Topic: Questions on SM privateers 'performing actions'

[JMF]

Hey guys,

I'm new to SMP (played rolemaster many years ago), and I have to say that I'm a bit confused about some of the action rules in the SMP book.  I've read them a couple times, and I've obviously overlooked something.

p59 - common actions table t-3.2
snap actions, normal actions, deliberate actions allow 20%, 50%, and 80% of total activity respectively.  If a Melee attack takes 60-100% action, and normal action only gives you 50% activity to play with, then does that mean you're always at a negative when melee attacking in normal action (I assume that can't be the case, but I'm not getting the numbers here)?

Also, how does someone perform an action that takes 100% of their activity without taking negs if all the action phases don't allow 100% activity?  Are you supposed to start the action in one phase and complete it in another?  If so, what bonus or neg do you use?  ex: you do 20% of the action in normal, and finish in deliberate, so do you add +10?

As you see, I'm obviously missing some nuance here.

p72 - conflicting actions
in this section, it lists an example of conflicting actions - the marine is going to jump out of the window and Kregan wants to hit him before he can do so.

I like the idea that it allows the players to be reactive, but what I don't get is that it seems to ignore the initiative rule.  Shouldn't the guy with the higher initiative get to go first?  If you can ignore initiative in this situation, in what other situations can you ignore initiative?  Ex: why couldn't a player with a crap initiative roll get around it by saying that he wants to knock someone's gun away before the guy with the gun (and higher initiative) can shoot him?

Also, in the example with Kregan, how did Kregan know that the guy was going to jump out of the window in the first place, thus needing the conflicting actions check?  Are we assuming in this case that it isn't a conflicting action based players/characters reacting to each other's actions, but in fact simply 2 characters who decided/declared to do something at approximately the same?  If the latter, then again, why not just resolve it by initiative?

p66 - moving manoeuvres
in the example at the end of the page, Kathy attempts to climb a cliff (an action that on p59 says takes 60-100% action).  I assume that regardless of her roll of 50% success, that she still used her full % of activity in the attempt - it just means that she climbed badly.  so why is she now allowed to try again and manage to get up?  Don't get me wrong, I really like that she can try, I just don't understand why, when, and where exceptions to the rules seem to be allowed.

thanks, guys.

JMF

[yammahoper]

snap actions, normal actions, deliberate actions allow 20%, 50%, and 80% of total activity respectively.  If a Melee attack takes 60-100% action, and normal action only gives you 50% activity to play with, then does that mean you're always at a negative when melee attacking in normal action (I assume that can't be the case, but I'm not getting the numbers here)?

These are the movement allowances per phase, not action percentage limits.  In any phase, a PC can perfome 100% action.

[Defendi]

I don't have the books here, so I was hoping Yamma would answer it all and I could just nod. 

Page 72.  Letting a person who wins initiative achieve, uncontested, something that another person should be able to contest is always a bad idea.  Let logic rule the situation.

66.  I think you're talking about the percentage numbers in the moving maneuver chart.  If you get one of those, and the maneuver is something you can partially complete, then that's the percentage you completed that round.  If it's an all or nothing deal, then that's the percentage chance you succeeded.  So in the case of climbing something, if you get a 20 on the chart, you've climbed 20% of the way to the top.