>Now, if the victim has a "Detect Assassin sneaking up behind me" ability,
>he
>could use it as the resisting ability, giving a much better resistance to
>that initial attack. It's not a pre-emptive ability, instead it replaces
>"Default 6" with some better number ("Detect Assassin 13") and probably
>reduces the "surprise" modifier that the assassin would normally get, as
>well.
You're example is exactly what I was calling "pre-empting." This is semantics at this point. The assassin wants the attack to be based on his undetected attack, and the target's default "Resist Knife with Skin" 6. Nothing but knife vs. flesh. But the defender says that he's resisting with his Detect Assassin, and, if accepted, that means that he can detect the approach. Meaning that the contest is "backed up" to the point where the assassin is approaching rather than just at the stab. The player reasons that the assassin can't just get a free dagger vs flesh attack because he attacked first, he has to overcome the target's ability to detect him.
That's what I'm getting at. Plausibility often allows for this change to occur. Again, with the Rep character, one could argue that Huge can't just ignore the reputation, having to get "past" that first to get to the PC.
Again, I'm not saying that there are any hard and fast rules here. It's the narrator's job to sort these things out by applying modifiers. But that's the point - just saying that a character can attempt an action because he declares if first doesn't fly. To take a more extreme example, if a target character were at the top of a wall that was difficult to climb, would you allow him to make an attack without climbing the wall, first? I'm not saying that you have to roll for every challenge (no, that wouldn't be like me, would it). But in the case described, a roll for the wall is more than appropriate, it's downright neccessary.
Now, we could divide this into two separate contests. You could have a "sneaking up" contest, and apply the modifiers to the next contest. That's completely legitimate. But in your own example, you have a combination of actions being involved (the crossbow augmenting the Detect Assassin indicating that some fighting was also involved in addition to the sneaking). So there's no hard and fast line there, either.
Again, I agree that it's a lot simpler to just make the assumption in most cases that the declaring player has "framed" the action to the point in question. But, especially between two PCs, this sort of framing could even be abused. Again, can I declare that I have already snuck up on you with no roll for that? Doesn't that violate my character's concept as a perceptive sort? Not to say that this will even be done. But there could be the appearance of it happening. That is players will often feel put upon in such a situation.
The point is that if you allow this to be an open negotiation (with narrator as final arbiter), you can avoid these appearances of favoritism either way.
Mike
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