The damage targets the characetr, the scathing tirade action itself doesnt target anyone. Think about it like an AOE attack.

Could you link to the dev response that Scathing Tirade doesn't target?

As for the post it was a support rules question I asked about whether adversary could be used on scathing tirade checks. The answer, from Sam Stewart was that coercion is, specifically, not a combat check.

For the record here is the thread that led me to ask the question, because I thought it coukd be argued that adversary could be used this way.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/89867-potentially-game-breaking-combo/?hl=%2Bcoercion+%2Btirade

BTW note that I argued that adversary should work back then, but was wrong. You should just do some test rolls though and see just how OP the combo isnt when used in real examples. Even with 5 yellow in the mix, dont get me wrong it is powerful enough but given this is someone with 5 willpower, 5 coercion and about the best I can get is 7 strain damage about 1 in 6 rolls and sometimes on those I get no success. Its really no worse than an a jury rigged auto fire heavy

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/89867-potentially-game-breaking-combo/page-5#entry860036

This is the post where Sam says that Scathing Tirade is not a combat check. Which solves the adversary issue.

However, I (personally not in rules terms) take exception with the idea that a thing can be a "Target" without being "Targeted". My feeling is that this is hair splitting and when GMing I would be comfortable calling "selected" "Targets" as "Targeted". But that is just me. FFG can be tricky (if not sloppy) with their keywords; but I never saw "Targeting" as being literally specific as one. And keywords (like difficulty levels) are usually bold in text.

You are absolutely correct about the Adversary not effecting Scathing Tirade.

Thanks for that, I had it wrong.

In an AoE attack the area (in this case anything in short range) is the target (hence the fixed difficulty). So anything in that area can be targetted by the effect of the action (note the difference here, not the actiin itself).

In fact if you look at the talent from Keeping the Peace - No Escape, it allows you to spend 2 advantage from a coercion check to make a target lose its free maneuver, note it doesnt have to be the target of the coercion check. I had concerns about this, intimidating, and scathing tirade because its all too easy to pull off when its a simple check (given a high enough coercion skill rank) but not when its still an average check. (Note that on the above talent it also has the same ability tied to an opponents discipline check and in that case the target has to be the same NPC that did the check.

Try out some rolls and you will see what I mean the threat difference between a simple and an average check means a lot.

Of course it targets. Even an AOE targets everyone in a given area, so characters (PC or NPC) in the area would still be considered targeted, otherwise they wouldn't use the word "target" in the description. It's silly to think an attack doesn't target if the intended victims are called "targets", and since the Scathing Tirade description calls the victims of its power targets, it must indeed target.

Also, did I mention... Target? I don't really shop there.

Also also... the ability you're looking for is Nobody's Fool. It works like Adversary, except for social checks.

Nobodys fool doesnt work either. You are making a scathing tirade action you are not attacking. At that stage you dont even need to be near anyone. Once you have made the roll you then doll out the strain damage only at that stage do you choose the targets. Ie after the Scathing Tirade action. This is what makes it "powerful" and has caused concern for those that have posted about it previously, a tirader can 3 times in their own turn scathing tirade and spend 1 of their successes to cause strain dmg on each check, they can also cause additional strain on any of the people they cause 1 strain for each advantage.

Ive been doing test rolls all day with 5 yellow as a benchmark, best ive seen out of them all is 1 success and 6 advantage , so if the person was lucky enough to do this three times in a row they could conceivably cause 21 strain damage to any one particular target (using tirades upgrades) this would ignore soak and the difficulty cant be changed by talents like adversary or nohodys fool, simply because the initial coercion check doesnt target anyone.

This concerned me in the previous thread from a few years back because I thought that indimidating could reduce the check to a simple check. Now that I know it doesn't it makes more sense because more thab half the time you would be lucky to do 2 or 3 strain damage to one target, and you would burn as much yourself to do it.

Nobody's Fool reads, "The difficulty of any Charm, Coercion, or Deception checks attempted against the character is upgraded once per rank of Nobody's Fool."

If someone is using Scathing Tirade, they are making a Coercion check used against someone. It doesn't give exceptions. It doesn't say attacks. Scathing Tirade is a coercion check uses against another character (PC or NPC) and therefore subject to Nobody's Fool.

At that stage you dont even need to be near anyone.

The first part of the talent reads

" The character may take the Scathing tirade action, making an Average coercion check"

At this stage it does not mention any targets. You are not required to name anyone as the target, this is why its a fixed difficulty and not an opposed check.

Moving on the next part reads

"For each success, one enemy within short range suffers one strain"

Now you name those affected , and give them one strain dmg. If you roll more success than enemies available then those success dont do anything, so you could have a tirade to youself, although it would be pointless if you expected a result.

Now onto the last part.

"The character can also spend advantage, for every advantage spent, one target already affected suffers 1 additional strain."

