This adventure for Numenera is designed as a prequel to “The Beale of Boregal” scenario from the core rulebook. For my Wandering Walk campaign I felt the events of “Beale” would be enhanced if the PCs were already familiar with the aldeia of Embered Peaks and the peculiar properties of its numenera.

BACKGROUND

The kokutai is a hive religion made up from many different factions (each of which is also referred to as a kokutai). The kokutai as a whole is led by the Mask, a holy leader marked by his or her face: A strange, mask-like biotech growth which extrudes into a faceless visage.

Before their death, each Mask is supposed to reveal the identity of their next reincarnation in the form of a prophetic riddle. Solving this riddle (a process referred to as the Race of the Riddle) is meant to be a competition between the kokutai, with the winning kokutai (i.e., the one who finds the next incarnation of the Mask) receiving favor for their particular teachings within the religion.

The Seventh Mask, however, failed to deliver a riddle before his death. Some kokutai are interpreting this as a riddle in itself. The Bensal kokutai, however, have a different plan: They are carrying the body of the Seventh Mask to the aldeia of Embered Peaks, where it is said that the devoirs possess a machine which allows them to as a single question of the deceased. If they can uniquely receive guidance from the Seventh Mask through the devoirs, they’ll have an obvious and significant advantage in finding the Eighth Mask and securing their position of dominance within the kokutai.

THE MASK: If surgically detached, the mask functions as yesterglass when worn by another. (See Artifacts & Oddities 1, pg. 8.) The kokutai are unamused by this sacrilege.

THE HOOK

While traveling, the PCs spot the camp of the Bensal kokutai. Fassare, their leader, is concerned: Her scouts have disappeared and she has been receiving dreams of black prophecy during her meditations over the body of the Seventh Mask. She wants to hire the PCs as bodyguards and escorts to see the Bensal kokutai expedition safely through to Embered Peaks. She can offer them in payment:

• 20 shins
• Image Caster (L5 cypher, see Cypher Collection 1, pg. 6)
• Nectar Dispenser (L3 cypher, see Cypher Collection 1, pg. 8)
• Visual Diplacement Device (L5 cypher, see Numenera, pg. 297)

If the PCs push for more information, Fassare will tell them that she fears that they are being hunted by “apotheoite kokutai”. These false worshipers, according to Fassare, seek to find the Seventh Mask’s body and destroy it.

Alternative Hook: They could be directly hired to track down the Bensal and steal the corpse of the Seventh Mask. Their employer could be another faction of the kokutai (including those described below), a bizarre collector, or a time-traveling version of the Seventh Mask intent on creating a trans-temporal rumor (depending on how weird you want to get).

THE JOURNEY

1. BENSAL CAMPSITE: Where the PCs meet the Bensal kokutai for the firs time.

2. SCRUB BRUSH PASS: There’s a pass which cuts between the peaks here and heads straight to Embered Peaks. It has an artificial look to it and, unlike the surrounding landscape, is filled with scrub brush giving way to a brown and desiccated forest.It’ll cut time off the trip, but it gives unique opportunities for ambush.

3. GEYSER OF DUST: Going the long way around the mountains takes longer. Here you pass a geyser of dust which plumes perpetually thirty feet into the air. (It can be seen from about about 7 miles away.)

EMBERED PEAKS: Nestled in the palm of a mountain that looks like a giant seven-fingered hand (from which the town takes its name).

THE FIRST NIGHT

During the first night, the Bensal kokutai camp is attacked by six ravage bears. (This attack is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the hostile forces arrayed against the Bensal’s mission.)

If the PCs track the ravage bears back to their lair, they will find two ravage bear pups.

RAVAGE BEARS (x6): L4, health 30, damage 7, armor 1

• Movement: Long
• Might defense L6.
• Runs, climbs, and jumps at L7.
• Ravage Grasp: Grab foes with powerful arms. Victim suffers 4 points of damage per turn in addition to damage from attacks.
• Fury: If it takes more than 10 points of damage, reduce defense by one step and increase attacks by one step.
• Blind: Immune to visual effects. Olfactory effects can confuse and “blind” it temporarily.

