Half Arena Attacks

isquish

Hi, I am thinking of running OSH for an upcoming game, and one thing continues to confuse me.

I have seen certain talents reference "half arena" or "attacks from a 90 degrees arc" and even a cone attack. Given that the whole arena system seems to ignore specific combatant placement, how does one determine who is where? Are we supposed to be moving the miniatures around the arenas arbitrarily (ummm... I'm attacked sand dude here, so I guess I'll move my figure over there)?

Or am I just missing something basic?

fictivefantasies

The only place I think you'd see much of that is in the Fictive stuff. And I run things on a dry erase board. So it's still just estimation, not overly technical. I think it's still useful to keep track of where people are, just at a higher level of granularity; you don't have to measure a free 5 foot move, but you still know where people are relative to each other.

isquish

Okay, I see what you mean. I do think I will change things up a bit for my purposes. Maybe changing the half area-style attacks to target "all adjacent enemies", cones, or lines. I think that will bring things more in line with what how my table is used to operating.

Thanks for the quick answer! I love the "expansion" you made, and will definitely be using it when I run my game.

fictivefantasies

When I design, I try to play to the strengths of the system I'm working in. Maybe some examples would help.

For Canticles of Air on p. 25 of "Fictive's Talents and Templates," there is "Buffet." It affects up to half an arena. This is helpful because it could be the bottom half, knocking around everyone on the ground. Or, the top half, preventing harpies with javelins from attacking the group. Putting it across one half the arena may leave your group unharmed, but block off a number of doors, covering a retreat.

These goals are difficult to accomplish with adjacent enemies, cones, or lines.

Also, if it must be by arena, what about you or your allies--who are in the arena?

On page 29, the "Sandstorm" talent lowers movement to half an arena--that's basically half speed. Not too technical, and again it raises difficulties with the three categories you mention.

Of course, I encourage you to use this how you like, and adapt it as you need to for your table. Before you do, I wanted to perhaps explain some of the thinking.

isquish

You know, I had to think quite a bit on my response to this. Half-arena effects just didn't jive with me, they seemed... imprecise and arbitrary but I couldn't put my finger on why. Especially within a system that as fast and loose as OSH is.

I think it comes down to largely being a semantics thing. The way you described Buffet, it's basically a full arena attack that can be shaped to only affect a portion of the arena if desired. The ability to target the "bottom half" of the arena is essentially targeting everyone within it, since flyers tend to occupy the Open Sky arena when they aren't walking around.

So, I'd feel it'd be better off called Arena (shapeable), with a rules blurb about how such abilities can target a portion of the affected area instead of the whole thing. That also removes the annoying question of "can I target the middle half of the arena?" Sure, its shapeable, target whatever section you like! ;)

With Sandstorm, I think a cool way to handle that kind of effect would be to add a Hazardous arena within the currently existing one (perhaps with some autodamage and a difficult check get move out of it). I think that would accomplish what you were looking for in a way that meshed a bit better with the existing rules.

Then again, I may be in the minority on this one. Wouldn't be the first time ;)

kiznit

It's okay to be in the minority, man! Like I try to insist, the "right way" to play OSH is the way you and your group want to play it.

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