Changing poses

This page covers the rules for 'changing poses', a part of the movement rules. The rules for close combat are here, those for ranged combat here. An overview of the combat rules is here.

The common movement rules apply only to standing characters or at least to characters that move upright. With this optional rule, characters can crouch – or go directly prone.

Each change in pose costs two action points and we distinguish between 3 poses: upright, crouched and prone.
Going from upright to prone costs 4 action points, as does standing up from prone.

The great advantage of changing pose is that one gives the enemy a smaller target. Shoots an enemy with a 75% hit probability (that is, including skill, range factors, possible tunings and all other bonuses and handicaps considered), on a crouching character, his hit probability sinks by a third. For a prone character, it sinks by half.

In this example this would mean either 50% or 38%.

The disadvantage is of course, especially when prone, that the average enemy is more likely to hit the head, since, when looking at the enemy from the front, he only sees the arms and head. If the enemy hits critically, the master decides how the “invisible” body parts are distributed most fitting to head and arms.

Furthermore, crouched characters only move 2cm per action point, prone characters only 1 cm per action point.

Also, characters that aren't in an erect pose, can't parry against close combat attacks.