Do "mini-holds" exist?

[Alex319]

Suppose that Alice throws a spell and hits Bob, and Bob doesn't hear what Alice said and so has to ask "What was that?" or something similar. This happens a lot in large field battles where it is very noisy because everyone is saying their calls. Something similar can happen if, let's say , Alice throws a spell at Bob's back while Bob is turned, and Bob doesn't feel the spell and Alice needs to tell him that it hit.

The question is: in such a situation (assuming no Hold is called), while Alice and Bob are trying to resolve what happened, are Alice and Bob still considered "in-game" and thus legal targets for someone else? How about if while Alice and Bob are talking, Alice uses the opportunity to catch Bob by surprise by throwing another spell?

If the answer is that in this case, Alice and Bob are *not* legal targets (i.e. they are in a "mini-hold"), then what is necessary for Alice and Bob to do to communicate this fact to other players around them? Similarly, if Alice is not allowed to catch Bob by surprise in this way, what does Alice need to do to confirm that "the discussion about what happened is over, we're back in game now?)

 

[norman b]

Typically someone will hold their hand over their head for a clarification. It's a signal that they and the person they are talking to are out of game to do a clarification. As an outsider, it is curious to give them time to resolve it. Typically someone involved will call "3. 2. 1. Lay on" just so those around can know they are back in game.

Short answer: Yes. But I don't think it's officially in the rule book

 

[Alkalin3]

We try super hard to avoid that in our region. Most of our marshals on both the pc and npc level are instructed to keep combat smooth. Naturally people don't hear spells/skills that don't hit them. It happens. We like to resolve this after the fact, it often involves letting the player take back their skills. That way there isn't a ton of hey did you get that, hey you can't hit me I'm in a hold, etc.

That kind of stuff always turns out messy in combat. We've found it easier to fix the errors after the fact.

 

[Inaryn]

We've got a local mechanic we use that was co-opted from our sister game: Clarify. It involves a very obvious, silly pose that one person makes, the person it's being made at does back, and they resolve the issue. Great for resolving "what does that do?" type questions. Both players are considered in game still, but not available targets while they're resolving the issue. Just takes observing some gentlemanly behavior from everyone to work.

 

[Avaran]

Short answer: These do not exist as a mechanic or rule in the ARB.

 

[mikestrauss]

The gentleman's agreement at HQ is generally something along the lines of:

If someone is asking a question like "What just hit me?" or "Was that 14 Magic or 40 Magic? (PLEASE be the first)" then others nearby don't target the questioner or the respondent.

The rule of thumb at HQ is if that questioning takes more than about 2 seconds, call a hold (because apparently there is a lot more to discuss than you both originally realized).

-MS

 

[Lurin]

Mini-hold is not a rule.

"Good Sportsmanship" is. If someone is trying to clarify what an out of game call was, we in the midwest expect that people will not abuse the situation and so far it's worked out great to keep things running smoothly with a minimum of holds.

We also discourage chain casting if the goal is to overwhelm the npc's ability to respond (although we plan ahead and will often send out a second marshal to call defensive if needed for those special occasions.)

(I'm sure I'm not the only one that gets frustrated when big PC cards and big NPC cards call multiple holds in the same battle to go over the Bane/Bane/Reflect/Reflect/Cloak x 6 etc.)

Short Answer

Good Sportsmanship is going to be applied/enforced/encouraged differently in each region/chapter so it's always good to check with your local staffers.