One thing I'd suggest for EABA 2 is early on a page describing some of the major changes from EABA 1 as a way of keeping people from going like "Hey, where's the rule for sizing someone up?" that was in v1? You probably have already opted for that and saved it for after the new rules were done, I realize.
BTW, I searched for "Sizing up" and "size up" in the new combat rules sections, inc the advanced melee combat rules, and found no matches. I'm guessing the sizing up rule was dropper because it wasn't feasible to work it into the new time scale. I'm curious if this is the case and I'd reasoned correctly. (If so then the removal of the sizing up rule would be a good entry for the above.)
When giving examples to explain the combat initiative rules, one thing might be to cite the classical movie situation where the cowardly, panicking villain frantically snatches his gun out and fires in panic at the steely eyed, fearless hero only to miss, while the hero draws and fires coolly and calmly, nailing the cowardly villain. That type of thing has been in so many westerns and film noires it's odd that I can't pick out a specific example.
As to some combat rules, I'd recently said I liked the blood loss rules, since they run on a fixed amount of time I was wondering how to work them and some other things into a turn of some length.
One example would be a case where someone will die from blood loss within a couple minutes in a turn of, say 4 minutes. I'd assume if he were able to do so he'd try something like emergency first aid, especially in a setting where advanced tech provided people with neat first aid gadgets. This might be covered by the desperation action rule on 4.7. Likewise if a medic reaches him, say possibly by declaring a desperation action (Would he be allowed to? A medic often has a strong commitment save people. I could see a medic using a desperation action to reach someone who needed immediate help.) and aborting his planned action to instead dash to the badly wounded man's side. I wonder if someone on their side could declare a desperation action to, say, throw a smoke grenade between the wounded man and medic and anyone who might be shooting at them, aborting their planned action to try to save comrades. Desperation actions might be more than just for self preservation.
Another example would be someone who took an attack that did continuing damage, like the acid example on pg 5.4 of EABA v1. If someone takes a hit that does continuing damage each second until it burns out or he possibly finds a way to stop it, I was wondering how it would work. Would he take one attack with a turn mod to the damage? Could he take an action to reduce it by declaring a desperation action to reduce it (Say yanking the bottle off a water cooler to douse himself with water to put out the fire/dilute the acid, maybe reducing the total damage by his turn mod put into fighting it if he could or will there be a new rule for continuous damage coming down the pike?
Obviously in some cases a person couldn't do much or anything about some types of continuous damage attacks and would just take the total damage.
Likewise, I was wondering about a "forfeiture rule" that would allow someone in a crisis that came up unexpectedly in a turn to possibly forfeit some or all of his next turn bonus to commit an action that had to be successful now. The gist is you'd need to use a desperation action to do this and be committed to that action for at least part of next turn, but you get to start an action sooner. I'm not sure about it, but the idea wants to be expressed.
As to the throwing things rule (No, I'm not going to repeat my suggestion for a scatter rule, relax.) I'd say that you might want to establish a minimum weight rule for a two handed throw. I.E. you don't throw a baseball any faster or further with 2 hands than one. The rules say a two handed throw adds to the throw distance "if possible", I'd suggest defining "possible" in this case to keep munchkins from trying to throw grenades two handed for a bonus. I even thought of defining a two handed throw as a "hurl" instead of a throw and maybe giving it a minimum weight based on strength, and possibly a penalty on accuracy to reflect the greater difficulty of using two hands to propel something.
Example: A normal man can throw a baseball better, further and more accurately with one hand than with two. If you wanted to use a bowling ball has a ranged weapon you might be better off hurling it with both hands. It'd be less accurate but since you're not going to hurl it any great distance you'd have less distance mod to deal with.
Things are cooling off a little here, I'm less fatigued by the heat and am trying to really concentrate on the new rules to offer feedback. Hope it's useful and not too finicky.
