First, what motivated the Kandra spy for the third house to drop cover? Compassion? Also, surely the Kandra spy would not risk taking L.P. directly to the homeland, right? That's about as closely guarded a secret as possible! Maybe the Kandra could hide L.P. until it manages to communicate with the elders?

Ah. The Kandra was already sure its cover was blown. It'd been hiding in the ranks of the 'spies' for one noble house, and in the course of the fight most of its lower body had been crushed, bits of muscle had peeled loose from its bones, etc. It was obvious at one look (to anyone who knew what a Kandra was) what it was.

I figured that it'd take LP straight to the homeland (or as straight as an appropriate route to throw off any pursuit would be), since from his point of view it's basically an immature Kandra who *wasn't* created by the Lord Ruler.

Oh, I'd also suggest rereading the "Turning Points" section in book 3 of the rulebook. It's bound to have good advice for how to handle ths situation from a Narrator's perspective.

That's probably a good point. The Steel Ministry is already interested in a couple of members of the party, for different reasons, as well as interested in what is going on in this area. Plus if the party *does* start making use of Hemalurgy themselves... well, the game has the potential to start turning into a "Players are the followers of Ruin trying to take down The Lord Ruler" if that's the direction the players want to go in

Any players in my game (played last night, in Brunswick, you know the one *Glares*) bugger off right now


Anyways, I'm looking for a little advice on the reaction of the Kandra as a whole to something that happened in my game last night.

So, the players have been, through various events, starting to get an idea of the existence of Hemalurgy, or at least "Metal spikes do weird things and grant powers".

Last night they caused a three way battle between a group of spies, some Koloss, and a Hemalurgic monster created by a century-dead Head of House known as "Little Proteus". L.P. is easiest described as a cross between a Kandra and a Steel Inquisitor, but with way more spikes (dozens) and the mind of a child.

L.P. was.. well, not killed, but pretty much flayed and impaled during the fight (like a Kandra whose had all its bones broken). Trying to 'finish it off', two members of the party tried pulling spikes out of it (since they know that spikes grant powers, and one spike came from a member of their house). However, one of the spies was actually a Kandra (spy for a third noble house) who begged them not to do so, and asked that the group let him take Proteus back to the Kandra home, because he's "Sort of like a brother maybe".

Eventually the party agreed, and the Kandra is on his way back to the homeland with Proteus, but the big thing is one little line that most of the party has no doubt forgotten.
One of the people pulling out spikes told the Kandra that she was doing it "Because maybe if they pull them all it it stops being sentient"

So, apparently one random group of Nobles in a far flung area of the Eastern Dominance have possibly worked out that Hemalurgic spikes, like Kandra Blessings, are what grants them sentience.
What kind of reactions would this cause do you think?

Highlights include:

• Between four and five digital supplements just awaiting approvals, the first of which focuses on the Terris people.
• Alloy of Law supplement is expected to be around 300 pages; first drafts are already in.
• Additional material on different ways to play, like being part of a noble Crew.
• Adventures!

Woohoo! I can't wait
Considering that my players (Nobles game) are on the verge of discovering incredibly detailed Hemalurgy notes (and have already discovered a few new metals), I'm really looking forward to Compounding rules

If you really feel that Feruchemy needs a combat nerf, just cut the "Five extra charges grants a free nudge" part.

They're fantastic at splattering something in a single hit, but if the enemy dodges it's a massive resources expenditure.

Correct. Pewter is insanely powerful without even factoring in the healing ability, so I don't mind a few curbs on it for purposes of game balance

No arguments there
And plays well into the Pewter endurance thing.

Flaring Pewter only lets you ignore the burdens while flaring - remember how Vin and Kelsier say a person who stops burning can drop dead? That's part of what they were talking about Gold on the other hand allows you to permanently remove the burden.

Hrm.. as a matter of interest then, what is the point of Pewter's healing ability?
It says it doubles your Healing rate to two Health per day in which you spend eight hours burning Pewter, so Pewter healing is only useful on the rare occasions that you aren't getting a Short Breather in a day, or need to spend all that day's breathers doing other things?