BENSAL KOKUTAI

The Bensal kokutai was favored by the Seventh Mask. Their leader is Fassare, who is intent on retaining her kokutai’s favor during the time of the Eighth Mask.

FASSARE: L5, health 15, damage 3, armor 1.

• Defend at L6.
• Resist mental effects at L6.
• Gain 4 Armor for 10 minutes via a force field device implanted in her cerebellum.
• Minor telekinesis (from same device).

BENSAL KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x8): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

OPPOSING FORCE: CARAL KOKUTAI

The Caral kokutai think the Bensal kokutai’s plan is a great idea… they just want to do it themselves. Their primary interest is taking control of the Seventh Mask’s body and taking it to Embered Peaks. (And if they have to do it over the dead bodies of the Bensal, that’s fine.)

ATTACK PLATFORMS (L8): The Caral have access to briefcase-sized cyphers that, when activated, separate into four parts which form the corners of a solid energy field that can be used to fly through the sky with 4-6 people.

• Energy Weapon: 8 points of damage. (The perimeter of the attack platform pulses, coalesces, and then expels the energyform.)
• Duration: 1d4 hours of flight
• Movement: Long

The Caral have three of these platforms, although they’re likely to only use two in their first attack.

MOORA: L5, health 15, damage 3, dual wields a pair of ray emitters. Moora dual-wields ray emitters.

• Ray Emitter – Concentrated Light (L8): 200 feet, 8 damage, 1 in 1d6 depletion
• Ray Emitter – Concentrated Light (L5): 200 feet, 5 damage, 1 in 1d6 depletion

CARAL KOKUTAI WARLORDS (x2): L4, health 15, damage 4, armor 3. Speed defense L6 (due to shield)

CARAL KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x12): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

OPPOSING FORCE: GATHA KOKUTAI

The Gatha kokutai believes that the Bensal kokutai’s plan is a sacrilegious corruption of the Seventh Mask’s body. They’re more bloody-minded than that the Caral and seek to wipe out the “Bensal apotheoites” and their “Bensal heresy”.

LIGHTNING FENCE (L5): The Gatha have four reality spikes (Numenera, pg. 293) which can be activated in conjunction to form a four-sided fence of lightning  15 feet high. Passing through the fence inflicts 5 ambient damage. (They’ll use the fence in an effort to divide the Bensal’s forces and, if possible, isolate the Seventh Mask’s Body.)

MIGALA: L5, health 15, damage 5. Attacks at L6. Resists mental effects at L6. Migala carries a bandolier of detonations. Roll on the Cypher Danger Chart (Numenera, pg. 279) once per encounter.

• 8 detonations (Numenera, pg. 284; determine randomly)
• Detonation (gravity) (Numenera, pg. 284)

GATHA KOKUTAI WARLORD: L4, health 15, damage 4, armor 3. Speed defense L6 (due to shield)

GATHA KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x15): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

CHIROGS

A local chirog tribe has become aware of the Bensal’s pyred procession. Like all chirogs, they despise numenera. Because they consider the body of the Seventh Mask to be a numenera relic, they now seek to destroy it.

The pack leader does not speak, but is surrounded by a choir of three alpha males who speak for her in alternating voices.

CHIROG PACK MEMBERS: See Numenera, pg. 235.

PACK LEADER: L4. Has a mental attack that inflicts 4 Intellect damage (bypassing armor).

ALPHA MALES (x3): L5, health 18, damage 6, armor 4.

