Cover identity DCs

[Minion]

Heya folks. I was just reading the description of cover identities (second printing pdf, page 286) and I got a bit confused. One paragraph says this:

Only a successful Complex Investigation/Research Task with a number of Challenges equal to the identity's Power Rating reveals that it's a fraud. This Task's DC is equal to 10 + (5 x the identity's Power Rating).

The next paragraph says this:

A cover identity is "blown" whenever its Power Rating decreases below 0, or when someone completes a Complex Investigation/Research Task with a DC of 5 x the identity's Power Rating and a number of challenges equal to its Power Rating.

Emphasis mine, of course. So which DC should I be using for the Complex Investigation/Research Task? I couldn't find anything in the errata or using my limited board search-fu, but I apologise if I'm asking a question that's already been answered!

[Bill Whitmore]

Heya folks. I was just reading the description of cover identities (second printing pdf, page 286) and I got a bit confused. One paragraph says this:

Only a successful Complex Investigation/Research Task with a number of Challenges equal to the identity's Power Rating reveals that it's a fraud. This Task's DC is equal to 10 + (5 x the identity's Power Rating).

The next paragraph says this:

A cover identity is "blown" whenever its Power Rating decreases below 0, or when someone completes a Complex Investigation/Research Task with a DC of 5 x the identity's Power Rating and a number of challenges equal to its Power Rating.

Emphasis mine, of course. So which DC should I be using for the Complex Investigation/Research Task? I couldn't find anything in the errata or using my limited board search-fu, but I apologise if I'm asking a question that's already been answered!

My take on what I think this means:
There are really 2 different things going on here.  The first is finding out that the cover identity is, indeed, false.  The second is basically revealing that to the world in such a way to make the cover ID useless to the target.

Since I love examples to illustrate a point:

Our agent has a PR 4 cover ID (Joe Schmoe Oridinary).  A newspaper reporter takes an interest in him when he witnesses the agent doing something suspicious and decides to investigate.  This reporter starts trying to dig into our agents background.

The reporter needs make a Complex Investigation/Research Task with a DC of 30 (10 + (5 x PR 4)) and needs 4 successes.

If he fails this task, then he is unable to find anything out of the ordinary about our agent.  He really is just Joe Schmoe Oridinary.

If he succeeds at this task then he finds out that our agent really isn't the guy he says he is.  Though the reporter may not know who he actually is, he DOES know that he is NOT Joe Schmoe Oridinary.

At this point, our agents cover identity is still perfectly valid.  He can use it and most people are oblivious to the ruse...but our reporter really wants to find out what this guy is all about, so he starts gathering more information, making sure that the information gets in the right hands.  Maybe he contacts the DMV and provides them with the information to indicate that this is a false ID.  He could drop some information with the cops, too.  The real-estate agency that owns the house Joe is living in may like the know someone has been using it illegally.

Whichever way he goes about doing it, he now needs to make another Complex Investigation/Research Task but with a DC of 20 (5 x PR 4)  and needs 4 successes.

If he fails, he cannot come up with enough evidence and/or get it in the right hands to blow our agent's cover.

If he succeeds, our agent wakes up one morning to find that his Driver's License is no longer valid, the cops are looking for him and the real estate agency has people walking up his driveway to reclaim the house.

The information has been revealed.  He is not Joe Schmoe Oridinary, the house isn't his, and the police may now be looking for him.  Time to ditch this cover ID, as it has just been blown all to hell.

*   *   *

Across the street, the reporter sits in his car, drinking his coffee and watching the house.  Soon, "Joe" is going to have to leave, and when he does the real scoop behind "Mr. Ordinary" may be had.

[Mister Andersen]

Um, that doesn't make any sense - if the reporter has successfully reduced the power rating of the identity to 0, then by definition he has all the evidence he needs to prove the identity false to anyone.

This looks like an editing goof

[Bill Whitmore]

Um, that doesn't make any sense - if the reporter has successfully reduced the power rating of the identity to 0, then by definition he has all the evidence he needs to prove the identity false to anyone.

This looks like an editing goof

Only a successful Complex Investigation/Research Task with a number of Challenges equal to the identity’s Power Rating reveals that it’s a fraud.

Nothing in that section says anything about the checks actually reducing the PR of the cover ID, only that success "reveals that it's a fraud."  The reporter hasn't reduced the PR of the cover ID.  But, if he finds out it is false, he could then take steps to ruin that Cover ID.

[Minion]

Okay, I can see how a straight reading might suggest that Complex Check 1 is to detect the fake ID, and Complex Check 2 is to ruin the fake ID. Were that the case, I think Investigation/Research is an odd choice for the second check. Maybe Bureaucracy?

I gotta say, though, I'm not convinced.

In my game I'd probably Rule Zero it to one Complex Investigation/Research check provides evidence that the ID is fake. What you do with that evidence is up to you. You can take it to the authorities (in which the cover is blown completely). You can alert your organisation (in which case it's no longer effective against your organisation, but works fine otherwise). You can try and bribe the owner of the fake ID. And so on.