O_o
Why would he set himself on fire? Against snakes? I can kind of understand the intimidation factor against humans, but snakes don't think "Whoa! That human just set himself on fire, he's so badass we don't stand a chance!". Actually, snakes would probably think "Hmm. Warm. Nice." and go cuddle him if they're that huge.

Well, there were a few points for it in his mind. One, he figured that the creatures might be smarter than your average snake due to being able to cause fear, plus it'd distract the snake from eating the party member who had saved his life last session, *and* it'd give the "Humble Terris Steward" some street cred (he's secretly a Feruchemist and stored away the heat to prevent being burned).
It seemed like a fun story idea

Anyway, I'd say take it out of the regular defense pool, mainly because emotional allomancers would be at a disadvantage if their opponents could just draw from a different dice pool. It makes sense to me that if you concentrate on attacking someone, a Rioter or Soother would have an easier time manipulating you, because you're busy with something else.

*nods* good good, I did leave that bit as it should be then. Though if he pulls it again I think he'll be attacking with Charm or Wits rather than spirit

Your Mistborn seems to be a bit reckless from what you've listed here. I don't know if it's the player or just how the character is played, but I'd say let her deal with the consequences. If it's just how the character is played, you could say those injuries taught her that she's not invulnerable and should rely more on her group. If it's the player, maybe she'll learn that too.

Hehe, it's a bit of both. I daresay this will.. help.. things somewhat. Though she's still making very basic mistakes, like forgetting to start burning Pewter until a couple of rounds into combat. She'll learn better soon enough I'm sure.

The rules for removing burdens without advancements are in the Pewter section (page 302), flaring Pewter lessens physical burdens by one degree. If your Mistborn has access to enough Pewter during the Breather, she could flare it for some time and ease all her physical burdens like that, she'd probably spend the rest of the breather suffering from Pewter drag. That way she could get rid of the torn muscle and the nausea and make her limp less severe. She could spend advancements to lessen one of the mental burdens (rebuilding her confidence for example) and end the breather with 2 serious and 3 grave burdens. That would still hold her back and hopefully teach her to be less reckless, but it's not enough to be worried.

Aha, I've found the passage, but the way it's written it only reduces the burden while you're flaring the metal, it doesn't help you heal from it?
Gold, by contrast, states "You lose one/all X grade physical burdens"

My advice before changing the rules is first to look at how you define a Long Breather in your game. Anything over 24 hours can be a Long Breather as defined by the rules, and the players could likely make those spaces for themselves (choosing to lie low for a day or two, instead of a half day) rather than pushing through. You may even want to be a little more generous on when Long Breathers trigger - for example, on those half day rests every session, let them be a Long Breather if the party's got its butt kicked recently. There are no Fun Police that are going to kick in your door for being generous to the Crew for the betterment of the game

You mean my group can stop barricading the door in case of the Fun Police? Well that's a load off my mind
Good point on 'flexing' the amount of time that a Long Breather requires. "Half a day in your well stocked Noble's encampment counts as a long breather" would make sense, though I may specify to the players that they're allowed to 'take a day off to rest' as well if they want to (we're still getting the hang of the collaborative storytelling aspects).

That said, if flaring Pewter does allow you to permanently heal physical Burdens the way that Gold does, that'd pretty much solve the issue right there

So, I'm now a few sessions into my fortnightly game, and I've got a few queries, partially checking that I'm doing things right, and partially to see how other people handle similar pacing.

So, first up, non-physical conflicts in a fight.
Say I've got someone pulling non-physical conflicts in the middle of a fight.
Specifically in this case the party is facing a number of snakes, including a couple of enormous ones. The party Terris decides to set himself on fire and wave a burning torch at one of them, trying to drive it off rather than hurt it.

At the time I set it as a Spirit vs Spirit contest targeting the Snake's willpower (and the Terris got a bonus die for setting himself on fire rather than just waving a burning torch).
Now, should the Snake automatically get to resist with its Spirit, or should this have been a "Take dice out of your combat pool if you want to defend" as normal for Combat? (though I think if I did that I'd have to make it a Wits or Charm vs Spirit to be more logical).

Similarly, emotional Allomancy during a combat, is it Metal vs Spirit as normal, or Metal vs Combat Pool?


Basically it boils down to "Do non-physical attacks in a Combat also go against Combat Pool, or the targeted attribute?"


