Behind the Screens 2009 · Page 6

We gave a lot more thought to which way to do it than was actually warranted. However, let me show you some of the math.

• The way sit-mods work, they reduce the chance of attack success, that is, the top possible number that will succeed. Lauren had a 76% chance of success, but you imposed a -15 sit-mod which reduced her chance of success to 61%. That means without the sit-mod seventy-six of every hundred blows would land, and damage would be calculated based on rolls from 1 to 76; with the sit-mod, only sixty-one of a hundred land, and damage is calcuated based on rolls from 1 to 61.
Were the penalty placed against the roll, it would function as a sort of back-hand bonus. Lauren in that case could roll 91, and the modifier would reduce that roll to 76, which would be a hit. She would now have a 91% chance to hit, but her damage would be based on rolls from -14 to 76--which means that fifteen of those (ninety one of every hundred) successful rolls do no damage. More significantly, her chance to botch has been eliminated, because you've reduced her highest possible roll to 85.
• You could reverse the penalty by adding it to the roll. In this case, rolls from 1 through 61 are treated as rolls from 16 through 76--the same 61% chance to hit, but a considerably higher probable damage. Also, her chance to botch goes through the roof: since for a 76% chance to hit she would have a 2% chance to botch, that because a 17% chance to botch, as a roll of 84 becomes 99.
• Your style has both a -15 sit-mod and a -15 damage mod; this may be where the confusion arises. If Lauren were not pulling her punches, those hits would be dangerous, in this case reaching as high as 7 intensities of damage (for a roll of 61) each. Your -15 damage mod makes the impact of that 61 the equivalent of the impact of a 46--which would reduce the maximum damage to 5 intensities, as well as making any roll of 15 or less a successful hit that does no damage, although it might sting. However, she is pulling her punches--not using those abilities that raise the impact of her hits above Annoying. That means she will injure you if she has a successful damage based on a roll of 51 or greater, which is why she beat you up so badly the first time (a third of her successful hits would have been from 51 to 76, and you had no defensive modifiers). Once you were in style, though, you avoided 15 per hundred attacks (blocking and dodging) and reduced all others by fifteen damage points, which means she can't score an damage at the annoying level (best roll becomes a 46, less than 51, hurts but does not do damage). Also, her rolls of 15 or less still hit, but because you've reduced the damage calculation to 0 or less they don't hurt.

The result is that as long as you are in style and she is pulling her punches, you won't be injured, although some of the hits will sting, and some of them will make recognizable contact that doesn't hurt.

I'm doing that, incidentally. It's just not so important when it's annoying damage--that is, I've made a distinction between those non-injurious hits that hurt and those non-injurious hits that do not hurt, based on whether the roll is above 15 or not. I just don't have to do the subtraction each time, because I know that no successful hit will have a damage based on 51 or greater, and I know the break point is 15, so it's just a matter of whether it hits and whether it hurts.

Hopefully that clarifies the situation. Let's see if I can manage to address posts from Harry, John 3, Scott, and John 2.

Harry wants to attempt a sort of detect lie skill, based on a telepathic mind reading. It's an interesting notion, but I think I have to reject it and treat it as a Detect Thought variant--but that's 3@1, so it is within the curve. He rolls 78, which with a 5@1 bias and 1@9 BRA against a 3@1 skill in a flatlined world is going to fail. I probably could push forward and do more with the scene of the crime in this post, but things are a bit pressured here and in any case he would be told before he left that no one alive is there, so he might have more questions before he leaves.

John 3 rolls 69 on his attempt to detect thought; his 6@1 bias combined with 2@1 BRa is not high enough to learn a 3@1 skill on that roll. I had asked before about getting posts date-stamped instead of X "AGO"; my notes say that the details of the complicated teleportation skill are posted April 19, 2007, and I'm not even certain whether that's the old forum or the new. However, it's a roll of 08 on a skill with a +51 sit-mod, so unless there's something really odd in there, that's going to succeed. We do need to know what kind of reaction he's likely to get for this, and the GE roll is 25, which is rather unfavorable, although it could be worse.

Scott wants to lose himself somewhere in the park, and then retrace to the bus stop based on a piece of buried personal property. That return plan works. My uncertainty arises, though, because I've never been to this particular park--I found it on a map. I remember, though, that it has a lake. That might suggest a more wilderness area, although I've been to quite a few parks with lakes that were more open. Yet I recall (vaguely from whenever it was he visited last) that there were woods and trails, so that favors him. We'll go with a 2d10+1 GE roll, 11 is Good but Below Expectations.

John 2 reminds me that I promised a new use credit for boxing against Lauren, so that makes the listing 1@10 Boxing B7@1 attack multiplier 1, slow defensive, weapon-adverse, no offensive modifier, -15 Defense modifier, -15 damage modifier, hand & arm +1M.

--M. J. Young

The oldest posts on this forum are "1 YEAR AGO," so it's in the archive - here, actually.

1@10 Boxing B7@1 attack multiplier 1, slow defensive, weapon-adverse, no offensive modifier, -15 Defense modifier, -15 damage modifier, hand & arm +1M.

So in fighting styles, you do get a bonus? Usually if you're at 1@10+1, you don't get any bonuses, but in fighting styles, you do?

