Fria Ligans forum

With the revised Core Rules and a new Bestiary coming out, this is an opportunity to make clearer the wording of how player-heroes receive and resist Shadow points. Currently, abilities is worded like the following:

Spent 1 Hate to make one Player-hero gain 3 Shadow points (Sorcery)

The Loremaster's section of the rules tell us that a player-hero can resist these points with a Shadow Test, but I've seen a surprising amount of people miss out on this because the Shadow Test is really only detailed as a way to resist these points in the "The Shadow" section of the core roles, and not in each ability itself. I keep coming across people who don't know about Shadow Tests, and I've even listened to "live play" podcasts where the group seems unaware of Shadow Tests, too. "Wow, I just take 3 Shadow points? That seems overpowered. Okay, I guess."

So if possible, it would be nice to have these abilities call for a Shadow Test within their text, for example:

Spent 1 Hate to force one Player-hero to make a Shadow Test (Wisdom) to resist 3 Shadow points (Sorcery)

If this change is made, I'd also suggest "The Shadow" section in the core book should also mention that a player-hero can always make a Shadow test to resist the shadow even if old texts don't mention it, unless the text explicitly says they cannot, or in specific situations like a Misdeed. This would help newcomers to know that existing books that don't mention a Shadow Test still allow it.

Thank you!

A bit of extra explanation might help some people, but to be fair to the rulebook it already tells us about resisting shadow outside the loremaster section:

"Shadow Tests. The corrupting effect of the Shadow can be resisted by making VALOUR and WISDOM rolls, prompted by sources such as Dread, Sorcery, and Greed." - p17

And things like the below serve as a further reminder outside the loremaster's section

"Player-heroes gain 1 Shadow point whenever their Fellowship Focus is Wounded, suffers a bout of madness, or is otherwise seriously harmed (this Shadow gain cannot be prevented with a Shadow Test — see page 137)." p55

"WISDOM or VALOUR affect the game in a few ways: they provide Player-heroes with special abilities and superior equipment, and allow them to resist the dangerous influence of the Shadow (see The Shadow, page 136)." p78

Various cultural blessings and cultural benefits reinforce this too - multiple references, can dig out the page references if useful to anyone.