GoddessGood
11-17-2008, 12:13 PM
Reading through the wonderful link (http://www.bazzalisk.org/exalted/201X.pdf) Darelf posted, I noticed (yet again) that my group had perpetrated a rules violation in our last session ;). The rule is in regards to onslaught penalties, but first some background.
In Exalted, combat strategy is more about timing than location (as is discussed in the link above). Combat is based in one-second long ticks rather than turns. Every action you can take in combat lasts a certain number of ticks before it's your turn to go again. Your defense against other characters is a passive, static value called a DV (for defense value). You have one for dodging and one for blocking (or parrying) and you generally use whichever is higher to defend against a given attack. When you take an action in combat this imposes a penalty against your DV because, by acting, you make yourself less able to defend. This penalty goes away on your next action (in game terms it "refreshes").
The onslaught penalty is a nasty bugger. If someone attacks you 2 or more times it is called a flurry and each attack after the first gives a -1 cumulative DV penalty. So if I attack you 3 times, your DV suffers no penalty for the first attack, a -1 penalty for the second attack and -2 for the third.
My group and I were under the impression that this penalty sticks with the defender until his next action. If another person attacked him before his DV refreshed, he would still have that penalty against him as well as any others that accumulated. After reviewing the rules we find out that this is not true. The rules state that onslaught penalties only apply to the attacker that caused them and only against the single flurry that caused them.
So if A attacks B with 5 attacks, then B would be at a -4 penalty to the 5th attack. However, if C then immediately attacks B, B suffers no defense penalty despite the fact that he was just brutally attacked by A. If A attacks B again before B's turn, B also suffers no defense penalty for these attacks despite the fact that A has attacked him before and regardless of how many total attacks he's suffered (unless A attacks him multiple times, in which case the normal onslaught penalties would apply to those attacks).
This, to me, does not seem realistic. If I take 5 sword attacks in quick succession and then suffer a 6th within the span of a few seconds then I don't feel this is sufficient time to recover completely. I feel that a penalty of some sort should still be "stuck" to the defender. There is a mechanic for coordinating attacks that says the leader of the attack makes a roll to organize everyone into a certain strategy. If that roll succeeds then a penalty is applied to the defenders DV that is relative to the number of attackers.
I'm considering a houserule such that a defender suffers a DV penalty after defending equal to the number of attacks he has suffered before his DV refreshes. Therefore in the example above B would be at -5 DV for C's attack and -6 for A's second attack. This, to me, seems more realistic and it makes powers (called Charms) which let you ignore DV penalties even more potent.
In Exalted, combat strategy is more about timing than location (as is discussed in the link above). Combat is based in one-second long ticks rather than turns. Every action you can take in combat lasts a certain number of ticks before it's your turn to go again. Your defense against other characters is a passive, static value called a DV (for defense value). You have one for dodging and one for blocking (or parrying) and you generally use whichever is higher to defend against a given attack. When you take an action in combat this imposes a penalty against your DV because, by acting, you make yourself less able to defend. This penalty goes away on your next action (in game terms it "refreshes").
The onslaught penalty is a nasty bugger. If someone attacks you 2 or more times it is called a flurry and each attack after the first gives a -1 cumulative DV penalty. So if I attack you 3 times, your DV suffers no penalty for the first attack, a -1 penalty for the second attack and -2 for the third.
My group and I were under the impression that this penalty sticks with the defender until his next action. If another person attacked him before his DV refreshed, he would still have that penalty against him as well as any others that accumulated. After reviewing the rules we find out that this is not true. The rules state that onslaught penalties only apply to the attacker that caused them and only against the single flurry that caused them.
So if A attacks B with 5 attacks, then B would be at a -4 penalty to the 5th attack. However, if C then immediately attacks B, B suffers no defense penalty despite the fact that he was just brutally attacked by A. If A attacks B again before B's turn, B also suffers no defense penalty for these attacks despite the fact that A has attacked him before and regardless of how many total attacks he's suffered (unless A attacks him multiple times, in which case the normal onslaught penalties would apply to those attacks).
This, to me, does not seem realistic. If I take 5 sword attacks in quick succession and then suffer a 6th within the span of a few seconds then I don't feel this is sufficient time to recover completely. I feel that a penalty of some sort should still be "stuck" to the defender. There is a mechanic for coordinating attacks that says the leader of the attack makes a roll to organize everyone into a certain strategy. If that roll succeeds then a penalty is applied to the defenders DV that is relative to the number of attackers.
I'm considering a houserule such that a defender suffers a DV penalty after defending equal to the number of attacks he has suffered before his DV refreshes. Therefore in the example above B would be at -5 DV for C's attack and -6 for A's second attack. This, to me, seems more realistic and it makes powers (called Charms) which let you ignore DV penalties even more potent.