The Role of Cover

[Blind Hero]

I'm a little confused about how cover works in a game.  I love the idea of a general "skill" but it keeps hiccupping in-game.

Example: Cammy has gymnast as her cover.  She has Olympic level abilities, contacts in the world of sports, and mean roundhouse.  Let's say her Cover is 5 and Stamina is 3.

During an fight, she's going to do a graceful but deadly kick that pulls on her gymnast training.  The example in Sorcerer says you roll the cover first and then Stamina.  How do you usually figure out the difficulty for the first roll?  1 dice?  Then you apply any dice that succeed to the stamina roll.

How often should role be used in this way?  The example characters in S&S have several Covers and could use them with allot of different roles.

Could you give me a few good examples?  When should you ONLY roll cover?  What if your cover is Martial Arts and you get into allot of fistfights?  Should you roll MA first on most of those rolls and then combine with Stamina?  What is a good guidline for the difficulty of the initial Cover roll?

Any help would be appreciated.

[greyorm]

Unless I'm completely mistaken: it's a dice pool. You roll Cover + Stamina -- in this case 5 + 3, for a total of 8 dice -- against whomever she is aiming that kick at.

The "difficulty" is whatever the opposition rolls. So, say she's kicking a creepy thug with a Stamina of 4. She needs to beat his 4 dice.

Cover should be used whenever appropriate. Worrying about whether or not "it would really apply" or etc. misses the point.

[Andrew Norris]

The "dice pool" idea doesn't sound like it actually comes from Sorcerer.

The examples in the book show a relevant Cover roll against X opposition dice (where I don't remember the X), with successes translating into bonus dice for the Stamina roll, which is the actual attack.

My interpretation is that X above is a GM-determined difficulty for the flourish. Depending on the situation, a failed roll either translates into penalties or has no effect.

Cover is relevant when it's made relevant -- if the player describes setting up their opponent with fancy martial arts or gymnastics footwork, then making their attack while they're off balance, that's an "A, then B" combined action, and so it uses the two rolls. If you're just using a fighting style handled by your cover, and not combining actions in the fashion above, you'd probably choose whether to roll Stamina or Cover (and choose the higher one).

[greyorm]

The "dice pool" idea doesn't sound like it actually comes from Sorcerer.

Just to be nit-picky, there are a number of rolls in Sorcerer that rely on X + X or even X - X (a couple of the rituals). Thus, I have run it the same way regarding situations where Cover applied alongside another attribute for a situation. Ron, or someone else, can correct me if I was in error doing it this way (and if so, I'm sure he will).

[Andrew Norris]

Sorry, you're right, and I was half-thinking that when I wrote that. That's definately in the rituals. I don't think it's anywhere else, though.

I think it's best to parse what I wrote as "I think you got it wrong, but I'm not sure, and I'm trying too hard to be polite about it." Sorry about that. I'm sure someone with better knowledge of the rules will set both of us straight.

[Alan]

From my extensive reading of Ron's comments about Cover, here's how I would do it:

For an acrobatic attack, you would not add the two ratings.  Instead you roll the Cover vs (either an opposing Cover or a number of dice chosen by the GM), then add the bonus (or penalty) dice to the attack roll.   This would all be a single action.  The initiative would be based on the second roll.

[Trevis Martin]

I'll say that I usually have the player roll their cover vs a single die to determine how many victories roll over as dice  to actual combat roll.  You can evaluate the action according to how difficult it is of course but I find the one die reasonable in most cases.

best

Trevis

[Judd]

From my extensive reading of Ron's comments about Cover, here's how I would do it:

For an acrobatic attack, you would not add the two ratings.  Instead you roll the Cover vs (either an opposing Cover or a number of dice chosen by the GM), then add the bonus (or penalty) dice to the attack roll.   This would all be a single action.  The initiative would be based on the second roll.

I am with Alan on this one.  I think he's got it solid.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Alan nailed it.

As a general rule, the only time scores add in Sorcerer is for the rituals.

Best,
Ron

[Blind Hero]

Thank you very much for the responses.  This really helps!!