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I believe this is a very GM depended area... If the GM oks it, then yeah go for it. But I think as written, it's not really meant to be used like that. There is very distinct combat/non-combat divide with this system. (other than that oddball of a utility known as Maddening Mockery, not sure why they keep that in here...)

Really, the entire thing comes down to DM's discretion, but this is the sentence immediately after the statement about not using utility talents in combat:
If you’re just trying to escape though, or are otherwise trying to avoid further confrontation without harmful engagement (such as trying to use the Element of Kindness to talk someone out of fighting you) - go for it.
So you're Sunderblade idea is totally valid, and I believe that in the first every Pony Tales Campaign, Aspirations of Harmony, the group calmed down an angry griffon they knew so they wouldn't have to beat her into the dust. I think using Loyalty to lift Domination or something similar would be shaky, since you're not actually trying to extricate yourself from the battle, but if your opponent is a fellow PC who's been Brainwashed, Loyalty is an excellent idea.
In summary, any use of utility talents that allows escape from combat (Flying up into the clouds, or even making an athletics check to climb a big fir tree) should be just fine, but anything else isn't necessarily disallowed. You just need to ask your DM if they're okay with it, and don't go abusing stuff like The Rainbow Dash to turn yourself into an equine missile.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote: ...you can use your roleplaying abilities (which include harmony talents) to prevent combat, escape combat or travel to a combat taking place.

Perfect. Great. Wonderful. Thank you, this is exactly what I needed to know, and straight from the horse's mou--

*Is dragged behind a building and violently beaten by the pun police*

Alternatively, maybe this should be added to the main doc? Or is it in there and I've just missed it many, many times? Who knows. I would guess that it isn't in there, because my party has discussed this, and this was not the conclusion we came to.

sunbeam wrote: don't go abusing stuff like The Rainbow Dash to turn yourself into an equine missile.

Seriously, what is up with that utility!? My engineer friend did some math, and 60 MPS is fast enough to reach escape velocity... ON JUPITER! He also said that if you ran into something while going that speed (if you take into consideration the energy it would take to reach that speed) it would be the equivalent of a 2000 lbs bomb going off. Basically this:



I also think he said it was like... 5% of the speed of light... I can't even conceive how fast that is.

It definitely should be in the main doc. I know it's in some official handbook, thought it was in the main (and I saw someone quote it earlier, but now the post seems to have disappeared).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LaHX_aeWrw5643u040zqovePyesWI5KAXgkoHEqDazQ/edit

This is the document I'm using and I believe it is the most up to date Player's Handbook. It includes this paragraph under the Utility Talents heading. The bold part is the part I quoted:

Neither utility talents nor racial features can be used in combat, except in the case of DM discretion. If you’re just trying to escape though, or are otherwise trying to avoid further confrontation without harmful engagement (such as trying to use the Element of Kindness to talk someone out of fighting you) - go for it. Just check with your DM if you’re uncertain.

I think this pretty much has it covered, really. Did it miss anything?

Looks like you nailed it. Thought we'd put that in there, I remembered writing it.

Shruggs

Guess my group just missed it. Whelp, thanks for clearing that up.

No problem, there's a lot of rules to read. Glad we could help clear it up.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:He does have a point. Isn't 60MPS a bit fast?

I did some checking...

For those of you who remember this video, the guy says that Rainbow Dash doing a Sonic Rainboom goes at the speed of 1635.31 meters per second. According to google, that converts into just over 1 mile per second. The Rainbow Dash goes at either 30 miles per second or 60 miles, depending on if you are willing to spend a magic point or not. Google converts those into 48,280.32 meters per second and 96,560.64 meters per second respectively. The video then goes on to say that the Sonic Rainboom is at 11.1Gs, and at a minute at that speed is deadly to humans, and The Rainbow Dash, while lasting only 2 seconds, is about 30 to 60 times faster than that...

So yeah, it's fast, but fun...

