> >First question : When it is Huge's turn, can Rep defend with his
> >reputation score (and if so should he get a penalty) or should he
> >use a more appropriate skills like Evade Blows (augmented by his
> >reputation maybe)?
>
>I think his goal is "don't get into the fight," so Reputation is the
>active ability. (If the fight has begun in earnest, then this would
>be less appropriate, and would get a penalty or not be allowed.)
As Rory said, however, if these are two PCs, then you have to give the benefit of the doubt to he who spoke up first in many cases. This is complicated...
Again, in general, if I have two players going at it (and I'd say that's about 50% of play in my games), you can't pre-empt a declaration without a pretty good reason. If Huge's player says, "I attack!" and the other player says, "I try to talk him out of it, first," if you allow that to happen, you might seem like you're playing favorites. How is it that a later declared action can come first? Can Huge them say, "Before he does that, I try to sneak up on him, so that he can't argue."? Where would it end?
That said, if a player has his character sneak up on another trying to kill him, the defender probably can't use his combat abilities to prevent his death - he has to avoid being snuck up on. Well, here's the thing, if the guy being snuck up on has something like Sense Ambush, then he should be able to use it to pre-emptively see the attack coming, no? Sure, we could use just toughness or something to represent the knife hitting home, and only natural resistance being applicable. But some abilities seem to be "always on" (to use the Hero System phraseology), meaning that you have to get through them first before you actually get to the Hero.
The point is that the hero's Rep is "always on." Well, to be clear, it's a matter of whether or not somebody has heard of him or not. Rep is interesting that way in that it's both a measure of how likely it is that somebody has heard of you, and how likely it is that the rep will affect the person in question. But if it's at all likely that the Uroxi had heard of the PC in question - and to be having this discussion, I'm going to guess that it was likely - then, in fact, I'd say that it's valid to pre-empt. In fact, the contest would change subltly such that the Uroxi's combat ability would probably get a penalty (Bold or something would be more appropriate).
Now, again, this is complicated. This really depends on the players accepting what affects what. It's a lot simpler to just say that player declaration is the only thing that counts in terms of what the "arena" of the contest is. And this works just fine. But with the right players, "going back" and saying that the character must overcome something in order to, say, attack at all, works just fine, too. What I generally do is ask the player being pre-empted whether or not he minds being pre-empted. Often it's not a problem at all as the player gets to compare his character to the other in another way, anyhow (and losing isn't problematic in HQ, IMO).
> >Second question : When Rep tries to talk him down, can Huge carry on
> >with his combat ability or should he used another like Determined,
> >Brave or No fear (augmented by his combat score perhaps)?
>
>I think so (especially as an Uroxi). He's weighing his combat ability
>against that reputation. Maybe I'm tougher than him after all? Maybe
>I'd like to see just how I stack up against that famous fighter?
Yeah, I agree with David, and Rory, here. That said, there's another way of looking at these things where you just compare whatever to whatever. I've posted a lot about this before. In general, I'm pretty tolerant of "odd" comparisons, being willing to come up with narrations that explain the results. My suggestion is to play around with this a bit, and see what the players like in terms of how "arena specific" they like the abilities used to be.
Most importantly, when it's not Hero v Hero, let the player involved dictate in most cases. That is, if he thinks he can pre-empt, let him do so, and show off another side of his character. OTOH, don't let him resolve everything with one ability. Only allow creative pre-empting, not doing so just to get the best TN. Once you get this idea across, you'll find players using some abilities that you'd never see in other games getting used (which also leads to players feeling comfortable spending on whatever ability they like instead of stacking).
Mike
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