Phonelobsters Mousetrap

[PhoneLobster]

Sample Encounter 2 NPCs
This time, just to prove that NPCs of the same People origins as the group exist in the world the party is going to a tribe of warrior nomad Lizard Girl people.

Enemy Balance
OK so their first fight was mostly Civilians because the party sucked. At this level they are still crappy enough to fight mostly Civilians most of the time , but for this fight are fighting mostly Veterans, because they can now manage that (hopefully) and should make a more interesting example.

Sheer number of NPCs, span of the map, and number of named NPCs is up this time.

NPC Nomadic Warrior Lizard Girl –

(Veteran) Lizard Girl Animal Flesh Soft Trooper
NDEF 12= 5 + Fast 2+Cowardly 1+Evasive 4
SDEF 11/16=10+Cowardly 1+5 Alert
Max E = 0
Max Inj = 1
Energetic Fast 2 to NDef
Cowardly Cowardly 1 to NDef and SDef and Cowardly to all actions. Scary attacks against you gain Devastating +1

People Traits -
NA Chameleon Skin Make pretty colours and patterns!
NA Shedding Skin You shed your skin like a snake from time to time.
NA Night Eyes You can see well in the dark in a purely non-mechanical manner.
NA Big Lungs You have fantastic lungs. May need special fitting of restrictive chest clothing, no cost.
NA Flexible Tongue You have a freakishly long and dexterous tongue It might even be forked like a snake's.
NA Gecko Pads +3 to Climb checks.
NA Bonus Tail tail in addition to normal limbs. SELECTED +3 to Climb checks
NA Claws Claws, you have them. +3 Climb bonus

Unlocked Skill Sets – No Clothes, Melee Weaponry
Skills (3 Points)
0 Naked Defence When naked or Skimpy gain Evasive 4 to NDef
0 Sticky Feet You may add Climb to your movement at will.
0 Whip Tongue Tongue is a fully functional whip, Body Guided Whip Light Weak +3 vs Evasive and may count as Weapon OR Unarmed your choice. Make an Off Hand attack with Whip Tongue at1E if unused this turn.
0 Long Tongue Your Whip or Prehensile tongue is very long and may add Short Range to all it's effects/actions
1 Double Zero Skill +1x0 Point Skill selection
1 Double Zero Skill +1x0 Point Skill selection

Items
Main Clothing – 2c Tiny Pants Partial Cloth Clothing Light Skimpy A basic skimpy main clothing/underwear item.
Hand 1 - 2c Pick Weapon Metal Hard Hammer +2 vs Hard
Hand 2- 4c Bladerrang Weapon Metal Hard Boomerang +2 vs Body May be Thrown to add Long-Range
Feet - 0c Bare Feet Not An Item, Caltrops get bonuses, +1 vs Non-Deaf on Hide and Sneak actions.

Notes - These nomadic warrior lizard girls have lashed out on some utilities and versatility and a bit of defence, unfortunately at the cost of any flat weapon skill attack bonuses. They can climb on walls, throw their bladerrangs to long range, tongue lash to short and whack hard targets at short range with picks

NPC Nomadic Lizard Man Ogre –

(Named) Lizard Ogre Animal Flesh Soft
NDEF 13= 5 + Strong 2+Big 2+Slow+Armour 4+Hard+Heavy+Plate
SDEF 11/16=10+5 Alert
Max E = 2
Max Inj = 5
Tough Strong 2 to NDef. +2 Max Injuries. 1E per special injury in block phase to convert to Standard Injury.
Feeble Slow to your NDef (but not actions). -1 Max Energy. At 0 Energy may expend Injuries as separate Energy pool.

People Traits -
NA Big Sized Adds Big 2 to NDef, Your “Unarmed Attack” adds Big, Normal Attacks with Big add -2 vs Small and +2 vs Big
Big sized weapons one handed, normal sized 1 handed, cannot use small. Wears big sized clothing and armour.
NA Armour Plates You have very large hard scales, or exo-skeletal plates or something.
NA Big Lungs You have fantastic lungs. May need special fitting of restrictive chest clothing, no cost.
NA Flexible Tongue You have a freakishly long and dexterous tongue It might even be forked like a snake's.
NA Sharp Bite You have sharp pointy teeth.
NA Swallower You can swallow an abnormal amount of things.
NA Bonus Tail tail in addition to normal limbs. SELECTED +3 to Climb checks
NA Claws Claws, you have them. +3 Climb bonus
NA Energy Vision(Medusa Gaze) You have freaky glowing eyes full of dangerous energies... works exactly like Energy Breath only you shoot stuff out of your eyes instead of your mouth.

Unlocked Skill Sets – Plate Armour, Heavy Weaponry
Skills (3 Points)
0 Heavy Bone Plates Add the following to your Body Materials Hard Heavy Plate Armour 4 as long as your body keywords apply you count as being in Heavy armour, you may not Run or Charge and you Sink in water.
0 Plate Armour Mobility Can Run and Charge actions in plate
0 Weapon Skill +3 vs All to Weapon attacks
1 Chopper may apply -2 vs all before attack to add Sever to any Heavy Weapon attack. Yes this is potentially additional to the axes.
1 Heavy Power may add Slow before attack to add Devastating +1 to your Heavy Weapon attack.
1 Heavy Impalement on hit with a heavy weapon disarm the weapon and leave it impaled in victim, applying a pin effect with the weapon item (and Armour 4) and causing the weapon to roll a free attack on the victim that is Stacking (ignoring/adding to damage cap) when the weapon is later removed or the pin broken (unless the weapon is expended/destroyed/damaged first).

Items
Main Clothing – None (Note- May expend his Heavy Bone Plates as a clothing item for torn shirt).
Hand 1 - 4c Heavy Hammer Weapon Metal Hard Hammer +3 vs Armour optionally Thrown to add Long-Range and Double-Range-Penalties -2 vs all without Heavy Weapon Handling.
Hand 2- 5c Heavy Sword Weapon Metal Heavy Hard Sword +3 vs Body -2 vs all without Heavy Weapon Handling.
Pocket 1 - 4c Heavy Hammer Weapon Metal Hard Hammer +3 vs Armour optionally Thrown to add Long-Range and Double-Range-Penalties -2 vs all without Heavy Weapon Handling.
Feet - 0c Bare Feet Not An Item, Caltrops get bonuses, +1 vs Non-Deaf on Hide and Sneak actions.