I guess I should be asking what does the +1M mean?

I think that's just his abbreviation for "plus one mark," the same as when you say "1@10+1". On my players' sheets I write "1@10|" (with that tally mark) to mean the same thing. There's no bonus, you just get to 2@1 sooner.

Ya know what else I was wondering. Suppose you had 2 new uses, do you still need the same amount of practice time? Could it be 2 new uses and less training/practice time?

(Doing Therapy)

Two Posts

Just my own two cents, you would think you would get a new use on a fighting style every time you faced a new opponent, or at least a different fighting style. So, I would get one for sparring with Lauren, and a different new use for sparring with Derek. Each person fights differently.

(Doing Therapy)

But fighting sixty people doesn't make you an expert - and since that's what would happen if each new opponent was worth a mark, we can't do it that way. The explanation is that it's not different enough. If you boxed a man with four arms for the first time, that would certainly be worth a mark in my game. However, if you boxed a man with six arms the next day, I wouldn't award you a second mark - not different enough.

I think what he's getting at is more like every time you see how this fighting style interacts with someone else's, it's a new experience. So if you fought sixty people who each used a different fighting style at your skill level or higher, the experience would be different enough each time to teach you something about your own style. Boxing a boxer is different from boxing a Jiu Jitsu master is different from boxing a Jedi and so on.

Yeah Osevens, that's pretty much what I am getting at. Especially if you beat them.

(Doing Therapy)

Still not different enough. I might be so generous as to give marks for facing a style that was of a very different type than those styles one had fought against before, but the types would be very broad; I don't think there would be more than seven or eight marks to be gained in this way in total, even if I felt generous.

Thanks for all of that.

Scott is right--and in fact when I do character sheets individually I just say "+1" without the M. The problem is when I do character sheets individually (as I do for people who play at my home) I have multiple columns, |SAL Level@Intensity|Skill name and description|Bias area|Bias level@intensity|Origin, and then I just put a notation for marks at the end. When I do people in the online game, unless I already have a computer character paper for them (as I do for John 1 and Kyler and Ryan), I give them a single column on a spreadsheet along with everyone else. Thus it's |SAL Level@Intensity Skill Name Bias Area Level@Intensity Skill Description including Sit-mods Skill Marks| all as a single entry, and I edit the entry when there's a change.

Scott, I abandoned hash marks for skill marks because when someone reaches 1@10 you've got to collect twenty-six of them before rolling over to 3@1, and that was just too cumbersome. Thought I'd let you know the problem I found with your method; works well as long as no one is going for expert level skills.

And that's exactly right: you need to persuade me that what you did is distinctly different. You never used your boxing against a professional martial artist before (or if you did, I have to revoke that mark) so you got one for fighting Lauren. You would not now get another for fighting some other martial artist, but you would get one if you boxed a bear or a lion--but not one for boxing a bear and another for boxing a lion. In essence, as your level rises, you either have to become truly creative at devising new uses for a skill or you have to resolve yourself that the only way to become expert is the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.

Let me address posts from Harry, John 3, Scott, and John 2, if I can squeeze all of that into the time remaining.

Harry catches something I did quite unintentionally, and has me laughing at it. I had even forgotten that they were dressed in red shirts--and just tonight we saw a Star Trek crewman in a red shirt killed by a terrorist. He rolls 72 on his visual accuity (long term), and 96 on the short-term one, which would be a botch--but since he didn't say he was going to use that, I'll ask him, and go from there.

John 3's situation is a bit chaotic at the moment, since the alarm was sounded but most people don't know why--only that the alarm would be sounded if the camp was taken by surprise.

Scott rolls 92 on a new skill, which he describes as Deflect Notice M5@1* Caster mutters the following in Spanish (sound necessary): "El sonido de un abancio, mientras enfria; el poder de una locomotra, mientras viaja; el trabajo de un mago, mientras asombra; ¿qué calidad comparto con éstos, por ahora? / Los cuatro estan mejor cuando desapercibidio.", which roughly translated means, "The sound of a fan, as it cools; a locomotive's power, as it travels; a magician's labor, as he astounds; what quality do I share with these, for now? / All four are best, unnoticed." On the final line the caster raises four fingers of his right hand in front of his face, then draws his hand to one side as he turns his face to the other side and casts his eyes downward. Prevents casters activities from being noticed by others not directly involved, terminates automatically at the end of the current situation, maximum duration 1:30:00, TF 0:24, -19 SM and says is no fail on learning due, presumably, to his 15@ bias (he just learned to create a holy symbol, and that's a 15@1 skill, so I am not surprised). He has a 1@3 SAL at this new skill, which will shield him from detection by most normal and abnormal means.

The back of my head tells me that a psionic detect magic is something around a P3@10 skill, and finding it there I'm satisfied that Scott is doing something reasonably baseline. He rolls 54 on learning this, and has a 7@1 bias plus 2@1 BRA in a world with a 15@ psi bias (I hope that's right, don't know where those notes are at the moment), so we've got 107-40=67, and he's got a 1@2 Detect Active Magical Power P3@10 ten yard radius of targeted point skill, and of course he detects his own skill.

John 2 rolls a successful 25 on his jump. I think he needs a really strong GE roll for a canteen that draws water out of the air, and 19 is not that roll.

