback dice produced any non-blank results, and if so, let that affect the interpretation and narration.

Yeah, I'm with you on the difference between the meaning of "touch" and "hit" in the literal. But, I guess, if the setback dice caused failure, then "he barely touched you/me" comes to mind as a way to narrating it. But yeah.

1 minute ago, Jegergryte said:

Yeah, I'd just see if the boost and/or setback dice produced any non-blank results, and if so, let that affect the interpretation and narration.

Yeah, that's the main deal for me, I forgot to mention. Sometimes it doesn't come into play, but I'll often throw in a little extra flavor about armor giving some additional protection or what-not if the Setback generates something, especially if it prevents a crit. I gloss over/ignore it on most successful/Advantageous checks though.

5 hours ago, Jegergryte said:

Incorrect. Blast (see page 168 AOR CRB) allows just this. I mean, pedantically I can agree that the wording isn't identical , but the result and meaning is . That is, the book doesn't state that spending [AD][AD][AD] on a missed check with a weapon having the Blast quality results in a hit, only that they suffer damage equal to Blast rating. However, the content of this discursive statement and the effective in-game result, is the same as a "hit". Hence your sub-groups, categories, and o perationalization s, end up being void of meaningful and useful content. Your obsession with semantics and arbitrary distinctions doesn't mean you're "right", it only mean you can creatively justify your perspective, but do not expect consensus or agreement just because it makes sense to you. That is, sadly, not how communicative action functions.

Beyond that, you're shoehorning a flexible system into a very inflexible understanding. All the power to you if that works for you, and if it makes your games better and more enjoyable for your players and you, but you're not going to convince anyone by repeating your point of view ad absurdum.

I’ve already covered Blast in several previous posts. Blast is an area effect. That is why it can affect a target even without the weapon directly hitting it. Blast is one of only two Weapon Qualities which can be triggered on a miss, the other being Guided, and is the only weapon quality that can cause damage to a target without the weapon directly hitting it.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

<snip>

As for the difference between "hit" and "touched" here, I'd say an attack deflected by armor is still a "hit" in the literal, not game mechanical, sense of the word. It makes contact with force. That force is successfully neutralized, be it through deflection or what have you.

Exactly. The attack still hits, thus the attack was still successful but Some or all of the damage was deflected away.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

As for the game mechanical sense of the word, when hit is used, it is used for clarity's sake. Tramp is reading too much into it. The only question is whether the attack is successful or not, and then as a subset, why or why not is it successful.

I’m not reading too much into anything. The rules are very specific in requiring a Successful Combat Check for an attack to be a hit. Whether or not the attack does any damage is irrelevant at this point.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

For example: Brawler tries to attack a soldier, and fails with multiple Advantage. He uses 3 Advantage to disarm the soldier. In my opinion, that is best narrated by making physical contact with the blaster either through a kick, grabbing it, or whatever. Sometimes I think a failed attack with certain Advantage results is best represented by an "alternative attack." The character didn't succeed at task X because he had a better idea and tried task Y instead.

By contrast, I see it as the attacker missing, but coming close enough that the defender has to hastily dodge and lose his grip on his weapon, dropping it.

8 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I’ve already covered Blast in several previous posts. Blast is an area effect. That is why it can affect a target even without the weapon directly hitting it. Blast is one of only two Weapon Qualities which can be triggered on a miss, the other being Guided, and is the only weapon quality that can cause damage to a target without the weapon directly hitting it.

Ah yes . So , beca use you cho ose to define away any issue, so ... then ... Ah. Ok. I get it. I don't buy your explanation. It doesn't make sense to me, it gets bogged down in unnecessary aspects that are far from essential, important, or central to playing and enjoying a game.

But, to keep you going: Blast is by definition an item quality . No th ing e ls e, u nle ss y ou ad d an interpretative scheme of more or less structure... hence, a moot exercise void of any meaning and value.

4 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I’ve already covered Blast in several previous posts. Blast is an area effect. That is why it can affect a target even without the weapon directly hitting it. Blast is one of only two Weapon Qualities which can be triggered on a miss, the other being Guided, and is the only weapon quality that can cause damage to a target without the weapon directly hitting it.

Exactly. The attack still hits, thus the attack was still successful but Some or all of the damage was deflected away.

I’m not reading too much into anything. The rules are very specific in requiring a Successful Combat Check for an attack to be a hit. Whether or not the attack does any damage is irrelevant at this point.

By contrast, I see it as the attacker missing, but coming close enough that the defender has to hastily dodge and lose his grip on his weapon, dropping it.

That some impressive torturing of language to try and claim you weren't wrong. even though you are still wrong.

1 hour ago, Jegergryte said:

Ah yes . So , beca use you cho ose to define away any issue, so ... then ... Ah. Ok. I get it. I don't buy your explanation. It doesn't make sense to me, it gets bogged down in unnecessary aspects that are far from essential, important, or central to playing and enjoying a game.

