Actually there hasn't been any vitriol and name calling at all. People read into things differently, especially on forums boards where that face to face communication is not possible. And when people are passionate about their positions they have a tendency to read badly of the other side.

When GMing this game, I don't allow my players to use Triumph to knock people down. A couple of reasons for this. 1) There's a talent, 2) RAW do not say you can spend advantages/triumphs to knockdown. But what about the narrative... just give me a second, I'm getting to that.

I'll let people narratively use the Triumph to knock people down. I don't have an issue with it. However, it has to be a good narrative reason. I don't just let it happen cause you got a Triumph. When I get complaints, I tell them there's a talent for that. Good reasons do not mean "suddenly the falls" or "suddenly, exploding barrel". Exploding barrel is funny, but unless you are in a room with a bunch of exploding barrels, go ahead and spend that destiny point to make one magically appear.

There is a reason I do this. If you make the talent useless, you are screwing over two classes that have that talent in their trees. And while the Marauder can pick around his 10 point version, the Fringer can not. In fact, the Fringer's version is 20 points and must be taken in order for them to get two ranks of Dodge. How am I supposed to explain to the Fringer he has to spend 20 useless points of xp for a talent just to get to Dodge?

So instead of doing it, I stay close to the RAW on this issue.

THAT BEING SAID:

As I stated before, I don't have a problem if FFG wants to look at the Knockdown talent and change it in some way.

Honestly, the easy fix that they could do that would make everyone happy is not really a huge change in the end. It's actually a deletion. Of one word.

Simply delete "spend" from the knockdown talent.

This way, people can spend their triumph to narrative knock down anyone they want. And it doesn't lessen the talent at all, because now melee users with the knockdown talent can now knock someone down for free without spending their Triumph, meaning that Triumph is free to be used for whatever else. This gives the people with the talent a clear advantage over people who don't have the talent. And it makes the talent less useless for its point value in xp.

Everyone wins.

Does anybody have a good explanation why a Triumph can't extend to knocking an opponent prone without having this talent?

Knocking an opponent prone on a Triumph or on three advantages sounds perfectly reasonable and entirely within RAW however you have to make it past their soak and you don't get to damage them as JBC22 said in post #68 above.

When dealing damage to a target , have the attack disable the opponent or one piece of gear rather than dealing wounds or strain . (emphasis mine)

The Knockdown talent on page 138 allows a brawler to knock an opponent prone and also deal wounds or strain by spending a Triumph. Furthermore, you merely only have to successfully hit the target, not make it through their soak. That makes Triumphs more awesome.

Actually there hasn't been any vitriol and name calling at all. People read into things differently, especially on forums boards where that face to face communication is not possible. And when people are passionate about their positions they have a tendency to read badly of the other side.

When GMing this game, I don't allow my players to use Triumph to knock people down. A couple of reasons for this. 1) There's a talent, 2) RAW do not say you can spend advantages/triumphs to knockdown. But what about the narrative... just give me a second, I'm getting to that.

I'll let people narratively use the Triumph to knock people down. I don't have an issue with it. However, it has to be a good narrative reason. I don't just let it happen cause you got a Triumph. When I get complaints, I tell them there's a talent for that. Good reasons do not mean "suddenly the falls" or "suddenly, exploding barrel". Exploding barrel is funny, but unless you are in a room with a bunch of exploding barrels, go ahead and spend that destiny point to make one magically appear.

There is a reason I do this. If you make the talent useless, you are screwing over two classes that have that talent in their trees. And while the Marauder can pick around his 10 point version, the Fringer can not. In fact, the Fringer's version is 20 points and must be taken in order for them to get two ranks of Dodge. How am I supposed to explain to the Fringer he has to spend 20 useless points of xp for a talent just to get to Dodge?

So instead of doing it, I stay close to the RAW on this issue.

THAT BEING SAID:

As I stated before, I don't have a problem if FFG wants to look at the Knockdown talent and change it in some way.