And no offense intended, but I've got to run.

--M. J. Young

Scott, I abandoned hash marks for skill marks because when someone reaches 2@10 you've got to collect twenty-six of them before rolling over to 3@1, and that was just too cumbersome. Thought I'd let you know the problem I found with your method; works well as long as no one is going for expert level skills.

I thought about that after I'd posted, actually. For now, I've decided that I'll use lowercase x's and v's to save on tallies in a sort of quasi-Roman system (2@10v| for six marks, 2@10xx|| for twenty-two, and so on). I don't think there's any danger of an x being mistaken for a variable because of the 10 immediately preceding it.

Or I might think of something better in the meantime. I don't think my players will approach expert level in anything for quite some time to come.

(And I was actually kind of hoping that detection would fail so I'd have an excuse to devise a more robust concealment spell - maybe something I'd have better than a one-in-five chance of repeating successfully. Oh, well; I'm sure I have my fair share of failures coming up soon.)

We've got a good gaming group tonight, with Harry investigating a murder, John 3 in the midst of chaos, Scott experimenting in the wilderness, John 2 conversing with Lauren, and Graeme sending mail. Let's get to it.

It occurs to me that I already know that it is critical to the process of writing a mystery that the writer knows what actually happened, and then lets the clues play out based on that. I also know that the best detective game currently available is probably Dirty Little Secrets from our good friend Seth Ben-Ezra of Dark Omen Games/Legends of Alyria fame, and in that game the identity of the criminal is determined by game mechanics during play. I'm somewhere between the two, but need to get to the conclusion. Meanwhile, I rolled a botch on the short-term night vision skill yesterday, and didn't mention it because I didn't want to force Harry's hand. He has gone with the skill, though, so the roll stands, and that means I need a botch list:

1. Blindness (temporary)
2. Microscopic vision
3. Telescopic vision (wrong skill)
4. Neural Breakdown
5. Brain Burn
6. Psionic Shockwave
7. Absorb light
8. See sound
9. Hear light
10. Transparency

The roll is 8; we've shifted his visual sense into the auditory range.

I won't let that stop him from using the bloodhound nose, though. For that he rolls 91, failure.

That was indeed interesting.

John 3 has not figured out that he is the one who startled the camp; but it shouldn't take long for armed men to surround him.

I do enjoy it when players like Scott come up with ideas for skills I've never considered. It challenges me to figure out how to make them happen--as long as they don't do too many at once. This one looks like a P7@6 Redirect Energy variant, or at least, that's the best I can think to make of it, since he is manipulating the energy itself and causing it to pass through an object from which it would otherwise reflect. His bias is 7@1 and his BRA is 2@1 and there's a 15@ world bias. My ninja math says knock out the 7@ from both sides and I've got 1+21+15=37, -6=31% chance of success. I'm also thinking that if this works it's what I want to call a "high concentration skill"--if he tries to do anything else (psionic) while doing this, it is penalized, and if he tries to do this while doing anything else, this is penalized. But for the moment we're going to roll the chance of success, 54, failure.

Moving to his next trick, the Clairtactile Imaging roll is 27, which will succeed. Using that, he's going to use the MulTK to move the tumblers, a roll of 81, failure.

I'm winding up with too many things to track in John 2's game, so I'm just going to give him the new ones.

Graeme's hopes are unfounded: magic is magic, and the gods of the Mongolchin have barred even their own magic from working in that land. The druids have no power to overcome that.

Ce la vie.

--M. J. Young

I think perhaps I am here earlier than I anticipated today, and I am not certain I can explain why; but that's all right--I'll deal with posts from Harry, John 2, Scott, and John 3, and then maybe get an early night out of it.

It's always nice when a botch gives a player an idea for a real skill. This is one that won't work in this universe, I think (I'm pretty sure off the top of my head that it's an @2 skill), but he's right that it has potential. I've now got a more complete backstory created here, so I know what happened and can answer questions more usefully.

John 3 recalls exactly the same story I had in mind, but I think he used it originally when he developed this skill, so that's not too surprising. We've defused the situation, so we can settle down a bit.

The system distinguishes psionic protections by whether the damage is from inside or outside; I think Scott wants his new skill to protect against both, and I might have to penalize that as incorporating a lower skill. We'll get his answer first, though.

Wrapping up with John 2, who keeps trying to make Lauren something she's not. As I recall, he prayed for a psionics instructor; now he wants her to be able to teach him things she has never done. Hopefully he'll begin to grasp this.

--M. J. Young

As I recall, he prayed for a psionics instructor; now he wants her to be able to teach him things she has never done. Hopefully he'll begin to grasp this.

(Incredulously sarcastic tone)

"Yeah MJ, why would I think that someone with 2@8 martial arts ability would know how to throw punches????? I must be STUPID to think that...."

John, did your boxing teach you how to kick? Wow--that was the very first thing they taught in the Tae Kwon Do training my kids took. Lauren's training expects her to have a weapon in her hands at all times. That she does not has already limited what she can do.

Let's see what we can do for Harry, John 3, Scott, and John 2.

Harry is on the scent, I think. It's not going to be an easy crime to unravel, but he's got a good start on it.

