[Sorcerer] the big fight: questions

Ron Edwards · February 19, 2014, 07:17:16 PM

I wouldn't worry about that one too much. Interpreting a simple command action as a sudden oppositional simplification within an otherwise orthogonal conflict isn't entirely out of bounds, as I see it. At least retroactively, you can say it "broke" nothing.

Moreno R. · February 25, 2014, 02:31:21 PM

This week I avoided thinking so much about the preparation of the game session (it used really too much time for it the last weeks...), now I have the session in 1 hour... and I am finding new things I am not sure about...

Ah, well, I will post the question, in any case the answer will be useful next time....

1) Alessandro's old demon, Slaneesh, is currently bound to Selene. So at this time Selene has both a parasite demon that give her (among other things) the "fast" ability, and this object demon that can confer her the power to "confuse" a target simply by looking at him.

Thinking about how this would change her combat tactics, I was thinking that now she can confuse two targets with a single action (and a single roll), when suddenly I remembered that the examples I have found in the book of "fast" acting this way were always with powers given by the same demon or with the sorcerer's abilities (even if augmented with a cover given by the demon). But in this case we have a sorceress that is using a power given by another demon, with a different "source" of power and stamina. I can see her moving more quickly and being able to "look" at two targets with a single game action, but can the power work in half the time? Or it's still "slow" like the demon that is conferring it?

This evening I will probably have "fast" work even on that confuse, but I not sure I am following the rules in this case...

2) About the same combination of "fast" and "confuse": the demon with "fast" has a lower power than the demon with "confuse", so even if I use them together, I roll the normal number of dice for the "confuse", with no different-color added dice: the only effect of the "fast" in this case is the "can do a little bit more in the fiction" effect, right?

3) The "fast" effect is always working for Selene (the parasite demon stamina limit the number of times she can use it, not the availability). Let's say that the parasite demon boost her will to allow her to give orders even on high-power demons like Igriph. So we have the parasite demon's roll to give the boost, and the Sorcerer roll to give the order (the demon is obviously hoping to give the boost before the sorcerer give the order, and it has good chances to be able to do so, having power more than double the will of the sorcerer). The "fast" bonus dice apply to both of these rolls, or only the roll of the sorcerer? The demon can choose to "limit" the number of dice it's giving to the sorceress for a certain roll? And doing so it's an action by itself so it can't do any other action that round, or not?

4) If the parasite demon boost Selene's will to more than double her initial value, she should be confused, but Vitality can negate that effect. Only, the demon that is giving her "vitality" is at Pow 1 as an effect of the boost. The "Vitality" protection apply even in this case?

Moreno R. · February 25, 2014, 03:11:38 PM

To help give the context for the previous questions, and to check if I am not violating the rules elsewhere, this is the Selene character and her parasite demon:

Selene
stamina   4   Chemically heightened
will   4   rageful and vengeful
lore   2   solitary adept
cover   4   student
price   Cynical    (-1 humanity rolls)
humanity   0

Her demon, Abaddon:
Demon type:   parasite (blood)   Binding Strenght: +4 per the demon
stamina 10
will   11
lore    10
power   11
Desire   Sensual gratification
Need:   the sorcerer must cause strong emotions in people around just for the demon's enjoyment (if the sorcerer has other motivations, it doesn't count)


Abilities:
Armor   conferred to Selene (in fiction: fast regeneration)
Vitality   to Selene. the regeneration continue even after the fight.
Protection   Fire
Cloak   on itself
Fast
Special Damage: rot attack
Boost   Will
Boost   Stamina
Taint   at touch, take control of the victims using the victim's base desires and the demon's suggestions.
Cover   the sorcerer can use a lot of martial arts and fighting styles.

I wanted Selene to be very, very hard to kill. She is fast, can boost stamina and regenerate even killing damage totally (the armor + vitality cover more than the amount of damage that would kill her, and vitality counts as having always medical help). Even using fire has little effect, having protection from fire.

