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I'm having problems understanding how the rules on holding back victory dice for later use as explained in the Sorcerer & Sword supplement work.

How can you cancel or give yourself total victory with these dice?

The held victory dice get added to your pool on a subsequent contest.  Let me give you a quick example from a recent game:

Don Pedro is attempting to escape from the Cardinal's guards.  He's sprinting down a hallway with dead-ends into a u-turn stair. We make rolls to see if he gets away, or the guards get him.  When we roll, Don Pedro has 4 dice of victory over his pursuit.  He really only needs one to effect his escape, so he holds three of them for use in the subsequent round (when he'll be facing the guards coming up the stair). We narrated this is a surprise vault over the railing and onto the stairs.

Now we have to face the guards on the stairs.  Don Pedro uses his regular stamina dice, plus the three additional dice that he rolled over. He has complete victory over the guard below, for seven dice.  We narrated this as Don Pedro crashing into the guard with his boot, perfectly breaking his fall.

Don Pedro could have chosen to negate all of his victory dice on the first roll and allowed himself to be captured. He could then have rolled 4 dice into whatever terrible thing that he was going to do to the capturing guard (such as using him as a battering ram against the guards coming up the stairs).

Hi there,

Two topics are being confounded badly in this thread, and Clay, with respect, you've misrepresented some things. Let me take it from the top.

#1 is the general Sorcerer rule that permits victories from roll A to be used as bonus dice for roll B. Where Clay went wrong is the idea that doing so somehow "reduces" the victories for roll A - this is not correct at all. In his example, Don Pedro succeeded with the first roll with four victories, and that's that. He did it - four victories, no reduction. And roll B gets four bonus dice (based on all four victories). It is very simple. As long as A affects B, all the victories from roll A are applied as bonus dice to roll B.

#2 is the special rule in Sorcerer & Sword that permits some characters to "save" victories during combat instead of using them in a given roll. This has nothing to do, whatsoever, with adding dice to roll B! Instead, it concerns "ignoring" victories you got in roll A and "using" them to transform non-victory dice into victory dice, or vice versa, in roll B. I explain it pretty carefully in an older thread called Last (?) combat question.

#1 and #2 may of course apply in the same combat, and even across the same roll A and roll B. However, don't mix up what they do, 'cause they're different mechanics entirely.

Best,
Ron

Thanks Ron,
I was about to ask Clay for a clarification on his explanation because it didn't make sense, but you've done the job.