Forum

Reactions, specifically Blocking (page 59)

As the system is currently modeled, defending against both a close combat or ranged attack involves losing your entire turn if you still have one left. Defender can't wait to see if the attack hits or not. They have to sacrifice their turn right away. The defender gets nothing in return for doing so.

Now losing one's whole turn to defend in itself is not a bad thing if it's a contested action that allows a defender to get something out of it.

The best example would be The Electric State, another YZE game that uses the exact same Attribute+Talent system that Coriolis Great Dark uses, so it's a great comparison. In that one, for close combat, there is one very notable difference: if the defender wins the contested roll and surpasses the attacker's roll, they actually are the ones striking the Attacker instead of the other way around. It's called Fight Back on page 80 of that book. This is also similar to how close combat works in Blade Runner. Without a Fight Back style mechanic for close combat, assuming both have equal luck of the dice gods, the character who wins Initiative wins the fight *each and every time*. It stops being about skill and becomes entirely about who drew the better initiative card. A white belt Karate child who constantly wins Initiative will consistently win against a seasoned Ninja who defends unless the Ninja makes the conscious decision to not ever defend and instead chooses to just attack, hoping to land harder hits than the child.

So what will happen, what HAS to happen, is that no one ever defends in close combat. Ever. It'll be like watching a Rocky movie where Rocky and Drago just hit each other in the face over and over until one or the other drops to the mat. That ... is really boring, lol.

So yeah, please change close combat blocking to something similar to the Fight Back mechanic in Electric State. Everybody likes close combat when it's fun. Blocking and getting nothing in return is not fun. I'm pretty sure many people would house rule it to work like Electric State if it's not changed in here.

Ranged attacks follow the exact same method in both games in that the defender gets nothing. That being said, I'm okay with it because Cover is a thing. Dodging bullets without any cover should be rough, plus it's not like they can deflect a bullet a la Jedi. So it makes sense that the defender gets nothing in return. The goal in firefights is to find cover and then use that cover to attack on their turn, hoping their cover absorbs the bullets before they reach their squishy bits.

Thanks for reading.

Page 61 CRITS FOR MINOR NPCS
If an attack against a minor NPC reaches the crit threshold, the NPC is simply killed or taken out of action. For import- ant NPCs, the GM can use the same rules as for Explorers.

Is it intended here that this informs me of how to judge crits for creatures?
I.e. This section does not clarify to me how to handle crits for creatures
Perhaps the creatures chapter would reference the subject instead...(hopefully, as I can imagine that would be fun - different by creature type)!

Page 5:

• Chapter 2 is written in italics, chapters 3 and 4 are not.

• "rules and tools.." - One dot too many.

Page 6:

• "Free League website" - Punctuation missing

Page 8:

• Is the exclusion of page number at the bottom of the page intentional?

Page 9:

• Is the exclusion of page number at the bottom of the page intentional?

Page 10:

• "The Machinist Guild is much more than..." - Should be Machinists Guild?

Page 13:

• "...the Birds to the explorers," - Should it be Explorers?

Page 17:

• "13 Get equipment and from the Explorers Guild." - Feels like a word is missing, weapons?

• "Throught their eyes," - Through?

Page 22:

• Is the exclusion of page number at the bottom of the page intentional?

Page 23:

• Is the exclusion of page number at the bottom of the page intentional?

• "Assign the Garuda device" - Punctuation missing

Page 53:

• The Burrower's maneuver Charge seems to be missing from the list of maneuvers.

• The Burrower's maneuver Destabilize Walls are called Destabilize in the explanation, not Destabilize Walls.

Page 55:

• "Critters and creatires of the Dark..." - Creatures?

Page 64:

• ...higher than thee crit threshold of the weapon..." The?

• "Physical critical injuries are listed as lethal." - Some physical critical injuries?

• "Note that two critical injury results will kill you outright." - Is this the case even if the critical injuries are not lethal?

Page 66:

• "...unless indiciated otherwise..." - Indicated?

• "...as indiciated by the GM..." - Indicated?

Page 70:

• "...rolls on evert turn,..." - every?

Page 72:

• Is the exclusion of page number at the bottom of the page intentional?

Page 73:

• Is the exclusion of page number at the bottom of the page intentional?

Page 79:

• "Birds have trans formed the art..." - trans-formed?

Page 87:

• "Often produced locally in..." - "locally in" is written in black

Page 92:

• "They the derivatives..." - They are?

Page 27:

• "Did you fulfill a promise to a faction (Explorer Guild included)?" - Explorers Guild?

• "Did you return an artifact to a faction (Explorer Guild included)?" - Explorers Guild?

• "...at a cost indicated on page XX and XX." - Pages?

Page 29:

• "Free Talent: Musician." - None of the other free talents end with a punctuation on page 29

Page 38:

• "Fusillard cricket, Fake Guild ID, proximity sweeper" - fake Guild ID? The rest of the text seems to be lower case.

Page 50:

• "Streetwise... rumors in Ship City and the colonies." - Should "the colonies" be written with uppercase? Colonies

Page 55:

• "...and even stanger creatures of the Dark." - I guess stranger?

Page 61: Flowchart

• "State what weapon you're using" - Punctuation missing

• "The target decides whether to dodge or not" - Punctuation missing