Just a quick question on using nature in fight conflicts. Now both maneuver and defend actions use nature, but it is possible that such actions may not seem to be escaping or hiding (the suggestions in the book for what a manuver may be is a push or flanking your opponent, which requires quite the stretch to be seen falling under nature). My group always just played it that even if you weren’t escaping or hiding for such actions, failing wouldn’t result in your nature being tapped, but last night during our game this question was raised.
So, is it correct to not tap nature for a failure during a conflict if the action describe doesn’t contain an element of escaping or hiding (such as a shove)? If not, and failures do lead to nature being tapped, would it be reasonable to use fighter (or hunter in a fight animal conflict) instead of nature if you wanted to avoid the potential tap to nature? We realize that the issue could be resolved by just always describing a manuver or defend in terms of escaping or hiding, but then it seems that the narrative of the conflict will suffer just to avoid tapping nature.
No, that’s the risk of being a Mouse. If you execute a fighting withdrawal, you put your Nature on the line.
Hacking the rule allows players to avoid any risk and gain nothing but solid benefit from their already very powerful Nature stat.
Thank you for clearing that up. I can definitely see the reasoning for it to work as it does.
And if your players are being lame and just using the same descriptions over and over – “I hide!” and “I hide again!” – goad them into fights in which they can’t hide or run away or just liberally apply the Feint maneuver.