Honestly, the easy fix that they could do that would make everyone happy is not really a huge change in the end. It's actually a deletion. Of one word.

Simply delete "spend" from the knockdown talent.

This way, people can spend their triumph to narrative knock down anyone they want. And it doesn't lessen the talent at all, because now melee users with the knockdown talent can now knock someone down for free without spending their Triumph, meaning that Triumph is free to be used for whatever else. This gives the people with the talent a clear advantage over people who don't have the talent. And it makes the talent less useless for its point value in xp.

Everyone wins.

Does anybody have a good explanation why a Triumph can't extend to knocking an opponent prone without having this talent?

Knocking an opponent prone on a Triumph or on three advantages sounds perfectly reasonable and entirely within RAW however you have to make it past their soak and you don't get to damage them as JBC22 said in post #68 above.

When dealing damage to a target , have the attack disable the opponent or one piece of gear rather than dealing wounds or strain . (emphasis mine)

The Knockdown talent on page 138 allows a brawler to knock an opponent prone and also deal wounds or strain by spending a Triumph. Furthermore, you merely only have to successfully hit the target, not make it through their soak. That makes Triumphs more awesome.

I wanted to use both these quotes in my reply, because I agree with them both. In the RAW, it does not say that a Triumph gives the ability to deal damage AND knock and opponent prone, from a GM perspective, if I'm allowing a narrative knockdown, without the talent, I will allow it, but I'm not going to force Prone as that negates a Talent on the tree (as mentioned Shadai) and swings the battle a lot more than any other single Triumph, other than using your Triumph to roll a Fractional and Crit (BTW, the closest crit roll to this talent is a 40 fractional, which is a decent roll at early - mid game and isn't guaranteed). As a GM, if you say you want to narrative knockdown an opponent, I may add a setback die to that target's next action, but I won't put them prone. My reasoning is a Melee attacker that prones a target, removes a maneuver for that target's next round, can add two boost die to their next attack (one for melee attacking a prone target, a second for using Aim) and the target that is prone receives an additional setback die for any attacks against you. That's a pretty big debuff and why there is a talent for that. Let's say I have an NPC Nemesis Level Marauder with high soak, using Knockdown can easily swing the fight in favor of the PCs as it mitigates damage to the party for up two rounds, through a setback from prone, or not being able to use a maneuver to aim and attack. Not only that, but it gives the party's Sponge to really start laying on the damage and debuffs. While the Talent may not always be useful, like many talents in the game it's a situational ability that the GM must put the group in position to utilize.

I don't think the talent is really being utilized by GMs enough - I'm not saying that GMing style is incorrect, but as a GM you have every ability to throw interesting and tough opponents at your group that makes them utilize combat talents; you don't have to only stick to the NPC combatants provided in the book. It's just as if the GM isn't really adding setback dies to and non-combat checks, or allowing PCs multiple rolls upon failure (yes there are re-roll talents).

The problem with altering the RAW is that when you do so, you create problems with other portions of the game. If you allow PCs to roll Triumphs and get the bonus of Talents, or allow PCs to re-roll checks when they fail, you also negate Talents. If the GMing style deviates far from the RAW and allows players to do tasks, which differ from the RAW, which don't get me wrong, that's perfectly fine to do if it makes sense for your group, then there will be talents, like Knockdown, Natural Programmer, Utility Belt, Jury Rigged, etc., which are all situational Talents, these become rendered useless and a waste of experience. Honestly, if you're a GM and allow Triumphs to create knockdown, then you shouldn't require your PCs to spend experience points to gain the talent - allow them to bypass it, creates a talent that's more fitting, or do as Union and Shaddai both mentioned, allow Knockdown as an incidental byproduct of rolling a Triumph .

Moses, where do you come from that you refer to a d100 roll as a 'fractional' roll? I'm really curious, because I've not heard it called that before.

Moses, where do you come from that you refer to a d100 roll as a 'fractional' roll? I'm really curious, because I've not heard it called that before.

