Entangle and Barrier

[StarRaven]

So, Character A has a weapon with Entangle (it is a large chain, no magical abilities.) Character B has Barrier, and plenty of endurance. Character A attacks Character B, using an entangle attack and rolls higher than Character B. (4 points higher, for the record.) Can Character B burn endurance to avoid being entangled?

Barrier's rules text states, "If your opponent's attack still connects, you may burn endurance to 'buy off' damage on a one for one basis." - since Entangle does no damage ("Any successful attack entangles, but no damage is dealt."), would Character B be entangled, even if he/she wanted to burn endurance to avoid it? Barrier also says, "With enough endurance, you could theoretically nullify any attack!"

How would it work? The last line of Entangle's rules text also says, "Players and Game Masters should use common sense in any scenario." My common sense tells me that someone with a barrier up could not be entangled as long as they have the endurance to keep it going, but there's a lot of fighting going on over it, so I'd like to hear some other opinions.


BACKGROUND: (Because it occurred to me that I should give some, heh...) Character A's weapon is basically a long chain with dagger-like weapons at each end. It has Entangle, for obvious reasons.

Character B is the "boss" of a fight. She has 20 Health, 50 Endurance, and is controlling a bunch of goblin flunkies (extras, clumsy-1, dumb-2, weak-willed-3, there are 17 of them left because the battle has barely started... they are doing basically no damage to the characters, who are fairly high level, and are being picked off with ease.)

There are 6 characters fighting these goblins and the controlling sorceress (most of them decided to attack the sorceress, meaning that even with 50 endurance, her barrier would only be able to survive for two or three rounds, because I thought it would be best if she couldn't control the goblins and keep the barrier up, which would have required her to concentrate on that.)

On his first turn, Character A decides to use an Entangle attack on sorceress, who has been attacked only once prior and has 45 endurance left. She fails the defense roll (her 8 to his 12) and I rule that she can still buy off points because she has plenty of endurance. (To be honest, my plan was basically that the group would have to fight her minions until they were all gone or her barrier was broken, and then they could fight her.) Also, it was absolutely not a sneak attack. He stood right in front of her and basically announced his attack (I won't let you have your way," he says to the woman. "Evil has no place in this world!" Suddenly, throwing all thought of defense to the winds, Character A gives a great swing of his chain, trying to wrap it around the woman.), which was a Kamikaze Strike to boot.

The player of Character A, complained for a few turns after I made my ruling, then demanded that I take it back or he would walk out. I didn't take it back, so he argued, and one of the other players (a good player who is somewhat new to the game) got sick of it and left. At that point, I told him that when he started making other players leave, it was time to put a stop to it (he has a long history of arguing everything with the GM) and told him to leave and come back when he was ready to follow my rules.

I want to know if I was justified, not only in throwing him out (I know that was justified - he'd been warned for several games prior), but also in making the ruling I did.

Your thoughts?

[Father of Dragons]

I would have ruled the same way -- I can not imagine that entangle attacks were supposed to privileged in anyway that makes them harder to defend against.

[Tubercular Ox]

I'm giving the nonanswer. I'm pretty sure that you've defined the Barrier as extending beyond the body and not providing any grip (the obvious answer), so yes, the barrier must block the entangle.

OVA's pretty flexible though. I can see someone putting points in Barrier in order to simulate a skin tight shield that withstands damage but gives enough grip to entangle the person inside. Like, say, some sort of high tech energy kevlar that runs off an Endurance Reserve. It can't be pierced as long as there's power, but you can wrap it up tight and hold the person inside.

I'll always vote with the GM, though.

[StarRaven]

I'm giving the nonanswer. I'm pretty sure that you've defined the Barrier as extending beyond the body and not providing any grip (the obvious answer), so yes, the barrier must block the entangle.

OVA's pretty flexible though. I can see someone putting points in Barrier in order to simulate a skin tight shield that withstands damage but gives enough grip to entangle the person inside. Like, say, some sort of high tech energy kevlar that runs off an Endurance Reserve. It can't be pierced as long as there's power, but you can wrap it up tight and hold the person inside.