I didn't give her long-range special attacks because she has her demon assassin, the possessor, for that. But if she has to fight, bare-handed or with mundane weapons, she is inhumanly skilled (cover: fighter at 11...)

The special attack is simply that her touch dissolve nonliving matter and rot living matter. When the demon activate that power, her skin secrete a powerful acid-like substance over all her body (apart from the feet). And now I have a question about this attacks, too.

When I gave her that power, my reasoning was that I wanted her to dangerous even to touch (and the weapons used to attack her being damaged from the contact). But what happen when she is attacked?

If she attack someone, it's simple: she rolls the attack as any other special attack. But when someone hit her?

I am thinking about using the damage inflicted to her (before applying the armor) as a kind of attack on the weapon used (or the character who touched her), but is is not as giving her two attacks in the same round? (it could be said that the special attack is really the demon's action, but this means that the demon can't do anything apart this in the round?).

Ron Edwards · February 25, 2014, 07:32:57 PM

Hi,

First, with all that unbelievable combat nastiness, why does Selene keep running away from fights?

About the damage power you have described, the best way to do this is to define it as an area attack, applicable only to those in the area who touch her during that combat round. It's a single roll - you can also invoke the Fast to designate targets that she makes sure are touching her (i.e. she hits them).

So she rolls the Special Damage as her action. It becomes effective on her turn in the sequence. Immediately, the individual(s) she has designated as actually hitting are attacked. Also, the people who have touched her previously during this round are targets too. (See what I did there?)

People who hit her after that are not attacked by the ability. There is no reliable "electric eel" "shock shield" power in Sorcerer.

My logic should apply: what you are trying to do is something which hurts people who touch her. I've made that the priority.

If you really want more of a "shock shield," in addition to doing the same thing to people she hits, then you'll need two abilities, one under her control for hitting, and the other under the demon's control as a reactive attack much like the one I just described.

Moreno R. · February 25, 2014, 09:05:26 PM

Hi Ron! Thanks for the reply, did you see the question before these, too? (the post is http://indie-rpgs.com/adept/index.php?topic=280.msg2583#msg2583 )

Quote from: Ron Edwards on February 25, 2014, 07:32:57 PM
First, with all that unbelievable combat nastiness, why does Selene keep running away from fights?

Because she value her life. And fighting against two powerful demon and two sorcerer at the same time is a risk she don't want to take. (not when she has a demon that can kill her enemies without any risk for her)

When I created her demons, I was torn between different considerations: your advice in the annotations is to avoid having NPC sorcerers, but Selene was directly named in a character's kicker. More than that: it was implied in the kicker that she would try to summon a demon so terrible that her more knowledgeable parner-in-crime (Isabella) refused even to continue studying how to contact it.

For a while, I thought about having that demon being one of the demons of other two players characters (both at Power 13), it did seem overkill to have another demon so powerful that even the people who summon POW 13 demons were scared of it. So, Selene as not-yet-a-sorcerer wanna-be, but one of the other demons as a conspirator-in-disguise with a hidden agenda.

Thinking a little more about that, I recognized all that like another effect of bad habits, and I didn't want to have the kickers tied too much together: hangout games have a high rate of players dropping out, and in any case the players at the time of these deliberations still had not even finished reading the manual, I was not even sure they would have like the game. I wanted to be able to play even with one player dropping out or missing a session, and I wanted to follow as much as I could the letter of the kickers, verbatim, without meddling too much.

