The Critical Strike adept power states that its use must be declared before an attack. It doesn't take an additional action, it doesn't require any time to activate. You just have to say "I'm going to hit him using critical strike." Does anyone have a GM that would actually screw them out of their critical strike power because they forgot to declare its use?

As a gm, I might. I have the power and the players are my prawns! (insert evil laugh here). If we made it clear that every attack they made was going to utilize critical strike or any of the other "declare" powers, then no, I wouldn't force them to. I've played with gms that have and would require it just because it says so in the rules and it didn't diminish the fun we had. Prolly just depends on the individual running the game.

I think it should only come up if you have multiple "declare" powers that are mutually exclusive; in that case your number of hits on the attack might let you pick the best power in hindsight (which would be naughty.) If there's no reason NOT to use the declare power, I'd expect it to always be in use.

I had a guy that was a rules lawyer. So out of Spite I made him declare it. You want to quote rules at me then I'm gonna use them right back. He only quoted the rules when they were to his advantage too. So yes It was spiteful but tell me he didn't deserve it and I'll go and apologize to him.

The sad thing is that he would whine about it when he forgot to say he was using it and I call him on it. What a baby. He doesn't play with us anymore...Felt my style of GMing was too fast and loose. I guess you can say that, If the rules get in the way of a good story or action sequence then I tend to throw them out or modify them for the scene.

"Declare use" powers are some of the worst, especially Dodge in That Other Game with the Two D's. "I declare dodge on you, I declare my dodge on you, I declare my dodge on you...and now you, you, you, and you over there, and yes, you too."

Now, I used to have a guy I played with who was really good at declaring dodges during combat, but in general, powers like this are despised by players, unless there's some kind of trade off where if you don't use it, you can't retroactively apply it after the dice fall (like Power Attack). Critical Strike though is just "you might as well always use it" kind of thing, but the option to "turn it off as needed" so you don't accidentally brain someone you don't mean to.

Exactly. But it's an adept power. And you can turn any of those off pretty much any time you want.

Well, to be fair, you had to declare your Dodge target because you only got one Dodge target. It wasn't a matter of "I turn on Dodge," it was a matter of "Which of the current bad guys being thrown at us in the current fight do I want to be trying the hardest not to get hit by?"

But, yeah. As far as Critical Strike goes, I can't think of any good reason not to assume a character's using it unless they say otherwise; which is unfortunately the polar opposite of the rules as written.

True. However there are times when declaring your dodge is easy to forget and there's only one viable target.

There are plenty of GMs that enjoy screwing their players. I am not one of them, but to answer your question, yes, I do know a few that would require the declaration.

I do agree with some of the above observations. These types of powers or features, in any game, are just somewhat annoying. I know in DnD 4e, players have the option when reducing a monster down to zero to either kill or knock out. Now, with some groups, they will always want to kill. Others, may always want to subdue. So, neither group has to declare anything once a precedent is set and everyone is cool with it.

But, the first time someone deviates from that precedent and forgets to declare, well, then there is a potential for an issue. At my table, if it was an honest mistake, I let it go and make the change. I might even, knowing that it might be better for the group, make special mention of it, just to throw the decision out there and avoid causing an issue later. If it happens too many times, then I may ask for them to declare it each time.

Although, as I mentioned above, some GMs are just anal retentive and if twist up their players words and actions to "beat" them.

Sadly, there are plenty of GMs out there who see the player as 'the Enemy'. After a while, you can quickly pick out players who have played in these games.

Not my preferred method. I've always run it as a "tell me the norm, then don't fail to mention deviations". I'll also remind them if their mission parameters say 'take alive' with a 'Are you sure?'

I personally plan on not using it most of the time, no neeed to go all Fist of the North Star on the average mundane. If its something you want to be considered "always on" then thats something to deal with the GM on.

The fact is that players cheat. They will happily 'forget' or 'remember' things as they prefer. Being clear about declaring options is the solution to this. That may well mean *declaring* that you'll always use Critical Strike unless you 'undeclare' it, as people have explained above. The point is to keep the players and the GM from sneaky play.

Oh Lord, you had to mention that atrocity. The memories, the memories.

I have a simple policy: Trust my players until they give me a reason to not be trusted. It works wonderfully.

See, and I find that being clear on everything works wonderfully.

You can be both.

What always worked for my group in D&D for those who wasted a perfectly good feat on Dodge (which really is terribly comparatively) was to declare your Dodge target as "the first person who attempts to strike me in combat". Because really, if there are 5 targets and you are quick on your feet you're more likely to just be trying to dodge whomever strikes at you first unless one target is exceptionally more dangerous.

