In this piece, the dark trades of Covert Agents are looked upon, their skills
and chances of success, and what victims can do to protect themselves.
A lot of info was gathered from the MG Updates and Home Notes, from the
Mailing List and The Chronicler's Corner, and from Edi's "O Mentor" column
and The Tome.
Contents:
General notes:
* Wounds and curses will reduce your chances of success in doing all covert actions
(C1-6,9,10,12). Blesses however do not increase your chances.
* Broadly speeking, the same skills that are required of the sponsor to
do a covert order will offer a certain protection to the target if he
owns such skills himself also. The rules are vague on this point though.
Stealth only comes into play
a) to spot the target (see Sighting below)
b) to avoid getting captured if the covert action goes wrong
So you'll want that skill to get your sorry butt out of a botched
attempt, but it will NOT raise your changes of succes when doing a
covert crime. It yust serves as a modifier to the changes of being
sighted and captured afterwards.
Note that Stealth additions supplied by a Familiar do not count if the
character himself has no stealth skill.
Stealth does have some advantages over Invisibility (that does raise changes
of success):
- Invisibility (by potion) wears off, Stealth is forever.
- Stealth helps you to find others while invisibility does not.
- If you have to rescue someone, high stealth will be very handy.
- Invisibility can be cancelled by a spell, stealth can not.
(With thanks to Edi Birsan.)
The line "unable to steal more items than he can carry" (order C12)
does not refer to weight, but to possession slots. In LI, this means
that that a thief may not steal more than 32,767 of an item
except for crowns. In LII, both items and crowns have an upper limit
of ten million minus one. A thief must have an empty possession slot in order to be
able to steal something. The thief may not steal ships, but may steal
more than he can personally carry.
Easily overlooked: a thief may not have a prisoner in his charge when
stealing!
Thieves are helped by high dexterity (for stealing only), by good stealth
ratings (for getting away with it), and especially by invisibility (through potion or spell).
Consider taking Illusionist skill, at a low level, when setting-up as a thief,
so as to start out with invisibility. The thief or his sidekicks should also
have access to seer spells (scry force, scry guild, read character) so they know
what to steal. However, this is not the place to do Set-up suggestions;
there should appear a paper on that in the General Introduction section.
When stealing items some of the key modifiers are:
Thief level x 5%
Final Dexterity greater than 10 x 1.5 to 2%
Invisibility +50% (the condition, not the potion)
minus % wounds
minus % cursed
minus the square root of the sum of the guard rating of soldiers guarding possessions.
random factor of -/+15%
minus 25 if stealing from a legion
minus 80 when stealing from a lair
minus 180 from a Ruins (note that some games may have -999 from Ruins;
will be announced in advance).
the Strenght of the thief x ?%
minus Amount and Weight of items to be stolen x ?%
minus Thief, Assassin or Spy rating of target x 5%
This is the formula from the Update May '95, plus some info from the text of
order C12. Note that the formula in The Tome, page
32, is very similar (+5% per Thief level, +2% per Dexterity, Ruins -100%, Lairs -50%,
-1% per guard rating/100, -% wounds, -% curses.), but especially the (wrong!) guard rating
makes a big difference.
Note that the modifiers for ruins and lairs only apply to the possession slots
of these forces, not to personal possessions of man and beast inside such a
forces (like weapons and armor on monsters in combat slot).
A sort of variant of Stealing is Sabotage Item (C3); if succesfull, a thief can destroy up
to 80% of the total amount present (The Tome page 32,42). It's changes of success
depend on the thief's skill level and the target's soldiers guard rating (if target is guild, market
or force) or the target's personal combat value (if target is character).
Assassination is a highly specialized talent. A successful attempt does
not automatically result in a corpse, it just gives you a free shot and
lets you escape. A bungled assassination may result in a duel. In either
case, good combat skills are essential.
If successful, the assassin gets a bonus to his/her free shot. How
much is unclear, but about +5% per level maybe? The combat round is a
melee attack - there are no Special Attacks, Magic Spells, or missle
rounds.
The Duel following a failed assassination is similar - no Special Attack,
no Spells, and no Missile weapons.
