Idea: Mental/Social Armor

[Ophidimancer]

For Physical conflicts one way to protect oneself is to put on armor.  I think this tactic should be viable for Social and Mental Conflicts as well, but it's not as clear how one should be able to do this.  An easy way is to just use magic, but I think mundanes should be able to so protect themselves as well, so I'm suggesting either a new Maneuver or Trapping for the various Mental and Social defense Skills.

Bolster Self Image
Possible Skills: Conviction, Discipline, Presence, Rapport
The character rolls against a difficulty of 2 times the Armor level they want to achieve and armor themselves against Mental or Social attacks for the scene.  Any extra shifts raise the difficulty for an opponent to tear this armor down with a Maneuver.

Does that seem balanced?

[Deadmanwalking]

Not really, no. There's a Stunt that gives one point of Armor, sometimes, that's a bit weak with this system. Also, the lack of social and mental Weapon ratings makes such Armor inordinately powerful, and thus unbalancing.

[Ophidimancer]

Not really, no. There's a Stunt that gives one point of Armor

Ah ha, why so there is!  Thank you for pointing that out.  Definitely could see different versions of the Tower of Faith Stunt for different Skills, like Discipline

Also, the lack of social and mental Weapon ratings makes such Armor inordinately powerful, and thus unbalancing.

Speaking of that, I don't see why there couldn't be Mental or Social Weapons.  They would, of course either be magical and thus broadly applicable, or personal and thus highly subjective to the target.  I think also something like a Viciously Sharp Tongue Stunt for Intimidation may provide Weapon 1 for Social attacks.

[Nomad]

Social "weapons" (so to speak) are quite undefendable. Think of a nerd being destroyed by the jocks (via ridicule) or abusive relationships. The only armor is high self esteem or maybe faith as long as you can keep them up.

Maybe you can have a stunt or aspect like some pcsd ex-soldiers disregard for death but there aren't any real defences except being sure of yourself.

This aspect of the "social weapon" concept is quite undefendable beyond a few stout individuals so allowing stunts to strenghten it seems a bit too munchkin to me tbh.

Mental wepons are also similar. Beyond some mundane ones like a vicious tounge, rumor mongering, abuse etc (which are actually fairly long term and slow buildup of social problems ) , nearly all of the mental attacks in the game are magical and they are in direct violatioın of laws (or they are Fae bargain based deals). You can resist them with a diciplined mind but in the books we have seen that if the attacker knows what he is doing (like cowl) it is nearly impossible for even a guy as resilient as Harry to resist.

Although now that I think about it

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Molly might and will be much more resilient to such things thanks to her understanding of the workings. She needs to toughen up a lot to reliably shrug such attacks but even as insecure as she is, she is probably still better than half the WC.

[JosephKell]

Social "weapons" (so to speak) are quite undefendable. Think of a nerd being destroyed by the jocks (via ridicule) or abusive relationships. The only armor is high self esteem or maybe faith as long as you can keep them up.

Would a wedgie be a physical or social attack?  Maybe even Mental?   

[Nomad]

It might seem physical (fists vs target) but the effect will probably be social imo (In a school scene that is)