Modified Skills and Supernatural Power

[luminos]

The gaping flaw in your analysis is that you compared strength powers to spellcasting.  Spellcasting is by far the most powerful thing in the game, so saying that something doesn't beat it is hardly an argument in my view.  Inhuman strength is at least 4 stunts worth of abilities, and it stacks with everything else you have for those type of effects, so it is a mile away from being underpowered.

[KOFFEYKID]

Yeah, thats like saying that "Well, martial arts suck because guns > fists."

-edit-

Personally, Im playing a red court vamp in one game, and so far Inhuman Strength has been massively awesome. I have Fists, Might, and Stealth at Great (+4) and Im not having a problem in combat. Plus, with my might effectively at 7 for lifting purposes, i can throw people as ranged weapons, which is sort of funny.

[Deadmanwalking]

If you have more then 2 combats in a game maybe. But our games averages 2 combats, and tend to not last beyond 3 rounds in any given combat.  Maybe your game is very different from that standard I don't know.

My games average only a single combat, but it's usually a big one lasting significantly more than three rounds. I don't think I'm alone in this either. I'm guessing most of your fights are either against mooks or a single bad guy you can team up on, right? And PCs certainly aren't going to be going down very often in fights that short. I really think that your fights are the ones departing from what the system was designed for.

That depends on your refresh total also Navel gazing takes time and actions. Which you may not have.

Sure, but with prep-time you can stack up a few, and when fighting something significantly worse than you, you make the time.

This not really true, ambush, and straight attack are the ways to hit. But on that line of thought all other things being equal if you hit  1/4 as often and not 4 times as hard your going to lose.

Yeah, but -1 to hit does not equal hitting 1/4 as often.

So your saying exerting force make sense for using large objects?

I might in theory allow that, if you're strong enough to use whatever it is as a weapon anyway.

Also the fact that a car is way way bigger then a sword makes no difference?

Mechanically? No, not really.

I also disagree that its impossible to parry thrown weapons, ever used a shield?

Um...I'm talking game rules, not reality. You need a Stunt or an item (like, say, a shield) to do that mechanically speaking.

I don't ignore them. But what you can spend your enemy can spend as well, also it not uncommon to be out of fate, or to be fighting something that doesn't have positive refresh. Often it is better not to give the big bad points to use against you.

Invoking your own Aspects doesn't give the enemy Fate Points, and most combat characters have at least an Aspect or two they can use on attacks. Also, weren't you the one arguing that FP were better?

With that interpretation I'd rather fight someone with Mythic strength then the other two options every day and twice on sunday, and I'd still rather fight the other two Mythic guys then a decent mage. Sure Mr.Mythic could deal something like 9 or 10 Weapon But if he cant swing for more then 6 its not tough to insure he will never connect.

Yes it really is. Barring Evocation of your own or Mythic Speed, it's really hard to not get hit by someone with a base of 6 who fights at all intelligently. Really damn hard.

They have assigned relative values to those in enchanting system. Its not perfect, but it is an easy way to think about relative values, in how the system values them at least.

They're valued equally, then. Armor: 1 is two Shifts, as is Weapon: 2.

I believe foul language is against the user agreement, I am personally not offended, but this is a public board, so please refrain.

Um...okay? I actually think you're incorrect about that (I see swearing here fairly regularly, and it's casually easy to have the board censor that stuff if you want it too), but I really don't care enough to argue the point. I'll even edit 'em out of the previous post.

Yes I have played with it, I have a white court Vampire, built to serve as a tank for the party, he also uses an item of power sword with true aim, and a max Athletics plus speed to be very hard to hit. I also have a Warden built, weapon primary with the High Concept "Sword of the Wardens", let me tell you right now My Warden would win every single fight between the two and the warden isn't built to max efficiency. We have played under the method i have put forward here for about 2 months, and found it works pretty well. Spellcasting is still MUCH Stronger then Stat power sets. But with +1 hit it at least insures your casters don't want to get anywhere near something that fast, strong and tough. But believe me if casters can sit there and defend against strong critters on an even footing nothing in supernatural world stands a chance.

Spellcasting has longevity issues, which you likely haven't run into due to the ridiculous shortness of your combats, but yeah, it's king of the hill for the first three or four rounds...which doesn't make it unstoppable. Maneuvers and fate Points together can get through even an 8 or 10 shift Defense and then the poor Wizard is gonna die vs. just about anything supernatural. I can show you how this works in practice f you like.

When my group starts a new system we alway test it by making the min/maxiest things we can think of, see what it looks like, see what beats that, then one more layer to see what beat that. Thus we figure out what actually work, and then settle down to make real characters. We have done this for maybe 8 or 9 systems, it usually works. We are rarely surprised by things as a result. It really helps GMing to know what the worst thing you can put on board, and what level of challenge you can expect.

Your testing clearly didn't take several important game concepts into account. I'm quite serious, if Maneuvers and other Aspects granting Tags aren't included in your outline you're going to wind up with an extremely skewed view of how the game works. Ditto all combats taking four rounds or less. Or all being against a single opponent.