So, I limited my "demon depopulation" measures to having some demon having a part in different kickers (having in that manner avoided the creation of a different demon) but not in the same "plan": for example, the demon who did resurrect Antonio's son and the demon who did teach Selene and the demon who is monitoring Isabella trying to have her resurrect her mother are the same one, a demonic house bound to Isabella's mother, protected by a contain, that was waiting for Isabella to find it, but passed the time during that waiting satisfying its desire contacting people online (the demon house has a modern internet connection, and it's... infesting a lot of forums and newsgroups). The house is in all three stories, but each one could disappear completely and the house's role in the other two would not be diminished (and having the PC visit the same place at the time of their own choosing was a great idea that did allow them to meet or avoid each others, as they wished)

This did leave me a problem, though: what manner of demon was Abaddon, to scare people who summon and bind Pow 13 demons? I didn't want to go over these numbers, so I went instead for horror and personal violation: this demon go inside you, it removes parts of you so that you risk dying if it ever leave you, it "taints" people turning them into cruel puppets and it shows as a snake or worm moving under your skin. (and, even if it probably will never come up in play: it taints its host, too, any time it wants, to push her to do more despicable acts and summon more demons)

That amount of invulnerability is not there to kill PC, but to add to that sense of horror and body violation: she can be hacked, slashed, burned, but she still goes at you. If you hack her in pieces they start to crawl together again. In play is not so difficult to avoid this happening - all you need to do is to do so much damage to the pieces to overcame even that vitality, or simply banishing the demon with a ritual over the pieces. But think of the scene if they do "kill" her, simply to see her stand up again, and again, and again...
(the telltale has two function: to cause revulsion in players when I first describe it, and to trick them into "searching for the serpent" in her body if they defeat her: there is no serpent, the parasite is her blood. The serpent is an illusion caused by the way her "blood" moves. So if they search for it and they don't find it, in the body... where it's gone?)

Someone would wonder why Selene would bind an horror like this, and this is why I added that "control people" taint, too: Selene was Isabella sidekick, is the weaker one: now she is strong and can command people into doing her will...

...but she is still scared of personal confrontation with powerful people (and bullies. And Igriph as I said some post before, is a bully...). She will fight personally only when cornered.

Quote
About the damage power you have described, the best way to do this is to define it as an area attack, applicable only to those in the area who touch her during that combat round. It's a single roll - you can also invoke the Fast to designate targets that she makes sure are touching her (i.e. she hits them).

So she rolls the Special Damage as her action. It becomes effective on her turn in the sequence. Immediately, the individual(s) she has designated as actually hitting are attacked. Also, the people who have touched her previously during this round are targets too. (See what I did there?)

Yes. And I was thinking... if it's possible to target the people who did touch Selene in this round... it's possible to target all the people (or objects) that touched her in the PREVIOUS round, or even in the previous X rounds, from the time the secretions started?

This would solve the "people who attack her before or after are treated differently" problem, with the added bonus of having the power act a little more like a corrosive substance, that takes time to do damage (and could be scraped off)

Quote
If you really want more of a "shock shield," in addition to doing the same thing to people she hits, then you'll need two abilities, one under her control for hitting, and the other under the demon's control as a reactive attack much like the one I just described.

For "reactive attack" you mean an action?

Because I thought another thing [a DIFFERENT way to define that power, not the one I asked about before): if the demon is doing another action as an attack, could it use this ability for a DEFEND roll is Selene (and him) is attacked?

What I mean is: let's say that someone attacks Selene with a weapon that require contact. Even if she is doing something using fast and the demon's warrior cover, the demon can still put itself into "total defense" mode secreting acid?

A concrete example of what I am saying

Adam attack Selene with a sword. Selene try to stab him with a knife, using the demonic cover "fighter: 11" and "fast". Abaddon goes into total defense protecting itself with acid.

Abaddon goes first, being on total defense it doesn't attack anyone, Adam goes second, Selene decide to defend with a single die, she loses the roll, but Abaddon total defense still beat his roll, the weapon melts without doing any serious damage.

It seems "wrong" to call that a total defense, seeing that it damages weapons, but still... it doesn't do nothing if someone don't attack,

Maybe it's a defense, but not "total", so it doesn't get the 2 dice bonus, but can it works by the rules?