But, to keep you going: Blast is by definition an item quality . No th ing e ls e, u nle ss y ou ad d an interpretative scheme of more or less structure... hence, a moot exercise void of any meaning and value.

The Blast weapon quality explicitly states that it can be triggered on a miss . It uses that term specifically. To quotethe second to last sentence of Blast on page 162:

Quote

However, the user may also trigger Blast if the attack misses by spending three Advantage.

It’s right there in the text. Blast can be triggered on a miss . It is the only weapon quality that can inflict damage on a target without the weapon itself actually hitting said target. This is because Blast is an area effect .

No, it's because the quality states that it can.

Your interpretive scheme of trying to justify your own subjective perspective of how things should be understood, and thereby trying to argue that defence for armour not making sense, is fine (however fallacious in my opinion). But it is merely that: your subjective interpretation and futile attempt at creating a schemata that should hold some kind of external validity ... a pointless rhetorical gesture.

I disagree with your conclusion regarding armour, because it ignores the game as it is designed.

No amount of repetition and bold words will change the intrinsic subjectivity of your position, nor your failure to take the game as designed into account fully.

53 minutes ago, Jegergryte said:

No, it's because the quality states that it can.

Your interpretive scheme of trying to justify your own subjective perspective of how things should be understood, and thereby trying to argue that defence for armour not making sense, is fine (however fallacious in my opinion). But it is merely that: your subjective interpretation and futile attempt at creating a schemata that should hold some kind of external validity ... a pointless rhetorical gesture.

I disagree with your conclusion regarding armour, because it ignores the game as it is designed.

No amount of repetition and bold words will change the intrinsic subjectivity of your position, nor your failure to take the game as designed into account fully.

Well said

5 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I cancel the symbols on the Challenge/Proficiency dice first, then the Difficulty/Ability, and then the Setback/Boost.

Another way to look at it that might be more clear is that I compare remaining Success/Advantage to the dice. First the Boost, then if there's anything left, the Ability, then if there's anything left, the Proficiency. Same for Threat and Failure.

As for the difference between "hit" and "touched" here, I'd say an attack deflected by armor is still a "hit" in the literal, not game mechanical, sense of the word. It makes contact with force. That force is successfully neutralized, be it through deflection or what have you.
As for the game mechanical sense of the word, when hit is used, it is used for clarity's sake. Tramp is reading too much into it. The only question is whether the attack is successful or not, and then as a subset, why or why not is it successful.

For example: Brawler tries to attack a soldier, and fails with multiple Advantage. He uses 3 Advantage to disarm the soldier. In my opinion, that is best narrated by making physical contact with the blaster either through a kick, grabbing it, or whatever. Sometimes I think a failed attack with certain Advantage results is best represented by an "alternative attack." The character didn't succeed at task X because he had a better idea and tried task Y instead.

I am suddenly reminded of one of the older versions of Dungeons & Dragons, that differentiated between Armor Class and Touch Armor class, the latter usually used for magical attacks like Chill Touch where all you need is just to lay a hand on the target rather than get through their armor.

2 hours ago, Jegergryte said:

No, it's because the quality states that it can.

Your interpretive scheme of trying to justify your own subjective perspective of how things should be understood, and thereby trying to argue that defence for armour not making sense, is fine (however fallacious in my opinion). But it is merely that: your subjective interpretation and futile attempt at creating a schemata that should hold some kind of external validity ... a pointless rhetorical gesture.

I disagree with your conclusion regarding armour, because it ignores the game as it is designed.

No amount of repetition and bold words will change the intrinsic subjectivity of your position, nor your failure to take the game as designed into account fully.

No. The quality specifically states in the very first sentence that Blast is an area effect. To quote:

Quote

The weapon has a large spread, an explosive blast or similar area effect.

It’s right there in the first sentence of the Blast quality on page 162.

Blast can be triggered to cause damage without the weapon itself directly hitting the target specifically because it is an area effect. It states so right in the rules.

7 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No. The quality specifically states in the very first sentence that Blast is an area effect. To quote:

It’s right there in the first sentence of the Blast quality on page 162.

Blast can be triggered to cause damage without the weapon itself directly hitting the target specifically because it is an area effect. It states so right in the rules.

And here you ignore the point entirely and still ignore the mechanics of the game just so you can incorrectly claim to be right. Have you read the dice adjudication rules yet?

Tramp. Remind me again why armour shouldn't have defence (as represented by setback dice), as supposedly supported (when selectively reading) in the rules...?

Better yet. Make a model or chart, to show how all of this is connected and makes sense to you.

I do this partly I jest, but also because I'd seriously like to see what you see. Not by way of convoluted sentences with bolded words and tautological reasoning, but transparently and clearly.