Notes - Suddenly Lizard Girls are a gender dimorphic species with hulking great ogre males that lack some traits like the shedding/cham.eleon skin but get armour plating, large size and medusa vision (potentially, this guy has more invested in just chopping things up with big swords). This guy is a giant threat thanks to hefty 5 hit points, all of which can be used as extra energy, and some skills that may make him hit really very hard with big heavy weapons

NPC Nomadic Lizard Girl Princess–

(Named) Lizard Girl Animal Flesh Soft
NDEF 13= 5 + Pretty 3+Cowardly 1+Evasive 4
SDEF 14/19=10+Pretty 3+Cowardly 1+5 Alert
Max E = 3
Max Inj = 3
Pretty Pretty 3 to NDef and SDef. Pretty to all actions. 1E to force reroll of Non-Pretty attack/action targeting you (once per roll).
Cowardly Cowardly 1 to NDef and SDef and Cowardly to all actions. Scary attacks against you gain Devastating +1

People Traits -
NA Chameleon Skin Make pretty colours and patterns!
NA Shedding Skin You shed your skin like a snake from time to time.
NA Night Eyes You can see well in the dark in a purely non-mechanical manner.
NA Big Lungs You have fantastic lungs. May need special fitting of restrictive chest clothing, no cost.
NA Flexible Tongue You have a freakishly long and dexterous tongue It might even be forked like a snake's.
NA Gecko Pads +3 to Climb checks.
NA Bonus Tail tail in addition to normal limbs. SELECTED +3 to Climb checks
NA Claws Claws, you have them. +3 Climb bonus

Unlocked Skill Sets – No Clothes, Melee Weaponry
Skills (4 Points)
0 Naked Defence When naked or Skimpy gain Evasive 4 to NDef
0 Shedding Chameleon(Camouflage) Take the same ability as Chameleon Camouflage or Face Shifter for this reduced price, but you only change to 1 fixed background camouflage, or 1 fixed disguise and do so by shedding your old skin entirely. Which is a special normal injury that takes 1 ST to heal normally before you can do it again. You may use this camouflage or disguise with other Shedding Skin abilities like Empty Husk at no extra cost when doing that. Take this ability twice for both Chameleon Camouflage AND Face Shifter.
0 I Come In Peace! Changes default Friendly, +3 vs All if you appear unarmed +0 vs All if you appear armed
0 Friendly +2 vs All to all your Friendly attacks.
1 Empty Husk Shed your skin (as a special normal injury that takes 1 ST to heal) for a Decoy Perfect-Block or as a Decoy Parry/Hide action. This however leaves all your exterior worn and held items with the skin.
1 Living Husk Your skin from Empty Husk has 1 Max Injury and 0 Max Energy base and otherwise acts exactly like you and remains a living character under your control, it cannot survive for more than 1 ST. Husks shed with Layered husk are the same, but their maximum life span is a mere 1 Turn. [requires Empty Husk]
2 Gentle Innocence 1E to make a Friendly Parry attack against anyone attempting to attack you, cancelling all actions on hit. Even if unaware. If triggered by assassinations target is not Alert.

Items
Main Clothing – 2c Tiny Pants Partial Cloth Clothing Light Skimpy A basic skimpy main clothing/underwear item.
Hat – 3c Friendly Hat Hat Cloth Expend to fuel any Friendly skill in place of 1E
Hand 1 - 2c A Friendly Gift Disposable Unique (any material and hardness) Give this item away to add +2 vs All to a single friendly attack. Once given, expended or damaged this item is destroyed/used up forever.
Feet - 0c Bare Feet Not An Item, Caltrops get bonuses, +1 vs Non-Deaf on Hide and Sneak actions.

Notes - Because certain dumb fucks continue to concern troll the terror of the “Princess rape” scenario I've thrown a princess, better yet an under dressed unarmed princess with only friendly powers, in to demonstrate how social/combat/princess combos might actually look outside of the hands of lying panic merchants who ignore the actual rules being presented. This one has a few tricks and is mostly just a hard target who will try (and maybe succeed) in making you her friend. She uses all her energy on Gentle Innocence parries, and if pushed into a tight corner she shall shed her skin, leave it behind to talk it's way out without her, and attempt to sneak off naked and camouflaged while it distracts everyone.

The Scenario
OK so there are like 40 Nomadic Warrior Lizard Girls, 1 Princess and 2 Ogres hanging about doing something suspicious in a narrow ruined tower on a cliff side. The party for whatever reason feels the need to sneak in and defeat (through words or violence, whatever) the princess. Who is very probably near the top of the place. Since they just want to stop her doing... whatever it is she is doing there, we don't really care what. They may have to get by a bunch of guards to do so.

The Layout
I've abused my zones mechanics to draw up the map as a 2d PROFILE map instead of top view! See it HERE

For convenience it is assumed the party for whatever reason has decided to split and succeeded into sneaking into their marked starting positions, lizard girl is on the cliff side beneath the tower, the rest are overlooking the tower on a cliff even to it's top and at the top of some precarious rocky stairs leading down. Because they succeeded in their sneaking as long as they don't get closer, they will remain hidden without further rolls.

Looking at the profile map... you will note the zones are marked with dotted lines (or solid walls in some cases.... and are NOT set up in a perfect symmetrical grid, or anything particularly close to it. Notably a lot of the zones out in the air have more adjacencies and cover more ground than the ones... well... on the ground. This is an intended feature of both the system and the map.

Since it is poorly drawn... note that the towers are 1 zone per room/story, and the bottom 3 stories have windows, the lowest has a door, all have ladder access to the next story, and the roof has little crenelations but no walls.

There are spikes in one of the water zones beneath the tower, which would make falling there worse. The stairs are precarious and could potentially result in a nasty fall, but hazard attack is triggered only on runs, charges, and close range attack actions performed on the stairs.

Before the battle
The PCs have some intel on the place, and have seen some comings and goings. They have a moderately good idea of the layout and enemies, though technically do not know the exact layout of enemies inside the tower (but have an idea of numbers and a fair guess as to details).

The PCs are somewhat split as to what they want to do.

Mr Lies wants to lie his way in.

Betty Blades and Mr Smash want a full frontal assualt.

Mr Smash in particular wants to fly in over the rood then smash the tower to pieces.

Lizard Girl wants to climb the sheer cliff and assassinate her enemies.

After some argument it is agreed that Lizard Girl will attempt a sneaky climb and Mr Lies will try lying his way in. Betty will creep in closer as emergency support and Mr Smash will wait for signs of combat before charging in.

[PhoneLobster]

Turn 1
Betty Blades is Fast. She decides to Sneak into the top zone of the stair way. This is not a run or charge she has no risk of falling. She rolls high and beats the Warrior Girls social defence of 11 (cowardly but not alert) with her +1(bare feet)+1 (distance penalty)+roll of 16.
She is now hidden in the top of the stairs zone.

Mr Lies does the same thing as her in normal phase and succeeds also.

Mr Smash just stays still at the top of the upper cliff. He succeeded in hiding here before, the roll hasn't become any harder, so he doesn’t roll again, he remains undetected.

