I have got a nagging question about Grief, and I couldn’t find the answer browsing the forum.
So please be patient with me if this has already been discussed elsewhere.
Let’s say my character is an Elf with B6 Grief.
Every tragedy ranked (BWG154-155) 1-4 don’t affect my Grief any longer, since they count as Routine tests.
So I could, theoretically, go lying and killing without consequences to my Grief. Is it so?
If I fight in a bloody battle (Ob5, so it counts as a Difficult test against B6 Grief) and successfully sing my Lament, does the level of the Grief test drop from Difficult to Routine, so that I can ignore it?
And a last question, related to the previous one: if (suppose my Elf has B4 Grief) I’m robbed (Ob2 Grief test - Routine for B4 Grief) and successfully sing my Lament, does the Grief test level drop from Routine to nothing or is Routine the lowest possible result (and my Lament has actually no impact on my Grief advancement)?
Hi, as I understand it Grief advancement kind of follows the ‘Law of Dimishing Returns’, even though in a ‘good’ way.
As for your first example of Grief 6 against Tests Ob 1-4, it seems to me like as the character has basically achieved some kind of mastery in grieving he is just no longer touched by all the ‘small’ betrayals of life. How else would there ever be older elves or sustainable lifepaths (sub-settings) like Protectors, which inherently are emotional painful and taxing. So yes, being lied to is no longer a big deal after a while.
The mitigation of Grief seems to work that way with Laments. IF you manage to overcome the Grief obstacle with applying a successful Lament. So, as you said, Grief 6 against Ob5 resulting in marking a Difficult test, singing a successful Lament against Ob5 mitigates it to a Routine Test. Things are not that bad after being reminded of the trials and tribulations others had to endure and still prevailed.
Your last point, I don’t think that you can drop the level of a test below Routine. The best possible case in that scenario is that the GM lets you actually roll for your Lament (even though it practically can accomplish nothing mechanically) and you mark an appropriate test for advancing your Lament, which in return helps you later with the ‘big stuff’.
So far, from what I have seen and read, it seems quite easy to get your Grief to Exp 5 (had Elves easily start out with that) but then things seem to flatten out just like any other skill, which in this case is not so bad.
Hmmm, according to pg. 43 BWG: ‘Faith, Grief, Greed and Hatred all advance as skills - requiring routine tests to advance exponent 1-4. Greed has a special rule: Routine tests always count, even for Greed exponents 5-10. And filling up any two of the three test categories advances Greed.’
Therefore, from how I understand it, only Greed is affected, while the rest actually need a high Ob challenge to go critical.