TACTICAL NOTES

This scenario should not be run as a simple string of three mass combats. The various kokutai and chirogs should use varied tactics; retreat in the face of unexpected danger or loss; and the like. A few thoughts:

• One group or another may attempt to suborn the PCs, either by convincing them that the Bensal kokutai are in the wrong or simply promising to pay more for their services.
• A kokutai group that has been badly damaged might try to parley with the Bensal kokutai. (Or ally with the other kokutai, allowing for a joint assault featuring both attack platforms and a second lightning fence.)
• The Bensal kokutai might ask the PCs to approach one of the harrassing apotheoite kokutai in order to form an alliance against a common enemy. (For example, the Gatha might be convinced to forgive their heresy and protect the Seventh Mask’s holy vessel from the chirog. Or the Caral might be convinced to help them drive off the Gatha in order to assure that the riddle of the Seventh Mask can be discovered.)
• The Caral might launch a stealth operation to steal the body (either during the night or while the PCs are distracted by an attack from another group). The scenario could turn into either tracking them down or racing them to Embered Peaks.

If the players are losing interest, it’s probably time to launch an all-out assault to finish things up. Or go the other way and have a kokutai appear on the horizon, give a ceremonial chant of mutual respect, and then leave (signaling the permanent end of the conflict).

Embered Peaks itself can make a good location for a final ambush. It will provide a distinct environment from the overland ambushes and encounters and you can get innocent bystanders involved and/or caught in the crossfire.

Note that the opposition presented here assumes that the Bensal kokutai will be assisting the PCs. (You may wish to use my rules for NPC allies.) Without assistance, PCs — particularly low-tier PCs — will find themselves rapidly overrun by the powerful factions seeking the Seventh Mask.

Tales from the Table: Precepts of the Seventh Mask in Actual Play

Numenera features player-facing mechanics: Whenever an action requires diced resolution, it’s always the player who rolls the dice. If a PC is being attacked, the player rolls to dodge. If the PC is attacking, the player rolls to hit. There are a lot of advantages to this system, particularly in the ways that it seamlessly interacts with the pool-spend, GM intrusion, and difficulty adjustment mechanics.

But the drawback of player-faced mechanics is that they can’t be used to resolve contests between NPCs. Numenera opts for one of two relatively straightforward work-arounds (to be used at the GM’s discretion):

(1) In keeping with other mechanics in the system, the NPC with the highest level automatically succeeds.

(2) If that’s undesirable for some reason, “the GM should designate a player to roll for one of the NPCs. Often, the choice is obvious. For example, a character who has a trained attack animal should roll when her pet attacks enemies.”

The problem with this method is that, because of the way NPC stat blocks and pools work in Numenera, the result doesn’t factor in the NPC’s skill whatsoever: There is no modifier applied to the roll, so an NPC that’s level 2 at attacking has the exact same chance of hitting an NPC opponent as an NPC that has a level 7 attack.

What makes the problem even more vexing is that a large number of character options feature allied NPCs (like the aforementioned trained attack animal).

NPC ALLIES

NPC allies have an effort pool equal to level x 3 per day.

NPC allies also gain one recovery roll per day. This recovery roll can be used as an action at any time, restoring 1d6 + level points to their effort pool.

When rolling for an NPC, adjust the die roll by +1 or -1 per difference in level. For example, a level 5 NPC attempting a level 3 task would gain a +2 bonus to their die roll. The same NPC attempting a level 7 task would suffer a -2 penalty to their die roll.

DESIGN NOTES

These rules are short, simple, and to the point. They present a minor disruption to the purely player-faced mechanics, but without bulking out an NPC to have the same complexity as a PC. (In terms of utility, it’s particularly important that the mechanics don’t actually require a specialized NPC stat block: The effort pool can be easily derived from any existing NPC or creature.)

In actual play, the addition of the effort pool provides just enough interest to make running an NPC ally interesting while the level adjustment to the die roll for NPC vs. NPC actions provides enough distinction between characters that their interactions don’t feel flat or artificial.

These rules can be found in the “House Rules” section of my Numenera system cheat sheet.

Monte Cook’s Into the Violet Vale was released yesterday. This is the Numenera adventure I ran at Gencon this year. It features a nifty in media res opening that will make the adventure a little more challenging to incorporate into an ongoing campaign, but which works great if you’re looking to run a one-shot. On the other hand, it’s also remarkably flexible and non-linear compared to most convention scenarios I’ve experienced, so I definitely think it can be worth the effort. I’ve run it 4 times and found it to be delightful and mind-bending every time.

