Big Trouble...

[Blind Hero]

I have a quick question on Big.  The book reads that you add the demon's Power to the users Stamina for resisting damage but not to attack or defense rolls.  So how does that work?  Are they bonus dice that are rolled after it has been determined that you've been hit?  Here's an example.

Fred has a Power 5 demon named Nax.  Nax has the Big ability with Fred as the user.  Just before combat Fred activates Big.  Fred is facing Jared, an ex-cop with a gun.  Jared wins the initiative with 10, 10, 9, 6, 5 against Fred who has 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5.  Fred decides to tough it out and roll 1 die.  It comes up a 7, giving Jared 3 victories, wounding Fred with 6 penalty dice (3 for next action, 3 lasting)

Now, Fred has been hit.  Does he roll the 5 dice from Big against Jared's roll?  Let's say he gets 10, 8, 5, 4, 4 plus the original 7.  Using it that way he only takes 4 wounds (2 for next action, 2 lasting).  Is this correct?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

You again? This is like Marcus and Sean (Calithena) all over again. Which is a good thing.

The first place to start is this thread, which has spawned a few more threads since then: Questions about how to read the descriptions of demon powers. For more delving, do a search with "jburneko" as author and "abilities" as keyword, and you'll turn up all sorts of good stuff.

Now for your specific inquiry.

The book reads that you add the demon's Power to the users Stamina for resisting damage but not to attack or defense rolls. So how does that work? Are they bonus dice that are rolled after it has been determined that you've been hit? Here's an example.

Fred has a Power 5 demon named Nax. Nax has the Big ability with Fred as the user. Just before combat Fred activates Big. Fred is facing Jared, an ex-cop with a gun. Jared wins the initiative with 10, 10, 9, 6, 5 against Fred who has 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5. Fred decides to tough it out and roll 1 die. It comes up a 7, giving Jared 3 victories, wounding Fred with 6 penalty dice (3 for next action, 3 lasting)

Now, Fred has been hit. Does he roll the 5 dice from Big against Jared's roll? Let's say he gets 10, 8, 5, 4, 4 plus the original 7. Using it that way he only takes 4 wounds (2 for next action, 2 lasting). Is this correct?

Big comes into it after the defense, not during. So now, Fred doesn't roll the five Big dice as part of his defense; he's stuck with his weeny single die. He has indeed taken 3 temporary and 3 lasting penalties.

The good news is that the Big will help him do something next round, as a bonus. If that something is an attack, then technically it's aiding his attack, but only in the sense of replacing the penalties up to his limit of 5 (the demon's Power). But it also applies no matter what he's trying to do, with the exception of defensive rolls.

This is especially good news because he has very likely been taken down to 0 dice through those penalties (unless his Stamina is 7+), in which case he has been saved from being forced to go to "Will recovery" in order to do anything except clutch the bullet wound and bug his eyes out.

People are probably staring at this - "Hey! Big is really useful!" Yeah, it is.
Any other good news? Yeah. Big can be used a lot like Vitality for purposes of checking the effects of lasting damage, even during the fight itself. So that gunshot wound is way less nasty than it would have been without the Big.

So is the Big + Armor + Vitality combination unbeatable? It's pretty fucking nasty, that's for sure. But be careful ... they all fatigue the demon ... which mean they wear off. And if it confers all this stuff to you, then how do you think it feels about being, itself, unprotected as you wade into combat and expect it to be risking itself?

Are you willing to build the demon so it has a double dose of these abilities, one for you and one for itself? That's Power 7 already, bunky ... and what about all the other stuff you want it to be able to do?

Best,
Ron