[3ED] Violating Blood Oaths

[kosmit]

If I have Blood Peace with some character, and somehow I will be made into attacking her (through Inspire Rage questor power, spell or poison etc.) will the Blood Oath be violated?

[Baravakar]

[kosmit]

Yep, but there is some paranoia we can get about oaths: If somebody got into the fight and was hurt then even if he was high-circle warrior, the teamate who allowed him to get into the fight would also break the oath through inaction.

[Mataxes]

The lesson to take from this is that blood oaths are not something to take lightly. Those that do, do so at their own peril.

There is a school of thought that the whole idea of an adventuring group with a True Pattern is ludicrous on its face, because adventuring is something that will (at some point) result in somebody involved coming to harm, and taking part in that breaks the oath.

I'm personally not a nitpicker when it comes to adjudicating blood oaths and the harm/no harm situation. If you are in a group blood oath (as part of a group True Pattern), and one of your companions is out running an errand and gets jumped by muggers, I'm not going to penalize the members of the group who stayed back at the inn. While not going along with their companion to make sure no harm came to him could be viewed as "inaction", I'm of the opinion that the magic of the oath is more concerned with immediate and concrete harm rather than a more nebulous concept of indeterminate harm in the potential future.

Yes, this does mean that mind control and similar kinds of magical influence can cause problems for somebody bound by a blood oath.

[kosmit]

Ok, thank for you feedback and I would gladly read how more people handle that

What about firing into melee and hitting your party instead of enemy? Archer with Rule of One on attack test? Or even without rule of one but with not good enough attack test? He didn't do that willingly...

[Mataxes]

Personally, I wouldn't penalize the Archer. It strikes me as a Catch-22 kind of "gotcha!" where the GM was looking for an excuse. You know those stories of reading a "Wish" in the most literal and painful (to the PC) way? Kind of like that.

I mean, if he doesn't take the shot, you could argue he wasn't acting to prevent harm to his sworn ally, and could be penalized for that.

Honestly, I think focusing on the fiddly details is missing the forest for the trees, and to me feels like trying to game the system. You could interpret it that way, and as long as you're consistent about it at your table... if it works for you, great. I may not agree, but I don't think I'd accuse you of playing wrong. (Though I still reserve the right to call people out on specific abuses. )

I think that being overly technical and looking for edge cases that might screw the characters has the potential of removing a bit of the fun. Not to mention, I've seen that sort of approach often used by passive-aggressive GMs as a way to restrict the influence or effect of something they don't like, rather than be adult and discuss the issues with their players.

[kosmit]

Don't get me wrong. I didn't say that characters violated that oath after unlucky shot. I am just asking how you would deal with that because talking today to other GMs showed me that I treat blood oaths not as serious as they are. Example being hitting an sworn ally after being targeted by Inspire Rage questor power and then violating oath. I am very player-friendly when it comes to blood oaths etc...