Confusion on the Statement of Intent

[kalannar]

Me and my group are new to BRP. We come from DND backgrounds and used to the system where you resolve all actions on your turn, so the statement of intent is new to us. The questions I have is if you declare you are moving towards a creature and attacking, and the creature somehow moves away before you go, do you lose your turn? Or if you declare an attack on a creature and he dies before you attack, do you lose that attack, and have to wait next turn to act?

[RosenMcStern]

For the first question, it depends on whether the creature is running away in fear or just moving tactically. The fact that it is not in the exact spot where you pinned it when it was SoI time does not negate your attack (unless it is a ranged attack and the creature ran behind cover). You should be able to move the extra metres, halve your DEX rank if needed, and then attack. Only if the creature actually moved away from you of a number of metres that would prevent you from reaching and attacking it should your attack be cancelled. But this means the target is effectively fleeing and not willing to engage in melee.

For the second question, the best solution when your action becomes impossible is to use the "Altering intent" rule given on p. 201 for the Strike Rank option. When using DEX ranks, the penlty for changing your mind is 5 ranks and not 3. Thise means that if your DEX rank comes and your foe is down, you may wait an extra 5 DEX ranks and do something else. But do not let your players abuse this "Change of intents" rules: use it only if the original action becomes impossible, or the game will slow down.

[Ram]

You may find the thread on Revised Movement Rules interesting. There is some discussion about how it should work and other ideas on how it could work.

[frogspawner]

We come from DND backgrounds and used to the system where you resolve all actions on your turn, so the statement of intent is new to us.

Actually, I think D&D's initiative mechanism is simpler & quicker. Just keep using that in your BRP, I do with no problem. No need to worry about Statements of Intent then.