John 3 has made a deeply significant theological comment in front of a somewhat educated man of the cloth, and it's going to spark some discussion--and maybe a change in viewpoint.

Scott is going for a P5@3 Resist Damage from Heat. His roll is 13, which I am quite certain is a success, which is why I didn't bother crunching numbers first. Next he is going for a pyrogenesis variant, one in which physical contact is required; I'll give him +10 for the necessity of touching to generate the heat, and roll 49, which does require me to crunch some numbers because I don't think he made it. He has a 7@1 bias plus 2@1 BRA plus the world's 15@ bias plus the +10 skill sit-mod I just mentioned, all minus a 7@4 target skill bias, the sevens cancel and I have 47-4=43, a failure.

I'm going to need a roll for those shotgun shells John 2 wants. The GE is 16, so I'll give him the shredders (I know something about these from <i>The Last Boy Scout</i>) but not the Dragon's Breath.

--M. J. Young

I am tempted to kick this into tomorrow; it is already late, as today was rather disjointed. However, in addition to Harry, Scott, and John 2, I have posts from Adam and Graeme, and I have been missing the former and have always enjoyed the latter, so I'm going to do what I can. Besides, I'd like not to work on Saturday this week if I can arrange it.

I think Harry needs a clue, and I can think of something that might work, but I also think he ought to have a GE roll for whether it's there. 9 is the GE roll, so I think we're moving forward.

Scott rolls 51 on his reuse of his magic detection skill, which given his 2@1 BRA+2x7@ bias+1@2 SAL is 4 points above the 47% chance of success he has.

John 2 is stocking his military hardware again. This could be good.

Normally I don't quibble much over casting times for ceremonies not otherwise specified, and holy ground normally falls into that category. However, Adam wants his holy ground spell to do lethal damage to specific enemies. That makes it more potent than a Torture Spirit Powers, and I'm thinking that the baseline is something closer to shields that do damage, which in turn is a modifier on antagonist specific shields, which for the power he wants probably require a 30 minute TF, plus 30 seconds to make it a 5@10 skill that causes damage. He wants a lethal outcome and the skill specifies dangerous, so that's -10 for the damage category increase. I'm comfortable with a 300 minute baseline time for a thirty minute ritual on a shield, but since this is really holy ground (which is usually permanent) and not really a shield I'll have to ask him about duration. So to this point I'm looking at +10 for nearly doubling the time (close enough--the thirty seconds is too small a fraction to consider), -10 for the damage category bonus, and we have other factors, which he has nicely presented. I will give him +10 because he must walk the perimeter, the equivalent of touching the edges, rather than creating it as a radius from a center point. I've got +5 for appropriate words, +3 for forcefully, +5 for the pseudo-Latin magical language, +15 for total body involvement, +10 for holy symbol, and a question about holy water. I also note that it has an RF10 attack, which should be -43 over an RF1 attack, but since he allows that an intruder can avoid damage by recognizing the holy ground and leaving in the first six seconds, I'll give +10 for that protection. This puts me at +15, with two unanswered questions.

Graeme is starting to plan a trip to Azmayinca, but I'm not sure how he intends to travel.

--M. J. Young

Harry, Scott, John 2, and Graeme are the active players today, so let's get active.

Harry is overlooking a significant clue; but given that he had such a good GE roll I'll give it to him again.

We're clarifying Scott's situation; his protection is still in place, but his detection failed, so he doesn't know it. We'll see how he handles that.

I'm a bit amused at John 2. I put him in a world with a clear objective, and he avoided it and focused on skill training. Then I put him in a world in which players have to create their own opportunities, and he asked what the objective is. For better or worse, though, his prayer created an objective--it just has not yet been revealed.

Graeme did not answer the critical part of the question: how is he going to cross the ocean to reach the Azmayincan Empire?

--M. J. Young

I'm a bit amused at John 2. I put him in a world with a clear objective, and he avoided it and focused on skill training. Then I put him in a world in which players have to create their own opportunities, and he asked what the objective is. For better or worse, though, his prayer created an objective--it just has not yet been revealed.

Like what Eric said in that thread about Dancing Princess. Doing what you are "supposed" to do is sometimes what makes gaming fun. I think you might be surprised at what I do in my next clear-objective world.

I hesitate to start this, because it is already too late; but the week ahead does not promise better. So let me see what I can do for Harry, Scott, John 2, and Graeme.

Harry will be disappointed--the blood that is interfering with the vibrations on the floor is drying, and wears off the boot fairly quickly. However, it has been long enough to go for the bloodhound olfaction, and he rolls 53, which is another failure.

Scott makes what I guess is the logical assumption, that if he cannot detect the protection field it must not be there, instead of that his detection failed. The odd thing is that it is there, but his chance of casting it again is rather slim. He rolls 59, which I know is going to fail. So now he has recast it, but his second casting has failed, but the spell is still active from the first casting. I wonder what he does next.

I think I've covered John 2's questions.

I think I failed to communicate the Azmayincan approach problem to Graeme; let me try again.

--M. J. Young

Mistake, sorry.

(I know it's annoying when I do that, but consider that every time I do that, it's because I realized I was asking a really stupid question or about to start an argument.)

