Is a Pure Mortal viable?

[Dave Mallonee]

I'm working on character concepts for an upcoming game and I feel like pure mortals are underpowered for a game starting at the submerged level... am I wrong? I wanted to do a mashup of Michael Westen from Burn Notice and Riley Finn from Buffy but the more I look at the game I feel like I won't be able to carry my weight next to the werewolf, wizard, and emissary of power I'll be grouping with. Maybe I'm just not seeing the possibilities....

[Nomad]

Can you eleborate a bit please?
Is your mortal going to be a combat monkey or support? What is he supposed to be?

[Deadmanwalking]

Speaking as someone with a combat specialist Pure Mortal in my Las Vegas game, you can absolutely do that.


Though, like all other Dresden Files characters, you will benefit from specialization. Michael Westen is too good at too many things for the DFRPG to be good at representing him. Riley, on the other hand, is more focused and thus alot easier to do.


The only area I can think of where Mortals just cannot compete with the Supernatural is unarmed combat (where they really, legitimately, cannot). Guns are a great equalizer, and even with Weapons and an equivalent investment they can do damn well. Certainly they can be more-or-less equal in any area except direct offensive Mental combat (which they just don't have a good way to do).

[Nomad]

Actually, an Aikido (I know, I know, it is an horribly overused cliche) specialist charcater can tie up more than her fair share of opponents with a generous use of tags and envirolment. Sure you won't be able to solo them but you won't be bleeding wreck after every fight either.

Anyway don't forget that you will have a lot of fate poits. 12 base refresh plus a couple of relevant aspects (strange luck, Murphy stalks me (Him not Her!), chivilary?) will enable you to slip by easyly.

Just don't give into temptation of using too much refresh. Supernaturals have to but if you try to compete with them with mortal stunts, you won't be happy. Just select a few necessary stunts and bank on fate.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, you can do okay at unarmed combat, but you'll never be as directly dangerous as a supernatural creature (particularly one with the same Stunt or two).

[Belial666]

On the other hand, the right stunts and correct use of technology can make a huge difference. The following is a submerged version of Batman geared vs supers that can take standard black court vampires in melee. He attacks at effectively fantastic vs superstrong foes, weapon rating 4 ignoring up to 2 armor, and can tag several aspects for a quick takeout. He defends at effectively fantastic vs superstrong foes and has other serious defenses too. He might be able to take the Loup-Garou if he's sufficiently prepared.

High Concept:  The Dark Knight
Trouble: Black Sheep of a Broken Family
Other aspects: Ninja of the West, Heir of a Failing Empire, A Man In A Mask, Being Eccentric For The Greater Good, Ye Shall Not Use Guns


SKILLS

+5 Athletics, Stealth, Fists
+4 Alertness, Discipline, Craftmanship (gadgets)
+3 Weapons, Endurance, Resources
+2 Might, Burglary, Intimidate
+1 Investigation, Contacts, Lore, Rapport


GADGETS AND SUBSTANCES
Batman's gadgets are masterfully crafted. They all have 2 sticky aspects (applied through craftmanship) he can tag 1/scene to boost his rolls.

Nanofiber Stealth Suit: armor 3, tagged for defense rolls and stealth
Night Vision Goggles: grant nighvision, thermal vision. Tagged for perception.
Frequency Amplifier: enhanced hearing, communication device. Tagged for perception.
Memory Rubber Batcape: can transform into a one-person glider, tagged for stealth
Carbon Nanofiber Spiked Gauntlets: weapon rating 2 usable with fists, can be used as climbing tools, tagged for fists
Iron Chain Overlay: thin glove overlays made of chain like divers' antishark gloves, made to be worn over the gauntlets. Effective vs fae.
Silver Chain Overlay: as above, but made of inherited silver from the family manor silverware. Effective vs werewolves and some demonic entities.
Utility Belt: high-quality belt with over a dozen pockets, holding additional equipment. Tagged for Declarations to have a gadget or substance at hand.
Cable Gun: shoots a nanofiber cable capable of supporting several hundged pounds up to 100 yards away with a grapnel at the end and an automatic rewind. Usable with Athletics modified by weapons to quickly climb over buildings or across long gaps. Tagged for climbing rolls.
6 exploding batarangs: balanced throwing weapons with 1 pound of high explosive and metal sharpnel. Weapons 8 area attack. Tagged for Fists.
1 psychic signal countermeasure device, tagged for mental defense.
1 general purpose warding talisman/holy symbol, tagged for defense vs magic.
10 antidote doses.



STUNTS

Extensive Training  (you get extra skill points equal to the Refresh spent on Mortal Stunts)
Training Over Magic (+2 to defense rolls against targeted spells)
Reliable Innovation (gadgets Batman makes are always shielded vs electronic warfare and almost never malfunction; use his modified craftsmanship as hexing DC)
Scientist (superscience +1, gadgets +2)
Brains Over Superbrawn (attackers with Strength powers take -1 attack and -1 dodge when fighting Batman in melee as their own strength is used against them)
Counter Superstrength (through special training, Batman has learned how to absorb, roll with and counter superhumanly strong blows; he takes only half extra stress from more than human strength)
Shadow Dodge  (+2 to dodge when standing in darkness)
Lethal Weapon
Armed Arts (ninja weapons-including batarangs)
Find The Gap (you can find a chink or weak spot in most defenses; armor vs your unarmed attacks is treated as 2 lower)
Roll With The Blow (if hit, takes up to 2 less stress from extra shifts in melee attacks)

10 refresh (pure mortal)

[Deadmanwalking]

Dude, Extensive Training would be broken as a Power, never mind a Stunt. That's ridiculous.


