Paladin Q's

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

I just d/l'ed and printed Paladin yesterday, and have read through it twice now, and am very excited to play (when I can talk my wife into it).

A couple of questions occur to me.

1. Is there any mechanical difference regarding what descriptions you put for your body attributres?  In other words, if my active body trait is "Strong - 3", I will always roll three dice for any active action regardless of whether strength would intuitively help?  If so, am I right in assuming the descriptions are there, singularly, to provide color?

2.  Since a player can activate and re-activate any of her animus attributes for 1 point, why would a player ever chose to activate one of the smaller ones? For instance, if a player chooses "Luck - 4" as her active light animus attribute, and since luck could concievable help in all situations, why would she ever want to activate or re-activate one of her lower animus traits?  This seems to reward pumping up one at the expense of the others.

I am guessing that these are non-problems and it is best just to let the players be creative and have fun with it, but I am curious if I'm missing something.

BTW, the default setting is awesome.  This is the first time in ages I think I'll actually use a provided setting istead of my own.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

1. Is there any mechanical difference regarding what descriptions you put for your body attributres?  In other words, if my active body trait is "Strong - 3", I will always roll three dice for any active action regardless of whether strength would intuitively help?  If so, am I right in assuming the descriptions are there, singularly, to provide color?

2.  Since a player can activate and re-activate any of her animus attributes for 1 point, why would a player ever chose to activate one of the smaller ones? For instance, if a player chooses "Luck - 4" as her active light animus attribute, and since luck could concievable help in all situations, why would she ever want to activate or re-activate one of her lower animus traits?  This seems to reward pumping up one at the expense of the others.

The trick is that you'll have to describe what you're doing. If you want to say - and this is a poor example - pick a lock, and your active Flesh attribute is Strength, it's not going to work very well. It's hard to describe picking a lock with Strength. If if were Subtlety or Dexterity or Nimbleness or even Grace, it'd work, because you can describe picking a lock with those things. (That said - if your active Flesh attribute is Strength, knock down the damn door.)

The same goes with your Animus attributes - certainly, you can use any of them, but you'll have to describe using them. For example, imagine a Paladin is in a social situation and wants to activate an Animus attribute. His social one, Understanding, is pretty low. However, his active Dark Animus attribute, Fear, is pretty high. He could use his social Light Animus attribute, and describe himself empathizing, and not re-roll as many dice, or he could use his active Dark Animus attribute, and describe himself physically intimidating someone, and re-roll more dice.

Does that help?

[Zak Arntson]

So does this mean for every Flesh/Active action I have to describe it with my Attribute? I haven't played yet, but won't that get tiring to work in the same Attribute for every Flesh/Active action? How did it play out in your games, Clinton?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Zak,

It worked out well. You don't necessarily have to use the exact word, but the manner of action. If your active Flesh attribute is Strength, for example again, then you smash down doors, brutally hit people, grab the sides of a cliff and hang on when you fall, launch yourself into the air, etc. If it's Grace, you pick locks with your fingernail, dance around an enemy, hitting him from all sides, grab onto a branch and swing back to the top of a cliff, and spring into the air like a bird.

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

I understand it.

The Evil Game Balance Dude in me, however, remains concerned that there will be an imbalance between clever players who pick abstract things like "determination" and "luck", compared with not-so-clever ones who pick "strong" and "nice socks".

I suppose I should get out more ;)

[Valamir]

Well, oneGM trick that I always use with games that allow for openly defined descriptors is overlay my own "appropriate" modifier.  

In Paladin that would mean if a character had a description of Strength he wanted to use but I felt his justification was a little bit of a stretch I'd let him use it but knock him a die or two for it.

Applied to the "clever" solution of using really broad trait descriptions, that player would just be leaving me with alot more room for deciding the use is a stretch.  For something like "Determination" I'd base it on just how fired up the character was.

Frex:  Clawing your way through a wall of fire while mortally wounded to strike your dieing blow against your arch enemy...yes determination would certainly apply.

Haggling with a merchant over the price of a pair of soft leather boots because your "determined" to get the best value...uhh...ok -3 dice.

[Bob McNamee]

In my game test, I did tell the players that under most circumstances they must use an Active Animus with an active Flesh, Social Animus with Social  Flesh etc... but that they could vary this if it made sense.

Bob McNamee

[Zak Arntson]

What's funny is, upon first read, I assumed that using an Attribute gave you a bonus. I carried that assumption all the way until I reread the rules today (and Stimuli's post). I'm chalking it up to it being how Chthonian works, so I was in that mindset already.

Clinton, if you do update Paladin, I'd suggest more discussion on the Attribute concept. Even if it's just more examples.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Zak,

I was already thinking along the same lines. I never was completely satisfied with that part - I got it, and my group got it, but I wasn't certain that everyone would. If I ever take Paladin to print, which could happen someday, I'll definitely update that part.

[Bob McNamee]

Here's a quick Paladin question about Animus gaining.

Its a bit unclear in the rules when charcters gain Animus points.

At the time they take on adversity?
or after they finish their encounter with adversity?

In my playtest I awarded the points after the encounter, but it occurred to me that you could award the adversity points at the start, and the victory over opponent points after the battle.  You could also revoke any points for Dark animus use from the total afterward. (rereading it looks like this may be what is intended).

