Hello. Thank you in advance for your amazing expertise on the system. I love that these forums exist!
I am a bit confused about when critical effects 'start.' Such as stun, forced parry, or unable to parry. Sorry if this explanation is a little hard to follow. It was the best I could come up with.
To illustrate my confusion...
For example: Player A, acting in the standard phase, swings at an orc, who is also swinging at him in the same phase. Player A has initiative, so rolls to hit and scores a critical with a stun effect of two rounds.
Is the orc immediately stunned? So their planned attack this round does not occur (unless they succeed in a two round stunned maneuver roll)? This means the first round of stun occurs in the current round, and then the second round of stun occurs in the next round.
Or does the stun effect start in the following round, and the orc can swing unhindered in this round?
Both options seem a little odd to me.
Option 1: If the orc is only affected in the next round, does that mean all critical effects wait until the next round? Including say... a -30 to all actions type effect? Does that also 'wait' until the next round? That just seems wrong, as the sequence of events should have immediate logical consequences based on the initiative order of things unfolding.
Option 2: If the orc is stunned in the current round... well let's change the sequence a bit. Let's say Player A did not have initiative. Let's say the orc swings at the Player first, and misses, then Player A swings and scores the same critical - stunned for two rounds. Is the first round of stun still the current round in which the orc has already acted with 100% of his action? Meaning that this first round of stun has no effect on the orc? The orc starts the next round with one round of stun remaining?
I hope I described that clearly enough.
Currently I am running with option 2, because it seems more logical in my head. But it is a little odd when someone scores a single round stun (or any effect) result, but acted later in the round, so the critical result has zero actual effect. This also makes striking first much more powerful - as if you stun the opponent, their declared action is effectively destroyed.