PC Lizard Girl climbs the cliff. She hasnt actually invested in Gecko Feet yet (unlike the nomad warrior NPCs) and actually needs to roll a climb check. Difficulty is 13, she gets +9 and rolls a 5. She also rolls her sneak check to remain hidden. Now, lets run through a “Best Observer” determination on this one... There are 2 rooms of 10 warriors each 1 zone away from her destination, but inside a stone wall with open windows. There are also 10 warriors on the roof with no walls, and 1 Ogre indoors 1 zone away, but they are 2 zones from her destination. We are considering the windows to apply NO barrier type penalty to observation, so the 10 Warriors indoors have the highest social defence, no range penalty and one of them will be the “Best Observer” for her stealth action. BUT there is also a Princess 2 zones away behind stone walls with no windows. The Princess has a REALLY HIGH social defence of 14 (before alert), there is a range bonus of +1 against her for the 2 zones distance, and the walls will provide somewhere between +5 to +10 bonus to the stealth, so she is NOT the best observer, yet. All the guys on the other side of the tower are suffering easily the maximum penalty for observing stuff through an entire stone tower and wont count.

PC Lizard Girl now has +5 net to her sneaking. She needs to beat 11, she gets rolls a 12 and gets 17. She is attached to the wall and remains hidden.

All the NPCs just wait around doing whatever they were doing as no one was detected yet.

Turn 2
Betty sneaks down the stairs again and miraculously succeed.

Mr Smash remains brooding on the cliff top, planning the demolition of the entire tower in his mad fantasies.

Lizard girl is no on a stretch of wall with no less than 3 adjacent zones she can get to by crawling into the windows of the lower tower. There are 10 warriors each in the lower two, and 1 Ogre in the upper one. Lizard Girl is crap against warriors, but could take the Ogre. However... she decides it is too soon. She remains stationary for now, does not need to make a new climb roll, and does not need to make a new stealth roll.

Mr Lies however... is uncertain he can make his next sneak roll. So he decides to stop hiding and casually walk down instead. Which... since it isn't loud or an attack is actually still pretty hard to notice even with a mere Cause A Disturbance stealth check, and he rolls high and remains unnoticed yet another turn.

Turn 3
Betty Delays her action to normal phase to see how Mr Lies go turns out.

Lizard Girl and Mr Smash wait.

Mr Lies springs into action. And, from where he stands, draws the attention of the 10 lizard girls on the stairs and attempts to lie to all of them at once. There is no range penalty (short range, adjacent zone), they are not yet Alert and his action won't be making them alert on it's own (it's just a social lies attack, and he has no weapons), and they are Unready so they cannot react at all, let alone become alert due to their own actions until NEXT turn.

Normally lying to 10 targets at once would incur a -9 multi-target penalty. But Mr Lies has Mass Deception and spends 1E on it to cancel that penalty. He has Manipulator of Fools (+1 vs Non-tricky), Trickster (+2 vs all) and a Deceptive Mask (+1 vs all) for a net +4 vs the Nomad Warrior Girls. They have a social defence (before alert) of 11. He rolls a 7 and barely succeeds.

When you succeed in defeating targets with lies, you tell them your story then, and they will believe it, updates would require further defeats. Mr Lies has to pick his story to influence the actions of his 10 victims now. The question is what? He WANTS to tell them “I am an important diplomat! You must Take Me To Your Leader!”, and actually that would probably be one of the best ways to resolve this situation (if Mr Lies could ultimately then best the princess directly in social combat on his own, which he would be better at alone than if someone were there doing things to alert her).

But that isn't what we want to demonstrate here, and the other players demand he do something else. He goes with “aaaiieee my friends, beware, that Lizard Ogre behind you is a mad mass murderer plotting to attack you right this moment” in order to set them on the lizard ogre behind them. Not altogether a bad tactical choice, as the lizard ogre is a major threat to individual named characters, but hasn't got much going on to fight against groups.

Mr Lies also might not be noticed doing this by parties other than his target. So he rolls a “Cause A Disturbance” Stealth roll to determine if the Lizard Ogre noticed him doing this, since it incorporated an Attack (even if it was social) that is a -5 penalty to a Cause A Disturbance. So Mr Lies needs a 15 even though the Ogre is not alert. He rolls a 10 and the Ogre notices the lies, and the 10 lizard girls who are now looking at him like he was about to murder them all. He is unsure how to react... but will not be Unready next turn.

Betty decides to pass entirely on her held action for now.

Turn 4
Betty decides to hold her action to Normal speed.

The 10 lied to Lizard Girls all turn around and throw Blader-rangs at the Lizard Ogre. They get +5 co-operative bonus and +2 vs Body. They need to hit 13 NDef and roll a 7 hitting a 14 safely. One damage is headed the way of the Lizard Ogre.


The Lizard Ogre has no particularly recourse. The Lizard Girls have gecko feet and wont fall off their precarious stairs zone, but if he charges in then he might. He could throw his hammer at them though... He opts to use Heavy Power to do so more effectively slowing the action to the Slow phase so we wait on resolving that.

Betty decides to delay to the slow phase.

Mr Smash decides to jump off his cliff into the air in the zone between it and the tower roof top. That's just a standard move action with a jump. He tries to be sneaky about it. The Nomad Warriors on the roof might notice. He rolls a 4 and they see him there, leaping into the void, he will clearly fall short of landing on their tower.

Lizard Girl decides now is the time to pounce. She looks in through the window into the room on the third story of the tower where the other Lizard Ogre is, and decides to try and Assassinate him with a thrown glass stilleto. She can draw it from a pocket as part of the attack. The Lizard Ogre has 13 NDef, and she has only +2 vs Armour with the glass stilleto, but not being in the room IS handy. So she rolls and gets a solid 19. The assassination hits. The Ogre is Unready and has no means of blocking while Unready. He takes the kill injury and dies on the spot despite his impressive 5 Injuries. This Causes A Comotion. Best Observers are the lizard girls on the bottom story, there is a -5 penalty for making an attack, but they still aren't quiet alert yet (likely will be very soon) so its a 16 to make it. She gets an 18 on the roll, adding her +5 and is safely still invisible.

Mr Lies decides to lie to the Lizard Ogre. Technically the lizard Ogre was only actually attacked with normal attacks this same phase of this same turn. Mr Lies decides to lie to him before the ogre is alert. And rolls a 7 adds +4, hitting for 1 damage.

The Lizard Ogre now acts in the slow phase. As part of his action he chooses to yell loudly, making the Cause A Commotion effect even more likely to be noticed.

He throws his hammer. Despite the lies about him being a mass murderer out to get the lizard girls guarding the stairs he decides instead to throw his hammer at the nasty Mr Lies. But thats a range penalty of -1, a -2 penalty for not having the Heavy Handling skill while using a Heavy Hammer. Fortunately it is not a big hammer (would have been another penalty vs small). Mr Lies has a defence of 12 with his Cloak layer up, and the hammer will not apply its bonus vs armour, but the Ogre will apply his +3 vs all from Weapon Skill. So its a 10 to hit for 2 damage thanks to Heavy Power. Ogre rolls a depressing 2 and misses.

This causes a comotion, and with a -10 penalty the Ogre “needs” a roll of a natural 21 to NOT be noticed through the open door and windows by the nearby two batches of 10 nomad warriors in the two lower stories of the tower. He cannot get that. They notice him fighting automatically and will all be alert and ready next turn as a result.