EDI:T I mean d100 rolls as 'fractional' rolls, which in the core rulebook, it's percentile rule - I was typoing.. It's just core rulebook terminology. It still functions the same as rolling two d10 dice and adding the first and second integers.

Moses, where do you come from that you refer to a d100 roll as a 'fractional' roll? I'm really curious, because I've not heard it called that before.

The EotE Corerulebook notes that the d100 rolls are 'fractional' rolls. This is the core rulebook terminology.

My core rulebook calls them the percentile roll - which is also what every game I've played for the last 25+ years has called them. I figured that 'fractional' was a variation local to you.

Ah, my typo. You're correct. I've been saying fractional when what I should've been typing is percentile... Sorry my daily work existence of Excel bogs my mind down with erroneous terminology... Sometimes I finish up programming and check the boards and my brain doesn't think straight

<snipped>

When GMing this game, I don't allow my players to use Triumph to knock people down. A couple of reasons for this. 1) There's a talent, 2) RAW do not say you can spend advantages/triumphs to knockdown. But what about the narrative... just give me a second, I'm getting to that.

<snipped>

There is a reason I do this. If you make the talent useless, you are screwing over two classes that have that talent in their trees. And while the Marauder can pick around his 10 point version, the Fringer can not. In fact, the Fringer's version is 20 points and must be taken in order for them to get two ranks of Dodge. How am I supposed to explain to the Fringer he has to spend 20 useless points of xp for a talent just to get to Dodge?

So instead of doing it, I stay close to the RAW on this issue.

<snipped>

I'm kind of with you on parts here, but not some of the others. I don't agree that RAW doesn't say you can spend Triumph to knock someone prone. Because on page 205 you haveL

Keep in mind, these are not intended to be only options available. As always, players and GMs may invent other ways to spend Advantage and

Triumph …

So RAW explicitly says "make up new results for Triumphs". Now, on the other side of it, I agree with you that making Knockdown a "dead" talent sucks for the trees that has Knockdown. But I don't like that the only reason to say "No, you can't spend a Triumph on knocking that dude prone" is "Well, if you can do that, what is Knockdown good for?"

I want to have an internalized "This is what a Triumph can do" assessment. I don't want a system where when somebody asks "Can a Triumph do X?" the answer has to be "Well run through every Talent in the game and see if any talent implies otherwise."

THIS is what I don't like, and explained poorly in my first post: I don't understand why spending a Triumph to knock an opponent prone isn't cool all the time. I *DO* see that Knockdown implies it isn't, but that's not sufficient to update my understanding of Triumphs. (Aside: yes it has to be explained narratively, but that should be pretty easy, especially if we're talking about a melee attack.)

I'm not proposing any alteration to the text of Knockdown right now, I think what I'm really hoping is that somebody is going to explain "Well, knocking somebody prone is more powerful than you're realizing: enough so that it's too powerful an effect for a single Triumph.", and then go on to explain why my thoughts about prone and Triumphs are wrong

Knocking an opponent prone on a Triumph or on three advantages sounds perfectly reasonable and entirely within RAW however you have to make it past their soak and you don't get to damage them as JBC22 said in post #68 above.

The Knockdown talent on page 138 allows a brawler to knock an opponent prone and also deal wounds or strain by spending a Triumph. Furthermore, you merely only have to successfully hit the target, not make it through their soak. That makes Triumphs more awesome.

This is an interesting interpretation and I like it because I don't have to resort to the "No Triumphs can't knock somebody prone because that screws up this talent tree over here that this player may not have even looked at." discussion. I think where I don't like it is that looking at Table 6-2 I see an increase in the power of the effects. This suggestion about disabling an opponent instead of damage is from the 3 Advantages row. Which, yes, you could also spend a Triumph on, but there's also the next row in the table, which lists 3 things that require 1 Triumph to trigger.

