Can they spend it for Will to Live? How about for Complications?
Matt
I don’t see why not. Maybe the only stipulation I’d make is that the PCs are under no obligation to honor the Will to Live. Ie. They can still do a coup de grace. Otherwise, important NPCs might never die.
I think this should apply to the PCs too, actually, except a GM really shouldn’t abuse this right to take the Will to Live away from the PCs.
This is, of course, just my understanding of the game. I may be wrong.
Only for absolutely critical NPCs. What does the adbu say about it?
I just scoured the AdBu; can’t find anything whatsoever on the topic of Complications and Will to Live.
Matt
I don’t know about reserving it for just “absolutely critical” NPC’s. It’s entirely possible that a particular antagonist, while not critical to the story, has been fun/challenging/frustrating for the players, and would be very useful to have for a second round.
Plus, the whole “‘Wait, didn’t we kill you?’ ‘HA! It takes more than that to kill me!’” is a great tried-and-true plot twist.
Don’t abuse it, though. Unless your antagonists are all Cylons, endless resurrection doesn’t make sense and robs the PC’s of their victories.
I had an NPC villain use a Complication to great effect. It was in my Star Wars campaign. The PCs had cornered their Sith adversary on the bridge of a ship in the middle of a fleet combat. They landed a killing blow, but just then an explosion rocked the ship, breaking up the bridge and the Sith slipped down through the wreckage.
Plus, how else will a GM burn all that Persona from failed Prayers by PC priests?
Did I miss something? How do the GM/NPCs get Persona from failed Prayers?
Frank
Oooooooh, you are missing out! You need the Magic Burner! So much goodness with new rules for Failed Prayers.
I’m actually more okay with Will to Live than Complications—the latter seems to me to violate the sacrosanctity of Intent and Task.
Matt
ffilz, I believe you used the persona to an npc for a failed prayer from an npc once in our campaign. When Elysinia failed a prayer and I think Sir Lazslo ended up with a couple persona for it.
I must have just forgotten about that failure… Been a while…
Frank
1 failure out of a bunch easy enough to forget.