Roll Lore or Spend FP for potion

[sqlcowboy]

YS P280

"At the beginning of each session, you may
declare what potions you have on hand to fill
those slots, or otherwise leave them open. If you
have an open slot and a successful Lore roll or a
fate point to spend, you may later declare that
you coincidentally have an appropriate potion."

What difficulty do various GMs tend to use for this roll? 

My GM said "strength of the potion" but to me, that's always equal to your Lore, so you've got a 50/50 chance of having to spend the FP anyway regardless of your Lore/Potion strength unless you have an aspect to tag for free somewhere (which theoretically you could've used to enhance the strength of the potion, putting you back in a situation where you have a 50/50 chance of failing...).  Having a higher Lore wouldn't actually make you more likely to have the "right" potion on hand, leading you to most of the time have to spend a FP.

I'm not sure where I stand on this one other than my usual default of "diff 3" for anything that isn't stated, just like you'd have to place a Maneuver.

[JDK002]

I think the potion strength is a decent baseline, then modify it based on how likely it is you would have said potion on you.  If it's a fairly general purpose potion drop the difficulty a point or two.  If it's a super specific potion, crank it up a step or two.

[Haru]

It usually depends on a variety of reasons. If the player comes up with a really cool idea for a potion, then I would not even have him roll, because if he fails the roll, the cool idea goes away, which would not really be a win for the game as a whole. If it is an ok idea, I might have him roll to see if the potion he has on hand is exactly what he wanted or if it might have any side effects. For example Harry's "blending in" potion in FM would be such a case. He was blending in perfectly, but when he needed someone to pay him attention, he was blending in too perfectly. And for a rather boring idea, I would simply try to get the group involved to come up with something a little more... fuego!

Then, of course, there is what JDK says about how specific a potion is. But I wouldn't let that stand in my way too much. If it isn't something that really applies to this one and only this one occasion and would have no use anywhere else whatsoever, I might veto, otherwise, I'll let it go on the rule of cool. remember that the potion slots only refresh during a milestone, so once they are spent, they won't come up for a while. I would factor in how specific the potion the player wants is into the "roll on coolness" I described above. He might have a potion that fits the problem at hand, but it is a potion that has a much broader use and will therefore have a side effect.

A difficulty of 3 is a good starting point, I think.

[Taran]

Why not use the guide-lines for all declarations.  Oftentimes people think declarations and maneuvers are the same but, really, in a lot of situations, declarations can be much easier to do:

YS pg. 313

The difficulties for declarations should,
honestly, be based on how interesting the
proposed fact or aspect is. Ideas that would
disrupt the game or are just unreasonable should
simply be vetoed. These are the questions to ask
yourself when determining difficulty:

1. Is the declaration interesting (or funny)?
2. Will the declaration have interesting
consequences if it’s acted upon, whether
it’s right or wrong?
3. Does the declaration propose a specific
and interesting course of action?

Each “no” adds 2 to the base difficulty of
Mediocre. If the proposed fact is very amusing,
proposes an interesting course of action, and
has interesting consequences (three “yes”-es), a
Mediocre difficulty is appropriate—you want
to provide a good chance that the detail is true.

[Vairelome]

I agree with Taran; the general declaration rules are probably best, and based on the rule originally quoted, seem to be the intended solution.  ("Declare" is the operative verb in both sentences--I don't think that's a coincidence.)

In my opinion, potion strength is a very bad option, because that can be up to 2x Lore for dedicated crafting characters (Lore + specialization/focus item bonuses to Power).  It makes no sense for a non-specialized crafter to have better than even odds at generating a top-quality potion while a specialized crafter has zero chance at generating a top-quality potion.  Yes, the crafter's potions are much stronger: that's what he paid refresh to get.

[Sanctaphrax]

Depends on the type of potion. I'd start with difficulty 3 for something common like a bomb, difficulty 5 for something a bit more specialized like a stealth potion, and difficulty 7 for something really specific like a sunshine hankie. Then I'd adjust up or down based on whether the declaration seems interesting and/or funny.

Why not use the guide-lines for all declarations.

I prefer not to use those Declaration guidelines. Difficulty 6 just isn't a high enough maximum. A character with a relevant stunt on their apex skill will make that easily.

And the formula leaves at two elements that I consider important: plausibility and how many Declarations the player's already made recently.

If somebody wants to try and Declare some random Aspect for a +2 bonus on every roll, then that's fine. But I don't want it to be easy for them.