A few seconds ahead - How strong is it?

[Lavecki121]

I talked to my friend yesterday about this conversation. He made a good point. RAW is very explicit to note that Social stress is your social reputation, not necessarially how you react to social comments. Thus seeing into the future could be justifiable because you know what the person is about to say and could thus trip them up, making their attack on your social reputation sting less because their witty comment didnt have the same impact.

I think this is why they got rid of social for Fate Core, because it is an attack on your social reputation but most of the attacks seem like they should affect your social state. So IDK.

Im not really debating anyone in this post, just puting it out there.

[Addicted2aa]

Yeah, it wouldn't work for all social defenses, but it might work in the sense of letting you see someone's reactions to, for example, you calling his bluff safely.

I would say knowing what you're opponent is going to say is always be a benefit to social combat. In repartee it should be obvious how it works, you can get some extra seconds to think of a comeback, or you can beat them to the punch and make their biting comment look less biting.
For something like intimidate, if you know the tact their planning on taking, you can remain in control. You know what's coming so you can prepare for it. It will still suck, but you know how and why it will suck, so you can steel yourself for it. Furthermore you can use that knowledge to turn it around on them. They start to detail exactly what they're going to do, and you finish what they are saying word for word, and tell them to get on with it. That might rob them of their conviction.
And maybe it won't. That's why you still roll. Maybe knowing what happened and planning for it wasn't enough to prevent the big scary guy from being that damn scary. And maybe it was. The dice will tell you.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yes--but anything she could use to maneuver in physical confrontation is rolled at 0. Creating an aspect is typically a 3-shift difficulty, yes? That means unless she's invoking or tagging other aspects, she has about a 6% chance of being able to contribute with a maneuver. Less if she's trying to maneuver against something that has a defense roll.

You can maneuver with Deceit. Feints and trickery are very useful in combat.

She is a non combat character, she was built to be ineffective in physical confrontation.

Yep.

But with AFSA around, that becomes a tremendously stupid way to build her because making her useful in a fight is so easy.

Eating an action and not dying is generally useful in a fight, and she has more consequences to spend than the average bystander, while, if careful, looking like a bystander. This still assumes the party doesn't have a 'tank' to draw the enemies attention (Harry manages it with witty banter and insults).

I'm pretty sure Marked By Power would not add to the AFSA social defense as seeing the future, even if using it to evade a social attack, is still seeing the future and not in and of itself, a social roll/action.

The issue is that the party tank will have to waste effort on protecting her instead of just fighting.

And I have no idea why you think seeing the future can't be a social roll.

I talked to my friend yesterday about this conversation. He made a good point. RAW is very explicit to note that Social stress is your social reputation, not necessarially how you react to social comments.

The RAW really aren't very consistent about that.

[Lavecki121]

Yep.

But with AFSA around, that becomes a tremendously stupid way to build her because making her useful in a fight is so easy.

Yea, you easily could have given her a high athletics too. But you didn't because she isn't a combative character. And even with her in the mix, she is providing one maneuver per turn. That's less effective than the guy hitting for 6 stress per turn. Sure it makes that six now an 8 but if I take out that guy dealing stress, she is eventually going to lose the fight, it's just going to take a bit longer

[Taran]

I would say knowing what you're opponent is going to say is always be a benefit to social combat. In repartee it should be obvious how it works, you can get some extra seconds to think of a comeback, or you can beat them to the punch and make their biting comment look less biting.
For something like intimidate, if you know the tact their planning on taking, you can remain in control. You know what's coming so you can prepare for it. It will still suck, but you know how and why it will suck, so you can steel yourself for it. Furthermore you can use that knowledge to turn it around on them. They start to detail exactly what they're going to do, and you finish what they are saying word for word, and tell them to get on with it. That might rob them of their conviction.
And maybe it won't. That's why you still roll. Maybe knowing what happened and planning for it wasn't enough to prevent the big scary guy from being that damn scary. And maybe it was. The dice will tell you.

You say EXACTLY what they say at the EXACT same time.   Since you know what they're about to say, it'd be pretty easy.  That's pretty annoying and could make them frustrated and possibly disarm any of their attempts to make you look bad.  It might make their attempts at intimidation look foolish...yeah...lots of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwY3coss1Bg

[Sanctaphrax]

Yea, you easily could have given her a high athletics too. But you didn't because she isn't a combative character. And even with her in the mix, she is providing one maneuver per turn. That's less effective than the guy hitting for 6 stress per turn. Sure it makes that six now an 8 but if I take out that guy dealing stress, she is eventually going to lose the fight, it's just going to take a bit longer

Giving her high Athletics would have compromised her main area of competence. AFSA is better because it lets her have her cake and eat it too.

And yes, with AFSA she likely won't be the main target of a smart opponent. But without it, she's so fragile that she becomes target #1 by default. Doing a few points of stress to a tough foe isn't nearly as good as shutting down the character who gives them a tag almost every turn.

[toturi]

And yes, with AFSA she likely won't be the main target of a smart opponent. But without it, she's so fragile that she becomes target #1 by default. Doing a few points of stress to a tough foe isn't nearly as good as shutting down the character who gives them a tag almost every turn.

We do not know that. A smart opponent would still be unlikely to know that she can predict his moves until it happens.

[Lavecki121]

Eliza Dunningham (Feet In The Water)

High Concept: Emissary Of Janus
Trouble Aspect: Supernatural Politics
Other Aspects: Too Clever, Seen Some Seriously Strange Stuff
Skills:
Great: Lore, Deceit
Good: Presence, Rapport
Fair: Empathy, Resources
Average: Conviction, Discipline
Stunts:
Nevernever Contacts (Lore): Use Lore for Contacts in the Nevernever.
Powers:
Marked By Power [-1]
Worldwalker [-2]
Total Refresh Cost:
-4
Refresh Total:
2

Change resources to athletics and add this custom stunt: Reactionary: +2 to athletics when defending against physical attacks. That puts her at cap defense and she has cap -1 defense in social combat when not talking to the supernatural community

[Sanctaphrax]

We do not know that. A smart opponent would still be unlikely to know that she can predict his moves until it happens.

Good point.

I was assuming the opponent would be well-informed, which wouldn't necessarily be the case.

Doesn't make much difference to the central point, though.

Change resources to athletics and add this custom stunt: Reactionary: +2 to athletics when defending against physical attacks. That puts her at cap defense and she has cap -1 defense in social combat when not talking to the supernatural community

That stunt is much too powerful.

And even with it, your version of her lags behind the AFSA version. At least in my eyes: I'd prefer the Resources and the conditional +1 social defense to the increased mobility.

[Lavecki121]

And even with it, your version of her lags behind the AFSA version. At least in my eyes: I'd prefer the Resources and the conditional +1 social defense to the increased mobility.

And AFSA is a power so that makes sense.

[Sanctaphrax]

Nope.

That Stunt is way too strong, so it's not a good balance point.

And -1 Powers aren't always supposed to directly out-compete Stunts. Generally, they aren't directly comparable. And that's good, because it keeps the game interesting.