[Zwischenzug]

What is the point of the duration of Laés / Leäl?

Is it for the stun damage, or the memory loss, or both? The text seems to indicate that the memory loss is permanent, but I'm at a loss here.

(Stolen Souls p188 for reference)

[Namikaze]

The duration of Laes is 20 x 1d6 minutes, the duration of Leal is 5 x 1d6 minutes.  The duration refers to the period of time before the drug takes effect.  EDIT: sorry, I got that wrong.  The stun damage takes effect right away, and the duration of the unconsciousness or drowsiness is based on the duration of the drug used.  It's basically saying that for X amount of time, the subject will be unconscious or drowsy (depending on what was used) and then they suffer the memory loss (if they took stun damage).

[Zwischenzug]

That's what I assumed as well, but there is no such conditions as Unconscious and Drowsy as far as I can tell, except for being knocked unconscious as a result of Stun DV.

Furthermore, the text states that the Memory Loss takes effect from the moment the drug is administered, if the target takes even a single Stun damage after the toxin resistance test.

I could see Drowsy being represented by the number of wound modifiers left after the toxin resistance test, but Unconscious is pretty straight forward as near as I can tell.

Thoughts?

[Namikaze]

I think the stun damage is supposed to be temporary.  Else, elves wouldn't purposefully drink Laes except if they're addicted.  The 12S damage would hurt a LOT.  Good questions though - I really don't know from the text what the intention is here.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... huh.  I kind of hadn't even noticed ... weird.  Anyhow.  It used to be that Laes and Leal would straight-up knock you out unless you resisted all of the damage; you'd be out for a number of minutes, what they have as being the duration, 20 x 1d6 for laes, 5 x 1d6 for leal.  Since they've converted the 'you're unconscious no matter what' into straight-out Stun damage, the unconsciousness duration is kind of silly, and pretty clearly an artifact from previous editions.

What I'd do (plan on doing, anyhow) is to eliminate the Stun Damage; the character resists the Power, and if there's any left over, they're unconscious for (Remainder x 4 ) x 1d6 minutes for laes, and (Remainder) x 1d6 minutes for leal.  YMMV.