Hi everyone,

Being rahter new to the game, but still having played a couple of sessions with a new encounters, there is especially one thing that I cant really get the hang of: how to use the defense actions. I am sure this will somehow be a double posting, though I cant find it, so apologies for that. I also have read the rules a few times, but perhaps I am slow or something...

Anyway, I would be eternally grateful if some knowledgable soul out there could really clarify the minutes of how defense actions work:

- Can I always play these actions as responses to other attacks? For example, parry, dodge, etc, or does it require the "reaction" trait for me to do so? If not, to parry or dodge, must I play them so to speak proactively, when I am the active player, to parry attacks that may or may not target me later in the round? Feels like this is quite basic, but I cant really make sure about it!

- A defense action, is it only valid for one attack action? Or is the intention that it adds misfortune to all attacks for as long as it is recharging, meaning, I play this action on my turn, and then I have a defense for about to rounds?

- When it says "active defense", exactly what sense am I to read into "active"? One of my co-players argue it is to be interpreted as "always activated, no need to spend an action". I argue, quite on the contrary, that it means "requires an action taken actively".

- And anything else about how to get this straight and clear

Tanks,

Håkan, Sweden

hakanlo said:

The active defenses are actually not described that well in the rules, I seem to recall there being something in the FAQ about them and reactions so you may want to check that (if you haven't looked at the FAQ/clarifications yet you should really do so in any case). In any case, here are my answers to your questions:

1. Yes, you can always play them as a free action in response to an attack (subject to the limitations listed on the card, e.g. parry cannot be used against ranged attacks). You cannot use them if they are recharging. You can use multiple defenses versus the same attack, but that might leave you very vulnerable in the next round. You do not play them when you're the active player (unless in response to a reaction attack from someone else). Honestly, I think it was a mistake by FFG to not put the Reaction trait on the active defenses, things would have been clearer if they had it. I can't understand why they don't have it, they are played in exactly the same way as reactions.

2. Yes, the added dice are only for the current attack, if you get more attacks you will have to use another active defense (or just trust in your passive defense). You don not get to add the dice while its recharging.

3. I think they mean active as opposed to the passive defense that is always added (the defense you get from armour). The active part means that the player gets to decide when to use it. Your friend is correct, you use it for free when the conditions on the card are fulfilled ("After you have been declared the target for a Melee attack ..." in the case of Parry), but you cannot use it when there are recharge tokens on the card.

For a defensive action that works the way you describe with an action being taken, take a look at Guarded Position (and its Improved counterpart).

Lycka till med spelandet

You can play as many active defences as are available to you, whenever you like for free (ie no manoeuvre or Action cost) but you need to announce them while the attacker is preparing his pool. So the GM might say, 'the orc is gonna try to Chop you with his Choppa, he's got this many dice, look.' So you consider the pool and say 'right, I'm gonna try to parry it, and dodge it,' and add the black (or purple) dice to the orc's pool, but that pool only.

But once you've done that, you'll need to add 2 recharge tokens to your Parry and Dodge cards. So if the orc attacks next round, you probably won't have them available. If you're able to Block, or have any other sort of active defence, you'll be able to use those.

Edit: Gruntl said it better, Lycka to him.

Thanks, and thanks to monkeylite too.

That make sense. I can only agree that the rules are not expclit enough on this. Actually, I have similar problems with other kinds of actions. But I'll save that for some future question!

Håkan

Since you can play (as you mentioned) multiple defenses at once, does that mean that if you both parry and dodge and block and the opponent misses you, you can do both counterblow and that other reaction that activates on parry? i.e. have 2 extra attacks out of nowhere?

Cruces said:

As GM, i would rule that no you cannot. You choose to use only one of the counterattack, not both. The main reason is that you cannot tell which Active Defense did the job of making the attacker fails its attack, thus you don't know if you parried or dodged. I could rule which did the trick as GM, but would let the player choose if he wants so he can use a counter attack if he did buy a card for it.

Cwell2101 said:

The FAQ/Clarifications say:
Any number of immediate use actions/responses can be activated when an appropriate triggering act occurs.

This indicates that you can play as many reactions you want when the triggering condition is met (this is why you can play all active defenses at once for example).