But I digress. Most of those powers should be considered to be on unless the player states otherwise. Now, if they forget to turn off killing hands and critical strike and want to knock someone out... too bad, so sad.

Yeah, I do a lot of 'assume I'm doing X unless I say otherwise' and keep a list of that, it makes things much easier.

Might be the wise course of action there. You should not accept rules mongering against each other, neither giving or receiving.

World's Largest Dungeon we "wrote up" a list of "standard operating proceedure" which after a particularly nasty trap that we didn't find because "it was on the ceiling" we added that to list.

It never came up again.

Other things on the list included traveling only 10 feet per round, searching (individual) ever single 5 foot square of floor and wall with "take 10s." Rogue out in front, remainder of party 30 feet behind, cart and dog of loot 30 feet behind that.

And that if the clay golem went crazy everyone was to "run like hell" and "hope something else kills it."

He didn't deserve it, you should go and apologize. Cruelty is for children, grow up.

I ask my players to declare that sort of thing but don't normally penalize them if they forget. It's mostly just a "decision" thing. For instance, my NPC might react differently to someone throwing a seemingly normal looking punch at him vs. a flaming punch or a nerve strike. Not a huge issue most of the time though.

That said, there are just some things that a player NEEDS to say they are using ahead of time and can't assume is on all the time, unless they've specifically said they intend to use it all the time. Thinks like UWBR, that can see through walls but is also detectable. It irks me a bit if a player tells me they had it on the whole time in the middle of a run, and that's why they acted on knowledge they shouldn't have had, etc, when that means my defenses that may have included scanning for it would have gone off... basically rewriting everything that should have happened up to that point. It's a little unrealistic to expect the GM to remember all the powers and abilities and items of all their players, so players need to declare certain things before it's use, otherwise it can really throw off the realism of a scenario.

I'm lenient, but I'm not a pushover. If the player honestly forgot to mention it, I'd let it slide and let him declare it later...but I'd also reserve the right to completely back up to the point of where it would've been declared and change my actions as if he had declared it in advance. If it was a repeated mistake, I'd probably start finding creative ways of punishing him for the omission.

Honestly, I'd probably mess with it if they were drunk or high in character.

As a GM, if I can see where ambiguity may cause a problem, I'll ask in advance what equipment the group is carrying and what powers they're activating. This is particularly important in stealth operations where "everything on" can be a beacon. I take the initiative to prevent arguments later.

That said, if a player does backtrack because they forgot something obvious, I'd likely allow it, provided it doesn't change history. The players are busy dealing with a world expressed through words rather than hot-sim, so there's bound to be things that are missed and forgotten.

Yes. It always pays to know what the players are going in with: fairly common but good practice.

Generally speaking, if someone's worth my melee-oriented Adept hitting, it's worth that melee-oriented Adept hitting really, really, hard. He doesn't hit unless he has to, and when he does, he means it. The times that he won't be out to really screw someone up with a punch are the exceptions, not the rules, so for me the default would be always on, and I'll remark on the rare instance he's not out to lay someone out with one attack roll.

*shrugs*

Your mileage (obviously) varies.

We had an unarmed melee adept in the group; he had critical strike at 5. It was assumed that he always used it, because when he hit someone the point was to put someone down. The real issue was what type of damage to do; Stun or Physical. That depended on the context of the fight.

You mean like this?

As for the original question, I'm not going to make people declare things like critical strike which they will generally always be using. Instead I'll require them to declare when they aren't using it. If there is mutually exclusive stuff going on, then they get to pick what their character 'usually' does, and I'll go with that unless they declare different before they even roll their dice.

This. I mean, you don't require people to declare they're using their smartlink when they fire a gun? It's assumed people do, unless there's a good reason not to.

Hehehehe, that's a good one.

thats a jackass not a rules lawyer. I quote rules at GMs especially when it will hurt me.


ps quoting rules to keep a GM from not hurting your char I have found to really infuriate some GMs.

Funny... yeah, in my old game, our GM just had us declare whenever we use a power/ability that was "always on", to specifically tell him when we "turned it off". As for stuff like Dodge (which was target specific), it was up to the player to state the target. I would think Critical Attack power is one of those "always on" things that doesn't need to be declared.

How about the Krav Maga thing of always "Call a SHot then Aim" thing? If they are both free actions, should the person using it just say "I'm always Call and Aiming" in all my shots?

