Blacky the Blackball
2012-01-17, 08:57 AM
I've just started GMing an oMage campaign, and it's nearly 20 years since I last played, so I'm re-reading the rules (1e, core only if it matters) to remind myself how it works...
The basics of combat are straightforward enough. You roll for initiative and then each person gets (normally) a single action.
Your action is normally to either:
a) Make an attack
-or-
b) Dodge
If you wish to do both, you're limited to the lower of your attack or dodge dice pool; and must split the dice from that pool between the two actions. Also movement loses you dice from the pool per meter moved.
Is that right?
So if two people (Alice and Bob) are fighting each other, the sequence is:
i) Alice and Bob roll initiative. Let's assume that Alice wins.
ii) Alice decides to either attack Bob using her full attack pool; wait for Bob's attack in order to defend against it using her full dodge pool; or split the lower of her attack and dodge pool in order to do both.
iii) If Alice decided to attack, Bob must make the same decision - dodge now, attack later (hoping he's still conscious), or split his lower pool to do both.
iv) Alice rolls her attack (if she decided to). Bob rolls his dodge (if he decided to). If she hits then she rolls her damage and he rolls his soak.
v) If Bob's still conscious and saved some dice to attack with, he now rolls his attack. Alice rolls any dice she saved for dodging. If he hits then he rolls his damage and she rolls to soak.
That all seems straightforward enough for plain old fisticuffs (we're British, so our mages don't carry guns), until we add magic to the mix, which raises various questions:
1) If either Alice or Bob use magic to speed themselves up, do they get extra attacks? If so, how does that affect the splitting of dice? And what order do the attacks go in (for example if Alice is attacking twice and Bob is attacking three times)?
2) In the example above, if Alice decided to split her actions and therefore used part of the lower of her attack and dodge to attack Bob; what happens if she then decides to cast a fast-cast defensive spell against Bob's attack rather than dodging it? Her spell casting pool is likely to be different from the lower of her attack and dodge pools, so she should have used that when making her attack - but that's already happened.
3) Similarly, if Bob decided to split his actions and used part of the lower of his attack and dodge to defend against Alice's attack; what happens if he then decides to cast an offensive spell against Alice when it gets to his action? Again, he's already split the lower of his attack and dodge pools but his casting pool is likely to be different from that.
Also - in a magic question unrelated to combat - do the various success requirements for spells stack? For example if it takes 2 successes to make a spell last for a scene and it takes 3 successes to make a spell affect all in an area, how many successes does it take to make a spell affect all in an area for the rest of the scene? Is it:
a) 3 - because that's the highest difficulty needed for either area or duration.
b) 4 - because the area requires two extra (for a total of 3) and the duration requires three extra (for a total of 2) so the spell as a whole requires 3 extra.
c) 5 - because the area requires 3 and the duration requires 2.
Similarly, damage is normally worked out per success. Is that for the total number of successes, or (if a spell is cast to affect an area) is it the number of successes by which it equalled/exceeded the number needed to successfully cast it?
The basics of combat are straightforward enough. You roll for initiative and then each person gets (normally) a single action.
Your action is normally to either:
a) Make an attack
-or-
b) Dodge
If you wish to do both, you're limited to the lower of your attack or dodge dice pool; and must split the dice from that pool between the two actions. Also movement loses you dice from the pool per meter moved.
Is that right?
So if two people (Alice and Bob) are fighting each other, the sequence is:
i) Alice and Bob roll initiative. Let's assume that Alice wins.
ii) Alice decides to either attack Bob using her full attack pool; wait for Bob's attack in order to defend against it using her full dodge pool; or split the lower of her attack and dodge pool in order to do both.
iii) If Alice decided to attack, Bob must make the same decision - dodge now, attack later (hoping he's still conscious), or split his lower pool to do both.
iv) Alice rolls her attack (if she decided to). Bob rolls his dodge (if he decided to). If she hits then she rolls her damage and he rolls his soak.
v) If Bob's still conscious and saved some dice to attack with, he now rolls his attack. Alice rolls any dice she saved for dodging. If he hits then he rolls his damage and she rolls to soak.
That all seems straightforward enough for plain old fisticuffs (we're British, so our mages don't carry guns), until we add magic to the mix, which raises various questions:
1) If either Alice or Bob use magic to speed themselves up, do they get extra attacks? If so, how does that affect the splitting of dice? And what order do the attacks go in (for example if Alice is attacking twice and Bob is attacking three times)?
2) In the example above, if Alice decided to split her actions and therefore used part of the lower of her attack and dodge to attack Bob; what happens if she then decides to cast a fast-cast defensive spell against Bob's attack rather than dodging it? Her spell casting pool is likely to be different from the lower of her attack and dodge pools, so she should have used that when making her attack - but that's already happened.
3) Similarly, if Bob decided to split his actions and used part of the lower of his attack and dodge to defend against Alice's attack; what happens if he then decides to cast an offensive spell against Alice when it gets to his action? Again, he's already split the lower of his attack and dodge pools but his casting pool is likely to be different from that.
Also - in a magic question unrelated to combat - do the various success requirements for spells stack? For example if it takes 2 successes to make a spell last for a scene and it takes 3 successes to make a spell affect all in an area, how many successes does it take to make a spell affect all in an area for the rest of the scene? Is it:
a) 3 - because that's the highest difficulty needed for either area or duration.
b) 4 - because the area requires two extra (for a total of 3) and the duration requires three extra (for a total of 2) so the spell as a whole requires 3 extra.
c) 5 - because the area requires 3 and the duration requires 2.
Similarly, damage is normally worked out per success. Is that for the total number of successes, or (if a spell is cast to affect an area) is it the number of successes by which it equalled/exceeded the number needed to successfully cast it?