Movement into Reach

Mutant Chronicles
1

Hello!
I have a question regarding Movement into reach: In a case when both enemy and PC are on the same zone, do you need the restricted action Movement to get into melee (Reach) or the Free action Adjust Stance is enough?
Thanks in advance!

2

Page 129 “Movement” in the core book:

With the Movement Restricted Action, a character can move anywhere within his current zone (such as to enter Reach of another creature in that zone), or move to an adjacent zone so long as there is no difficulty in moving between those zones (see terrain, below).

So the Restricted Action “Movement” is necessary.

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3

Yes, that is was I thought but in the Free QuickStart Guide, pag. 12:

… A character can move within reach of a target as part of any movement action that ends in the same zone as the target…

That’s the reason I was asking : )

4

I would say, that the actual core rules book supersedes any quickstart rules.
Quickstart rules are often condensed and simplified. So their normative weight is in my view less than the actual rules book.

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5

I think you’re right. Thank you very much for the quick reply

6

Hello again!
Yesterday was my first session with the MC3 rules and was great, but the movement problem rise again, so:
1.- I read in other 2d20 system books that you can only do one movement action per turn (but can go into reach with anyone). Anyone is using this rule? (I don’t know if there is a FAQ for MC3)
2.- I know that you can enter Reach with a Restricted action, and with the Standard Sprint too?
3.- One player can do a Sprint move 2 zones, then enter into Reach as Restricted, spent a Chronicle Point, and make a close combat attack (at D2), isn’t a bit exaggerated? (I have a player that doesn’t like guns so he is only wielding a Claymore but that doesn’t matter if you roll 2+7d)

Also just to be sure we understood the rules of the opposed skill test in combat:
1.- Player A attacks NPC that try to dodge: a tie means that the Player hit, right?
2.- Player A defends against an NPC attack, a tie is resolved in favor of player as per the rulebook, right?

Thanks in advance!

7

In MC3 movement and move into Reach is handled differently from later 2d20 RPGs.
In MC3 you must use a Restricted Action to enter Reach or to leave Reach (if you do that, your opponent might get his single Response Action to make a Retaliate strike against you; to avoid that, you must use the Withdraw Standard Action or the Withdraw 1 Momentum spend).

The movement actions in MC3 Adjust Stance (move anywhere within the same zone), Movement (move to an adjacent zone, OR move into Reach of an opponent) and Sprint (move two zones distance (raising the Difficulty to be hit by ranged combat by +1D, raising the Difficulty to hit someone else - if there is somehow another Standard Action available - by +1D, too). But you can use all of these in your very same turn.

In more recent 2d20 games, you can move within your zone AND enter Reach as a Free Action, move into an adjacent zone AND enter Reach as a Restricted (or now called Minor) Action, and move two zones distance AND enter Reach as a Standard Action. But you only ever get to make a SINGLE movement Action during your turn, even if you buy another Standard Action for Momentum or Fortune or Infinity points (the equivalent of Chronicle points). - That is quite different from the way MC3 handles this.

I only know of this one here: MC3 Errata List.

No. That is one of the differences to the later versions of 2d20. You can only enter or leave Reach by using a Restricted Action of Movement - at least according to the rules as written.

No, perfectly fine. The actual attack requires a second Standard Action. There are only so many ways how to achieve that:

  • spending 2 Momentum for a Swift Attack, but this would raise the Difficulty another +1D to a total of D3.
  • spending a Chronicle point for a second Standard Action, but in the case of doing that after a Sprint action, it raises the Difficulty by +1D to a total of D2.
  • having access and having successfully cast the Art of Light spell “Swiftness” (a VERY powerful, I might say quite overpowered, spell).
  • other means I don’t remember right now.

All of these require some significant spending of resources, rare ones in the case of Chronicle points, or having successfully performed a spellcasting previous to the Sprint and Attack actions.
So, I find this not the least bit exaggerated. It is a good way of giving a close combat expert a fighting chance in a shootout, and it requires resources, so it is all quite in the balance.

In MC3 ties are always resolved in favor of the player character. (In Conan the GM could spend 1 Doom to break the tie in favor of the NPC, which is usually considered a “duck” move (spelling intentionally wrong to wreak havoc on the automated speech hygiene function of the forum) by most players, because it is one.)

Yes, see above. In MC3 ties are always resolved in favor of the player characters.

And to add this, because this is different in the later versions too: You always only compare Momentum, never the number of successes. So if Player A had made his defense action at D1, it could well be that due to circumstances the actual attack was made at D2 or even higher. You determine the generated Momentum on the player character’s side and on the attacker’s side and compare that.
If there is a tie in the Momentum or if the player character generated more Momentum, the player character succeeds.

And now the difference: Whoever succeeds in such an opposed roll gets to KEEP ALL the Momentum that the winner generated!
In Conan you compare the Momentum and the winner gets to keep only the difference.
Example (Conan): Attacker generated 2 Momentum, defending PC generated 3 Momentum, the PC gets to keep the difference of 1 Momentum (for Momentum spends like Withdraw or other uses or to put into the Group Momentum Pool).
Example (MC3): Attacker generated 2 Momentum, defending PC generated 3 Momentum, the PC gets to keep all 3 Momentum generated for his use.

That can lead to PCs having A LOT of Momentum available, because many Talents give Bonus Momentum. So if you roll an opposed skill test with a Talent at Rank 3 giving 3 Bonus Momentum, then you often not only succeed such an opposed test, but you get to keep a lot of Momentum out of this test.

This gets a bit restricted by Mutant Chronicles allowing only a single Response Action per Character and turn, so that you need to decide before you make any roll, whether you want to defend against an attack as soon as you have been identified as targeted by an attack. Suffering several attacks during the same round makes for a very short character lifespan. So you need to decide which one to defend, and which of the others to “take”. And that even before any dice were rolled, so you never know whether the attack you chose to defend against, might have failed anyway.

This is very different in later 2d20 games where you get to make as many Reactions as you like, each one generating one point of GM resource more than the last.

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8

Thank you very much, all clear now : )

9

Thanks for the errata link!