[Bill Whitmore]

Okay, I can see how a straight reading might suggest that Complex Check 1 is to detect the fake ID, and Complex Check 2 is to ruin the fake ID. Were that the case, I think Investigation/Research is an odd choice for the second check. Maybe Bureaucracy?

I don't have a problem with using Investigation/Research for blowing the Cover ID.  There is a huge difference between gathering enough information to convince yourself of something and having enough information to convince someone else.

Since I work as a Test Engineer, I run into this all the time.  After testing a system from top to bottom, I can see a bug and have a pretty good idea of how to reproduce it and maybe have an inkling of what is wrong, but I need to gather so much more data to convince the "real" engineers that a problem exists.

Likewise, you may get enough info to be able to say "Yea, that ID is fake" but what you have may not make sense to someone who hasn't been looking at it through a complex task's worth of study.

It should be noted as well, that blowing the Cover ID has DCs that are 10 less than the discovery DCs.  If you can hit the former, the latter should just be a matter of time.

In the end, I haven't actually had this particular issue come up.  The only time the Cover ID really came into question in my game was during an Infiltration and the cards have their own system for Cover IDs.

[Psion]

"real" engineers

Sorry, but speaking as a "real" engineer, I just had to snicker. 

[Bill Whitmore]

"real" engineers

Sorry, but speaking as a "real" engineer, I just had to snicker. 

I have been a "real" engineer in the past.  I have flopped back and forth over that line, but my current job is Test Engineer.  The outlook is much different.  "Real" engineers want their babies to work and like a doting parent don't want to see its flaws.  Test Engineers do their damndest to break it and flaunt the problems to all who will listen.

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, my father was a naval engineer - some of his favorite stories were describing just how bad some of the folks on a sub could screw it up while 'fixing' it. In one case they had to replace over fifty ball valves set to go the wrong direction - the valves are designed so they can only go on the right way, so the folks on the sub had to build adapters to get them on wrong....

The valves in question were all set up so that in an emergency you could handle the entire bank by slamming the valves to the left - opening the ones that needed to be open and closing the ones that needed to be closed. The guy in charge of engineering on the sub wanted right to open, left to close, so he built the adapters.

The Auld Grump

[Mister Andersen]

That sounds uncommonly brilliant actually.

[Morgenstern]

Not in the military that isn't. You don't rebuild equipment for personal preference. Somebody else has to be able to come in and use that gear as outlined in the TOs at a moments notice.

[Psion]

Heh, my father was a naval engineer - some of his favorite stories were describing just how bad some of the folks on a sub could screw it up while 'fixing' it.

Speaking as a former submariner, I again have to snicker. 

[Mister Andersen]

Not in the military that isn't. You don't rebuild equipment for personal preference. Somebody else has to be able to come in and use that gear as outlined in the TOs at a moments notice.

I was talking more of the simple logic of the design itself - that's exactly the sort of principle I like to see in my engineering designs (as opposed to the lethally stupid design of the spaceship from this season's Doctor Who episode "42")

[TheAuldGrump]

Not in the military that isn't. You don't rebuild equipment for personal preference. Somebody else has to be able to come in and use that gear as outlined in the TOs at a moments notice.

I was talking more of the simple logic of the design itself - that's exactly the sort of principle I like to see in my engineering designs (as opposed to the lethally stupid design of the spaceship from this season's Doctor Who episode "42")

Yeah, unlike NASA the Navy does sometimes learn from its mistakes. My father was also a submariner, and had some real sad stories in regards to equipment failure.  He helped work on the Thresher. (Destroyed by an iced up valve.)

*EDIT* Something to bear in mind regarding the engineer on the sub - nearly every valve other than the ones in that bank followed the rule of 'open clockwise, close counterclockwise' - in that regard he was bringing the valves into line with the priorities that he had been instructed to follow. That one bank was at odds with every other valve on the boat.

Me da was a submariner at the tail end of WWII and through Korea. Once a civilian he kept working on them. We had pictures of so many subs, including some that had never returned. Thresher, Scorpion, and Tang. In the end working the subs is what killed him - he died of mesothelioma last year, shortly after St. Patrick's Day. Asbestos exposure from his work.

Bad system designs in movies and television drive me to distraction, almost as much as giant humanoid fighting vehicles.  Watching Wing Commander was so darned painful....

The Auld Grump

[Morgenstern]

Well, I certainly have my stories about engineers, doing stuff strangely backwards for no apparent reason - then digging into the design to discover ther was no hidden reason either: they had just screwed up.

Hopefully you'll find the big 'bots in C:S a bit of a change from the standard mecha fare. There was a long, long thread on the AEG-hosted boards about how my worst greivances with 'battle bots' would result in some changes in root level philosphy for the war machines of C:S. Like oversized guns with triggers.