Good evening you crooks!
The whisper in my local group of shadows is thinking about setting up a ritual in order to put to sleep the inhabitants of a house.
the idea being an object to smash or a mark to place on the front door prepared in advance as per the ritual rules.
HOWEVER, i’m having a hard time ruling on the cost/effects on the ritual. any ideas?
Consult the Magnitude table on p.221. A house would be magnitude 4 in terms of area, so the questions I would ask are: how long does this sleep last and how deep is it? Use the answers to those questions to determine total stress cost of the ritual (as per the ritual rules.)
From a non-mechanical viewpoint, from a GM standpoint I’m looking at how easy it is to do something to a front door that will incapacitate the whole house- unless there are guards on the street or doormen, there’s absolutely zero risk, and from a challenge perspective, I’d make sure to balance the cost of the ritual with that kind of overwhelming convenience.
I agree with both the other commenters. I’d say a 4 stress version would put everyone in the household to sleep for only a few moments. A deep sleep for a few minutes would be 5 stress, long enough for a smash and grab, 6 stress for an hour.
And then there would still be engagement rolls to take in to account. A low roll could mean the nobleman’s hired whisper overcame the spell and is waking the guards.
hmm… i fully agree on the GM perspective, but i don’t want to punish the players ambition by having this ritual be overpriced and unusable.
an other option would be so that his ritual prepares a certain number of “one room” artefacts. it would be his choice to create as many as he would want, and increase the price accordingly.
thoughts?
I don’t know why that would be overpriced. 4-6 stress is exactly what the book says it should cost.
sorry, wrong use of wording : not overpriced, more, too expensive to be practical… so i’m preparing an option for a less expensive, less powerfull ritual.
A room is a much smaller area, and area of effect is a big part of the magnitude system.
What about the object prepared by the ritual needs to be carried into the house by one of the inhabitants?
Then the players still need to get a little creative every time, without making the ritual less powerful.
oooh! I like that! thanks!
And even if everyone’s asleep, there are always Hulls, dogs (if it just puts humans to sleep, depends on how tricksy you want to be I guess), rival Bravos trying a smash n’ grab at the same time, an inspector showing up for a midnight tipple with his war-buddy halfways through the job or even a firebomb planted by the Brigade because Scrooge McVictim didn’t pay his protection money… even for only 5 stress theres still a lot of stuff you can do to spice it up 😛
well considering their hiests are fairly unique (all in the house asleep or drugged) and their targets high class, i could understand that supernatural securities will be consequences once they move up rep
i’ll keep those ideas in my black book!