I like the idea behind the new Arbites background bonus (and making the old one into a Talent is neat idea), but I think to be consistant with other similar abilities it should either just give a reroll or require a fate point be spent to gain the DoS equal to WPB, giving both and not requiring a fate point seems overpowered.

Dive for Cover is a neat special rule and a good expansion of the Dodge skill.

Unless I'm reading things wrong, the change to Blood Loss is huge. Blood Loss is no longer potentially fatal?! Instead, it just makes you tired. Don't get me wrong - I like it a lot but it's a big change.

Inescapable Attack needs to go. Seriously. As it stands, it's an absolute must buy for combat characters of any stripe, effectively sneaking opposed evasion through the back door.

That's bad form. The devs should make up their mind on opposed evasion and either bring it back as a baseline or get rid of it altogether, but trying to disguise it as a Talent serves no one.

I like the idea behind the new Arbites background bonus (and making the old one into a Talent is neat idea), but I think to be consistant with other similar abilities it should either just give a reroll or require a fate point be spent to gain the DoS equal to WPB, giving both and not requiring a fate point seems overpowered.

Dive for Cover is a neat special rule and a good expansion of the Dodge skill.

Unless I'm reading things wrong, the change to Blood Loss is huge. Blood Loss is no longer potentially fatal?! Instead, it just makes you tired. Don't get me wrong - I like it a lot but it's a big change.

Excess of 2x Fatigue threshold means death. So you're not really getting tired, you're bleeding to death. It requires a -10 Medicae test to staunch bleeding, and then you actually have to make time to make the test. In the middle of a firefight, bleeding could be potentially fatal... That, and Fatigue in excess of Tb+WPb means unconsciousness, and Fatigue in excess of characteristic bonuses reduces characteristics to half on related tests, so bleeding could mean you either become incompetent at everything and lie there bleeding and fumbling about with your viscera until you or someone else staunches the flow, or until you pass out/die.

Unless I'm reading things wrong, the change to Blood Loss is huge. Blood Loss is no longer potentially fatal?! Instead, it just makes you tired. Don't get me wrong - I like it a lot but it's a big change.

The new Blood Loss rules call for suffering 1 level of Fatigue each Round. Per page 12 of the Update, "If a character's Fatigue ever exceeds double the amount of his Fatigue threshold, the character dies."

So before with Blood Loss there was a 10% chance of death every Round or every 4-5 seconds. Now, assuming a likely Fatigue Threshold of 6-8, a character would die from bleeding-out in 7-9 Rounds or 35-45 seconds.

Seems more reasonable than a 10% chance of bleeding-out in the first 4-5 seconds.

EDIT: Ah, good call Brother Orpheo. Correction --> Assuming a likely Fatigue Threshold of 6-8, a character would die from bleeding-out in 13-17 Rounds, or 65-85 seconds.

Inescapable Attack needs to go. Seriously. As it stands, it's an absolute must buy for combat characters of any stripe, effectively sneaking opposed evasion through the back door.

That's bad form. The devs should make up their mind on opposed evasion and either bring it back as a baseline or get rid of it altogether, but trying to disguise it as a Talent serves no one.

Inescapabel attack is currently the only thing that yet makes sense for the attacker.

This whole binary thing sucks.

Unless I'm reading things wrong, the change to Blood Loss is huge. Blood Loss is no longer potentially fatal?! Instead, it just makes you tired. Don't get me wrong - I like it a lot but it's a big change.

The new Blood Loss rules call for suffering 1 level of Fatigue each Round. Per page 12 of the Update, "If a character's Fatigue ever exceeds double the amount of his Fatigue threshold, the character dies."

So before with Blood Loss there was a 10% chance of death every Round or every 4-5 seconds. Now, assuming a likely Fatigue Threshold of 6-8, a character would die from bleeding-out in 7-9 Rounds or 35-45 seconds.

Seems more reasonable than a 10% chance of bleeding-out in the first 4-5 seconds.

You pass out at threshold, you die when in excess of 2x threshold, so a threshold of 6 or 8 would die at 13 or 17, respectively. You have roughly one minute to make your peace with the Emperor...

But yes, far more reasonable than the possibility of bleeding out in one round.

Now, does this work with Die Hard?

I like the new dodge rule but I don't see why dodge can't also be opposed.

I like the new dodge rule but I don't see why dodge can't also be opposed.

The short answer is that it requires a large rework of a lot of the combat modifiers in order to not do weird things to the math of combat.

Personally, I'd like to see opposed dodge the default and the combat system reworked to allow it, but that's time and effort I really doubt FFG is going to put in.

Now, does this work with Die Hard?

They changed the Die Hard talent in this same Update #5 (pg 7) so that it does work with the new Blood Loss:

I like the new dodge rule but I don't see why dodge can't also be opposed.

The short answer is that it requires a large rework of a lot of the combat modifiers in order to not do weird things to the math of combat.

Personally, I'd like to see opposed dodge the default and the combat system reworked to allow it, but that's time and effort I really doubt FFG is going to put in.

Thats nonsense. It needs one +10 dodge modifier against standard attacks. No more, no less.

