[Sorcerer] Damage Effects and Demon Abilities

[Bill Cook]

Below is a copy of an e-mail I sent to one of my players explaining damage effects and how demon abilities impact them.  It's pretty straight forward and brings to light some intricacies of game mechanics that are not explicitly stated in the core rules.  I thought Sorcerer forum members might find it enlightening or at worst, a good summary.

[E-mail]
Jason:
 
Ok.  I've got it figured out in a way that's easy to explain.
 
Take a sorcerer with Stamina 3.  The first Stamina penalties he takes decrement his score dice.  (e.g. 2 total penalties reduces Stamina to 1.)  After that, there are three cut-offs of total penalties to calculate for determining damage effects: Stamina + 1 = master yourself by rolling Will against up to Stamina dice to gain back that many; Stamina x 2 + 1 = lay helpless on the floor; Stamina x 4 + 1 = die.
 
So just remember the multiples, x1, x2 and x4, add 1 and you've got your cut-offs.  (e.g. Stamina 4 cuts off at 5, 9 and 17.)
 
Boost and Fast have no impact on damage effects.  What they do is offer additional score dice, depending on whether you retain Stamina.  (e.g. Consider a sorcerer with Stamina 4 and a demon with Power 8 that confers Fast.  The sorcerer carries 6 penalties and masters successfully to regain 3 Stamina.  (Calculate Fast dice as Power 8 - full Stamina 4).  Now he may roll 7 dice (3 mastered Stamina + 4 Fast dice) to attack.  Had he failed to master, the Fast dice would have been inaccessible.)
 
Big works in an opposite fashion.  It does not increase Stamina, but allows for a different base for calculating damage effect cut-offs: Stamina + Power.  (e.g. Assume stats from above.  Cut-offs become 13, 25 and 49.  (Stamina 4 + Power 8 = 12.))  Another detail of Big: its target carries its first penalties up to excess of Power without Stamina reduction.  (i.e. The first 4 penalties will not lower the above sorcerer's Stamina.)
 
When you put Fast and Big together, you get stronger and longer.  Boost is like a one-time burst of Fast.
[/E-mail]

[Doyce]

Two things:

1. I guess I wasn't playing that Fast added the demon's Power to Stamina for attacks.  Book's downstairs but it seems odd that I missed that.

2. You should clarify that the Stamina damage that you're talking about in your equation for figuring out if you may die is points of LASTING stamina damage, not temporary or even in-combat lasting, but the stuff that's left after you halve the lasting damage you'd sustained in combat.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Doyce, I think you mis-read the post a little. The post (in agreement with the rules) refers to the using the extent to which Power exceeds the target's Stamina as the Fast dice.

Typically, a demon's Power is 1 higher than its Stamina, so if it confers fast to itself, it's only getting one Fast die. But say its Power is 8 and it confers Fast onto another person, who happens to have Stamina 2, then that person just gained six Fast dice.

Best,
Ron

[Bill Cook]

2. You should clarify that the Stamina damage that you're talking about in your equation for figuring out if you may die is points of LASTING stamina damage, not temporary or even in-combat lasting, but the stuff that's left after you halve the lasting damage you'd sustained in combat.

You're right.  I was trying to express an efficiency for assessing death during combat, which is interpretive of the game text.  I find "> 4x Stamina, during" to be acceptably equivalent of "> 2x Stamina, afterward."  In any case, I missed that the damage effect of death is only applied for total lasting pentalties.  So, not as clean as I thought!

Edited for punctuation.