So, in The Encountered there are a couple of creatures (most noticeably certain undead such as Kullsarin) who have no Endurance (for obvious and understandable reasons) but have Source and Intent ranks.  Has anybody come up with a mechanic for them to be able to use actual Wielding, or is their Wielding ability simply reflected in their Specials?

Your question walks the line between RAW and RAI. 

At a guess I’d say the intent (RAI) is for those creatures to just use their specials.  Most likely the specials don’t have an endurance cost (AFB at work so I can’t check) to allow them to work.  The other possibility is that undead/zero endurance creatures are special and can wield without endurance cost.  Something like that would need to be reflected in their threat level.

Strictly by RAW, no endurance score means you can’t wield.

Yeah.  That’s pretty much what I figured.  I think that they’re balanced around not having Endurance and being unable to Wield.  I also imagine that if I just hand waved away Endurance costs for Undead Wielders it would be extremely unbalancing.  Thanks for the confirmation.

Since I really like the idea of an undead sorcerer of sorts, I might have to look at some way of giving some of them “Wielding use only” Endurance and just make sure that doesn’t overpower them.  I might have to scale back the specials to compensate.

On the other hand, I could probably just create an NPC Wielder using the character creation rules and say that it’s “Undead”, giving it the standard undead immunities but leaving it with Endurance.  It might be easier to balance that way, and might work out better in the long run since I’m planning on using the specific Undead Wielder as a long-term antagonist anyhow.

It’s my interpretation so certainly not that of a developer.  If you wait long enough I’m sure KaneSolo or MSL will be along with their interpretations as well.  If you’re really lucky we might even see a developer.

A word of caution, any interpretation of the rules you see from me will usually come down on the side of mundane non-magical PCs and NPCs.  I have a major hate-on for the imbalance caused by “magic” in pretty much all systems.  AO is the exception as wielding actually has a cost and is limited.

I got a few ideas you could use
1- If the Sorcerer is supposed to be the BBEG then let him be able to Wield unlimitedly.
2- Take it out of his HP
3- Give him a few items that have a pool of “magic energy” that he can tap & use instead of using endurance
4- Give him a few items that allow x/per day uses of Wielding ablities
5- Give him tech that is close to magic. Flamethrower instead of fireball. Electro-gloves instead of Shocking Grasp etc.

Personally I only like 1, 2 &, 3. Hope they help

Oh, I know that you (both) are not an “official” source, but it’s always good to hear other interpretations and ideas.  Having not run the game yet, I’m not sure how overpowered Wielding is yet (although I can see the potential for abuse).

And I like the idea of using health in place of EP for Undead Wielders.  I’m not sure how well the numbers would mesh yet, but if it does work I think I’d might prefer that over options 1 & 3.  I’m in agreement about options 4 & 5 not being as preferable.

Thanks again for the advice.

For what it’s worth, the cost on wielding is high enough that at realistic engagement ranges an offensive wielding effect has a decent potential to seriously harm the wielder.

Example:

At 199 meters, just over 1/10 mile, a wielder with a WPL of 20 (10 source, 10 intention) would need a 30 in the linked attribute (conditioning IIRC) to have an average chance of passing the 54 DR to do a base + 6d4X2 (avg. 40 damage) 10 meter fireball effect.  This will cost 7 endurance and take 7 seconds of standing still to do.  This also assumes that he commits all six dice to the effect.  If he should try to perform an instant effect it would go to a DR of 68 and take 14 endurance.  If he rolls below average on that check he just ate 4X14 (56) endurance.

Meanwhile the four guys with sporting rifles (range rating 5, exertion 9, chambered in 8 mm (2d6) ignoring magazine size since I’m assuming a 12 shot mag with 4 shots per segment) that the wielder is targeting with equivalent skill levels 20 SPL and 30 physical acumen just hit with an average of nine bullets each during that seven seconds.  That’s a total of 36 2d6+3 bullets, call it 378 damage on average.  So I’d imagine even the most robust wielder is going to be hurting after eating over 100 health damage per segment.

Wielding isn’t at all unbalanced at realistic ranges.  Where it shines is in the arbitrary 20 m X 10 m box that is the normal engagement on most tabletops.  Your mileage may vary, I know the wielder in my group is very afraid to wield past the average score on his dice pool.  He’s already nearly killed himself with backlash by rolling poorly once.

Ok, I felt summoned to this thread; did someone invoke the name of KaneSolo?!?!?!
Just kidding.

From the games I’ve played in, any creature with a special ability is able to use that special ability without issue, i.e. endurance cost, health cost, etc… unless the entry specifically states it.
So an undead using something like a life drain touch (melee) attack is able to do that as many times as the entry says it can, but does not spend any Endurance.
It’s kind of like the spiritual entities in the back section of Encountered, who have something like healing abilities, but do not spend Endurance to heal… it is innate.

So let’s examine the aforementioned “Kullsarin”:

Let’s first keep in mind that Kullsarin is Lord of the Undead, and a threat level 10 creature. Those are some seriously bad creatures once you get past level 6.

His Aura of Fear, Density Shift and and Nihilistic Touch are at will, not subject to recharge, so he can use them every segment if he chooses (keeping in mind, he still has to split his dice pools to touch any party members over multiple segments).
His Wave of Agony, however, is a limited use ability with 1 charge, and then taking an hour before it recharges. So that is a one shot attack for any battle.

So, basically, in the spirit of running a campaign where the party will encounter and contront Kullsarin, they better be REALLY prepared. But in the general running of the game, special abilities are just that, special. In the case where an undead lists some Wielding sources and intentions, **I** would assume they are there to support the existense of the specials, without giving them full access to wielding (unless they have an Endurance pool).

You can also look at it like this: this being used to be a serious wielder, until he became undead. It does not mean he lost all that knowledge, just the ability to access it for now…. unless he feasts on the souls of the party to give him temp Endurance ... MUAHAAHAAHAAHAA