Dean,
You’re theorizing about hypotheticals. I swear, when this moment arrives in the game it’ll make perfect sense. You’ll be like, “Speed test or bad shit happens!” And it’ll be all set.
Until that moment arrives you have bigger fish to worry about!
Hey Dean, just like every other Intent you guys deal with at the table, you have to determine if it makes sense. Same with every piece of fiction you pull in. You created a riverbed and a scene. Does it even make sense that a person could cover the distance in the amount of time given (you made up this distance). If so, that’s what the roll is for. It’s also going to be up to you what makes sense as to when he could make back in terms of exchanges. Decide that, what’s the minimum number of exchanges that mkes sense for you vision of the fiction. That’s when he mkes it back if he succeeds.
Or get fancy, success and he makes it back in x number of exchanges. He fails he gets back in y. This is entirely up to you and the players. What makes for the most drama and fun? Go there.
That’s why if you call for the roll you also tell them what failure will look like before they roll it.
Getting there before the next exchange is a valid intent in the right circumstances. Getting there before the hidden archer gets his shot off would be another.
Say Yes IS a regular game mechanic.
Huh. OK, I guess I really must be worrying about nothing. Too used to the good ol’ battlemap, I guess, not accustomed to abstract conflict systems. I suppose it’ll sink in to my brain eventually.
Thanks, everybody! Very much appreciated. And sorry for being such an annoying stubborn hardass. I’m sure I’m not the only noob who was confused about this though, so I hope this thread is useful to others too.
Peace ~ Dean
Something tells me the folks around here don’t mind when you fight for what you believe.
No worries here dude. Good questions. Besides, what else are we gonna talk about around here? 
Remember, you can actually change your target action-for-action, you just simply have to make sure to apply the advantage correctly. Check out pages 460-461 of BWG for what I’m talking about.
So just to make sure I’ve got this one down correctly:
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You Engage with one target at the start of the exchange. That determines whether or not you have the advantage.
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During the exchange, you can switch targets however you wish. Essentially, once everyone’s Engaged, they’re free game.
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When switching targets, advantage/disadvantage “follows” you, and you determine penalties appropriately.
So if I Engage with target A and win the advantage, and during the exchange target B attacks me, target B is also at a disadvantage and we determine that Ob penalty based on weapon lengths.
And subsequently, if a character with a ranged weapon cedes advantage during an exchange, he’s ceded advantage to all of his opponents. So if a mage wins the advantage with White Fire and looses his spell, he cedes advantage to all of his opponents, and we determine his Ob penalty on a case-by-case basis by differing weapon lengths.
I’m not so sure that this is the case. I was under the impression that if target B had more success on the Engage roll than you then they have the advantage over you, no matter what target A rolled.
Hey Peter. You roll a positioning roll to position against your target. Anyone else that wants to position against you has to beat your positioning roll. So you don’t become advantaged or disadvantaged to everyone. You may have the advantage against your target but be disadvantaged to someone else who’s pressing you. Make sense?
Well, I’m talking about the situation when you switch targets to one that you have not engaged and who has also not engaged you.
So if Target B is paying attention to your buddy and you decide to intervene - despite the fact that neither you nor B have engaged each other - what do we do? No advantage?
I don’t think you can act against anyone without having engaged them.
I see, you’re talking about mid-Exchange. Until you’ve actually positioned with Intent on a target (or one has positioned with Intent towards you) you don’t get actions against that target I don’t believe. You’d have to wait till the beginning of the next exchange to position against that new target. Eye of the Storm p.257 is explicit about not interfering with ongoing fights, mid exchange.
Hmm, but there’s a couple of things that are confusing me. First, Zelbinian said this:
Remember, you can actually change your target action-for-action, you just simply have to make sure to apply the advantage correctly. Check out pages 460-461 of BWG for what I’m talking about.
Secondly, Sorcery can affect more than one target without having to have engaged them all. If a spell has a “Paces” AoE, you can spend two successes above the obstacle to affect another target. It doesn’t say anything about you needing to be engaged with that target.
So unless Sorcery is one of those big juicy exceptions that Luke loves - and I’m really doubting that because Luke also really hates sorcerers - then I think you might be able to affect targets with whom you are not expressly engaged.
You can change your target action per action so long as there’s been some positioning test made to connect you to either of them.
I can’t comment on sorcery. Haven’t used it and only gave it a cursory glance in Gold.
Just went and did a quick look over the Sorcery section to see if we could work that out Peter. I’m seeing that the area of effects still only effects targets with whom you are engaged. Am I reading something wrong?
Edit: Well that goes for harm and destroy spells. Others you treat like a normal casting. Im not familiar enough with the sorcery spells to know what situations may come up in fight with other AoE/multi-target spells that might exist.
Maybe I read something wrong. Like I said, I don’t have my book on me and I’m still getting used to Gold. But there’s a section in Sorcery that talks about how to spend your successes over the obstacle, and one of those is on increasing AoE.
The Presence AoE affects all of your foes. The 10’s of Paces AoE affects everyone in the Fight! Doesn’t seem to indicate that you need to be engaged with them.
You can engage a horde of goblins. They all help one another. You blast them to charred remains.
I’m looking at that section again, Area of Effect in Fight p. 515 and you’re right about the 10s of paces AoE. All the lesser AoE still require engaged targets. 10s of paces hits everything in the Fight. Makes sense and shouldn’t pose a problem for positioning, right?
Yeah, I haven’t been touching “groups” of helpers since by default you’ve positioned against them all with the one positioning test.