[X] My Assistant

[Nightwalker450]

Common sense does not tell us "unlimited interrupts is obviously contrary to common sense." As we've said, the only situations where you could actually get a huge number of interrupts are in really weird and unrealistic situations that will never come up.

Who says they will never come up? You're reasoning to unlimited interrupts are perfectly sensible is that situation A never comes up. But there is nothing in RAW stating that situtation A won't happen. In fact for a very underpowered gang, or a horde of ghouls guess what we're in Situtation A, and it breaks. The best rule is one that doesn't rely on a situation never occuring.

Oh wait there it is paragraph 12, page 872, line 3, "Never ever ever let a martial artist with these maneuvers fight more than 2 maybe even 3 people at the same time." Its right between "Never ever ever let your hacker copy an infinite amount of agents to load onto an infinite number of systems and then let him hack a system", and "Never ever ever have your team run multiple runs against the same nuclear fallout area with a background count 6."

Since Larme said that raw states that I can't have my runner team constantly do runs in a rating 6 area. I didn't say the whole world, if you read my post, just that their missions would only be occuring in one.

Remember "NEVER EVER EVER!"

[Tarantula]

This is just another one of those grey areas (similar to matrix actions not using an attribute, the debate with how many AR actions can be done in a turn, etc) that have a couple different workable solutions, based on common sense, developers intent and how things play at the table.

Eh? Matrix actions RAW don't use an attribute. That isn't a "grey" issue at all. They just don't. Whats grey is if this is a good thing or should be changed.

AR actions in a turn? That isn't grey either. Depends on your IPs. Again, the "grey" part of it is whether the RAW should be changed.

You are correct in that these are apt examples. RAW interrupts are unlimited. The "grey" issue is whether you think this should be changed or not.

Feel free to state that you think a house-rule is in order, or whatever, but please, make it clear that your recommendation is not RAW.

[ArkonC]

<SNIP>
In fact for a very underpowered gang, or a horde of ghouls guess what we're in Situtation A, and it breaks.
<SNIP>

But shouldn't someone who spent hundreds of BPs becoming a MA Master be able to own "a very underpowered gang" or "a horde of ghouls"?
I don't feel it's the interrupt actions that need limiting...
It's the number of melee attackers per round...
Should 100 NPCs all be able to make their melee attack at the same guy?
6 guys beating up the same guy will already get in each others way unless they are well trained...
We use the following interpretation:
There is no limit on the number of actions you can borrow...
If you borrowed an action, you still get your free action at your init...
Defense DP mods do not reset until you have a non-free non-interrupt action...
This works out very well, our adept, if he is smart with his borrowing can kick ass and take names...
On the other hand, I've seen him go down several times because he borrowed too many actions...
Last session, he almost died twice because of this, now he is very wary about borrowing if he's not sure he can finish the job quickly...

So, there are different ways of dealing with it, and they work for different people...

[Larme]

Who says they will never come up? You're reasoning to unlimited interrupts are perfectly sensible is that situation A never comes up. But there is nothing in RAW stating that situtation A won't happen. In fact for a very underpowered gang, or a horde of ghouls guess what we're in Situtation A, and it breaks. The best rule is one that doesn't rely on a situation never occuring.

Oh wait there it is paragraph 12, page 872, line 3, "Never ever ever let a martial artist with these maneuvers fight more than 2 maybe even 3 people at the same time." Its right between "Never ever ever let your hacker copy an infinite amount of agents to load onto an infinite number of systems and then let him hack a system", and "Never ever ever have your team run multiple runs against the same nuclear fallout area with a background count 6."

Since Larme said that raw states that I can't have my runner team constantly do runs in a rating 6 area. I didn't say the whole world, if you read my post, just that their missions would only be occuring in one.

Remember "NEVER EVER EVER!"

Please calm down. This is not worth getting worked up over, and I don't want this to degenerate into flames.

