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. Roll leadership vs the highest discipline character you are trying to affect or against 1 difficulty per target you are trying to affect, whichever is worse. Each success counts for one individual that you can rally.

2. Why not? Coercion is basically using fear to get someone to comply. It could very well mean torture or the threat of violence. Depending on the target's personality, training, etc, they could react to coercion with fear... or they could wall them self off because they are trained to resist interrogation. Or they could insult you because of your goofy Darth Vader wannabe mask.

On 12/20/2017 at 7:51 AM, gtgauvin said:

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!

9 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

1. Roll leadership vs the highest discipline character you are trying to affect or against 1 difficulty per target you are trying to affect, whichever is worse. Each success counts for one individual that you can rally.

2. Why not? Coercion is basically using fear to get someone to comply. It could very well mean torture or the threat of violence. Depending on the target's personality, training, etc, they could react to coercion with fear... or they could wall them self off because they are trained to resist interrogation. Or they could insult you because of your goofy Darth Vader wannabe mask.

The main concern is you don't want to make the "flat" skill check better than Talents that do the same/similar thing, right?

So, RE: 1.

I would recommend just allowing a successful Leadership check to give the Fearful character(s) another Discipline check to overcome the Fear, OR ignore one effect of the Fear for one round. Difficulty of the Leadership Check I would say should be the same as the Fear Check that was failed, plus a Setback for every Character to be affected - including the first/one. A person with higher Discipline should not be harder to rally than someone with a low Discipline, which is what Groggy's suggestion equates to.

The above method synergizes with a lot of Leadership Talents (Command, Commanding Presence), and doesn't overwhelm any Talents that I know of.

RE: 2.

I agree it should, but be careful here, this could be pretty exploitable as the results of Fear can be strong, and aren't something that is just thrown around in the game - i.e. it takes something pretty fantastic to call for a Fear Check on the PCs (I know, they're heroes, mooks are mooks but...). All Coercion/Fear causing Talents that I know of are either improving its Action economy (Fearsome), or actually just inflict Strain (Scathing Tirade) or Negative Conditions (Terrify).

However, it takes Improved Terrify - 2 Talents (and a Triumph ) - to get the Staggered condition, a default effect of Fear. This indicates to me that causing Fear in an NPC should not be as simple as opposed Coercion vs. Discipline/Cool.

I would say follow the Terrify "model". Base Difficulty = Hard Coercion check, upgraded for every rank in Discipline OR Cool (including upgraded values for Minion Groups), whichever is higher, add Setbacks for greater numbers, and/or firepower on the side of the Target. This allows it to synergizes with Coercion Talents, and hopefully not tread on the toes/be better than any Fear Talents.