Numenera Cypher Question

[tangleknot]

What are Cypher levels and how would they effect game play?

My thoughts are Cypher levels is that it is the activation difficulty That would mean most of these cyphers can be nearly impossible to activate as low tier character, and at the very least unreliable to activate. Example Cypher level 1d6+2 or an average of 15-18 difficulty.

Thanks for the help!

 

[dm4hire]

Cypher level establishes the quality of the item, how effective it is and sets the difficulty to affect an opponent if applicable. Though you are close concerning it being used to determine difficulty trying to use it.

A character can attempt to use a cypher that is not identified; this is usually an Intellect task using the cypher’s level. Failure might mean that the PC can’t figure out how to use the cypher or that he uses it incorrectly (GM’s discretion). Of course, even if the PC uses the unidentified cypher correctly, he has no idea what its effect will be.
Identified cyphers can be used automatically. Once a cypher is activated, if it has an ongoing effect, that effect applies only to the character who activated the cypher. A PC can’t activate a cypher and then hand it to another character to reap the benefits.

If you're worried about the cypher's effect upon the game then remember this part in the book concerning its use.

If a PC used a potent cypher to easily kill a powerful and important opponent, remember these three things:
1. She doesn’t have that cypher anymore.
2. There will be more bad guys.
3. Combat’s not the point of the game—it’s merely an obstacle.

 

[tangleknot]

Thanks for the clarification.
I'm not sure if its me or Monte but I can read his paragraphs a half a dozen times and I still can't pull apart the mechanics.

 

[dm4hire]

It's not you. The book could use some cleaning up to make it read better and easier to understand.