In D&D, a chaacter can hold an action, waiting for a triggering event. I don't think this is mentioned in wfrp3e anywhere and was wondering what all of you think about this and if you would allow it

This has come up in my game

Characters turn starts, performs manoeuvre to use footwork talent to add 1 defence. Delays action to wait for approaching enemy to reach him and then will attack.

I dont think the develops would agree with this because 1. It is technically now the enemies turn, and it should be resolved before it ends. 2. What the character did was technically giving himself a free manoeuvre to let the enemy engage him, so he did not have to spend a fatigue, and then to get to strike the enemy at this point, during its turn, just seems wrong mixed with the way wfrp's system works.

What do you guys allow in this situation? It seems to make sense, and work well in D&D, but seems like cheating in wfrp

Hi Romus

You have brought up an important point. I have tried to house rule it, but without a satisfactory result up to now. Actually, in the second edition of the game there were rules describing the delay of PC actions and the interrupt enemy actions. The problem is that in the 3rd ed the system change is so profound that the translation of these rules from 2nd to 3rd editions are extremly tricky.

My aproach is:

First of all you have to spend a manoeuvre to delay your action. That is straight forward from 2nd ed and you can imagine it as a sort or preparation manoeuvre, waiting for the right moment to act.

Second, the PC moves permanently (until the next rally step for example where initiative can be rerolled) his initiative tracker (the one the active player is using) down to the same position as the initiative tracker of the NPC that he wants to interrupt.

Third, when the NPC acts, the PC can interrupt him performing an action or a manoeuvre, but nothing else, not even expending fatigue

That is my best shot for the delay /interrupt, but neither me nor my players are fully pleased with it.

Yepesnopes,

Reading over the initiative rules again last night, it seems clear that once a character starts his turn, it has to be completely resolved before moving on.

Page 74

When a player has been chosen to take initiative, he becomes the
active player. His character goes through the entire turn sequence
(which is covered in more detail on page 75), then that player’s turn
is over and the next initiative is resolved. After the active player
completes his turn, he turns the activation token on his character’s
stance meter face down to indicate his character has already acted.

There is however a card I noticed that would allow something close to what I described in my first post. It is calle "Me First"

You play it as soon as a character you can see "declares his action".

So basically you would wait for the enemy to go first, (Technically you would have to take a lower initiative slot, or, maybe, it is legal to drop your token to the next slot.)

The enemies turn would begin, if it did a manoeuvre to engage you, and then declared its action to attack you, you would use "Me First" to immediately start your turn, and complete it, then the enemies turn would resume (if possible).

This card is a bit powerful I think because there is no roll, it is automatic, and you could disengage and move away so he cannot strike.

But it has limits:

-You need Agility 4+
-Coordination Trained
-You have not already acted this round
-And it only recharges at a rally step

This card alone makes me think that the developers would not allow delayed actions on the fly.

Now that I think about it, if you played that card and moved away, once the enemies turn resumes, he could choose to do extra manoeuvres to re-engage.

Romus said:

There's also a ranged action, called "the full draw" (a hunter's eye action from Omens of War) which is delayed until the character chooses to interupt an opponents turn and shoot him/her. I agree with Romus, since there are actions that allow you to delay your action it should not be houseruled lightly into the game, as those actions that allow you to postpone acting become kind of pointless.

My players generaly solves this by letting others players in the group go before them in the order:
"Oh, I want to wait untill the enemy has come to us, I'll go last this turn."

mmmm this Me first is an interesting card, from what you say is the closest thing to a delay I can imagine, but I can't find it between my cards, is it from any supplement?

Cheers

Yepesnopes said:

Yep, Lure of Power

Nice! I am getting my vopy of Lure of Power on the 2nd of January!

Once I have had time to read through it, I will let you know how close, in my opinion, is that card to a delay action.

Cheers

The card Fake Out , can be used as an interrupt action. That said with the ability for players to shuffle around on the different player initiatives I think they have enough freedom. Too much freedom removes tactical problems and fun.

Gallows said:

I agree. The mechanics of the initiative system make delaying much less necessary, as well there are already action cards whose effects occasionally take effect out of initiative order.

I got my copy of Lure of Power.

With the card "Me First", I think I can throw my House Rule about delaying actions. Great!