Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer: Changeling Edition

[Wade L]

What means do Changelings have to see through supernatural concealment like Light-Shy(or Obfuscate from Vampire or whatever else)?

I'm thinking Solstice Revelation and Goblin's Eye, but am I missing anything?

Are there any additional means available to Hobs, Huntsmen, or True Fae?

Half my group has Light-Shy and I want them to get good use out of it, so I'm making people who know Goblin's Eye very rare, but I'm wondering if there are any other obvious means of triggering a Clash of Wills over it that I'm missing.

[Satchel]

What means do Changelings have to see through supernatural concealment like Light-Shy(or Obfuscate from Vampire or whatever else)?

Pending new Arcadian Contracts in a later supplement, Court Contracts and Goblin Contracts that do that. Also, iron.

Are there any additional means available to Hobs, Huntsmen, or True Fae?

Same deal, with especial note for Huntsmen using iron often.

Half my group has Light-Shy and I want them to get good use out of it, so I'm making people who know Goblin's Eye very rare, but I'm wondering if there are any other obvious means of triggering a Clash of Wills over it that I'm missing.

Not in a game where most of the playable characters have good reason to be paranoid about otherworldly spies and the entire metaphysic they deal with is assumed to get at problems sideways most of the time.

[Wade L]

Pending new Arcadian Contracts in a later supplement, Court Contracts and Goblin Contracts that do that. Also, iron.

I'm real curious how you'd use iron to pierce invisibility powers - sure, I get that if you secure a piece of iron to someone they might not be able to hide with a Contract (or maybe they can hide, but the iron will still be visible...), but if they're already hidden...how would you tag them with the iron in the first place?

It does make me wonder if carrying iron would prevent you from using Light-Shy at all, or if like you'd turn invisible but those shotgun shells loaded with iron in your pocket would still be visible floating in mid-air...

[Neos01]

I'm real curious how you'd use iron to pierce invisibility powers - sure, I get that if you secure a piece of iron to someone they might not be able to hide with a Contract (or maybe they can hide, but the iron will still be visible...), but if they're already hidden...how would you tag them with the iron in the first place?

It does make me wonder if carrying iron would prevent you from using Light-Shy at all, or if like you'd turn invisible but those shotgun shells loaded with iron in your pocket would still be visible floating in mid-air...

You can toss iron powder in a room.
If there is someone concealed, the iron that comes in contact with him would still be visible and you would see a standing man shaped iron cloud

[Unahim]

I'm real curious how you'd use iron to pierce invisibility powers - sure, I get that if you secure a piece of iron to someone they might not be able to hide with a Contract (or maybe they can hide, but the iron will still be visible...), but if they're already hidden...how would you tag them with the iron in the first place?

It does make me wonder if carrying iron would prevent you from using Light-Shy at all, or if like you'd turn invisible but those shotgun shells loaded with iron in your pocket would still be visible floating in mid-air...

So long as the iron you carry is covered by something else, I guess it'd work, since there would be no way for its presence to reach your senses in the first place (Light-Shy edits the Changeling out from everyone else's senses, it doesn't make the Changeling see-through). But if the iron is on the outside, it wouldn't work.

Tossing iron powder seems like a good tactic. Depending on how "fairy tale logic" you want to go, perhaps looking through a loop of (cold?) iron might also do the trick. Depends on the level of buy in at your table, I suppose.

[Satchel]

I'm real curious how you'd use iron to pierce invisibility powers […] if they're already hidden...how would you tag them with the iron in the first place?

Frames for glasses or windows. Horseshoes over doorways and other thresholds. Daubed in a paste under or over your eyes. Placed as sheeting in front of something you'd expect to see a shadow cross.

The book specifically says to favor iron piercing fae magic or otherwise being immune to it. There's a wealth of literature to draw from for methodology here.

[Aurumae]

Do other Fae creatures with Glamour - for example Hobgoblins, Huntsmen, and True Fae - have the ability to escape bonds and grapples by spending Glamour the way Changelings do?

[Tessie]

Do other Fae creatures with Glamour - for example Hobgoblins, Huntsmen, and True Fae - have the ability to escape bonds and grapples by spending Glamour the way Changelings do?

I'm pretty sure it's a changeling specific ability. Some people even house rule that loyalists who didn't escape Arcadia don't have that ability (or, at least, there's rumours about it in their settings).

[Master Aquatosic]

I've never seen it explictily stated they can't do that but it just makes sense that only Changelings. Honestly, since it's all part of the same ability, I would rule at my table that only escapee Changelings can turn any doorway into a Hedge Gate. Everyone else has to find natural ones, even True Fae.

That said, do you think a Huntsman could shapeshift out of a grapple by taking on bigger or smaller forms?

[Tessie]

That said, do you think a Huntsman could shapeshift out of a grapple by taking on bigger or smaller forms?

If it's a grapple rather than just restrains, then spending an action on shapeshifting means you don't spend an action grappling, making it child's play for the opponent to just do their next grappling move (which could be reapplying Hold or Restrain if the ST thinks the new shape requires new holds to pin down). The exception being if the resulting form is too large or too small to grapple with, in which case the grapple would end.

[Sith_Happens]

Shapeshifting isn’t a grapple move in the first place, you do it reflexively or you don’t do it at all.

[HelmsDerp]

Shapeshifting isn’t a grapple move in the first place, you do it reflexively or you don’t do it at all.

I know that's how grappling works RAW but it seems odd to disallow shape changing because someone is holding you. Like, Tam Lin is a pretty famous fairy tale with a signficant part of the story being about holding onto a shape changer. See also, Proteus, literal namesake of Protean. More generally I don't think grappling was written to account for magic abilities that don't require freedom of movement to enact.

[Sith_Happens]

You’d think that but this is the very gameline that rewrote grappling to be more explicit that that’s how it works. I don’t entirely get it either but there it is.

[Aurumae]

You’d think that but this is the very gameline that rewrote grappling to be more explicit that that’s how it works. I don’t entirely get it either but there it is.

I get what they were going for with Changeling's more explicit grapple rules, but RAW it's very silly. There are tonnes of cases in Changeling and other gamelines where it makes sense for characters to be able to take instant actions even though they're grappled. My houserule is that you can take any instant actions while grappled that logically make sense (shapeshifting and various powers that don't require the use of your arms) however doing so happens on your initiative and deprives you of your roll to contest the grapple that turn

[Amravanti]

How do the alternative Courts work? When does a Monarch reign?

It’s pretty easy for the Seasonal Courts, right? Three month cycle, reigns end. But when does the Queen of Coin from the Traders Courts reign?

Does the Dragon Court (Morning, Day, Night Courts) cycle through monarchs three times during the course of a day? I don’t see any indication but perhaps I’m missing something?