To Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth

If you were a villain with similar abilities, trying to win a fifgr, is there a reason you would pull the punches?

I fundamentally disagree with John here.

Forcing players to deal with new types of attacks such as blindness, is at the core what chronicleers are in the business of doing.force players to think and to solve problems other than “how much damage can i do”

Dealing with diminish senses IMO is ridiculously easy, its simply countered by “Restore Senses” or with a roll by “Unravel the Thread”

at the chroniclers discretion, one can spend a fate point to “do the impossible” to gain temporary use of a feat, ive seen this used very effectively by many people

John, I still think it comes down to villain motivation. For example, a gang of street thugs would probably not take the time to kill someone if the Hero had 5-6 friends still actively engaging them in combat. Dumb animals looking for a meal? Sure…until they are attacked again. Evil Lich Lord hell-bent on survival….probably.

In the case given, I dont think the shammies would “play nice just to make things fair”. Alternatively, you could take the exact same stats, and have it as a group of Hinterlander Shammies who are just trying to get away…they would use everything debilitating they can before making a run for it. Same tactic…first example is “lethal”, second is not.

at the chroniclers discretion, one can spend a fate point to “do the impossible” to gain temporary use of a feat, ive seen this used very effectively by many people

That feat could be “Learn spell: Unravel the Thread” or Restore Senses

and if your in a party with no casters…. well your going to have other problems

Hadn’t thought of using it to gain Learn Spell. Interesting idea.

Yes, if you lack spell casters completely, you’re going to have a tough time in a lot of mods.

Let me clarify a few things…

I never stated or implied that I wouldn’t have the villains use the spells at their disposal. I agree that it’s important to challenge players and characters with new threats (be it blindness, the need for ranged weapons, or the need to flee a combat rather than die to overwhelming odds). The answer was more to the paraphrased question “do you have all the shamans use diminish senses and blind everyone at the start of the fight?”

If the unfortunate happens that you have the shamans go first and everyone is blinded, that will certainly inspire a lot of terror in the group but mechanically it is likely to spell TPK for the table. Even if someone has Restore Senses, they have to do themselves first, then slowly restore for the others. If someone’s using Fate to Unravel the Thread, the chances of success are very low, since they probably don’t have a casting stat to add to the roll and are trying to beat numbers like 22-23. Then, to further the ‘villains will not softball’, there’s no reason why immediately upon a Diminish Senses being dispelled why it wouldn’t be put back on right away by one of the shamans while the others attack.

Motivation is important and I always use that to determine what tactics the enemy uses. I just try to temper that with player enjoyment. It really is NO fun if all characters are spending actions for about 12 ticks just trying to get unblinded. Maybe you will consider that ‘softballing’ on the part of the GM but I use other methods to increase the challenge, along with utilizing the villain’s abilities.

I have found through many (many!) years of organized play that the perception that GM’s are trying to kill tables of players, whether it’s true or not, often leads to friction that erodes the fun for everyone. This is particularly true during BI’s and other events (for all systems, not just Arcanis), where there is a perceived (real or not) notion that GM’s are competing to kill players. In those cases, the players become very defensive and every decision or ruling becomes overly scrutinized and nitpicked and the ‘go with the flow’ that usually occurs when things are running smoothly ends.

So in summary, I agree we need to challenge players. However, while having your 8 casters with diminish senses blind everyone on Tick 1 may be a great tactic if the enemies are trying to escape, but it will frustrate most tables if the goal is for the enemies to kill the PC’s. I certainly don’t apologize for how I roll, but I understand others may do it differently.

John

I’m with John on this. Josh and Matt that kind of offensive thinking is what leads to people feeling like they have to optimize and that arms race. I’m surprised to hear that from you guys. You have to adjust to the party that is in front of you. Especially in a shared campaign. Some people do have have an all elorii table or an all Ss’ressen table ready for each convention. Done don’t have control over who is sitting at their con table and not each table is going to be optimal for certain combat, social, or skill challenges. You can’t just tell people to go all out and take cheap shoots at people.

Casting 8 diminished senses right in the a row is a cheap shot. And telling a non caster they can fate point for a chance to remove it isn’t a solution. The OP’s question is legitimate. You can’t just blind the entire party atev ery table. Sure you could do that to mine, but we have 6 casters. You have to adjust to your table.