NOTE: I am not asking about Counterstrike. That was the subject of the original thread this was spit from.
Whew! I have been searching these threads for the answer to that same Strike vs. Block mechanic for hours. I got BWG the other week and I love it, but nothing else in the book has confused me to this degree/ I think I get it, now, after reading through this whole thread, but the seeming difference to how Block works between p. 443 and p.465 was driving me crazy. I seriously lost sleep last night trying to parse it out in my head.
An additional point of confusion, besides the text donbaloo already cited, is the part under Incidental on p. 463: “An incidental result is achieved when the player meets his obstacle to hit.”
So if no one is defending against your strike, you roll against Ob 1 (assuming no other conditional penalties, such as from wounds) and you only need ONE success to “meet the obstacle.” In this same case, if I roll 2 successes with my strike, I can aim the shot or increase damage if I have an Add 1 weapon.
On the other hand, if your opponent is blocking or avoiding, you actually need ONE MORE success than the number of successes your opponent gets in order to “meet your obstacle” and attain an incidental hit, because in Vs. tests, ties always go to the defender, and as it states on p. 441, “A tied Vs. test in Fight indicates no result.” (And of course, if you’re blocking or avoiding, “no result” against a Strike is exactly what you’re hoping for). So in this case if I roll 1 success and my opponent rolls 1 success as well, he successfully defends. In this same case, if I roll 2 successes and he rolls 1, I get an incidental hit, whereas I need to roll at least 3 successes if he defends with 1 success in order to aim my shot or increase damage with an Add 1 weapon.
Is all of the preceding correct?
And thanks to all in this thread for hashing it out and clarifying the matter.
Regarding my question above, what I’m really asking is do I have the math of it right?
My understanding is that it is better to play it out with the attack roll first, with successes allocated to aiming or improving damage before the defense roll is made.
So in my example above, where I scored an incidental hit with 3 successes against my opponent with 2 successes on his Block [EDIT: that’s not what I said in my example above, but let’s go with the 3 success Strike vs. a 2 success Block], what should happen is preferably this: I roll my attack and get 3 successes. I allocate one to move the blow from the chest to the head, say, and the other 2 to increasing damage to mark with my Add 2 weapon. THEN the defender rolls his 2 successes, the first of which eliminates my aim, and the other further subtracting my number of successes to 1, only good enough for an incidental mark to the chest.
This is all right as well, no? Again, I appreciate it. It’s helpful for me to type out an example like that to make it clearer to myself.
Well, we compare all attack successes to all defense successes to figure out if the attacker hit and at what level. Then, the attacker moves the location if they want to and if they have the margin to do so, reducing the hit in the process. Pretty simple really.
The method that I use is the same as Jame’s method. In procedural terms:
everyone allocates dice (split up counterstrike dice mostly)
Strike and the block half of counterstrike is rolled
remove defense successes from Strike successes
resolve the location/damage/etc of the Strike
resolve the attack portion of counterstrike
So generally speaking we figure out the total number of successes the strike has before doing things like damage allocation and hit location. From a numbers perspective, having that one leftover success in your example means you can still move it from the chest to the head since (technically) resolution doesn’t happen until after all successes and Ob values are finalized.
One (potentially easier) way to think about it is that the defense half of counterstrike is raising the Ob needed to land the blow from zero by the number of successes generated.
I thank you for that, since I’m new here. I was searching for an answer to a specific question and I found a discussion of it in the original thread. I guess I should have started a new one. But I should point out that my question was regarding Block (or Avoid) vs. Strike, and I did not have a question about Counterstrike. The original thread had veered off topic a bit. Apologies.
Unfortunately, since I originally thought I had my question answered, I have seen 2 contradictory replies in this thread. I no longer feel as though I have a clear understanding of Strike vs. Block (or Avoid). I haven’t seen enough examples to clear it up.
What is margin of success? It seemed simple at first but the more people talk about it the less I understand it.
Say I roll my Strike and I get 3 successes. The defender Blocks and gets 2 successes. Is my margin of success 1? According to cathexis in post #4, I can use that 1 success to aim my shot and move the blow. If this is the case, then I am not sure how to apply the rule from p. 465-466 regarding the defense action knocking off extra successes and forcing the aim back to the declared open spot.
I would guess the 2 successes from the defense roll reduce my margin of success to 1, but how does the defender use those successes to force the aim back to his declared open spot? According to cathexis I can aim the blow with my margin of success of 1. If neither of those 2 defense successes can force my aim back, then what can? If the defender had rolled any more than 2 successes my blow would be completely deflected.
How does it work? What has been said in this new thread contradicts what was said in the original thread before my initial comment, which was not the first on the subject.
In a versus test, you must win to get your intent. To win a versus test, you must generate at least one more success than your opponent. Thus, if you only generate one more success than your opponent, you’ve succeeded, but at the barest effect level. You’ve hit with one success; there are no extra successes. One success on a Strike or Counterstrike delivers an Incidental hit result.
Yes, it does answer my question, because that’s the same thing Thor said in the original thread that was very helpful to my understanding. I may have confused cathexis and others with the contradiction between the examples in my first and second posts. I’ve edited for clarity, but please consider my question answered.