Two quick questions about Incapacitated

Hey guys, I’m gonna try to keep this short because I really am just unsure about some stuff.

Ok so firstly, why is this not accessible through Energy? A friend of mine wants to play an ice mage for our first OL game this Saturday and it seems like the perfect Bane for him, encapsulating people in ice. (I know I could bend the rules but I’m genuinely wondering if there’s a reason for this)

And secondly, if anyone has played with this Bane, is it as strong as it seems on paper? I mean it sounds like it’s essentially an instant kill, especially if used in coordination with other party members to deliver a finishing blow. Wouldn’t a player with this ability just use it over and over, aiming to incapacitate rather than to kill as that only takes one successful roll rather than many successful rolls to deplete HP.

Second question is in relation to me wondering whether to bend the rules or not for his character - I was initially thinking of giving him immobile but our Druid has that and I don’t want him to feel like he’s just a reskin.

Hi @Obsidiax, some quick answers:

  1. It isn’t accessible through Energy because Energy already has access to a lot of Banes. You could easily use Immobile to simulate something similar: remember that both characters will have access to immobile regardless so there will always be some overlap. If you really want, you can bend the rules just this once without breaking anything, just be careful not to overload any particular attribute.

  2. Incapacitated is very strong provided you’re set up to take advantage of it. You have to be able to do a damaging attack before the target wakes up (either by resisting, or being woken by noise or a shove) and the target still gets to roll the Fortitude check to avoid dying from the finishing blow. After the target is free from Incapacitated, it then can’t be applied to them again for another hour, specifically to prevent this kind of abuse. It’s also worth noting that per the Boss rules, a Boss character cannot be subject to a finishing blow while it has more than 0 hitpoints.

Hope this helped, let me know if you have any further questions!

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Thanks, I appreciate the help :slight_smile: I don’t see an issue with using energy since the character is specifically limiting himself to ice magic and this bane just fits that concept so well. Good to know I won’t be breaking anything too.

I’ll just have to think whether I want a player to have such a strong ability for our very first session!

The limits on banes and boons with Attributes are there to help create a bit of balance.

The GM is always free to decide to allow an attribute for a bane, but like Sam mentioned, be careful about overloading an Attribute.

In my games, I allow Persistent Damage to be done via Might, for example.

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