The value of poisoned weapons should not be underestimated. An NPC
who takes even a flesh-wound from a poison-II weapon may die within
four months.
You may not assassinate: prisoners, monsters (race 281+) or characters with a monster
status (Undeads, Lycanthropes). In SOP/LII this has however been changed:
Undeads and Lycanthropes can be assassinated at an extra -25% modifier; monsters
can still not be assassinated.
Invisible characters are in general impossible
to assassinate.
Another change in SOP/LII: Prestige and militant/weaponmaster skill
levels of the target affect the changes of Assassination in a negative way
(look under Kidnapping). The Update Nov 95 doesn't say so, but Midnight Games has
confirmed this. Note these factors only play a role in Kidnapping/Assassination,
and not in other covert actions!.
The chances of an assassination attempt are something like this:
Assassin's skill level x 5%
If invisible +50%
minus wounds%
minus curses%
minus 5% x level of target's assassin or thief level
minus square root of the sum of the guard ratings that protect the
target
minus 25% if target has bodyguard
minus militant skill levels x 1%, 2% or 3% [in LII/SOP only!]
minus prestige x 1% [in LII/SOP only!]
random factor of +/-15%.
An Assassin gets away with it anonymous, unless he gets captured.
You cannot kidnap prisoners, monsters (race 281+) or characters with monster status
(Undeads, Lycanthropes) or who are Invisible.
If successfull, the victim becomes a personal prisoner of the kidnapper
(not of the force in which the villain is).
The kidnapper gets away with it anonymous, and a prisoner cannot reveal
to his overlord where he is being held.
Note that in LII, starting with SOP, some things have changed:
* Thieves can NO longer use the Kidnap Order C6!
* Undeads and Lycanthropes can be kidnapped at an extra -25% modifier; monsters
can still not be kidnapped.
* The chance of Kidnapping is affected by several factors:
- It goes down by 1% for each point of prestige the target has. This
uses the highest or either the base or the effective prestige.
- It goes down by -1% for each level of Swordmaster/Axemaster/Bowmaster,
by -2% for each level of Beserker/Knight, and -3% for each level of Ranger.
The chances of Kidnap are obviously very similar to those of Assassination, if not
fully the same (compair the text of orders C5, C6 and C7).
All prisoners are weightless.
If you kidnap a character who has a prisoner, then you also get that
prisoner.
Kidnapping the overall leader of an attacking army means that you 'steal'
away those important tactical bonusses!
Once a character is kidnapped, he can be stripped (P6) of its belongings
and/or executed (P3) or held for ransom (P2/P4). Note that in LII, order
P3 has been changed: if you put a '1' under parameter 'A' the victim will be burried,
otherwise he will only be executed. Further, SOP has a Standard Special
Action that allows a Thief (only!) to dig up a dead burried body to retain it.
Be reminded that a lot of actions are not posisble when you have a prisoner in your
charge: nearly all Covert orders (C1 to C6, C9, C11 to C14) and in LII/SOP
also Teleporting.
In LII, also Assassins may do order C1.
The chance of a thief successfully opening the gatehouse of a
fortified location is dependent on the following factors:
Thief level x 5(?)% [like with Stealing?]
Invisibility +50%
minus wounds %
minus the strenght rating of the Gate x ?%
minus the square root of the guard rating of soldiers guarding possessions.
random factor of +/-15%
Note that wall size does not effect the chances, nor does the dexterity of the saboteur, nor does
the Stealth of the army commander or the sabateur.
A succesfull sabotage will leave the gate open, which is said to give
a reduction in Defense by about 40% (The Tome, page 32).
Sabotaging Morale (C2) is another action of how to let a thief participate
in battle (next to kidnapping commanders, sabotage food, sabotage gate).
It's chances of success depend on the thief's skill level and the number of soldiers
present in the target force.
In LII, also Rumormongers may sabotage morale.
In LII, Spying has become much more important with the
removal of 'suicide scouts' (they do not generate a Battle Report
anymore).
The chances of successfull Spying depend on (amongs others):
Spy rating x 7%
Invisibility +50%,
minus Square Root of the sum of guard ratings of the protecting soldiers
modifier for type of mission (1 to 6; some are more difficult, like
getting military info)
minus wounds %
minus curses %
random factor +/- 15%
Str/dex has nothing to do with spying.
