I am reluctant to list up faults (as I perceive them) in a game that I generally like very much.
But sometimes things are a bit “problematic”, so in this case I will do, what @Maxspire encouraged me to do.
Battlefield Perception, the Observation Talent, is in my view absolutely USELESS.
For 400 XP you get no actual advantage.
Battlefield Perception allows you to make a D1 Observation test as a Minor Action - a test with the risk to fail or roll Complications or both. And it takes a Minor Action, you cannot use for anything else.
If that test is successful, you get some information about one designated target (usually a NPC):
- The current value of Stress remaining (not the maximum value).
- How many Harms the target NPC is suffering from at the moment.
For each Momentum spend after the success, you get this information about another NPC.
I assume, that Stress and Harm includes both types, so the current Vigor and Resolve values and the current number of Wounds and Trauma the NPC suffers currently from.
Why do I think this is a useless Talent?
It gives the character for an action information, that should be obvious to everyone involved.
If an NPC has currently 3 Wounds, that should be obvious. Trauma might be not that obvious, but does it? The PC starts muttering incoherently, does not know where he is, has problems concentrating, is showing visible signs of mental breakdown. So, well, obvious I’d say.
If an NPC has lost some points of Vigor or Resolve, that could be obvious, too. The character is winded, breathing hard, has some, some more, quite many scratches and bruises, not enough to cause a Wound, but still. Or the character is looking frightened, less self confident, even not confident at all, looking for ways out, showing distress in facial expressions and body language.
As a GM you can prolong combat scene resolution by indulging in detailed description of such Stress point losses, which still are of minor impact until an actual Harm is caused. But that would be overdoing the description part to the detriment of the thrill and pace of an action oriented combat scene. I cannot recommend that (as Conan combat resolution is not the speediest one in the first place - no need to slow it down any further).
I play Conan in games at home, where I use colored poker chips to mark Wounds and Trauma for characters and NPCs, and I use colored glass beads for PC’s Vigor and Resolve, so you can see that immediately by looking at the table.
I do not bother to do that for NPCs, as they are not important - even Nemesis NPCs are there to be overcome. But I give the players the impact of their actions right away.
Usually, players are able to do simple mathematical operations. Rolling 6 damage, not spending for Piercing, that should result in a Wound. if it does not, then the NPC has 2 or more Armor. That is a thing players do automatically all the time - I do it too in the Conan games where I am the player. You know the triggering conditions for causing Harm, you know how much damage you have dealt, there is no real secret about the Vigor or Resolve of an NPC then.
I run and play in a lot of online games using different VTT platforms. In most of those platforms, you see a Vigor bar, a Resolve bar, Wound markers, Trauma markers. They are obvious, so not even the basic mathematics are needed for a player to figure out the current state of an NPC.
I cannot see the way the developers of Battlefield Perception must have had in their mind how GMs are supposed to deal with their NPCs getting hit, damaged, stressed, harmed.
There is no real secret in that. And it is not desirable to make it secret.
The maximum number of Stress of a certain type I do see that PCs might not be aware of in simply looking at that NPC. After the first hit, though, you see whether you have a 4 Vigor Minion or a 17 Vigor Toughened or Nemesis NPC in front of you (the difference between Minion and Toughened/Nemesis becomes apparent as soon as they spend Doom to make a Reaction - the GM might choose a more worthy type of NPC not to make a Reaction, but as soon as the Reaction is announced, all the players know for sure that this is not a Minion).
So what does the - with 400 XP quite expensive(!) - Talent of Battlefield Perception give the PC in regard of an advantage?
It costs 400 XP, used up a Minor Action which could be used for other, more “fruitful” things, and as such it needs a successful test to even give the information, which mostly if not completely is already obvious.
Does any group out there use this Talent in their games?
As a player, I see it only as additional 400 XP costs to qualify for the actually useful Talent up the tree “Crippling Blow”, which costs an additional 600 XP.
So to get to use the effects of Crippling Blow you need to invest 1000 XP, by buying an “empty” Talent Battlefield Perception.
The Battlefield Perception Talent does not offer any comparable advantage if you look at the other Observation Talent of the same XP cost tier, “Spy”. That one is reasonably powerful, allowing you to ransack a room (as per the Ransack Talent) without leaving any traces that you did search everything in this room. Anyone who is suspicious in the first place, that this room might have been searched, engages in a Struggle where the ransacking character gets their Observation Focus as Bonus Momentum.
(Although, here is another weakness in the Talent description: what kind of Struggle is not stated. One could assume it is the Observation of the suspicious character vs. the Observation of the ransacking character. That is probably the intention of the developers, hence the Observation Focus as Bonus Momentum to win the Struggle. But to conceal that anything had been searched could be a case for the Stealth skill, too, so the suspicious character would test Observation versus Stealth of the ransacking character. The Talent description lacks a clear statement which skill is set versus which other skill in the Struggle.)
Personally, I find Battlefield Perception disappointingly expensive and useless.
Again, do you use it in your Conan games?
And, HOW do you use it in your games?
I’m quite curious, so please enlighten me. Maybe I don’t see the great use one could draw out of this Talent?