Fantasy and Rapier Wit and Mental Stun recovery for Bard vs Druid - Permanent?

[Plane]

F130 mentions "Recovery takes place as if the target was mentally stunned, whether the modifiers include stunning or not" when taking Affliction enhancements on Rapier Wit when designing a Bard.

B364 under Do Nothing mentions "On each turn of Do Nothing, he may attempt a HT roll to recover from physical stun or an IQ roll to recover from mental stun."

F209 (referencing F130) then talks about Affliction-enhanced Rapier Wits representing Bard curses, and then mentions this:

Very powerful druids buy the ability with Extended Duration (Permanent, +150%); the victim must then undertake a quest specified by the druid to free himself of the satire.

This is the part I don't understand here, why would you bother taking something like permanent if targets get a once-per-second IQ check to break out of mental stun?

Even a pathetic IQ 1 creature is eventually going to be able to brute-force your "permanent" affliction by rolling a critical success. You have a 1 in 216 chance of rolling a 3, so anybody can break out of a Mental Stun in under 4 minutes.

That's one of the reasons I figure someone would never bother taking high levels of Extended Duration on their basic Affliction (which does Physical Stun) since physical stun or mental stun aren't sustainable for long periods of time anyway.

- -

Is it possible I'm overlooking something here, like maybe the once-per-second Do Nothing = IQ/HT check to break out of mental/physical stuns somehow gets altered by Extended Duration, like requiring more consecutive Do Nothings to make the check, or limiting how often those checks can be made?

[Curmudgeon]

I can't answer for Fantasy, but in real life (or more accurately in Irish folktales and myth), a satire whether by a bard or by a druid, followed you around. It made you a source of ridicule among other warriors, among the nobles and royalty. It could drive you to suicide.

Usually breaking the satire required a notable deed at odds with the satire. For example an act of great generosity to end a satire about your stinginess, or a great feast to break a satire about your poor guesting.

I would suspect that these Bardic curses inflict a reputation as well as mental stunning and it is this reputational penalty that is being referred to in the Extended Duration (Permanent).

Incidentally, there were lesser satires, that were effective at the moment but didn't linger on the victim but powerful bards could inflict permanent ones almost at will. The other aspect from folklore is that these satires were sometimes threatened by groups, such as Queen Maeve's bards, and also that heroes were sometimes blackmailed by these groups into taking certain actions "or we will make a satire about you."

[Balor Patch]

Originally Posted by Plane

F209 (referencing F130) then talks about Affliction-enhanced Rapier Wits representing Bard curses, and then mentions this:

Very powerful druids buy the ability with Extended Duration (Permanent, +150%); the victim must then undertake a quest specified by the druid to free himself of the satire.

This is the part I don't understand here, why would you bother taking something like permanent if targets get a once-per-second IQ check to break out of mental stun?

I think "Affliction-enhanced" is the key phrase. The Rapier Wit stuns the target and serves as a carrier for an Affliction. The stun recovers normally and the Affliction recovers normally but separately.

[KarlKost]

What if you get HT-20 to the Affliction?

With 0 HT to "roll" to recover, if it is made permanent, well... You'd never recover.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

I think "Affliction-enhanced" is the key phrase. The Rapier Wit stuns the target and serves as a carrier for an Affliction. The stun recovers normally and the Affliction recovers normally but separately.

Normally when you take an affliction enhancement it replaces the stun and you need stunning +10% to add it back

"whether the modifiers include stunning or not" implies it may not

[whswhs]

It could be spelled out more explicitly, but what I had in mind was that (a) Rapier Wit produces an Affliction, which would of course have the standard duration of 1 minute per point of failure; (b) the duration of the Afflication can be enhanced, perhaps all the way to Permanent (but the effects can be set aside with a suitable quest); (c) mental stun is a side effect and has its normal duration. So you might have a few seconds of stun but then a few minutes of itching, vomiting, or paralysis.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

What if you get HT-20 to the Affliction?

With 0 HT to "roll" to recover, if it is made permanent, well... You'd never recover.

I believe you always get a recovery roll, regardless of how low your effective score is, and always succeed - indeed, critically succeed - on a 3 or 4. So even if you are rolling against something ridiculous like an effective score of -100, you have a ~2% chance to recover each time a roll would normally be allowed (similarly, if you're rolling against an effective score of 100, a 17 still fails and an 18 still critically fails).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

What if you get HT-20 to the Affliction?
With 0 HT to "roll" to recover, if it is made permanent, well... You'd never recover.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I believe you always get a recovery roll, regardless of how low your effective score is, and always succeed - indeed, critically succeed - on a 3 or 4.

Basic Set 343's "may not attempt a success roll if your effective skill is less than 3" has an exemption for defense rolls

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.1.3 added three other exemptions:

Resistance rolls to magic or poison,
most forced IQ and HT rolls,
any other resistance roll against a force directly targeting a living or sapient being

mental stun would be a "forced IQ roll" and physical stun would be a "forced HT roll" I would assume

Given that this goes into so much detail about specific kinds of resistance rolls which are exempted, rather than simply stating a blanket exemption for all resistance rolls, this implies that there are resistance rolls which can't be attempted with an effective resistance of 2 or less, so long as:

1) the being resisting is not sapient
2) the being resisting is not alive
3) the being is not resisting magic
4) the being is not resisting poison
5) the being is not "forced" to resist w/ IQ or HT

Despite this, Powers 117's "Absolutes" section is inconsistent with the FAQ, as P118's Instant-Death Attacks summaries Affliction 19 (HT-18; Heart Attack,
+300%) [760] as "could instantly kill anyone with human-level HT (20 or less)".

HT 20 with a -18 penalty reduces it to HT 2, which implies you can't roll to resist the Heart Attack at all, yet per the FAQ treating forced HT checks like they were active defenses, it seems you should still be allowed to attempt them to fish for that critical 3 auto-success.