(Doing Therapy)

I guess if all I have is Harry and John 2, I should be able to get through the game pretty quickly. Tomorrow promises to be nightmarish, and might be the beginning of an extended time of complications, but I cannot go into detail here.

Harry is putting together some of the bits and pieces. I've got to make a determination concerning the duration of his vision problem; I had half hoped he would attempt to do something that would alter it, and possibly put it right, but he has not done so.

My friend Dave Oldham often plays chess with people who do not play as well as he does. (I do not know anyone else who does play that well, although I think Kyler might give him a run for his money.) They often ask him for advice on how to play during those games, and he gives it to them. He still beats them--he's willing to take them pretty far, but he's not willing to play both sides for the entire game and then lose. Now, I can't see any way for Lauren to "limit herself to two attacks in the minute" because even though the mechanics work that way the actions of the character do not. The best John 2 can say is "take it easy on me", in which case she will go easy--but she'll not go so easy that he'll win. I think that she would decline those terms.

I guess I have to run this fight now. It doesn't start until John says so, and that means he gets a chance to get into stance. His fall-into-stance not as an attack is 1@9+2x7@+1@10=53%, and his first roll is 02. Her roll is 47; the next question, then, is who gets the initiative. But John has raised the issue of backpacks, and whether they impede anyone's ability to fight. The thing is, yes, they do, but entirely the wrong way--they give each of them extra cover, because their backs are now protected. The expectation is that the encumbrance of the pack would impede movement, and so make it more difficult to dodge and possibly to strike. I'm going to call it a wash, because I don't feel like chasing down the bonuses and penalties (and particularly because the question of how encumbered each person is when wearing a pack is so very much my judgment call that I can simply declare that the penalty equals the bonus). So I'll continue the fight with the packs, but the numbers are the same.

Rolling for initiative, John rolls 20, Lauren 91, John is going to move first this time. His attack roll is 42; I'm annoyed to discover that my notes on the numbers are on a different page, but I can get them: 38% chance for him to hit her, 61% for her to hit him. He missed. She rolls 68, 12, 22, 58. New initiative rolls are 28, 48, she goes first, two attacks before and two after, she gets 63, 58. Because of his -15 damage points, none of her hits injure him. He rolls 48, she rolls 31, 99, a botch, so he gets the initiative. She has an instant stand move, a tumble to erect position, for which she rolls 66; she's 2@7 at this with a 2@8 BRA and 2x7@ bias, 69% chance of success. That saves her attack but not her initiative. He gets the touch with 05, she gets 77, 54, 64, 96, the last missing the 3% chance to botch. That's three minutes of fighting. Lauren as a 2@4 stamina; John's is 1@8. He will tire first, but I think I should allow him six minutes before he starts to wear.

--M. J. Young

Curious, does my 1@10 Boxing score come into play at all if I try to teach myself that spinning backhand punch? General experience throwing punches couldn't hurt, in any event.

(Doing Therapy)

Your boxing skill comes into play because it means you have a 7@1 bias; if you have a higher than 7@1 bias, it doesn't.

I'm trying to squeeze a tremendous amount of backlogged work into a very small piece of time, but let's see what I can do with Harry, John 2, and Graeme.

Harry's GE roll on witnesses seeing someone leave is 22, so that's pretty bad--not bad enough for bad information, but certainly bad enough that he's not going to be able to find anyone who knows anything just yet. I'll try to get something going in terms of focus, for both our sakes.

John 2 thinks he is doing well against Lauren. He will get his new use credit for fighting while encumbered, but not until the fight is over. Initiatives 85, 11, Lauren goes first in the new round. She rolls 79, 36, 08, 61 against a 61% chance to hit. His roll is in the middle, but 94 is at best a very bad miss--38% chance to hit is 62% chance to miss, 6% chance to botch, 95 or higher, so he did not botch. Initiatives 15, 59, she's first easily, rolls 41, 95, her botch is 98 or higher, he rolls 65, she rolls 51, 17. Initiatives are 28, 54, she is first again, 73, 90, and he rolls 49, and she comes back with 00, a botch which costs her the next attack, but we have hit the end of six minutes, and I said John would have to make a stamina check at this point, 21 fails.

It occurred to me to be skeptical as to whether the Emperor--who has long been devoted to Mars, the god pushing for more war--would support a sailboat for a supposed peace initiative; but a 10 GE roll favors Graeme pretty well, so we'll give it to him.

--M. J. Young

a botch which costs her the next attack, but we have hit the end of six minutes, and I said John would have to make a stamina check at this point, 21 fails.

You didn't give me any bonuses for being determined. If I'm understanding correctly, a 1@8 stamina means I have to roll 17 or less. I know how determined I would be here. It would be worth 4 points easily. Oh well, I got the new use, and you've undoubtedly got more important things to do. I just wanted to point that out, that's all.

Sure, John, you can say you're determined, but you can say you're determined any time; don't you think that's already factored into the decisions about how long you can go? You've just gone six rounds with someone who might have been able to take out Joe Lewis in the third, and your big excuse for being upright is that she's been pulling her punches, so she's not actually hurting you--most of the time. You are physically exhausted from all the weaving and dodging and impact-avoidance you've been doing. Now, you've said you're determined; so if in the thread you say you are going to try to hit her again, I'll come back here and roll a will power check. If your life depended on it, it would be a simple will power check; that's not the case--it's just your pride, really, so that will make it a difficult will power check. If you succeed, there will be a penalty on the attack but you get to make the swing for another round; if you fail, your arm will flail foolishly as you fail to pull yourself together against your exhaustion. But before we see which it is, we have Harry, and then John 2.