I'll always vote with the GM, though.

Ah, yes, I see what you mean. The barrier was described as a "bubble," though, rather than a skin-tight shield.

Thanks for your replies.

[Clay]

Tubercular Ox comes closest to the official answer: a rather unsatisfying "It depends"

OVA is very open to interpretation, and fully embraces off the cuff answers like "Sure, you can light the curtain on fire with your energy blast" and such things not necessarily explicitly stated by the power itself. As such, whether a barrier can resist an entangle depends largely on what exactly the barrier is. And for that matter, what the ENTANGLE is.

Common sense should prevail, and in the end, it's the GM's choice. Any player who reacts like this (especially considering it wasn't exactly a life-or-death decision on the character's part; it sounds like the boss was about to get her rear end handed to her anyway) deserves to be ruled against regardless.

...but if I were to buck all the "OVA is open!" commentary, I would lean to yes, you can spend Endurance to "dodge" an entangle. It does lead to another question however. Since an entangle attack technically does no damage, what exactly are you buying off?

For simplicity's sake, I'd just slap a 5 Endurance cost to it, or just buy off the margin of failure on a one-for-one basis, but it is a pretty big hole in the rules to deal with. I will definitely give it some more consideration.

[StarRaven]

...but if I were to buck all the "OVA is open!" commentary, I would lean to yes, you can spend Endurance to "dodge" an entangle. It does lead to another question however. Since an entangle attack technically does no damage, what exactly are you buying off?

For simplicity's sake, I'd just slap a 5 Endurance cost to it, or just buy off the margin of failure on a one-for-one basis, but it is a pretty big hole in the rules to deal with. I will definitely give it some more consideration.

Here's how I did it: I bought off all the damage the attack would have done if it wasn't for the entangle, thinking the rules text for entangle said, "If this attack would do damage, the target is entangled instead," rather than, "If the attack hits, it does no damage and the opponent is entangled." (Probably because I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering and there's a lot of wording like that in there.) Rewording Entangle's text like that might fix the "hole in the rules?"


Also, thanks a lot for your quick response! I really appreciate it.

[Erinak]

Tubercular Ox comes closest to the official answer: a rather unsatisfying "It depends"

OVA is very open to interpretation, and fully embraces off the cuff answers like "Sure, you can light the curtain on fire with your energy blast" and such things not necessarily explicitly stated by the power itself. As such, whether a barrier can resist an entangle depends largely on what exactly the barrier is. And for that matter, what the ENTANGLE is.

Being open versatile system is great - but rules open to interpretation may not be so great. Not to say they have to be rigid or cover every contingency but have enough framework that people can agree on its meaning.

I used to HATE Warhammer (still do) because the rules then were so ambiguous they were interpreted differently between players leading to more arguments (ahem I mean debates) over what the ruling should be than actually playing!

In this case I would go with the letter of both abilities - the entangle prevents movement as it wraps around the barrier (I don't think you can move or do anything else with a barrier on anyway) and gives the entangled DV 0 - but it says nothing about breaking barriers so the sorceress could buy off damage with endurance (though that may not last long if her DV is 0). Then...next round the goblins, seeing their mistress in trouble, all gang on the entangler, who sounds like he did a kamikaze that gave him DV 0. Even against weak goblins that should sting. >: )

Entangle was pretty powerful perk though in my opinion - maybe revised will revise it - like not giving DV 0 or a downside to the entangler like they can't do anything else while maintaining it.

[Clay]

There's been a few other complaints about "Defense = 0" Abilities being too powerful, and I'm certainly giving it a look. I'll also think about working on an official ruling to this situation. Just off the top of my head, I would lean to the opponent can buy off damage to AVOID an entangle. (ie. the initial attack roll.) But once the defender chooses not to buy off all damage, the character is ACTUALLY entangled and may no longer choose to do so until the entangle is broken.