A Test of Wills is a simple enough idea, that allows “the talkative dude” (who invested most of his dice into conversation skills) to be effective and helpful during combat, while at the same time making combats more engaging by having people taunt and intimidate each other.

Mac is not the talkative dude – that’s actually Muna, who’s also a badass with a sword – but Guy, who enjoys building finely-tuned characters, had a specific role in mind for Mac. In other games, one might call this “the tank”, the person who draws the enemies’ attention and takes on most of the punishment, having high enough soak to withstand the damage. As we can see here, it kinda worked!

You might remember Mac’s character sheet, and notice his Intimidate is only a d4 there – that’s fine, he switched some things around even before the combat started, after he saw some rolls in action and decided a d4 isn’t enough. Characters are malleable for the first few sessions, after all.

This week’s page doesn’t have initiative cards, even though it’s a new round of combat. I explain why, over at our “behind the scenes explaining things” subreddit.

Related RPG article: Crystal Heart in Other RPG Systems

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