Secondly, how frequently are other GMs giving their players Long Breathers? After three sessions the players are just getting their first Long Breather (the players had a couple of points of 'resting' for half a day or so, but they were kept on their toes quite a bit), and I'm rather worried about one of the players' burdens.
Specifically, the party Mistborn has managed in three sessions to:

1) Get beaten down to 'killed' in physical combat against four house guards and a noble (had her butt saved by the Thug), so that netted her a serious, a grave and a mortal burden
 - Torn muscle in arm (serious)
 - Severe limp (grave)
 - Shattered Confidence (mortal) [I figured the hoity-toity 'all non mistborn are worthless mortals barely better than Skaa' getting her arse kicked by five non-allomancers and being completely shown up by a Misting warrented a mental rather than physical burden]
2) Get scared out of her wits by a pair of Rioter snakes, and poisoned by a normal one
 - Severe Nausea (serious)
 - Claustraphobia (grave)
 - Fear of snakes (serious)

So that's three serious, two grave and one mortal burden, and she's only just gotten her first breather. Sure it's a good abject lesson in using tactics rather than going off half cocked, but I'm a little worried that she's going to end up a ball of burdens and nerves if current pacing keeps up.
The rest of the party have 0-3 burdens each

I've thought of three possibilities:
1) Assume that this is a bit of an anomaly, and keep going as per the normal rules
2) Allow long breathers that are in the weeks/months range to drop all burdens by one stage, rather than only one
3) Letting all breathers lower a burden *and* buy an Advancement

Does anyone have any ideas/advice?

Also, can anyone point me at the ruling for using Pewter or Gold to reduce Mortal burdens without Advancements? The Burdens part says refer to the Allomancy listing for the rules on it, but I just can't find it.

[Nerve Agent]

So.. I'm trying to stat up a couple of different kinds of Snake for my next session.
Does anyone have any idea how to handle Poison in the Mistborn setting?
There's the metal poisoning examples, and one example text where being poisoned gives someone a difficulty of 3 for all tests due to being (presumably) drugged, and plenty of references to people being hard to poison, or how many health charges are required to flush out a poison, but nothing about making stats for them.

I've been toying with the following kind of options in lieu of an official detail:

Nerve Agent: This poison gives the user severe shakes, nausea, blurred vision and similar symptoms as their nervous system doesn't work properly due to the effects. Takes effect immediately
Make a Physique roll (Difficulty varies with poison strength), if you fail, all rolls have a Difficulty of X (varies with poison strength) for a number of hours equal to the Outcome

Nerve Agent #2: This poison gives the user severe shakes, nausea, blurred vision and similar symptoms as their nervous system doesn't work properly due to the effects. Takes effect immediately
Make a Physique roll (Difficulty varies with poison strength), if you fail you lose a number of dice equal to double the failed outcome from all rolls. Lasts a number of hours equal to the Outcome

Deadly Poison: This poison deals severe damage to the body and may eventually cause death.
The poison lasts a number of hours equal to twice the Difficulty of the poison. At the end of every Hour the victim makes a Physique roll, and loses a number of points of Health equal to the failed Outcome.
Note: Don't forget to assign Burdens when the victim's health drops. Appropriate Burdens are things like Shivers/Shakes, Nausea, paralysis and unconsciousness.

Fast acting Deadly Poison: This poison deals severe damage to the body in a very short amount of time.
The poison lasts a number of minutes equal to the Difficulty of the poison. At the end of every minute the victim makes a Physique roll, and loses a number of points of Health equal to the failed Outcome.
Note: Don't forget to assign Burdens when the victim's health drops. Appropriate Burdens are things like Shivers/Shakes, Nausea, paralysis and unconsciousness.

Hrm. Could be good fodder for a stunt

I was thinking of a door lock where you need to pull the right metals, push other ones (can be done by hand), and then release the door at the right time. Was going to involve all the metal symbols in a pattern on the door, and you had to push & pull the ones that had a matching metal behind the symbol (ie, pull the Iron bar behind the Iron symbol, but if you pull the gold bar behind the Atium symbol, TRAP!).

Instead I'll need to go by the symbols themselves, and give a code for figuring out which symbols to use...

