RE: Re: Terrify enemies with a shout!

From: Silburn, Luke <luke.silburn_at_...>
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:17:47 +0100

>>> his Mimic animal sounds ability. Now he had a rating of 13. The
>>> Broos I had decided before combat were feral and had nothing they
>>> could resist with so it was the attack versus 6. The contest
>>> started with 12 Ap for the player and 6 for the broo. He made a
>>> succesful attack, and then they entered melee, but of course they
>>> had their point totals already in place.
>>
>>You always defend with 14, whether you have a worse skill or not,
>>the natural world comes to your aid. The 6 is only used if you try
>>to use a skill you dont have, ie you are the active player.
>>
>>You have swim 6, you try to swim the river, roll 6 vs 14. The river
>>tries to drown you and you resist with swim, but you always resist
>>with a minimum of 14, ie 14 vs 14.

That seems wrong to me (a stretch from 'absent a better ability, magic is resisted by the natural world at 14'). What is the point (game mechanically speaking) of starting abilities off at 13 if the baseline resistance for the game is 14? Are you proposing that a player who pays a HP for a new ability is actually worse at that ability than if he kept the HP for a bump up and relied on his natural world default? I can envisage a lot of players being pretty unhappy with that deal.

Turning to the 'Dances With Goats' situation Rob described, I wouldn't have ruled the Broo as having nothing worth bringing to the contest. Assuming that Mr Entertainer's intention is (primarily) to use his dazzling footwork to stay out of the clutches of the ravening goatmen and (secondarily) perhaps bemuse and confuse them sufficiently that they give up on him as a bad job I'd have let him use his ability without a penalty (it seems pretty fitted to the declared action after all), but would have opposed it with an ability such as 'Subdue Uncooperative Victim' from the Broo. If, as is likely, they don't have such an ability in their writeup I'd take my guidance from Roderick's comments about keywords being a shorthand for the GM and improvise one from their 'Abhorrent Chaos Rapist' keyword at a -5 penalty or something; given their lifestyle I imagine its a task they have a fair degree of familiarity with, so it should be something they are pretty good at.

So instead of 13 vs 6 its 13 vs ~20 (is that right??? I don't have a Broo write up to hand) and things look pretty hairy for Mr Entertainer and his lovely assistant - if they're lucky or do some nifty side contests they'll have some impressive boasts for when they are next in the meadhall; otherwise... well it'll get pretty ugly, but really what do you expect if you bring a pair of dance pumps to a sword fight???

Regards
Luke

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