According to the rules, if you are hit you lose the ability to take an Active Action that round as you are assumed to be on the defensive. Now, is this the case if you've declared multiple actions in a single round? Let's say our group is fighting some horrific monstrosity with a whopping 10 actions available and, for whatever reason, the GM has declared that it will use 10 actions that turn. But, due to a stroke of bad luck, it's going dead last in initiative. If it takes a successful hit, does it lose 1 action or all 10? I realise this is an extreme example but it highlights in my mind that losing all actions would seem a harsh penalty and would seem to heavily devalue the ability to take multiple actions a turn (which are already penalised anyway). In the combat examples with Celia she seems to be fighting opponents that only have (or have only declared) a single action for the turn so I've had a hard time figuring out how this is supposed to work.

Thanks for the help.

I am not too sure, but I think he will keep his attack actions which he can use as counter-attacks. So he could C-A 10 times in that round (or 11; I think one could always do at least one per round).

Personally, I think this whole declare attack thing is pointless. I hope someone can explain it better.

Sir Jolt said:

Yes. You loose all Actions.

Sir Jolt said:

All 10. The words on page 80 are pretty clear: "The defender is fully occupied defending himself and can not make a counterattack or perform other Active Actions that turn. The combat turn ends when no one can make any more Active Actions."

In any case, such a horrific monstrosity would be a Damage Resistance Monster as detailed on page 91 and would not loose Actions when hit as per the normal rules.

If the opponent just had lots of actions, then they should either have a high initiative, a good defence, a Ki Technique to make them Damage Resistant (pg 105) or choose the Absorb Hits option (pg 86).

SSB_Shadow said:

If the opponent with 10 actions defended the attack, they could Counter Attack as one of their attacks (remember actions and attacks are different).

The initiative order is:

1. Announce number of actions and any modifiers to Initiative that will arise this turn.
2. Roll initiative.
3. Declare and perform actions.

Remember that you can only take one of each type of actions in a round. So you can only use one of those actions to attack (leaving aside Counter Attacks which are Passive). You can then split that attack action into multiple attacks (including Counter Attacks).

What are the benefits of declaring the amount of actions? And what are the drawbacks of not declaring the exact number?

If I want to go forth, attack, and be done, can't I just do that, even if I declare to originally want to do 4 actions?
Likewise, if I made too large or small declaration in defense, what's the point? When I'm hit, I still lose the round.

SSB_Shadow said:

The benefits are you get to take multiple actions. If you don't declare the exact number, you only get to do one (i.e. you have to declare if you are taking more than one action if you want to take more than one action).

SSB_Shadow said:

Sure you can. That's why the penalty for multiple actions is cumulative. So the first is at 0, the next is at -25. You are no different if you carried out all 4 or stopped at 2.

In contrast, multiple attacks are not cumulative as you are breaking down a single action.

SSB_Shadow said:

You don't make any declaration for Defence. Defending is a Passive action. You only declare Active actions.

Counterattack ISN'T a passive action. It's an Active action occupying the Attack slot...

You are absolutely correct. I meant Response Action, being one you don't need to declare. But my terminology was off.

I am still confused... Then there is really no point in declaring an amount of actions. As a GM, I can just assume the players will use all their actions each turn and save ourselves the bother to declare since there are no strategical value of choosing a lower number wisely. In addition, lots of things seem to contradict each other (I will get to this in a little while).

The example on page 82 speaks about Celia being last in Initiative, and wants to use her two actions to make counter-attacks.
-The first officer guy misses and gets countered.
-The second "Guard A" misses.
-The third "Guard B" misses and gets countered, too.
Then the text says, if Celia would have more actions left, she could have made an active action because she was never hit.

Here is the contradiction: in page 80, in the text "The Attack Misses or Hits without damage" clearly says an you cannot act, even if the opponent missed you as long as he did target you

So... still confused. I'd think there would exist some tactical values in choosing actions and where you are placed in the initiative. If you have to declare what kind of actions you want to do, that would be another story, but heck would it make GM's work a hell so I doubt this is correct either. @_@

There is a limit on the amount of Active Actions you can take a turn (pg79); consult Table 37 on that page. What is the downside to declaring your full amount of actions each turn? None, as far as I can see them. This means it is feasible to cut this step out of the decleration process and allow all people to simply take their full amount of available actions, with the penalties of course,

I see the basis of your question, and after rereading the combat section, I can find no reason to declare actions in Initiative. What I suspect is that there was supposed to be some kind of overall penalty associated with multiple actions (not just 1st is at par, 2nd is -25, 3rd is -50), so you were bidding and hoping.

Either institute a global multiple action penalty or dispense with number of action declaration.

I first suspected it was something about declaring how many of your actions are going to be "attacks" and how many would be "counter-attacks".

And such, if you were high up on the initiative, you'd like to have many of those actions be "attacks" or other active actions.
But if you're low in initiative (like in the Celia example), you'd rather have high on "counter-attacks" since you will not be given much chances to attack.
If you are somewhere in the middle, then perhaps a balanced wage of both "attacks" and "counter-attacks" are in order.

In this manner, I think the example's contradiction is valid because it assumes you can still act, even when attacked (and not hurt), so you cane make "attacks" should the enemy stink or ignore you. But on the other hand, if you sacrificed all on "counter-attacks" when no-one attacked you and got no "attacks" left, your turn is tactically wasted.

Maybe the developers had something about this in mind, but then changed it, and forgot to remove it. I dunno, I am just speculating...

But on the correct rules, once attacked (damaged or not) you cannot act, correct?

It looks like you're getting the declaration thing a little bit out of order. You don't declare how many actions you have until its your turn that round, however, you do declare how many attacks. Also, attacks are not multiple active actions if you do more than 1, it is a single active action that you split up into penalized multiple attacks, but lets leave that aside for a second. Another thing is counterattacks are not separate from normal attacks. For example, there are 2 NPCs and your character, in this round your character is going last, you decide to declare that you want to split your attack into 2 attacks this round, which penalizes them but allows 2. Those attacks can be used out of turn if you successfully defend against the NPCs, and thus are used up as counterattacks instead. However, if you successfully defend against both NPCs but decide not to counterattack. when you're turn comes around you will still have 2 attacks to use against them.

SSB_Shadow said:

Yes. Most of the time, players will declare their full number of actions. Declaration will be often just a formality.

The biggest issue is where one of those actions has a Initiative modifier, and accordingly must be taken into account at the start of the turn.

SSB_Shadow said:

I agree that title is confusing. The proceeding paragraphs however make it clear that you only loose your action if the Attack roll exceeds the Defence roll, regardless of Damage. If the Attack Fails, you retain you Actions, Counterattack or otherwise.

Malekai said:

That is not accurate in terms of the rules as written. You declare the number of actions before the start of the Combat round. This is stated on page 79. You don't declare what those actions will be until its your turn.

On saying that, I agree that in practice it's often easier to simple declare number and actions on your turn at the same time for all the reasons stated.