Speed as a viable defence

[Esoomian]

I've been unable to come to a decision with the following scenario and want to see what others think.

Minion A is armed with a holstered blaster pistol with a maximum range of 50 units

Player B is 30 units away from Minion A facing the opposite direction. Player B is sitting on an idling speeder with a base speed of 15 units.

Player B wins initiative so Minion A declares he will shoot Player B with his pistol (taking an action to draw it first).

Player B declares he will move at twice the speeders base rate as his action. At the conclusion of his action this will mean he will be 60 units away from Minion A

My dilema is if all of Player B's first action completes before Minion A is able to draw his weapon then Player B is out of range by the time Minion A fires.
How is movement within a round worked out in regard to ranges?

What if Minion A already had his blaster drawn? Player B is still acting first so should he be taken out of range before the trigger is pulled?
If Player B had been riding a speeder with a potential speed of greater than 50 units per round (for instance it's speed is 35 units and he is riding at double speed or 'running' with the speeder) does that mean he is traveling faster than the blaster bolt (or a different projectile if you prefer)? I'd be forced to assume a blaster bolt travels it's entire range in a single round but it's probably faster than that (although perhaps not as they're quite visible in the films).

Now what if Player B is a Jedi using burst of speed or just an alien with an unusually high movement rate, how does that change things?

Also what modifiers would you apply to someone who is attempting to target someone moving at all out speed, they cannot be dodging as moving at all out speed is the only action you can take in a round so in theory it's just the range difficulty that applies but they may well be moving very fast indeed and that should probably make a difference.
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[cunning_kindred]

In my own game I ruled that movement takes place effectively immediately or it became impossible to administer the round fairly and consistently. In your case, if the weapon's range were such that the defender were clearly outside it after his move I would rule that the attack automatically missed. Super-human or vehicle based movement really is a clincher in combat in my games but there are ways for an adversary to make sure that they can't be successfully applied.

[atgxtg]

Well, some good news for A. According to the rules a vehicle cannot increase it's speed by more that 1 "step" per turn. So B, on the idling speeder cannot do a all out move (or even a double move) right away, but must accelerate to a normal move before going to a double move. So B would only move 15m before A could get a chance to fire.

Now if B were already moving at normal speed, he could acclerate to a double move, and move 30m before A could get a shot off, and possibly be out of range.

For B to be able to do an "all-out" move he would need to already be doing a double move. But if he were already do so, he could indeed zip past A and go 60m before A can clear his gun from the holster and fire.

But...

If the GM allows for Fast Draws, A could try to Fast Draw and fire before NB can move. This requires that A divides up his skill dice into speed and accuracy. A rolls his speed dice and if the roll is higher than B's piloting roll, he gets to shoot before B can throttle up and move. A would only roll the accuracy dice to hit, though.

Also, in First Edition drawing a weapon just applied a -1D multi-action penalty but was considered to take no time. Under those conditions A could draw and shoot as one action, but with a -1D penalty.


Now as far as A Jedi or alien goes, the only real difference is that living creatures can accelerate two steps at a time, so they can go from dead stop to a double move. Ot would still take two round to get up to an "all-out" move. But, if they had a high enough move rate they could indeed run off before being shot at.


Regarding hitting a moving target, I would probably set the difficulty at the upper end of the scale. So if the shot were at long range I'd set it more toward the 18-20 end than the 16 end. If I though the speed was really a factor I might even raise the difficulty a bit more, depending on just how fast the vehicle was going.

Move 15 is only around 43kph/27mph so I wouldn't give that much of a bonus. On the other hand, a Ikas-Adno Nightfalcon moving "all-out" is going Move 720 or 460kph. That's fast enough to move up to, fly past, and out of blaster fire in one round. That is probably worth a bonus.

[Whill]

[atgxtg]

[Ankhanu]

I take movement as an action within the round sequence... let's say A won initiative. A plans to draw their blaster and fire on B. B wants to get out of Dodge before they get shot, moving double speed.

A draws
B moves 1 move
A shoots
B moves their second (granted they're not dead)

If the initial move takes the character out of range, the shot doesn't manage.
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[Esoomian]

Hmmm It's good to know the vehicles cannot accelerate more than one step at a time, it keeps things simpler.

I had considered making movements happen in stages as both Ank and Atg describe however what if Player B chooses to make two actions?

Assume Player B is on foot and is an exceptionally fleet species, it's weapon is also already drawn. (A possible scenario has Player A running from guards only to round a corner and see another guard further down the corridor it's just turned into)

Minion A looses initiative as he is an NPC with a terrible perception score, he declares two actions draw weapon and shoot Player B.
Player B declares also declares two actions move twice and shoot at Minion A.

By the numbers Player B should be able to get some sort of over the shoulder shot off at Minion A while getting out of range, furthermore it's shot should happen before Minion A gets to shoot. If movement happens in stages then Player B is hampered by a 'ghost action' that causes his second action within the round to actually happen at the third action stage. This is may be realistic but perhaps Player B's shot should happen at the second action stage (and the range of half it's entire turn's movement) and represents Player A shooting while running. This also makes sense to me but it can get complex with multiple entities moving and performing actions.

What do people think?
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Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[garhkal]

[ZzaphodD]