Unless I'm reading things wrong, the change to Blood Loss is huge. Blood Loss is no longer potentially fatal?! Instead, it just makes you tired. Don't get me wrong - I like it a lot but it's a big change.

The new Blood Loss rules call for suffering 1 level of Fatigue each Round. Per page 12 of the Update, "If a character's Fatigue ever exceeds double the amount of his Fatigue threshold, the character dies."

So before with Blood Loss there was a 10% chance of death every Round or every 4-5 seconds. Now, assuming a likely Fatigue Threshold of 6-8, a character would die from bleeding-out in 7-9 Rounds or 35-45 seconds.

Seems more reasonable than a 10% chance of bleeding-out in the first 4-5 seconds.

EDIT: Ah, good call Brother Orpheo. Correction --> Assuming a likely Fatigue Threshold of 6-8, a character would die from bleeding-out in 13-17 Rounds, or 65-85 seconds.

Oh, well that makes much more sense then. Thanks. That being the case, I love it. Fantastic change.

How does Inescapable attack work against multiple attack (full auto, swift, semi and lightning attack) where you hit multiple opponents. Do you subtract your attack roll from each defenders dodge?

Inescapable Attack needs to go. Seriously. As it stands, it's an absolute must buy for combat characters of any stripe, effectively sneaking opposed evasion through the back door.

That's bad form. The devs should make up their mind on opposed evasion and either bring it back as a baseline or get rid of it altogether, but trying to disguise it as a Talent serves no one.

Inescapabel attack is currently the only thing that yet makes sense for the attacker.

This whole binary thing sucks.

Not delving into opposed vs not-opposed discussion again, you're right that buying Inescapable Attack ASAP is the only thing that makes sense - which is exactly the reason why it needs to be axed.

Once again, they should either take the opposed evasion out back and shoot it entirely, or bring it back officially, but sneaking it through the back door solves nothing.

Interesting side thought, though: unlike opposed evasion as presented, which gave all the advantages to heavy-hitting single attacks, Inescapable Attack is much more weapon-agnostic in giving overwhelming advantage to a lucky attacker - in fact, it may even give a bigger advantage to autofire, though I have no time to do the exact math right now.

Maybe making inescapable attack only apply to single shot/attack which would improve the slower weapons and make it not mandatory for everyone.

Maybe making inescapable attack only apply to single shot/attack which would improve the slower weapons and make it not mandatory for everyone.

I agree strongly with that. It reads like a sniper, or a guy with a large weapon that is hard to dodge talent. It should be only for weapons that do single shot/attack. Once your doing multi shots/attacks your doing what we call spray and pray. At that point your sacrificing accurate attacks for more attacks.

Maybe making inescapable attack only apply to single shot/attack which would improve the slower weapons and make it not mandatory for everyone.

Unless there's some cost associated with it's use, we're still back to everyone and their aunt using heavy hitting one-shot weapons from now on till forever.

Maybe making inescapable attack only apply to single shot/attack which would improve the slower weapons and make it not mandatory for everyone.

Unless there's some cost associated with it's use, we're still back to everyone and their aunt using heavy hitting one-shot weapons from now on till forever.

Unless you got nailed by the guy who shot you four times and thus force to take 1d10+5 damage that has pen of 5. Lets assume you have armor that pen completely nulls out. We are looking at best 24 damage to at worst 60 damage. This is not counting righteous fury. Multi attacks are still powerful in their damage output if you fail your roll.

Unless I reading the updates wrong, multiple hit attacks and dodge already is opposed. Each DoS of the dodge subtracts a hit from the attack. So inescapable attack would give one hit weapons a similar chance of ignoring a dodge as lightning attack... Which come to think of it would be op. Maybe have every two DoS for the attack subtract a DoS from the dodge? That way slower weapons could have a better chance of hitting but not as much as malty attacks.

Inescapable Attack needs to go. Seriously. As it stands, it's an absolute must buy for combat characters of any stripe, effectively sneaking opposed evasion through the back door.

That's bad form. The devs should make up their mind on opposed evasion and either bring it back as a baseline or get rid of it altogether, but trying to disguise it as a Talent serves no one.

Inescapabel attack is currently the only thing that yet makes sense for the attacker.

This whole binary thing sucks.

Not delving into opposed vs not-opposed discussion again, you're right that buying Inescapable Attack ASAP is the only thing that makes sense - which is exactly the reason why it needs to be axed.

Once again, they should either take the opposed evasion out back and shoot it entirely, or bring it back officially, but sneaking it through the back door solves nothing.

Interesting side thought, though: unlike opposed evasion as presented, which gave all the advantages to heavy-hitting single attacks, Inescapable Attack is much more weapon-agnostic in giving overwhelming advantage to a lucky attacker - in fact, it may even give a bigger advantage to autofire, though I have no time to do the exact math right now.

You got me wrong.

I meant - currently Inescapeable attack is currently the only thing that yet helps the whole attackers DoS to get a sense.

I am not only a supporter of the talent, I am also a supporter of making it a Tier2 talent to make it cheaper and more easily accessable !

Dive for Cover is a neat special rule and a good expansion of the Dodge skill.