Ron Edwards · February 25, 2014, 10:41:01 PM

Quote1) ... But in this case we have a sorceress that is using a power given by another demon, with a different "source" of power and stamina. I can see her moving more quickly and being able to "look" at two targets with a single game action, but can the power work in half the time? Or it's still "slow" like the demon that is conferring it?

If Selene is the user of both Fast and the other power she is using, in this case Confuse, then Fast can be
used with/upon the other power.

Quote2) About the same combination of "fast" and "confuse": the demon with "fast" has a lower power than the demon with "confuse", so even if I use them together, I roll the normal number of dice for the "confuse", with no different-color added dice: the only effect of the "fast" in this case is the "can do a little bit more in the fiction" effect, right?

Yes. Except that you are confusing me again; the way you state it here sounds as if the demon with Fast is the user. Perhaps you should review the "user" concept before proceeding.

Quote3) The "fast" effect is always working for Selene (the parasite demon stamina limit the number of times she can use it, not the availability). Let's say that the parasite demon boost her will to allow her to give orders even on high-power demons like Igriph. So we have the parasite demon's roll to give the boost, and the Sorcerer roll to give the order (the demon is obviously hoping to give the boost before the sorcerer give the order, and it has good chances to be able to do so, having power more than double the will of the sorcerer). The "fast" bonus dice apply to both of these rolls, or only the roll of the sorcerer? The demon can choose to "limit" the number of dice it's giving to the sorceress for a certain roll? And doing so it's an action by itself so it can't do any other action that round, or not?

You have confused me so badly I don't know what to tell you. You seem very confused about who "owns" an ability, and the rule is that only one character uses it, and that distinction is set in the ability's definition. Or more accurately, either the demon is the user, so only the demon ever uses it; or someone else is the user, and the demon can designate who that person is at any time, or withhold the use, but it cannot ever use the ability itself.

Quote4) If the parasite demon boost Selene's will to more than double her initial value, she should be confused, but Vitality can negate that effect. Only, the demon that is giving her "vitality" is at Pow 1 as an effect of the boost. The "Vitality" protection apply even in this case?

Vitality 1 is sufficient. Yet another reason why this ability is so good.

Ron Edwards · February 25, 2014, 10:49:35 PM

I think your continued wrestling with the desired ability is based on the user confusion, so maybe we need to work with that first.

Moreno R. · February 26, 2014, 01:34:25 AM

Reading again my questions, I think the confusion is caused by possessor or parasite demons... in their case there is the problem of the target, too.. who is protected by the protection? The Sorcerer? The Demon? Both? the other kinds are easier...

With this exception: link. Can both the Sorcerer and the Demon use it? The text on the game manual seems to imply that this is the case, that both can start the communication, but then, talking about demon powers in general it says that the user is only one and it has to be defined... "link" is an exception, or to allow true two-ways communication it has to be taken 2 times?

Then, taking Selene and her demon apart, bit by bit, ability by ability...

- Fast: this is always active. Selene decide to use it simply deciding to run (and at that time it start to fatigue the demon), but starting to use it it's not an added action, she simply do her action... fast. So, it's enough to say that Selene is the user?
The target: is the demon fast, like Selene? Or she is considered the user and only her rolls have added dice?

- Armor Always active. Being in her case a fast regenerative ability, the "activation" is simply... being wounded. Each time that regeneration works, it causes the demon fatigue. There is no actual thought involved in the use of that power, from the demon or Selene. Who is the user?
The demon is armored (regenerates) too?

- Vitality: Like Armor above: fictionally it's the long-term effect of the same regenerative ability (the demon can "cure" lasting damage equal to his Power, then the regeneration finally stop). The questions are the same, the parasite has Vitality, too?
During play, Selene used this ability to cure Alessandro: the parasite temporarily did leave her (not totally, she would be dead: only in part and for a very limited time) taking him as host, and using vitality to cure him, and then returning to Selene's body. But the description says specifically that "the user" is cured...

- Protection (from Fire). The same questions as with Armor and Vitality: the protection is always active, if the user is protected... does this mean that the demon has no protection?

