Venomous

[Taran]

Just wondering what the official view of venomous is here in the community.

How I read it is the person rolls a maneuver to put "poisoned" on the victim, which gets tagged for effect

In the next exchange and everyone thereafter, the victim makes a roll vs the poisoners fists skill.

Question:  If the person has a fists of Great, does the victim save vs a +4 every exchange or is it Dice roll +4?

In each subsequent exchange, the target
must roll Endurance to defend against an
attack from the poison equal to your Fists
score.

I read that as a straight +4 attack - no dice roll.

And while this is going on, in subsequent rounds the person can attack another person poisoning them, really stacking up damage.

Question 2:
When they say "medical attention" do you need the "doctor skill" to overcome the poisoned aspect, or is a scholarship (first aid) roll sufficient. 

[Haru]

The venom attack is passive, it doesn't get a roll.

Yes, you can basically poison everyone and let them tick to death. It's the one power that allows you to basically give you additional attacks. Which is why I am not a big fan of it.

2)
I'd say first aid is enough. Unless you want to add a bit of drama rushing the victim to the hospital or something like that.

[Taran]

can you perform first aid on yourself?

[Haru]

One thing that's sometimes done is sucking the poison out of the wound. If that wound is on your arm, that shouldn't be a problem. On your legs, it might get difficult. Your chest or stomach? No way.
But maybe it's enough to put some disinfectant on the wound and cover it with duct tape. I guess it really depends on how powerful you want venomous to be.

[Taran]

Well, getting rid of the maneuver is an action spent not doing something else, so it's still effective, I think.  Since you can't really say, "you got hit in the leg" or arm or foot unless there are consequences, I might just put the difficulty up by 2 for doing it to yourself.  I might increase it by another 1 or two for not having a proper first aid kit as well...but that might be pushing the difficulty pretty high in a fight... but "proper medical attention" implies, to me, at least some kind of first aid kit or supplies...thoughts?

[Haru]

I think first aid takes longer than one exchange in a conflict. An endurance roll so the poison no longer affects you would make more sense, I think. Or a discipline roll, to just ignore the pain the poison causes.

It would still mean that the poison is in your system, but it doesn't affect you negatively in the fight. You'll need to tend to it after the fight, though, otherwise it might take you down slowly. Compelling a "poisoned" aspect would probably be a better way to handle the effect as a whole, rather than making it an attacking effect.

[Arcane]

I think first aid takes longer than one exchange in a conflict.

I think that might depend on the nature of the first aid you are using to deal with the poison.  Sucking the poison out would definitely take more than an exchange but if one happened to have the proper anti-toxin on hand injecting it to neutralize the poison would only take an action (though it would still take a successful Scholarship maneuver to apply the proper dosage).

[Haru]

Granted, but that's a special circumstance. I was more thinking if you don't have the appropriate tools to deal with it and have to make do with what you've got. Of course you could spend a fate point to have the anti-toxin at hand.

[Taran]

Well, that might be a solution.  Keep the difficulty static but make it take less time with a First Aid kit(or appropriate implement using declarations etc..).

Also, I'd allow a very good check to reduce the time.  So a scholarship of 6 vs a difficulty of 4 could reduce the time by 2 increments.  The base being "a minute" or "a few minutes".

I'm still leaning towards increasing the difficulty for self-treating but Venomous seems pretty potent as-is.

[Haru]

To make it a bit more in line with other things, you could rename it, so someone with the power can create a "poisoned" aspect as a supplemental action on a successful attack. That aspect doesn't attack on its own, but it can be invoked (including a tag) to increase your rolls against the target. If the target already has a "poisoned" aspect, you can add a free tag if you use the supplemental action. Still powerful, but it's a completely active power now.

After that, you can simply roll against the fists level as is, I would interpret the penalty to doing first aid on yourself as taking more time. So the added difficulty should go towards increasing the time increment. That means if the roll fails, it can still work, just takes a lot of time, which the character might not have.

