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For those of you who argue to "house rule" and allow this, have you thought about how you go about this in a manner that isn't changing the balance of the rules and other talents? This small change will affect several general talents, at least one career talent and the balance of the sneak attack function itself.

How do you handle players who have invested in the talent Killer when it's enough to manage a sneak attack to pick any critical damage you want (or make up your own one in this case)? How do you treat this if the attacked person is playing a Kid with Benath Notice? Would a player with Bodyguard be allowed to use their talent and take the hit? If the player who was attacked have Second Wind, that is effectively useless since it's already decided they're dead without a roll on the table.

On top of that, the talents Stealthy and Watchful have suddently increased in 'value' relative to others.

The sneak attack rule by itself is much more powerful -- if succeeded the player is allowed a free attack, this is now a 'chose your own crit'-free attack which you can follow up when the fighting begins as normal without losing a step.

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To me it would make more sense not to change this, accept that the dice gave you a slightly different result than the attacking player had hoped for (the PC who was attacked is still broken and is incapable of doing anything unless they have a talent that changes this fact). When the initiatives are drawn after the sneak attack, the attacker can attempt to perform a coup de grace, effectively describing whatever they want.

It's a narrative game. Go with the narrative. This player was obviously a traitor, and it serves the story. If you're gonna be worried that Player B might be uspet, then you're gonna have to make that Alien roll on the crit table when it does its head bite attack too, because otherwise it would be "unfair" to the player and the player might be "upset" when he dies from a head bite.

Here what you saying, I just disagree. I find that letting a player 'hand wave' that they did something to over rule the game system just isn't giving respect to the other player. They didn't manage to kill the person out right, so their 'description' of a perfect shot gets replaced by something else in the narrative (discussed previously, struggle, stumble, whatever). Pretty much all roleplaying boils down to this. Statement of intent, roll, see how roll matches statement of intent, work to fit. It doesn't add any more rolls in to have the 'instantly fatal headshot' get replaced by what the roll actually said, in the same way the person then makes their roll to see if they can coldly finish the person off. Not sure how your then saying the Alien would need to make such rules, that would again just be blatantly going against the rules, how their attacks work is pretty clearly laid out and they aren't player characters. I think your exaggeration for effect actually undermines your otherwise good point.

To each their own. The OP asked others how they would handle it, that's how I would. Generally I'm happy to be loose with the rules, generally not when it comes down to player vs player as that can quickly impede on someone else's fun. But in any case thanks for the discussion Oddball.

To me it would make more sense not to change this, accept that the dice gave you a slightly different result than the attacking player had hoped for (the PC who was attacked is still broken and is incapable of doing anything unless they have a talent that changes this fact). When the initiatives are drawn after the sneak attack, the attacker can attempt to perform a coup de grace, effectively describing whatever they want.

Great post buddy, couldn't agree with you more.

Here what you saying, I just disagree. I find that letting a player 'hand wave' that they did something to over rule the game system just isn't giving respect to the other player. They didn't manage to kill the person out right, so their 'description' of a perfect shot gets replaced by something else in the narrative (discussed previously, struggle, stumble, whatever). Pretty much all roleplaying boils down to this. Statement of intent, roll, see how roll matches statement of intent, work to fit. It doesn't add any more rolls in to have the 'instantly fatal headshot' get replaced by what the roll actually said, in the same way the person then makes their roll to see if they can coldly finish the person off. Not sure how your then saying the Alien would need to make such rules, that would again just be blatantly going against the rules, how their attacks work is pretty clearly laid out and they aren't player characters. I think your exaggeration for effect actually undermines your otherwise good point.

To each their own. The OP asked others how they would handle it, that's how I would. Generally I'm happy to be loose with the rules, generally not when it comes down to player vs player as that can quickly impede on someone else's fun. But in any case thanks for the discussion Oddball.

The problem here is that if you read the description of both coup de grace and broken, you'll see that your reasoning doesn't hold up.

You're saying that they should roll on the crit table because "the player might move at the last second" or whatever.
But someone who is broken is not unconscious (unless specifically stated so by a crit roll), and certainly not incapable of movement. And yet you don't have to stand there, repeatedly attacking them and rolling on the crit table hoping to get a killing crit.

The description of Broken states that the person can crawl and mumble through the pain. And yet the description for Coup de Grace is: "A broken character is defenseless. If it's a human being and you want to kill your target outright, you must fail an empathy test."
And I would argue that so is anyone who is standing right in front of someone who is aiming a gun at the back of their head without them knowing about it.

