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hi,
Is it possible to PC or NPC to unweave an opponent thread (talent, knack, spell, other capability)? I haven’t find anything about it in the rules (only the possibility to unweave an opponent thread from a named spell) ?
I’ll play the adventure « anaro’s serpent » from TDK supplement and PC get a "cursed" artefact with an opponent thread weave on it…(precision: PC won’t have the necessary time to study and weave their own thread to it !)

thanks

Hi Noture,

You are talking about a Threaded Item (which has a curse) yes?

While you cannot break a thread to a Threaded Item, you can see that Threaded Items have a "Maximum number of threads". When a new thread is woven, and the total would exceed the maximum, the oldest thread is "lost" (it gets replaced).

There is no way to unweave another character's thread to a magic item (outside of replacing it with a thread of your own).

There is an optional rule that allows you to unweave your own threads (it's in the ED3 Player's Guide). It costs 5 Strain, and you need to score an Excellent Success on a Thread Weaving test against your unlowered Spell Defense + the Thread Rank (so if you have a Spell Def of10 and a Rank 5 thread, it's an Excellent Success against a DN of 15). You don't regain Legend Points spent on the thread.

I think that the rules are structured this way because of "Pattern Items". Controlling a Pattern Item means you can weave threads to get bonuses vs the target. Having an "easy" way to un-weave other people's threads would totally remove Pattern Items as a threat to Horrors, Named Dragons and other big magics.

ok that's clear now. thank you for your help!

Interesting, because I went back and read the adventure. The last lines of the climax are (Throal, p 120):

"If the adventurers slay <spoilers> or somehow dispel the thread he has woven to the staff..."

That's interesting to me. I wonder if there was something in previous editions you could have done to the thread. I'll have to dig back.


You could, of course, make up some mechanic that is specific to that item, in your Barsaive, that would allow the breaking of that thread.

From the EDC Player's Compendium under the Unraveling Knack:

"...The more robust and stable threads of True patterns can only be unraveled through the use of powerful talents or spells, such as Soul Shatter and Shatter Pattern."

So theoretically there are some methods to break a thread that way, though these are also likely to just end up killing the person in question. Also in theory, you could use Dispel Magic to temporarily Dispel some of the effects of an ongoing thread. The examples for this type of use are things like Dragon or Horror powers and doesn't specifically list thread effects. It would be more of a judgement call depending on the nature of the specific thread effect being dispelled.

For something like a curse that is fueled by a thread, I might say that the effect could be lifted for a Dispel Magic's duration (1 round), after which the spell is done and the thread's magic kicks back in. Someone might be able to use the temporary relief to break out of the curse by making a relevant test to resist the effect starting up again. This would be a very high test to resist, probably an Extraordinary against the original effect, since the thread is already in place, and it still probably wouldn't break the thread, so the test would need to be repeated every so often (say maybe each hour) to keep the curse from taking hold again until the thread is gone. Again, this is just something ad-hoc I might allow depending on the nature of the effect in question (I'm not familiar with the supplement, so the thought may not even apply).

As a desperation move, the person could always just die and get brought back with something like a Last Chance Salve, since dying breaks all threads attached to you.

i've find it!!!
spell fragile pattern (PC3 / p144) ==>question: what is the death rating of an item???
spell alter form (PC3 / p135)
i think that this two spells must replace Soul Shatter and Shatter Pattern in the Unraveling Knack description, no?

but the question about dispelling magic remains: "the dispel magic spell can also be used to dispel magical effects produced by [...] magic items..."
==>how does it work???