Basic Question re Death Rolls

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mgdavey
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Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by mgdavey »

I've played this rule set about 6 or 7 times so far and it's not clear to me exactly what events call for a BG to take a Death Roll. Can anybody tell me?

Thanks,
Mike
pyruse
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by pyruse »

mgdavey wrote:I've played this rule set about 6 or 7 times so far and it's not clear to me exactly what events call for a BG to take a Death Roll. Can anybody tell me?

Thanks,
Mike
Taking hits, either from shooting or hand to hand combat.
If you roll <= the number of hits you took, remove a base.
If you take hits from non-firearm shooting, you add 2.
If you won or drew your combat, add 2
If you are a two base battle group, add 1

This is such a basic part of the rules that I'm a bit puzzled how you could play 6 or 7 games without understanding it. It is quite well explained in the rules.
mgdavey
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by mgdavey »

Can you tell me where in the rules this is explained? Not the procedure for taking death rolls, but the conditions that cause them. There is an example, and between that and the wording of the test its not clear that all shooting hits necessarily cause death rolls.
ravenflight
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by ravenflight »

pyruse wrote:If you won or drew your combat, add 2
Just to clarrify, if you won or drew in MELEE you add 2. There are no winners or losers in ranged combat. You could conceivably get hit 7 times by bowfire and only deal out 1 hit back and you still add 2.
pyruse
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by pyruse »

mgdavey wrote:Can you tell me where in the rules this is explained? Not the procedure for taking death rolls, but the conditions that cause them. There is an example, and between that and the wording of the test its not clear that all shooting hits necessarily cause death rolls.
Well, looking at the first 3 index entries for 'Death roll'
Page 116 makes it clear that you take one whenever you take hits from shooting or melee
Page 128 gives the exact sequence
Page 149 gives the mechanism (and again says that this applies to shooting and combat); the table gives details, the text gives all the different circumstances (shot at by firearms, by non-firearms, losing a melee, winning or drawing a melee).
grahambriggs
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by grahambriggs »

mgdavey wrote:Can you tell me where in the rules this is explained? Not the procedure for taking death rolls, but the conditions that cause them. There is an example, and between that and the wording of the test its not clear that all shooting hits necessarily cause death rolls.
The detailed sequence of play is the best place to refer to as to when you need a death roll.

You are correct in that shooting does not always cause a death roll. The best way to think of it though is that "it always causes a test, but some you automatically pass so don't bother to roll the dice"

For example, if you are shot at by bows only, you get a +2 on your death roll die. So, if your battle group of horse take three hits from bows shooting at them you will lose a base if you roll a 1 (as 1+2 does not exceed the number of hits so you lose a base). But if the bows only do two hits, well your die doesn't have a zero so any number you roll, +2, will exceed the two hits. Because you can't lose a base, you don't bother to roll for base losses (but you might need a cohesion test).
RonanTheLibrarian
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by RonanTheLibrarian »

Damn, I was hoping this thread would include advice on how not to throw 1s......
"No plan survives the first contact with the dice."

"There is something wrong with our bloody dice today!"
grahambriggs
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Re: Basic Question re Death Rolls

Post by grahambriggs »

RonanTheLibrarian wrote:Damn, I was hoping this thread would include advice on how not to throw 1s......
I suspect the answer is expect to throw them about 1 time in 6 and don't adopt a plan that has "it'll be fine as long as I don't throw a 1" in it anywhere
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