Betty now acts with her delayed action, she charges into the zone of the Lizard Girls, she is attacked by the stairs she left because she charge out (they miss) and attacked by the stairs she enters because she charged in (they miss) so she doesn't fall. She spends 1E for weapon flurry to attack all 10 lied to lizard girls at once. This is hardly optimal, she should keep them around to kill the ogre. But she is impetious and wants to demonstrate weapon flurry. She rolls an 11. She adds +2 vs body from choosing to make the attack with her sword, and +3 vs all from Weapon Skill. She hits handily enough.

The Lizard Ogre in the 3rd story cannot block an assassination when unready and dies. The lizard ogre out the front of the tower cannot block social damage and takes 1. All 10 of the lied to lizard nomad warriors attacked by Betty Blades are unamed and have no blocks, with only 1 Injury each they are all defeated.

Turn 5
Betty acts in the fast phase, charges out of the stairs (hazard misses her again), and into the Lizard Ogre's zone. Attacking him with her hammer. She hits for 1 Damage.

In the normal phase the lizard ogre is making a heavy power attack again so it will be delayed to slow phase.

The 10 Lizard Girls on the 1st story charge out the front door and attack Betty. Neither their Picks nor their Bladerrangs will get a bonus against her, they lack weapon skill, but have a co-operative bonus of +5, Betty has a fairly impressive 15 defence, they roll 3 and miss her.

The lizard Girls on the 2nd Story move down to the first story.

The lizard Girls on the roof throw Bladerangs at Mr Smash in the air. Hey, he is going to fall righ? But no reason not to bladerrang him first? Whatever, they do it. They won't get the +2 vs body bonus because of Mr Smash's Heavy Plate Armour. But whatever. They need a 9 with their co-operative bonus to hit his 14 defence. They hit on a 13.

Mr Lies decides to lie to all targets in Betty's zone. Except for betty, his Deceptive social attack is “up to all” targets in a zone, so he can do that. He pays 1 Energy to ignore multi-target penalty. He is required to roll once for the ogre, and once for the 10 warriors. He pays an additional 1 Energy (his last) to ignore Alert, as all these targets ARE now alert, he is also far enough away to suffer a -1 range penalty. He hits the Ogre for 1 Social damage thanks to damage cap this is moderately meaningless and Mr Lies and Betty will have to argue who's one damage gets precedence before the Ogre blocks or not. He rolls an 8 vs the Warriors, and they have 11 social defence (ignoring alert) so with his +4 to hit he has lied to them as well. His story now is that the10 effected warrior nomad lizard girls have just inherited a small fortune and all their former allies are trying to steal it and kill them, he and his friends are there to deliver it and help them. That was pretty brilliant vs multi-targets and dealing with alert penalty in real combat... but... it cost him all his remaining energy. He can still expend his mask on something tho.

PC lizard girl out on the wall sneaks into the third story. The closes observers are the lizard warriors on the 2nd/1st story and she rolls 15 remaining hidden.

Mr Smash has a TK levitator pocket item, and the Kinetic Levitation skill. He remains stationary adding the Fly keyword and does not fall anywhere. Now... he could just spend 1E to blast all the warriors on the roof, or the ogre, betty and the lied to warriors on the ground. And the first option would not be a bad idea. BUT... The tower is made of stone walls. Each floor has only 2 walls holding it up (front and back) thanks to it being a narrow tower and the zone layout being drawn that way. Stone walls normally have defence 15 and 6 Injuries, but being a battered ruin its down to 14 and has already taken 2 damage. It would only take 1 damage to hole a wall, and 4 damage to demolish it. With one wall gone, upper levels will likely collapse.
Mr Smash decides that there MUST be something interesting going on in the 4th story with no windows in it. So he decides to shoot out the front wall with his TK Blaster attack. He needs a 10 and rolls a 13. He is hitting for 2 damage (thanks to Demolisher) and spends 2E on hit to upgrade that to 4 damage, blasting the entire front wall away, revealing a somewhat surprised Lizard Princess. She is unready this turn and cannot act in this phase or turn as a result.

Mr Smash takes his 1 damage from bladerrangs without blocking. The ogre cannot block another 1 social damage so Betty and Mr Lies agree that Betty's attack just set the ogre up for Mr Lies deceptions and the ogre fails to block that taking 1 more social damage. The new 10 lied to lizard warriors are of course lied to and are now basically turned against their allies.

Turn 6
The roof of the tower collapses in onto the 4th floor due to all of one of only 2 supporting walls being destroyed last turn. We have a means of doing that attack. Its basically falling damage adding the material that falls and a pin effect, the princess however, is miraculourly missed by falling debris thanks to a poor attack roll by Gravity. However the 10 lizard warriors on the roof also fall into the zone... and gravity misses them too, and they end up standing around with the princess in the rubble.

Betty attacks the Lizard Ogre with her hammer. She rolls a 1 and misses. She has a free off hand attack with her sword, so she rolls that vs the Lizard Ogre and hits him on a roll of 11 before bonuses.

The Lied to lizard warriors decide to tackle the Lizard Ogre in a group Grab attack. And succeed, applying the Grabbed effect to him so betty can keep beating him up with impunity.

The remaining 10 lizard warriors on the first floor, charge out and attack the 10 lied to lizard warriors grabbing the Ogre. They roll 15, add their bladerang bonus (using it as melee) +2 vs Body, and +5 co-operative bonus. Their total of 22 vs the defence of their targets of 12 has a margin of success of 10. This is important when co-operative attacks target other co-operative attacker groups as they deal an additional damage per point of margin of success, up to a maximum damage equal to the number of co-operative attackers. Which means they deal 10 damage, and handily wipe the entire group of lied to lizard girls grabbing the Lizard Ogre, he won't suffer the grab effect in the slow phase this turn, or for any of next turn since they cleared the grabbers before that. Very nice work there for them.

The Lizard Ogre is holding to the Slow phase again.

The 10 Lizard warriors on the now rubble strewn 4th floor decide to head down stairs into the zone with the hidden PC Lizard Girl.

The Princess of the Lizards decides to try and befriend Mr Smash. She appears unarmed... +3 vs All, has Friendly+2 vs all, and decides to give him her Friendly Gift (why not, its a dove with a ribbon on it, she releases it into the air) for +2 vs all more. Now he is Alert, and has Educated 2 on his social defence so she needs a 17 with her net +7 and rolls a 20 dealing him 1 social damage as she confuses him in battle with her friendly nature.

PC Lizard girl sneaks up past the 10 warriors coming down into the Princess's zone on the open rubble strewn 4th floor. She rolls a 4, adds 5 and compares her 9 vs the princess's alert social defence of no less than 19. She has failed terribly, the princess has detected her and tells all her nearby friends about it.

Mr Smash decides that Betty can take the hit and spends 1E to blast the entire contents of the zone with her, the ogre and the 10 lizard warriors down there. He handitly hits Betty with a 19. He this the Ogre with an 11 (irrelevant due to damage cap, sort of, read on), and hits the lizard warriors on a 15. This wipes the last ground level lizard warriors. Now he COULD spend his Battery Charge as 1E on hit to upgrade his attack to add Throw, allowing him to among other things... throw the Lizard Ogre off the cliff before it even gets to act in the slow phase, leaving it to fall into the sea next turn. He chooses not to. Because he would be out of Energy and would need to spend his TK Levitator to even keep him up there 1 more turn. Anyway, we have other things to demonstrate, but he could have sent all his victims thrown a zone there...

