Opening volleys and combat advantage

[daedel]

Hi all,

I've got the spanish revised corebook of the game and I have a problem with combat advantage. In previous edition it was clear (at least to me) that you rolled for combat advantages AFTER opening volleys were resolved. However in page 166 (and 168) of the spanish corebook it's listed that now you check for combat advantage BEFORE resolving opening volleys, which could allow to add additional dice (if any) to these attacks.

I want to know if a) the rule is changed or b) it's errata in both corebooks or c) the english corebook is right and the spanish one is wrong. The rule gets even more confused when in the extended example of combat, the heroes follow the "old" flow of actions and check for combat advantages AFTER resolving opening volleys.

Can anyone that has revised corebook in english shed some light on this?

[zedturtle]

In English, the same problem is present. Combat advantages comes first, then opening volleys in the rules but it's the other way round in the example. I would consider the rules correct, since opening volleys are an optional thing that might not happen at all.

[evilgaz]

While this won't help you from an official point of view, it might give you another perspective... I tend to do the combat advantage based on what makes narrative sense. e.g. if the fellowship have chance to prepare and get the lay of the land, I'll give them advantage before arrows start flying. If they're surprised or rush to the attack, I go with the opening volleys occuring and then eveyone scrabbling round for whatever advantge they can before the fisticuffs start.

As I say, not helping give you a definitive answer, but its a way of playing the game.

With a more RAW approach, I'd say go with the rules as they were reorganised and rewritten - I imagine the example was cut and paste from the slip case version and slipped through proof-reading still in the "old" format.

[daedel]

With a more RAW approach, I'd say go with the rules as they were reorganised and rewritten - I imagine the example was cut and paste from the slip case version and slipped through proof-reading still in the "old" format.

Makes sense. In the game's spanish forum people is of this same opinion, too. So definitely a change on the old rules, and example needs updating

[Majestic]

Yeah, I think evilgaz's way of doing things makes a lot of sense. I wasn't aware of this discrepency, but even still during our last session I chose to have the preliminary roll for combat advantages occur before the opening volleys (though I did it more for the sake of expedience; I asked them not to use any bonus dice during archery attacks).

My players tend to save those bonus dice for protection tests, anyway, so either way I don't think there'd be a huge impact or change in our games.