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Last night a question came up around the Defender talent and how Rank 1 works and how Rank 1 and 3 stack (if they do at all). Quoting from the book:

✥ RANK 1: You get one free PARRY every round of combat. The extra PARRY does not count as one of your actions in the round.
✥ RANK 3: You can PARRY an unlimited number of times in the same round of combat, but only once against the same attack. Only the first PARRY counts towards your actions in the round.

The questions:

1. If a character has Rank 1, is the free parry the second one, after you spend your fast/slow action as reaction (the way Rank 3 works) or the player can select this free parry as the first parry, so he does not have to spend fast/slow action to react to attack, unless really needs to.
2. If a character has Rank 3, how this rank interacts with Rank 1, especially when there is no such thing as "Activating" talents ahead of time? For example, If rank 1 has free parry that can be selected as the first action, free of charge, then rank 3 conflicts with rank 1 and makes it less appealing to spend XP on.

I would say that to keep the principle of rank 3 in harmony with the lower level ranks, the rank 1 free parry should come after you made a parry with one of your fast/slow actions for the turn.

Any insight from you guys?

That is an interesting question.

1) I would say the player gets to choose when to use the free parry. It effectively gives the player an additional fast action in the round that can only be used for a single parry but at any point in the round, before his initiative turn or after his initiative turn, as needed. The player can choose to use this free parry first or use one of his actions instead.

2) I would then say that the player with rank 3 can parry an additional unlimited amount of times but this costs one fast action. So they do need to have a fast action available for this option.

So they get one free parry (as per rank 1), and then it costs an action to parry an unlimited amount of times in the round.

Which means the player gets to use both rank 1 and rank 3 of the talent independently of each other.

I think Rank 1 needs some clarification from the designers.

I think Rank 1 needs some clarification from the designers.

If that doesn't happen for a while, what would the GM of your game rule on this?

I am the GM and still haven't decided on the ruling, as I want to keep the overall feeling of the talents more or less intact. It would be good to have it as player choice, but this means that all will have the talent as will be parry-fest each combat. So I am more inclined to go with some limiting factor such as "you must have used your fast reaction to parry to trigger this", which now leads me to another issue - many talents are absolute and come without requirements at rank 1.

I would say that either you chose to make Rank 3 overwrite Rank 1. You can parry an unlimited ammount of times but you have to spend one Parry Action to activate the talent. Or you remove the Rank 3 part that says "Only the first PARRY counts towards your actions in the round.".

I actually think it's fine if all characters take this talent, it's thier choice.

I am going to keep with my ruleing above, if you have both rank 1 and rank 3 you can have one free parry in the round, any additional parries (no matter how many) cost a total of one action.

Which means you can still have a free parry if you have run out of actions on your turn but if you choose to parry more than once you only have one action available to take on your turn.

Hello!

As the talent is written, rank 1 and rank 3 are independent from each other - i.e. rank 1 gives you one free extra parry (usable at any time), while rank 3 lets you parry an unlimited number of times (but only once per attack), but only after you have spent one normal (fast) action on parrying. This pretty much means rank 3 is only really usable if you're attacked three or more times in the same round (you can only parry an attack once and the rank 1 bonus parry will take care of the second attack in the round). I agree the wording is a little unclear and could be improved.

Thanks for the clarifications, Tomas!

I know I am bringing back a potentially settled issue but with the 2nd printing the wording changed again for defender and fast footwork I am opening the old wound.  I understand then when attacked by 3+ enemies and a fast action available it goes as follows:  free, uses fast action, free, free... The new wording says "it will never count as more than one action."  This would leave the option open to intemperate where if you had no actions it could be unlimited too.  The example would be you win initiative and move up to arms length (fast action) then you attack (slow action) and turn over.  Then multiple enemies move to you and attack you.  The first defense would be free but since you have no remaining slow or fast actions would tier 3 defender or fast footed kick in?  Being free at this point would not "count as more than one action"  and it would not allow you to "save" actions for anything else, you would still be spent as intended.