Generally if someone asks me whether a spell they cast as a matter of course is working, I roll for it; but Harry's anti-fatigue spell is so heavily bonused it can't fail. What he's really asking is the timing: is it time to take an hour to go home and revive? Without a clear point of reference, that's a GE roll: 17 is even, so we'll give him the day. The pirates probably would have come in on a vessel that was not a known pirate ship; the easiest thing to do would have been to capture a ship whose crew was not so well known and crew it with men who could be trusted--but they're pirates, so they'd be a rowdy bunch no matter how you slice it. The question is, did anyone get suspicious? Again the answer is a GE roll: 15 is favorable, and I can see that working.

As to the botch effects, there are a lot of ways to decide when these fade, but I think a 2d10+10 GE roll is best here, and the roll is 28, so it may be a while.

John 2 did not push himself to take another swing when he realized how exhausted he was, so we don't have to roll. He also does not get two classes a day; that's not part of what he requested.

--M. J. Young

MJ, I mentioned that I would be determined before you rolled the stamina check. I figured that would have bonused the roll at least a little. And yeah, I know the only reason I can stand up to her at all is that she isn't trying to kill me. I guess I should be counting my blessings that I made it as long as I did, instead of arguing that I could go longer.

Ya know what else? I was just thinking that I've been in fights that went a lot longer than 6 minutes, but never whilst wearing a 100 pound backpack. So yeah, I guess I would be worn out. I would think that if I got into a fight where I wasn't wearing the backpack, my stamina would last longer.

Two Posts

Mistake.

Working my way through Monday, and I have game posts from Harry, John 2, and Graeme.

Harry will confront resistance when he attempts to question the captain of the Apple Blossom, simply because the captain was out late and does not want to be disturbed.

I need to discuss the Spinning Backhand Punch with John 2, but I'll do that in a next post.

I am having a tough time wrapping my head around Graeme's new anti-detection skill. Let me copy information from it.

The material components will be mirrors attached to the vehicle (up to a maximum of 40' long) or person to be made undetectable. The mirror will 'deflect' detection magic away from the direction that the mirror is pointing. Thus, a mirror mounted at the front will make the vehicle undetectable from the front. Only a maximum of 6 mirrors would be required (front, back, left, right, top, bottom). The mirror must be at least 1/12 the size of the side of the vehicle or person being protected. The frame of the mirror will be specially prepared with symbols of the moon, sun, planets and stars, which will take 1 hour per mirror. Once fixed to the vehicle or person, they need to be activated with a 10 minute ritual of cleaning the glass (requiring at least a rag and water) and saying, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all. Now you see me, now you don't!" The spell then lasts 1 day.

If I am reading your spell aright, and assuming you are not going to attach a mirror to the bottom of the ship, it will take you five hours to prepare five mirrors, and then fifty minutes to attach and activate them, to fully surround the ship, and the durations will begin to expire ten minutes apart, twenty-four hours after the first activation is completed. You say it will protect the ship against "magical detection" which you analogize to "radar". Does it make the ship invisible (to protect against enhanced telescopic vision skills)? Does it blind clairvoyant-type spells without making the ship invisible? Does it disguise the ship as something else (a friendly, or a whale)? I'm looking for what sort of protection this is, ultimately.

I imagine the mirrors to be deflecting magic around the boat much like how a stage magician would hide something. However, the boat would not be invisible to normal eyesight. How that works with magically-enhanced telescopic vision I'm not sure. Magical clairvoyance I would expect to hide from unless the viewer happened to be inside the ring of mirrors.

It strikes me that none of this protects against psionic scrying; that's a small but significant point about which I need to inquire. I'm looking now at a M4@8 Affect Detects, which should work within the Roman bias curve, and since the baseline includes coverage of psionic detections that's a bonus one way or another.

--M. J. Young

MJ - in answer to your 'say it behind the screens' instruction, I'm saying it behind the screens: I would dearly like it to occur that I have the opportunity to rescue, and then adopt, a child at some point. This is largely a sort of romantic notion of mine. It's the sort of thing that generally can't happen in reality, but I would like to see happen in-game. I mention it behind the screens for the simple fact there is no way to hint at this in-character without being a little too blatant.

Hey MJ, I thought you were going to figure out the stats on my spinning backhand punch. Where are you with that?

And also, as I understand annoying weapons (such as the fists of an amateur boxer) you have to roll at least (is it 50 or 51?) to do an intensity of damage. Since my best chance of success fighting Lauren is 38, that means even if I went full force, and rolled all successful attacks, and Lauren rolled nothing but botches and failures, I could never hurt her? I find that a little hard to believe.

(Doing Therapy)

But you get a damage category bonus for being in style, so that's at least damaging damage when you're boxing. If you were professional, that would be another DC bonus, for dangerous, and if you had a level two strike value (from Hand/Eye, Intuition, and Strength), that would be a third, which would convert to a +10 damage mod (because there's a cap on DC bonuses: no more than two categories above the base category, which in this case, as you point out, is Annoying).

