How the sap made my brain explode.

[csouth154]

So, some may find this amusing: the combination of the sap weapon and the Smuggler monster really threw me for a loop. My brain almost came out of my ear. Here's why:

Lirriane encounters the smuggler. The two weapons in her hand were a pistol and a sap. The random card from my hand that got displayed "before you act", and was therefore not available during the check to defeat, was my pistol. Ouch. So...I happily said "Ah hah, Smuggler! You think your special power is sooo clever? Well I'm going to evade you with my sap!" This is where the brain melting started. My pistol would have to either be discarded if the Smuggle was defeated, or buried if undefeated...but evading accomplishes neither of those...so what happens to my pistol??

Now before I go further, I already realize where I went wrong,here...but the realization only came after wracking my brain over this dilemma for a solid twenty minutes. The answer is that the sap should have been played during the evade step of the encounter...because that's what it does. The "before you act" step should never have even happened. It's just that the sap is a weapon. The first weapon whose sole ability is to evade a monster...so never before has it even occurred to me that any weapon should be played during the evade step as opposed to during the check to defeat.

The end result is that I ruled against going back to the evade step, because I had already moved past it when I rolled to see which card from my hand got displayed. I had to punch the Smuggler...with my d4 strength die. This resulted in a hand wipe, but the scenario was still a success, so...hooray. ;)

[Dave Riley]

It was a fun revelation to see a weapon that didn't function like the ones we're used to. You're right, it's exactly as if you played something like Sleep or Invisibility, but the fact that it's a weapon does make you go "...huh..." and take a minute to reconfigure. I've had hurdles like that with all sorts of things, like a check to defeat a Siren being non-combat even though it's a monster. You have to divorce your preconception of 'combat' from 'monster' and realize you're allowed to play a Sage.

What I like most about Pathfinder is its flexibility in function, which seems ten times greater in S&S. It's a very simple system that gives you a lot of play around the edges, that works in the confines of tabletop and RPG to give you a sense of familiarity, but asks you drop your preconceptions so the game can really shine.

Probably most players have a revelation where they realize they only have to do what the card tells them to do. It's written in the rulebook, but I imagine most players hit a stumble before they realize whatever the card says is what happens, and you don't have to account for what you think SHOULD be, just what is.

I also just really like that the Sap is a weapon. It could've easily been an Item, but making it a weapon gives you something to play around with if you've already got three "for your combat check..." in your deck. I hope we see a lot more of that as the game goes on. S&S has already blown my expectations right up, though. If it coasts from here I imagine I'll still be plenty happy.