Reaper Redux

[John Galt]

An evocator would never have initiative.  He'd need at a minimum,  legendary alertness to have a chance at spotting the guy.  If its dark out he's sol.  So he would need at least superhuman toughness or an armor 6 enchanted item to survive for a second round.  If the reaper emissary spends a fate point he'd only be saved by an enchanted item.

[Belial666]

You are forgetting rituals. A paranoid wizard at that level could always cast Foresight. A, say, 20 shift divination ritual that gives an alertness 15 effect to warn vs attacks that lasts a month or so, periodically renewed.

That's probably similar to what the Gatekeeper has up to predict events.

[CMEast]

Bellial, I don't see where it states in the DFRPG books that you can use magic to increase skills.

Perhaps a magical manoeuvre to create the aspect 'Super Aware' for 3 shifts is possible and then you could create additional tags for it by multiplying the cost of the aspect by the amount of tags required (lets say 5 more times to get 'good' awareness up to +15), plus another 10 shifts if we assume the aspect would normally last a few minutes without extension.

That makes a spell that'd give you the 'super aware' aspect for a month, taggable 6 times for free and further times would require a fate point and that'd be at a complexity of... 28 shifts. Oh except that you can only tag an aspect once for a roll.

Well, you could create a series of spells, each providing a relevant aspect like 'Heightened Senses', 'Fast Reactions', 'Deja Vu' and so forth, each costing 13 shifts to cast, with a further 3 shifts for each free tag after that.

Of course... as your GM I'd eventually compel all of the aspects to give you the consequence 'Burn Out' or 'Too Sensitive' or something

[crusher_bob]

He's insurmountable without serious plot devices as an NPC and as a PC or GM PC he'll just deus ex machina everything, leaving the players feeling cheated out of a decent gaming experience.

You can take him out as a 10 refresh wizard with some prep. 

Step 1, figure out a way to survive or avoid the 1st attack.  Possibly by ambush from beneath a veil (around power 6 should do the job).

Step 2:
Have a block vs movement that lasts a few exchanges that is resisted by might.  Since this guy only has +1 might, a power 4 duration 4 block is probably going to be good enough. 

Step 3:
Have an attack spell that is resisted with might, like earthstomp

Combat would look like:
Wizards 1st action: Use block vs movement.  This keeps the grim reaper from coming up to you and hitting you, it also prevents him from escaping.

Following actions:
earth stomp a lot.  Assuming you are generating control 6 power 6 earth stomps, you are hitting for about 11 shifts of damage each time (9 after armor).

so:
1st stomp: (9 damage after armor, minor consequence + 7 stress)
OOOO(OOXO) minor consequence

2nd stomp:
+2 bonus for tagging the minor consequence
(11 damage after armor, moderate consequence + 7 stress, rolling up to 8th slot)
OOOO(OOXX) minor + moderate consequence

3rd stomp:
+2 bonus for tagging the moderate consequence
(11 damage after armor, severe consequence + 5 stress)
OOOO(XOXX) minor + moderate + severe consequence

[...]
The 4th stomp is good for an extreme consequence, but as your presumed power 4 duration 4 blo0ck is running out, it looks like you won't quite pull it off.  But you've come quite close.  If you can produce a slightly longer duration block, or pull of slightly more powerful earth stomps, or something, you can probably finish the job.

A mortal with holy touch who knows how to wrestle might also be able to pull this off, since they don't have to eat through the armor and extra stress boxes provided by toughness.  Of course, they'd have to avoid the first attack and get a favorable aspect.  But a 6 refresh champion of god with great might and some luck might be able to kill you too.

[CMEast]

Or Disarm him?

[Deadmanwalking]

Belial666: That's a hideously optimized Wizard (way more focused than I'd ever allow, BTW), but yeah, that'd do it. The Sidhe is...possible, but he does have Alertness 6 and a fairly good chance of seeing through the Glamour before he's totally screwed, and he likely just kills the Sidhe if he gets the drop on them. As for Mythic Speed, that's what Riposte is for  .

John Galt: Yeah, but most powerful Evocaters will have some sort of defensive item, which'll likely save them for at least a bit.

CMEast: Look at Hyperawareness. You can't use magic to increase skills, but it can potentially replace them. Doesn't help on intitiative vs. Mythic Speed, though, and thus not meaningfully on defending against this guy. The Wizard really needs one of those Defensive Items to survive.

Disarming would also absolutely work in theory, but it's easier said than done.

crusher_bob: A Wizard with prep-time and a detailed knowledge of what they're facing can destroy anything else there is. That's just how they work. Everyone has at least one weak skill for the Wizard to target.

You do make an excellent point in general about this guy being weak against grapples...except that you can use Athletics (which he has at Legendary due to Mythic Speed) to escape from them, so they're a one round annoyance at worst, and re-establishing them will cost a Fate Point.

[John Galt]

You can only block with initiative. No evocator would ever have that.  Claiming a wizard who is perpetually paranoid about this PARTICULAR enemy could take him makes him vulnerable is silly.   That's what wizards do.  They are the deadliest enemies in thedresdenverse if they know what's coming and have time to prepare.  But ninety nine times out of one hundred, no evocator is going to have that advantage on this guy.  He's easily always hidden and kills his victim before they have time to blink, let alone find weaknesses and spread the word

[CMEast]

Aha good point, I didn't think of it as a block but if I were the GM I would only allow it to be used for one trapping of alertness i.e. you can either have initiative or avoid ambush but not both.

[Deadmanwalking]

Um, Enchanted Items require no action and can thus be used reflexively in response to an attack. A powerful enough one will save the Wizard, though that's about the only thing that will.

[John Galt]

Armor would cap at 6 shifts with fantastic lore.... a few fate points from grim and that's not going to cut it...

[Deadmanwalking]

Armor would cap at 6 shifts with fantastic lore.... a few fate points from grim and that's not going to cut it...

Uh, it caps at twice your Lore in Shifts, which would admittedly be Armor: 6 and not enough...or up to a 12 shift Block and plenty.

[John Galt]

...  yes.  That's what I said.  And you still need initiative to use that 12 shift block

[Deadmanwalking]

...  yes.  That's what I said.  And you still need initiative to use that 12 shift block

Not with an Enchanted Item you don't. All defensive item uses are reflexive, not just Armor.

[Tsunami]

The Reaper char (imho totally broken by the way, no offense) is not limited by his Lore for his enchanted items... so why would the character trying to beat him be?
Give the Wizard an enchanted item, limited the same way as this mordite scythe. That makes it into a 8 power base item, 8 more slots for power, 3 slots for uses, 12 slots total... +16 block 7 times... now build a highly offensive centered evocator... bye bye Reaper... he'd need at least 3 fate points or tags to hit that Wizard...

One broken concept defeated by another broken concept.

[Tbora]

Personally I don't consider the character to be broken.Extremely powerful absolutely.But not broken, he still has exploitable weaknesses.And what your talking about not being limited by his lore, if he wanted an another item, then yes he wouldn't be.The item in question is no different from the Warden's Swords, and further more created by the Grim Reaper, a God Class entity.Any item that would equal it in potency would have to have plot justification as well, and I doubt that any GM would put together something specifically to limit a PC's character concept like that out of hand.

Tbora