p.9 "Murderous Precision – change the Tier I and Tier Viabilities as follows.
Tier I: Once per Scene, when performing any attack from ambush or when you catch an opponent by surprise or off guard,"

The term off guard is too vague. Which if any of the following conditions would trigger the opportunity:
1. Opponent is granting tactical edge
2. Opponent is stunned
3. Opponent is blind
4. Opponent has already been hit with Distracting Blow
5. Opponent has already been hit with an Unbalancing Attack
6. Opponent has already been hit with Force the Opening
7. Opponent is being hit with Between the Seems
8. Others?

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I believe that the intent was "Attack from stealth." I could be wrong.

The only way I can think of to attack from Stealth once a combat has already started is with the "One With the Shadows" Talent. The frequency at which PCs will be in a position to Ambush / Surprise and close to Melee and then still attack with Murderous Precision is really low. I have a hard time believing that as you've described it, the conditions will come into play 1 / mod much less 1 / scene.

You'd have to Ambush / Surprise, beat the opponent's initiative and likely Charge or *maybe* lunge to cover the distance to target to make use of the ability. That's an incredibly high hurdle to get over given that PCs typically start at the edge of the board and the opponents are in the center or far end.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Not only from stealth, an unexpected attack from an ally, or someone who you do not perceive as a threat would be able to take advantage of the talent.

For example, if an "ally", a man you had been working with for several adventures, came to shake your had and suddenly punched you.. he would be able to take advantage of Murderous Precision.

I will review the wording and clarify

So far I'm looking at expanding it as follows

My thoughts on M.P.

I would broadly agree with Paul that this is too restrictive in a shared world campaign. The number of times you get to approach a target seemingly as a friend are even lower than the times you get to attack from ambush. And so far playing thirtyish mods the only real ambush I remember setting against opponents was in Cache...maybe also Caradyxx Rising. That would really suck to have a talent you'll use once an arc. Maybe different choices by the parties I played in would have created/forced more opportunities ... but still a talent you get to use once every 5-10 mods seems too restrictive to me. (Hope you didn't waste it on a minion...)

OTOH I am certainly happy to dial M.P. back from where it is now. It is one of the most powerful talents in the game and essentially has no few limitations on gacking people.

I would not recommend that MP be allowed to be used just because you were granting Tactical Edge or got hit with an unbalancing attack. I do think its reasonable that you could use MP on someone who was stunned or blinded.

Finally if you are still concerned that the conditions of using MP is too easy you might think about banning its use while under recovery.

Two other quick questions/notes:
One, hat does this talent do to PCs who are hit with it? I assume they eat an extra (In) from the attack.
Two. What do you mean by (In)? I assume you mean the Insight die rather than a flat score equal to your Insight value.

I haven't spent a lot of time reviewing stat blocks so I'm not sure what the ration typically is between minion, common, elite and adversary. If used on a minion it's a waste. If used on an elite or adversary it expends the use and does between 2 and 5 extra points of damage. It's not always possible to tell in advance what qualifies as what. Slaying a single common creature while speeding up combat some I doubt significantly reduces the overall threat. That said, I don't have a problem dialing it back some. Here are a few ideas:

1. Clarify "creature" to be Natural Beast or Vermin. This dramatically reduces the possible number of opponents that can be affected, leaving a lot of encounters without an appropriate target.
2. Require a successful Melee: Study Opponent or Exploit Weakness roll in order to make use of the ability, allowing for a ranged strike to default for the skill in this specific case.
3. Allow the effect of MP (damaged increased by Insight die) to be done regardless of whether attacking from surprise etc. This would make it useful in more combats, but still limit the regular killing blows without more setup.



I wasn't seriously suggesting TE being sufficient more pointing out the ambiguities in "off-guard"



I think that could be reasonable depending on how you're able to set up the attack. If you need the Tier 3 Blinding Strike Martial Technique to be able to do this on your own, then waiting out the recovery guarantees that the target will no longer be effective.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I don't mind someone "setting up" their own kill shot.. it's an extra move you are utilizing and your target is not helpless...

and not all rules are designed with a living campaign in mind, the talent (as I edited it above) still covers a few situations... team mates can set up the Stunned or Blinded condition, you can still attack from stealth, and I can think of two adventures where you could have attacked an unaware target.

and while I like the use of Melee: Study Opponent or Exploit Weakness, it may be beyond the scope of errata..

attempting to avoid complete re-writes...

changing Creature to natural beast

As written MP is limited to humanoids. Not sure where the talk of creatures comes from.

The idea of about not being able to use it in recovery was just a thought if people are trying to dial it back. I personaly don't think its necessary, but its a restriction I could live with. Not sure where people are coming from. I have a PC with it so am invested on this point. While MP is hit or miss if I can use it, sometimes it is VERY powerful.

I've played at tables where two or three PCs have it and at that point the party can be a hot knife going through butter. Somewhat infamously following the questionable actions of some templars, our party cleared out 3 of 4 cyclopses in the first two ticks of one encounter (during what should have been the modules big fight.) When multiple people have it, MP can have a huge impact.

As at least written in the book, it's humanoid minion or common creature. Looking at Pedro's revised rules, common creature isn't in there. Sorry for the confusion.

Another way to limit the effectiveness and leave it closer at least to as is would be to exempt Brutes or similar sort of similar sub-types. So even if you could eliminate a common humanoid, you'd only do (In) in bonus damage against a Common Brute.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

eric i think the talk comes from the orginal wording of the talent...

am i understanding right, that one of the issues is what type of foe can be targeted with this talent? if so my i propose that instead of eliminating what you can target you make it more story/build driven. leave it as you can only target humanoids but also add the option to expand on what can be targeted, via something like the hunter talent or some other way to say you have specialized training in hunting and killing other types of creatures. this way in the end it does not overly limit what can be killed (because most if not everything can die from a well placed shot) and also give players the opportunity to make their pc unique

i know that it may be to late for this errta and probely not the right forum for it, but since paul brought up one with the shadows, i thought i might make another suggestion. with the release of the obsidian order and their association with the church of cadic and fondness of shadows, at some point could ranged attacks be included into possible attacks that would allow one to make a hide check. its my personal opinion that it would be easier for a guy 30' away to duck beyond the tree and hide then the guy standing right beside me who just put his sword through my gut