As part of my prep work for running the adventure, I put together a bunch of resources and an expansive cheat sheet that I think y’all might find useful. And now that the scenario has been released to the public, I can share them with you.

SPOILER WARNING

(click here for PDF)

This cheat sheet for the GM supplements the adventure in several key ways:

First, I’ve prepped a specific MISSION BRIEFING featuring three specific questions to help players orient themselves into the scenario. This is designed to retain the in media res quality of the opening while providing enough context to meaningfully inform roleplaying without requiring the players to simply listen to a big wall of text. (In practice, the answers to these questions often had a radical effect on shaping what followed.) The final question (“How are you securing and transporting Sinter?”) is designed to transition with a hard pivot directly into the opening scene.

Second, I’ve included a lengthy REGLAE REFERENCE. During my playtest, the players really wanted to tear the titular, dimension-warping flowers apart. So I whipped up some really weird, non-terrestial biological traits to reward their attention.

Third, several of my players commented that the adventure felt too “generic fantasy” and didn’t do enough to really highlight the awesome “weirdness” of the setting (particularly early on). In an attempt to address this, I’ve added some EXTRA WEIRDNESS to the abandoned camp at the beginning of the adventure. I’ve made some similar additions to Lady Weiss and her brute bodyguards.

I’ve specified FRIN’S CYPHERS. These were just pregenerated randomly, but it let me include them on the cypher cards I prepped for the adventure. (See below.) If you don’t want to use those cards, there’s no reason you can’t just generate them randomly during play.

I’ve added a bit where the PCs can theoretically MURDER FRIN and reverse engineer an alternative (but dangerous) method of escaping the valley. (This also changes the method Lady Weiss uses to help the PCs escape the valley.)

Finally, I’ve prepped NPC ROLEPLAYING SHEETS for all of the major NPCs (Sinter, Lady Weiss, Frin, and Meriod). I’ve talked about these before, but the short version is that I derived this format for NPCs from Mike Mearls’ In the Belly of the Beast. I’ve found that it makes quickly referencing their information and assuming their character so incredibly simple.

OTHER RESOURCES

In addition to my master cheat sheet, I’ve also prepped these resources:

• Handout: Grodon’s Journal: A one-page version of the handout with a fancy-looking font. (The font is SF New Republic. I use it as a kind of lingua franca in the Ninth World.)
• NPC Portraits and Graphics: These depict Lady Weiss’ Tower, Lady Weiss, Frin, and Meriod. They’re formatted to be printed as 4×6 photos. The character portraits have been heavily photoshopped from the group portrait on pg. 10 of the scenario so that you can present each NPC individually. The picture of Lady Weiss’ Tower comes from here. (Check it out, it’s pretty cool.)
• Cypher and Ability Cheat Sheets: These are designed to eliminate book look-ups for the pregenerated characters included in the adventure. I’ve found that they save about 20-30 minutes of playing time, so their use greatly improves pace if you’re using Into the Violet Valet as a one-shot for introducing people to the game.
• Cypher Cards: These are for all the cyphers that the PCs can find or gain during the adventure. (This includes the three cyphers that Frin brings them, see above.) These cards are designed to be printed on Avery 8471 business cards, but can easily be printed on any paper or cardstock and then cut out. (There are two full sets so that I could just print the page once and have enough for both of the sessions I was scheduled to run at Gencon.)
• PC Tent Cards: Once again featuring the pregen characters. I prep these and put them in the middle of the table. As people approach, they can select whichever character looks appealing to them and put the tent card in front of them. It’s a nice, quick way to facilitate character selection and also means that you (and other players) can quickly identify who’s playing who with a quick glance during play. These files are designed to be printed with Avery “Small Tent Cards” (template 5302), but you could also just print them on normal cardstock. What you need to do is take each A file and then flip it and print the matching B file. (Each sheet has four tent cards, so I’ve designed the three files so that I get two complete sets of character names if I print all three (to minimize wastage). If you just want one set, print sets 1 and 2 and you should be good to go.)

