There’s some ambiguity on when exactly you can act against your Nature.
Page 232: “If you use your Nature in situations outside of escaping, climbing, hiding and foraging, you risk losing a bit of it.”
Page 233: “If your character is in a situation that is against his Nature—fighting, researching, arguing, etc.—and doesn’t have the proper skill, he may make the test using his current Nature rating.”
Page 233: “If Nature is used in a situation outside of escaping, hiding, climbing and foraging and the roll is failed, the rating is reduced by the margin of failure.”
Character Sheet: “Acting against Nature: Use Nature in place of any ability or skill, if test is failed, Nature is
taxed by the margin of failure.”
Is the Character Sheet correct or is the first Page 233 quote correct? If the latter, should one disregard the “and doesn’t have the proper skill” clause? Is the Sheet correct that one could use Nature for Resources or Circles?
As a GM, personally, I’m all for having the players burn Nature as they see fit.
Should “abilities” be removed entirely from the Beginner’s Luck entry, or can you use it to substitute Will and Health? If the latter, how is that related to Beginner’s Luck?
The first sentence of Beginner’s Luck is a little odd, I’ll admit, but it states the facts. Nature substitutes for stuff you don’t have. You all have Will and Health. Therefore…
Ability seems, pretty consistently, to mean Nature, Will, Health, Resources, and Circles. (Pages 30-33, 93. Skills being separate from everything else in the Abilities and Skills chapter. The Character Sheet.) You discounted Resources and Circles, and now you discounted Will and Health. (While deliciously recursive, substituting Nature for Nature doesn’t seem useful.) Hence my conclusion that Beginner’s Luck should read, unambiguously, “Nature can be used as a substitute for any skill that you don’t have”. Mentioning “ability” there confuses things unnecessarily.
Hi folks. Rather than start my own thread, can I clarify something in this one? I came in with a post ready that asked many of the same questions regarding Nature. After reading this, I only have one left. (Escape, Climb, Hide or Forage = ECHF)
P232: “When action in the game involves ECHF you can roll your Nature instead of a skill at no cost.”
P233: “If your character is in a situation that is against his Nature… and doesn’t have the proper skill, he may make the test using his current Nature rating.”
P 95: (corrected) Nature can be used as a substitute for any skill that you don’t have.
So the matrix looks like this:
Has the skill / is an ECHF test : Can use nature (P232)
No skill / is an ECHF test: Can use nature (P95)
No skill / Non-ECHF test: Can use nature (but taxed) (P233)
Has the skill / Non-ECHF test: CAN NOT USE NATURE
Is that number 4 correct?
The references above indicate that you MUST NOT have the proper skill in a non-ECHF test. So if you have the skill and it’s not an ECHF test, you can not use Nature instead.