Request for clarification: the Whisper’s Tempest ability. Page 61 says “Every PC can roll their ATTUNE rating to attempt arcane actions, even if they’re not specifically a trained ‘Whisper.”” The page then goes on to list examples of various arcane effects at the various stress levels.
The rules are ambiguous here — is the Whisper’s “Tempest” ability required to produce flashy, overt effects, or no? The rules on page 61 seem to imply that it is not, but that would make the ability itself useless.
I understand that any playbook can take Tempest as a veteran ability, but the powers it opens up should be made more explicit.
I dont know the official ruling on this, but you can give a better effect/fictional positioning to a trained whisper if you want to allow it to Other characters.
That quote continues with “The ability to sense and commune with ghosts and the supernatural is inherent in everyone.” I think that’s instructive, particularly since Attuning is about opening your mind to the ghost field and not about acting with supernatural force. Only those with the Tempest power can do what Tempest allows.
The Arcane Magnitude section on p61 is a scale of supernatural forces. The italicized descriptions are a way of illustrating the power of a supernatural force at that level by comparing it with similar natural forces. It’s not a shopping list of powers everyone has on hand. It can be used to measure the strength of a character’s use of Tempest, but only because Tempest grants the ability to use supernatural force to produce storm effects.
Anyone can attune to the ghost field to interact with the supernatural. Only a whisper using tempest can change the weather.
Attune does allow characters to “channel electroplasmic energy”. Whatever that means exactly, it sounds more advanced than just perceiving and communicating with things in the ghost field. Page 61 says “anyone can develop advanced arcane abilities with enough study and practice”. I take this to mean without that study and practice, a person will not be very safe or effective at interacting with the supernatural. So I’d say non-Whispers would generally roll with worse position and reduced potency, if any, when trying to interact with the the supernatural.
I had a tinker roll attune to cause electric lights to blow inside of a house. Channel electroplasmic energy, sure but it was a desperate roll for him. But weather manipulation is off the table.
Heh, well thanks y’all for proving my point XD As I said, the RAW is ambiguous and should probably be clarified in a future edition. Unless it’s meant to be up to the individual DM.
Yeah, I disagree. They may not be detailed, but they’re not ambiguous.
As a general rule, if an ability exists, then you can’t do that thing without the ability.
I understand the confusion. Oliver’s interpretation is correct. I’ll tweak that text to improve the clarity.