I know you can only change your static stance at the beginning of your turn, but when and how often can you change from static to dynamic and back to static? The particulars of the situation were:
My character has a sprint of 10, and an enemy was 5 SIM away from me. So I changed my stance from standing to sprinting, took a half move action and moved 5 SIM.
Once I move the 5 SIM, can I change my stance back to my static one, thereby avoiding the penalties for attacking while sprinting, or do I have to stay sprinting, or what?
Your stance is changed at the beginning of your turn and is effective the while segment and any subsequent segments until your next active segment when you can change it again.
Whatever stance you select at the beginning of your active segment has effects on ALL actions you take or that anyone takes against you until you change it the next active segment.
Example:
Your character has active segments 3 & 6.
You decide to Sprint and attack in Segment 3.
You can sprint 1/2 your sprint speed (5 in your example above).
Because you are in Sprint stance, your Defense is raised by 8 against ranged attacks and 6 against melee attacks.
Because you are in Sprint stance, your ranged attacks are at -6 and your melee attacks are at -4.
All of the above apply until Active Segment 6, where you change your stance again and apply the new modifiers.
Keep in mind that the Stance is applied/stated at the beginning of your Active Segment, so it does not matter whether you move and attack or attack and move.
Either combination is impacted by the Stance modifiers.
It sounds good, but it states in the rules that “You can change from a static stance to a dynamic stance, and vice versa as a free action at any time during your turn”. Something like that anyways. I’m at school and don’t have my book.
7.2.2 - Static Stances states “Players can change their character’s Static Stance to another Static Stance as a Free Action at the beginning of a Turn only”
7.2.2 - Dynamic Stances state “Changing from a Static Stance to a Dynamic Stance is a Free Action that can be used at any point in a player’s Turn”
So I take it back, you can Sprint 5, then change to the Standing Static State (as a free action), make your attack with no adverse effect, then change back to the Sprint Dynamic State (as another free action) even if you don’t move and get the bonuses to your defense.
Very cheesy, but that is how it is written, so that is the way it is unless they Errata it.
Well, not really. In the rules you quote, it never states when you can switch from a dynamic stance to a static stance. So this does need clarification.
true, it makes it sound like you can attack from a stand, then move 1/2 you move as a sprint, but not the other way around.
so yeah, we need to know if the dynamic stance line can go both ways, if so, it is completely broken.
Because if you can use a free action to go to either stance, then why would you do anything other than sprint, even if you don’t move all the SIM, because it gives you the best defense.
As a GM I personally would go with the de facto standard in tabletop RPGs. You can only perform one free action per turn.
Unless you have divine ranks in the 3rd edition of that one other game. Then you get divine rank + 1 free actions.
I’d default to this too, you can only change your stance at the beginning of your segment, and if you change to a dynamic stance, you have to move. But I’d like to hear how it was meant to be.
I’d default to this too, you can only change your stance at the beginning of your segment, and if you change to a dynamic stance, you have to move. But I’d like to hear how it was meant to be.
I’m mostly in that camp because more than one free action gets a touch munchy in most systems.
The ability to sprint for added movement speed, shift to a stable stance, shoot, shift to a sprint seems a touch overboard. Especially for a PC going on all six segments. That’s a lot of stuff to do in one second.
.2.2 - Static Stances states “Players can change their character’s Static Stance to another Static Stance as a Free Action at the beginning of a Turn only”
7.2.2 - Dynamic Stances state “Changing from a Static Stance to a Dynamic Stance is a Free Action that can be used at any point in a player’s Turn”
At the beginning of your turn you can move into any static stance, standing, prone, whatever. Then you can move into the corresponding dynamic stance as a free action. So you would be able to start your turn, move to standing, fire with no penalties then move to sprint. The problem is that the paragraph on Dynamic stances says “In a dynamic stance, characters are moving with the intent to cover distance” so my interpretation is that to move into a dynamic stance you have to be able to move, which means you need at least a half-action remaining before you can move to the sprinting stance. That seems the most logical way to look at it. Yes you can stand/shoot/sprint every turn to maximize your defense but you can only shoot with half an action because dynamic stances require movement and movement requires a minimum of one half action.
The standing rule is that if you only move, you can move the maximum number of SIM per your chosen movement rate. If you attack, you can attack the maximum number of times dictated by your weapon. IF you are going to do both, then you can only attack 1/2 the max attacks and can move only 1/2 the max SIM of the movement type you choose. So YES, you can do both and you can move after your attack(s) to maximize your defense. The issue is that the statement “In a dynamic stance, characters are moving with the intent to cover distance” means that you cannot attack, then Sprint around in a circle just to increase your Defense Rating. You have to be intending to GO somewhere, not move for the sake of moving. Battlefield and other factors will mean that the movement function will need to make sense.
Hello All,
Going to try and jump right back into the fray on here and answer as many questions as possible.
In this case the intent of our movement rules was to allow players a lot of flexibility during their turns to play into the tactical feel of combat. That accomplished, it definitely makes for some complexity and leaves room for interpretation. As it is written now you can exploit the stance switching, if your GM lets you, and this is a section of the rules that will be tuned and the suggestions here will help! Right now defaulting to one free action is the easiest rule, administratively anyway, and the one I use in my house game to streamline turns. We’re experimenting with different methods of tracking or tagging certain stance changes to enforce realistic penalties for things like the sprint/stop/shoot scenario discussed here and would love to hear what others are doing.
