Subterfuge is the path of the dodgy backstabbing bastard. It can be put to righteous ends, but Subterfuge is primarily good for theft, murder, and getting away with same.
On linears, this is a melee combat class. In a stand-up, face-to-face fight, they will lose, hard, to a warrior. They excel in striking the distracted and the careless from behind and running off before they the situation turns into the aforementioned stand-up fight.
"Encounters" are separated by DAC refreshes.
Subterfuge N (15 XP)
This is the class skill. It provides competence at going unnoticed about a city or village, picking locks, stealing things, and selling the results without getting arrested. Higher levels grant greater competence. A righteous Subterfuge character could use these skills to make a property resilient to burglary, or to find criminals that they may be brought to book. It's not terribly good at this, though - these tricks mostly work whether or not your opponent knows them too, thieves being rather an untrusting bunch.
(Agility, Dodge) N (5 XP, requires Subterfuge N)
DAC skills, usable only in 2pt armour or less. What precisely DAC means will hopefully change by the time this tree is in play.
Streetfighter N (5 XP, requires Subterfuge N)
The base, honourless, but fairly effective fighting style of the Subterfuger.
Level 5 and above are pretty tentative; feel free to suggest better ones. Seriously. I don't read IRC reliably.
- SINGLE by dagger or cosh, parry with off-hand dagger or cosh.
- SINGLE by off-hand dagger or cosh.
- SINGLE by on-hand short-(sword, mace).
- SINGLE by off-hand short-(sword, mace).
- HALT 5 by anything up to a short sword or mace, once per encounter.
- STRIKEDOWN by anything up to a short sword or mace, once per encounter.
- HALT 5 by anything up to a short sword or mace, three times per encounter (for a total of 4 HALT 5s).
- STRIKEDOWN 30 by anything up to a short sword or mace, once per encounter.
Backstab N (10 XP, requires Subterfuge 2N)
Backstab is only effective when striking a target in the rear of the torso, while standing behind them, using a dagger with which the character may call at least HALF. The user adjudicates this, do not take the piss. The first Backstab blow against a target causes through damage equal to the user's level in Backstab. Each subsequent Backstab blow against that target that encounter suffers a cumulative penalty of one degree of damage. Weapon buffs never increase the damage call due to backstab, but if they impart some colour (or magic or spirit), that is applied.
- Example 1: Bob the Dodgy has Backstab 4 and Streetfighter 2, and is dual-wielding daggers. Ted the Unobservant is facing away from him, and Bob attacks him. Assuming Ted lives up to his name (and has many hits), Bob will do QUAD THROUGH, TRIPLE THROUGH, DOUBLE THROUGH, SINGLE THROUGH, and may then elect to do HALF THROUGH followed by SINGLE until bored, or just go straight to the SINGLEs.
- Example 2: Bob is thoroughly buffed, and otherwise in the same circumstances. His right-hand dagger is enflamed, causing a damage call, in normal circumstances, of RED DOUBLE. His left-hand dagger has a spiritual effect, and calls SPIRIT SINGLE. If he alternates daggers, he will strike for RED QUAD THROUGH with his right dagger, then SPIRIT TRIPLE THROUGH with his left, then RED DOUBLE THROUGH with his right, then SPIRIT SINGLE THROUGH with his left, then may opt to continue backstabbing for one more blow of RED HALF THROUGH with his right dagger.
Alternative Backstab N (10 XP, requires Subterfuge 2N)
Backstab is only effective when striking a target in the rear of the torso, while standing behind them, using a dagger with which the character may call at least HALF. The user adjudicates this, do not take the piss - some kind of guideline is probably in order, see below. When backstabbing, the user's damage is increased by a number of degrees equal to their level in Backstab, and the damage is all THROUGH. This is the natural damage call, and may be increased by buffs. After making a blow using Backstab, the user may not make another such blow for ten seconds.
- I'd suggest "When backstabbing, the user's damage is increased by a number of degrees equal to their level in Backstab minus one, and the damage is all THROUGH." to allow people to buy one level in Backstab just to facilitate delivering blade venoms. --Valtiel
Alias N (10 XP, requires Subterfuge 2N - 1)
For each purchase of Alias, the character gains an alter ego with their own history and half-way convincing excuse for a life. This alter ego may not be changed. It is very hard to link the alter ego with the character. This alter ego must be the same race and sex as the character. It is permissible to buy this skill some time before defining the actual alias.
