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Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:27 am
by Dougansf
Mataxes wrote:
Thu Nov 23, 2017 3:03 am
There is one thing, however, where penalties should not apply: if you are under an effect that grants penalties (most commonly with fear effects, but there might be others) and you can make a test (usually Willpower) to shake them off, the penalties do not apply to that test.
Debilitating poisons could be another one.

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:10 pm
by Mataxes
Dougansf wrote:
Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:27 am
Mataxes wrote:
Thu Nov 23, 2017 3:03 am
There is one thing, however, where penalties should not apply: if you are under an effect that grants penalties (most commonly with fear effects, but there might be others) and you can make a test (usually Willpower) to shake them off, the penalties do not apply to that test.
Debilitating poisons could be another one.
I would say that's the case as well.

The point is to try and avoid self-reinforcing "death spirals" (even if death isn't involved) where failing a resistance test makes it harder to succeed at the next one.

In general, I would err on the side of penalties applying to the test. I recognize that there isn't a hard-and-fast, rigorous definition of when penalties should apply. This isn't really anything new. I personally err on the side of applying the penalties, but if there's a case where it really doesn't seem to make sense, and you want to waive penalties? Go for it.

I realize this makes it difficult to "hard-code" a system in something like Roll20, but that's not how I approach things. A big part of RPGs is the personal judgment of the people at the table. You can't script for every possible outcome and interaction. At some point, a decision will fall into the hands of the group.

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:19 am
by ChrisDDickey
badlore wrote:
Wed Nov 22, 2017 5:22 pm
Action Tests do not include Effect Tests or Damage Tests (which are Effect Tests).
...
Our interpretation is that "All Tests" or just "tests" is shorthand for "All Action Tests" so excludes "Effect Tests". If you assume "all tests" those things become doubly punitive over everything mentioning "Action Tests" and it seems inconsistent that the things you mentioned should be so.
Mataxes posted that he agreed with the quote above, and it really rocked how our table looked at things.

However while looking for something else in the old forums I stumbled upon the following old quote.
http://fasagames.com/archiveforum/viewt ... low#p14555
Re: Fourth Edition Player's Guide Errata and FAQ
Postby Mataxes » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:09 am

"Action test" (most often just "test") means all tests.

Certain kinds of tests that are subsets of Action tests. For example: Effect tests, Damage tests, Initiative tests, Attack tests.
So these seem contradictory.
Is this something that has evolved over time while it used to be that Action Tests meant "all tests" and Effect Tests were a subset of that, and that it has changed and now Effect Tests are not affected by things that affect Action Tests?
Are all tests Action Tests, and Effect tests are a subset of that, or Are Effect Tests not Action Tests?
Which of the two answers above is currently considered more correct?

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:39 pm
by Calamrin
Obviously the one posted a few days ago, and not the one posted two and a half years ago.

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:04 pm
by RazanMG
As we do it for over 20 years of playing ED:
All test are penalized (so Effect tests also) unless it doesnt makes sense like:
- penalties to resist Poison other than from Wounds (or something that weakens the body), so no penalties from Battle Bellow, Harried and the like.


Initiative is the test that you always have to subtract penalties from Step "...A character’s Initiative Step cannot voluntarily be lowered below Step 1."PG p.372


Something totally new is what Mataxes said:
That test to shake of effect, should not be penalized by that effect (in his example it was Willpower).

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:31 pm
by Aegharan
Say you do an Action for how good you hit with melee weapons. That is of course penalized by everything.
You then hit barely because of debuffs, so 1 success.
Afterwards you subtract all debuffs from the "how hard did you hit" again? But then debuffs scale pretty hard because they debuff twice..?

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 10:22 pm
by Calamrin
As Badlore said its not how our table plays it (also backed up by Mataxes recent comment).

We dont do double negatives with actions and effects generally...it leads to horrible circumstances where one minute you are ok, take a decent hit and suddenly pretty much useless... its just the way we do it/read it... its more fun to play a wounded animal on the battlefield than to suddenly feel generally useless.

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:47 am
by RazanMG
One hit is just one Wound.....no matter how powerful that hit was. If one Wound makes you useless better become farmer ;)

You will play as you want, but why your slowed moves because of pain (Wound, or too little space - Harried) would affect attacking abilities but not how hard you hit? That is an absurd.

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 7:51 pm
by etherial
ChrisDDickey wrote:
Thu Nov 16, 2017 5:08 pm
Following is a partial list of things that impose penalties to "Action tests".
paralytic poison's (GM guide 172 and maybe debilitating poison's as well), Air Spear spell, Thunderclap spell, Vertigo spell, Astral Catastrophe spell, Etc.

Just to restate and emphasize specific questions:
What exactly is an Action test and what is not?
When a penalty is applied to "All Tests", do people actually apply the penalty to all tests? Which tests do you exempt or not exempt at your tables?
If somebody is Frightened by the Talent, and needs to make a Willpower test to shake off the effect, do you apply the Frighten penalty to the Willpower test?
How about other resistance type tests?
If somebody was both Frightened and under the Suffocation Spell, would the penalty for being Harried penalize the Willpower roll to stop being Frightened and the penalty for being Frightened penalize the roll to stop Suffocating? And if they were also Battle Shouted, would it penalize ether or both?
And Recovery Tests?
Are debilitating poisons penalties to all tests or only action tests? Do they penalize tests to further resist the poison? And Recovery Tests?
I had a vague recollection that Action Tests might have been defined somewhere back in ED1 for the sole purpose of differentiating them from the dice rolled during character creation. While ED1 more or less does define Action dice this way, the term "Action Test" does not appear in the descriptions of any of those things in ED1/2. I suspect RedBrick introduced the term in EDC, but I don't have those books.

Here is the definition in ED3:
RedBrick, Ltd., on ED3G14, wrote: Whenever a character attempts to take an action such as casting a spell, swinging a sword at an opponent, tracking a Horror, or flirting with a barmaid, the gamemaster or the player rolls dice to determine the action's outcome. These dice rolls are called Action Tests.
I'd say this is in line with the general consensus that Action Test = dice rolled to deliberately do a thing. Poisons and Vertigo both caused Penalties to all Tests back in ED1/2, indicating a deliberate change by RedBrick to not apply these penalties to defensive tests.

Re: Penalties to "all tests" vs "action tests" vs Resistance tests.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 8:50 pm
by Telarus
Yeah, like I said... It's just simpler to treat most mods that affect "Action Tests" as affecting all tests (aside from the mods Mataxes and others have called out as specifically exempted in the rules).

I did do something in 3E that helped though. All Damage tests have a minimum result of the Damage Bonus (Weapon's Damage Step or Spell's Damage bonus). Broadswords always deal 5+ damage on a hit, Earthdarts always deal at least 3. It helped a bit, and made armor a bit more important. Not sure if I want to run it that way for 4E yet, what with the extra successes mechanic and removal of all or nothing armor defeating hits.