In my head, the "default power level" of a Triumph is that row. The next row requires 2 Triumphs, so those are too powerful. The previous row is a bit less power than a Triumph, but if you want one of those effects then that's fine. But that's sort of exactly my point: if somebody wanted to use 3 Advantage to knock the target prone I'd agree with that analysis of "OK, but you don't get to apply the damage." But left to my own rulings I look at the table and say "well that seems reasonable to me: 3 Advantage lets you trade damage for a disabling effect. But a Triumph might let you have BOTH the disabling effect and the damage." But that circles me back around to I just nulled out the utility of Knockdown.

At the end of the day: I have a few assumptions:

1 ) the game designers didn't screw up and make Knockdown a useless talent

2 ) therefore it can't be true that a Triumph should be allowed to knock the target prone in general

I would have ruled that knocking a target prone is in line with the effects of a Single Triumph in Table 6-2. (I would view it as less of a potent effect than upgrading the difficulty of their next check, for example.) But I've got to be wrong either in that ruling or in my assumptions above. The cleanest case is that knocking somebody prone is better than I think it is, therefore it's beyond the realm of single-Triumph-usage, and that's what makes Knockdown work. I understand all that logic, I'd just like to understand why .

So a related question would be: Are there any other talents that put restrictions on Triumphs or advantages in the manner that Knockdown seems to do?

So a related question would be: Are there any other talents that put restrictions on Triumphs or advantages in the manner that Knockdown seems to do?

In the Gadgeteer? tree you can spend a Triumph to Disorient a target for rounds equal to ranks in Disorient, but I think there's only the one rank. Disorient either adds a Setback or Upgrades skill checks. I don't have my book handy so I'm not sure which one it does. I think it's Setback.

It's not identical, but it's similar.

I would have ruled that knocking a target prone is in line with the effects of a Single Triumph in Table 6-2. (I would view it as less of a potent effect than upgrading the difficulty of their next check, for example.) But I've got to be wrong either in that ruling or in my assumptions above. The cleanest case is that knocking somebody prone is better than I think it is, therefore it's beyond the realm of single-Triumph-usage, and that's what makes Knockdown work. I understand all that logic, I'd just like to understand why .

Just to provide some insight on what proning does to a target:

1. While in prone, you must add 1 difficulty die to melee attacks.

2. If your target is prone, add 1 boost die to melee attacks and one setback die to ranged attacks.

3. Target must use a maneuver to 'Stand from Prone', effectively keeping them in prone without using a maneuver to exit prone.

4. Upon exiting prone, the PC or NPC can ONLY use that maneuver for a combat round with an Action, or must suffer strain to perform a second maneuver, and negate taking an action for the round.

For Melee vs. Melee combat, proning an enemy is VERY POWERFUL, add in doing damage, and you've got something that's a recipe to turning the tide of the battle, moreso than other Triumphs. It's very situational, but it's somethign that can come in handy for a nemesis level Marauder NPC... I'll explain:

Let's say your PC Marauder is fighting a mirror image of itself as a Nemesis level NPC Marauder. If you roll a Triumph and a successful hit, you can use Knockdown to put your Target in to a situation where they have to make a choice:

1. Use a Maneuver to negate prone on the next round and miss out on a boost die for an attack, lowering their damage output for at least a single round.

2. Stay prone, and use a maneuver like Defensive Stance, which will negate your boost die, but still leave them with a setback die for every melee attack they attempt on you, until they get out of prone.

3. Stay prone, aim/attack, which basically gives them the equivalent of a standard attack (boost offsetting the setback), but still leaves them to the boost die you receive on your next melee attack.

4. Well, whatever you can think of, but basically, they are in a situation to deal less damage to you, and you deal more damage to them until they exit prone.

For you, after proning your target, it sets up a really powerful attack the next round, especially if your group had a great Initiative and allows you to take the first action. Lets say combat goes like this for simplicity:

PC 1 Attacks

Melee Enemy Attacks Your PC (PC2)

PC 2 Attacks, rolls Triumph and uses Knockdown

On your next attack, if you take the PC one slot, you can use the Aim Maneuver and set yourself up for Two Boost dice on your Melee attack. In additional, the Melee Enemy cannot do the same to you, and suffers either a Setback die if they remain prone, or sacrifice uses a Maneuver, such as Aim, if they choose to Stand from Prone.

