Fearlesness, Fearfulness: Double Dipping - Why?

[Captain Joy]

I'm wondering why you apply your level of Fearlessness [B55] or Fearfulness[B136] to both your Will roll to resist Intimidation and to your foe's Intimidation roll. Most (all?) other advantages and disadvantages give you a bonus or penalty to only one side of contests.

What's the justification for applying a Fearlessness/Fearfulness bonus/penalty to both sides of an Inimidation contest?

Are there other advantages or disadvantages to do this as well?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Are there other advantages or disadvantages to do this as well?

Magic Resistance sometimes does. I think the idea is to be sure there is an effect even if there is no actual contest (e.g. somebody attempting to hit you with something that doesn't *have* a resistance roll still gets a bonus or penalty from your (dis)advantage.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

What's the justification for applying a Fearlessness/Fearfulness bonus/penalty to both sides of an Inimidation contest?

I always figured it was to justify the cost as given for those traits. For a rules question like this, you might be better off asking Kromm directly.

[Mailanka]

I always took it to be "player facing." If you tried to intimidate someone, their fearlessness penalized you. If someone tried to intimidate you, you applied your fearlessness as a bonus to your will. I only ever added it once.

[Gigermann]

Social Engineering p. 69 only applies it once, to the Intimidation roll (not the Will roll to resist)

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

Social Engineering p. 69 only applies it once, to the Intimidation roll (not the Will roll to resist)

I thought that section was only talking about modifiers to the skill roll.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Magic Resistance sometimes does. I think the idea is to be sure there is an effect even if there is no actual contest (e.g. somebody attempting to hit you with something that doesn't *have* a resistance roll still gets a bonus or penalty from your (dis)advantage.

From Magic Susceptibility [B143]: "Magic Susceptibility works normally against Area spells; do not double its effects as you would those of Magic Resistance (p. 67)."

I was thinking the intent might simply be to "be sure", as malloyd said; that it was understood to only apply a bonus/penalty once as a matter of common sense. But the above wording makes it clear that double dipping is the expectation, and is so in similarly worded cases. It seems odd to me that one should be significantly more/less suseptible to a magical effect just because it came from a cast spell as opposed to a potion, or fear because is came from a person using a skill as opposed to a fright check.

This is so counter-intuitive to me that I intend to house rule this double-dipping away. Please feel free to suggest what the mitigated costs should be, or convince me the RAW is the way to go.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

From Magic Susceptibility [B143]: "Magic Susceptibility works normally against Area spells; do not double its effects as you would those of Magic Resistance (p. 67)."

I was thinking the intent might simply be to "be sure", as malloyd said; that it was understood to only apply a bonus/penalty once as a matter of common sense. But the above wording makes it clear that double dipping is the expectation, and is so in similarly worded cases. It seems odd to me that one should be significantly more/less suseptible to a magical effect just because it came from a cast spell as opposed to a potion, or fear because is came from a person using a skill as opposed to a fright check.

This is so counter-intuitive to me that I intend to house rule this double-dipping away. Please feel free to suggest what the mitigated costs should be, or convince me the RAW is the way to go.

I disagree. Fear coming from an effect is just a modifier to your fright check. Fear coming from a skill is a quick contest. The larger modifier would help the intimidation more significant to make the individual more frightening and the math for quick contests is different than just modified success failure.

[Kromm]

These traits are meant to "count double" in Contests, exactly as Magic Resistance does vs. Resisted spells. The idea is to make Fearlessness and Magic Resistance more meaningful against active attempts, where attacker skill can otherwise beat down resistance. Fearfulness and Magic Susceptibility work the same way for symmetry.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kromm

These traits are meant to "count double" in Contests, exactly as Magic Resistance does vs. Resisted spells. The idea is to make Fearlessness and Magic Resistance more meaningful against active attempts, where attacker skill can otherwise beat down resistance. Fearfulness and Magic Susceptibility work the same way for symmetry.

It seems like this has come up before, but I'm just too lazy to search :/ The symmetry on the part of the Disadvantages has (on the rare occasion when I've thought about it) struck me as maybe not a good idea, as it makes the owner especially vulnerable to certain attacks. Magic Susceptibility somewhat compensates by bumping the return/level, but Fearfulness just looks like you're getting too much of a drawback for the cost. Just as a lark, I might try dropping the attacker's roll from the base version, while making it available as an enhancement, at least for Fearfulness.