Stance Basics
As promised I’m going to present some of the Stances now. It’s important to know and understand that the WHOLE stance-system is still in active development. Nothing is finished so you are testing what in most computer geek languages is called an experimental version and should be used with the understanding that things will change until the balance and requirements are set.
As earlier told the stances will follow three base principles. Active, Passive and Pending forms. Most, if not all stances, will be included in Techniques. Please correct me if I contradict myself from before so I can trail my train of thought so I doesn’t miss anything important. All the regulating of the system is a mess so I can easily forget what I’ve started when I jump to something else. But right now my main focus is the world and the system so things should move forward as long as I have the motivation to continue to work with Nianze.
Well first a description of Active, Passive and Pending which is the three stances everybody have in the beginning and the categories most stances are divided into.
I’ve noticed either a misunderstanding or a contradiction in what I’ve said before so I’ll make this clear now. But as I’ve read in earlier posts I think it’s just PB who have scrambled up some facts in his head.
Active
In active stance you focus solely on what you do. This is the general attack stance too. If you attack you are active and then focus with all your might to hit the enemy and deal as much damage or whatever to him as possible. In active stances you won’t be able to multitask or change your current actions that easy without a great penalty if you’ll even get the chance to do so. The standard active stance you’ll have in the beginning will be called Offensive Stance, in this stance you’ll only be able to do what you’ve said you’ll do and nothing else until it’s your turn again. So it will leave quite an opening on your person. This stance though I doubt I’ll see from you unless your characters are out of SC or very basic fighters or something.
The Active Stance aspect in other skills often means that you focus on that skill’s special action. In most cases this will mean that you’ll get +2 per level instead of the regular +1. With Dodge though this will mean +3, so I guess you can see how this will work. You will focus on dodging your opponent and if you are in active stance the special action for the skill won’t cost anything either, such as Dodging in Active Dodging Stance. You’ll loose 1 SC each round yes, but need not pay for Dodge. Only succeed or get a high enough success ratio. You will be defending though and cannot attack until you leave the stance. Note though that in general, most Active Stances have either a great weakness or costs more SC per phase, they are meant to be more exhausting.
Passive
In passive stance you are less focused on one thing but rather uses a passiveness in order to be able to do other things at the same time. This will be the general defence stance. You won’t be able to initiate things such as attacks or anything but you more answer on things that happen. In this case you’re using something as base to be able to do other things and save yourself or rather react when someone acts. It’s not as far as the pending stance but more something you do so you can prepare yourself for more. You will be more prepared for any eventualities and the penalties for things such as Surprise Attacks won’t be as great. This is only the general gist of it. The standard passive stance you’ll have in the beginning will be the Defensive Stance, in this stance you’ll be able to Avoid attacks and try to come up with a counter or block of some kind in general. You won’t be able to attack in this stance even if you roll a critical success. Only defensive actions or techniques with the DUR of DEF and in some cases ACT. In this stance though you’ll mostly answer to what happens and thus will have a lower initiative value even though you’ll have a higher reflexive value to what you’ll do.
The Passive Stance aspect in other skills often means that you do something continuously but without giving it too much focus or effort. You’ll mostly add some passive bonus to one or more of your skills and properties and also you’ll disable some actions while others will work better. Such as Passive Sneaking Stance, when you are in this stance you’ll be able to observe as you sneak and also you’ll be able to move faster than in Active Sneaking Stance, you’ll be quiet and less conspicuous what you’re actually doing since you’ll be basically multitasking by sneaking and something else.
Just as a note which you might wonder about now is; what’s the difference between Active Dodging Stance and Passive Dodging Stance? Well, you should be able to figure that out yourself but I’ll tell you anyway. I mentioned the active above so you know sort of what that does. The Passive Dodging Stance though increases rather the possibility TO dodge, while the active increases Dodging. You’ll get +2 per level in passive when it comes to the dodge roll but instead you’ll get a bonus roll on REF, if you succeed on this you’ll get either a Bonus or an automatic success – most likely the latter depending on the attack and the opponent. So basically you’ll get lesser bonus but instead a possibility to succeed without a roll. Passive stances are meant to cost less than active and also provide the bonus as more an addition to things you have.
In some cases I think it will be like, in active you automatically succeed if you pay but if you don’t pay SC, you’ll get a higher bonus and be able to succeed with chance (a roll) instead.
And with passive you’ll get a roll to succeed, but you must pay and if you want you can increase the cost by 50-100% and succeed anyway depending on the situation. This is what’s supposed to be the general idea with this.
Pending
Pending stances are stances where you, waiting to do your action for one reason or another. Something I’ve thought to make this a more painful stance to be in is that for every phase you are in a pending stance you’ll lose 2-5 SC depending on which stance. In the beginning you’ll have two standard stances that are pending. Resting and Pending Stance, these two are meant for regaining SC or to aid others.