The design ethos of Numenera is focused on providing the GM with a strong mechanical structure for making rulings while keeping those mechanics minimal so that the GM is free to make those rulings. That, all by itself, pretty much lands the system right in the middle of my sweet spot. But what really elevates the game to the next level – the thing that really makes it shine – is the GM intrusion mechanic.

Which is why it’s unfortunate that I’ve seen so many GMs struggling to grok the mechanic.

I understand where they’re coming from: I was skeptical about intrusions, too, until I saw them in actual play. They’re an unusual tool and it may break some of the expectations you have as a result of how RPGs typically work, but based on my experience it will be well worth your time to embrace them.

BREAKING THE RULES

For those not already familiar with Numenera, here’s a brief overview of how the mechanic works: The GM announces that they are making an intrusion and hands the player whose PC is the primary target of that intrusion 2 XP. That player can either spend 1 XP they already have to cancel the intrusion (returning the 2 XP to the GM) or they can accept the intrusion, take 1 XP for themselves, and give 1 XP to another player.

The core functionality of the GM intrusion is that it allows you to make things worse than the mechanics of the game would normally suggest. An easy example is having a PC drop their weapon: If you’re playing a game that doesn’t have an explicit fumble mechanic for that, it would be really unusual for a GM to announce that this happens on a failed attack roll. It would be even more unusual for a GM to decide that it happens on a successful attack.

But that’s what the GM intrusion allows you to do: You thought it would be cool for the PC to hit the mammoth-saur with his axe so hard that the axe got stuck in the creature’s thick hide and wrenched out of his hands. In any other game, this would usually cause the players to disconnect from the game world and be wrenched into the metagame because the GM is “breaking the rules”. But the GM intrusion mechanic not only lubricates this interaction (allowing the player to stay focused on the game world), it also includes a feedback mechanic by which the player can say “no, you’ve gone too far, I reject the intrusion”.

A DIGRESSION ON DISSOCIATION

Some of you may now be pointing your finger in horror and crying out, “Dissociated mechanic!” And, yes, that’s true. The mechanics of XP spending in Numenera is very similar to the use of fate/luck points in other systems and they’re tied directly into the intrusion mechanic.

But as I’ve mentioned many times in the past (and, most notably, in the Brief Primer on Dissociated Mechanics), it’s not the end of the world for an RPG to include some dissociated mechanics as long as those mechanics are providing a valuable function.

In the case of GM intrusions, the function of liberating the GM to take huge creative risks while being “protected” by a safety net which allows the players to seamlessly rein them in if they go too far is absurdly valuable.

It should also be noted, for those who are particularly allergic to dissociated mechanics, that GM intrusions are incredibly flexible tools which are used entirely at the GM’s discretion: You can use them all the time, you can use them rarely, or you can use them never. More importantly, the nature of each intrusion is entirely up to you. That means you can make them as associated or dissociated as you want: It’s very trivial, for example, to only use intrusions which a PC could avoid or negate through the actions they take.

USING THE INTRUSION

This ties into something that’s really important to understand about GM intrusions:

The primary purpose of an intrusion is NOT to punish the players.

Intrusions are actually doing the exact opposite of that. In fact, if you’ve ever had the experience of having a really cool idea (like a character’s axe getting stuck in their opponent) and then rejecting it because it’s kind of a bullshit move and it feels unnecessarily punitive to your players… well, GM intrusion greases the wheel for it.

But intrusions aren’t just a method of injecting awesome into your campaign. Of equal importance is their other primary function:

Use GM intrusions to handle outright shortcomings in the rules.

Rather than provide laborious technical detail, Numenera trusts the GM to make specific rulings from generic guidelines. But it also realizes that useful abstractions can frequently give rise to illogical situations when applied to the details of specific situations: GM intrusions provide a useful omnitool for restoring logic.

An example given in the rulebook is a PC who decides to turn his back on an armed opponent in order to raise a ladder into position: According to a strict interpretation of the rules, there’s no reason that the PC can’t do that (he has initiative and so he takes and completes his action before the NPC). The GM, however, recognizes that this doesn’t make sense in the specific context of the action being proposed, so he uses a GM intrusion to give the NPC a free attack on the PC.

