Fria Ligans forum

If a character goes earlier in the turn Initiative than an opponent who attacks them in melee, can they Block? Their actions are used up for that turn and the rules seem to indicate they cant but its seems an odd disadvantage to be unable to block because you had the initiative and did something else. Can you borrow an action from your next turn, or is the thinking here that if you used other actions in this turn you were otherwise occupied and will not be able to react to the attack in the very short time represented by a round?

I see that the rules expressly forbid this on page 62 of the Players Manual but its seems pretty severe. Granted someone expecting a possible melee attack could save an action but if surprised they have no chance at all.

You need to save an action for blocking.

You know yo are going first and you must decide if going all out, making more things without concern of your well being, or fight cautiously, holding an action for defense, or even be very defensive and hold both actions to defend from more than one attacker.

You need to save an action for blocking.

You know yo are going first and you must decide if going all out, making more things without concern of your well being, or fight cautiously, holding an action for defense, or even be very defensive and hold both actions to defend from more than one attacker.

This assumes you know you are going to be attacked. Consider a character goes first, moves and fires at a target. Then the target moves and attacks him in melee. Do we assume it was sort of simultaneous and the shooter couldnt react? Did he have to anticipate he might be rushed and save an action, otherwise he is defenseless against it?

You need to save an action for blocking.

You know yo are going first and you must decide if going all out, making more things without concern of your well being, or fight cautiously, holding an action for defense, or even be very defensive and hold both actions to defend from more than one attacker.

This assumes you know you are going to be attacked. Consider a character goes first, moves and fires at a target. Then the target moves and attacks him in melee. Do we assume it was sort of simultaneous and the shooter couldnt react? Did he have to anticipate he might be rushed and save an action, otherwise he is defenseless against it?

Same thing, there is a limited amount of stuff you can do in the limited amount of time you have in a turn.

If the character goes first, and there is no one around to worry about, and uses both actions to do a lot of stuff, while the character is doing the stuff (long and short actions or two short actions) someone comes and attack the character then the character is busy doing so much stuff that is unable to block. It may be because of a surprise or have the "hands full" with the stuff they are doing or simply is too focused doing stuff that didn't saw the attacker coming. End line is no block.

At least that is how I would game it as a GM.

In combat I would try to keep my players aware that if they use all their actions they can't react, at least until they have some experience with the game and combats.

Edit:
On the other hand if a character is alone (no enemies in sight) they may declare holding an action in case something comes up.
Narrative example: While the firefight is raging in the old warehouse you slip pass some crates, no enemy seems to have noticed you, you sneak along the wall trying to outflank the enemies, You finally move around and can attack the enemies from the side and out of cover. The character decides to make an attack, but instead of aim and attack does an attack and hold the fast action, possibly going back to cover in some crates because the player is not sure those are the only enemies and will be cautious. At that moment realizes someone just came from around and attacked with a knife.

If the player used aim and shoot would be unable to defend from the knife attacker. The character will be so focused shooting at the flanked enemies to notice the attacker.

This is where the idea of simultaneous or sequential actions as a game mechanic paradigm comes in. As I always lean to some flavor of the former, I am leery of game situations that penalize higher initiative scores by allowing lower ones to effectively react to their actions. This is such a case. Simple solutions include resolving actions with those losing initiative acting first and allowing the winners to interrupt as they will, passive defensive values akin to Armor Class to mitigate the effective reactions, and a combat round paradigm that incorporates multiple initiative passes like old versions of Shadowrun and Cyberpunk.

This is where the idea of simultaneous or sequential actions as a game mechanic paradigm comes in.

I think this is key. We have this tendency to view combat as sequential, because that's how the rules work, when it should be seen as things happening simultaneously. Initiative really only comes into play when you have to ask who acted first -- otherwise, everything that happens should be seen as happening at the same time. I wouldn't reward a player who makes reckless decisions in the face of an imminent threat by giving them an extra action, but at the same time, a lower-initiative player shouldn't take advantage of the sequential paradigm.

In a perfect world, everyone would choose their actions before the round begins, and then play them out in initiative sequence. I honour that in spirit as a player and I expect the same of others. It makes things more chaotic.

I am still toying with the idea of "spotlight" initiative, where the action just unfolds according to GM directing who goes next. The most exciting and fluid combat encounters I have had have used the spotlight initiative. But the thing is, that those games usually ran on Forged in the Dark -engine or something similar, and in those systems the PC's are set up to be the heroes who have a very very hard time dying. Also those systems are usually player facing (meaning NPC's don't do rolls).
The TW combat in general can be so random and lethal, as it should, that I am not sure it would port over well.
But if anyone has been able to make spotlight initiative or something similar to work, please do share your experiences.
The turn based initiative system usually isn't as fast and exciting as combat should be imo.

I like the idea of spotlight initiative - just do whatever makes it more tense. Another interesting take is the hand-off initiative, where the last character to take their turn gets to choose who goes next, until everyone has had a turn. PCs and NPCs get to do this - so the obvious drawback of PCs picking all of their side first is that NPCs then get to control all the turns in a row (and it flows onto the next turn also, so you better be careful).

Also - the whole blocking thing I am not a huge fan of in execution. I've ended up using opposed rolls for combat - the winner hurts the others and a tie is a block / tie.