So your max damage on Lauren is two intensities, which would be four if you had a level two SAL or a level two MSV (and would be five if you had both).

(And actually, it would be higher than that in the latter two cases, because your chance of success would rise, raising your highest successful roll.)

And since we're sparring, we're both throwing annoying level attacks. I can't hurt her, but on a really good roll, she could do me an intensity of damage. That makes more sense.

I could hurt her on a botch, but that would be unintended. (It wouldn't be the first time somebody accidentally got their nose broken in a friendly sparring match, ya know?)

(Doing Therapy)

I apologize to John. Obviously my brain skipped a track last time and I failed to remember that I was going to do the spinning backhand strike. Let's tackle that in this post, and then move to the next.

John, this is a cooperative effort. You have to tell me what you're expecting and what you're paying for it.

An ordinary attack with a body part has a base damage category of annoying; because it is in a martial arts style, it gains a bonus damage category to make it damaging, and it can gain another to dangerous by either a 2@ SAL or a 2@ MSV. There are no penalties for ordinary attacks.

Intensified damage and leveraged attacks come in three levels. This is determined by a base damage category, that is at the lowest level, base damaging instead of base annoying. That means that the style bonus makes it dangerous, and another bonus will kick it to lethal. The base dangerous attacks get kicked from lethal to fatal, and the base lethal from fatal to annihilating.

If you want an attack to have a base damaging damage, it needs a detriment--a cost paid to buy the right to do extra damage. You can pay for this with such penalties as -10 on the attack, or use two attacks, or sacrifice initiative (which must be determined before initiative is rolled).

For a base dangerous damage, appropriate detriments include -15 sit-mod, limit to two attacks in the minute (regardless of multipliers), bonus opponent attack +10, or damaging-level self-inflicted damage on failure (e.g., falling for damaging injury on a missed spinning kick) are all listed, or you can take two detriments from the damaging level list.

Base lethal requires something like -20 sit-mod, sacrifice all other attacks in the minute, bonus attacker +15, or dangerous level damage to self on failure, or any two base dangerous limitations or four base damaging limitations.

Those are suggestions; it is possible to devise other detriments/limitations of comparable force which may be considered.

So the question is, when you spin around and backhand your opponent, how much damage do you gain, and what does it cost you? Is it damaging, and you sacrifice initiative because he can hit you while you're spinning? Is it dangerous, and the opponent gets +10 to hit you because you took your eyes off him? Is it lethal, with a -20 sit-mod because aiming it is almost impossible given the speed of the spin?

What are your thoughts?

Sorry again for the delay.

--M. J. Young

Now, I'm looking at game posts from Harry, John 2, and Adam.

Harry has a 23 GE on finding that customs inspector.

John 2 raises questions about equipment and encumbrance, and so he gets a substantive answer.

It has been a while since I started working on Adam's holy ground spell. With a bit of digging, though, I find the start of it:

Adam wants his holy ground spell to do lethal damage to specific enemies. That makes it more potent than a Torture Spirit Powers, and I'm thinking that the baseline is something closer to shields that do damage, which in turn is a modifier on antagonist specific shields, which for the power he wants probably require a 30 minute TF, plus 30 seconds to make it a 5@10 skill that causes damage. He wants a lethal outcome and the skill specifies dangerous, so that's -10 for the damage category increase. I'm comfortable with a 300 minute baseline time for a thirty minute ritual on a shield, but since this is really holy ground (which is usually permanent) and not really a shield I'll have to ask him about duration. So to this point I'm looking at +10 for nearly doubling the time (close enough--the thirty seconds is too small a fraction to consider), -10 for the damage category bonus, and we have other factors, which he has nicely presented. I will give him +10 because he must walk the perimeter, the equivalent of touching the edges, rather than creating it as a radius from a center point. I've got +5 for appropriate words, +3 for forcefully, +5 for the pseudo-Latin magical language, +15 for total body involvement, +10 for holy symbol, and a question about holy water. I also note that it has an RF10 attack, which should be -43 over an RF1 attack, but since he allows that an intruder can avoid damage by recognizing the holy ground and leaving in the first six seconds, I'll give +10 for that protection. This puts me at +15, with two unanswered questions.

He has agreed on "as long as I remain alive within it" as duration, and having agreed that 300 minutes, equal to 5 hours, is a good baseline and thinking that he's planning on using it in this case for probably twice that time but allows for considerably shorter time periods (and prevents himself from leaving the circle for food, water, or supplies without losing it) I will call that baseline. He also needs the holy water, for which he has a spell; he rolls 24 on the create holy water skill, giving him some holy water for this.

Now for the numbers: 2@6 BRA, 15@1 bias, 1/2 1@2 religion for +6, 15@ world bias, +15 inherent SM, all against a 1@1 skill gives him a foregone conclusion and a question of how well he does it this first time: 36 is 1@1 Create Holy Ground M+1@1 TF 1:00:00, affects any area of which the caster walks the perimeter while casting it, uses holy symbol, holy water, words forcefully spoken "Is est sanctus humus b*tch. (This is holy ground, b*tch); any undead, supernatural or demon who does not have the password (KTATTS), takes lethal damage each 6 seconds until they leave the area, any such being in the area can resist the effect by leaving at once, +15SM.