Mr Lies sees no viable targets bar the Princess lizard. So he decides to yell some lies at her a full three zones away. He rolls a 1, he has no means of reducing her alert bonus. Her 19 defence means it is a miss by a very long shot.

The Lizard Ogre takes a -2 to hit betty with a slowed Heavy Power and enhanced Chopper attack with his Heavy Sword he rolls an 18 to hit Betty. With the attack that will deal no less than 2 damage AND a Sever injury. Also he then uses Heavy Impalement to drop the sword leaving it stuck in her pinning her to the ground.

Mr Smash has no means yet of blocking social damage, so he takes the 1 the Princess dealt. The Lizard Ogre takes 1 damage from Betty and doesn't block it. (thats a total of 3 damage he has taken now I think). Various NPCs are floored here and there. Betty cannot block the Pin from Heavy Impalement (its an effect not an injury), but she can block at least some of the damage she took. She has Weapon Block and is equipped with 2 small shields in her hands, she can, and does shed both her weapons and 1 shield to gain three blocks, blocking both normal damage and the special sever injury. She has 1 shield left in her hand (and 2 in her pockets and 1 spare bladerrang in a pocket).

Turn 7
Betty is pinned by a heavy weapon. She can only perform actions with Wrestle. That leaves her with... Escape or nothing. She makes an unarmed default escape attack on the pinning weapon. It's defence is a whole 9. She rolls a 14 with not bonus and breaks loose, but the other effect of heavy impalement... is that breaking loose form the impalement triggers another attack by the weapon, that hits, and will stack above standard damage cap for +1 damage against her this turn. After that her turn is basically over.

The 10 Warriors on the 3rd floor return back up again to the 4th floor to attack the now detected PC Lizard Girl. They roll a 3 and miss her.

The Princess tries to finish off Mr Smash as her friend. She rolls a 14, adds 5 and beats his 17 defence. He is taking 1 damage and will be her friend by the end of the turn unless something is done.

The Lizard Ogre is waiting until slow phase again.

PC Lizard Girl decides to parry the friendly attack by the Princess to try and save Mr Smash from friendship with the enemy. She rolls a 5 with her claws, but fortunately they have Multi-Attackx2 and she hits with a 13 on the next roll (+3 vs all +2 vs flesh), the attack is the default Parry, so is otherwise undamaging. Still it distracts the princess from her friendmaking cancelling the hit on Mr Smash.

Mr Smash decides to help out Lizard Girl in turn, and screw the fall, he is spending his battery charge to attack everything in her zone. BUT he is Decadent! Both Lizard Princess AND PC Lizard Girl have Pretty on their profile he cannot attack them unless he either seduces them... or he pays All Energy Minimum 0... which he just goes ahead and does because he is all out of Energy anyway. He handily damages the Princess for 1. Misses Lizard Girl and wipes the last 10 warriors. Next turn he must either fall, or expend his TK Levitation device to remain flying 1 last turn. He lacks the energy to throw anyone around.

Mr Lies lies at the Lizard Ogre, dealing 1 more social damage.

The Lizard Ogre makes another slow, -2, heavy Power+Chopper attack on Betty, this time with his Heavy Hammer. It has less bonuses, but he rolls a 20 and hits square, another 2 damage and 1 Sever is headed Betty's way.

Lizard Ogre cannot block social damage, he takes 1 more, and has only 1 Injury remaining. Lizard Princess decides to tear her shirt (tiny pants) rather than take the 1 damage hit from Mr Smash. All the Lizard Warriors are wiped. Mr Smash isn't taking any damage thanks to a successful parry. And Betty is in trouble. She uses weapon block and sacrifices her last small shield to block the Sever injury. She spends 1E and uses her Fragile disability to cancel the 3 (2 from the hit,+1 stacking from the special impalement escape effect) normal damage... and suffers 1 Sever injury instead... Now importantly the sever she blocked, was a sever of the attackers choice, because the sever she is causing is a cost paid by her she picks the limb The Ogre might have picked something inconvenient, like a leg to limit her mobility, she has 4 arms to spare, she sacrifices 1.

Oh and Mr Smash is decadent and attacked some Pretty characters. He did succeed. He regains 1 Energy in the resource phase.

Turn 8
Betty Performs an attack on the Lizard Ogre, as part of the action she moves 2 small shields and 1 Blader-rang to her 3 remaining hands from her pockets. She misses with the bladerrang, then misses with an off hand attack with a shield (its a weapon, gets weapon skill, but no item based attack bonus or ability).

The Lizard Princess Still thinks she can take down Mr Smash, it could turn the battle, she throws another Friendly attack at him from where she stands. It misses by a large margin.

The Lizard Ogre is holding to slow AGAIN. If he can hit betty again he is really messing her 2 hitpoints and 3 remaining arms up, he thinks...

Mr Lies thinks not. He decides to expend his Deceptive Mask to ignore the Ogre's Alert bonus and lies to it one last time... finishing it off with a hit.

Mr Smash spends his regained 1 point of Energy to Fly for one last turn, and flies back to the cliff he came from, putting some distance between himself and the mysteriously friendly lizard princess. Hell, he runs and puts one extra zone between them as he runs just off the edge of the original map. The run exhausts him (since he is at 0 energy) so he cannot run until rested now.

PC Lizard Girl expends 1 Energy for Sneak Off and tries to hide. She performs a stationary hide instead of a mobile sneak action for the bonus. She is ignoring alert with Sneak Off. She has a +5 bonus before that anyway. She rolls a 16 and hides successfully from the Lizard Princess and her rather high social defence.

The Lizard Ogre isn't out yet, so he makes his Heavy Power+Chopper attack on Betty... and misses with a 2.

In the block phase the Lizard Ogre cannot block social, even though he hasn't torn shirted his armour plating yet. So he is defeated. By lies. He took 4 social damage all up and 1 normal damage. The normal damage remains, and the social damage all heals, but he is now lied to. Mr Lies concocts a story where all the blame clearly falls on the Lizard Princess somehow, and clearly Mr Lies is only here to help, as always.

A barely damaged Lizard Ogre is on the parties side now. Sort of. May still dislike Betty, she did stab him that one time.

Turn 9
Betty heads into the bottom story of the tower.

Mr Lies heads down the stairs to the lowest stair zone (finally).

Mr Smash decides he is too damaged and confused and needs to just walk away from the battle. And heads another zone away to better escape a possible beautiful friendship.

Lizard Ogre heads into the bottom story of the tower.

PC Lizard Girl tries to assassinate the princess from hiding... and rolls a 2, which misses. She has her claws going so she gets a second shot at it (very big deal that), but rolls a miraculous 1 and misses AGAIN.

