Forgive me if these questions have already been answered at length elsewhere.
If a PC has Reflexes and comes up against an enemy who far outclasses them to the point that the enemy just “does” a thing and forces a resistance roll, does Reflexes have any effect on that? Example: “You face off with the Red Sash sword master, ready to duel, but he’s obviously a superior swordsman. He slashes at you, quick as lightning, cutting your wrist, causing you to drop your sword. You can resist if you want to.” The PC: “I have Reflexes, does that make any difference?”
Recently in my game one of my assassins who has the Glorious Visage ability decided to use it on a brothel full of ladies of the evening and their clients. He’s got two trauma so he’s doing level two harm to all of them. At the time I assumed that the harm levels only really count for PC’s and that for an average person such an amount of damage would be lethal. I ended up having about half the people in the room just drop dead. But now I’m not so sure. Would they have just been severely injured instead?
My take on it (but others will maybe have other opinions):
If the GM has not prepped this NPC on paper or in his head as having “Reflexes” too, then the GM should be honest and the PC should be the first to act. It’s not enough to be “very fast”.
2-Harm is normally enough to kill most NPCs. So no one can say you were wrong on this. Especially if the 1-Harm from Glorious Visage is already “catatonic”…
With reflexes the sword master can’t get a hit in before the player character has a chance to act (unless the master also has reflexes), so it could change the thing that happens. You could either say the resistance roll completely negates the action because they can dodge entirely, or let them do an action with a worse than usual position to get their thing in first.
With 2 Trauma the NPC’s suffer whatever the hekk formless dread means, and no more. Not unless they have weak hearts or something.
Humans are humans, in general they don’t take more damage just because they’re bystanders or whatever. I never bother to track any of that stuff on groups of course, since it’s work that probably doesn’t matter. I’d just describe all the panic that happens when he sets off his crazy shit.
Thanks for both replies, even though they are a bit at odds. They give me enough food for thought to go on.
One thing, I was advised on the g+ boards that NPCs generally do not get special abilities (like Reflexes). You guys appear to ignore that. Just curious if that’s become any sort of problem for you.
No, NPCs do not have “abilities”. But they could have somthing in their description in their descriptions that serves the same fictional purpose. A bit like tags in DW. See page 75 the description of the abilty “Reflexes” itself:
“This ability gives you the initiative in most situations. Some specially trained NPCs (and some demons and spirits) might also have reflexes, but otherwise, you’re always the first to act, and can interrupt anyone else who tries to beat you to the punch.”
