I don't necessarily agree. Even though a person might be using an archery skill in the contest, he may only fire one arrow -- the one that wins/kills. But if he is reduced to 0 ap, then perhaps he never even got a shot off.
A related question came up in my game (ammo never did, go figure) was with sniping. The first ambush arrows v. enemy scene I ran way-back-when I mistakenly ran as an extended contest. The player shooting the arrow from a short distance under significant cover and with complete surprise with mastery was robbed, by the extended contest mechanic, of the pleasure of the ambush kill. Since then, I've run things like that more binary. If the player intends to kill someone at a distance with something like a bow and arrow, we view this as a simple contest. That arrow is either going to kill/fell the target or not. If it does not, the now-aware victim can enter into an extended contest with the ambusher.
> Right. And yet, would you then rule that a character who lost all
> their AP's in an archery contest was still unable to resist an
> opponent, even if that opponent is, in context, a hundred yards
> away? After all they have been defeated. What if they were a better
> swordsman than archer, but began the contest at range - would you
> take AP from ranged combat or close combat?
Well, he IS unable to resist the opponent with archery at least. For game purposes, THAT contest is over and the archer is the loser. This does not mean that he is dead, but perhaps he is really tired and with no more arrows. This could be a bad situation if the opponent THEN decides to press his advantage. In this case, another contest might occur, with the opponent gaining some kind of carry-over from the previous contest (usually as a penalty on the archer).
>
> Yes, perhaps. But I'm not too keen on relying on happy chance for
> this sort of thing. What if the scene I'm running has a stark naked
> archer, for whatever reason? Obviously, the context can dramatically
> limit the narrators options, and I'm not keen on a sort of "gee, uh,
> how do I explain the AP loss THIS time?" experience.
A stark naked archer (with no arrows, I presume) could not initiate a archery contest, unless maybe it was a "talking about archery" contest. He could improvise an archery contest by picking up random rocks and sticks and trying to shoot them out of his bow (say, -20 modifier, but certainly possible for (super) heroes against mooks.
> > Or the warriors have Augmented their Close Combat skill with Ranged
> Combat. Or
>
> Possibly, but do you make all the hundred rolls? Take an average?
> How do you apply that to player characters who are on the receiving
> end?
I might just use something like community support, here. We've not done any mass combats...
Clay
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