waking to a fight

Burning Wheel First Reading
1

Hi All,

Your camp is attacked at night. The lookout yells to awaken everyone as the beast enters the camp. Do camp members have to pass some sort of will test to wake promptly? Is this based somehow on the quality of the lookout’s warning? If not, what is the point of the elven spell song “alarm”?

Joe

2

It’s mostly an adjustment to where people end up within the fictional space. With Alarm, you can safely say that everyone is up and ready to rock when conflict begins. Without it or an equivalent Instinct, the GM is well within their rights to have everyone being roused make a Steel test at a fairly sizeable GM mandated penalty* to find out how long it takes for people to get their wits about them. The sentry still needs to pass their Observation test to notice something sneaking in, but Alarm lets people avoid the Steel test and any associated penalties.

  • I can’t find a specific “testing while asleep” rule but I’d either say 2x Hesitation or normal Hesitation and then +1 Ob to all actions until people spend the time to knock the cobwebs out. Essentially giving everyone a free non-injuring Superficial wound that people need to spend time to shrug off.
3

There could also be a more narrative purpose as well. If people aren’t roused quickly enough, maybe the beast kidnaps an important NPC–or a player.

4
  1. Lookout yells a warning. Make a linked test of Conspicuous or Command vs. Ob 1 (either skill works fine)
  2. The bonus die goes to everyone who’s waking up, making a Steel test.
  3. I’d probably give an extra +1D or +2D for Steel for the fact that they did get woken up, probably had their weapon’s within arm’s reach, are surrounded by friends, etc.

In the end, probably most folks would have 1-3 rounds of hesitation, which isn’t too bad but enough for the beast to either snatch up some food supplies, attack 1 person or pounce/crash through a tent.

Chris

5

It’s an ideal time for a Steel test.

6

cool ideas guys. last we tried it, we handled is with on ob3 will test to wake promptly, the penalty of failure being actions. Everyone then made a steel test once awake. These ideas are sleek though. Will try some next time.

Thanks for the input!
Joe