The standard Resting Stance though won’t be that effective if you don’t have Combat Arts. You’ll only get 1 SC per phase and you won’t be able to defend or attack in any way. If not in cover or with any protection, any decent opponent will hit you without even needing a roll other than to see if it’s a critical hit. It goes without saying that while Resting you won’t lose SC so you only gain SC, you lose one action per phase, and initiative as usual though.
The standard Pending Stance though will make it possible to make a Joint Attack with one or many of your allies. You can also interfere and try to act/react at the same time as something else happens to stop something in some way. Though I think that without a leader or good loyalty in the group this will require a roll of some kind. There will be techniques somewhere to help with pending actions though. A general rule of thumb in this stance is that you cannot move or act without cancelling the stance, either before or after. So if someone attacks you while in Pending or Resting you’ll have two alternatives; either take the hit and hope it won’t cancel your Rest or Pending (which it’s likely to do) or change stance and to react. You cannot and will not be able to change back to Pending or Resting if you do this. Note that the risk for being dazed, knocked down or any other thing will be higher in these stances unless you have something to counter things like that. So in general you’ll be quite open and defenceless in stances like this. It’s a good idea to be far away from opponents or have someone protect you while doing this, maybe a shield of some kind?
This post is getting long so I’ll continue with only some examples of stances in the next post.
Best Regards,
Herid Fel
Well, some nice examples here and such, although I thought the passive “base” group was called defensive, but it doesnt matter aslong as the general concept of them all is understandable.
Being in active dodge seems really nice hehe, basically the point with it, is to exhaust your enemies while having a higher chance of dodging while not costing that much SC, right?
So if im in passive stance and I want to protect someone close by, is that possible? “You won’t be able to initiate things such as attacks or anything but you more answer on things that happen. In this case you’re using something as base to be able to do other things and save yourself or rather react when someone acts” , Or should I be in pending stance then?
As for the pending stance I think the cost there might be abit steep if we start talking about 3-5 SC cost per phase for being in such stance, if I understand it correct.
Say Im in pending stance, and I want to use the warrior rush on the same target as one of my teammates attacks it, will that cost be 2-5(for pending stance)+3(for rush)+2(base attack)= 7-10 for one attack? Or when do you remove SC for the stance? In the moment you switch to a stance or is the cost for the stance afterwards? meaning you can possible avoid this pending cost if you switch to another stance directly after you have rushed?.
Anyways, its nice with some info, brings up some questions and gives a better picture of it, however I would like to see some kind of chart that shows what skills has stances and what groups these “sub” stances will be in. I know you are already working on it though. But it would be nice to have atleast some basic chart soon, but in overall I think im starting to get the hang of it, atleast how its supposed to be used.
Oh yeah, one more thought, and its more of a question.
Back in the beginning when you changed skills to work more like bonuses for properties and you said something in the lines of, with properties you would still be able to do most things and skills more working like a supplement. for example being able to sneak without the actual sneak skill.
Is these kind of things still possible in a reasonable “easy” chance of success, for as it seems now with the new “stance system in works again” its almost a necessity to have some skills to be able to do some things.
As an example, if I wish to sneak without the actual sneak skill(meaning I have no sneak stance?) is that even remotely possible or would that be to hard, or if my opponent or whatever im sneaking from have observation am I totally screwed then or does it depend if “he”(opponent) is in “observative stance”
The pending version of Dodge and/or Athletics does this.
That is a typo I see. It’s meant to be initiative not SC.
I ignore your other statement since it’s based on a typo.
A list will develop over time. The next post will be the closest thing you’ll have to a list to begin with.
To begin with, you will ONLY have AGI to do something or REF or COG or whatever I chose for the situation.
To continue, every roll will cost SC for you. And it will be rolls, rolls which you have only AGI-MOD. Depending on your surroundings you might succeed but the big difference between sneak is that you first must roll for everything and most likely isn’t able to focus much on anything else.
It will be hard, a lot hard, and impossible to sneak by a guard without great luck. And then it’s mostly just luck in-game as well and very little skill from your properties.
So if you plan to sneak into a castle full of guards, yes, then you need the skill. But if you only plan to sneak up on someone in a library then no. It’s possible with the right environment and situation but you will be unskilled at sneaking with a very varied result. The higher your PRO though the better you are.
The stance post will come, but so far it’s up to four pages, I had to make some cuts to it. But it will be a beginning.
But then again, it seems like these posts only are of minor interest anyway since only one person is showing interest.
I read this through earlier but I didn’t really feel that I had a whole lot to say about it, I still don’t. It’s an informative post, and interesting to read but as I’ve said before in regards to stances it’ll be hard to keep track of all these terms and distinguish between active/passive and what not. As long as we can work around that through describing the desired action and getting info on this as we play I really don’t see a problem with it.
Like the last session when Tatsuo was sneaking around the forest looking for the poachers, I chose the opposite stance to what I actually wanted in terms of effect, to me the names seemed counter intuitive. Maybe “counter intuitive” is a bad phrase, but it didn’t work like I thought it did at least.
