I’ve been reading the Disengage rules on page 437 and am a little confused. For the sake of argument, say the Disengager had advantage at the beginning of the exchange.
Under Tied Vie for Positioning, it says “If your opponent attempts to disengage and you tie him, he fails. You remain at the same fighting distance, advantage and disadvantage.” This suggests that in case of a tie, the disengager maintains his advantage even though he was unable to disengage.
Further down the page, under Disengage, it says “You must win the test, not tie…If you fail to disengage, your opponent places you at his best advantage.” This suggests that in case of a tie, the disengager fails to disengage and his opponent gains the advantage.
Oops! I’ll let you know if we ever figure it out, but otherwise you’re on your own. I guess go with whatever paragraph you reference in the heat of battle!
You could let the fiction inform the decision, perhaps?
Case 1:
Swordsman trying to break away. Maybe making a careful, calculated retreat, or just to gain some breathing room. He’s being careful not to leave himself open as he backs off. So, maybe he keeps the advantage on a tie if he’s unable to break away.
Case 2:
Swordsman just wants to get the hell out of there. Maybe it’s a running & screaming sort of thing. Whatever the reason, this is no cautious retreat, this is turning tail and fleeing. In that case it makes sense to drop the advantage if he can’t get away.
If you use the standard Disengage rules, you lose Advantage on a tie.
You may choose to Withdraw (ie. Carefully Disengage), which forfeits the +1D bonus for a normal Disengage, but you maintain Advantage on a tie (if you had Advantage to begin with). Withdrawing would not be beneficial if you didn’t have Advantage beforehand.
What do you guys think? It would bring some interesting strategy to disengaging. Script a push or a beat in the last volley, then use that advantage to withdraw carefully. In fights between characters of similar speed, weapons, stride, etc., that +1D to Disengage is a big deal … but so is maintaining advantage. Interesting decision.
So, is this seriously the official answer: “Sorry, good luck with that”? I assumed this was tongue in cheek and we’d get some kind of official errata on this, as it’s a clear case of contradictory rules-as-written.
Hi, sorry to resurrect this thread, but I am just starting to read through the Fight sub-mechanics and I ended up with this same question. Is there an official correction for it? I have the 3rd printing to TBWG and the phrasing is the same.