Couldn’t the game have included a full suite of mechanics for “attacks of opportunity” or something like that? Sure. But what do you do about the next corner case? And the next one after that? Just keep adding more rules? Pretty soon you end up with a rulebook that looks like Shadowrun 5^th Edition. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but Numenera is giving you a different way of dealing with the problem.

NARRATIVE CONTROL

Because GM intrusions are such a flexible tool, they can also be used as a narrative control mechanic. What’s interesting about their use in this context is that the GM is still the ultimate arbiter of when the intrusions will be used, which means that the GM can run a very traditional game while opening up specific arenas within the game world for negotiation.

An example frequently used in the Numenera rulebook is the appearance of unexpected reinforcements: The GM uses an intrusion and two more chirogs drop out of the leafy canopy above you!

Let’s break down the options here:

1. The GM could decide NOT to have any reinforcements up.
2. The GM could decide that the two chirogs are DEFINITELY there and the players have no say about it.
3. The GM could decide that the two chirogs MIGHT be there and use a GM intrusion to negotiate their arrival with the players.

A purely traditional RPG only offers the first two options (and those options still exist in Numenera); but the intrusion mechanic offers the third.

And this third option – the narrative control option – can really be pushed even further than the rulebook takes it: Any element of the game world that you’re willing to open up to negotiation with your players can be slickly handled through the simple interface of the intrusion. Is their best friend secretly betraying them? Has the king been replaced by a technological doppelganger? Are the rat things actually friendly and misunderstood (instead of vile and evil)?

As these examples also demonstrate, it’s not necessary to think of an intrusion as a singular point in time, either: They can have wide-ranging and irrevocable implications for the future. Or, alternatively, seamlessly retcon the past with terrible revelations.

INTRUSIONS AS UBER-FUMBLES

Perhaps the most common use of the GM intrusion at my table is the “uber-fumble”: Wow, it sucks that you failed that check. Here, lemme make it a little bit worse for you.

Notable examples from my last few sessions include:

• You try to dodge out of the way of the club, but you duck the wrong way. It slams into your chest, lifts your from your feet, and sends you hurtling backwards… directly through the dimensional rift.
• The psychic assault emanating from the cranial slugs burrowing into your skull suddenly forms a horrific neural net that short circuits through your synapses. Take 3 Intellect damage… and the creature has taken spastic control of your limbs. You’ll attack Sheera next round.
• Your razor wing hurtles towards his face, but his hand snaps up with lightning speed, snatches it from the air, and whips it back towards you. Give me a Speed defense check.

I find that these moments provide spikes of intensity and interest that can break up the normal cycle of a combat: Whenever the pace of an encounter seems to be lagging or has settled into a predictable cycle, the use of an intrusion immediately shakes things up. (Using unusual actions and events during a combat encounter is just good advice in general, of course, but intrusions really let you dial the intensity up to 11.)

One of the unique ways you can leverage intrusions to accomplish this, however, is by merely threatening the intrusion before the dice are rolled. This technique is particularly effective if you’re using the Numenera XP cards: As the player prepares for the roll, simply grab two XP cards and hold them up for the table to see. The message is clear: If Heather fails her roll, something extra horrible is going to happen.

This is a form of metagame special effect: By raising the stakes of the roll, you focus the table’s attention and passion on the die roll. This works particularly well in Numenera because the modifiers to a task are all applied to the difficulty: By the time you roll the dice, you know exactly what number needs to appear on the face of the die for success. When the die lands, there is an immediate and explosive release of all the tension built into that roll (one way or the other).

FREQUENCY OF INTRUSIONS

The Numenera core rulebook recommends one GM intrusion per player per session.

If that works for you, great. In practice, though, I’ve found that I’m using them about three times more frequently than that. I don’t really have a specific goal of using X number of intrusions per session, of course. I just use them when it feels right (which usually means whenever I’ve got a good idea).