I think that your examples prove my point. If you're facing a very underpowered gang, who gives a damn whether a guy with riposte can beat their asses? They are very underpowered, i.e. easy to beat. A one trick pony that can beat up underpowered gangs is like... whee. A horde of ghouls is more to the point. But even so, all that means is that the riposter gets tons of actions. So what? That's not broken. You just don't like people acting that many times that quickly. You are hung up on trying to make the combat system seem more realistic, when it's actually quite abstract. That it is unlikely for a whole ton of people to attack in melee is just one reason why riposte doesn't need to be nerfed. The other justification, of course, is that it's just not that powerful even in the rare circumstances where it could be used to full effect. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch because a master martial artist can totally pwn a whole bunch of ghouls. Good for him! Not a system problem.

[Nightwalker450]

So a ton of gangers just pile up around our martial artist in the course of 15 seconds... 5 turns (he only has 1 pass), but he's interrupted (we'll be nice and say that only 6 rushed him per pass, and every one was dropped by Riposte and Finishing Move)... He can of course keep walking during this, so their rushing him as he walks down the alley. And the gangers aren't worried after all he's one guy and there's 120 of them, and he's obviously using non-lethal so at most their going to get some cracked ribs. So there's just a string of laid out bodies behind him.

So 6 people x 2 interrupts x 4 passes, is 48 per pass over 5 turns is 240 interrupts or 12 minutes. So he's put on this massively awesome display of combat prowess and at the back of the alley is the gang leader with a hold-out pistol (their low budget, but this is okay, he has plenty of time to reload, he'll be putting rounds into the corpse long before the 12 minutes is up), who proceeds to shoot him for 12 minutes while he can do nothing but walk back down the alleyway.

Is it a simple action to open a door? Heck we'll make it a touchpad so it is. He entered this alley through a door, which one gang member closed before attacking... So he walks around the alley for 12 minutes getting shot at because he's borrowed so many actions.

An amusing end to a spectacular display.

BTW Larme, I'm not upset, its just you saying your using common sense and that scenarios such as this are perfectly in your view of how it should work is just so laughable. You're trying to say that scenarios like this shouldn't happen and raw supports it.

[ArkonC]

So a ton of gangers just pile up around our martial artist in the course of 15 seconds... 5 turns (he only has 1 pass), but he's interrupted (we'll be nice and say that only 6 rushed him per pass, and every one was dropped by Riposte and Finishing Move)... He can of course keep walking during this, so their rushing him as he walks down the alley. And the gangers aren't worried after all he's one guy and there's 120 of them, and he's obviously using non-lethal so at most their going to get some cracked ribs. So there's just a string of laid out bodies behind him.

So 6 people x 2 interrupts x 4 passes, is 48 per pass over 5 turns is 240 interrupts or 12 minutes. So he's put on this massively awesome display of combat prowess and at the back of the alley is the gang leader with a hold-out pistol (their low budget, but this is okay, he has plenty of time to reload, he'll be putting rounds into the corpse long before the 12 minutes is up), who proceeds to shoot him for 12 minutes while he can do nothing but walk back down the alleyway.

Is it a simple action to open a door? Heck we'll make it a touchpad so it is. He entered this alley through a door, which one gang member closed before attacking... So he walks around the alley for 12 minutes getting shot at because he's borrowed so many actions.

An amusing end to a spectacular display.

BTW Larme, I'm not upset, its just you saying your using common sense and that scenarios such as this are perfectly in your view of how it should work is just so laughable. You're trying to say that scenarios like this shouldn't happen and raw supports it.

So, 6 gangers with 4 passes attack the MA master in the first round, he interrupts all of the, successfully blocks and all that...
Start of round 2, MA master has a -23 to his defense DP and it will not refresh until he has payed back all his borrowed actions...
Can you say "hosed"?

[Tarantula]

Wouldn't ganger's #20+ realize that hes already dropped 20 of them, and that isn't likely to change, so maybe they should just let the leader shoot at him?

[Nightwalker450]

So, 6 gangers with 4 passes attack the MA master in the first round, he interrupts all of the, successfully blocks and all that...
Start of round 2, MA master has a -23 to his defense DP and it will not refresh until he has payed back all his borrowed actions...
Can you say "hosed"?