- Cloak: this is simpler, I think: The demon is the user, the cloak is to allow Selene to go around people without having people around her screaming in horror seeing her skin move... fictionally, is a simple "the demon keep his telltale hidden under the dress, and it can even suppress it - by not moving, or moving very little - for a little time".

- Boost the demon is always the user, and it's a voluntary action to use the power, so these are simpler: the demon decide when to boost and who, and it's always an action. I have still one doubt, though: can Abaddon boost Stamina and Will at the same time? And they are both boosted by the demon's power value, or one of the two is boosted only by 1?

- Cover: like for Fast, Selene always has that knowledge: she is the user, but to "activate" it she only need to fight.

- Taint: the demon is the user. It can use the taint even against Selene's wishes, or even on Selene herself (at this time it has no affect on Selene anymore, she is already at 0 humanity, but it was useful at the beginning...). When Isabella and Selene did meet at the restaurant, Selene was not attacking Isabelle when she wanted to shake hands. But the demon would have used the taint anyway. Selene knows that it's the demon that is making all these people around her so accommodating and responsive, but she don't care.

- Special attack: well, this one is a mess, I don't think it's doing what I wanted it do do (see the previous posts for the desired effect and questions about how to obtain it...

Ron Edwards · February 26, 2014, 03:56:08 PM

QUICK FIX
You're right about the penalty vanishing into thin air. All it takes is a single combat round, whether the character acts or not. I confused myself by thinking about rollover bonuses, which is a different topic. So everything you said about that was correct.

VERY IMPORTANT
I suggest classifying abilities a little more precisely along these lines: Protection, Armor, Fast, Vitality, and similar abilities do not have targets. The user benefits from using them, and that is all. Do not confuse conferring with targeting. I think this idea will solve many of your confusions quickly.

Nothing about parasitizing changes the rules. If a parasite confers Protection upon its host, then it does not itself receive Protection. Remember, "confer" is not targeting; this means the host has Protection that the host uses at will, not that the demon is "casting" Protection "upon" the host.

What if a person hosting a parasite demon is hit by (e.g.) fire, and the demon confers Protection vs. fire upon the host? Does the fire attack hurt the unprotected demon? The answer is no. A parasite demon can only be hurt by direct targeting, which is possibly only by a sorcerer who knows it's there and has managed to "spot" it using Lore. If such a sorcerer were to attack the demon directly using fire, it would be unprotected, but I hope you can see that is a case that takes some effort and perhaps analysis beyond merely spotting, by the sorcerer.

Since parasites can only confer abilities (except for Boost), this is their Achilles' heel. They are quite vulnerable to direct attack by such characters. Otherwise they are nicely encased in their host.

Possession, on the other hand, does alter the picture a little. The demon isn't merely inside the body, it has become the body's primary mind; the host body is its body. Its abilities confer to itself, and so for possessors, that means the host's body is indeed protected by such things as Armor and Protection, along with the demon. When the demon is injured, it is fair to consider the host's body injured too, and to save brain-melting, I suggest merely treating the host's body as similarly injured, rather than counting on your fingers to figure out the exact values. In other words, the host won't be killed by damage unless the demon is.

SELENE

I think most of the confusion is cleared up by my points above.

Quotelink. Can both the Sorcerer and the Demon use it? The text on the game manual seems to imply that this is the case, that both can start the communication, but then, talking about demon powers in general it says that the user is only one and it has to be defined... "link" is an exception, or to allow true two-ways communication it has to be taken 2 times?

Either demon or sorcerer is always the user for Link, meaning who says "I'm using it now." I think every time I've seen it in play, the user has been the sorcerer. But the effect of Link is two-way perception. So the meaning of "user" is mainly about who controls its operation. In the most boring use of Link, this isn't very consequential. But the choice does matter, sooner or later. If the sorcerer is the user, and is using it, then the demon cannot turn it off except in the most extreme way (circuit-breaking), and if the demon is the user and is using it, then the sorcerer cannot turn it off.

