Interposing: how does it work?

If my character interposes for an attack, does it happen after the targeted character would be hit? How do I determine how much the new target has failed the check by? Details on how this is actually supposed to work would be greatly appreciated.

Let me see if I understand what the situation is. Do you mean that character A is attacking character B, and character C is inteposing themselves to take the attack on themselves instead? In that case, and if character C has the proper narrative positioning to do this, I'd say that character C is the one rolling to defend against the attack. Simply resolve it as though character C was the target. However, character C may have to spend their next action to accomplish this, depending on the situation, and may have to roll to get the opportunity in the first place. They could of course spend their action beforehand to stand in defense of character B, which could be resolved as creating an advantage. I think it's all down to how you all think it's appropriate to resolve it in that circumstance.

That doesn't really explain what it means in the book though. Regardless, you only get to make one skill roll on your turn in an  exchange, unless you’re defending against someone else’s action—you can  do that as many times as you want. You can even make defend actions on  behalf of others, so long as you fulfill two conditions: it has to be reasonable  for you to interpose yourself between the attack and its target, and you have  to suffer the effects of any failed rolls.

If you still have questions, I guess I need to know what part you think is still unclear. Can you explain what specifically about this is troubling you? You can always defend against someone else's action, even if it's not your turn. If someone attacks you, or otherwise rolls against you, you are always allowed to roll to resist or defend. Defending doesn't require an action on your part, even though you're normally only allowed to take an action that involves a roll once per exchange. In a normal situation, the attacker rolls to attack, and the target of that attack rolls to defend. If someone interposes themselves, that person is the one who rolls to defend instead, and that person is also the one to suffer the effects, i.e. the damage. Example: It's the monster's turn, and it rushes towards Adam, swiping at him with it's claws. Johnny interposes himself between Adam and the monster. It's not Johnny's turn, but the in the narrative it makes sense that he can do this. The monster attacks with Fight and rolls +5. Normally, Adam would defend, but since Johnny interposed himself, he defends with Athletics and rolls +3. The monster rakes Johnny with its claws, and Johnny suffers two sifts of damage. Johnny checks his second physical stress box. Adam takes no stress, this time, and now it's Adam's turn.

Axel said: If you still have questions, I guess I need to know what part you think is still unclear. Can you explain what specifically about this is troubling you? You can always defend against someone else's action, even if it's not your turn. If someone attacks you, or otherwise rolls against you, you are always allowed to roll to resist or defend. Defending doesn't require an action on your part, even though you're normally only allowed to take an action that involves a roll once per exchange. In a normal situation, the attacker rolls to attack, and the target of that attack rolls to defend. If someone interposes themselves, that person is the one who rolls to defend instead, and that person is also the one to suffer the effects, i.e. the damage. Example: It's the monster's turn, and it rushes towards Adam, swiping at him with it's claws. Johnny interposes himself between Adam and the monster. It's not Johnny's turn, but the in the narrative it makes sense that he can do this. The monster attacks with Fight and rolls +5. Normally, Adam would defend, but since Johnny interposed himself, he defends with Athletics and rolls +3. The monster rakes Johnny with its claws, and Johnny suffers two sifts of damage. Johnny checks his second physical stress box. Adam takes no stress, this time, and now it's Adam's turn. Except if Johnny interposes and then defends by avoiding the attack with Athletics, and he successfully evades the attack, doesn't that mean he also wasn't there to block the attack? That doesn't make sense at all to me. My interpretation would have been different. My instinct is instead of having the Interposer roll, the original target still rolls, and after they determine if they would take damage is when the Interposer could come in and take the same damage the original target would have instead, without any roll to defend against it. "and you have to suffer the effects of any failed rolls." This is mostly what causes my interpretation, so I am mostly asking for clarification of if this makes sense, or if I am genuinely interpreting it wrong.

