Goodbye ARO Templates

I thought a FAQ would answer questions. Not create them.

 

Sir, you must be new here :P

 

Guys, PS may be a mod (not an admin) but in this is perfectly in line with the rule as intended.

Template are placed on Declaration. This is now the only exception.
ALL SKILLS must meet requirements at Resolution.

Remember that the mess is generated by a ruleset sculpted in stone and layers of FAQs/Errata. In this environment you will ALWAYS find something contradictory!

 

Regarding the fact that fireteams, coordinated orders, peripherals and etc. can further abuse this mechanism (as was mentioned by several people) I agree that pivoting to hard "short movement skill first" rules clears up a bunch of issues.

An opponent with two or more linked figures activating around the corner from a defender with a flamethrower probably shouldn't be able to use the defender's selection of target when they ARO to allow them to move the figure that was not the target into silhouette contact for free. Imagine having to explain that to a noob? "Even though you're spraying your flamethrower at the corner, because Pupnik/Antipode B rounded the corner instead of Pupnik/Antipode A (which you defined as the target) he doesn't get hit. Maybe that's working as intended (?) but it's really odd and unintuitive.

Since it's very common to define a movement short skill as the first short skill anyway (including Discover), I'm going to try my next few games with more attention paid to how often there's a desire to vary the declaration and maybe house rule it explicitly as "movement short skill first" and see how it fares.

(edit: note that short movement skill first wouldn't completely negate the possibility of the above depending on how you set it up [e.g. idle/move or move/move] but it would reduce the prevalence)

 

I link to a clarification announcement

 

At this point I think CB should just say move can only be declared as the 2nd short skill if it (or another movement skill) was declared as the first short skill. Players are going to continue to try and abuse the action then move option and cause issues like this.

 

Just watched Vaulsc second video on the subject, where he says that going to a system where an attack has to be the second short skill would cause the MSV+smoke in zoc to still be an exploit.

To remedy this, I suppose you could still keep the bulk of FAQ 1.1.1 in place, i. e. skill requirements are checked at resolution. In combination with forcing attack as second short skill of course. Would this solve all issues?

It would also resolve the issue of move (in zoc around corner) and then move again to reach CC without risk, as the opponent could declare BS/CC attack.

 

Easy fix would be to drop Zero Vis Zone and put a -15 MOD Vis MOD instead. Then proceed as usual, dropping to -6/-3/-0 depending on MSV, or if you're being shot through.

Either way, in my book it's always better to have an MSV + Smoke + ZOC combo exploit rather than anyone within ZOC outside LOF exploit resulting in a mess of rules exceptions... kopfschmerzen intensifies.

 

Love the profile pic <3

Also, yes... I've come to accept that the MSV+SMoke+ZOC bait was the lesser of two evils when compared to N4. I don't even know what's going on anymore in N4 and not even sure if I'm playing the game correctly with my friends anymore and that's when we actually DO play Inifnity, which is also rare these days.

 

Yup, I'm pretty sure all ARO baiting interactions would be removed by the two changes together:
1. Short skills must be declared as the second half of the order.
2. All Requirements are checked at Resolution, including for templates.

We currently have (2), except for impact templates, and if we had (1) then it would be trivial to extent (2) to impact templates as well. I can't think of any baiting interaction this wouldn't eliminate.

(Edit: short skills must be second half of the order, not first half)

 

Exactly. Smoke/MSV thing is much lesser an evil than what's been created since.

 

Yeah, I think the point of the suggestion was to force the order of operations to take the less abusable format, not to remove the requirements checks at resolution.

That would allow templates to be shot through smoke by non-MSV troopers regardless of being attacked or not. It also doesn't have the desired effect due to the MOD cap.

Keeping in mind of course that the 1.2 system is only actively detrimental to DTWs guarding small scenery pieces or DTWs at certain specific distances to the corner. Or ITWs at any short range.
It does increase decision making complexity.

 

Edited. You could still do SMS+SMS and SMS+SS, just not SS+SMS.

 

A good wake up call to stop suggesting rules changes and making a fool of myself. Genuine thanks.

 

If anything it just underscores how hard it is to come up with rules that don't have unexpected side effects in a game as complex as N4
Complicated simulationist rules with a bunch of corner cases are easy... but elegant simple rules that also make narrative sense can be frustratingly hard to get right. I like the idea of going to a pure MOD approach to visibility from a simplicity standpoint so it's not necessarily a bad idea, but it would probably require tweaking to the way templates work and that would ultimately be a playtesting issue and a bigger overall rules revision.

 

I think the issue is I just pulled the idea from my A on a whim, instead of sitting down and creating a contextualization and see for any immediate bad interactions. I do believe it would be much simpler for someone who's job is to create rulesets for the game, or just someone who's much deeper in the game than me right now. Like @Vaulsc idea of switching skills declaration to Short Movement Skill + either SMS, or SS. It is brilliant and removes a lot of unnecessary complexity from N4.

 

It sounds good on paper, but it will have its own set of issues that they will show up with enouph games.