Does a Triumph in an Initiative check do anything?

By ianinak, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Obviously it's your group and you do what works for said group, but allowing a free attack on a Triumph feels a little too good, and could lead to problems down the road as your PCs starting rolling more proficiency dice on their Initiative checks, and could lead to instances of each of the PCs getting a free shot at the bad guys before the encounter really starts.

I'm not saying their aren't circumstances where it could be justified, but I'd want to keep those circumstances fairly limited.

The I think a single free action is not out of order. If the players have guns drawn and ready no reason they wouldn`t be able to get a knee jerk reaction to fire their weapon. If they didn`t have weapons out though and they don`t have quick draw they would have to use the action as a maneuver instead to get to cover or pull a weapon. Makes taking the quick draw and quick shot talents much more valuable in combonation with ranks in cool. You might get to use the talent twice if you roll a triumph.

I see it narratively like this. Players walking through the forrest of endor when storm troopers in ambush jump out, smuggler rolls a triumph and get a quick blast off as the first storm trooper moves from cover. He doesn`t have much knowlege of whats happening he just pulled and shot out of pure reaction speed.

Plus it puts a whole new spin on the 'Han shot first' scenarios. :)

We just let it break ties. There are lots of ties. That is already pretty good.

By the rules, PCs already win ties. So letting them win on a Triumph is doing what exactly? Due to the players winning "slots" and not where they actually are in the order, if 2 PCs tie each other, one winning over the other means as much as me being your fathers brothers cousins former room mate.

Or in other words, absolutely nothing.

Normally advantages win ties.

Read that book a bit closer champ. Advantages do win ties. But if PC A rolls 2 successes and 2 advantages, and NPC C rolls 2 successes and 2 advantages, who wins? The PC by default.

Read the book a bit closer there yourself. Triumphs count as success.

PC SSAA ties NPC SSAA and wins tie.

PC SS ties NPC SSAA and loses tie.

However we have triumph win ties so

PC TS ties NPC SSAA and wins tie. Had the T been an S, it would have lost the tie.

This would have all been perfectly obvious to you there "champ" had you assumed that someone else might actually known what they're talking about when they posted something rather than trying to bend over backwards trying to find something wrong.

With the number of ties we get, the benefit of a triumph breaking them is significant, particularly with how lethal combat is. Giving them a further free maneuver in the first round seems too much, so we just have it break ties.

BTW, triumphs winning ties is how competitive checks work, so this is nothing new and streamlines things a little. That is something else you should read up on there.

Plus it puts a whole new spin on the 'Han shot first' scenarios. :)

Perhaps, but there's also the fact that as the PCs acquire more ranks in Cool and Vigilance, you increase the likeliness of PCs rolling Triumphs when it comes to initiative, and if you've allowed Triumphs to be spent to get a free attack, you run the odds of having combats that are over before the bad guys get a chance to do much because each of the PCs has scored a free attack before the fight really even gets underway.

Besides, Han simply had a much better Cool than Greedo, and used a Triumph from his Skulduggery check to draw his blaster unnoticed to upgrade his Cool check, making it even more likely that he'd get the first shot off. Greedo, being a mere minion and thus relying solely upon his Characteristics and having a low Wound Threshold, never had a chance.

Read the book a bit closer there yourself. Triumphs count as success.

PC SSAA ties NPC SSAA and wins tie.

PC SS ties NPC SSAA and loses tie.

However we have triumph win ties so

PC TS ties NPC SSAA and wins tie. Had the T been an S, it would have lost the tie.

That's how it works? I'm AFB but I read it as T was the next tiebreaker after A.

Like this: PC TS ties NPC SSAA and loses tie because A is checked first for tiebreakers before T.

Just checking that I have this right now. Would it be this:

PC SSAT ties NPC SSAA and wins tie because the T trumps any and all A the NPC might have

I like the idea of the free manoeuvre. Might use that one for my games.