The best use of the Knockdown talent is against High Soak, Melee targets...

In addition, adding 'Knockdown' as a weapon quality requires two Advantages, rather than a Triumph, just to show you how powerful EotE believes the stand alone talent is; I'd like to mention that this is situational... Knockdown, like almost all the talents, isn't necessarily applicable in every situation, but it does have a use and is powerful when used in the correct situations.

If it's not working in your game, there have been some excellent suggestions for how to modify the Talent in the thread.

I would have ruled that knocking a target prone is in line with the effects of a Single Triumph in Table 6-2. (I would view it as less of a potent effect than upgrading the difficulty of their next check, for example.) But I've got to be wrong either in that ruling or in my assumptions above. The cleanest case is that knocking somebody prone is better than I think it is, therefore it's beyond the realm of single-Triumph-usage, and that's what makes Knockdown work. I understand all that logic, I'd just like to understand why .

Just to provide some insight on what proning does to a target:

1. While in prone, you must add 1 difficulty die to melee attacks.

2. If your target is prone, add 1 boost die to melee attacks and one setback die to ranged attacks.

3. Target must use a maneuver to 'Stand from Prone', effectively keeping them in prone without using a maneuver to exit prone.

4. Upon exiting prone, the PC or NPC can ONLY use that maneuver for a combat round with an Action, or must suffer strain to perform a second maneuver, and negate taking an action for the round.

<snipped>

If it's not working in your game, there have been some excellent suggestions for how to modify the Talent in the thread.

Sorry I took so long to get back to this (darn-it real life!) but I did want to say thanks for this excellent response. This is what I was looking for: the "Look knocking somebody prone is powerful. Too powerful for a Triumph normally, but a Triumph + a Talent makes it work."

It's one of those weird things where if you had asked me I could write down everything you listed, but somehow reading it makes me go "Oh yeah, that is a lot of oomph, isn't it?"

And it's not that it's not working in my game, it's more of a "Oh they are going to ask about this soon." We just added a Marauder to the group so I wanted my answer in place when he asked about whether Knockdown was relevant. I didn't have a good answer then and now I do so thanks!

Certainly Knockdown=Prone+Damage is very effective.

Reading the text of the Knockdown Talent (page 138) "After hitting with a melee attack, the character may knock the opponent prone by spending a Triumph" Knockdown as a weapon Quality triggers on two Advantage and knocks the target Prone. Currently the Knockdown Quality is found only on the Bowcaster and the Bolas/Net. There are no weapon modifications that currently provide this quality.

Given that the rules provide both a Talent and a Weapon quality for Knockdown, and that those are the only two place in the rules that a character is *explicitly* given the ability to knock an opponent Prone, I am going to go out on a limb and say that without either the Talent or a weapon with the Knockdown Quality a character cannot force an opponent to go Prone.

I think you could still narratively "knock someone off his feet" but this would not trigger the mechanical effects of going Prone.

I think one of the critical effects (41-45?) makes a target go prone as well. I thought if you punched a character you had a chance to knock him down as well?

I think one of the critical effects (41-45?) makes a target go prone as well. I thought if you punched a character you had a chance to knock him down as well?

41-45 Bowled Over - Knocked prone and suffer 1 strain. The only downside the to critical hit is it must breach the soak threshold. The Knockdown talent doesn't need to get past an opponents soak threshold to institute prone. Brawl does allow Knockdown, for a reduced cost - this is to compensate for Brawls lesser damage.

Although I do believe that a Triumph could be used to knock down an opponent I'm in agreement that if there is a Talent that also requires a Triumph to do the same thing it's unfair to allow a PC without this Talent to do it. However because this Talent is a melee effect I would be willing to allow the use of a Triumph to knock down an opponent outside of melee.

Don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but the Knockdown talent allows you to deal damage AND knock someone prone, whereas Triumphs or three Advantages can normally be spent to knock someone down IN LIEU of dealing damage to them.