When does it refresh? Does it refresh when he borrows an action, since thats when he's taking his action? Or does it refresh during his actual initiative at the start of each turn? With my rules I go that borrowing an action refreshes it because thats when you are starting your action, this obviously wouldn't work in this case, because he can just keep borrowing a full defense whenever his actions get lower after all he's not limited on borrowing. So the likely refresh is during his initiative since he still gets a free action then. Unless you have some other house rule for when these refresh? (I believe raw says start of your next action, so that would be the interrupt, but I don't have a book) Little to say a different rules query...

Wouldn't ganger's #20+ realize that hes already dropped 20 of them, and that isn't likely to change, so maybe they should just let the leader shoot at him?

No because when ganger 20 attacks this has only been going on for less than 3 seconds, and as far as he can see its just a flurry of flying arms and legs and can't tell who's winning. And with this many people its hard to tell that none of them are successfully hitting. Like I said this flurry happened in 15 seconds, Its taking longer for these guys to hit the floor then it is for the MA to take them out. In fact some of them are probably propped up against each other and not falling. After all he's taking 12 interrupts per pass, and acting at 48 x the speed of any mundane.

[ArkonC]

When does it refresh? Does it refresh when he borrows an action, since thats when he's taking his action? Or does it refresh during his actual initiative at the start of each turn? With my rules I go that borrowing an action refreshes it because thats when you are starting your action, this obviously wouldn't work in this case, because he can just keep borrowing a full defense whenever his actions get lower after all he's not limited on borrowing. So the likely refresh is during his initiative since he still gets a free action then. Unless you have some other house rule for when these refresh? (I believe raw says start of your next action, so that would be the interrupt, but I don't have a book) Little to say a different rules query...

RAW states you get a cumulative -1 penalty for every attack after the first since your last action...
So if you hold your action, the penalty doesn't refresh, for example...
Could be read as free action or interrupt action, but we feel this isn't logical or intended (Interpretation, of course)...
So we count from the last time you made a simple or complex non interrupt action...

[Tarantula]

When does it refresh? Does it refresh when he borrows an action, since thats when he's taking his action? Or does it refresh during his actual initiative at the start of each turn? With my rules I go that borrowing an action refreshes it because thats when you are starting your action, this obviously wouldn't work in this case, because he can just keep borrowing a full defense whenever his actions get lower after all he's not limited on borrowing. So the likely refresh is during his initiative since he still gets a free action then. Unless you have some other house rule for when these refresh? (I believe raw says start of your next action, so that would be the interrupt, but I don't have a book) Little to say a different rules query...

RAW as Arkon pointed out says a cumulative penalty since your last action. The easiest way to explain this is to break it down in initiative. We'll use a sample group of 3 groups of gangers (5 each) with different initiatives, and the master guy.

Group 1 Initiative: 11
Master Initiative: 10
Group 2 Initiative: 9
Group 3 Initiative: 8


Ok, combat starts, thats what they roll.
AP 11 Comes up:
Ganger 1.1 attacks, and gets owned.
Ganger 1.2 attacks, master at -1 penalty.
Ganger 1.3 attacks, master at -2 penalty.
Ganger 1.4 attacks, master at -3 penalty.
Ganger 1.5 attacks, master at -4 penalty.
AP 10:
Master attacks Ganger 2.1, ganger gets owned.
AP 9:
Ganger 2.2 attacks, master at -1 penalty.
Ganger 2.3 attacks, master at -2 penalty.
Ganger 2.4 attacks, master at -3 penalty.
Ganger 2.5 attacks, master at -4 penalty.
AP 8:
Ganger 3.1 attacks, master at -5 penalty.
Ganger 3.2 attacks, master at -6 penalty.
Ganger 3.3 attacks, master at -7 penalty.
Ganger 3.4 attacks, master at -8 penalty.
Ganger 3.5 attacks, master at -9 penalty.

This will continue until AP 10 of the next IP when the masters action comes up again.

[Nightwalker450]

RAW as Arkon pointed out says a cumulative penalty since your last action. The easiest way to explain this is to break it down in initiative. We'll use a sample group of 3 groups of gangers (5 each) with different initiatives, and the master guy.