By the same token, you don’t want to overuse your intrusions, either. Only use an intrusion if you’ve got a really awesome (or really horrible) idea. You want your intrusions to mean something.

The other thing you should be cautious of if you find yourself using lots of intrusions is the accumulation of XP: If your players are frequently spending XP to reroll dice, purchase short-term benefits, and the like you probably won’t run into any problems. If you end up with a table which is consciously hoarding their XP and refuse to spend it on anything except character advancement then plenteous intrusions can make the problem worse.

(In general, though, hoarding XP in Numenera produces a sub-optimal experience in any case. So you should try to figure out how to get your players to use XP in the way the game intends: That might mean that you should be doing a better job of offering awesome short-term benefits to encourage XP expenditures. Or it might just mean talking to your players and making sure they understand the opportunities they’re passing up. Or, as the rulebook suggests as an alternative solution, you could also just impose a ratio of short-to-long-term XP expenditures.)

DON’T NEGATE SUCCESS

The final word of caution I would give about the use of intrusions is this: Don’t negate success.

The rulebook talks about using intrusions in order to force a task check even when the character would normally succeed automatically. In my opinion, such intrusions should be used very sparingly. And what you should never do is take a successful die roll and turn it into a failure. It’s cheap and it’s frustrating.

To be clear: It’s okay to complicate success. Just don’t negate it.

If their sword gets stuck in the mammoth-saur, the mammoth-saur still gets hurt. If they shoot the rope holding up the numenera device creating an interdimensional portal, the device still falls (even if the intrusion reveals that it’s going to fall on top of them). If they succeeded in following the bad guy’s tracks, they still succeed in finding the bad guy (it just turns out he’s laid an ambush for them). And so forth.

I suppose this can probably be broadened into a general principle:

Your players should hate your intrusions, but they should love to hate them.

Go to Part 1

Before we proceed, I want to talk a little about my assumptions here: By default, the process of advancing a tier means that you gain +4 stat points, +1 to an Edge of your choice, +1 Effort, and a skill. (You’ll also pick up extra abilities from your character’s Type, but we’re not going to worry about that for the moment.) For the purpose of these discussions, however, I’m not going to be looking at characters who have dumped all their advancements into becoming hyper-specialized at doing one thing.

For example, I’m going to assume that characters are spreading their Edge boosts around instead of concentrating them all in a single stat. (In practice, I’ll be assuming that your highest Edge will be 1 + ½ your Tier.)

For the purposes of analyzing what characters are really capable of, I’m also going to be bumping up the descriptions of tasks with difficulties of 8+ (for the reasons that I described in Part 1). In practice, we’ll be looking at something like this:

(Difficulty 12 is the significant breakpoint here because a person with specialization, the best circumstances in the world, and willing to expend a single level of Effort still couldn’t possibly succeed.)

TIER 1 vs. TIER 3

Our general discussion has gone a long way towards establishing our baseline expectations for a Tier 1 character: They’ve got Edge 1 in one or two ability scores and they’ve got one level of Effort. If we imagined a “Tier 0” character who lacked any Edge or Effort, the Tier 1 guy can last a little longer and can also accomplish things that are a little bit tougher. We might think of him as being just a little bit better than a normal Joe, but the types of things he would consider “normal” or “routine” haven’t really shifted.

Now, let’s compare that starting character with a character who has achieved Tier 3: They’ve got Effort 3 and their high Edge is 3. They’ve probably also picked up at least one specialization.

The upper limit for this character in general has now become Difficulty 9: “A task worthy of tales told for years to come.” They don’t have to be skilled at it; they don’t need a great set of tools or perfect circumstances. They just focus their Effort on it and they’ll do stuff that people in the local aldeia will still be talking about a decade from now.

In their area of specialization, however, things are obviously even better: Without expending any effort at all, they can achieve things normal people would consider impossible (difficulty 8). Even under the worst conditions (+2 difficulty), they’re still capable of accomplishing stuff that average people would find intimidating under normal conditions.

