[Sorcerer] Short Bit on Boost

[Bill Cook]

Q: If a character Boosts Stamina twice, do you check Will vs Power or automatically abort next?

Q: Consider a parasite with Boost.  There is no conferment, but the host's punch packs demon Power.  I learned from a previous thread that this is possible because the host is the medium for a parasite's action.  Is the difference between (1) a parasite using Boost through a host and (2) a demon of some other type conferring Boost merely aesthetic?  Or is there some larger significance?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Q: If a character Boosts Stamina twice, do you check Will vs Power or automatically abort next?

I'm going to need some more information about what you're envisioning. What do you mean by "Boosts Stamina twice?"

A single demon cannot hit a character with two Boosts at once; Boost is an "exclusive" ability relative to itself. And when using other abilities, the demon's Power is dropped to 1 while the Boost is up.

If a character is hit with two Boost-Staminas from two different demons, then his or her Stamina will indeed skyrocket, but his or her body frame will probably have something to protest about when it gets applied.

Or do you mean two Boosts in rapid succession, prolonging the effect?

Whose Will are you talking about, and why?

I'm pretty sure that you're referencing a specific rule, so let me know which passage you're talking about.

Q: Consider a parasite with Boost. There is no conferment, but the host's punch packs demon Power. I learned from a previous thread that this is possible because the host is the medium for a parasite's action. Is the difference between (1) a parasite using Boost through a host and (2) a demon of some other type conferring Boost merely aesthetic? Or is there some larger significance?

I'm confused again ... there are no differences among any sort of demon's use of Boost, regardless of Type (except that Passers usually can't do it). If your demon-sword Boosts your Stamina, it's the same as your parasite-heart Boosting it, and so on.

Think of the Boost as an attack on its target, by the demon. It "hits" you with Boost, and thus your score increases. Does that help at all?

Best,
Ron

[Bill Cook]

I guess I was being too shorthand.

I meant successive Boosts across rounds of combat.  I'm reading from the core book, p. 52.  "Also, receiving two Boosts of any kind in rapid succession results in the recipient being Confused as per the ability below."  Then under Confuse, I read "The user matches the demon's Power against the target's Will to force target to lose his or her next action(s), . . ."  So it would be the conferee or the host's Will.

My players will want to know if it's functionally disallowed to successively Boost for a punch or if it's more of a gamble.  (i.e.  Compare your Will to the demon's Power.)

As for the second question, that was more curiousity with semantics.  If it's all the same, it's best left unexamined.


Edited for appalling grammar.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Bill,

Got it! All right, let's put Sebastian (our sorcerer PC) into a situation. His demon Schnarg, an Object, has Boost Stamina and Power 5. And to keep things simple, he also has a Parasite demon, Bulworg, who has Boost Stamina and Power 7.

All right, Sebastian has failed to instruct his demons very well, or maybe he's left off Bulworg's Need recently, so the li'l bugger is feeling testy. In this situation, the ninjas are attacking, and Schnarg Boosts Sebastian's Stamina, wham +5. Cool - Sebastian smacks a ninja into dogshit. However, let's say Bulworg "helps" by dosing Sebastian with its Boost Stamina.

Boink! Sebastian must successfully roll his own Will against Bulworg's Power. If he succeeds, fantastic, his next action gets the +7 dice. But in order to have a next action, he needs to make that roll. If he fails it, he goes "deedle deedle deedle" instead of doing his action. (Granted, his Stamina is indeed increased by 7 during that "fuzz out" moment, for whatever it might be worth.)

All of the above applies just as well if it were Schnarg who'd simply used its Boost twice in a row, but that does carry a couple of other nuances, such as how Schnarg might not be prone to doing such a thing (Power 1 makes demons nervous, I speculate) and similar. So I used two demons for the simplest case possible.

So if I'm not mistaken, the best way to explain it to your players is as a gamble.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Why the above demons are named like orcs, I don't know, unless I can convince you all to blame Jack Aidley for his nifty game.