The problem is that an interrupt is actually an action. But yeah to handle this unlimited interrupts you'll have to not allow full defense to reset defense pool (which is what I like to do).

[ArkonC]

The problem is that an interrupt is actually an action. But yeah to handle this unlimited interrupts you'll have to not allow full defense to reset defense pool (which is what I like to do).

Free action is also an action, one which you can take at any time, so I'll just use my free action to say "platypus" and reset my DP penalty... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Larme]

BTW Larme, I'm not upset, its just you saying your using common sense and that scenarios such as this are perfectly in your view of how it should work is just so laughable. You're trying to say that scenarios like this shouldn't happen and raw supports it.

You think 120 gangers spending 12 minutes coming after a guy in wave after wave of retards is a plausible scenario? I guess we are just on two different wavelengths. I've never seen a combat last anywhere near that long, definitely not a grand melee. In my world, after just a few minutes of Jet Li beating down everyone who comes after him, the rest of the gangers say "all right boys, we can't fight him, run away!"

Regardless, your whole point here is invalid. It doesn't matter whether it's reaslitic that someone is stuck for 12 minutes unable to act. There is no rule that says "follow the rules unless they're unrealistic." They're always unrealistic. If you don't like how unrealistic they are, house rule them.

When does it refresh? Does it refresh when he borrows an action, since thats when he's taking his action? Or does it refresh during his actual initiative at the start of each turn? With my rules I go that borrowing an action refreshes it because thats when you are starting your action, this obviously wouldn't work in this case, because he can just keep borrowing a full defense whenever his actions get lower after all he's not limited on borrowing. So the likely refresh is during his initiative since he still gets a free action then. Unless you have some other house rule for when these refresh? (I believe raw says start of your next action, so that would be the interrupt, but I don't have a book) Little to say a different rules query...

Here's another example of what I consider to be the cardinal sin of rules interpretation: picking the worst possible one. You complain that the riposter will be invincible because his defense penalty resets every time he ripostes. Is that the only possible interpretation? No. The other interpretation is that defense penalties only reset when you take a normal, non-interrupt action. I think the rules are ambiguous on this point. It's up to you to choose the rule that works the best. You have chosen the rule that doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because it makes the riposte person invincible. Which you yourself have said that you hate. Instead of changing the way all interrupt actions work for everyone, why not change the way you interpret when defense modifiers reset?

As I see it, you want the rules to be broken so you can complain about them. This is a common symptom of dumpshocker angst. You have to paths available, then you stubbornly insist that only the stupid path is legitimate, then you cry about how stupid the stupid path is. Please. Pick the other path, and let us have some peace.

[Tarantula]

The problem is that an interrupt is actually an action. But yeah to handle this unlimited interrupts you'll have to not allow full defense to reset defense pool (which is what I like to do).

Going to the book on this one. SR4, 132. "3. Begin Action Phase
The acting character now declares and takes his actions, according to the steps below."

And SR4, 150, "Defender Has Defended Against Previous Attacks If a character has defended against at least one other attack (melee or ranged) since his last action, apply a –1 cumulative modifier for each additional defense roll."

I believe that the "action" they are referring to is the characters "action phase" and not last free, simple, or complex action. Otherwise, everyone would use their free actions to reset their defense pool. That isn't the case. When the characters action phase comes up again, then his defense pool resets.

[Nightwalker450]

You think 120 gangers spending 12 minutes coming after a guy in wave after wave of retards is a plausible scenario? I guess we are just on two different wavelengths. I've never seen a combat last anywhere near that long, definitely not a grand melee. In my world, after just a few minutes of Jet Li beating down everyone who comes after him, the rest of the gangers say "all right boys, we can't fight him, run away!"

You really don't read that well, or just skim. 120 gangers in 15 seconds, and he's stuck for 12 minutes due to interrupts.