Lizard Princess is really not happy. Sure she is basically undamaged. Except for torn Tiny Pants and a given away Friendly Gift dove. But all her allies are dead, except for a deadly mostly undamaged Lizard Ogre that blames her for everything, and all her enemies are threats and Mr Smash might be a reasonable shot but... screw it. She performs her
Empty Husk as a Parry/Hide decoy action. Sure there is nothing to actually parry since no one hit her this turn, BUT... she has Living Husk so as long as the decoy isn't being used to block/parry damage it's going to stick around pretending to be a 0 Energy 1 Hit Point version of her. She rolls a 15 on the Sneak action, adding her +5 from Shedding Chameleon camouflage (ruined tower) and her bare feet. She sneaks down to the 3rd story undetected, she leaves all her gear (torn tiny pants and a friendly hat) with her skin (no choice in that, just how it works without other abilities). Her skin sticks around, and as a now independent character attempts to befriend Lizard Girl as a distraction.

The Princess's Skin rolls a 14 and hits Lizard girl for 1 Social damage.

In the Block phase PC Lizard Girl has no choice but to take 1 Social damage from the Princess's discarded skin.

Turn 10
Lizard Ogre and Betty move up to floor 2 of the tower.

Lizard Princess tries to sneak out the window to the exterior sea side wall of the tower. She rolls a 17 on the climb check but a 4 on the sneak. Betty detects her and tells the Lizard Ogre all about it.

Lizard Princess's skin tries to make friends with PC Lizard Girl again. And succeeds, again, dealing 1 more social damage. (Lizard girl has 1 hit point left?

Mr Smash rests to restore his social damage. Yes you can do that. As long as no one even targets him with an attack then in the resource phase he will heal all standard social injuries.

PC Lizard girl slashes the Princess's empty living husk with her claws. Missing twice... damnit...

Mr Lies decides to lie to the husk. And misses.

Mr Smash was not attacked, he restores his social injury.

Turn 11
Betty and the Lizard Ogre are at a mild loss. The princess may be pretty helpless out there... but they can't go there themselves... because she is climbing around out on a nasty sheer wall above a bad drop. They demand she surrender, she says “screw you guys you killed all my minions”.

Betty throws a bladerrang at her instead. It misses.

The Lizard Ogre waits to slow phase.

Mr Smash now rests to restore his Exhausted state, if it succeeds he will be able to run at 0E and hold his breath and stuff like that again.

The Princesses Skin rolls a friendly attack against Lizard Girl... and makes friends with her on a hit for her last damage!

PC Lizard girl... injures the skin with her Claw attack. It has no blocks and only 1 Injury, it will be ripped apart in the damage phase at the end of the turn.

Mr Lies tries to parry the friendly attack on PC Lizard Girl by lying to the Princesses empty skin. And misses.

The Princess herself tries to sneak down the cliff. And rolls a 1 failing. Fortunately she made the climb roll on a 9.

In slow phase the Lizard Ogre throws his last hammer at her. He hits with a Powerful + Chopper hit for 2 damage and a sever (he goes for a leg). Taking damage while climbing on a precarious ledge triggers a hazard slip off the edge type attack on her, which succeeds. She will be falling next turn.

Mr Smash succeeds in his rest and is no longer Exhausted. Lizard Girl is healed of social damage due to her defeat... but the thing she is friends with... was torn apart by her own clawed hands even as she was defeated... so it's irrelevant and she can do a 5 second “Nooo... Why!!!” moment for the melodrama. So the Princesses Skin, unable to block claw attacks is ripped apart. The Lizard Princess takes 2 damage and loses a leg, unable to block since she is out of item resources (all expended and left with her skin).

Turn 12
The Lizard Princess falls onto the spiky jagged rocks zone in the ocean. It attacks her on the fall with added spikey rocks damage, and hits. She only had one hit point left, so it finishes her off.

Other things happen...

Clean Up
The Lizard Ogre is still convinced that all his allies turned against him (fair enough, a lot of them did) and that Mr Lies is there to help. So he is not a problem to deal with.

Betty has lost an arm! But. This is turn 12. That happened in Turn 7. She is on story 2 of the Tower. She has I think 1 Energy? Left. She spends it to move to the zone on the ground outside the tower. Mr Lies moves there too.

On Turn 13 Mr Lies uses his Emergency Aid Potions on her sever injury. So to cover the 6 turn gap since she took the injury he uses 2 potions on her. This does NOT restore her limb to working order right now in combat time... but it heals/prevents long term damage/loss of limb.

PC Lizard Girl continues to feel bad about killing a discarded empty skin that made friends with her. But, she'll get over it.


Aaah nuts...
Before I note anything else about this combat example... I just realised I forgot the Princess Lizard had Gentle Innocence for the entire combat. Would have dragged things out a bit (and probably saved her life) at the end. I was thinking to myself she wasn't spending enough energy -_-

[PhoneLobster]

Double Whoops...

Would you believe I went to the trouble of drawing the starting map up on a white board, like I would for a real gaming group. Took a blurry picture. Put aside a portion of text to stick a link in...

...then forgot about it.

I'm going to edit it in to the appropriate place, but for anyone looking, it's also right here...

...complete with crude stick figures, barely legible scrawl and an over used white board that really needs a rub down with some light solvent.

[codeGlaze]

Gotta love Lizard Girl. xD
Marking this as another read for tonight.

[PhoneLobster]

Things To Learn from the 3 Point Example
Time now to talk about how the 3 point example turned out.

God that was hilarious
No really. An expert liar AND an expert friendly character who also did that skin shedding stuff. Priceless. This is fun game stuff here. This is story material for gamers “Remember the time an empty husk of princess skin made friends with lizard girl only she killed it, ahahahaha!” players will bore and alarm random people with a story like that, they love that kind of thing. More people should do this sort of stuff. And the tower smashing? And all the other stuff? Lots of action there. Also lots of nice demonstrative material.

What would have happened if I had Gentle Innocence right?
The princess would have been able to parry attacks for 1 Energy with free undamaged friendly attacks. For the most part the difference would have been 1 parry against the Lizard Ogre Hammer throw that killed her, a parry with a large chance of succeeding no less. She'd soon have likely made her sneak check and never been seen again instead of getting smashed apart on some rocks somewhere.

Sneaky sneaky
The combat started with more sneaking than was really required. I could have assumed a set up another turn or 3 in. But it demonstrated some sneaking about so...

PC Lizard Girl was an awesome machine
Her hide/sneak/assassinate comboing off the double attack from claws makes her super duper deadly to multi-injury named targets.

I've long since considered that you should only get one assassination attempt per target per attacker per turn as a limitation to exactly this sort of thing... but multi-attacks are kinda rare so I'm seeing where the combo goes.

In Combat Social Attacks appear "Equal but different"
They need to pay heavy in resources to overcome in combat penalties, but they have strong effects (with enemy to ally conversions and multi-target attacking, and bypassing the majority of potential blocks).