Just assume it is/modify it to be some kind of hyperspace jaunt, or 'linear teleportation' or something: there's already been somewhere around a dozen posts to the tune of 'you don't use this talent to ram things' anyway.

Paper Shadow wrote:

Fury of the Tempest wrote:He does have a point. Isn't 60MPS a bit fast?

I did some checking...

For those of you who remember this video, the guy says that Rainbow Dash doing a Sonic Rainboom goes at the speed of 1635.31 meters per second. According to google, that converts into just over 1 mile per second. The Rainbow Dash goes at either 30 miles per second or 60 miles, depending on if you are willing to spend a magic point or not. Google converts those into 48,280.32 meters per second and 96,560.64 meters per second respectively. The video then goes on to say that the Sonic Rainboom is at 11.1Gs, and at a minute at that speed is deadly to humans, and The Rainbow Dash, while lasting only 2 seconds, is about 30 to 60 times faster than that...

So yeah, it's fast, but fun...

Technically “g's” are a measure of acceleration not speed (the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface), and that was an estimate of the acceleration that would come from making a turn with such a tiny turning radius at that speed.

And while 60 miles per second might seem fast to us humans, it's really not. It's a mere 1/3,104.7th c, or about 0.032% of the speed of light. Special relativistic effects show up only in the eighth decimal place. And to get to the Moon (at it average distance) at 60 miles per second would still take you over an hour (about 66 minutes).

Not really. She's impressively fast, but keep in mind the Wonderbolts Academy episode showed that she's not unique in her speed. Plus, there's ALWAYS someone better. Even if your name is Kal-el or Goku. Plus, it's a sprint at its core, not a...Well, marathon. People can push themselves to extreme speeds RD can sustain Sonic Rainboom speeds, and hell, FLUTTERSHY ran RD down. While towing a balloon. And she's noted to be a "weak" flier. So unless you're just pretending the season 2 premiere is non-canon, RD is hardly the fastest thing alive.

So by that logic, we can never be as good (or better) at magic than Twilight, as strong a worker as AJ, as good with animals as Fluttershy, as good a socialite as Rarity, or as good at lifting spirits as Pinkie, just because those happen to be their talents? Since we're pulling the 'she wasn't trying' card, let me remind you of one important facet of her personality: She's a bit of a loafer when it's not all-important, and has a bit of an ego about being the 'fastest there is.' Talent helps, but hard work and actually putting forth effort can get you farther. (See also, Twilight beating her and AJ in the running of the leaves, though I'll freely admit that was likely them screwing themselves over as much as anything.) Also, keep in mind the Mare in the Moon was considered a myth by normal ponies, no one aside from Celestia even knew Discord existed as anything other than a goofy statue, and the Crystal Empire was basically the Atlantis of Equestria. What other myths will be proven true next season, I wonder? Arguing mythical status isn't really a valid arguement in the first place, simply due to advances in magic, tech, and whatever else you want to use.

In addition, if your concern really is 'But RD is fastest pony,' consider this. If I REALLY wanted, I could build a character who, even without relying on the RD, could pretty much run circles around her anyhow. (Specifcally, Derp, Whining, Specialist, Overachiever, Adept CM/Trained Athletics, and an applicable FK pretty much means I only need to roll a 10-15 (Depending on FK applicability) to Rainboom at will, and Adept+Derp+Whining means I'd have a 25% chance of being able to say 'screw physics.' If I REALLY wanted to say 'screw canon, I'ma superhero,' things like Hop Skip&Jump and Awesomeness (And Flying Ace of course) can be factored in to basically mean I can pull it off whenever I feel like it. For bonus points, because Athletics is governed by Brawn, said character would probably also be able to beat Big Mac in an forelimb-wrestling match more often than not, and he seems to be the strongest we've seen canon-wise in sheer brute strength. End result is that for this character, The Rainbow Dash would really just be if I was feeling incredibly lazy and didn't want to bother rolling to fly from one end of Canterlot to the other in less than a minute. So unless you want to argue that everything else is also broken, your point really doesn't hold water when you realize that strictly speaking, the setting that the rules are written for is governed by rules of cool, funny, and drama as opposed to one instance of a pony breaking the visible light spectrum.
(Oh, did I forget to mention her having a mach cone BEFORE the rainboom meant she'd already broken the sound barrier? Because there's that too. This explains the physics-breaking involved.)

