What happens to Heat after someone has been incarcerated? Is it only the Wanted level that goes down?

What happens to Heat after someone has been incarcerated? Is it only the Wanted level that goes down?

What happens to Heat after someone has been incarcerated? Is it only the Wanted level that goes down?

If so, how is the gang not ending up arrested after every score?

15 thoughts on “What happens to Heat after someone has been incarcerated? Is it only the Wanted level that goes down?”

  1. Considering the story, why would bluecoats back off after they’ve proven one of the crew is guilty?

    The way I read the rules, the wanted level is fluid: it can go up, but also down, with heat. Downtime actions can be used to reduce heat, so I really expect a crew scared by a conviction to lay low, hide their wares, and try to look as innocent as possible for a while.

    I don’t see stated in the rules that wanted level is reduced when heat drops, but then again I don’t see stated that it isn’t either. I’d find it logical, and fun to play, if it is. What do you find logical and fun?

  3. Uhm, the problem to me seems to be that this is very limiting to what a crew can do (in the downtime, and after it if they don’t spend the downtime reducing heat). Practical example, they just did their first score. Something went wrong, a man got killed, for various reasons including Devil’s Bargain the Heat resulted in 6. Now someone needs to go to jail. They’re handing over a character whose player left the game (lol). Ok. They’re gonna get away with it until next time. According to the Claim maps they’re probably going for Turf next. But since Heat is still quite high… perhaps they should lay low… that makes for far less exciting sessions, even because there’s only two players left (3 more will join now, but can’t help with Heat until next score is accomplished). Don’t know, it seems to me the system kind of castrates on purpose doing exciting stuff. It can totally be a problem related to having only two crew members: it’s a lot of heat to remove for two only.

    It’s more realistic if even after arrest heat stays high, but is it “fun”? Maybe laying low can be fun too, I’m just not overly convinced.

  4. My understanding is that Wanted only goes down if you send someone to jail. Heat can be reduced by blaming others, making friends among bluecoats, framing rivals, etc.

    It costs a down time action to attempt to reduce heat. Each scoundrel gets two actions per down time. If you are pressed, you can take more than one down time in a row, you just have to have enough cash.

    If heat is a problem, hit low profile targets and don’t kill anyone. 

  5. You don’t automatically get arrested when you get a Wanted level. That’s not a rule.

    If you have only two crew members, they’ll probably have to sacrifice a bit of their coin or rep to take an extra downtime action or two to keep heat down. That’s just how it is when you’re a small crew. Doesn’t mean they can’t do exciting stuff, it just means they’ll grow slightly more slowly than a larger crew.

  6. Yeah I know, but they rolled a 6 with Heat 6 😀 perhaps it was a weird combination: small gang, high heat, not much luck with the die.

    Coin they have, I guess that would be a solution.

  10. I’ve not yet had a chance to go over the rules, but I would assume from a roleplaying perspective that the policing forces of your city only have a limited number of personal. They would not be able to maintain a high level of surveillance for a long period. The easiest way for a gang to reduce heat for themselves, would just be to increase the heat for some other gang – distraction. Ideally with celebrity/notable/famous/nobles involved because money talks and attracts police attention.

  13. Last mission we got up to six heat, having killed a guard in the process, and had another gang muscle into our territory as a result (entanglement phase). One of our downtime actions was to pin the murder on the invading crew (having the dead man’s spirit making an appearance), which again proved nice input for next mission.

    In general I like the mechanic to reduce heat, but I see that so far we’ve used up half our downtime actions to keep events manageable and agree that’s somewhat high.

Comments are closed.