Some point supplied by MG Mentor Edi Birsan:
* When Spying on a Guild you do get a report on the possessions of the
Guild.
* A Spy does not have the same modifiers as a thief for success. He
has a basic chance of about 7x Spy level while a thief has 5x level.
The Spy also has different modifiers based on the Type of Target, where
the thief does not suffer from that problem.
* It would appear from practical experience that the distance within
the Spy's 5 province range is irrelevant to success. However, some
people have reported that they have better success if they are
inside a target force.
* When spying on a location, the magic resistance of the location has no
effect - which is why in a world with higher MAR's the Spy's get a
good work out.
In SOP/LII Sighting values have been made reflective of the
advanced ranger skills where appropriate. They have also been cleaned
up to avoid some misunderstandings. For USA SOP 4 games and the future
the revised sighting works as follows:
To achieve a Covert Opportunity sighting:
- If the target is Invisible, not present, or if target's stealth is on
and greater than sponsor: Automatic failure to spot
- Otherwise:
Covert skill level of sponsor x 7%
Stealth rating of sponsor x 5%
If sponsor invisible +50%
minus wounds % of sponsor
minus covert skill level of target x 5%
minus stealth rating of target x 5% (if on and less than
or equal to that of Sponsor)
sum of sighting value of possessions/armor/race/mount items of target
Random factor: +/-15%
Maximum chance is 95%, Minimum chance is 0%
When an attempt fails because of sighting a covert opportunity, the
chances of such sighting will be reported rather than the chance of
success of the covert action; this applies regardless if old or new
games.
From the "O Mentor" column of Edi Birsan:
Q: I have some very nice statuses in my NIC games that give me a
negative sighting value. However when I go invisible it appears that
my sighting value is going 'up' to zero. Am I not better off with a
negative sighting value?
A: NO. When you are invisible it is recorded as a special condition of
the character. When there is sighting needed it first checks to see if
you are invisible. If you are invisible it gives the answer 'target not
found'. If you are invisible you can not be kidnapped or assassinated
unless they first dispel the invisibility. You generally will not be
captured if the town is over run. If you have a negative sighting value,
it is used as part of the massive number of modifiers and factors to
spot some one so there is a chance you could be spotted and nailed.
Additionally all covert actions check to see if the sponsor is
invisible and generally award a flat +50% to their chance of doing
anything sneaky and low down for being invisible.
Q: I have a sighting value that is in excess of 2000.0 is this a bug?
A: No, in this particular case the character has a status of Child of
Light, is wielding a Flaming Sword and riding in a Fire Chariot. About
the only thing you could do to make your sighting value any higher is
hire the Mormon Choir to sing The Messiah as you travel by :). Cutting
the value down would seem very anti-social and deprive all the locals of
a free light show. However, if you really need to try to be unnoticed,
then try an invisibility potion to reduce things down to zero...and
skip the Choir!
If you are in the unlucky position to be at the receiving end of
Covert Actions, what can you do? How can potential targets reduce
risk and what can victims do to control damage?
There are several defenses possible against covert actions:
A)Having covert skills
It is much harder to steal from/kidnap/assassin someone with a thief, assassin or
spy skill (look in the order rules). From a Mentor question in The
Strategic Review, it becomes clear that having Stealth and Invisibility
will also reduce the risk of being Assassinated/Kidnapped, in the sense that
the Assassin must first spot the target before getting an opportunity to
attack. In general, Invisibility will make that spotting impossible.
Of course, Stealth is also very important for your chances to escape.
B)Having Military/Weaponmaster skills and prestige
As we have seen, in SOP games and future LII games, the chances of
getting Assassinated or Kidnapped
are lowered with 1% per point of prestige that one has. Further these
chances are lowered with 1% for each level of swordmaster/axemaster/bowmaster one has,
with 2% for each level of Beserker/Knight one has, and with 3% for each level of Ranger
one has. So let your Main have one of these skills, to be practiced in those
times he really has nothing better to do. Could save your life one day...