So, I can't actually spot this one in the rulebook anywhere.
When you burn Iron or Steel and see all your handy little blue lines, are you able to work out what the metal you're detecting actually is? Can you tell the difference between iron/gold/zinc etc?

I'm working on a.. combination lock/safe of sorts that requires pulling the right bits to open it

So.. from the looks of things 40 people have no idea if this is correct or not either?

["Passive" allomancy:]

Heya!
          So, first session of my game last night, and we had a slight hitch when the Rioter decided she wanted to get the group into a more partying mood.

I've since gone over the rules again, and I *think* this is how things should be handled, please let me know if I'm right:

"Passive" allomancy:
The party is searching an abandoned manor and has just found the wine cellar and partaken of an excellent vintage. The Rioter decides to riot the party's sense of fun and enjoyment.

At this point the Rioter rolls her Zinc rating. This is a Challenge because the rest of the group has no idea she's doing anything, with a Difficulty appropriate for the emotion.
The narrator decides that creeping through a manor that's been empty for a century isn't really conducive to a genial mood even after finding the wine cellar, and assign a Difficulty of 3

The player has five dice for rioting (I'm ignoring traits & circumstances in this example), and gets 1, 2, 5 and two nudges. With a result of 0 and a Difficulty of 3, this is an Outcome of -3, mitigated by two nudges to -1. If she'd only gotten one nudge then everyone would now be aware that someone was trying to mess with their emotions.

However, this doesn't prevent her from trying again one Beat later.

So on the next Beat she tries again, this time getting 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, a Success with an outcome of one. Everyone starts loosening up a bit, cracking the occasional joke, and talking about returning to the wine cellar. The Rioter also gets one extra Dice for all Charm & Influence rolls against them as long as she keeps burning.

However, unbeknown to the rioter, the party fixer is also a Seeker and has been burning the whole time. He's aware that she's burning Zinc and so gets to oppose her roll. Deciding to roll Wits to figure out what's happening, he gets a monumental 3, 4, 5, 5 and a nudge. Not only is he aware enough of his emotions to not be affected, but he knows exactly what emotion she was trying to Riot, and decides to spend the nudge on his next roll to resist her Rioting (if necessary).


Does that all sound accurate for "Passive" emotional allomancy?


Next up:
Combative Allomancy:

Walking off from the party back to the wine cellar later in the session, the Rioter comes across a group of thieves who are looting the mansion. Deciding that this just won't do, the Rioter decides to Flare her Zinc and try to completely screw with the mind of the one with the biggest weapons, flaring his mistrust, fear and anger.
This is a Contest of Zinc vs Spirit targeting Willpower (The narrator decides that the thief is too small fry to turn this into a Conflict).
The Ritoer gets a pair of fours and a nudge, the thief gets nothing.
Given the high roll and that the thieves are little more than Extras, the narrator decides the thief quickly goes from eyeing his colleagues suspiciously to yelling to starting a fight with them, and the Rioter sneaks off to tell the party about them. The player spends her nudge to make the thief not realise that his emotions are being manipulated.
Had she not gotten the nudge, after the fight he might have realised that someone played him, and gone seeking revenge. Likewise had he been a more prominent character this might have called for a proper Mental Conflict, taking several rounds and giving him a chance to counterattack with Spirit vs Zinc.


How about that example? Does that sound about right?

Trying to make sure I've got a handle on these things before next session

Which I somehow had not noticed. Go me!

I'll make use of that next time

So, my game starts in a week and a half, and we did a very brief combat introduction of our mistborn vs a young Koloss.
... I definitely need a GM cheat sheet so that I remember what's supposed to happen, what dice logically opposes what, etc.

Does anyone already have such a thing? And if not, what things would people suggest adding to it?

Things I know I need to include:
* Step by step combat rounds:
 - Forming dice pools
 - Adding Complications due to failed rolls
 - Adding Burdens due to damage

* What dice go into Defense dice etc (eg we found it a bit odd that if the Mistborn coinshots at something, they get far less dice, and so far less chance to defend, than they would if they tried to punch something)
* Standard tests (what opposes what)
* Checking what is a contest vs what is a conflict during a combat
* Basics of Standings tests

From that little playtest that's what I know I'll need a handy sheet for. Any other suggestions?