[Taran]

To make it a bit more in line with other things, you could rename it, so someone with the power can create a "poisoned" aspect as a supplemental action on a successful attack. That aspect doesn't attack on its own, but it can be invoked (including a tag) to increase your rolls against the target. If the target already has a "poisoned" aspect, you can add a free tag if you use the supplemental action. Still powerful, but it's a completely active power now.

I'm not sure I get it.

After that, you can simply roll against the fists level as is, I would interpret the penalty to doing first aid on yourself as taking more time. So the added difficulty should go towards increasing the time increment. That means if the roll fails, it can still work, just takes a lot of time, which the character might not have.

So I'd say First Aiding yourself would be 15 minutes
Someone else doing it would reduce it by one shift
Using a kit reduces it by 2 more shifts (not including pulling out the kit)

The best case scenario is "half a minute" + shifts of success.

It seems more complicated than it should be, but I think it makes sense

Edit: It'll still mess people up before they get a chance to neutralize it...and that's assuming they don't get hit again

[Haru]

I'm not sure I get it.

Scorpion vs. Mouse:

1) Scorpion hits Mouse with a 5 shift attack, Mouse dodges with a roll of 3. That would make it a 2 shift effect with claws = 4 shifts of stress.

2) Scorpion attacks with a 5 shift attack, but since he called it a venomous attack, the roll is reduced by 1 for the supplemental action. Mouse dodges with a roll of 3. That would be a 1 shift effect with claws = 3 shifts of stress + aspect "poisoned" on the mouse.

3) Mouse has a "poisoned" aspect, but the Scorpion already used his tag. Scorpion attacks as in 2, but instead of creating a new aspect, he creates a tag on the already existing "poisoned" aspect. Or he could create a new "poisoned" aspect, but that doesn't really make sense to me.

It's sort of like the "success with style" effect for an attack in fate Core. It basically means, that once you are successful in poisoning your opponent, you have a pretty strong advantage, since you can tag the aspect on each attack and have a good chance to succeed even with -1 to your roll.

[Taran]

Not that I'd house-rule it (since I have a player who's already taken it), but I wonder if it could do damage like a grapple where, if you fail to resist on each round, it causes one stress/exchange until cured.

And then you can have upgrades like potent venom and Greater potent venom where it does 2 stress/exchange and 3 stress/exchange(which is the bonuses you get from strength powers).

That way it wittles people down instead of, potentially, doing piles of damage in each exchange.

That way, also, the damage is based on the potency of the venom and not the skill of the attacker...which, to me, makes more sense.

#mouse vs scorpion.  O.k, I see.  You get a tag each round (for +2) but you have to take a supplemental each round to keep it up...or just spend the FP and not take the supplemental.  Interesting.  The problem is there's no effect when you don't attack the person...but I guess that's like any aspect.

[Haru]

It's a way to get around the DoT effect. I know that's usually how poisons work, but it's something that I feel is misplaced in Fate. A poison could also allow you to do an attack at a distance, once you have successfully poisoned a target. It seems counterintuitive at first, since you don't really affect how the poison does damage, especially not if you are at a distance, but it would keep with the attack economy. And if you look at a skill roll as a way to influence the scene, it makes a bit more sense.

A grapple could work similarly, the venom would allow you to not have to actually be in the grapple, but it would (or should) not give you an additional attack. You'd still be in conflict with other characters, but you're only actually affecting one at a time (unless you go for a zone wide poisoning or something similar).

[Taran]

What if Having a successful endurance check, instead of just resisting the damage also stops the on-going attacks...or steps the attacks up one level upthe time chart so they happen less frequently(representing your body dealing with the poison and resisting it).  Every time you succeed, it steps it up, yet another step. The "poisoned" aspect stands until the victim gets hit by another attack (resetting the "every exchange" frequency) or the poisoner spends a FP to re-invoke the aspect again which would also reset the frequency, or the person cures the poison with a scholarship.