Patient Resilience Question

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Tattered Rags
Posts:374
Joined:Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:04 am
Patient Resilience Question

Post by Tattered Rags » Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:08 am

I just listened to the Earthdawn Survival Guide episode on the Gauntlet, and in it Mataxes mentions that Patient Resilience increases your armor ratings for the next round. He stumbled over his words, first starting to say it was until the end of the current round, but then changed what he said. The talent specifically says "until the end of the round". (I did search the forums and even Discord looking to see if anyone asked this, but I found nothing.)

This made me realize that it's not that great of a thing if it's until the end of the current round. You're typically going dead last; though there are scenarios where you might use Deliberate Assault to aim for a greater-than-zero initiative, but that would reduce the second benefit of Patient Resilience, getting more from Deliberate Assault's bonus to attack due to the difference in initiative between you and your target.

In almost all cases, you're going to simply reduce your initiative to 0, then combine your ranks in Deliberate Assault and Patient Resilience to add to the attack. Alternatively, you'll just calculate the maximum bonus you can receive and then subtract that from your target's initiative. Either way, you're going late in the round and probably after most everyone else. Too late to benefit from a boost to your armor ratings.

Am I missing something? Was there a mistake or omission in the text?


I could see two possible mistakes. The more unlikely one is that the armor bonuses last until the end of the next round. Alternatively, the intention could be that this is declared similarly to a combat option and you pay the strain at the beginning of the round and gain the armor right then until the end of the current round. Did one of these happen?
Adventure I'm running:
Under the Stars

Adventure GM post-mortem:
Under the Stars Postmortem

sigfriedmcwild
Posts:335
Joined:Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:59 am

Re: Patient Resilience Question

Post by sigfriedmcwild » Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:16 am

Patient Resilience is a free action and does not specify a "trigger", so it can be activated at any point during the round not just when you act. Usually you'll want to do this just after activating Deliberate Assault to adjust your initiative to 0 to reap the maximum bonus.

Tattered Rags
Posts:374
Joined:Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:04 am

Re: Patient Resilience Question

Post by Tattered Rags » Tue Dec 08, 2020 2:01 am

sigfriedmcwild wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:16 am
Patient Resilience is a free action and does not specify a "trigger", so it can be activated at any point during the round not just when you act. Usually you'll want to do this just after activating Deliberate Assault to adjust your initiative to 0 to reap the maximum bonus.
That...that might very well be what I missed. Thanks!

In which case, what I considered to be the second possible mistake was in the text all along. Mea culpa, Panda!
Adventure I'm running:
Under the Stars

Adventure GM post-mortem:
Under the Stars Postmortem

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