And their absolute upper limit is even better: Specialization (-2), effort (-3), and a couple of assets (-2) means that they’re already capable of accomplishing difficulty 13 tasks… they’ve already blown the cap off our difficulty scale.

What type of stuff can they succeed at 50% of the time? Well, in general they can succeed at Intimidating tasks (stuff normal people almost never succeed at) 50% of the time by expending effort. If they’re specialized and have favorable conditions, they can achieve the impossible 50% of the time.

Notably, however, the stuff they consider routine doesn’t accelerate as quickly: Instead of just the stuff average people consider routine (difficulty 0 tasks), they also consider stuff people consider simple (difficulty 1 tasks) routine. Perhaps more telling, the “standard” difficulty of the game is now routine for them.

Okay, let’s use our touchstones: Even if these characters aren’t specifically trained at a task, they are capable of crafting any numenera item in the game; they can climb across smooth ceilings; and they are likely to possess knowledge very few people possess. If it’s their specialty, then they possess “completely lost knowledge” and they can do whatever the equivalent of climbing a wall of glass without any equipment is.

TIER 3 vs. TIER 6

So what we’ve rapidly established is that the small numbers of the Numenera system rapidly accumulate huge shifts in power and ability.

A Tier 3 character can generally perform the seemingly impossible and will, in their specialty, be capable of feats that will literally make them legends.

Because that top end already strains our ability to really comprehend what they’re capable of, the big conceptual shift between Tier 3 and Tier 6 is in the routine: With Edge 4 in their specialty, tasks of standard difficulty have become routine. More notably, that which normal people consider difficult they automatically consider simple.

(Pause and think about that for a moment: Think about the stuff that you find really difficult to do. The stuff that gives you a sense of satisfaction when you complete them successfully. Tier 6 characters consider that stuff trivial.)

The other end of the scale becomes simply staggering: Effort 6 expands their general range of ability (without skill or favorable circumstance) to difficulty 12 tasks; i.e., stuff that normal humans couldn’t even consider doing. Combine that with specialization (-2) and favorable circumstances (-2) and you’re up at difficulty 16… which is just completely off the human scale.

How far off the human scale? Well, the difference between “task worthy of legends that last for lifetimes” and what these characters are able to achieve in their specialization is the difference between a task the “most people can do most of the time” and “normal people almost never succeed”. (If there was a world where every high school basketball player had the skills of Michael Jordan, these guys would be the Michael Jordans of that world.)

Our touchstones have already been rendered largely useless, but consider this: Tier 6 characters who are not specifically skilled in climbing are nevertheless capable of expending a little effort and climbing featureless glass walls 45% of the time.

In an area of specialization (-2) they’ll have a 15% chance of knowing a piece of completely forgotten knowledge without spending any pool points. If they expend maximum effort, their chance of knowing something which (I must repeat) is completely forgotten rises to a mind-boggling 70%.

CONCLUSIONS

My big take-away from this is that by the point you reach Tier 6, Numenera is no longer a game about characters wandering through inexplicable technological ruins that they are incapable of understanding. The characters are capable of easily creating original pieces of numenera to rival even the most powerful technology of the Ancients and they almost certainly understand many of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos they inhabit.

(And if you’re still looking for a way to calibrate your understanding of the highest tiers, consider this: If a Tier 6 character was actually hyper-focused with Edge 6 (+3), a specialized skill (+2), proper tools (+1), and favorable circumstances (+1) they would consider even tasks that normal people consider “impossible without skill or great effort” to be routine.)

It looks to me like the turning point probably comes somewhere around Tier 4: Tier 1 you’re slightly better than the average person. Tier 2 you’re a highly talented expert (or Big Damn Hero depending on your perspective). Tier 3 is where you hit Legendary status. Tier 4 is where I think you have to start looking at a phase change in the types of stories your characters are getting involved with unless you want to suffer a dissonance with what the mechanics are telling you.

One notable thing to keep in mind, though: Although Numenera rapidly expands the high-end of potential, the low-end of surety doesn’t expand as quickly. The PCs may become incredibly potent demigods by the standards of their age; but they also remain distinctly mortal ones.