Topic: Negatives affect Defensive Bonus (DB)

[Marc R]

Common sense says yes. . .but it's a combined action with attacking. . .as I said, I play it as reducing the bonus, before the parry, but my read of the way things work says otherwise. . .

For instance, if you make a 50% action attack, that attack executes at -50, since you are using 50% less than 100% activity to attack.

If you have 30 OB, and devote 30 to parry while making a 50% melee attack, you get 30DB and attack at -50.

it does say "All of the target's bonuses (except DB and RR) are reduced by this amount.", but table 02-09 on page 17 lists "injured more than 25%", "... 50%", "... 75%" as OB only mods, just like the reduced activity penalty only applies to OB. . .I always took the cumulative hits penalties to reflect a gradual build up of minor injuries, the way the specific crit related penalties reflect singular signifigant injuries.

If the gradual build up of general injury are an OB only penalty, I'd think that means that the penalties from specific injuries are also OB only.

Regardless, I don't play that way, but I always thought that's what the rules meant.

Then again, it's not exactly 100% clear, so I could be mistaken.

[Fornitus]

 Well, we have always aplied the penality before the PC decides what they are doing that round. If a neg OB is the result, then obvousily they have nothing to switch to DB.

 Also, is it in the rules or just a house rule that says you cant attack at all unless you have at least 1 positive point to put into that attack?

 Allowing an attack with less than 1 point of OB seems silly.

[mocking bird]

We don't count parry as a separate action than an attack as the parrying is just an aspect of the attack.

I do see the difference LM & V are discussing - do you take the penalty to the base skill or to the actual roll.  In this case addition would not be commutative as how you do it could change things around.

Not having the rules handy but often they refer to the 'usable OB' which I take to mean 'OB - penalties' so in this case the mods are to the skill itself, not to the roll which I think makes it a unique situation.

[Arioch]

Isint parrying an "action"?

Not in game terms!

[mocking bird]

Common sense says yes. . .but it's a combined action with attacking. . .as I said, I play it as reducing the bonus, before the parry, but my read of the way things work says otherwise. . .

For instance, if you make a 50% action attack, that attack executes at -50, since you are using 50% less than 100% activity to attack.

This is one thing that has always bothered me.  An attack at -50 is probably not 50% of your actual skill but it apparently is 50% of your action.  Likewise if you attack at 60% (the minimum action in RMSS) it could very well be that the 40% is more than just the -40 but we use -40 for math purposes.  It flips around and subconsciously I make the conversions but it does make things a little confusing.

[Marc R]

I'm pretty sure that was a concious simplification made between RM1 and RM2, possibly the most signifigant single change. . .in RM1 a -20% modifier would reduce by -20%, so say a 20 skill would take a -4 (20%) penalty. It lead to a lot of problems, mostly in the instance of stacked bonuses and penalties. (Like did you total all modifiers then apply, or -10% then +20% then -10% then -10% then + 15% etc)

[twh]

Maybe this helps, from RMC AL page 31:
Calculating a character's OB/DB split is done after the modifiers for activity percentage and character condition have been applied.  Situational Modifiers, such as for foe's position, are applied after the OB/DB split has been made.

[Marc R]

Amazing, I looked it over a few times and skipped right over that. . . .that's not text from rm2 that I know of. . .looks like we corrected that goofy logic and I don't even recall doing it.

damn, wish we'd made changes to that 02-09 table to reflect that. . . injury and activity affect the bonus, not the OB. . .

Well, that clarifies all of that.

In that case, it seems like everything except the original question on this thread.

[twh]

Amazing, I looked it over a few times and skipped right over that

I only found it because I was looking for something else.

[Fornitus]

 Searching by Zen.