Assassins and poisoned blades

Hello

I’m planning on running a game of torchbearer for some of my friends in the near future and one of my players has expressed interest in playing an assassin from wanderers outcasts and exiles. The assassin player has been asking about making poisons using the alchemy skill and I have some questions about it that I would like to put out there in the hope that the community and the developers developers might answer them for us.

  1. there are factors given in the alchemy skill for imposing conditions via a number of methods including poison, does the victim get a test to resist the condition or are they automatically inflicted with the condition upon exposure (in this case this upon being stabbed with a poisoned blade)?

  2. the assassin has an ability gained at level 6 that improves their ability to make certain weapons and poisons as well as their ability to apply them in a fight conflict, how would this work with a poisoned weapon? Would the assassin gain a bonus to the relevant action type (either attack or feint) because of the poison in addition to the normal benefits of the envenomed weapon? Or does the poison supercede the weapon it is coated on? Throwing blades also gain a benefit from this ability so if the assassin were to coat throwing blades with poison would they get the bonus twice?

Thankyou in advance for helping us with this, I love this game a whole lot and it has always been a big hit with my players, I just wish I was a bit better with the rules sometimes :).

Adrastus

PS, I’m sorry if my grammar is terrible, I have just come back from a long camping trip and I am quite prone to exhaustion from that kind of thing. Hopefully it is readable, I have certainly tried to make it so.

  1. As far as I can tell It would inflict the condition once before needing to be reapplied to the blade.

  2. It’s basically the “supplies add +1D to a test” rule, applied to stuff the assassin creates for his or her work. IE: if you make throwing blades (+2D to your Armorer test) you can throw them during a fight conflict and gain an additional +1D to a Feint. The bonuses wouldn’t stack. You get +1D to your overall craftsmanship.

Thankyou so much! That makes it a lot clearer to me. I’ll let the players know how it works next time I get in touch with them.

I cannot describe how happy it makes me to get such a clear answer so quickly. I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days and this is pretty much how I thought it worked but other possible interpretations kept rattling around in my head making me uncertain and a little bit confused. Describing it like supplies for the assassins craftsmanship makes it so clear that it seems obvious to me now.

Thankyou

Adrastus

It could be written better!

I have another question related to the assassin although this time it is not poison related.

The assassin can gain an ability at level 5 that allows them to engage in kill and drive off conflicts even in darkness, can this cause an asymmetric conflict in the same way that a large difference in might could?

For example the assassin and the person he wishes to kill are in a pitch black room, the target has no way to see in the dark and so cannot normally engage in kill or drive off conflicts but the assassin can because of this ability. If the assassin wins the results are obvious, the target dies but what happens if the target wins? The way I interpret it the target cannot engage in a kill conflict with the assassin but the assassin can engage in a kill conflict with them in exactly the same way as an adventurer is not mighty enough to kill a dragon but a dragon is mighty enough to kill them and so the same rules should apply, in this case that would mean that if the target wins they couldn’t kill the assassin and would instead have to take one of the victories that they are capable of accomplishing, seeming as they cannot kill, drive off or capture the assassin then that victory would presumably mean that they successfully flee from the assassin instead. Is this interpretation correct or would the assassin be bound by the usual consequences of losing a kill conflict?

Thanks again for answering my questions.

Adrastus

I’d say the target escapes.