Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Friend Or Foe (Prophecy 7)

Friend or Foe
(Prophecy ooooo oo)
Dice Pool: Typically none, but sometimes Perception + Empathy
Cost: 3 legend (though sometimes 20 legend plus a willpower)
When you first meet someone, a montage of key moments from your future interactions with them cascade before your eyes. This means that when you first see a person, you can know immediately whether they are destined to be a friend or a foe. This three-tick action costs 3 legend to activate, and succeeds automatically, if done in the scene where you first meet the NPC. It can only be done once per NPC.

The GM then must choose whether your fate is to be friends or foes. If destined to be a friend, you gain bonus (successes equal to your Legend) on all Charisma and Appearance rolls directed at that person, though only for positive interactions. (In order to knowingly take a harmful action against you, they must roll dice equal to your Legend, and score no successes.) If instead they are destined to be an enemy, both parties gain bonus dice on all harmful actions against each other equal to their respective Legend ratings. These effects last forever. As potent as such bonuses may be, they are insignificant compared to the benefit of knowing without a doubt whether or not you can trust someone.

If used later than the introduction, such as when talking with an NPC you'd met in a previous scene or story, the visions are not as pure or objective. In such a case, the cost is increased to 20 legend and a point of willpower, and you must roll Perception + Empathy vs a difficulty of (5 times their Legend). The difficulty increases by 10 if they have even a single level of the Chaos or Magic Purviews. If they have both, the penalty increases to +15 total. Failure on your roll prevents you from using this power on them again for one year.

Altering an NPCs friend/foe status is extremely difficult, something to rival the greatest Herculean task, though it could be sped up considerably by The Wyrd or Ultimate Charisma. Note also that while this power will no doubt color your first impression, and dictate the final fate between two characters, nothing mechanically prevents a Friend from betraying you for a good cause, or keeps you from making a truce with a Foe. But doing so would be a waste of good bonus dice, and probably require exceptional circumstances.

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