Veils

[Taran]

Question:

A PC is trying to sneak out of somewhere under the cover of a veil where a guardian is actively guarding a door.  Assuming the player doesn't use some kind of declaration/compel against the guardian and instead chooses to open the door.  Let's also assume he wasn't compelled to open the door.  We can even call it player stupidity.  How would you adjudicate that?  Does that ruin the veil? 

[GryMor]

Question:

A PC is trying to sneak out of somewhere under the cover of a veil where a guardian is actively guarding a door.  Assuming the player doesn't use some kind of declaration/compel against the guardian and instead chooses to open the door.  Let's also assume he wasn't compelled to open the door.  We can even call it player stupidity.  How would you adjudicate that?  Does that ruin the veil?

A few immediate declarations (sort of, the 2nd one should already be present):
1) The door opened on it's own
2) Guard right in front of the door
3) Violated the guards personal space with a veil.

The guard makes an awareness check, tags the ones needed to beat the veil (or fails, "Must have been the wind" or "Faulty catch?") with the others left for his action, and you likely drop into initiative if you were not already there.

[Mr. Death]

GryMor's method works.

Alternatively, he might not have been compelled to open the door, but you could certainly compel either a scene aspect, the guardian's aspect, or one of the player's (call it a self-compel) to say "Okay, doors don't open on their own. A veil isn't going to be enough to hide that."

[Sanctaphrax]

No Declaration, no Compel, no veil-breaking.

The guardian sees the door open. She does not see you. What she does then is up to her.

That's how I'd handle it, anyhow.

[Mr. Death]

Another way to handle veils in combat is to not have them be blocks at all, but maneuvers. That way it can be a maneuver on your target(s) you can tag to compel them not to attack you, or some other effect (have them looking the other way to justify invoking to boost your attack roll the next exchange, to make them think they know where you are so they swing their axe into power lines instead, etc.)

Actually, swinging the axe into power lines would probably be using a veil as an attack, come to think of it, with the enemy defending with Discipline or Alertness to see through the veil.

[Taran]

Another way to handle veils in combat is to not have them be blocks at all, but maneuvers.
Actually, swinging the axe into power lines would probably be using a veil as an attack, come to think of it, with the enemy defending with Discipline or Alertness to see through the veil.

Maneuvering while veiled makes way more sense than attacking, in my mind.  And seems more in the spirit of it.  Distracting enemies while your allies attack, levitating objects to make enemies think you're somewhere else in order to lure them into dangerous situations.

Another Question:
A wizard and his gun-toting ally, Shooty McShootiker, walk into a room.  The wizard puts up his Sight and sees an enemy veiled with a glamour in the corner, watching them intently.  He discretely points it out to Shooty McShootiker.  Shooty, despite tagging a the appropriat aspect "my friend pointed him out" fails his awareness.  The wizard makes a declaration that there is a painting directly behind the veiled enemy and tells Shooty to aim for the lower left quadrant of the painting.
How do you adjudicate what happens next?  What are Shooty's options?

BTW, I'm asking these to see how people would adjudicate.  I have my own ideas, but I want to see what other people would do.

[Mr. Death]

Maneuvering while veiled makes way more sense than attacking, in my mind.  And seems more in the spirit of it.  Distracting enemies while your allies attack, levitating objects to make enemies think you're somewhere else in order to lure them into dangerous situations.

Depends on the situation. "Veil as an attack" might be better used with illusions, honestly.

As the gamebook says, decide on the result, then work out the mechanics to fit it. If the object of a veil is to take someone out, then it's an attack. If it's to create a momentary advantage, it's a maneuver. If it's to prevent some action, a block. In that way, I think it's fine to have a veil or other illusion work as an attack. Hell, I once had a player take out a Goblin using Intimidation as an attack, to goad him into tackling a veiled bit of iron.

Another Question:
A wizard and his gun-toting ally, Shooty McShootiker, walk into a room.  The wizard puts up his Sight and sees an enemy veiled with a glamour in the corner, watching them intently.  He discretely points it out to Shooty McShootiker.  Shooty, despite tagging a the appropriat aspect "my friend pointed him out" fails his awareness.  The wizard makes a declaration that there is a painting directly behind the veiled enemy and tells Shooty to aim for the lower left quadrant of the painting.
How do you adjudicate what happens next?  What are Shooty's options?

