Les Ombres d'Esteren - Forum officiel

Hello everyone.

I seem to have trouble figuring out how sanity and mental resistance work in game.

Say "Varth a hunter with 4 Trauma already, and walks into a hut, to find blood and gore all over the walls and floors. He then must roll a mental resistance test and he has 6 on it, so i would roll a D10 and add 6." Is this correct?

Also if, say Varth failed this check, what happens now? i know he gets some temporary trauma (How many i dont know) and i think if it goes to Syndrome i must roll again to see if i get a crisis/scarred?

Im a GM and player who works much better if i see an example of the mechanics to understand it, i hope its not troubling at all.

Ok, I willt ry to explain it with an example:

You, as the GM have to decicde the difficulty of the Mental Resistance roll. In your example I would say 14 is reasonable, but you could also decide to make it easier (e.g.: 11) or even more difficult. But let's assume 14 is your decision. Then looking at the table on page 270, you see that a failure would result in 2 Trauma points.
The next step is that Varth has to roll a dice and add his value of Mental Resistance of 6 to it:

Example 1) Varth rolls a natural 1
This would result that ONE of the Trauma points will be permanent, the other one is temporary. In addition he has to roll another dice, as a Mental Resistance dice roll of 1 results in a Scarring. He then refers the second roll with the Scarring table on page 271.
This is the only reason you have to roll twice during a Mental Resistance procedure.
If he is at a Syndrome or Madness level with his Trauma points, the failure will trigger a Crisis in addition to the Scarring.

Example 2) Varth rolls a 4
The total of his Mental Resistance value of 6 and the 4 is 10, which is less than 14. So, he will receive 2 temporary Trauma points.
If he is at a Syndrome or Madness level with his Trauma points, the failure will trigger a Crisis.

Example 3) Varth rolls a 8
The total of his Mental Resistance value of 6 and the 8 is 14, which is more or the same as the difficulty of 14. So, he won't receive a Trauma point or anything else.

Example 4) Varth roll a natural 10
The total of his Mental Resistance value of 6 and the 10 is 16, which is more or the same as the difficulty of 14. So, he won't receive a Trauma point, but as he rolled a natural 10 he will receive ONE Hardening point.


If the difficulty is 17 or higher, the character will receive the Trauma points in the brackets, even if he succeeds in the Mental Resistance roll, but no Crisis will be raised.

I hope this helps

Hey, thanks so much, i was worried i was over-complicating it too much, but it seems straightforward.

Ill have a test game soon, using Book: 0 of Loch Varn story arch, so ill use that to try out some core things.

I would suggest to play Poison or Red Fall first. Loch Varn is quite complicated from the gameflow. I doubt that you have any time left to learn the rules without removing the flow of the adventure.

Thank you very much for your thorough answer, WoeRie! Everything is exactly as you explained it

And I also agree that Poison or Red Fall would be better scenarios to warm up before getting to more complicated ones like Loch Varn, with its crazy atmosphere and messed up timeline.

Basically, in terms of complexity, Poison is Beginner, Red Fall is Intermediate, and Loch Varn is Experienced.

But of course, if you have a good feeling about Loch Varn, far be it from me to discourage you!

I tried Loch Varn today, i did it because the book said if i can do this story, it gives a good idea on some elements in the game, otherwise i wouldnt have prepared it, i made a few mistakes too but my group was happy about the results.

It was the premade characters, Ean and Liam, Ean nearly went into madness, which i assumed it would trigger his paranoia, while Liam was stuck at the camp inside the factory, carassing his brother

It was quite awkward to explain the players mental states though, as both had reached Syndrome and were scarred too. And i told them to just try think about how their characters Ways and their disorders would react.

Ill have a look at Poison and Red fall though sounds very exciting.

Sweet! Glad to know it went well! I hope you and your players will have a blast with Poison and Red Fall too!