Here's another example of what I consider to be the cardinal sin of rules interpretation: picking the worst possible one. You complain that the riposter will be invincible because his defense penalty resets every time he ripostes. Is that the only possible interpretation? No. The other interpretation is that defense penalties only reset when you take a normal, non-interrupt action. I think the rules are ambiguous on this point. It's up to you to choose the rule that works the best. You have chosen the rule that doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because it makes the riposte person invincible. Which you yourself have said that you hate. Instead of changing the way all interrupt actions work for everyone, why not change the way you interpret when defense modifiers reset?

As I see it, you want the rules to be broken so you can complain about them. This is a common symptom of dumpshocker angst. You have to paths available, then you stubbornly insist that only the stupid path is legitimate, then you cry about how stupid the stupid path is. Please. Pick the other path, and let us have some peace.

The stupid path, is to not allow infinite interrupts, ok, call me stupid. You have to houserule and clarify an entire book, for you to have infinite interrupts. I have but one interpretation to make everything work, 1 interrupt per pass.
I'll take the STUPID simple way and fix everything with 1 sentence. You are just doing patch job on every little thing that pops, up no matter how many holes there are, and keep saying that your way is the best because you're here to reply to everything. Someone uses this in a game session, and suddenly they have game breaking stuff all over the place, that your answer made appear. So they have to get on dumpshock and say, hey this broke, and you apply another houserule, interpretation, definition, that is just as up in the air as the first one (but wasn't so much before your answer). When does defense refresh isn't an issue, until you can riposte indefinately.

So to reiterate your reply. "There are two paths, one is stupid, one is not, yours is stupid mine is not, so just give up and accept mine. Oh and you have dumpshocker angst, here's a tissue." Little to say, I really just need to ignore your posts, because everything you say just gets under my skin, it might just be me, but I've gotten that feeling in multiple topics (not just with Interrupts). So I think I'm gonna try and stop trying to debate this.

[Tarantula]

Just a note, there is no possible way for infinite interrupts. Simply because of the defense pool refreshing, theres a max limit based on just how high you can get your defense pool. Getting attacked by more than that many people in one combat round you will have no defense dice left, and you will die.

[Nightwalker450]

Just a note, there is no possible way for infinite interrupts. Simply because of the defense pool refreshing, theres a max limit based on just how high you can get your defense pool. Getting attacked by more than that many people in one combat round you will have no defense dice left, and you will die.

Granted, but it still can be ridiculously high. And all you need for a Riposte is a successful defense, which is a failed attack. You don't need hits to Riposte you just need the attacker not to get any. But even this doesn't irritate me so much as the time displacement, the instead of attacking you in 12 minutes, I'm going to attack you now. There gets to be such a disjoint between your action, and the action you are borrowing that it makes you wonder why we're even bothering having initiatives and turn order, and Initiative Passes. Since someone with 4 passes can't do any better than someone with 1 pass when it comes to melee. The only difference is he's borrowing actions from 5 minutes in the future, whereas the person with 1 pass, is borrowing from 20 minutes into the future. Does it really matter when one of them falls? Only if the winner was planning on stabilizing his opponent afterwards.

[deek]

Eh? Matrix actions RAW don't use an attribute. That isn't a "grey" issue at all. They just don't. Whats grey is if this is a good thing or should be changed.

AR actions in a turn? That isn't grey either. Depends on your IPs. Again, the "grey" part of it is whether the RAW should be changed.

You are correct in that these are apt examples. RAW interrupts are unlimited. The "grey" issue is whether you think this should be changed or not.

Feel free to state that you think a house-rule is in order, or whatever, but please, make it clear that your recommendation is not RAW.

My matrix actions comment was based on earlier discussions that different writers interpretted matrix actions differently. Some were of the opinion that attributes were being used, just like in every other aspect of SR4 and others didn't. There are places in the RAW where both interpretations are in the underlying assumptions of the written text.

Same with AR actions. There seems to be inconsistency on whether a 4IP guy can take 4 AR actions or if its limited to 1 per turn. Otherwise, hot and cold sim give very little benefit to someone who can just swap between matrix and physical actions during his turn.

In any event, yes, I do agree that all rules discussions should be posted clearly whether it is RAW, an interpretation of RAW or a house-rule. There are plenty of examples of the RAW being vague enough to allow multiple interpretations.