Would this possibly leave a character in a debt situation?
Lets say you owe a couple points at the end of a scene. You have gotten 2 points for a solo defeat, but you used dark animus in part of the scene (just not defeating that opponent). The GM requires you to pay back 3 of Moderate Adversity for using Dark in the scene. You have 2.
Would that kill off all your Animus and leave you in a Light Animus debt of 1?
This would certainly motivate to take on a new adversity, but it would be more book keeping.  
On the plus side it gives you a good gush of Animus when you need it most - at the start, yet still penalize Dark play- no "lets get a Light gain, use it all, then go use all my Dark in combat- I'll have zero points so no penalty" type stuff.

Bob McNamee

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'll admit, I never thought of the idea of "debt" with Animus. You do gain Light Animus when first facing adversity, though, so that could definitely happen. I would adjucate it just like you wrote above.

[Bob McNamee]

another way to avert the last situation of
"using all my Light points, then all Dark points...I'm at zero in both... no penalty" is to make one of your laws such that using Dark breaks a law.

Like the "never acting fueled by emotion... or some such".
That way it can still be done, but the Dark use results in law breakage, eventual Marks and all that comes with it.

Bob McNamee

[xiombarg]

I'll admit, I never thought of the idea of "debt" with Animus. You do gain Light Animus when first facing adversity, though, so that could definitely happen. I would adjucate it just like you wrote above.

Okay, so I'm not sure you answered the question: When, exactly, do you get the Animus points? At the start of a challenge and after you defeat a Dark Paladin? Because I got the impression that you always got 'em at the start, but it sounds like you meant you get 'em at the start of a challenge but after you defeat a Dark Paladin.

And does EVERYONE get 'em? That this, what happens when the whole group defeats a superior (to each PC) Dark Paladin... do they all get Light Animus equal to the foe's highest Dark Animus, or the it divided up, or what? And is facing said Dark Paladin still considered Unthinkable Adversity, or does the fact there's a group of Paladins bringing him down at once drop his level of Adversity? I know the latter is largely a GM judgement call but the issue about who gets how much when he's defeated is still relevant, IMHO.

And while I'm at it, another question: When you get a Mark, from that point onward you have to make the roll to get Dark Animus when you break the rule, not just the very next time you break the rule? Common sense implys the former but the text could be interpreted as saying the latter, that you only need to roll the very next time you break the rule, and the Dark Animus points are then free until the next Mark.

Sorry to be so anal-retentive, but even at their most Narrativist my group likes things tightly defined...

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'll admit, I never thought of the idea of "debt" with Animus. You do gain Light Animus when first facing adversity, though, so that could definitely happen. I would adjucate it just like you wrote above.

Okay, so I'm not sure you answered the question: When, exactly, do you get the Animus points? At the start of a challenge and after you defeat a Dark Paladin? Because I got the impression that you always got 'em at the start, but it sounds like you meant you get 'em at the start of a challenge but after you defeat a Dark Paladin.

I'm not sure where the confusion is. The rules explicitly say that you get Animus when you face adversity. That might not have been clear, so I reiterated - you get Animus at the beginning. The rules also state that you get Animus for defeating a foe steeped in Dark Animus. These would occur after you defeat him.

And does EVERYONE get 'em? That this, what happens when the whole group defeats a superior (to each PC) Dark Paladin... do they all get Light Animus equal to the foe's highest Dark Animus, or the it divided up, or what? And is facing said Dark Paladin still considered Unthinkable Adversity, or does the fact there's a group of Paladins bringing him down at once drop his level of Adversity? I know the latter is largely a GM judgement call but the issue about who gets how much when he's defeated is still relevant, IMHO.

Everyone gets it. The rest of your question is a GM call. If five Paladins gang up on someone stronger than them, is he still stronger?

And while I'm at it, another question: When you get a Mark, from that point onward you have to make the roll to get Dark Animus when you break the rule, not just the very next time you break the rule? Common sense implys the former but the text could be interpreted as saying the latter, that you only need to roll the very next time you break the rule, and the Dark Animus points are then free until the next Mark.

From p. 15:
"When you check off a box that has a number (called a Mark) in it, you will need to roll whenever your character breaks the same stricture again in order to receive the Dark Animus."

That is, you'll have to roll every time.

Thanks for your questions, and I apologize if I was unclear the first time. I hope you enjoy playing Paladin!

[Michael Bowman]

After running my first game of Paladin yesterday, I have three questions:

1. I hit a situation where one character ran ahead of the group, got past the mooks and attacked the big bad, who's more powerful than him. That got him 7 Animus points. After a couple of exchanges other PCs joined in and helped him. At this point, the PCs now are more powerful than one big bad. I gave the newcomers only 1 Animus point, but does the first PC lose 6 points all at once?

2. You don't drop until you're at 0 in all Flesh attributes and have 0 Animus. What about PCs who have a couple of Dark Animus points? Obvioulsy they're not planning on spending their last few Animus points. Also, if someone has 0 in Attributes but still has Animus points left, and then loses a fight, what happens? Nothing, or does he lose Animus points as damage?

3. On group actions, do you create the group pool immediately after the individuals roll their dice or at the end (after each person has activated whatever Animae they are planning on activating for rerolls)?


I ran a game in the Boxer Rebellion setting. It worked well and everyone had a good time and would play it again. I may be starting up a Star Wars game this coming Saturday with a different group.

Michael