Re: Week 3 rule questions...

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_...>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 07:33:24 -0500

At 08:42 AM 3/17/2004 +1300, Steve Rennell wrote:
>There's a vingan devotee trying to use her "run on treetops" feat to
>move quickly over the forest in such a way that she can get behind the
>broo that are chasing the parties hunter. I was making her roll for the
>feat every time she wanted to start again (i.e. she ran to one spot (1
>roll) threw a javelin at a broo, and ran to another spot (1 more roll)
>and threw another javelin.

         I don't think that anyone has suggested this yet -- if the whole Run on Treetops thing is to get a better position to snipe with javelins, why not just augment the Javelin ability with Run on Treetops? If the Vingan wants to take more risks -- darting close to the broos and then away -- she can roll for the augment and risk falling or slowing down (the negative augment). Narrate what happens. This way the character gets to do a cool cinematic thing at relatively low ability levels, you cut the number of rolls dramatically, and it doesn't give the player an advantage or penalty out of line with the ability. In general, I would use this as the guide to all movement abilities in combat -- rather than saying "OK, roll Move Fast vs the enemy's Quick to get behind him, then roll Combat with a +5...," say "Augment Combat with your Move Fast; he's augmenting with Quick, OK, what do you do?" "I dodge behind him and stab at his leg, trying to cripple him, I bid 14AP." And so on. Why hobble your players with a lot of die rolls for what is essentially color in the description?

Peter Larsen