The wizard using The Sight is basically forcing a successful Alertness check, so once the wizard has notified Shooty, that means Shooty doesn't have to make his awareness roll, the veil is already broken.

[UmbraLux]

Another Question:
A wizard and his gun-toting ally, Shooty McShootiker, walk into a room.  The wizard puts up his Sight and sees an enemy veiled with a glamour in the corner, watching them intently.  He discretely points it out to Shooty McShootiker.  Shooty, despite tagging a the appropriat aspect "my friend pointed him out" fails his awareness.  The wizard makes a declaration that there is a painting directly behind the veiled enemy and tells Shooty to aim for the lower left quadrant of the painting.
How do you adjudicate what happens next?  What are Shooty's options?

BTW, I'm asking these to see how people would adjudicate.  I have my own ideas, but I want to see what other people would do.

Veils aren't D&D invisibility spells...in this case it's probably a block.  As a block against anything perception related, Shooty needs to beat the block with his Guns roll.  If successful the assistance was good enough or the veil was poor enough for Shooty to hit.

The veil is just a second defense roll once the attacker knows its there.  It's not an automatic miss card. 

[Centarion]

Veils aren't D&D invisibility spells...in this case it's probably a block.  As a block against anything perception related, Shooty needs to beat the block with his Guns roll.  If successful the assistance was good enough or the veil was poor enough for Shooty to hit.

The veil is just a second defense roll once the attacker knows its there.  It's not an automatic miss card. 

This is probably a better statement of my point than I made in 2.5 pages of heated argument.

[InFerrumVeritas]

This is probably a better statement of my point than I made in 2.5 pages of heated argument.

And I disagree with it just as much. 

But I'd allow him to tag the "My friend pointed it out to me" for effect, allowing him to shoot.  Rather than tagging for a bonus to Alertness. 

[Mr. Death]

The friend pointing it out (which is, in effect, a successful Alertness roll) is the game changer in that example, as I said. Without someone making a successful assessment to the effect of "There he is," then there's nothing to shoot at.

[Taran]

The friend pointing it out (which is, in effect, a successful Alertness roll) is the game changer in that example, as I said. Without someone making a successful assessment to the effect of "There he is," then there's nothing to shoot at.

The only difference (if it makes a difference) is this is a veil created via Glamours which, as far as I know, does not dissipate the veil even after a successful alertness check.  So while the wizard - or anyone else who's made a successful roll to see through the veil, everyone else would still be hampered by it.

[Centarion]

But that is the whole point. All of my previous examples relied on someone making a successful assessment/declaration/skill check to the effect of "There he is." Some of them were trivial declarations of "I know where he is" because you saw him less than 2 seconds ago while you were charging in his direction and he was casting the veil. Some of them were alertness skill checks to notice a floating object or door opening by itself. 

The main point of contention may well be that I feel it is possible to roll such a successful declaration/skill check, while not beating the veil itself and you do not agree. The reason I think this is that the veil is only making the caster, not all of his external actions, undetectable. Add to this the fact that directly perceiving someone is not the only way to know where they are and it should be possible to make a successful declaration of "I know where he is" without taking an action, and with a lower difficulty than beating the veil.

This is just a long way around to exactly what I had before, which was in effect allowing people who could justify making a good guess as to your location to attack you. Since the declarations like these are trivial common sense things (in the example I was using), and they do not take an action, there is no need to jam the mechanics in (and I never though of describing it this way). But if you really want a mechanical justification, just say that when you opened that door, the guard makes a declaration, with alertness, of "Gotcha" against some difficulty (if you want, it could be against a stealth roll, to open the door sneakily, if that makes sense in this situation, or it could just be a 2 or a 3), and then tags it for effect to allow him to attack. It is just a round about way to the same thing.

You could argue that this declaration would need to beat the veil strength, but I argue, that when a veiled people takes an action that can be perceived by those outside, they should not have to beat the full veil strength to declare that they notice.

[Mr. Death]

The main point of contention may well be that I feel it is possible to roll such a successful declaration/skill check, while not beating the veil itself and you do not agree.

Pretty much.

The reason I think this is that the veil is only making the caster, not all of his external actions, undetectable.

The veil strength is a block against the target being detected. It is not a block simply against being seen and positively identified. I feel external actions are certainly detectable, and grounds for a declaration to help the alertness roll to beat the veil, or a compel to make the veil fail, but without beating the veil's strength with an alertness roll, the guard in question simply does not know that there is someone there, and where that someone is.

