To clarify the Saving Victories rule from Sword & Sorcerer, the basic failure or success of the original roll is immutable. You cannot buy your way out of failing against the guy's attack or out of failing to hit vs. his defense.

• If you lose the roll, then you can buy off his victories, down to 0 (but not a negative value) if you have enough.
• If you win the roll, you can convert any of your dice that did not exceed his highest into victories, all the way up to Total Victory if you have enough.

However, for each and every opposed roll in Sorcerer, one character has victory dice, and the other person doesn't have any.

Only the sum total of victory dice possessed by that character at that moment can be (positively or negatively) affected.

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