On being Feared

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The way to represent Reaction Bonuses which only apply a part of the time and/or have significant negative side-effects is to use Limitations designed for that purpose (which really ought to have been in Social Engineering). While most of them cost 5/level, any specific downsides ought to be balanced by upsides that Charisma doesn't have.

In the first place, the decision to have Social Regard (Feared) cost 5/level was made during the writing of the Basic Set, and I don't recall having any involvement in it; it must have made sense to Kromm, and you should take it up with him. I'm just accepting that as a fact about the rules as written. So I'm not trying to work out the details of how SR (Feared) is or is not balanced.

In the second place, in the RAW, you get a trait that gives you the same +n to reaction and Influence rolls as Charisma, for the same 5n points, even though, unlike Charisma, it's limited to producing a specific type of favorable reaction, and even though most cases of it have inconvenient aspects. So whether that's balanced or not, those inconvenient aspects are there.

In the third place, the descriptive prose for Feared spells out that you always get the same effect as if you had made an Intimidation roll. That restriction seems to be intended to be an inconvenient aspects, given that Respected and Venerated both have inconvenient aspects attached to them. So I'm looking at what sort of inconvenient aspect it might be. You and David sound as if you thought actually having it cause any real inconvenience ought to be ruled out. I don't think that's justified, given the treatment of the other two RAW versions, and in any case it's not helping me answer the question I raised. Can you specify any sort of disadvantageous effect of SR (Feared) you think WOULD be appropriate?