C) Assign a character to a combat slot with troops in it
Any characters assigned to a battle slot are considered to be protected
by that battle slot. Pay attention to Guard Ratings, and note that complex types inherit
the ratings of the simple types of which they are made up of:
normal soldier: 1
Knight soldier: 5 (also Mage-Knight, Fey Knight, Sword-Knight,
Axe-Knight, Knight-Archer)
Guard soldier: 25 (also Sword-Guard, Axe-Guard)
These are well know, but according to certain data on the Net one must add:
Fanatic soldier: 5
Ranger soldier: 2 (also Sword-Ranger, Ranger-Archer)
Bandit soldier: 2 (also Swashbuckler = Sword-Bandit)
Assassin soldier: 2 (also Assassin Archer)
Note that the Assassins are uncertain, and that some give the complex
Knight types (except for Mage-Knights) a rating of 2.
The guard rating of a force or slot is computed by taking the square
root of the sum of the guard ratings. This means that a force with
many soldiers is generally much harder to steal from than a guild,
which is likely to only have a few soldiers. However, to protect against
a real player-operated invisible Assassin (generally level 40), one must
have over 1500 guards present to make some difference...
D) Become a monster race or get a monster status
Monster races (281+) and monster statusses (Undead, Lycanthrope)
cannot be kidnapped or assassinated. In SOP/LII, monster statusses
can be kidnapped or assassinated, but do have a -25% penalty to such
attempts. Of course, this could be a wrong road to take in respect
to diplomacy, factions or religions.
E) Assign a Bodyguard
The effectiveness of bodygards against assassination/kidnapping depends
on their Personal Combat, and not on their covert
skill ratings! A bodyguard reduces the chance of success for covert
operatives by twice the effective PC (including statusses and blesses)
of the bodyguard, with as minimum reduction -25%.
F) Use Magic
Put Shells on the forces in which you are to prevent villains from teleporting in.
For when teleporting into a force, the entry conditions are ignored and
sighting checks not made. Of course they will be checked when doing a covert
action, but then it could well be too late!
And if you are Home Alone, and suspect that someone creepy is lurking
at your door, likely not to be stopped by that handfull of sloppy guards you have,
then casting a preventive Cause Insanity may do miracles...For if you afflict him yust
before he made his attempt (not yet aware of his new mental condition) than even
that handfull of clumsy soldiers will capture him while singing his luny songs.
G)Be inside a Guild
When inside a guild, the guild's soldiers will protect you against covert actions; you do not
need to be assigned to the guild's soldier slot. They will protect you regardless of whether the
sponsor of the covert action is also in the guild or is creeping around outside. Who owns
the guild is not relevant (NPC, you, another player).
As to the defense by soldiers (point C), it is possible to check your town's protection by
having one of your own assassins kidnap one of your own characters....
However, do mind that your troops will try to stop ANY covert action, from
whoever it comes; your guards live by the good old "shoot first, ask
questions later"-principle. Which could mean that they would simply
arrest their own boss (if he was the kidnapper) - how embarrassing!
Some relevant bits from the "O Mentor" column of The Strategic Reserve,
with answers by Edi Birsan:
Q: If a monster is in a location does he have a guard rating?
A: Technically the character would act as a '1' or a guard rating
equal to one soldier. This is the guard rating as used when the force
is the target of the covert. If the monster is a target then there is
a whole set of problems based on the skill mix of the monster.
Q: So I have this invisible or stealth diseased turkey running around
my city. How do I find him?
A: A Scry of the force will reveal all characters with stealth 'on'
regardless of the stealth rating of the caster. A character with high
stealth on that views the force will also pick up anyone with lesser or
equal stealth. The casting of Detect invisible on yourself will allow
you to see if anyone in your force is invisible. Now since invisibility
wears off at production, a simple Scry may pick up all you need.
Caution: characters that are inside guilds need to be viewed from
inside the same guild or a Scry done on the guild. A Sneaky Pete method
to find such a character is to use a bunch of Influence character
orders and thus go surfing for a possible hit.