Don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but the Knockdown talent allows you to deal damage AND knock someone prone, whereas Triumphs or three Advantages can normally be spent to knock someone down IN LIEU of dealing damage to them.

Are you sure, and can you give us the pg you read this?

From my understanding a Triumph on an attack roll (or any roll for that matter) is an additional effect no a substitution.

Knocking someone down can certainly be a good use of a Triumph. The talent Knockdown, however, is redundant with the spirit of the triumph rules and is a *bad* talent from a game design point of view. Having the talent there means some GM will go, well, there's a talent for that, therefore you can't do it if you don't have the talent. This is horrible and whichever dev decided it was a good idea should write a public appology.

Don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but the Knockdown talent allows you to deal damage AND knock someone prone, whereas Triumphs or three Advantages can normally be spent to knock someone down IN LIEU of dealing damage to them.

Are you sure, and can you give us the pg you read this?

From my understanding a Triumph on an attack roll (or any roll for that matter) is an additional effect no a substitution.

He's referring to the fact a Triumph can be used to pick any advantage effect on the chart. The 3 Advantage effect is one that does something in lieu of doing damage. IE, knockdown, no damage. I believe it is listed right on the chart under Triumph.

Knocking someone down can certainly be a good use of a Triumph. The talent Knockdown, however, is redundant with the spirit of the triumph rules and is a *bad* talent from a game design point of view. Having the talent there means some GM will go, well, there's a talent for that, therefore you can't do it if you don't have the talent. This is horrible and whichever dev decided it was a good idea should write a public appology.

Easy champ.

While it's not an "ideal" talent, it's not entirely terrible either. Having the talent there is exactly why a GM should go, well there's a talent. It keeps the players and the GM on equal footing according to the rules.

Don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but the Knockdown talent allows you to deal damage AND knock someone prone, whereas Triumphs or three Advantages can normally be spent to knock someone down IN LIEU of dealing damage to them.

Are you sure, and can you give us the pg you read this?

From my understanding a Triumph on an attack roll (or any roll for that matter) is an additional effect no a substitution.

He's referring to the fact a Triumph can be used to pick any advantage effect on the chart. The 3 Advantage effect is one that does something in lieu of doing damage. IE, knockdown, no damage. I believe it is listed right on the chart under Triumph.

Knocking someone down can certainly be a good use of a Triumph. The talent Knockdown, however, is redundant with the spirit of the triumph rules and is a *bad* talent from a game design point of view. Having the talent there means some GM will go, well, there's a talent for that, therefore you can't do it if you don't have the talent. This is horrible and whichever dev decided it was a good idea should write a public appology.

Easy champ.

While it's not an "ideal" talent, it's not entirely terrible either. Having the talent there is exactly why a GM should go, well there's a talent. It keeps the players and the GM on equal footing according to the rules.

LOL thank you for clarifying that. Because my "source" was nothing more than the GM screen.

What the talent does is allow Knockdown and Damage for melee characters to be done with the same attack, without having that quality on a weapon - you could therefore put another quality on your weapon, like Vicious and have the ability to Knockdown AND have more damaging crits. If you allow Knockdown via a Triumph roll for Melee user (I guess you can throw in ranged users as well) without the talent using the RAW, you cannot allow the character to do damage.

In any case, I understand where a lot of people have an issue with this ability (as I've mentioned), and ultimately it depends on how your GM plans games with the group and the type of PC your creating. Every Talent is situational (the core rulebook mentions that Talents are more specific to a certain task, while skills are broad) and use of certain abilities need to be understood by the GM and the players. In addition, if you find that the Talent isn't as potent as you'd like, one of the best suggestions I've seen is allowing Knockdown to be an incidental, giving the PC the ability to spend his Triumph on something else, like a crit. This could provide imbalances in your game, but if you think it's a better use of the Talent, ultimately as a GM, you can make that call. Just remember, a much overlooked aspect of rule alterations is the potential for unforeseen consequences and imbalances!