- It's been suggested that an alias may be changed given some (ranging from two to six) weeks of downtime, in which the alias can't be used. Does that make it too strong? Is it already too strong? --NT
- I don't think that the ability to change it over makes it notably stronger/more problematic. Although I'd suggest it be *all* aliases you can't use, otherwise someone could have them on a rotation. Whether it's already too strong is another question entirely. --I
Improved Alias N (10 XP, requires Alias 1 and Subterfuge 3N - 1)
- Your aliases need not be the same sex as you.
- Your aliases need not be the same race as you, but must be the same size as you: humans, elves and orcs may disguise themselves as each other, and kender and dwarves may disguise themselves as each other.
- Your aliases may be any humanoid race or sex.
Note that, while it's possible to have an elemental elf alias, or for an elemental elf to have a non-elemental-elf alias, reproducing the magical aura of these creatures is beyond the scope of Subterfuge.
Light armour N (3 XP, requires Subterfuge N)
The character may wear two additional points of armour for each purchase of this skill. This allowance stacks with that provided by the Armour skill in Warrior, and the Scout Armour skill in Wilderness.
Missile Competence N (10 XP, requires Subterfuge 2N)
- May choose any one of SINGLE THROUGH by bow, SINGLE THROUGH by crossbow, or SINGLE by thrown weapon.
- The two abilities not chosen at Missile Competence I.
Knockout (10 XP, requires Streetfighter V)
The character may safely incapacitate an unwary opponent. The user must strike their target on the rear of the head, while standing behind them, using a cosh with which they may do at least HALF. The damage call of the weapon is SILENCE 10 HALT 10. At the end of the halt, call DROP. The victim's head is on zero from Subdual damage. This ability will be interrupted if anything breaks the halt, or if anything which would interrupt casting affects the user. This ability may only be used once per encounter.
Forgery I (10 XP, requires Subterfuge III)
As current Forgery I.
Recognize Forgery (5 XP, requires Subterfuge III)
As current Recognize Forgery.
Forgery II (15 XP, requires Subterfuge VIII and Forgery I)
As current Forgery II.
Use Venom (6 XP, requires Subterfuge III)
You may use both ingestive and blade venoms, except for the dreaded Assassin's Venom, without killing or injuring yourself.
Use Assassin's Venom (6 XP, requires Subterfuge VI and Use Venom)
You may use the dreaded Assassin's Venom without killing or injuring yourself.
Pick pocket (15 XP, requires Subterfuge IV)
You may steal items from other people. To use this ability, inform a ref you intend to, and describe the item you are stealing. You must touch the pocket, pouch or container it is in without the holder noticing and objecting. The ref will then request the item from them and, assuming an item matching your description is in the place touched, secretly pass it to you.
Conceal item N (5XP, requires Subterfuge 2N - 1)
Each purchase of this skill allows you to hide a dagger, or equipment with the volume of a dagger, about your person. It must be hidden from visual inspection. You need not report it to mundane body searches, but supernatural effects which would detect it will find it.
So, when am I standing behind somebody?
It'd be nice to have a hard rule on this, not so much so that people are called up on it as so that people know what "taking the piss" might constitute - see Brawling for an example where the lack of such a rule has caused bad feeling. This suggestion is pretty tentative, and I'm hoping that someone twistier-minded than I will improve it.
There is a 180deg arc around everyone which is "behind" them, bounded by the line joining their feet (which side of this line is "behind" should always be obvious; I can't think of any definition which doesn't get broken by contortionists and/or falling over, but feel that buttocks should be involved). You are standing behind someone if you have one foot on the ground behind them and no feet, hands or other appendages on the ground in front of them.
- So, no flying backstabs, then - but one-legged ones are fine? --R
- ''Can I suggest that a simpler definition might be something along the lines of "blows to the back inflicted without reaching around somebody?" ("to the back" being clearer than "from behind", I think).