Quote- Boost ... can Abaddon boost Stamina and Will at the same time? And they are both boosted by the demon's power value, or one of the two is boosted only by 1?

Answering in reverse order, one of the Boosts should be designated "first," so the other one only provides +1. With this in mind, two nigh-simultaneous Boosts are permissible by the rules, but if they are defined that way, then they always have to be used together. And my God, the demon would be utterly fried after that, to the extent of being in dire Need, penalties and all.

Best, Ron

Moreno R. · February 27, 2014, 03:40:58 PM

Thanks! After these clarifications, this is Selene:

Selene
stamina 4 Chemically heightened
will 4 rageful and vengeful
lore 2 solitary adept
cover 4 student
price Cynical (-1 humanity rolls)
humanity 0

Her demon, Abaddon:
Demon type: parasite (blood) Binding Strenght: +4 per the demon
stamina 10
will 11
lore 10
power 11
Desire Sensual gratification
Need: the sorcerer must cause strong emotions in people around just for the demon's enjoyment (if the sorcerer has other motivations, it doesn't count)

- Abilities that Selene can use (she is the user) and are always active:
Armor (fast regeneration)
Vitality (the regeneration continue even after the fight)
Protection (from Fire)
Fast
Cover the sorcerer can use a lot of martial arts and fighting styles.

- Abilities that Selene can use (she is the user) but require an action:
Special Damage: rot attack (she can dissolve nonliving matter and cause rot to living matter with a touch of her hand)

- Abilities that Abaddon can use (It's the user) and are always active:
Cloak (the telltale is not obvious if the demon doesn't want to show itself)

- Abilities that Abaddon can use (It's the user) but require an action:
Boost Will (alone)
Boost Stamina (alone)
Taint (target: people who just touched Selene) take control of the victims.

I have made some changes: the "acid" ability didn't do what I wanted, and thinking about it, I didn't like it very much. Luckily Selene still has not used it during the game. I changed the special attack turning it into a kind of attack she can do only with her hands.

For the effect of "even touching her is dangerous", I changed a little the "Taint" ability. I changed the area of effect from "people she is touching right now", that required too much coordination between the taint and touching someone, into "people who have touched Selene in the last few seconds (a single round). Now it works like an infection: in the action round following the one where the touch happened the demon can "activate" the traces left on the victims skin by the touch trying to taint them. I the demon don't activate them right in the next round, these traces disappear.

Question 1: it's possible to target "all people who touched Selene in the last round"? (and possibly the ones who already did it this round)?

The second Demon, Peter:

Demone:   Peter   possessor   Binding Strenght +2 selene
stamina   6
will   7
lore   6
power   7
telltale   cold eyes
Desire   Mayem
Need:   Bood

Abilities that are always active:
Cloak (it's very difficult to see, bot inside or outside a host)
Cover    (see question below)

Abilities used together when changing host:
Hop
Range
perception   (the stamina of available hosts in range)
- the range of these abilities cover more than a city block, Peter can travel very fast jumping from body to body.

- Others
Link : I thought that Selene was the user, but this thread reminded me that the user must be the possessor, so it's Peter that can open communication, not Selene (Selene can still command him to go to her at any time, though, by the rules).

Question 2: In the manual it's written that the possessor can use Cover to mimic the host abilities, but how it works? The demon can have a Cover "mimic host" and another kind of cover ("cover: spy" for example) or one cover can do both, or it can have only the first kind of cover?

