More simple DFRPG questions: Terror, darts, and Tactics

[tbone]

A few simple questions. Would be great to hear the thoughts of Powers that Be, or anyone who wants to take a shot at these –

1. Say you run into a creature with Terror, necessitating a Fright Check – and the creature also happens to match one of your phobias. (It’s not just any ol’ scary snake; it’s a magically enhanced Terror Snake.)

What happens now? It seems easy enough to roll a Fright Check for the Terror, and a separate Fright Check for the phobia, and let the results combine however seems fun. But am I missing something in the rules that officially combines these two Fright Checks into one penalized check or something?

2. Monsters’ Terror ability invokes a straight Fright Check: you meet the monster, you immediately roll vs Will (or 13, whichever is lower), and, if you fail, you suffer stun for at least as many seconds as your margin of failure, and then roll 3d + margin of failure on the Fright Check table for more fun effects.

The Terror spell, meanwhile, runs like this: You meet the wizard, and he casts Terror, which you resist with your Will. This isn’t the actual Fright Check, so your Will isn’t capped at 13, but the Rule of 16 does come into play: the caster’s Terror spell is capped at 16 or your Will, whichever is higher.

Margin of success or failure doesn’t matter in this Contest of Terror vs Will; there's just win or lose. If you win, the spell has no effect; if you lose, you go immediately to a Fright Check as described for monsters’ Terror, but at a -3. (This means you’re more likely to fail, and will suffer up to 3 more initial turns of stunning, and up to 3 points’ worse results on the Fright Check table, than you would have suffered from monster Terror).

So, it would seem that the Terror spell is less harsh than monster Terror on one hand, as there’s that initial chance to completely resist the spell – but if it’s not resisted, the spell hits harder than monster Terror does.

Do I seem to have these two variants of Terror squared away properly?

3. It’s pretty clear from listed weights (and common sense) that a throwing dart is not the same thing as a blowpipe dart. (All the same, in keeping with DFRPG’s overall impressive clarity, this should probably be made explicit somewhere…)

Out of curiosity: Just what is the throwing dart? Whether the classic D&D wizards’ weapon, or the DFRPG equivalent, is this also a real-world thing? If so, who used it, and what does it look like? (It’s half the weight of a javelin; should I picture a half-length javelin?)

4. Not really a question, but a wee oddity (?) for your amusement: On Exploits p57, you can use Tactics skill to shout suggestions and boost an ally’s attack and defense rolls. This seems awfully cinematic, but also fun. I like.

The wee oddity is that these same tactical insights don’t seem to help your own combat rolls in any way. Or to highlight the oddity a bit more: The knight with amazing Tactics-18 doesn’t get any bonuses on rolls from his own battlefield brilliance – but if the thief with his middling Tactics-12 advises the knight from the sidelines, the knight boosts his attack and defense rolls. (Overall, anyway; there’s some hit and miss, depending on the thief’s rolls.)

No complaint here; "Yeah, it’s a little weird, but it’s fun" works for me. But if there’s more to the situation than I’m seeing, lay it on me!