Rolling on the crit table is silly. Because the person is defenseless. Furthermore nobody is "hand waving" anything here. First of all, the player has to succeed in an opposed stealth check (Mobility vs Observation) and then, after that, they still have to fail their empathy test to actually perform the murder (unless they have the cold-blooded talent).
How is that hand waving?

In fact, if you're so hell-bent on following the rules, the player should not only roll for a crit, he should roll to hit from that 2cm (or whatever) distance... I mean, rules are rules, right? Oh and don't forget to force the player to roll for damage to see if he actually crits or if he just slightly injures the other player by shooting him in the back of the head with a shotgun.

I'm sorry that I'm comming off as flippant here, but it's this kind of rules slavery that I've seen split up many groups. The sheer absurdity that comes out of this kind of manic adherence to the rules has led to some truly absurd situations.

Sometimes you really do have to let go of the rules and "hand wave" (as you call it) the situation.

Just to put it into a different perspective, let's call up a different hypothetical scenario.

Say the same player instead ties up the other player and then decides to shoot it in the head.
Does he still have to roll to hit?
And then a damage roll to see if he crits?
And then roll on the crit table?
And then after that, finally roll for the coup de grace.

Or would you simply let him roll for coup de grace immediately?

I'm genuinely curious, because to me the situations are not different. The player is completely unawares of the imminent threat in the first situation, but in the second, he might be tied up but he's still able to flail his head around to make it harder to hit him.

(edited for clarity and spelling)

For those of you who argue to "house rule" and allow this, have you thought about how you go about this in a manner that isn't changing the balance of the rules and other talents? This small change will affect several general talents, at least one career talent and the balance of the sneak attack function itself.

How do you handle players who have invested in the talent Killer when it's enough to manage a sneak attack to pick any critical damage you want (or make up your own one in this case)? How do you treat this if the attacked person is playing a Kid with Benath Notice? Would a player with Bodyguard be allowed to use their talent and take the hit? If the player who was attacked have Second Wind, that is effectively useless since it's already decided they're dead without a roll on the table.

On top of that, the talents Stealthy and Watchful have suddently increased in 'value' relative to others.

The sneak attack rule by itself is much more powerful -- if succeeded the player is allowed a free attack, this is now a 'chose your own crit'-free attack which you can follow up when the fighting begins as normal without losing a step.

--

To me it would make more sense not to change this, accept that the dice gave you a slightly different result than the attacking player had hoped for (the PC who was attacked is still broken and is incapable of doing anything unless they have a talent that changes this fact). When the initiatives are drawn after the sneak attack, the attacker can attempt to perform a coup de grace, effectively describing whatever they want.

To me, Killer is more about being ruthless in combat, not in "murder".
There's a difference.
A player with the Killer talent is much better at hitting vitals in the frenzy of combat than most others are.

As for Cold Blooded, I included having to roll for coup de grace when sneaking up and murdering someone, so that talent works great in that situation.

Second Wind would be useless anyway if someone gets a deadly crit on you, so in this case it's irrelevant.

Bodyguard is kinda irrelevant too, since there were only the killer and the victim there.

As for the kids talent... is that valid in the case of an alien head bite attack too? (Serious question here, because I can't seem to find anything that discusses that)

But I think my main point here would be that all of it is irrelevant since this isn't PvP Combat. It isn't combat at all... it's simply murder.

And while Stealhy and Watchful are increased in value, I'd say they're not much more valuable to players than they already are in a world filled with stealthy aliens trying to murder them.

(As for your proposed solution, this would mean the player doing the killing would essentially always have to shoot twice to make the victim actually die)

And finally, since this is in reply to both above quoted posts...

I'd treat this as if the murderer poisoned the victim or laid a trap for them or blew them out of an airlock... it's not combat. It's cold blooded murder.
And to do any of that, you'd have to perform a coup de grace and that's all.

If your victim has no idea that you're murdering them, using combat rules is just out of the question, IMHO.

Rolling on the crit table is silly. Because the person is defenseless. Furthermore nobody is "hand waving" anything here. First of all, the player has to succeed in an opposed stealth check (Mobility vs Observation) and then, after that, they still have to fail their empathy test to actually perform the murder (unless they have the cold-blooded talent).
How is that hand waving?

Can't say as I agree with you. Sneaking up on someone doesn't mean they are defencless to the point where you get to auto kill them. This is why games have ambush rounds for when attackers get to attack without their opponent responding. You have an advantage, I don't think it warrants a player getting to auto-kill an adversary, esp if it's another player. Also you are making assumptions. Given the attacker only has snuck up and made an attack, I wouldn't force them to make the empathy test to see if they can kill. That rule is specifically for willing up the courage to kill a now broken foe who is no threat.

