Active defense

[Agent 333]

Ah, I guess that means Yielding or escaping are your big options when in danger then, eh? Not a bad concept, and I'll probably emphasize that before I try anything else.

Naw, you do it Vin style: If someone is about to kill you, kill them first. Duh.

[ilfolo]

I might just not get it, but what happens to your defense dice if you are attacked with an attribute or standing other than the one you picked for your attack?
meaning: Do you pick defense dice against a wits or charm attack from your physique attack dice?
Or do you have to ignore that type of attack?

[Stubbazubba]

My understanding is that Defence is more or less Attribute-less, it just represents the concentration you are splitting from your declared Action into defending against whatever it is comes your way.  Put another way, when Defense Dice come from a physical attack, that doesn't mean that it represents a physical defense, it just means that you're splitting your concentration between your physical attack and defending, whether that be physically, mentally, or socially.

I could be wrong, but that was my impression from my read-through.

[ReaderAt2046]

I might just not get it, but what happens to your defense dice if you are attacked with an attribute or standing other than the one you picked for your attack?
meaning: Do you pick defense dice against a wits or charm attack from your physique attack dice? Sure. That might represent whacking at somebody and distracitng them from their presentation, for example.
Or do you have to ignore that type of attack?

[Skywalker]

I might just not get it, but what happens to your defense dice if you are attacked with an attribute or standing other than the one you picked for your attack?

Nothing. You use Defence Dice as normal. As others have said, its not meant to represent any specific type of defence, just how much ability you have to deal with threat of whatever nature.

If you want a reason for it being tied to an Attribute, think about it like this. A Skilled Swordsman is more likely to be calm and collected when in a fight if someone starts yelling insults at him, because of his skill and experience in what he's doing. However, an orator may be scared witless and be unable to respond to those insults at all.

[ilfolo]

Thanks for those answers and I already felt exactly the same way till the thought came up that you might have declared an action which leaves you with less action dice from the start than you would have defense dice in the attribute or standing used by your attacker.
For example: A calm and collected orator trying with very little skill (physique) to stick a knife into somebody might be very easily insulted since he's got none of his wits or spirit which might be considerably higher to fall back on.
The argument in favour of that could be that he is so intent on what he's trying to do that he looses some of his skill in what he can normally do.