[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Acolyte

First, the name! Because GIN UL clearly isn't appropriate, and new-IN-that-used-to-be-GIN-UL is unwieldy, he and I have taken to calling this IN:Reprise. Keeps the music motif and suggests fresh new things without a complete break. Also more fun than 3d6IN.

Certainly does keep the motif... Though IN:Filk might be more accurate... O;D

On salvaging the CD, because it's one really pretty thing you lose going to d666: why does that have to remove the CD? Assuming you have dice that are different enough to point at one and say "that's the CD", you can roll 3d6, total all of them (including the CD) to see success or failure, and use the CD die for degree of success.

I'm inclined to think that just gets a bit... kludgey. I don't really think we can have the 3d6-bellcurve cake and eat the Check Digit one too. It's not a bad quick-and-dirty conversion tactic for stuff that really, really depends on the check digit -- Seraphim of Litheroy spring to mind! -- but I think ideally the whole thing would convert over to Degree of Success, eventually.

Question about Forces and base characteristics: how do you model things with scores far below human normal? A squirrel must have a single Corporeal Force, meaning it's currently going to start with a Str of 6 and an Agi of 10, which is a bit wonky. What's the best way to handle that? (the Kyrios will surely want to know)

Off the top of my head? I would give different starting values and/or different values for X in the "X*Forces = Points for characteristics" formula. So -- pulling numbers out of my ear -- a Small Animal (1-3 Forces) would start with 1 or 2 as the base for their characteristics, and multiply the Forces by 1 or 2. A Medium Animal (2-4 Forces; yes, there's overlap) would start with 2, multiply by 3 (or something like that). A Human-Sized Critter (4-6 Forces) can use 6 and 4. A Big Animal (4-6 Forces) could use 8 and 4+. Blue Whales... I dunno, around there, just handwave the conversion and say, "Look, they have X Corporeal Forces and Y Strength and Z hit points, and if you try to possess this, you may have another think coming."

(It would be amusing to me if the big whales (and other giant undersea things?) were all 6+ Forces and could hear the Symphony. And only Jordi's angels really knew this. RELEASE THE KRAKEN SOLDIERS OF GOD!)

The "different values for X" and "handwave" were both ideas I've had for a Jordi expansion for aaaaaaages. >_>

Question about automatic failures: Obviously, rolling an 18 is an Infernal Intervention. What about rolling a 17? My gut says there's no need for that to be a failure as well.

I'd playtest it both ways, but I'm betting that there's a use for an auto-failure in Reprise/Filk. Possibly not, but I'd playtest that, if possible. (Or note down the times people would've auto-failed and didn't.)

Songs: Double Forces+Song Level isn't wholly elegant, although it's pretty close to the right numbers. What about casting Songs as Skills--that is, off characteristics?

They get to be way too easy to cast, basically; that's why we put a penalty on them in GIN, equivalent to low-mana zones. It's still probably worth playtesting it (though you might also consider playtesting "it's the lower of the 2 characteristics of its realm" (handwave: because that's the area of the Symphony you're weakest in, and Songs require well-roundedness)!), but if the Performance bonuses are left in, you may get Songs working often enough that PCs depend on them more than they should, and have more Essence than expected (because they're not boosting their Songs' TNs). This risks that the resource-management part of the game (Essence!) has to depend more on the Disturbance and less on "if I spend X to try a Song..." calculations. It also risks that stuff will become a lot easier for them, which means that the opposition will wind up being bigger-stick, which wanders over into In Nomine Superheroes...

And while IN Superheroes is a fine way to play (if hard on the local architecture), I am not sure I'd want to encourage it as the default, instead of an option. O;>

Risk: (pg 39 IN core) What's the best way to implement this rule with a 3d6 spread?

Working from memory on this one... Try it as-is, maybe, and see how it works? The bonuses for taking extra time will be low, if I recall correctly, but should still be mildly worthwhile to lower-skilled characters. For doing things in a more risky way, to boost the CD... Take a penalty, and if you succeed, base degree of success off the pre-penalty score, and add some degree-of-success based on the penalty? (The penalty itself, half the penalty, twice the penalty...?)

Reaction rolls: I almost never use these myself, relying on plot-driven, ad-hoc reactions that do take into account Cha and Status and such. Assuming the were migrating over, what would the new base TN be? How much should each level of Cha/Status add?

I'd just swipe the GURPS Reaction Roll table here, and give a +1. (Noting that an effective 18, gotten via bonuses, is not the same as a 6-6-6 rolled on the dice.)

Using Essence to boost rolls: Is it best to simply acknowledge how the bellcurve more dramatically alters what you get for a point of Essence depending on what your TN already is and move on?

Works for me. If it seems too powerful, you might rule that you have to spend 2 units of Essence to get a +1 to your TN, if you're doing it deliberately. (But allow it to be one-for-one for mortals doing it unconsciously, heh heh heh.) And yeah, it'd cause more disturbance in the Symphony, too.

...I hope that's useful ideas, at least. I'm a bit kidstracted here. >_<