The third demon, Alessandro's old demon, Slaneesh:

Demon:   Slaneesh   (Object)   Binding Strenght: (I still have to roll: you would roll or choose a binding strength?)
stamina   12
will   13
lore   12
power   13
telltale   the leather cover feels kinda hot and soft, like warm skin
Desire   Sensual Gratification
Need   to eat lustful memories
description   A moleskin diary

Abilities:

Slaneesh bestows these powers to its Master:
cover   Seductive (13)
cover    Salesman (13)
Perception   enhanced: body-language (+13)
Perception   weird: your secret lust (+13)
confusion
Hint

Slanees uses these powers only on its own physical form (the diary) :
travel   teleport
perception: where to teleport
armor   hard to break
cloak   unassuming, difficult to notice
link   It's the book that decide "when to call"
Warp    (only self, to be light or heavy, bigger or smaller, to write and erase its handwritten contents, to disguise or otherwise alter its cover, etc)

Question 3: see the note above on "binding strength": you choose a number or you roll for NPCs?

Question 4: how do you use Hint in practice during the game when used by NPCs? Making all the rolls seems overly complicated, but deciding that the NPC know the facts that I want her to know seems too convenient.

Question 5; what happen when 2 demons give a (different) cover at the same time? The abilities are in effect at the same time, the strongest cancel the other, or the user (the Sorcerer) decide which one to use case by case?

Question 6: If the sorcerer has multiple applicable covers, can roll support rolls for every cover? How it works in practice, every cover is rolled separately (so even if the last one fail, the sorcerer still get bonus dice for the first ones) or as a chain of support rolls, each omne getting the victories from the previous one, and if the last one fail, the sorcerer gets no bonus dice?

Ron Edwards · February 27, 2014, 04:00:37 PM

Hi Moreno,

QuoteQuestion 1: it's possible to target "all people who touched Selene in the last round"? (and possibly the ones who already did it this round)?

Sure. A bit unusual but not rules-breaking.

QuoteQuestion 2: In the manual it's written that the possessor can use Cover to mimic the host abilities, but how it works? The demon can have a Cover "mimic host" and another kind of cover ("cover: spy" for example) or one cover can do both, or it can have only the first kind of cover?

The demon can have a Cover "mimic host" and another kind of cover ("cover: spy" for example). That's exactly how to do it.

QuoteQuestion 3: see the note above on "binding strength": you choose a number or you roll for NPCs?

Yet another reason not to use NPC sorcerers ...

I roll for the NPCs, a simple score vs. Will roll and work from there. Rather than tracking or changing the value, I typically keep it as is, but think in terms of the demon's current loyalty.

QuoteQuestion 4: how do you use Hint in practice during the game when used by NPCs? Making all the rolls seems overly complicated, but deciding that the NPC know the facts that I want her to know seems too convenient.

I'm not sure I've ever done that. I imagine that I might go through the rolls to see whether the NPC succeeds and whether he or she is damaged by the experience.

QuoteQuestion 5; what happen when 2 demons give a (different) cover at the same time? The abilities are in effect at the same time, the strongest cancel the other, or the user (the Sorcerer) decide which one to use case by case?

OK, hold on. If and only if the user is the sorcerer, for both abilities, then he or she can choose which Cover will apply at any given time. Otherwise, the demon(s) decide(s), which could be quite interesting.

QuoteQuestion 6: If the sorcerer has multiple applicable covers, can roll support rolls for every cover? How it works in practice, every cover is rolled separately (so even if the last one fail, the sorcerer still get bonus dice for the first ones) or as a chain of support rolls, each omne getting the victories from the previous one, and if the last one fail, the sorcerer gets no bonus dice?

OK, that's cuckoo. You have to give me a better and more specific example.

Best, Ron

Moreno R. · February 27, 2014, 04:31:49 PM

Quote from: Ron Edwards on February 27, 2014, 04:00:37 PM
I'm not sure I've ever done that. I imagine that I might go through the rolls to see whether the NPC succeeds and whether he or she is damaged by the experience.

Yes, I can see the wisdom in avoiding NPC sorcerers, or at least, of not giving them access to Hint (in this case it was the player's fault, though: he never did use that power, too...)

Quote
QuoteQuestion 5; what happen when 2 demons give a (different) cover at the same time? The abilities are in effect at the same time, the strongest cancel the other, or the user (the Sorcerer) decide which one to use case by case?