...And that ranting aside, MLP is at its core a cartoon. Cartoon physics say the fastest thing alive will be outpaced off-camera if it's important to the plot or just plain funny. Keep in mind she seemed to be full-on sprinting away from Pinkie in Party of One, but Pinkie managed to not only outpace her, but beat her to her destination. Or how Twilight managed to survive things like likely weigh as much as she does or more smashing her over the head repeatedly with nothing but a few casts that were forgotten about by the next scene. Also note that the Sonic Rainboom is, rules-as-written, a CMC or a DC40 check...As I remember, the actual text for DC 40 is "She can pull it off on a good day." Flatly, something she's done two or three times in her life (Maybe more, I'd have to rewatch the series to see if she's done it any more frequently,) usually under a level of duress (Note: The first time we see it in the show is when Rarity is plummeting to her death, and the second is when she's desperate to prove herself with a helping of Destiny Says So,) while a good measure of her maximum potential, isn't indicative of her typical capabilities.

...On a personal note, to me, canon's place is a tabletop RPG in the first place should be a neat little thing off to the side, as opposed to a straightjacket to bind the players. It's part of why I detested 3.5 Forgotten Realms with all of its Mary-Sue NPC's who the player could never be as awesome as even if they tried according to the writers (Note: Elminster, the biggest case of this, was originally meant to be surpassable.) So really, I will freely admit I oppose "Nerf it because canon says no" is a policy that I completely and utterly reject. Plus, if it irks you that much, you can not use it and if/when you PH a campaign of your own, simply say "Nope. Can't use it" in the same way I've seen some people ban Fracture the Fourth Wall, Metagamer, Master of Madness, and the like on these forums.

...I just wrote 4 friggin' paragraphs debating this one thing. OH MY LUNA I AM SUCH A NERD!

TL:DR version: Show canon can take a hike, and the talent's not the only way to utterly show up the rainbow-maned speedster.

to the first about a good third of the utility talents and almost all of the destinies way too many to list here reasonably

as to the second I sincerely doubt that anyone has done a game that perfectly true to the show and has been completely untouched. The thing is you are looking at it all wrong. Equestria is just a setting that is used and interpreted for the purposes of a game where people have fun.

I don't think it makes much sense to argue about the physics involved in a cartoon where a pony can fall hundreds of feet from the clouds and be saved by landing on a clump of butterflies (without hurting any of them or getting hurt in the slightest). Or when applejack can land on a teeter-toter from about 20 feet up and somehow end up launching rainbow dash over the horizon.

Let's not get too bogged with the physics and just enjoy a talent that lets you move really fast.

However, if you want to continue discussing this - you can absolutely make a thread for it. It's just no longer a simple question, so this isn't the place for it anymore.

Then back to the topic of asking those simple questions: When you hit coma in combat... Do you continue to be a target for the rest of combat? As I've read the rules, I believe you are, therefore if you got a good healer, they'll be able to keep a coma PC alive and kicking for a good deal, making it harder for any death to happen. Sure most games you want to avoid combat death, and I understand this system was build to avoid such things. So could there be more details given to what happens if a PC character ends up getting sent into the -15 to -29 range of HP totals... Are they sent 100% out of combat after on their next turn or not? And if not, why?

To Fury:

The player drops to the ground, still very much able to be attacked. Monsters will probably prioritize still-fighting players, but particularly murderous ones might want to finish off their comatose foe once and for all.