I think that's it.

--M. J. Young

Spinning backhand punch, OK, let's see...

It would be weapon-utilizing. (Tell me you couldn't spin around with a baseball bat in your hand...)

I would imagine it would have a defensive penalty of some sort, especially if you missed. In fact, I saw this used in a match, the guy spun and got kicked in the ribs for his trouble. So, defensive penalty.

The move itself would be done (for a behind attacker) by rotating one foot the opposite direction, lifting the other foot, and spinning around, and stepping into the spin.

You could certainly look behind you before throwing this, however, I imagine it would have some kind of penalty on being able to see them, if they were behind you.

On the other side, I have never seen a spinning backhand punch NOT floor the person hit, so I guess it has some attack bonuses. (I also imagine if you hit them just right, you could break their neck..... Would that count for anything?)

I hope that's enough for you to do something with it. I'm not sure what else I could tell you.

Oh yeah, and no big deal about missing it yesterday.

(Doing Therapy)

Let me sort out John's maneuver to some degree first.

Spinning backhand punch, OK, let's see...

It would be weapon-utilizing. (Tell me you couldn't spin around with a baseball bat in your hand...)

I am not going to suggest any such thing. What I am going to say is that a significant part of the "spinning backhand punch" involves knowing how to strike with your hand, and thus doing it with a weapon of any sort would be a different maneuver. Besides, styles may be weapon-utilizing, but maneuvers are either weapon-oriented or non-weapon-oriented. As a clear example, you can know how to catch an opponent's weapon with your weapon, or with your hands, but those are entirely different techniques, and knowing either is little help in knowing how to do the other.

So we'll ignore this. It is a punch, which means a strike with an empty hand.

I would imagine it would have a defensive penalty of some sort, especially if you missed. In fact, I saw this used in a match, the guy spun and got kicked in the ribs for his trouble. So, defensive penalty.

The move itself would be done (for a behind attacker) by rotating one foot the opposite direction, lifting the other foot, and spinning around, and stepping into the spin.

You could certainly look behind you before throwing this, however, I imagine it would have some kind of penalty on being able to see them, if they were behind you.

On the other side, I have never seen a spinning backhand punch NOT floor the person hit, so I guess it has some attack bonuses. (I also imagine if you hit them just right, you could break their neck..... Would that count for anything?)

I hope that's enough for you to do something with it. I'm not sure what else I could tell you.

You did not tell me the most important thing. Is it base damaging, base dangerous, or base lethal?

A base damaging skill would be dangerous for any skilled user, lethal for any that had a second damage category bonus (SAL or MSV). It would rarely kill anyone, even in the hands of a very skilled user. It would still do significant damage. If it is damaging, the best defensive penalty would be sacrifice initiative: while you are spinning, the opponent has a chance to strike. This means that he could possibly disrupt your attack (e.g., if he uses a push maneuver that moves you five feet away from him, he's not there when you finish the spin). He would get to hit first, but there is no bonus to his chance to hit.

A base dangerous skill would be lethal for any skilled user, fatal for any that had a second bonus. It would rarely kill someone when used by an amateur, but do so fairly commonly for the more skilled. It would still do a lot of damage when not mortal. In this case, the best defensive penalty would be +10 on the opponent's chance to hit. This does not guarantee that he will ever get that chance to hit; it does, however, mean that he has a better chance of getting the initiative (since that +10 to his chance to hit goes to his initiative roll). Whether or not he hits first, he gets that +10 bonus; if he is still able to hit back after you hit him, he gets it then.

A base lethal skill would be fatal for any skilled user, annihilating for the better one. It would frequently kill people, and you would practice it against punching bags to avoid harming your sparring partners. For this, the opponent would get a +15 chance to hit, like the +10 of the dangerous base in every way but that it is a bigger bonus.

A second question is whether the aspect of knocking the opponent to the floor is an intended part of the attack. That would make it more like a leveraged attack--although the numbers are much the same, part of the damage comes from the fall, and if the opponent can avoid the fall or absorb fall damage he reduces the damage some. If the part about knocking the opponent down is not inherent to the skill, then it would only happen on a killing blow. With leveraged attacks, the defender usually falls if he fails an agility check, and takes less damage if he does not fall (unless he is knocked into a wall).

--M. J. Young

A second question is whether the aspect of knocking the opponent to the floor is an intended part of the attack.

Knocking someone down is always an intended part of an attack... But more to the point, yes it would be. I would think it would be expected if you landed a blow like that.

What I was trying to explain to you by saying that it would knock someone down is to give you and idea of how powerful it was, and let you decide that. The aspect that you could potentially break someone's neck makes me think that only an expert could do that, so whatever a broken neck translates out to in damage intensities is the top end of the scale.

I wouldn't know any of the mechanics, I just wanted to give you an idea of the power, so you could determine it.

(Doing Therapy)

Two Posts

Top end amateur, knock the person down.

Top end professional, break/dislocate their jaw

Top end expert, break their neck.

Whatever these are in damage intensities is probably what it would do.

(Doing Therapy)