Adran06 said: Except if Johnny interposes and then defends by avoiding the attack with Athletics, and he successfully evades the attack, doesn't that mean he also wasn't there to block the attack? That doesn't make sense at all to me. My interpretation would have been different. My instinct is instead of having the Interposer roll, the original target still rolls, and after they determine if they would take damage is when the Interposer could come in and take the same damage the original target would have instead, without any roll to defend against it. "and you have to suffer the effects of any failed rolls." This is mostly what causes my interpretation, so I am mostly asking for clarification of if this makes sense, or if I am genuinely interpreting it wrong. When the text says "you have to suffer the effects of any failed roll", it referrs to the person rolling the defense. If Johnny in my example successfully defends, then he has successfully defended. I doesn't matter if he used Athletics, or Fight, or any other skill that made sense in the narrative. The results of the roll stand. Perhaps Johnny deflected the attack or distracted the monster sufficiently. Either way, and however you choose to describe it in the fiction, Johnny has successfully defended, and the attack therefore fails to deal any stress to any target. The attack failed to defeat the defense. End of action, the attack has been resolved. You interpretation doesn't seem to take the following part into account from your quote of the book, the beginning of the very same sentence you just mentioned: "You can even make defend actions on  behalf of others " This is the part that you're skipping which may cause your confusion, and this is precicely as I described it in my example. The person interposing themselves is defending against the attack on behalf of the original target, and also suffering the effects if they fail to defend. The person rolling to defend is always the one who will suffer the effects if the roll fails. If the original target is defending, no one else can take that damage after the roll, because they were not the person rolling. Everyone is always allowed to defend against an attack, unless the narrative or a stunt says otherwise, such as in an ambush situation. In the example I used, Johnny MUST be allowed to roll to defend against the attack, because he's the one who will suffer the effects of the failure.

Axel said: ...I doesn't matter if he used Athletics, or Fight, or any other skill that made sense in the narrative... This is not really the truth is it Axel. As you stated in your original reply: Axel said: ...if character C has the proper narrative positioning to do this, I'd say that character C is the one rolling to defend against the attack... about the "interpose", the same is also true when it comes to the outcome of the Roll. Remember that Athletics doesn't mean "avoiding the Attack". A player doesn't just decide to Roll Athletics. The player tells narrative which will at some point trigger an Action, at which point the GM will tell the player what to Roll based on the narrative. So if the narrative is that C first comes between A and B "I'll protect you A!" But when B actually Attacks, C jumps out of the way (player Defends with the appropriate Skill), it depends on how B Attacks whether the fact that C was originally between A and B, will prevent B from hitting A after C jumps out of the way. For example: 1: A and C are normal people and B is a Rhino. B is Attacking A by charging at them, trying to ram right into them with its horn. The fact that C comes between A and B and then jumps out of B's way won't probably help A in any way because narratively B was basically runnung through A in the first place. 2: All three are normal unarmed people. B is about to come and Attack A by punching them. C comes between them. B changes their target to C. C 'dodges' the punches with a battle roll. Narrativelly A was never even attacked. Adran, when you start thinking about questions like "How does X work in Fate", the answer almost always depends on the narrative and often the reason why it is unclear how Fate handles it, is due to the narrative being too vague. Most of the other times it is due to Fate having multiple approaches to the same situation, and it is up to the GM to decide which they feel fits best to that campaign / Scene. Did any of that help at all?

The reason I said that it doesn't matter which skill is used to defend is that mechanically, you can defend with any skill, as long as is makes sense in the narrative, and Maetco is right to point out that Athletics doesn't necessarily mean dodging or avoiding. In the case of interposing oneself between an attacker and his target, I reasoned that if you're trying to do this, it doesn't make any sense for you to then jump out of the way, so I didn't consider that possibility. Maetco is also right to point out that everything in Fate should flow from the narrative. The mechanics of the game are purposefully simple and may sometimes seem vague for this reason. Hopefully, if you interrogate the fiction first, you'll find a way to resolve the action.

Thank you both, it makes a lot more sense now. Maetco hit right on why it wasn't making any sense to me.