Kind of piggybacking off my other thread that posed this question amongst others but didnt get answered so I’m making a specific thread for it. I’d like to see if there’s a concrete answer on this that I am missing.
Can Talents that require a check (excluding combat checks) have their difficulties upgraded or increased in any way? For example, the “Now You See Me” Talent, which is a Hard Deception check to make the target forget about any interactions they had with you for the last 30 minutes.
Is the difficulty always going to be a flat check regardless of the situation or target or can I rule that the check should be more difficult? For instance, is it as easy to do on a Bark Rat as it is on Darth Vader?
I’d say it depends on the particular talent, but I would consider making it an opposed check against characters who would have the chance to oppose a Force check. “X difficulty or opposed, whichever is harder.”
Per RAW, the only actual way to increase the difficulty is a DP. (Though I suppose that actually, you as the GM have a lot of power to add Setback to checks.)
I generally feel like “the difficulty is the difficulty.” It should not change without the use of Destiny points or talents that can modify difficulty or GM caveat because of extra danger/risk.
However, of course, setbacks and boosts can always be applied for environmental conditions or what have you.
If a talent sets a difficulty, it is that difficulty. But like any other difficulty, there are a few select ways to alter it.
@jendefer I’m not talking about adversary here, that’s for combat checks. More like an opposed checks and the like.
So, if you both @Rich were in a situation where the PCs were facing down Darth Vader, and a PC used a Hard Deception check to use “Now You See me” to make him forget about them. You wouldnt alter the difficulty at all? Interesting. With my PCs they would be able to pull that off nearly every time even with a single upgrade from a DP flip, and the adversary or BBEG would never be a real threat as he would scratch his head and walk away
Now You See Me is “once per session.” So that’s quite limiting right there, and I’m sure there was at least one other necessary opportunity to use the talent before getting to Vader.
It requires a Hard (3) Deception check. That can be quickly upgraded by ranks of Nobody’s Fool. I wonder how many ranks of Nobody’s Fool Vader has.
Trying to deceive a Sith Lord? As the GM, I’m going to use the danger/risk caveat to upgrade your difficulty once.
I’m also going to flip a dark side DP.
Now how’s that Hard difficulty with four or five upgrades? I’m looking at four or more red dice in your hand. You are too.
And that’s before adding some setback dice for the situation.
@Rich Awesome, that’s the sort of answer I was hoping for. So the difficulty isn’t necessarily the difficulty as you put it before. Here you’ve upgraded/changed the check through many different means and discretions as the GM in a ways you thought reasonable and warranted.
Right. When I say “difficulty,” I mean Easy, Average, Hard, etc… the base number of purple dice. That should stay the same.
Then apply any and all changes and upgrades that are applicable through other talents and such. That’s really your tool as GM to “change the difficulty.”
Then look at your setback dice.
@P-47Thunderbolt also has a really great alternative. For certain special situations, you can change the difficulty from a set amount, like Hard (3), to an opposed check. I could definitely see Vader or Palpatine being special like that. And still having a bunch of upgrades from talents and such.
Hmm, technically speaking, I’m not sure Now You See Me would qualify for Nobody’s Fool. Is it technically targeting the character with a Deception check?
But as far as actual implementation, that is also a reasonable approach, though possibly a tad inconsistent as to who gets Nobody’s Fool and who doesn’t. The latter is my only real concern with it, the former is just something I thought would be worth pointing out.
I would accept that it is. I see the talent as a Force-powered Deception check against the individual(s) you are using it upon. Nobody’s Fool covers any Deception checks.
But, as always, different tables and different GMs can have different interpretations.
Now You See Me might not be considered as a social/talking use of Deception. And you might believe the intent of Nobody’s Fool is to counter social/talking uses of Deception, but the long form description does say any use.
Is it technically targeting the character with a Deception check?
It’s a Deception check, no doubt about it, but the question is if it fulfills the requirements for triggering Nobody’s Fool.
Yes. What I mean by inconsistent is that sometimes low-level NPCs have Nobody’s Fool in lieu of Discipline, while a higher-level character has ranks in Discipline and no Nobody’s Fool, even if they would technically be more resistant to the power.
I remember having this same discussion long ago about using Bad Motivator to cause Vader’s lightsaber, or even his armor’s life support system, to fail…
Glad to see that the answers to such questions are always changing.
I’d say rule that PPP is the basline and apply any other rule you can.
Nobody’s fool (if applicable), critical hits increasing difficulty, setbacks, boosts etc.
My take on this being opposed is if the check is targeting the enemy, the enemy’s modifiers should apply, so we have difference in deceiving Vader or a single Stormie. However if it’s not targeting, you could say you alter yourself, hide your presence. It’s not dependent on the enemy, but you. In this case no need to make it opposed. I’d still apply other modifiers too as usual.
@Cloudy Maybe you could check out the episode on difficulty on Order66 podcast. I think they were talking about talent difficulties too.
Oh I see what you are saying. Technically you can make multiple NPC’s forget about you. The mechanics of it are a little different.
And then that creates more questions, like if you do increase the difficulty, is it the same for each NPC? Would it be like auto-fire where you work off the highest difficulty?
The way I rule Force powers and the like that target multiple characters is that you can choose whatever eligible target you want, but then you can only apply extra “hits” to targets of equal or lesser difficulty.