It is of course up to the GM but I would probably not limit it. You have to remember that combat in 3e is very abstract. One action being played is not at all equivalent to one weapon swing (well it might be in some situations depending on how the GM and players tell the story).

For example, let's assume that a beastman is performing a Melee strike action vs a player who uses both parry and block. Storywise this might mean that the beastman is swinging his weapon viciously back and forth trying to hit the player who in turn actively uses both sword and shield to avoid the attacks, while waiting for an opportunity to arise. When the attack for the beastman is rolled and comes up as a miss, the player activates both Counterblow and Riposte (I think it is Riposte for parries) and get to make two attacks. In story terms this means that the player first blocks one of the feeble swings of the beastman, unbalancing the beastman and thereby getting an opportunity to attack. But the beastman is still coming on hard, forcing the player to also use his sword to parry when the beastman try to bite his ear off. In the process of parrying the player is able to twist the sword into the throat of the beastman as a riposte. This can all happen in the span of a single round/action.

It's more a mechanical problem. The free attack is much more powerfull than just malus dice to the attacker's pool. Allowing the stacking of the defensive dice is one thing, allowing the stacking of free attacks out of turn is another.

It would lead to all melee character buying those riposte-type Actions because you can play full defense then one shot the guy who missed you without spending an action. Try stacking all 3 active defenses and Guarded position Even worse if your guy has Improved version of one of those -> You don't get hit, and the bonus is you get to retaliate twice for free quite often. You over value Defensive which in turn makes the (usually unprotected) "heavy hitters" less desirable.

Also, i would not describe the attack sequence of the beastman as hitting twice, each beeing blocked then parried, simply because it would mean that the beastman could hit you twice in a single attack. It is unreasonable as a description

You can use all your defensive potential, but in the end (the combat sequence description), the one blow that would do damage is either parried, blocked or dodged, not all at once. Then comes the decision : does the GM describe something and decides which Defence actually worked or does he let the player choose ?

This opinion is derived form the dice pool system : you cannot tell which Misfortune dice (or Challenge if you have improved version) of the Active Defence you used did the trick. If you go up to tracking each dice in the attacker's pool to know what did what, you step in a world of hurt. Consider that you have only banes on the black dice, meaning they did not help in getting missed, you'd need challenges, etc. Is it the darkness black dice that produced the Challenge that made it a Miss ? Is is the monster's Action difficulty extra Misfortune/Challenge that made it a miss (extra dice upper left corner of cards)?
That is not a good way in this system

I think what gruntl is meaning - and I agree. Is that the damage caused by an attack is not just the result of one attack, but of a period of attacking. So, a 5 point wound might in actual fact be a gash to the upper arm, a nick of the thigh, a scratch to one cheek rather than just one single wound.

Personally, I think that if your character is using multiple defences then they are being pushed too hard to use multiple counterattacks. I would allow only one. Mind you that is just a gut feeling, a flavour thing, not based on any game experience of this happening.

Though I'd still go with what I say above, thinking about it - would multiple counterattacks be unbalancing? After all the character doing the counter attacks isn't going to have any defences left for next round. It's a calculated gamble, especially if there are multiple opponents or the enemy isn't downed by the counterattacks.

Cwell2101 said:

Well, that is just a non-issue for me. I don't think allowing reaction attacks to be made at the same time is that unbalancing. And even if they would be I find balance quite boring to be honest. If the player tries to munchkin (not referring to the above poster of course ). there is plenty of ways to deal with that (the optimum probably just being to talk to the person). The reaction attack cards are quite weak as they are since the require the attacks to actually miss, something that rarely happens unless you stack defenses. And if you stack defenses in that way and have spent exp on buying the attacks, then I think you're entitled to some rock n' roll for once.

And yes, what Munchkin wrote above is what I mean by abstract combat. The beastman can very well hit you twice or more, the final resulting damage is what you read of the card. But this is of course my interpretation, you are free to play it as you want

Munchkin said:
Personally, I think that if your character is using multiple defences then they are being pushed too hard to use multiple counterattacks. I would allow only one. Mind you that is just a gut feeling, a flav our thing, not based on any game experience of this happening.

Well you could also put it that the player is using his defenses with such flair and expertise (he is after all not getting hit at all) that he's actually the one controlling the situation and thereby getting free attacks.