Wagered Sequence question

[mikuel]

Your starting Advantage Points start at whatever the ability is.  Once you lose Advantage Points, do you now have to roll against the decreased value?  So for instance, if you have Swordsmanship 18, and lose 12 APs, does that mean you now have to roll = or less than 6? 

Chained Sequence question. 

[mfbrandi]

17 hours ago, mikuel said:

So for instance, if you have Swordsmanship 18, and lose 12 APs, does that mean you now have to roll = or less than 6?

No, your TN is not affected by AP loss.° Your starting AP score is determined (in part) by the TN of the ability you use in the first round of the contest, but APs lost during the contest are not deducted from TNs later in the contest (irrespective of whether you switch ability). No AP-loss death spiral. A metaphor: you fight at full ability till you lose your last hit point.

I am basing this on Section 5.3 of version 0.97 of the SRD (pp. 43–47) not saying that AP changes affect TNs, not an explicit statement that they don’t, so I may have missed something (I am an idiot, after all). Is there any text that makes you think that lost AP do lower TN? If so give the reference and I will take another look.

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° And no TN increase from AP transferred from loser to victor on a big success.

[mfbrandi]

Version 0.1 of the SRD (p. 55) — when wagered sequences were still called extended contests — does have something to say (but is maybe not as explicit as you’d like):

• Your AP total stays the same when you change your ability, so it makes sense to start the contest with your best ability (appropriate to your goal, of course). If this seems odd, remember that advantage points measure advantage — how well the character is doing in the contest at the current moment. They do not measure proficiency; that is what the target number is for.