New Pursuit - Investigator

[J4bberw0ck]

I was looking through the available pursuits and realized there are a couple of gaps that could be addressed: an investigator and a treasure hunter. I’m starting with the investigator for the moment, but I thought it would be interesting to get the community’s feedback as I go along, rather than after I’ve already written it out. This way I can avoid getting locked into bad ideas!

My idea for the investigator is a Sherlock Holmes-sequel sleuth. Maybe they work for the Guild, or they’re part of the Union’s legal team, or just a concerned citizen with a particular set of skills. Regardless, the Investigator solves puzzles and problems, and tends to be focused on the criminal rather than the supernatural.

I’ve come up with several ideas for Pursuit talents, some adapted from the tabletop game, some based on common tropes of detective fiction. Take a look and tell me what you think! Right now it’s just a list of talents, once I have 10 or 11 finalized I’ll put them in a specific order. Please suggest changes, additions, etc. As I get the Pursuit more nailed down, I’ll post updates.

 

Starting equipment: skill toolkit or a contact in an official position(Guild Guard, Union leadership, the Freikorps, etc.)

 

- Step 0: Eyes in the Back of Your Head: The investigator is always prepared for the unexpected. They may use Notice to determine their Defense, instead of Evade, and gain a + to all Notice checks in Narrative time.

- One More Question!

Rg: 8, Scrutiny + Cunning, Rst: Wp

Target gains Slow. If it is engaged, it suffers 1/3/4 damage.

- Allow Me To Explain: Bureaucracy + Intellect, TN 12. Enemies within 6 must pass a TN 10 Wp check to take non-Walk actions.

- Knew You Were Gonna Do That: After a character within 6 declares a trigger, this character may discard a card to cancel its effects.

- Disguised: While wearing a disguise (whether because of a magical effect or the use of a skill), the character cannot be charged in combat.

- Deadly Pursuit: The character may move up to 4 at the end of each turn during Dramatic time. Note that this cannot allow them to disengage from combat.

- Analyze the Scene: Once per session, the character may discard a card to act as though they flipped the red joker on a Notice check. This must be declared before the Notice check is actually flipped.

- You Forgot One Thing: When a friendly character fails a non-combat Intellect check, this character may attempt the same check. If they succeed, the failure is ignored.

- Irregulars: This character may spend 1 day and 2 scrip to gather information from various non-official contacts (street urchins, beggars, newsies, etc). This allows the character to learn one thing about a person whose identity they know. This knowledge must be obtainable by observing the target’s movements, such as where they live or work, their daily habits, or any regular acquaintances. The FM has final arbitration on what can be learned.

[Corbeau]

I like the general idea of a pursuit like this.

My main concern is that a pursuit like this might be broken on a couple of points.

Notice as a skill is already quite a do it all and if you get to improve on that even more like getting advantage on it is way to good in my opinion. I wouldn't create a pursuit that has something like that as a lvl 0 - on a Step 10 that's a different kind of thing, maybe in combination of being alsways able to cheat even on disadvantage or Black Joker, which would mean cheating fate on a blind notice check, which sounds reasonable for a Investigator.

On the Analyze the Scene: I gave something similar to a player of mine: If you fail a Notice Check and even have failed the cheat fate, you are allowed to an discard a card to automatically pass that notice check, but your thinking is so concentrated on what you have seen that you automatically treat the next notice check as if you had drawn a black joker.

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- Deadly Pursuit: The character may move up to 4 at the end of each turn during Dramatic time. Note that this cannot allow them to disengage from combat.

I like the idea but i think the numbers need tweeking. 4 is imho to far if it happens every round. That would be 12 movement without running on speed 0... and probably most of the time more than what would be possible as movement even when running. Combining it with better part of valor you can move around 16 to 20 yards a round if you get to 3 speed at one point... that is quite broken.

E.G. you could walk the same pace as a Hunter construct or a void hunter even if the character had speed 0. Walk 4 times 2 + 4 is 12: Hunterconstruct Walk 6 Charge 7 ... never able to catch up... If you get better part of Valor you are as fast as horse! Lets get really numbercrunchy: Let's assume you somehow made it to speed 5 that would be a walk aspekt of 7 +2 for Better part of Valor and those 4 on top means that nothing in the game could catch up to you except maybe a train or zeppelin.

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- Disguised: While wearing a disguise (whether because of a magical effect or the use of a skill), the character cannot be charged in combat.

I somehow don't get the logic behind it. Maybe change it to ..., Trigger: On being Charged: the Player may drop his disguise to stop the charge and to end the turn disengaged. The charging character is treats his next movent as severe terrain, as it is entangled in the leftovers of the disguise.

I personally would remove the dmg on the "One more question!" and instead give the target to choose to either answer a yes or no questions truthfully or gain slow.

 

On the other hand: I love the

- Allow Me To Explain

- Knew You Were Gonna Do That

- You Forgot One Thing

- Irregulars

they are really nice talents.

[J4bberw0ck]

@Corbeau Thanks, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for!

- I like your suggestion of Eyes in the Back of Your Head being a later talent, rather than a step 0, but of course now I have to come up with a new step 0. Dangit! Your suggestion to make it the final talent along with always being able to cheat Notice checks is great, I'll definitely keep that.

- The Disguised talent is drawn from the skirmish game rules, but I think I can speak to the rationale behind it all the same. Essentially, the character doesn't appear to be a threat, and so is treated as an innocent bystander, or ignored altogether. However, I do agree that it could use some tweaks to fit into an rpg more. Perhaps something with more of a dramatic structure, such as:

"when disguised, FM characters treat this character as a non-combatant. The FM can decide if this means they would be ignored, taken hostage, etc."

This would allow for some interesting situations (if the bad guys take you hostage, suddenly you're in a perfect position to get in a sneaky attack), and deals with the nagging problem I had in my mind, namely, why would a rampaging monster care if it's charging towards an old lady in a dress or a guy with a gun? They're both made of meat!

- That's a good point about Deadly Pursuit. Perhaps downgrading it to 2 meters of movement, or specifying that a check must be made to gain the movement? I might even consider replacing it entirely with something like the Stalk ability from M2E. Essentially, the Fated makes a check, probably Track or Intimidate, then whenever the targeted FM character moves on its turn, the Fated gets a small move when the FM character's turn is over. This way it would have more of a "following a target" feel and less of a "Steampunk Flash" feel.

[Mysticyde]

Any updates on this? I'd love to see this pursuit finished.