...
> The scene (one to be played still and maybe never) involves a major
> patron NPC who is a disciple-level with W3 and W4 in plenty, and who
> uses the DS (TM) in the underworld to maim/escape-from Krarsht
> herself (probably from the inside of her lovely mouth). But in doing
> so he frees himself and the playing heroes at the cost of severely
> weakening his magic permanently (a sort of HQ challenge without the
> benefit of acquired skill).
That is all the rationale you need.
> I needed a rationale that explained how
> he can do it, but probably not a technique to be used by sensible
> player characters.
Are you confusing the game world with the game rules? If you want an NPC to escape from Krasht's mouth, but be weakened in doing so, you can say just that. You don't have to explain or invent game rules that make it possible to do this.
In HW, the only time you ever need rules for a situation is when
In your example,
a) is true (I guess the player characters are in Krasht's mouth too),
b) is possibly not true (if the player characters are not in the W3--W4
range themselves), and
c) is certainly not true (you want the player characters to be alive,
right?).
> Have you any rulesy mechanic that can explain this scene but equally > discourages player heroes from doing that themselves (apart from > saying that it is a secret of a strange cult blah blah etc. etc.)? > > I am open to alternatives (not being convinced of the value of the DS > technique myself)
In fact, you don't need special rules to describe this situation, the normal contest rules will do. Imagine the objective of your NPC was to escape Krasht unharmed, and Krasht had the objective of consuming the NPC forever. Krasht would need a complete victory to consume the NPC forever, since that is a permanent effect, equivalent to death. Any kind of victory by Krasht corresponds to the NPC NOT getting away unharmed (because the NPC had that as their objective, and victory by Krasht means defeat for the NPC). Therefore any kind of victory by Krasht, short of a complete victory, means that the NPC escapes, but is injured in some way, with the degree of victory determining the severity of the wounding. The outcome you want seems to correspond to a major defeat for the NPC.
But what about the fact that the NPC was very close to defeat but then escaped? You could just decide that's the narrative corresponding to the defeat level produced by the rules. Alternatively, the description fits a contest in which the NPC was facing complete defeat, used a Final Action to try and escape, but won only enough APs to reduce the deficit rather than eliminate it entirely.
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