Normal attacks mean while are largely paying for special effects and additional targets/attacks. And at about the same rate. Things feel a bit different but appear close enough in each other for viability. Later when character builds are higher and social defenses are more viable to be purchased we will see how things hold out from that standpoint. Even as it is Mr Smash's Socially Developed skill may well have been the difference between his survival and him turning on his allies mid fight.

Oh The Lizard-umanity
So how bad was the interaction of a friendly under dressed princess lizard with the encounter/mechanics, were the concern trolls right about the terror of compatible single damage tracks.

Well no. Because she didn't actually go down to social effects at all. In fact... she didn't take damage from social attacks at all.

Now if you describe what happened to that NPC it's pretty horrific slasher movie bullshit. She was pretty and tried to make friends, she shed her skin, snuck off basically naked and got dismembered and thrown off a cliff to smash on some sharp wave swept rocks. That sort of is bad... and it was done entirely with regular violence. And is not entirely unusual for an RPG boss opponent (except for the hilarious skin shedding mechanic, which I refuse to even begin to consider is bad since it is clearly awesome), and didn't seem altogether that bad in context.

The worst contribution social mechanics did for that was that the princess herself only used Friendship flavored attacks so it sort of looks pretty bad for the PCs from a public relations stand point that they beat up a pure friendship based opponent with no real weaponry so brutally. Which again could happen in any system, at least in this one friendship can fight back, and nearly took over Mr Smash in the process.

So the dreaded concern troll situation didn't happen?
Well here is the thing. The princess was a bait and switch. She copped it bad to physical violence. But there were OTHER characters in the fight who went down, or nearly went down, to social attacks amidst violence.

Mr Lies converted piles of Nomadic Warrior NPCs, at moderate resource expense. This was easier/cheaper for him before the combat visibly started but he DID convert a batch of ten using lies in the very middle of very hectic combat too.

Mr Smash nearly got befriended to defeat (and subsequent conversion) by the lizard princess. DESPITE the fact her allies had just moments before wounded him with thrown Bladerrang weapons. There was a penalty because of the fact that bladerrangs were thrown, AND because Mr Smash would have been alert anyway because HE was planning to and making normal attack actions, but the princess had vast bonuses that nullified or outweighed the penalty. And looking at it in context, it seems pretty fine. Mr Smash was in the middle of a fight and a mysterious pretty friendly princess appeared and confusded him a bunch. He could have gone down to regular violence in the midst of that, and the confusion would have contributed to the KO, or he could have gone down to the friendship effect, and the confusion of the combat could have contributed. It was all cool, and didnt seem that bad. The use of bladerrangs on him was not optimal, but it also was not excessively punished and if it had run on a separate damage scale... it would have been.

PC Lizard Girl was fully befriended IN combat, by a thing she was trying to kill at the same time as other attacks were going on all around her, including against her by allies of her target. And that worked out fine. Again, penalties applied. Again attack bonuses basically cancelled those out. And again, in context it all worked OK and played out nicely without any significant concern troll moments of any note.

The first Lizard Ogre on the ground... eventually went down to Mr Lies' deception attacks, was healed of social injuries, but did keep the one normal injury he had taken from normal combat, which was happening at the same time WHILE he fought the allies of Mr Lies. And again... it worked out fine. How CAN you make friends with an in combat hostile without doing it IN COMBAT? You demand a penalty? Well one applied, was it not enough? Mr Lies at various points blew a lot of his resources to counter those penalties. He paid a price, and yet managed to be a functional character. The stacking damage helped him, but was far from optimal and the converted ally at the end was one hit point down that he would not have been had Mr Lies actually done the whole thing optimally in pure social combat.

BUT you say... none of these were Seduction flavoured attacks. I mean that would have been totally different... right? Well for a start the under dressed princess's Friendship flavoured attacks were close enough. But... lets imagine for a second that Mr Lies had instead been “Mr Casanova” and had been throwing down Seduction flavoured attacks in the exact same way instead... so what? He would have walked up out of combat to the first 10 lizard warrior girls, been in a more optimal situation with less penalties and said “Hey, you lizard girls want me? Then beat up that guy!” He would have in mid combat blown half his resources on doing the same thing while swords were swinging and everyone's social defences were up. And he would have blown the last of his resources and multiple turns seducing the Lizard Ogre while his ally tried to beat it up against the optimal interests of his attacks while also not being bad enough to make Mr Casanova a completely non-viable combat role[/b].

And no one would have given a fuck because the end point and differing damage types represent a change of tactics. In story telling terms Betty Blades bopped the ogre on the noggin and then was trying to finish him off and Mr Lies said, “no wait”, stepped in and confused the victim into acting in his interests. Had we done that with Mr Casanova... Betty Blades would have bopped the ogre on the noggin, Mr Casanova would have stepped in and said “no wait” and seduced the dazed victim into acting in his interests. And no one would care because fuck it, it was a CHANGE in tactics. At no point did Mr Casanova say “I wanna seduce that ogre, you better bop him on the head” it would have been better done differently it's just the penalties were not so great as to rule out the shift in tactics/results.

And what IS the alternative to all the penalties already in play here? Because any harsher and the alternative really is that the scenario would have played out as, Betty bops the ogre on the head and Mr Casanova would have had to say “Well fuck it, you better murder him, because I can't change things productively to a non-murder based solution now!”. That is I am afraid NOT “morally” better. It tells worse more violent stories. And is from game play standards MASSIVELY worse.

[infected slut princess]

I enjoyed reading this sample adventure.

[OgreBattle]

why did your PC's murder a friendly, cute, naked princess.

[PhoneLobster]

It's an abstract moral about how you use mechanics to demonstrate how bad the concern trolling over princesses and the dread threat of social actions in combat was somehow "icky". Princess in combat period can be icky, with regular violence based mechanics. Did you just not read my extensive discussion of this? like seriously two posts up from your own?

[OgreBattle]

It's an abstract moral about how you use mechanics to demonstrate how bad the concern trolling over princesses and the dread threat of social actions in combat was somehow "icky". Princess in combat period can be icky, with regular violence based mechanics. Did you just not read my extensive discussion of this? like seriously two posts up from your own?

Yeah, I did. It's unfortunate that Mr. Lies didn't get his silver tongue on the princess.

[PhoneLobster]

Yeah, I did. It's unfortunate that Mr. Lies didn't get his silver tongue on the princess.

...glib double entendres aside... in the respect of concern trolling about the fate of enemy "princesses" in RPG combat story telling it actually IS a pity.

The story "The PCs totally murder the harmless skimpily dressed enemy princess" is a worse story than "At the last minute Mr Lies deceives the harmless skimpily dressed enemy princess instead", from the point of view of concern trolling about fictional enemy princess brutalization.

That was to some extent the entire point.

And in a system where Mr Lies cannot productively lie to her at the last minute, the PCs will ALWAYS murderize, or at least beat into submission, the enemy princesses they encounter in combat. It's like the basic foundation of mechanical incentivisation. "Mechanics can only encourage something they actually allow you to do". And having physical violence only mechanics means not only CAN you describe brutalizing the princess its the only thing you can mechanically describe.