OK, hold on. If and only if the user is the sorcerer, for both abilities, then he or she can choose which Cover will apply at any given time. Otherwise, the demon(s) decide(s), which could be quite interesting.

QuoteQuestion 6: If the sorcerer has multiple applicable covers, can roll support rolls for every cover? How it works in practice, every cover is rolled separately (so even if the last one fail, the sorcerer still get bonus dice for the first ones) or as a chain of support rolls, each omne getting the victories from the previous one, and if the last one fail, the sorcerer gets no bonus dice?

OK, that's cuckoo. You have to give me a better and more specific example.

I think you already answered my chosen example, above: I was thinking about a Sorcerer as the user of two different covers given by two different demons, but from your answer it seems that he would have to choose which cover to use.

So let's use a different case:

Jack is a mercenary, stamina 4, cover (mercenary) 4, and he is a Sorcerer, too, with a demon what give him a cover of cat-like reflexes at 5.

Jack is wandering in the darkness in a enemy base, when someone, somewhere, flip a switch and the whole base is illuminated by very bright light, showing the presence of Jack and of a couple of enemy guards at around 50 feet from him. The guards call for help and try to shoot him.

Jack want to shoot them first, with his automatic rifle. It's a stamina roll, and a situation where both his combat experience and cat-like reflexes would apply.

Jack can:

A: roll cat-like reflexes to see how much faster he is to assess the situation (getting bonus dice), then he can add the bonus dice to his cover (mercenary) roll to see hom much his training allow him to use that split-second advantage, to get a final bonus of dice (or not, if he fails) to add to the stamina roll

or...

B) as above, but the two covers are rolled separately, and the bonus dice added together to the Stamina roll.

or...

C) the player has to choose, Jack can use his own cover or the demon cover, not both at the same time.

or...

D) Both cover apply, but they don't add up bonuses, the player can roll the highest (cat-like reflexes at 5) and it counts for both.

Ron Edwards · February 27, 2014, 05:31:57 PM

"Cat-like reflexes" is not a viable option for Cover.

Moreno R. · February 27, 2014, 07:16:40 PM

Mmm... I am thinking about a cover to put in that example, but the examples that I am imagining push the answer in one direction or the other... that is probably the very reason you need a concrete example...

The covers that i am thinking about are...

1) Covers that apply to that situation in the same way (or with little difference) as "Mercenary", giving combat experience and training: for example "soldier", "killer", or even "ninja", etc.

2) Covers that could apply a support for "Mercenary", giving knowledge ("tactician"), or raw physical enhancement ("athlete", "acrobat") or maybe better aim ("sharpshooter")

3) Something not-natural, maybe tied to the setting, like "wolfman" (or even "panther man", to go back to the cat-like reflexes), tied with the other powers of the demon (for example, if the demon turn the sorcerer into a Werewolf, that cover would be associated with armor against not-silver weapons, shapechange, special damage, etc.)

If the ones in the first category make me tent towards the "only the bigger one apply" answer, the second category would make me go with the chain of rolls, each augmenting the other. And the third would be "player choice" or "both apply independently" depending on the covers and situation...

I don't know, can you at least give me some advice about how to judge these situations? (for example, if one of the solutions I listed in the previous post is NEVER to be used in Sorcerer).

Did you even encountered a situation where you had the same character rolling two cover rolls for the same actions? Or in your experience is something that simply never happen?

Ron Edwards · February 27, 2014, 09:48:01 PM

"Killer," "acrobat," "tactician," "athlete," "sharpshooter," and "panther man" are not valid Covers. I am beginning to think you are not quite getting what a Cover is. It must be a real-world human designation with well-understood professional and/or life-style memes. "City politician," "housewife," "homeless person," "university professor," and "Special Forces veteran," are all good Covers. Your suggestions sound like Advantages from all those 1990s games. Instead, think of a Cover as what everyone else will call the character or identify them as, in purely societal terms.