Still, aside from that, the point more or less stands.

[luminos]

what they said.  A pure mortal can be viable, but you need to specialize in one specific thing, and that thing can't be close combat.  Ranged combat is a bit iffy, considering how the zone system makes it trivially easy for others to close distance gaps, but in some situations, it will be a useful path to take.  If you really want to go the combat route with a pure mortal, I'd recommend a stealth specialist, because that is a really nifty way to pump up your damage output that most supernaturals will be on even footing or worse with you.

[Nomad]

Haven't watched Burn Notice yet and I dimly remember Riley. After checking them,  I came up with a few guidelines. Correct me if I'm wrong (about my assumtions, what you want)

Ex special forces or similar organisation operative, The shooty type probably? What was his secondary? Demo? Corpsman? Tech? Scout? Wheelman?
Has some contacts in military
Local police probably distrusts him
FBI, Homeland, and maybe ultimately CIA is aware of him and generally keeps track of him.
Has a decent armory, civ grade ofansive, mil grade defensive (with a few odds and ends from old days?)
You could give him curio licence, that would enable you to legally own antique weapons. And yes compared to a modern firearm they are inferior but compared to a shotgun... Just look: http://i2.guns.ru/forums/icons/forum_pictures/001684/1684643.jpg
You might want a dayjob of pyro-technichian, little fire/flash/smoke/high explosive packages may be a great equlizer.


Since you are the most fragile member of the party, I would strongly recomend Strategic Ofence / Tactical Defence route. Have good defense and always have prepared killzones. Even a puny commerical flashbang coupled with some pepperspray or deployed fishing line trap can be enough to knock out a supernatural. (Sure a 5 story drop helps too )

[luminos]

Michael Westen is a workable character concept at submerged.  A high deceit skill would be central to the character, and either a deceit or performance stunt to allow him to effectively play the role of a large number of personas.  Other skills that are useful would be burglary, driving, guns, and one other social skill, probably rapport (and decent empathy and performance would help as well).  His main focus is working an "asset" and conning the bad guys.  He rarely uses direct force to achieve objectives, and when he does use force, its usually part of the show needed to convince (i.e. trick) someone of part of his act.  Michael Westen really is skilled at combat, but for game purposes, you don't have to make it a high ranked skill to simulate the way he would act in most situations. 

[Fedifensor]

Actually, an Aikido (I know, I know, it is an horribly overused cliche) specialist charcater can tie up more than her fair share of opponents with a generous use of tags and envirolment. Sure you won't be able to solo them but you won't be bleeding wreck after every fight either.

I am reminded of an old Avengers comic where an agent managed to trip the Hulk with martial arts...

A Pure Mortal with Superb in Fists, along with the Footwork and Redirected Force stunts, can hold off one foe pretty well.  Use Total Defense until you are attacked, dodge the strike (shouldn't be too hard with an +7 roll on average, before invoking aspects), then use Redirected Force to apply a maneuver on the target.

However, one often overlooked aspect of Pure Mortals is the use of mortal institutions.  A high Contacts and Resources can cause supernatural foes a lot of difficulty, if used well.  If nothing else, Resources plus the Windfall stunt can let you hire someone like Kincaid.

[crusher_bob]

Another possible way to implement a highly skilled (but otherwise mortal) character is to go the Jason Bourne route.  Give up the +2 refresh bonus for being a pure mortal, take beast change to represent the change between your 'killer' self and your 'normal' self.  This lets have two different skill sets, and switch between them as needed.  This also lets you get a bunch of minor cinematic powers.

So we could have something like:

Regular, stealthy you:
+5: Burglary
+4: Deceit, Fists
+3: Endurance, Presence, Rapport
+2: Alertness, Empathy, Investigation, Scholarship
+1: Athletics, Conviction, Discipline, Guns, Stealth

And then, assassin fighty you:

+5: Fists
+4: Alertness, Guns
+3: Burglary, Endurance, Presence
+2: Deceit, Empathy, Investigation, Scholarship
+1: Athletics, Conviction, Discipline, Rapport, Stealth

And your refresh total might look like:
Powers:
-1   beast change

Stunts:
-1   footwork
-1   lethal weapon
-1   medical training
-1   no pain, no gain
-1   languages

Total: -6

Leaving you with 4 points of refresh left.

You are pretty tough, you have great or superb basic defenses, have a lot of utility skills, can still fight ok for a mortal, speak up to 5 additional languages, can do medical treatments at good skill.  If you want, you can also stack up some minor powers, which are generally more effective than stunts.  For example, you could replace lethal weapon with 'Dim Mak' and have a hacked version of incite emotion that relied on fists instead of deceit.  Then you could do instant blocks against people at fists +2 and justify it that you are hitting the chakra points and immobilizing them, or something.  And you can take cloak of shadows and rename it something like "student of batman".  Or you could take 'hollywood hacking' as a minor power, probably similar in implementation to psychometry.  And as far as everyone in the world is concerned, you are just a regular mortal.

[Nomad]

Psst, you forgot the +2 from mortal (And there are mortals withs such drastic personality change capabilities, just add a terrible old experience (and a corresponding pschological stunt) that makes the guy a harmless, kind joe one moment and a stone cold killer next.)

[crusher_bob]

Since beast change is officially a power, you lose the +2 pure mortal refresh bonus.  That's why I go on to recommend all sorts of minor powers to go along with it.

[Nomad]

Yes but the point was to make this character a vanilla mortal?
(I'm not dissing your idea, it is really good btw.)