You only get one Free action, generally. I guess you could Call, Aim, and use 1 Simple in the same Phase. That's why it's important to be clear what you're doing.

I thought Krav Maga made Call and Aim Free actions, and people had 2 free actions plus 1 simple per turn?

No, it's 1 Free plus (2 Simple or 1 Complex). You can use a Simple for a Free, though, AFAIK? (Doublechecking the book: yes.)

Incidentally, Krav Maga does not make Called Shots a Free action; they're already a Free action.

You could do that, but it is generally 1 free and 2 simple. While you may always turn a simple action into a free one, there are few cases where aim + call shot + fire will be better than call shot + fire + fire a second time to finish the bastard

Unless you have one of the best adept powers in the game: Multitasking, but that isn't going to apply in the Krav Maga situation, since you only get that bonus when not in direct combat.

I guess I have a different perspective on the auto-declared ability thing. Critical Strike is one example, but what I find much more common is cyberware (especially cyberware with multiple modes like vison mods) or commlink modes or things like that. There is a reason that previous editions included things like the Reflex Trigger and why it costs an action (Free action, but an action none the less) to change cyberware modes.

In some cases allowing "auto-on" for things takes an element of tactical thinking out of the game. If you allow auto-on abilities, your players will either a.) never be caught unprepared or b.) argue with you whenever they are because "Of course my thermographic vision is on! I walk around 24 hours a day with it on!". At some point you have to draw a line. For my game I decided it was easier to assume everything was off unless they declare otherwise. Its not about being a dick GM, its about making them think about things and decide what is optimal for their situation.

This is true, especially for the increased reflexes things. For the cyberware stuff that isn't going to be always on or you'll feel like your days will drag on forever. Every minute will be those last five minutes before school/work lets out. And the fact is that most people forget that it takes that full first combat turn to kick in for IPs, so anyone using something like that would only get 1 IP for the first round of combat. Now, if you're talking about mid-run, then yeah, everyone will have their reaction boosters on full tilt, heck, even in a J meet or something alot of people will have them on 'just in case' but they're unlikely to have them on while driving to get a soycaf.

As for the visions, those I could see always having on because of the way the tech works. I see no reason that a person with thermo vision in their glasses wouldn't have it on 24/7, especially since it would simply overlay their normal vision, instead of replacing it entirely.

Actually I have one who does have it on all the time- I just play her as if shes always tweaking (which was actually true for the first half of the game, when she was on the chemical boosters, then later it switched to adept power)

Well, trolls and dwarves have their thermographic vision always-on too, so it's not so unusual really. Ultrasound-assisted vision shouldn't be a problem either. But as a GM you might bump against things like UWB yeah.

If they would see better with thermo in that situation, i think it's pretty dickish to say "You didn't say that you turn your thermo on so your not getting it".
I atleast assume my character is using what ever lets her see best, becouse who the hell walks around in pitch black if they dont have to.

I'm not saying that I don't assume a character in a dark room will turn on his lowlight vision. That would be dickish. I'm more so referring to situations like detecting someone in a chameleon suit with thermo in broad daylight, for example. Obviously if you have natural LL or thermo it's always on, but if you have the option to turn it off (as with cyber) then no, I don't think people would walk around using it all the time. It would be destracting.

And to reiterate my point in a slightly different way- it's not the GMs job to keep track of what abilities the character has on or off or auto-on or whatever. The player should declare such things.

It really depends. If your Joe Average then maybe you would turn off thermo in that case, but why really? It is just an overlay, it isn't like it is going to mess up your vision in the middle of the day or anything. If however you are a professional criminal who does illegal things for a living then I would expect thermo to be on 24/7 to minimize the chance of an ambush by cops, corps, or other criminals.


It's not so hard. For stuff like critical strike it isn't even an issue because the player goes "Okay, I hit him for 36P damage with my punch." and you can figure out that critical strike was involved. For things like thermo/LL... well, someone is bound to have them, and if you need to you can always ask "What kinds of vision does your character have?"

Indeed: at this point, enhanced vision is a seamless augmentation, part of how you experience life. Even for Joe Average, perhaps. Radar may not be, yet, but anything that fits in your cybereyes could well be.

Well I guess all you have to do to win SR is buy the right gear and assume its always working. <Yawn>

… Duh.

I like my 'seamless augmented reality norm' better, though.

As a GM I tell the players I cheat, and that I am cheating often.

I liked your other explanation better as well.

It beats the hell out of playing "HA HA HA, you didn't say you looked UP!".

There's nothing fun about requiring players to recite legalistic boilerplate for common actions.