In LI, if an Escape was succesfull, you would be a free man in the force in which the kidnapper was
located. In LII, however, the C10 Escape order has been changed (not in May/Nov Updates!): you will now be allowed to Escape INTO a force of your own.
If you designate an inactive force of yours then it will be created at the
province of escape. The default if there is no force available is to escape
into the force of the captor.
It is wise, certainly when there are hostilities with other players, to issue
as your first 3 orders three Escape orders for your Main, just in case he/she could be captured in between turns. Since the Escape order is NOT charged a character action if the sponsor is not a prisoner, then
there is no effect if he wasn't caught, and the 'normal' orders after the three Escapes will be processed. This method of 'Escape by anticipation' is needed because of the turn deadline/sequence factor. If a player kidnaps you on date 1, then you will only see that on date 2, and even when you try to escape next turn on date 4, his turn will have occured on date 3, in which
he will likely have executed you.... and will move away with the body and keeps running. Bye, bye character.
Of course, also thieves will use this "auto-escape order" after each Steal attempt.
Note that with the Escape order, Stealth of the one who is holding the
captive, will not play a role in the chances of success for the escape
attempt. The rational behind that is that you already know
where that villain is - "since he is holding your leash" (Edi Birsan).
Some interesting bits on Escape from Edi Birsan's "O Mentor" column in The Strategic
Review:
Q: Is a Thief Skill more efficient than Stealth when it comes to
escaping?
A: NO, stealth features in about twice as important as any other
covert skill when escaping.
Q: Is having both Thief and Stealth additive when trying to escape?
A: All covert skills of Thief, Stealth, Assassin and Spy add in
the chances to escape.
Q. In Swords an NPC tried to escape from me. Is this normal?
A: Can not discuss the details, but sounds like it was a hated race
and falls under the category of 'dynamic background'.
When succesfully Rescueing a prisoner, the rescued person will
become a prisoner of the rescuer. The Rules Update May 95 falsely
says that he will be a free man in your force. I guess, that the
advantage of the first system is, that he cannot hinder your party's
movement (the prisoner could well be overburdened or wounded); the
disadvantage seems that you cannot influence him right away or have
him do actions if he already was yours (like: casting a nasty spell on
the kidnapper).
Note that it is not necessary to designate in order C9 who is holding the
prisoner, contrary to what the rule book says!
You will have to release a prisoner before you can do much with him, like
Influence him if alive, or burry him when dead.
Bits on release of prisoners from The Strategic Reserve (answers of Mentor Edi):
Q: When I turn an NPC character Prisoner loose in my force do I now
control his actions? What if I capture a PC? What if I rescue a PC
or NPC?
A: The only way you control over a character's actions is by either
owning the character or charming/geasing the character. NPC's who are
prisoners and are released just hang out in the ultimate force where
they are released. That means that if you are a party inside a town
and release a prisoner he will hand out in the location's force number
not your party. Same applies to NPC's who are rescued and then
released...remember that the rescue does not free the character
automatically merely transfers the prisoner. As for player characters,
if you release them you should be in some sort of contact with the
player that owns the former prisoner so that awkward situations do
not arise...like he gets mad and attacks you.
Q: Can a character carry a dead character as a prisoner into a
location and then release him, and where does he go?
A: A prisoner that is released will go to the ultimate force that the
character is in. So if you are in a party inside a location it goes to
the location. If you are in a guild and release a prisoner he goes to
the force regardless if dead or not. This is one way of getting
diseases into forces...
Q: Can the body be left in the province that the location is in and not
the location itself?
A: If you bury the character then the character is in the province but
buried characters will not spread their disease unless robbed or dug
up. What you want to do is to create a party in the same province as
the location and dump the diseased person there, or just before the
running of production slip in a diseased character.
In the above pieces, we have assumed that it are covert players who are the potential
danger to innocent (or dead-guilty) heroes and overlords. However, also
NPC locations may try to arrest characters when one of the following events take place.
1. When they issue a military order 31: Arrest character
2. When any covert action against the location fails
3. When any covert action against a character who is assigned to a combat slot fails.
4. When the script/events call for a Purge of your race/religion/gender from the streets.
If you dump on/harass another character in town who is not assigned to combat slots
then the location will ignore you...for now.
