How are Displays of Might and Power resisted?

Up until recently my players have only done Displays on minions which is easy, base D1, because they’re minions and to great effect. Last game however a player tried a Display, Stain the Soil Red, on a Nemesis and I blanked on how Displays are resisted and couldn’t find where it says in the book. Are they all resisted with Discipline because they are in essence mental attacks? Any help would be great. Thanks

Yes, all Displays are mental attacks - think of a Display as being the “weapon” of a mental attack, so using them follows the rules for mental attacks.

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I am with thus 90%! :slight_smile:

In the case of Knife to the Throat, I can also see a case being made to resist by noticing the person sneaking up on you to put that knife to your throat, or melee (when it is notstealthy) to prevent them getting that blade in position.

I am wondering what the result is if the da age is not enough to take out the opponent (not enough stress in not enough Trauma). Do we assume that by trying to exploit the position, that it is just transitory, or does the blade remain at the throat, requiring another Melee or Stealth roll?

If you really want to kill someone by putting a blade to their throat, then kill them.
If you don’t want to kill someone, only to threaten them, they are still alive - and if your threat is not damaging their confidence enough to take them out via Mental Trauma, then they can act.
And their action might be to use their weapon to stab you in the groin, to break your arm and disarm you or threaten you right back by looking at your totally undeterred and with dangerous, frightening confidence.
Managing to sneak up to someone to actually put the blade to their throat is an achievement on its own - how you proceed further (attacking, slashing their throat, threatening, whispering something in their ear) is your choice. It is usually safer to outright kill them - especially with blades with the Unforgiving X quality as in this situation it becomes Vicious X plus Intense, often enough to one-hit kill an opponent.
If you want to talk, then talk - and live with the consequences.

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It is a potential immersion breaker though, isn’t it, they get to act and break your arm, even though you have a blade to their throat, and they take no penalty to their action?

Or do you count them as having no guard and difficulty increased due to nothing being closer than a blade to the throat…

No Guard is justified, I think.

But if your intimidation did not work to take away the will to fight of the threatened person, then they can - and often will - do something about your audacity to show them the business end of your blade.
This is such a common trope in literature, movies, series, comics, that it is to be expected in a Conan RPG adaptation, too.

Take a look at the original story “The God in the Bowl” by REH, where Conan is threatened by swords pointed at him, while a crossbow is aimed at him, and he is totally undeterred and keeps his cool - and even resorts to violence to clear things up. That is, what I would expect in an Conan game. No less.

A character who gets into the position to slit one’s throat needs to follow through to keep his risk manageable. As soon as you start talking, you give away the safe kill and the situation becomes unsafe. And you will have to live with the fallout of a failed threaten attempt - but probably not for long.

There is a difference between intending to threaten someone, and intending to kill them. The human mind can only do one thing at a time. If it’s thinking about talking, it isn’t thinking about killing. If the threatened person IS thinking about killing, the threatening person is behind the power curve.

To quote Tuco: “ When it’s time to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk”.