nWoD – Taunting

So I was building a character concept that involved Throws and Taunts.  But looking into the system, I couldn’t find anything that dealt with Taunting.  So with some discussion on the WW forum and suggestions there I fleshed out my own setup for it.  I give partial credit to its creation to the forumites there.

Initialize a Taunt: Roll Wits + Empathy – Targets Composure (+/- Modifiers) to get a feel for what might irk this person.  This can be something based on appearance, speech (accent/impediment) or body language.  You may not take any full round action or All Out Attack as your focus is on observing the target.

Failure – Failed
Success – You get the idea of the targets ‘buttons’ to press.
Exceptional Success – You get a flash of insight of what really peeves the target, get a +3 bonus to the Taunt rolls.

Initialize Modifiers for this roll include -
Target has obvious Flaw +3 (Speech impediment or physical deformity for example)
Non-humans -5 to -10, depending on how human looking/personality the target is.
Familiarity +1 to +5, if your familiar with the target or know an embarrassing fact

Taunting: Roll Presence + Expression (+/- Modifiers) vs Resolve + Composure. This is a speaking action, it can be used in the same turn as the Initialize but it then takes up your full turn.  You may not take any full round action or All Out Attack as your focus is on the target.

Failure- Failure
Success – The target their attention and focus to you.  They work toward getting some retribution against your words but they decide on how (attack, sending goons after you, abilities and so on).  This only lasts until you have received some form of their retaliation.
Exceptional Success – the target is enraged as you hit a sore spot.  They will go after you until you are Beaten (Killed, unconscious, captured/controlled) where they have overpowered you in some way.

Modifiers for this roll include -
Distracted -1 to -5, Target has taken damage from another source or sources (person/being not hazards/objects)
Threatened +1 to +3, Target has taken damage from you
Language Barrier -5 or -10, Target does not understand your language but can still get the gist of your body language

Optional alternate rule to Taunt Roll:
Failure by 3 or more – Failure
Failure by 2 or less – You failed but still annoyed the target.  Get a +1 bonus if you Taunt again.  This is a cumulative effect but goes away if you Succeeded or Failed by 3 or more (capped at +5).

It isn’t meant to be a MMO style taunt where the person HAS to attack that person.  Just that person has caught their attention and/or focus.  Usually in aggression.  Partially why I have penalties if the target has taken damage from other sources to help compensate this.  If someone just hit the guy for a good chunk, it would be a -5 to the taunters roll.  And even if he succeeded, the target could still make a tactical decision.  Say use a spell/ability to immobilize the bigger threat and then come after the Taunter.  Unless you get an exceptional success which then it just comes after the Taunter

One Response to nWoD – Taunting
  1. Lunatyk
    October 19, 2009 | 12:22 AM

    The only issue I see with this is that a single modifier can’t exceed a rating of 5…

    I’m also not sure about modifiers for Language Barrier being so high… I can see why you did that there, but imagine how frustrating it is when someone yells angry gibberish at you…

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