- I would object to someone being "behind" me in a situation where about half the person was in front of me (very possible here) because I would be able to see them backstabbing me with my peripheral vision. This does not feel like a backstab. It also encourages taking the piss in the form of jumping round someone to land one foot just behind the line. --Pufferfish
- If someone is sufficiently well-positioned that they can hit you in the back without reaching, it seems reasonable to me that they could be considered able to hit with the appropriate precision to hit vulnerable spots, which is (to my mind) what backstab represents. --ChessyPig
- Would people be happier if it required all of one's body to be in the "behind" volume, or are there also issues with the definition of that volume? --NT
- I don't really have a reason not to like this tree. I think it does everything we need it to. Use Venom and Use Assassin's Venom to be substituted for suitable skills relating to The New Alchemy. --R
Things I would like to add to this:
- An anti-tracking / city tracking ability - each level allows you to cover your tracks in a city from someone with Tracking N, and probably helps you find people by means such as 'asking that beggar who lives on the corner', although nowhere near as good as Tracking. (I think that properly-invested sneaky buggers ought to be able to cover their tracks from Wilderness bloodhounds, keeping plot interesting.)
- Stealth in town. Possibly just a one-off at level 2 or 3. This covers 'following me out of the bar is surprisingly difficult' and 'within about ten paces I can fade and be gone when running away from something going on outside the interactive'. It's something of a 'get out of Being Jobbed Up Outside the Wessex Arms free card'. I'm tempted to give them some kind of Camoflage as we are stealing fingerscouting from this class, but it doesn't really fit, whereas this kind of stealth does - it mostly represents 'I know how to duck into the maze of back alleys and semi-abandoned buildings and lose my immediate pursuers' (whereas the aformentioned anti-tracking skill deals with 'and cover my tracks so people can't slowly and patiently follow me either'). Whilst this might be covered by Subterfuge, making it a 10XP or so standalone skill gives it an excuse to have real power vs other PCs.
- Some kind of 'throw dirt in eyes' ability (Blind by blow or point-and-click at point blank range), possibly replacing those Halt 5s as I don't really like halt by weapon, possibly moving out the magic-style effects from Streetfighter altogether into a Swordmanship-like tree and replacing the higher levels of Streetfighter with swashbuckling styles (ability with longer weapons, Single Through from the front).
- Subdual damage. This tree is missing it, save Knockout at a fairly high level, and I think it is an important feature of rogues that they can knock you out and drag you away for a Quiet Word. Subdual by small cosh for not much XP would be quite good.
Slightly more wild and crazy ideas:
- Some kind of 'torture' system, probably handled as 'mundanely inflicted Inflicts' - the reason it's a skill rather than just 'you can do that' is that you can do them reliably without risking damage or death to your victim. Goes from 'amateur tattooing' (Inflict Single Through + makeup job), through 'kneecapping' (inflict strikedown) to more extreme things like cutting out your tongue and vocal chords (inflict silence) and putting out your eyes (inflict blind), possibly taking in Inflict Weakness and Inflict Frailty on the way. Purge would work on them basically like healing miracles for crippling; Restoration would probably work on them too.
- Fast travel in the city - a character with this (probably another one-off ability) would never be told 'that'll be five minutes, wait here for a bit before going back into the bar'. Because they've been sprinting across the rooftops, using little-known shortcuts and similar staples of fantasy-set-in-cities. They would also beat anyone to a place in the city if they were engaging in such a contest. Might want to just be folded into Subterfuge.
- I think this would be problematical - often the reason people are told "wait here for five minutes" is because the refs need preparation time. I think this is something best left to ref discretion. --Jacob
- I know I have previously been told 'Right, now wait here for a couple of minutes to represent travel time' after going out of the bar and having the situation resolved by the refs. This was by the ref team previous to the current one, though. --ChessyPig
- The reason we've usually been sending people back in without waiting for a bit of travel time (I mean, most things are reasonably close, but there are limits to believability) is often that we have several things to do outside in quick sucession and we need to get rid of the PCs who've just been to the Justicars so that the dodgy necromancers can do their rite... A skill like that would require the refs to actually define (and remember!) various travel times, which would be a major faff. A BG skill in "back alleyways" would be about the level of skill for what you're describing - I don't like non-BG skills that have effects that are so dependent on ref fiat. --Koryne
--ChessyPig
Another possible suggestion for knockout - SUBDUAL SUFFICIENT when hit on the head from behind when out of combat (with out of combat being suitably defined - maybe having made/taken no combat calls in the previous 30 seconds?) -- Flying_O
- That stops "By the power of Vivamort I command you to be still, HALT 10" *sidle sidle sidle* "Knockout". Do we consider this a feature or a bug? --Valtiel
- I personally view it as a bug. It makes the ability much more powerful in the hands of a multiclassed mage/priest than for a pure subterfuger, which I feel is wrong. On the other hand, there's always the HALT 60 there... Mostly, I feel that it is a sufficiently powerful skill that it shouldn't be useable in combat. -- Flying_O
From Valtiel: The biggest problems that I can see with Knockout are the question of what the call should be, and the issue with floating armour, DAC and things that let you Negate damage calls. The current ruling is that you can't use Knockout if the target is wearing three or more points of head armour, which is awkward because head armour isn't necessarily obvious - Floating armour isn't visible, and some people might be wearing a headscarf over a helmet or have an alchemically-enhanced leather cap which actually provides three points of armour. Anyway, the possible calls are:
DROP: Goes through floating armour, actual armour, DAC, call-negating blessings, and damage immunity.