In fact, if you're so hell-bent on following the rules, the player should not only roll for a crit, he should roll to hit from that 2cm (or whatever) distance... I mean, rules are rules, right? Oh and don't forget to force the player to roll for damage to see if he actually crits or if he just slightly injures the other player by shooting him in the back of the head with a shotgun.

Again, stuff can make this 'shot to the head' fail. That's why you make the person roll. Also I hate to inform you but in the Alien rpg you don't roll damage you just roll to hit and with the damage value of the weapon you get a value, there's no need to roll it.

I'm sorry that I'm comming off as flippant here, but it's this kind of rules slavery that I've seen split up many groups. The sheer absurdity that comes out of this kind of manic adherence to the rules has led to some truly absurd situations.

Oddly I've seen it from the other side. Again bringing up the nature of pvp and how badly that tends to end if you don't make sure all parties feel it's fair. As for 'hellbent' and using emotive words like 'slavery' and making this rather personal. I think you may be projecting a little. I was actually happy just to discuss the idea with you and actually see your side of things, I just don't agree. I think perhaps you may need to read back and possibly re-evaluate your stance... I mean the simple fact that you posted three time in succession makes me think perhaps you don't handle people disagreeing with you well. If continuing to try to talk to you is going to encourage you to further aggressively post perhaps we should just go our separate ways. Or perhaps if this is you projecting stuff going off in your personal life, maybe you want to pm me and we can talk these issues out.

Say the same player instead ties up the other player and then decides to shoot it in the head.
Does he still have to roll to hit?
And then a damage roll to see if he crits?
And then roll on the crit table?
And then after that, finally roll for the coup de grace.

Or would you simply let him roll for coup de grace immediately?

Straight to coup de grace. If their tied up they are of an immediate threat to retaliate and the fact they are tied up would suggest that you have already previously dealt with them, either by breaking them or doing something else clever. Perhaps to help you see the difference between the two scenarios I can outline like them.

Scenario A - You sneak up on someone and attack them. Sure your at an advantage but if you mess up your attack, you are prone to retaliation. You fire, fail to take them out, they are still active (all be it not much). Rolling to hit and seeing if they are out right dead or forcing you to finish them off could have game effecting consequences (like not having the stomach to actually put your gun to the head and end them).

Scenario B - You've tied them up their not a threat anymore. If you shoot and miss they can't do anything. If you shoot and hit but don't kill them outright there's still nothing they can do back to you as you have them tied up. Also the tied up person is more vulnerable. Not sure how you can say that the person tied up is the least vulnerable one, they are literally tied up. In the other scenario you just stealthed up to someone. They could move at any point, turn around and see you. You don't have full control over what they are doing. Tied up person is just that, tied up.

Hope that clarifies bud.

Can't say as I agree with you. Sneaking up on someone doesn't mean they are defencless to the point where you get to auto kill them.

yeah it pretty much does mean that. theres no realistic defense against someone who successfully sneaks up behind you with a shotgun. At that point all you can do is pray they dont roll any 6s and the GM explains it as a misfire or gun jam or they thought they had one more bullet/shell but didnt.

thats one reason why player vs player isnt the best concept in this game. because the rules dont specifically cover situations like that in a way that makes any sense.

This is why games have ambush rounds

an ambush round is all you need to stick a shotgun to someones head and end them.

random critical injury table is not realistic when you physically have a gun pointed at someones head execution style. Its not going to hit them in the leg or anywhere else. Its going to hit them in the head. That is the only outcome that makes any sense realistically.

Sure your at an advantage but if you mess up your attack, you are prone to retaliation.

Thats fair. I mean your gun could conceivably misfire or jam if you dont roll any 6s. But if you dont mess up your attack the other player should automatically be DEAD. They shouldnt have failed their observation roll.

How do you handle players who have invested in the talent Killer when it's enough to manage a sneak attack to pick any critical damage you want (or make up your own one in this case)?

I dont think it makes the killer talent obsolete.

Because even if you allow sneak attacks to pick the critical injury, the killer talent still works when you arnt sneaking up on people.

I suppose you could buff the killer talent by allowing it to ignore any penalties associated with aiming at specific locations during sneak attacks.

I would still impose a -2 or -3 penalty for aiming at someones head if you sneak up on them. Because I dont think that should be normal difficulty.

yeah it pretty much does mean that. theres no realistic defense against someone who successfully sneaks up behind you with a shotgun. At that point all you can do is pray they dont roll any 6s and the GM explains it as a misfire or gun jam or they thought they had one more bullet/shell but didnt.

thats one reason why player vs player isnt the best concept in this game. because the rules dont specifically cover situations like that in a way that makes any sense.