So if you have 2 enemies in short range and you roll 3 success and 3 advantage. Then you make your average coercion check, then do 1 strain dmg to each enemy, the last success is lost. The 3 advantage can then be distributed as additional strain to the 2 enemies affected.

This is how Scathing Tirade works in it entirety. When I questioned the devs about the adversary talent they did say that a Gm could conceivably rule that subsequent checks may have diminishing returns and also it could be ruled that the enemies have to understand you first.

If, like me originally, you think that this is overpowered, you can house rule it whatever way you like, however I would suggest making a character build as broken as you can, take Scathing Tirade and all its upgrades along with other related talents like No Escape , build in 5 willpower and 5 ranks in coercion, and then try taking down a hutt with it, and see who runs out of strain first. With every rank of second wind out there you might just win out but its going to take some time. Then come back and let us know how many turns it took to do, if the character managed it.

The power in this talent lies in the fact that its not targetted, even if it was, there would be nothing to stop you targetting a minion instead, while in short range of a nemesis (unless that was the only enemy in range and if it was, using Scathing Tirade is really ineffective, as you are far more likely to roll a lot of success than a lot of advantage).

If you read the talents description, it explains it well enough. You do not select who or what gets the Strain damage until after the roll is made, however as a GM , and dependent on circumstance I would perhaps rule some enemies as not being able to understand you enough to warrant gatting the strain damage eg try it on a rancor and its going to do nothing but put a great big arrow pointing at you for the Rancor to select its next target.

IMO the major benefit from scathing tirade is the debuff it does with improved scathing tirade, allowing you to drop a setback die on every target.

And I disagree. Nobody's Fool states that it must be a Charm, Coercion, or Deception check, and that the coercion check must be used against the character. It says nothing about targeting.

• Does Scathing Tirade use a Charm, Coercion, or Deception check? Yes.
• Are the results of that check used against the character? Yes.

Rules as written, Nobody's Fool should definitely affect Scathing Tirade.

Nobody's Fool

" The difficulty of any charm, coercion, or deception check attempted AGAINST the character is upgraded once for each rank of Nobody's Fool."

At no point in scathing tirade are you making a coercion check against anyone or anything. You take the Scathing Tirade action which then requires you to make an average coercion check.

Using the Coercion skill is a different action entirely, and requires you to perform the check as an opposed check

Okay... I see your point. I've messaged Sam Stewart on the subject.

I still think that Scathing Tirade can be said to target someone and be "against" them. You're not just yelling random curse words into the air hoping that someone within earshot is going to feel slighted.

I still think that Scathing Tirade can be said to target someone and be "against" them. You're not just yelling random curse words into the air hoping that someone within earshot is going to feel slighted.

Well... it's settled, and you and I are wrong, Krieger22.

Hello Simon,

Scathing Tirade does not target an opponent, so Nobody’s Fool would not interact with it.

Sam Stewart

RPG Manager

Fantasy Flight Games

So there we have it.

To be honest scathing tirade would be broken if things like adversary and nobodys fool worked on it (at least from a strain damage point of view). I have so often looked at talents and thought them overpowered, only to find in reality they are fine as they are.This has made me cautious on house rules, because adding in rules to nerf tirade also has a knock on on any talent that involve Coercion like No Escape amongst others.

Nobody's Fool

" The difficulty of any charm, coercion, or deception check attempted AGAINST the character is upgraded once for each rank of Nobody's Fool."

At no point in scathing tirade are you making a coercion check against anyone or anything. You take the Scathing Tirade action which then requires you to make an average coercion check.

Using the Coercion skill is a different action entirely, and requires you to perform the check as an opposed check

Sure you do, any enemy within short range is affected by scathing tirade, thus anyone within short range can use nobody's fool, because that tirade is working against him. If you would not use that tirade against anyone,than nobody would be classified as enemy and nobody would take any strain either. If we follow this to the letter then even multiple sources of nobody's fool would stack. So better don't use such a tirade on the senate or similar political assemblies, 5 red dice and two destiny points spend sound like any easy way for rolling despair and becoming the joke of the day. Some stupid grunts on the other hand do not seem the type to have that talent and are fair game to get intimidated and freaked out by a tirade of some politician.

And Sam totally disagrees with that, proving again that FFG should hire someone who can actually use word to describe things instead of just game designers.

Try asking someone in a dnd game standing in the area of effect of a fireball, even if they have immunity to spells they are not immune to fire damage. As for the wording, the wording is fine here because scathing tirade you do not call out targets until the dmg is being done as per RAW and nobody's fool calls out that you have to be targetted by a coercion check. Even at this the effect is far from overpowered even with ridiculous coercion levels you would be lucky to break 3 strain on w single target,although if you are lucky you might get as high as 7 , but with that many advantages and so little threat you would also have a good chance of failing the roll, in which case you are spending the advantage elsewhere.