Someone taking obvious actions should certainly strain the veil's ability to hide them, or be grounds for a compel along the lines of "There's only so many places a person can be standing while they're doing that, he guessed right." But unless someone's Alertness roll succeeds or there's a fate point being handed over, an intact veil means the people looking don't know where you are.

Add to this the fact that directly perceiving someone is not the only way to know where they are and it should be possible to make a successful declaration of "I know where he is" without taking an action, and with a lower difficulty than beating the veil.

A successful Alertness roll would not be its own action, but a prerequisite for direct action. You're right that directly perceiving someone isn't the only way, but that's not the only way to narrate a successful Alertness roll either. The skill check to make the statement, "I know where you are" is the veil's strength.

Back to the example of Molly's first veil vs. Murphy, Murphy didn't see Molly, and Molly was, in fact, invisible even after she'd been detected. Murphy made the Alertness roll not to directly see Molly, but to discern where Molly was standing.

You seem to be hung up on the idea that an Alertness roll means you literally see through the veil and directly perceive the person, which isn't necessarily the case. When someone makes the Alertness roll to beat Molly's veil, it doesn't mean Molly suddenly pops back into sight, it just means the veil wasn't good enough to keep her from being found.

A successful Alertness roll would mean, "I know where you are." Anything less, and the veil is doing its job at keeping the person hidden. They might be suspicious as hell about the self-opening doors and floating candles (and this suspicion should be tagged and compelled to make the veiler's life more interesting), but they can't pinpoint your position without making the Alertness roll.

It's a simple dichotomy--Alertness success: I know where you are; Alertness fail: I don't know where you are.

This is just a long way around to exactly what I had before, which was in effect allowing people who could justify making a good guess as to your location to attack you. Since the declarations like these are trivial common sense things (in the example I was using), and they do not take an action, there is no need to jam the mechanics in (and I never though of describing it this way).

Except that discounts the veil's strength. In this example, someone could have a 10-shift veil, against someone with an Alertness of 2, and then still be found and attacked without a compel.

But if you really want a mechanical justification, just say that when you opened that door, the guard makes a declaration, with alertness, of "Gotcha" against some difficulty (if you want, it could be against a stealth roll, to open the door sneakily, if that makes sense in this situation, or it could just be a 2 or a 3), and then tags it for effect to allow him to attack. It is just a round about way to the same thing.

I could see having the caster make a Stealth roll in defense against the declaration, yes. (I see an exchange like "The guard sees you do that" "What if I wait and do it quietly while he's not looking?" "Roll Stealth and see if you can manage it, then.") But if that is then going to be tagged to allow the attack--despite the guard not making the Alertness roll--the caster really deserves a fate point because that's a compel.

You could argue that this declaration would need to beat the veil strength, but I argue, that when a veiled people takes an action that can be perceived by those outside, they should not have to beat the full veil strength to declare that they notice.

To notice the action, or result of the action is one thing. To immediately conclude, "Right there is someone there I need to shoot," and then successfully cause stress is another.

[Centarion]

I could see having the caster make a Stealth roll in defense against the declaration, yes. (I see an exchange like "The guard sees you do that" "What if I wait and do it quietly while he's not looking?" "Roll Stealth and see if you can manage it, then.") But if that is then going to be tagged to allow the attack--despite the guard not making the Alertness roll--the caster really deserves a fate point because that's a compel.

But in my example the guard does make the alertness roll. If the guard fails to see the door open because of a stealth roll on the veilers part he does not the to make the declaration, and thus does not get to attack. I am just saying that the difficulty to see a door open and guess where the opener is is less than the difficulty to actually determine someone's position with no external clues, and this can be handled with a declaration+attack (or traditionally by tagging the declaration to boost a subsequent alertness).

I am well aware that an alertness beating a veil does not mean you just see through it, though it could. What I am saying is that when external circumstances provide something more obvious than the person themselves, and that something is not hidden by the veil, then there is a lower difficulty alertness declaration to be made, that could justify an attack.

Further, these are not "I know exactly where you are" like in the Murphy example, simply a "I know you are in that general direction." The first is equivalent to piercing the veil, and allows a full attack (obviously), the second allows you to invoke the "You are somewhere over there-ish" aspect to justify an attack with some circumstance penalty (alternately a circumstance bonus to the defense/veil block strength for defense, same thing, just additive, Fred's post is getting to me).