can I ask for some help regarding mental damage.
Is your personality modifier for damage added to displays. E.g. a steely glare or the heed my words mental talent?
Also does the mental damage be addd when using a whip?
Thanks for any help
Steely Glare does the same base damage as an unarmed attack, i.e. 2 [CD]. A Personality modifier is added to mental damage just like a Brawn modifier is added melee attacks.
Heed my words, while strong, can only be used once per scene. Generally, all displays (except for Steely Glare) have specific narrative requirements, so I don’t think they are OP.
A whip has the Fearsome 2 Quality, which means it inflicts 2 Mental damage for each Effect rolled. I don’t think you add your Personality modifier to it.
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Thanks does the mental damage modifier get added to the heed my words display as Well? With fo4ce of presence and strong arm tactics as well it would be quite devastating?
Yes, it is. But keep in mind that you don’t kill people just by looking at them. They might surrender, run or rally and get more aggressive, depending on the situation.
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Basically, the damage modifiers get added to all attacks that deal damage by rolling combat dice.
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I am not sure it specifically states you can use steely glare only once per scene.
I know that I increase the difficulty after each use, reflecting that people get hardened after each use.
Steely glare by its self isn’t OP, you can quickly stack perks that make it pretty damn powerful (ridiculous) for what it is though. It will rarely match up to actual weapons, but the damage to the thematics will be worse imo.
And you can use it more than once per scene.
Thankfully it is quite easy for a GM to get ahead of players looking to abuse these shenanigans. As others have suggested, limited uses in a scene or increasing difficulty are options.
REH has many threatening and psychologically disarming characters, But after having a frail old man who just glared his way though battles, never attacked and was also a master conversationalist. I needed to have a word with the player.
Sadly the perks that enable the cheese also make mental soak meaningless.
In our campaign I only allow Steely Glare once and even then its usually used before combat starts or as a way to back down opponents and avoid a fight.
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My Gm has limited steely glare to once per combat which is fair enough - has to happen at the start of combat, Also he has removed the added d20s from strong arm tactics. My character is all talk and no trousers. I do find it odd that you can steely glare a persons mount aswell! I think the key is to add difficulty via conditions and Nemesis characters.
There are no specific modifiers or conditions to do the steely glare display but we all agreed that once the fighting starts it is probably unlikely a warrior is going to really take a merchant seriously when the blades are swinging. There are circumstances with other flash
Parry moves where it makes sense but again I guess common sense is the key.
My main hope was that I would actually be able to do Some d3cent damage with heed my words when I can use it at the start of a scene. I have a large charisma modifier - it seems my gm has no problem with the barbarian doing 10 dice damage with his superior broadsword (with 5 no mercy rerolls) every turn, but is less keen with me doing 9 dice mental damage by talking as it is less thematically appropriate. (Heed my words,force of presence and +4 charisma)
It says in the core book (p. 124) that you can use a Display multiple times per scene but have to fulfill the requirements anew each time. So technically, if there are enough Toughened enemies you can decapitate, you could use Dead Man’s Stare multiple times. And since Steely Glare does not have any requirements, you should be able to use it multiple times in a scene, although the same enemy might not be as impressed after the fourth glare. It is GM’s discretion when to increase the Difficulty of those displays.
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Thanks, that was and is exactly my point. It does not say anywhere that you can only use it once.