[rampaging-poet]

Thanks again for the sample encounters. I'm going to try running some numbers on the effectiveness of melee vs. social for taking out groups. At this point, it looks optimal for Mr. Lies to be the only one attacking groups of mooks because he can turn them all with one reasonable roll. Melee attacks can't take out huge groups that way without Heavy weapon skills (which may be intentional). If the costs of one-shotting groups with Social attacks is about the same as one-shotting them with physical attacks, then it will always be better to talk to the mooks than it is to stab them.
From the sample combat, it looks like Mr. Lies had a huge advantage against groups but everyone else did better fighting the ogres and princess. Spending 1 energy to avoid the Alert bonus to Social Defense just wasn't worth it against named characters that could take a few hits before going down. Looking at the skill list, melee attackers have better ways to mess with individual targets: 1 energy to Knock or Parry and deal an injury at the same time seems pretty good, and adding Devastating is only useful against larger targets.

I've mentioned this system to a few of my friends, and they seem interested in trying it out. That said, it's not entirely clear how much opposition a party is expected to be able to take out. Obviously the ease of dispatching mooks depends entirely on positioning (10 mooks in one zone die quicker than 5 mooks each in two), but do you have some general guidelines for the size and composition of the enemy forces?

I've also got a quick rules interaction question. Light Mobility lets you run in light armour at no energy cost. The general rules for running say you can only run once if you have 0 energy left. Light Mobility obviously allows the character to run indefinitely if they have at least one remaining Energy, but can they continue to run at zero energy?

[PhoneLobster]

effectiveness of melee vs. social for taking out groups.

It's a bit hard to say there. Mooks are excellent targets for social due to their (usually) 1 hit point. The social group targetting mechanics (1 target, or all in 1 zone, or all in range) mean that social is potentially a huge sweeping attack, but you MUST be able to ignore multi target penalty because copping a -9 or more for attacking 10 or more targets is pretty hefty. And depending on the details some of those social multi-target options do NOT let you selectively ignore allies (though I think deception did).

However... there are a lot of fairly effective anti-group of minions options out there, like Weapon Flurry, and almost every magical blaster attack. Generally its not hard to take on either all in 1 zone, or about 10 targets in 1 attack, usually at the cost of about 1 Energy.

So basically all social has on that is the "all targets in range" option, and that is going to see some potentially serious limitations due to map layout and LoS as well as just plain Range penalties unless you do it all in a large crowded room or theater type set up.

It will always be better to talk to the mooks than it is to stab them.

Generally yes, because you may gain at least temporary allies out of it. Not to mention being less of an aggressive action it may not trigger alert. But if alert HAS been triggered social defence will be high, and at least at low points social defence will be high compared to normal defence even without Alert bonus. There are trade offs. Not brilliantly balanced ones, but some.

From the sample combat, it looks like Mr. Lies had a huge advantage against groups but everyone else did better fighting the ogres and princess. Spending 1 energy to avoid the Alert bonus to Social Defense just wasn't worth it against named characters that could take a few hits before going down.

Mr Lies did do well against the groups, but then other characters had anti-group options too.

But as to the ignoring alert not being worth it... yeah. There is an issue there. And with the high cost of the social attack buffs for that and multi-target penalty and so on. That's why there is a later skill that lets you ignore multi-target AND alert at the same time for just 1E, and why there is some additional "ignore alert condition" built into each ignore alert skill in the social skill sets, and why there are other skills that let you trigger alert or multi-target ignoring social attacks and effects in other skill sets.

It's still a bit of a hack though and the resulting uncertainty is why I remain unsure about how well the social targeting mechanics are set up.

Looking at the skill list, melee attackers have better ways to mess with individual targets: 1 energy to Knock or Parry and deal an injury at the same time seems pretty good, and adding Devastating is only useful against larger targets.

I do kind of need more improved social attack effects, like devastating. I have managed to work in some Stuns, parries and disarms and stuff, but it may not be enough.

I think early on I was concerned with allowing large quick finishing multi-hit point or KO social attacks because they might be too good. But now... I think I'm feeling a shortage of such options.

And yeah devastating is (mostly) only useful against large individual targets and despite group damage mechanics allowing Devastating to have some beneficial impact against grouped mooks, it isn't nearly as good as Multi-target (or even Multi-attack) against those, though it is worth noting it does MULTIPLY with Multi-target or multi-attack if you can say, stack a Strong good trait upgrade with something like a 5 or 10 target magic attack.

That said, it's not entirely clear how much opposition a party is expected to be able to take out. Obviously the ease of dispatching mooks depends entirely on positioning (10 mooks in one zone die quicker than 5 mooks each in two), but do you have some general guidelines for the size and composition of the enemy forces?

Not especially sadly. I never got around to building in a framework for appropriate challenge rating estimation.

There are mechanics that allow you to soft ball in some pretty weak early encounters though. What with Civilian level and Veteran level. But by around 6+ points it is expected that you will start running into primarily mixes of Elite and Named opponents.

Numbers wise how much a party can handle will depend very heavily on their individual builds (as a fairly free points based system variation could be fairly wild, especially with characters potentially specializing, at least for a long while, in anti-group or anti-large target builds).

And with map layout, stealth mechanics and the entire design being intended to lean towards large "whole of map" base raiding mechanics... a party of 3-4 PCs somewhere between 5-10 points each might well be taking on 2-4 similar named characters AND 40-100 Elite mooks depending on how many they took on at once and if they raided an enemy base by surprise and got in with sufficient stealth before things hit the fan.

The hard limits on opposing forces start kicking in with resources. Which once the characters start maxing out their equipment slots will start to level out to a cap... but that cap is going to vary, and resources could be spent heavily leaning to survivability, group attacks, or large take downs. Or combinations there off.

If I had to make an estimate with no idea of builds I would lean to the 2-4 Named opponents (of similar value) and 40-100 elite mooks (of reasonable value) as about the limit of what a group of 3-4 Named PCs starting some time between 5-10 skill points with maxed gear slots (no starting allied mooks) can handle per encounter and the variation accounted for there is not so much based on trying to account for builds, but trying to account for who has the upper hand in stealth/surprise at the start of the encounter.

And before you hit that level for the PCs you should soft ball it a bit with lower numbers of opponents, more favorable set ups (lower level PCs should be the attacking/sneaky force more often anyway, they should probably be homeless after all), and really early on the use of Civilians and then Veteran mooks.

I've also got a quick rules interaction question.

The intention was that you could run at no cost forever regardless of current remaining energy. (Though if you are exhausted from something else, like holding your breath, then you cannot run anyway).

I have some skills (mostly related to flying) that specifically require you have at least 1 Energy left to do (something) otherwise for free, they specifically state as such.

I also need a clarification somewhere for those skills as to how they interact with batteries and other "separate energy pools", which is not always covered in the text. I think it should be considered that battery Energy counts, but that Injuries that can be converted to Energy (Feeble, Witch's Blood) probably should not.