Posted this to the AoR site, but no responses, so I'm posting it here as well.

I'm considering introducing the fear mechanics into my game, and I have a couple of questions about how they interact with a couple of skills.

1) How do you adjudicate the use of the Leadership skill to remove or reduce the effects of a failed fear check. The description of the skill states that characters affected by fear "may be rallied through a leadership check", but I haven't been able to find any guidance in the book.

2) Can the Coercion skill be used to trigger a fear check? It seems like Coercion as written is there to be used to turn NPCs to comply with the PC using the skill, but I can see a secondary mechanical use to trigger or boost a fear check. Would this make the the skill overpowered? Does anyone have any ideas on house rules for how this might happen?

Thanks!

1. There isn't any precise rule for it, you decide on how best to adjudicate it for your table. But my rule of thumb right now, would be along the lines of the Leadership check going up against the difficulty of the Fear check, and if they succeed, they rally their allies. Or perhaps whatever the difficulty is, if they succeed, the number of successes rolled equal the number of rounds they are not subject to the fear effect. Things like that are what I would go for.

2. Sure, why not let Coercion trigger fear? A giant Wookie, covered in blood and gore, weilding a vibro-axe, gets up in your face and starts roaring at the top of his lungs, clearly furious, you darn well better believe someone would be afraid. Though I'm not sure I would have it require a second roll? I mean, the Coercion roll is the check, if they succeed, the effect is the person is afraid. I would simply consider THAT roll the "fear check", and if the target fails, then they are suffering from whatever penalties seem fitting. A few setback, upgrade of difficulty of all checks for the encounter, etc.

But I wouldn't have 2 rolls, otherwise, what is the successful result for the Coercion roll itself? If the intended reason for the Coercion is "I want to scare the poodoo out of this guy attacking us, making them leave us alone"....if they succeed then that's the result of the roll.

My take is a bit different from KFF, but not much.

1) I run it so that the Leadership check negates the detrimental effects of a failed Fear check. I make this a standard social check, Leadership opposed by the target's Discipline. This represents the fact that the Leader is trying to calm (or command) the fearful person to pull themself together, but the fearful person is not at all convinced that not being afraid is a good idea, so they resist. On a success, the negative effects are gone for the fearful character.

2) I'd say Coercion can trigger fear, too. But it would depend on what the character is going for with the Coercion check. Is the goal to get the bad guy to talk about where the bomb is hidden? In that case, the social roll is to get the bad guy to talk, but making him also make a fear check would be a good use of Advantage or Triumph. Is the goal simply to scare the guy? Then just roll a Coercion-vs.-Discipline contest and be done with it, as KFF suggested.

1 minute ago, SavageBob said:

1) I run it so that the Leadership check negates the detrimental effects of a failed Fear check.

I figured the failed part was understood, as a passed Fear check has no negative effects, and in fact frequently have benefits.

Just now, KungFuFerret said:

I figured the failed part was understood, as a passed Fear check has no negative effects, and in fact frequently have benefits.

Oh, gotcha. I thought you were saying the Leadership roll could be used preemptively, to give the rest of the party a pass without having to roll for fear at all.

Just now, SavageBob said:

Oh, gotcha. I thought you were saying the Leadership roll could be used preemptively, to give the rest of the party a pass without having to roll for fear at all.

Nah, the OP framed the question (at least to my reading of it) for using the Leadership roll to negate Fear effects in effect, which is how I phrased my response. Though now that you mention the preemptive aspect, I wouldn't see a problem with that. I mean, I've lost count of the number of movies where a leader has his Epic Speech Before Battle, to bolster the confidence of his troops before they go leap into the jaws of death. I could easily see that kind of thing as a form of insulation against a Fear check, or at the very least some bonuses to the upcoming Fear check.

Either scenario is plausible to me as something Leadership could accomplish, it would just play out differently. One would negate already existing negative effects, the other would provide boosts to try and prevent the negative effects in the first place.

27 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

Oh, gotcha. I thought you were saying the Leadership roll could be used preemptively, to give the rest of the party a pass without having to roll for fear at all.

You can do this with the Command talent (a preemptive Leadership roll that lasts for 24 hours), since Fear is usually a Discipline check.

I agree Coercion can *be* the Fear check (instead of triggering one), but be careful not to step on the toes of the Fearsome talent. If you allow Coercion to replace it wholesale, it makes Fearsome less valuable. So I'd only allow it in circumstances that warrant it.

With both these questions, it's important to have a handle on any talents that might be affected.

21 minutes ago, whafrog said:

I agree Coercion can *be* the Fear check (instead of triggering one), but be careful not to step on the toes of the Fearsome talent. If you allow Coercion to replace it wholesale, it makes Fearsome less valuable. So I'd only allow it in circumstances that warrant it.

With both these questions, it's important to have a handle on any talents that might be affected.

My only issue with this, is it implies that unless you have the talent (or similar ones) you can't do certain activities. Like tripping someone. I remember another thread that went nuts about trip, and how letting people use Adv/Triumph to trip someone stepped on the toes of a talent. And all I can think is "yeah but, like everyone knows how to trip someone. This isn't a learned, elite skill Children on the playground are capable of tripping someone with relative ease"

Make it cost more to accomplish, or make the difficulty higher or something, but I think it should always be allowed.

1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

My only issue with this, is it implies that unless you have the talent (or similar ones) you can't do certain activities.

Agreed, that's my major beef with how the careers and specs are set up in this game (only Archeologists can Pin...??). I'd love to see a Genesys version of SW...