I can see the argument I just still don't feel it. With an NPC I would totally be down with this. You sneak up, BAM, done. With a player I would play through the rules as they are. Again, can't stress enough, my argument here is only what it is because the victim was a player character and my experience with handling situations like this, is that if one player is doing something like this to another player then to prevent any out of game reprisal, I would want all the rules to have been followed.

Also and I think this is relevant information we have not been given, what any penalty applied to the stealth test to do this? I mean, if your letting one player execute another and it was a straight Observation vs Mobility, then you have massively increased the value of mobility, since you have let it becomes a device to ignore the normal rules of the game. Also it's really really really hard to get behind someone and be so close and have enough time to bring your weapon to bare, be sure they aren't going to move and pull the trigger. Again in a narrative system, this is why I feel you should follow normal procedure with another player, there are ways to explain why the shot wasn't directly fatal and while it is unlikely to change the outcome (when said attacker fires the second shot) you want the victim of this attack to feel that they haven't been short changed by the GM.

random critical injury table is not realistic when you physically have a gun pointed at someones head execution style. Its not going to hit them in the leg or anywhere else. Its going to hit them in the head. That is the only outcome that makes any sense realistically.

I rarely worry about what is or isn't realistic when it comes to narrative based games. But indeed, it would be odd to get a critical hit not directly related to the head. Can only again say, that if this was an NPC I'd ignore the normal convention of rules, but with a player I would advocate anyone stepping into the precarious realm of pvp to follow the rules and make them work. Didn't get the right critical? well there are a dozen reasons why that might have happened, like the person suddenly turning, stumbling, doing anything that would throw off your aim.

But if you dont mess up your attack the other player should automatically be DEAD. They shouldnt have failed their observation roll.

How do you handle players who have invested in the talent Killer when it's enough to manage a sneak attack to pick any critical damage you want (or make up your own one in this case)?

Oh now come on buddy, even you should see the folly in what you are saying here. Failing an observation test warrants been killed off? That would mean at your table that literally Observation and Mobility become the two most OP skills. I mean lets follow this. Someone maxes out their mobility. That means they'll most probably always win their opposed test, then with a minimal ranged combat test they just go around popping peoples skills, because they unsurprisingly 'narrate' how they put the gun to the persons head. So either you need a high mobility, or if you don't want the ship ninja to get you then you need to have a high observation.

Like anyone, I want Mobility to be a great skill and frankly I find that it already is. Stealth is always effective in roleplaying games and normally makes for some great drama. However in no way would I ever advocate to anyone to let it be used like this, to circumvent some important rules of the games, under the justification that 'well they should have won the observation test'. But hey ho, if it works at your table then go for it.

I can see the argument I just still don't feel it. With an NPC I would totally be down with this. You sneak up, BAM, done. With a player I would play through the rules as they are. Again, can't stress enough, my argument here is only what it is because the victim was a player character and my experience with handling situations like this, is that if one player is doing something like this to another player then to prevent any out of game reprisal, I would want all the rules to have been followed.

so their character dies and they get a new character? thats kindve the point with PVP that it doesnt really matter if you die becuase you just get to takeover playing another character

Wait, wait, wait...

So you're saying you're fine with skirting the rules against NPC's, but when it comes to PvP you become a complete rules lawyer?

Look, the reason I say that in this case the victim would count as defenseless is because it is a player and not an NPC.

Ambush rules are for just that... ambushing a hostile force.

Even if they're unaware of you, they're still intrinsically hostile towards you.

The player, however, would be (at least it seems to be in this case) completely unawares that the other player has hostile intent.

I get it, we're never going to agree on this, but to the OP, I'd advice against following your advice due to how many times I've seen this kind of strictness devolve into absurdity and split groups up.

Now, normally, I might agree with you that PvP should be played out using the rules very stringently because PvP is normally something to be avoided. But in this game, where players have hidden agendas that might include killing other players, and all the players are onboard with that, I'd say play it narratively instead. Because that's what the FL designers have done with the aliens. The aliens get their on crit rolls, their own attacks and they also get attacks that are instantly deadly instead of rolling for the crit. It's narrative. The aliens are supposed to be deadly and scary and thus get their own special rules to reflect that, but having to write down rules for every possible PvP play would take forever... but I firmly believe that they'd agree with me on the "do it the narrative way" instead of rolling for crit when you put a shotgun to the back of the head of someone who doesn't even know you're doing it.

(Oh and while I said "roll for damage", I meant counting up the damage to see if it inflicted a crit. My bad, but I was writing quite a long message while on the bus, so I forgot the phrasing)