Fair Folk questions

[syys]

I finished reading Graceful Wicked Masques. I like the book, though it's less polished than other 2E hardbacks. It has interesting concepts, but the implementation is often wanting. (Questing, for example, seems like it should be fun, but the level of abstraction reduces it to a couple of dice rolls.)


And I'm wondering about some things.


Are motes spent on Assumption charms committed? I would assume so, since (one throwaway mention notwithstanding) I didn't spot an explicit rule that they would not be. But since raksha have only (Essencex10) motes, even just one Assumption charm plus one effect on top of that (like a Bedlam-influencing charm, say) leaves the character with very little motes to spend.


If a raksha targets a Creation-born in the Wyld, then -absent magical protection against shaping- there seems to be nothing that the Creation-born can do. The raksha can simply stay a couple of waypoints ahead of the Creation-born and keep attacking them with shaping until she gets through. Can they do anything, short of keeping advancing on the raksha until she runs into something more dangerous than the Creation-born and cannot flee anymore?


I am also not quite sure how the Creation-born perceive Shaping attacks in the Wyld, or how I should run them for my players (whose characters are not raksha). If the group enters the Wyld, and they see a (say) Mutant Warleader coming at them (i.e. a Sword shaping attack), their natural reaction would of course be to a) engage with combat charms or b) social-fu the poor mutant. But neither of these reactions interacts in any way with the shaping attack, and if it gets enough successes, the Mutant elopes with the characters' favourite Daiklave (say). How do I play this out?

 

[Haku1]

Assumption - If you go by the example listed in the book, it's not committed, but can only be recovered under certain circumstances. If you go by the errata on WW's site, it is.


As for shaping Creation-born, you have the right of it.


As for Creation-born PCs being hit by the shaping attack... I would recommend rolling as you would normally for shaping combat if you want that to happen, remember exalts get bonuses to resisting being shaped. Other-wise, what you can do is have them roll and interact as they would normally.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

I'd say just play out the scene, and ignore shaping combat. Then again, I think shaping combat is annoying, stupid and pointless. But that's my personal opinion. If you love Raksha and telling stories about how you stole Joe's Daiklaive, so it just happens on a single roll, as your stories fight out who told a cooler story...well, have fun.


Won't find it happening in my games.

 

[syys]

Thanks. I should have checked the errata page first. (I may just decide to leave the motes uncommitted anyway, otherwise raksha in Creation are even more pushovers.)


Kajiri, I am not fond of the shaping combat system either. The concept is good, but the implementation is both too abstract and too detailed (is it really absolutely necessary to have four different kinds of health levels, soak and DVs?), like social combat but even more so. But what the system is trying to describe is interesting, and I would expect it to work as long as it's between raksha. When Creation-born are involved, it's much more problematic.


Just playing out the scenes using normal rules has the problem that, as described, it's trivial for a raksha to whip out army after army of millions of hobgoblins, making it practically impossible (for the power levels of most PCs) to win without being able to use shaping. Maybe restricting the scope of the shaping attacks would help, like saying that with a single action the raksha cannot create a unit with Magnitude greater than her Essence. An army of a couple hundred extras will give an interesting opponent instead of an impossible one.

 

[MrMephistopheles]

Thanks. I should have checked the errata page first. (I may just decide to leave the motes uncommitted anyway, otherwise raksha in Creation are even more pushovers.)

The biggest reason they got this errata out quickly, is honestly from the game world perspective it wouldn't make any sense if Assumptions were uncommitted. Most nobles, if they really need to stick around in Creation long enough, take it as a mutation. Having to slowly codify themselves into a shape to interact at length with Creation is part of what pisses off the Fair Folk so much about Creation. In addition to thinks like linear time.

 

[syys]

Most nobles, if they really need to stick around in Creation long enough, take it as a mutation. Having to slowly codify themselves into a shape to interact at length with Creation is part of what pisses off the Fair Folk so much about Creation. In addition to thinks like linear time.

Good point, I hadn't thought about it that way.