If people has nothing to say then Nianze will surely die and soon. And looking at your comment you did have things to say. But what does it matter. If you don’t have anything to say, then it doesn’t interest you enough to put any value to what you read so you can give feedback on what you thought about it. If you don’t get any thoughts from reading something, then it’s obviously not interesting. You do as you wish.
Counter intuitive? I do not understand what you mean at all with that statement. It can mean any number of things depending on how you see on things. To me it seems more like a frustrated comment and your reluctance to elaborate enough to describe it. It’s impossible to meet an argument without anything to go on. Elaborate.
I came up with that as I started typing my reply, well whatever, moot point I guess. As always you are wrong, just because I have thoughts doesn’t mean that it’s anything which I want to share, or even that it’s significant. Reading a word provokes thought but that doesn’t mean that the word is interesting just because I express my thought.
It wasn’t an arguement at all, just an opinion. Frustrated? This wasn’t written in frustration, nor was I arguing a point, regardless I’ll elaborate and explain what I meant.
I don’t remember the situation clearly but I wanted to sneak through the forest focusing mainly on keeping an eye out. “More important to see than to not be noticed” was the gist of it, and I don’t remember which stance I ended up choosing but I remember hindsight being that the apropriate one for the desired action was the stance I did not choose.
What I feel about the active vs passive sneaking stance according to what you’ve written in the example above is that it makes perfect sense, yet as I remembered the situation active sneak meant what I thought passive sneak should be and vice versa.
You were sneaking and having an eye out, Passive Sneaking while observing your surroundings. You couldn’t have done it any differently other than to roll better rolls.
When I meant frustration I didn’t mean annoyance. Rather frustration over not being able to express what you wanted clearly.
To begin with, I’m not “always wrong” as you say. If you say so and seriously believe so I think we should terminate all connections between us right now. I am wrong sometimes, and I express different views and opinions sometimes, but I am not always not even close to always wrong and I for one is one who can see clearly enough to know when I’m wrong and not and admit so.
When you read something you always get a thought, that we both now. And as I’ve said countless times before. Even if you get thoughts you don’t want to share or thoughts you don’t consider significant, that doesn’t change the thing that you actually have an opinion over what you’ve just read. No matter how small than opinion is, if you think that just a sentence;
It was interesting though I don’t really understand it all, but I guess I’ll try it and see for myself.
If a sentence like that is too hard to write then Nianze should be cancelled now and then with only one person interested in the world. If that is too much to ask for then my world is more than doomed, it’s already fallen to a thousand pieces. No matter how “insignificant” you think something is, it’s of great value for the creator, always. I thought I’ve explained this to you over MSN twice now and you seemed to agree when then, and even so you don’t agree now.
Well, whatever.
I’m talking about your eternal claims about me not caring. It’s getting a bit tiresome to constantly deny this accusation thus this hard form of expressing myself.
I know how you feel about this and I am trying to keep that in mind (which is the main reason for my first comment on this page btw) however you must understand that when I don’t naturally come up with something I find meaningful to say it’s hard to force it. It’s the same thing with project 3, I’ve been meaning to write something on beginnings part 3. As I’ve repeatedly sat down to write a comment but just can’t quite get going.
This time you’ve assumed something which you shouldn’t even though the sole purpose of drilling in you do not care is for you to do so.
My statement didn’t refer to your lack of showing interest to my work, thus making it unnecessary. And if you haven’t noticed I barely say that anymore, since you have started to show interest.
As for Project 3, I gave you time, you couldn’t muster a comment, nor could anyone else. Shit happens, but now I can’t wait anymore thus it dies. No matter the reason. I don’t blame anyone. But if consequences aren’t presented people will leech on me without feedback and if they do so I get very annoyed, thus the limits.
But I guess Project 3 simply wasn’t interesting enough if you couldn’t muster up a comment. If it would have been you wouldn’t have had such a hard time to try to write something. It’s no use squeezing a bottle which is empty if it doesn’t inspire people enough to give feedback. You can’t always be to blame for the feedback. Obviously I’ve been overrating my work since everything dies.
I see, well mission successful then I suppose.
No, it certainly is interesting to read but again it feels lame to just say “it was interesting” which was the point I had trouble getting past.
Well, hard to get past it, but it isn’t considered lame by me. Unless you are afraid of being bullied for expressing your opinions then even a small sentence like that would be much.
Otherwise speculations and just an appreciative comment such as “I like the feel of that character” or whatever ramble BS you feel like is appreciated. But well, there will possibly be more tries in the future. I’m not known for giving up that easily.
I guess this aversion to posting has more to do with my own values getting in the way. I haven’t forgotten your view of it or anything.
Hehe…. I nearly typed some weird philosophical pun here, well let’s hope for a better ‘next time’ anyway.