SUBDUAL SUFFICIENT: Goes through floating armour and actual armour, but can be dodged by DAC, negated by the level 3 Blessing, and won't hurt something that's immune to Subdual.
Halt 10 Silence 10 [wait] DROP: Goes through floating armour, actual armour, DAC and damage immunity. Gets stopped by the level 2 Blessing and anything else that grants immunity to Halt or Silence.
KNOCKOUT: Can be tailored to work against whatever we want it to work against (including the possibility of having it bounce off floating armour), but adds a new call to the system.
Valtiel hates Halts caused by anything except magic and spirit. It really doesn't feel like a mundane effect. Even Alchemical effects are more likely to do Freeze than Halt. Strikedown and Disarm by weapon feel right, though. How about:
- SINGLE by dagger or cosh, parry with off-hand dagger or cosh.
- SINGLE by off-hand dagger or cosh.
- SINGLE by on-hand short-(sword, mace).
- SINGLE by off-hand short-(sword, mace).
- Either one of: "Disarm that [weapon]" upon striking the arm of your opponent OR Strikedown upon striking the leg of your opponent. Both abilities are by anything up to a short sword or mace, are once per encounter, and replace your normal damage call (which must be at least Half).
- The other ability from level 5.
Not sure what to put in the last two levels. Maybe increasing the number of times you can use the calls to three times per encounter, or adding a duration to the Strikedown or Disarm. My main worry is that Disarm is generally seen as a lot better than Strikedown, except against ambidexers.
Another alternative is to put the Disarm and Strikedown by blow effects into Warrior or a new Swashbuckler class, and give Subterfuge a way of dealing Through damage from the front. In which case it might look like:
- SINGLE by dagger or cosh, parry with off-hand dagger or cosh.
- SINGLE by off-hand dagger or cosh.
- SINGLE by on-hand short-(sword, mace).
- SINGLE by off-hand short-(sword, mace).
- SINGLE THROUGH by dagger or cosh once per encounter.
- The above ability can be used with a short sword or mace as well.
- SINGLE THROUGH by short sword, mace, dagger or cosh three times per encounter.
The current alias/disguise suggestion seems to me to significantly weaken one of subterfuges big things. I dislike the current 'infinite disguises at level 1' thing, and think that a total of 15xp is arguably too cheap to get access to the disguise II shinies. Something like this might be a possible compromise:
- You have 1 alias. You may call DETECT DISGUISE after 30 seconds of close observation on a target.
- You may disguise yourself as someone of the opposite sex.
- You have 3 aliases.
- You may disguise yourself as someone of a different race.
- You have an unlimited number of potential disguises.
- You may choose not to respond to DETECT DISGUISE.