You think 120 gangers spending 12 minutes coming after a guy in wave after wave of retards is a plausible scenario? I guess we are just on two different wavelengths. I've never seen a combat last anywhere near that long, definitely not a grand melee. In my world, after just a few minutes of Jet Li beating down everyone who comes after him, the rest of the gangers say "all right boys, we can't fight him, run away!"

Regardless, your whole point here is invalid. It doesn't matter whether it's reaslitic that someone is stuck for 12 minutes unable to act. There is no rule that says "follow the rules unless they're unrealistic." They're always unrealistic. If you don't like how unrealistic they are, house rule them.



Here's another example of what I consider to be the cardinal sin of rules interpretation: picking the worst possible one. You complain that the riposter will be invincible because his defense penalty resets every time he ripostes. Is that the only possible interpretation? No. The other interpretation is that defense penalties only reset when you take a normal, non-interrupt action. I think the rules are ambiguous on this point. It's up to you to choose the rule that works the best. You have chosen the rule that doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because it makes the riposte person invincible. Which you yourself have said that you hate. Instead of changing the way all interrupt actions work for everyone, why not change the way you interpret when defense modifiers reset?

As I see it, you want the rules to be broken so you can complain about them. This is a common symptom of dumpshocker angst. You have to paths available, then you stubbornly insist that only the stupid path is legitimate, then you cry about how stupid the stupid path is. Please. Pick the other path, and let us have some peace.

Maybe there is a missing rule that limits the amount of melee attackers on a single target? I'm sorry, but I have to believe there was some thought put into where the cap to this was. As it stands right now, letting the RAW speak for itself, you can have an infinite amount of baddies attack a single person and that MA master has the ability to interrupt all of them. Sure, eventually his penalties to DP are going to make it hard to think it would be worth trying again.

But just think of this. Interpretting the unlimited borrowing way, someone with 1IP is just as much a "master" as someone with 4IPs. Does THAT really make much sense? The 1IP guy's next available actions are all borrowing against combat turns that don't yet exist. Wouldn't you think a 4IP master would be better than a 1IP master in reactive combat?

[Triggerz]

Just a note, there is no possible way for infinite interrupts. Simply because of the defense pool refreshing, theres a max limit based on just how high you can get your defense pool. Getting attacked by more than that many people in one combat round you will have no defense dice left, and you will die.

There is no possible way use an infinite number of Riposte for the reason you just said, but there is still an infinite loop for Finishing Move. Even if you do no damage, as long as you hit, you can attack again. Of course, you might miss after a while, but let's say you always hit, but not hard enough to actually take down the guy, then you could be in a never-ending loop of Finishing Moves. The Defense pool of your opponent will go down with the number of attacks, but his soak won't.

[So let's say you keep kicking a big, tough troll, you might kick him for days and still not get anywhere, but as long as you hit... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ]

[deek]

There is no possible way use an infinite number of Riposte for the reason you just said, but there is still an infinite loop for Finishing Move. Even if you do no damage, as long as you hit, you can attack again. Of course, you might miss after a while, but let's say you always hit, but not hard enough to actually take down the guy, then you could be in a never-ending loop of Finishing Moves. The Defense pool of your opponent will go down with the number of attacks, but his soak won't.

The "majority" believe that it doesn't make sense for a Finishing Move to infinitely loop, even though there isn't anything in RAW to back that up.

I'd like to get back to the points made about the 1IP vs. 4IP defensive masters being equally capable of riposting...I think this is a BIG issue, even for the majority.

[Tarantula]

The 4IP character will have a higher reaction score than the 1IP character, so most likely his defensive pool will last longer than the 1IP characters. Also, he'll gain his actions back sooner, and be able to to take actions again considerably sooner than the 1IP character.

[Tarantula]

Granted, but it still can be ridiculously high. And all you need for a Riposte is a successful defense, which is a failed attack. You don't need hits to Riposte you just need the attacker not to get any.

Wrong. All you need for riposte is a successful block/parry. To block/parry you need to have at least one net hit on your defense roll. If you fail, no block or parry, even if they miss.

