Hello,
I would like your opinion about Sanderis: Ice Deal.
Specifically the Minor Favor, that:
"Cause a character or object the losejas touches to be frozen solid, encased in a thin layer of ice. While encased, the character or object cannot be harmed or destroyed directly." (pg 255)
Let's suppose that in a combat (Action Sequence), the hero waited for the right moment to act, and in his action, the hero spends a Heroi Point and 3 raises, one to activate the favor, and another two to touch the villain.
The villain has only 01 raise and 01 danger points to act/spend.
What the vilan could actually do?
In case the hero can touch him and activate the favor; What actually happens?
If the villain is frozen, how long does the freeze last?
Once frozen, what can the villain do to escape? At what cost?
If the villain has only 1 raise, the loseja acts before him and touches him. The villain is frozen for scene at least. As horoes cannot harm him either, this is usually done to help heroes escape powerful Villain. Or to make some NPC safe for duration of fight.
It'd pretty much be the Loseja spending one Raise to go over and touch the Villain, and then spending a Hero Point as part of that Raise to freeze them solid for the scene. There's not really any spending Raises to move, as any movement is implied to be part of your Approach unless you specifically describe it otherwise.
If this sounds incredibly powerful... that's kind of the point of sorcery in general, is that it is very powerful and can have wide-ranging effects. It's not D&D style magic where the designers tried to balance all the various effects against each other. With Sanderis, you've made a pact with a devil, and that is undoubtedly going to flavor how your magjical effects appear. Porte's bad enough with the literally bleeding rips in reality it causes, but a Loseja using their mojo is likely to be downright spooky. And let's not forget that the Vaticine Church in general has a very dim view on sorcery as a matter of course, and Heroes that are devout Vaticines are probably not going to take the answer "I made a deal with a devil" when asked "how can you do those things?" very well. Even Sorte, which is pretty much invisible, has a very heavy stigma attached to it, given the exaggerated beliefs in what a strega can accomplish.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
I posted this in the Reddit comments, but to repeat "The Villain could, if they were a Duelist, spend their Raise to Parry the touch attack and thwart that attempt." Whether or not you still require the player to expend the Hero Point (The Raise is expended to make the attack anyways) is up to the GM.
Why would parry do anyting to this? The sandelis touches the blade and freezed blade and Villain wieliding it?
Only thing Storyguide can to is spend 3 Danger Points to ensure villain escapes and descrbibe how it happen. F. ex. brute jumps in the way and pushes villain out of window, and brute is frozen.
Why 3 danger points?
(Any specific rules?)
And, if Villain has more than 3 Danger points, 5 for example.
Can he spend those 3? And stay in the scene / combat?
Yeah, the Parry Maneuver is "reduces Wounds being dealt" and not "stops the attack entirely."
The Losejas isn't using their Raise to inflict wounds, but instead using it as part of the activation cost of the desired Sorcery effect.
You've actually got a similar case with Sorte and the Blessing and Curses weaves, both of which require the Strega to kiss their intended target (chaste or otherwise), yet both only cite that the Hero need spend a Raise (and by extension the Hero Point required to activate the Sorcery) in order to land a smooch on the person.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the answer!!
I hadn't thought in possibility of spend their Raise to Parry the touch attack.
Some others that came to my mind were these:
The Fool Virtue Arcana Virtue: Wily.
Activate your Virtue to escape danger from the current Scene. You can not rescue anyone but yourself.
The Devil Arcana Virtue: Astute.
Activate your Virtue after a Villain spends Raises for an Action. That Action fails. The Villain still loses the Raises she spent.
The Glyph Arcana Virtue: Temperate
Activate your Virtue to prevent any magical effect (Sorcery, Artifacts, Monsters, etc.) from affecting you.
But I believe that Villains can not use the Arcana Virtue & Hubris.
(Can you clarify this point/doubt?)
Another possibility would be Special Brute Squads ability (pg 192):
Guards Brute Squad: Spend to Danger Point and they force an attack just made against Villain to target themselves instead, and reduce the Wounds dealt by 1.
Villains can indeed have an activate Arcana Virtues. The sample Villains presented in the Heroes and Villains sourcebook all have Arcana listed, so it would seem that you can indeed have a Villain choose to activate a Virtue should they possess one, just swapping Villain for Hero.
Of course, with the Astute Virtue, the Villain is really just delaying the inevitable if the Loseja has more than one Hero Point.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
Until now, were discussed solutions to prevent the villain from being frozen.
But once frozen what can be done?
Once frozen, there's really nothing 'reasonable' that the Villain can do. However, depending on where this happens, the party could be beset upon by Brutes, another Villain, the frozen Villain could be stolen from the PC's, etc.
As described, Heroes cannot move the Villain as long he is encased in ice. He is just out of the scene. This trick can be used to get rid of villain's allies and then change scene back or remove the ice (which is another favor.. muahahahahaa)