I don't think that an unlimited number of disguises (certainly not at level 5) is broken, as there are numerous ways to get around them. Anyway, what do people think? -- Flying_O
- Can I suggest "May decline to respond to 'DETECT [race]' at level 5" as well? --Valtiel
- You have that with the no smell potion if it gets kept in the Alchemy system --Taxellor
- ''I suspect it may not be being kept due to there being a skill to not respond to DETECT [race] in the proposed Wilderness tree --Androidkiller
- Umm, there are lots of skills that have potions to replicate them already. Why not that one? --Pufferfish
- Certainly I'd see nothing wrong with your disguise to ping as the race that you're disguised as -- Flying_O
- Definitely, with the caveat that it should be known and stated in the skill description that Wilderness, Magic, Spirit and Alchemy all provide different means to stop you responding to different DETECT calls. --R
- Again, I don't like a non-spiritual skill that enables someone to e.g. respond to spiritual discerns as though they were/weren't an elf. One solution would be to add power-base to detect calls, but that seems unduly complicated. --Jacob
- Same here- I can understand it *maybe* managing to give yourself an elemental elf Rec Magic response with some work, but the metaphysics would just jar too much if completely mundane methods could allow you to change your Rec Spirit response. But I don't think anyone was actually suggesting that one should be able to do this, were they? Detect [race] is a scent recognition skill and as such should be circumventable with a No Smell potion and the application of some Elf Essence :) --Pufferfish
- Do we want to commit ourselves to never introducing a detect race rite or similar, though? And won't there be similar issues with "detect race" spells, which almost certainly will exist?--Jacob
- Personally I'd like it if magic and spirit didn't do absolutely everthing. You could see through someone's elemental disguise with a Rec Spirit or Rec Magic unless they put in a bit of effort, and actually being able to indisputably tell someone's race through spiritiual or magical means apart from that seems like going a bit far. If you're that suspicious, there are plenty of more interesting ways than a group of spells which just see through every disguise --Androidkiller
- But how do you propose, metaphysically, to be able to alter your spirit so half of it is missing (or you've gained the other half)? It just doesn't make sense. Beyond, I suppose, getting yourself cursed by a Fae. Oh Petrof. --Pufferfish
- I'm under the impression that the spirits of all races look much the same (except elemental elves, which only have half a spirit), and so miraculous means wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Magic I'm not so sure about - Dwarves take half damage from magic and so might look different from a magical point of view. As for altering the appearance of your Spirit, you'd probably need a rite, although there might be a Grey research spell which magically hides your soul so you respond "nothing" to Detect and Recognise Spirit but ping to Detect Magic instead. --Valtiel
- Hmm. I might well call an analogy to magic / spirit damage as far as magic / spirit detection goes. Re that last spell... foip, my good man. >:) --Requiem
I have been thinking about Backstab in general and have attached my thoughts to the bottom of this page as it seemed the best place to put it. It's basically the same as Alternate Backstab, so I've kept most of Nick's wording --Taxellor
Alternative Backstab N (10 XP, bought at level 1, then 2(N-1))
Backstab is only effective when striking a target in the rear of the torso, while standing behind them, using a dagger or cosh with which the character may call at least HALF. The user adjudicates this, do not take the piss - some kind of guideline is probably in order, see below. When backstabbing, the user's damage is increased by a number of degrees equal to their level in Backstab minus one, and the damage is all THROUGH if by dagger or SUBDUE if by cosh. This is the natural damage call, and may be increased by buffs. After making a blow using Backstab, the user may not make another such blow for ten seconds.
- Making it natural rather than unnatural damage sets of alarm bells in my head - any other thoughts? --Jacob
- If it's unnatural you can't use it to deliver Venom. Of course, this is only the case if Venom still counts as unnatural damage under the new system. --Valtiel
- I find Venom being unnatural damage counterintuitive - it feels like it ought to be a separate effect, because it's called separately, so natural or unnatural shouldn't come into it. I take your point that venom and backstab need to stack, though. --Jacob
- Weapons-practice testing so far has proven this skill to be useful, fun and generally very nice. I like it, therefore. :) -TheKremlin
- How nice? My worry about this skill is not that it is not very nice, but that a 30 XP skill available to 260 XP characters that lets them do triple through from behind with ambidaggers at will, stacking with all other upgrades, may well be too nice (I think that the level 1 and 2 versions are fine, and the level 4 version is competing against abilities sufficiently powerful that it's not too big a problem unless people are double-buying to get it early (do we think they would?); the level that worries me is 3). --Jacob
- In order to double buy this you have to double buy Subterfuge which is 30 xp. Paying 55xp to get the next level of backstab and just that, doesn't seem too overpowered to me. I am fine with it counting as supernatural increases which stacks with venom. --Taxellor
- Sorry, I missed the last sentence, and read it as "at will". No, I think it's fine. --Jacob