Infiltration Mechanics
As part of our general policy of making things clearer, we're beginning to lay down explicit mechanics for infiltrating enemies and the doing of sneaky things to them.
There are three levels of info security a piece of information can be held at, assuming it is being hidden at all, depending on the degree to which it can reasonably be disguised.
Tier 1: Information available by necessity to rank-and-file DEI employees, ex. Upcoming construction projects, major purchases, and other projects that require large-scale work.
Tier 2: Information or resources provided only to your hero units. Ex. The existence of magic, other dimensions, most of your research options, your secretive black ops work.
Tier 3: Information held only by you and your direct Council. Ex. The fact that you have Flubber samples for research, the location of your Crystal Key, etc.
Note that things can change security levels- for example, on the turn a unit is working on the Other-Dimensionator, the Crystal Key must logically be in hero unit hands until the thing is complete and will thus be at level 2. Information is much harder to put back in its box than an object, obviously.
Likewise, there are three levels of infiltration.
In Tier 1 infiltration, you have placed informants and potential saboteurs into a company.
In Tier 2 infiltration, you have successfully infiltrated the enemy's hero unit list.
In Tier 3 infiltration, you have penetrated the enemy's inner circle of secrets and knowledge. Do note that if a faction has no council-equivalent or is small enough to not need one, this level is impossible. Small or command-focused factions are fundamentally slightly more secure than larger ones. In practice though this level is very hard to reach and its unlikely anyone will manage to do it to you unless you make some ill-thought council choices, especially regarding Opinion.
Infiltration Actions:
The base DC to infiltrate at Tier 1 is:
Base Infiltration DC= 50+Intrigue of King or Councilor equivalent+Relevant traits and company bonuses-penalties
Each higher tier of infiltration increases the DC by 50. However, having the lower level in place reduces the DC by 25, for a total increase of only 25.
You will not be able to infiltrate a faction unless you have already set up a spy network in the relevant area (Red Car, Olympia Network, etc).
The base DC will also be used when you are infiltrating with a purpose- say, trying to steal an item or discover a specific secret rather than performing a general infiltration. For every rank of security your target is behind, add 25 to the DC. For every rank of infiltration you have, reduce it by 25 (canceling out a level of security). Then we add whatever logical bonuses or penalties might be in place for a certain target, and there we go.
If this all sounds complicated don't worry, it's our job to do all this math. We're just letting you know how all this is calculated from now on instead of the previous 'eyeball it'.
So let's use DEI as an example.
We start with our base 50. Mirage has higher Intrigue than Doofenshmirtz, so we add her 31 (soon to be increased, but I'm using the numbers currently on the sheet). Diseased Lunatic grants a +7 to this DC.
So the base DC to infiltrate DEI is 50+31+7=88. In addition, Gary the Goozim grants a -5 to the target's roll if they are operating within DEI headquarters.
Stealing the Zero-Point technology was a tier 2 security action, granting +50 to the roll, so under this system the DC to perform what happened last turn was 138. However, each rank of infiltration the target had accomplished reduces that by 25.
Fallback Actions
In addition, the topic of stealing provides us with the chance to talk about what we now call Fallback Actions.
Sometimes, you perform an action that is risky. Even a regular failure might pose a problem of some kind, whether discovery or injury. As such, if one takes certain actions and fails, one then performs a Fallback Action of a different type using the same unit. Success and failure on the roll will lead to different effects.
One of the most notable sorts of Fallback Actions is a Heist, so let's give an example to show what I mean.
You've sent Mirage to try and steal Granny Crockett's cookie recipe you remember liking, but refuse to pay for store-bought frozen cookies. The DC is 100. If she succeeds, the action just completes, nothing unusual happens. But let's say Mirage gets a 72, which means she fails!
The Fallback Action for this heist will be listed in the action in question. For this example, it's a DC 50 Martial roll. Mirage must attempt to make this DC. Her Martial is low, so this will be difficult.
On a Critical Success, Mirage gets away with the recipe and without her identity being discovered. Phew! Action saved.
On a normal success, Mirage must choose: does she get away clean but without the target, or does she take the delicious cookie goodness with her at the cost of your involvement becoming known? You get a vote.
On a failure, you fail to obtain the target and your identity becomes known. Bad times.
On a critical failure, Mirage has been captured by Granny Crockett, leaving your hero unit list until she can be retrieved. If she can be. Also neither of you would ever live it down.
Other examples of Fallback Actions include Flubber technology (Learning, Fallback Diplo) and Large Carnivorous Dinosaurs (Learning, Fallback Martial).