IMHO, this special use of the Dodge skill is completely redundant and is only good to give an additional layer of protection to dump characters who like to brainlessly run into enemy firing squads. Otherwise, you can just use Tactical Advance for pretty much the same effect.

It is useful in situations where a PC would not normally be tactically advancing though. Perhaps they are exploring or investigating a warehouse building when they start taking fire from a catwalk or from the top of some crates. This is when the rule would be very useful. It gives the PCs a chance to quickly dive for cover when they previously had no reason to tactically advance or hide.

It is useful in situations where a PC would not normally be tactically advancing though. Perhaps they are exploring or investigating a warehouse building when they start taking fire from a catwalk or from the top of some crates. This is when the rule would be very useful. It gives the PCs a chance to quickly dive for cover when they previously had no reason to tactically advance or hide.

The characters can always take cover in their own turn and then proceed to use Tactical Advance. maybe they lose a half action this way, but they also lose a half action with Dive for Cover too (unless they have Leap Up). There is, like, one tiny fraction of combat where this special use may come in play: if the character tries to dodge the attack of an enemy at higher initiative than him, in the very first turn of combat. But even then, the character is hard pressed to use a normal Dodge that will negate the attack completely instead of relying on cover and wasting a half action for a "mere" +10 bonus.

It is useful in situations where a PC would not normally be tactically advancing though. Perhaps they are exploring or investigating a warehouse building when they start taking fire from a catwalk or from the top of some crates. This is when the rule would be very useful. It gives the PCs a chance to quickly dive for cover when they previously had no reason to tactically advance or hide.

The characters can always take cover in their own turn and then proceed to use Tactical Advance. maybe they lose a half action this way, but they also lose a half action with Dive for Cover too (unless they have Leap Up). There is, like, one tiny fraction of combat where this special use may come in play: if the character tries to dodge the attack of an enemy at higher initiative than him, in the very first turn of combat. But even then, the character is hard pressed to use a normal Dodge that will negate the attack completely instead of relying on cover and wasting a half action for a "mere" +10 bonus.

While Tactical Advance is a great option that clever players will use as often as possible, sometimes you have to take chances and move more aggressively, either in an attempt to break a tactical stalemate or to accomplish an objective not directly related to killing the opposition. People don't always do what's best for them - sometimes, they do what needs to be done, even if it puts them in greater risk.

In such situations, as long as there are multiple enemies that could potentially harm you and enough cover pieces scattered around, diving for cover may be a better use of your strictly limited defensive resources than trying to actually evade one potential attack.

It is useful in situations where a PC would not normally be tactically advancing though. Perhaps they are exploring or investigating a warehouse building when they start taking fire from a catwalk or from the top of some crates. This is when the rule would be very useful. It gives the PCs a chance to quickly dive for cover when they previously had no reason to tactically advance or hide.

The characters can always take cover in their own turn and then proceed to use Tactical Advance. maybe they lose a half action this way, but they also lose a half action with Dive for Cover too (unless they have Leap Up). There is, like, one tiny fraction of combat where this special use may come in play: if the character tries to dodge the attack of an enemy at higher initiative than him, in the very first turn of combat. But even then, the character is hard pressed to use a normal Dodge that will negate the attack completely instead of relying on cover and wasting a half action for a "mere" +10 bonus.

While Tactical Advance is a great option that clever players will use as often as possible, sometimes you have to take chances and move more aggressively, either in an attempt to break a tactical stalemate or to accomplish an objective not directly related to killing the opposition. People don't always do what's best for them - sometimes, they do what needs to be done, even if it puts them in greater risk.

In such situations, as long as there are multiple enemies that could potentially harm you and enough cover pieces scattered around, diving for cover may be a better use of your strictly limited defensive resources than trying to actually evade one potential attack.

This is true in actual combat as well! A short dash is often more tactically advantageous than a "tactical advance". This is particularly true in open field engagements where the goal might be to close the distance and engage might be preferable to sitting back and trading shots (Such as against say, Tau Fire warriors!).

It is useful in situations where a PC would not normally be tactically advancing though. Perhaps they are exploring or investigating a warehouse building when they start taking fire from a catwalk or from the top of some crates. This is when the rule would be very useful. It gives the PCs a chance to quickly dive for cover when they previously had no reason to tactically advance or hide.

The characters can always take cover in their own turn and then proceed to use Tactical Advance. maybe they lose a half action this way, but they also lose a half action with Dive for Cover too (unless they have Leap Up). There is, like, one tiny fraction of combat where this special use may come in play: if the character tries to dodge the attack of an enemy at higher initiative than him, in the very first turn of combat. But even then, the character is hard pressed to use a normal Dodge that will negate the attack completely instead of relying on cover and wasting a half action for a "mere" +10 bonus.

I think you're missing another use for it. A character in cover only gains the cover bonus to the areas that are concealed, so a guy behind a wall wall gets legs, and maybe body, while his arms and head are exposed.

Dive for cover makes the cover bonus apply to any area, so a character who is already in cover but gets shot in the head can use it to drop completely behind the wall and gain additional armour against a called shot or lucky shot.