[Nightwalker450]

The 4IP character will have a higher reaction score than the 1IP character

Not necessarily, you get some reaction bonuses from more IP's, but that doesn't mean you have higher reaction than the person with 1 IP, there are plenty of ways to boost reaction without boosting IP's

Also, he'll gain his actions back sooner, and be able to to take actions again considerably sooner than the 1IP character.

But none of this matters until combat is done.

[Triggerz]

The "majority" believe that it doesn't make sense for a Finishing Move to infinitely loop, even though there isn't anything in RAW to back that up.

I'd like to get back to the points made about the 1IP vs. 4IP defensive masters being equally capable of riposting...I think this is a BIG issue, even for the majority.

Well, even though RAW doesn't seem to limit borrowing, let's assume we limit it to only one action. Let's assume you have 4 IP. In IP 1, you're attacked before your Action Phase, you use Full Defense as an Interrupt, borrowing your next action (from later in IP 1). Your attacker gets shot by a friend of yours and is slower in IP 2, so you act first. You attack him during your Action Phase in IP 2. Then he attacks you. You are not on Full Defense, but you parry successfully and decide to use Riposte, borrowing your next action (from IP 3). IP 3 comes and your Action Phase comes before that of your opponent, but you cannot do anything because you already used up your action. Then your opponent attacks you and you parry again, and use Riposte again, borrowing your action from IP 4. Then, in IP 4, you cannot attack during your Action Phase because you already used up your action. But your opponent attacks you again, you parry and use Riposte again, borrowing an action from your next IP, i.e. the first IP of the next Combat Turn. Total actions in the Combat Turn for you: Full Defense, Attack, Riposte, Riposte, Riposte, for a total of 5, with one action borrowed from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn.

Now if you only had one IP. In IP 1, you're attacked before your Action Phase, you use Full Defense as an Interrupt, borrowing your next action (from later in IP 1). In IP 2, you're attacked again. You parry successfully and decide to use Riposte, borrowing an action from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn. In IP 3, you are attacked again, but you cannot use Riposte because you already used the action from your next Action Phase. In IP 4, you are attacked again, but you cannot use Riposte because you already used the action from your next Action Phase. Total actions in the Combat Turn for you: Full Defense, Riposte, for a total of 2, with one action borrowed from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn.

Does that make Riposte and Finishing Move worthless? No, I do not think so. There are several times these maneuvers will be useful. For example, if you only have one IP, but you take down your opponent (who has 4 in the example above) during the second IP, then you will not have to face his attacks in IP 3 and IP 4. Same thing with Finishing Move, actually. Also, taking an opponent down earlier sometimes means your opponents will have lower bonuses for "Friends in the Melee", which can help your chances.

If Interrupts are limited to one borrowed action, does it benefit higher-IP characters? Yes, it still does, because you potentially get to act earlier *more times per Combat Turn* than the guy who has a lower number of IPs.

As I said, RAW doesn't seem to limit action-borrowing to only one, but I think the rules work pretty well if you do, so I will be using that in my games, I think. Do with that what you will. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Tarantula]

Now if you only had one IP. In IP 1, you're attacked before your Action Phase, you use Full Defense as an Interrupt, borrowing your next action (from later in IP 1). In IP 2, you're attacked again. You parry successfully and decide to use Riposte, borrowing an action from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn. In IP 3, you are attacked again, but you cannot use Riposte because you already used the action from your next Action Phase. In IP 4, you are attacked again, but you cannot use Riposte because you already used the action from your next Action Phase. Total actions in the Combat Turn for you: Full Defense, Riposte, for a total of 2, with one action borrowed from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn.

Does that make Riposte and Finishing Move worthless?

You didn't have finishing move in there.

CT 1, IP 1, you're attacked, use full defense (spending your action from that IP now).

CT 1, IP 2, you are attacked again, you parry successfully and go to riposte, borrowing an action from IP 1 of CT 2. You hit with your riposte, and go to finishing move, but you can't, because you only allow one borrowed action out. Finishing move is worthless when combined with riposte in your examples.