Death By Surfeit said:
Cha bonus: It would seem sensible to apply both Cha and another ability to Prowess checks (I did look into the possibility), but as VVrayven said it could easily throw the tables for the purposes of hard focus.
Taking 20: The ‘taking 20’ generalisation was used for people using the Soft Focus variant on an assumption basis – the minimum length of sexual activity is thus six minutes. In Hard Focus, you can apply Fortitude saves, use Tricks in your favour, and it becomes much more tactical – you’re likely to want to prolong the experience to make sure your partner is Horny, conserve Carnal Arts to produce the most intense climax, and so on. There are no ways of improving Fort saves for a partner directly, but hey; it’s always nice to have a risk of, ahem, messing up.
Duration: As stated above, the Soft Focus variant places six minutes as the minimum time for sexual activity using those rules. I wrestled with a few numbers on Excel to try to work out the average duration of (no arousal to Climaxed) for men and women with different Fortitude save modifiers, but with little success. Programming-savvy people may have more luck, however. Anyways, the Hard Focus rules are typically used for multiple – Climaxed sessions where sexual fatigue really starts to come into play.
Thanks for clearing that up, DbS. I've gone back and read this entire thread more closely (I'd skimmed it the first time through) and noted that the answers to some of my questions were already there -- sorry for that bit of laziness.
There are still two matters that I'm unclear on, however. Firstly, what exactly has become of the Sex Tricks? Some of them seem to have been repurposed as features of the various Carnal Art feats, yet I noticed that someone (you or VVrayven, I think) made a passing comment to the effect that they'd still be available apart from taking a particular feat. What's the current thinking on this?
Secondly, some of the initial low-level Carnal Arts appear to supplant the basic mechanic that allows a character to substitute any other attribute for CHA in relevant situations. Is the idea simply that the "relevant situations" restriction is lifted when you have that particular Art? Or have the rules changed in that regard?
Further Observations
I've been looking for logical "holes" in the core mechanics, especially the Arousal DC table, and came up with some items that may be worth considering. Firstly, I'm unable to find any special rule applicable to the attempt to arouse a male character post-climax. In the NUCK, I believe, there was a flat penalty attached to the SP check, which was appropriate although not a stiff enough (*ahem*) penalty IMO. Currently it seems that only normal Fatigue (-2) and Exhaustion (-6) rules apply to a male character in this state, which leads to the following strange phenomenon: according to the DC table, any person, however unskilled, can give a Fatigued or Exhausted male character a renewed erection only one round after climax, simply by taking 20 on the roll. I'd like to see a penalty of some kind applied in this circumstance; perhaps -10 for Fatigued and -15 for Exhausted or thereabouts?
A second strange phenomenon may be illustrated by the following case: Phil the Peasant, of average ability (all 10's and 11's) and no special talent, can *only* bring his cherished wife Paula the Peasant to orgasm by taking 20 on his Prowess check (after bringing her to a Peaked state). That he can do it at all is good of course, but should it really require an average person's entire concentration (as I interpret "taking 20" to mean) to bring an average woman to climax? To ameliorate that effect, I suggest we consider making the Arousal DC table represent
initial DC values that decrease with time. To wit: each round that Phil keeps Paula in the Aroused state decreases the DC by 1 for her to achieve the Peaked state; likewise, each round he can keep her in the Peaked state decreases the DC for Climax by 1. This may be more complication than we really want to add to the mechanics, but it does add a good amount of realism. Achieving an acceptable "realism - complexity" balance is, I suppose, the primary headache of RPG rules design.
I wonder, furthermore, whether there shouldn't be some sort of downside to taking 20, such as forfeiting the opportunity to make additional Prowess checks in the same round, or forfeiting the opportunity to make a Fortitude save to resist Arousal, or both. Characters who want to "experience" the act more and not focus so hard on the technique they're using on their partner should settle for taking 10, I think.
Okay, that's enough for now. I hate to throw wrenches into the works, and hopefully I haven't done so. As ever, take what's useful and chuck the rest.
