[OOC] Death & Taxes

right... so now that I have once again reviewed levelling up (too many different systems -_- )
I may buy bob's worse nightmare: You owe me one (15XP)... bad habit was a close second given the name :D

Given this one also costs story points, I may actually buy STORY Cost to make the heroic ability cheaper...

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OK, so You Owe Me One refers to "favors," which are a system from the Android setting that we're not really using here. We could fudge something, but it might just be better to choose something else. Especially for this adventure -- if we establish that you all know people in the village, it takes away from the desired atmosphere of being strangers. The adventure is very much intended to make you outsiders, which is to say that you'll have to earn your friends here. I'm reluctant to outright ban the talent, but I do have reservations about anything that uses the "favor" system, since we're not really employing it in this game.

As for Laugh It Off, you're right: It basically means that if an NPC tries to target you with a social check, you can use their rolled Threat or Despair against them to harm their strain threshold instead. It basically acts as a "social parry" by letting you reduce the harm of incoming social checks against you.

Not sure how often a NPC will get 3 threats or 1 despair, but Laugh It Off could neat for the next bit...
Discipline is YYGG, Cool YYG and Vigilance GGGG so it's not bad at all ;)

In addition, it can be used with Clever Retort to add 2 threats and push the NPC over to the joke side :)

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Bad habit (like making decisions based on a coin toss) will heal 2 strain per turn which is basically free spells... The cost is a "permanent" at setback from being disoriented... which makes a lot of in game sense ;)
Plus, those free spells may happen to be an augment or two, which would compensate with an extra G.

ok. I have T2: Probing Question already to deal 3 extra social damage, so I may skip Laugh It Off of now and you with Bad habit :D that's 2 strain healing per turn for one setback on all rolls. That's nice for a spell caster... I feel like Laugh It Off + Clever Retort + Probing Question is too deadly a social combo for now :D

That works! Laught It Off is definitely more defensive in nature. Bad Habit can be fun. What's your thinking about how that manifests for Nekurr? I like the "make decisions based on a coin toss" thing, but how does that disorient him?

well... Nekurr decision making is a bit random... and he trusts Fortuna to guide him. This is why he has been coin tossing. Of course, this means he is easily him mostly undecided which would be reflected in his disorientation. Also, we could imagine that he may be getting some conflicting signs: maybe heads on a coins tells him to be move on, but the tarot card he picked is shouting danger? Or maybe he relies too much on "reading his luck" and just the way an NPC shadow is distorted could make him rethink?

"His conviction that it is Luck, not Fate, Purpose or Skill, that drives the world", so he may have developed the bad habit to rely more on luck than skill

I was going to go with she gets to the top and starts to climb down and hears a cracking sound of wood XD

You're not far off! :D

Ah right, that makes sense! When I read the description it looked like threats would first result in "losing the talent". To be fair, I wrote that descriptions so it could be totally wrong ;)

Oh, there are lots of fun side-effects for Threats on magic use. One I considered is that every magic-user within ten miles becomes aware of your character. }:D But I think the cards make good sense in this case. ;)

Somebox, you just got yourself a human pet :D

No pressure Tronus! ;)

LOL. His Knack for It talent will remove two of the setbacks. He also has the Influential Heroic Ability, which lets him add automatic successes if he wants. :)

Yeah, that's what I have been doing. If you suspect someone's lying, you can roll Vigilance versus their Deception skill. But, as you note, even then, it signals the players that the NPC is at least a good bullshitter, if not outright duplicitous, by way of their high Deception pool.

The other wrinkle in this is that the player-facing option—if you think they're lying, you roll Vigilance—eliminates the NPCs' ability to do "damage" in social combat with Deception.

So I'm not sure how best to handle a Deception-focused NPC in a social "combat" encounter. I need to review the rules on those (and the suggestions in the Expanded Player's Guide). But as I see it, the rules seem to imply a system where one PC or NPC makes a social check targeting one other PC or NPC, doing strain damage on a success. But what if an NPC is lying to/coercing/charming/commanding an entire group of PCs or vice-versa? Do all of the targets take the strain damage? Do you designate a "leader" for each group, and when they surpass strain threshold, their side loses? Like I said, I need to reread those rules and make sure I'm not missing something. But I'm wondering if it might make sense to treat social combats as united fronts, with the PCs and NPCs targeting a pool of the other side's strain rather than each individual character.

Cat lady would you break this poor child's heart and not sleep in the lovely barn? 😹

Don't worry, we'll just adopt him and get him out of this backwater village and Nera can teach him some real skills. >:)

By the way, happy April! +5 XP to all of you. Feel free to bank it, but please let me know what you spend it on if you do.