We determined a 12 shift throwing focused Practitioner is probably about the strongest thing starting, outside superlatives, and lawbreaker builds. Superlative effects are always hard to account for numerically as they invalidate normal modeling and lawbreaker ignoring the pyramid, also is very problematic mathematically, but it is a good refresh value standard. You can get close to that top spellcaster power level under our interpretation of the stat builds but its still not AS good. After doing the math generically the best thing you can do is start combat have someone do a heavy aspect adders spell, have the next guy throw a super block, and then punch out just about anything in this system, if you have a sword of the cross this gets really easy. PI and Mythic Rec can overcome, but the people most likely to discover Catches and create catch satisfiers are those with access to thaum. (See my statement about superlatives earlier).

Yeah, that works well as a 'perfect storm' type effect to kill a single opponent. Do your players never fight groups of about equal skill to their own, or large numbers of mooks?

What is the downside to accepting this concept? Suddenly mortals with might 5 can add +1 if their fists or weapons if those skills are below 5? Is it really causing a huge imbalance to make Super Strong critters better at hitting? The fact is both of those things are false, you can use trapping shifts to make someone who grapples and does function exactly as I'm putting forward, this way just allows for more varied and interesting variety of builds and more realistic thugs. Why are you fighting this? Just out of reflex or does it actually seem like a major balance issue to you?

It's compleely unnecessary, clearly not the way the game is intended to work (see my previous post on every stat-block in the books), and makes Inhuman Strength distinctly overpowered. Yes, really.

[GruffAndTumble]

The gaping flaw in your analysis is that you compared strength powers to spellcasting.  Spellcasting is by far the most powerful thing in the game, so saying that something doesn't beat it is hardly an argument in my view.  Inhuman strength is at least 4 stunts worth of abilities, and it stacks with everything else you have for those type of effects, so it is a mile away from being underpowered.

"This", "QFT", "See above", and a dozen other similar statements. Spellcasting is not designed to be directly comparable to the physical enhancers, for a variety of reasons.

However, while I thoroughly disagree with your assessment of Strength, I'm going to attempt to provide an answer that is helpful for you (referring to the OP here) at the table--you asked, in an above post, what the downside(s) of allowing Might to enhance attacks would be. So, here is my attempt at providing you with a fair assessment of the issue, so that you and your group can decide what works at your table--because honestly, even if it turns out well and truly broken and rule-bending, all that matters is tat you have fun.

--If Might can enhance both Fists and Weapons, they gain a serious advantage over Guns, which has no such modifying skill. Even if it did, it would make the investment required for a character to participate in physical combat lower (which might not be a bad thing) and punish those characters who spent skill points getting better Fists and/or Weapons than Might (which definitely is a bad thing, in my book)
--Brawny thugs become the default combat archetype, making finesse based fighters less of a worthwhile option, mechanically.
--Inhuman/Supernatural/Mythic Strength becomes the best physical option for combat. Regardless of whether it is currently "strong" or "weak," it becomes heinously powerful. Not only can you land your combat-ending attacks more easily, but when you find an opponent you don't need the bonus to hit for--a slow bruiser of some kind, say--it becomes an additional bonus to damage! It is capable of negating most of both Toughness and Speed despite costing the same.
--God help anyone who fights a super-strong person stacking on speed--they will close on you and destroy you before your initiative even comes up. The synergy between Speed and Strength is already incredible because of the ease of closing to melee and getting the first turn. Odds are extremely good 4 refresh spent on the Inhuman of both could take out any single opponent of equivalent Power level.

The net effect of all this is the combat paradigm shifts tremendously. Currently, the system is designed around setting up an overwhelming attack via manuevers, or relentlessly grinding someone down with tagged consequences. In this version, combat becomes about the Alpha Strike--he who hits first, hits last.

[Belial666]

OK guys. Pretty much the only way to confirm something is to test it. We have two submerged characters, one with Mythic Strength, the other with Mythic Speed. Both have weapons and athletics at superb (+5), both have great endurance and great might. Both have a greatsword (weapon 3) and tactical vest (armor 2). I'm gonna roll 20 exchanges in various scenarios and assume both fight to the end. Let's see who dies first.

Speed contender: Attack 5, Defense 8, weapon 3, armor 2, goes first
Strength contender: Attack 5, Defense 5, weapon 9, armor 2


Cage Match: Both contenders in a single zone. Attacks only.
In this match, the strong character dies by round 14 (!). The speedster does not even take a single hit. Total attack roll is 79 for speedster and 73 for the strong guy in those 14 rolls, meaning the speedster is luckier. If we reverse the rolls (giving the strong guy the lucky ones), the speedster dies in round 12 while the strong guy has filled all his stress track and taken a mild and a moderate consequence. If tags were used, the strong guy dies at round 13 while the speedster would still have died in round 12 and the strong guy would have taken a severe and an extreme consequence.

Advantage: speedster.

Dueling Ground: Both contenders in a zone. Maneuers allowed.
In this match, the infuriating speedster used an athletics maneuer to remove an aspect (or gain a defense aspect) every time the strong guy tried to use a maneuer to impose off-balance or aim against him. He managed to land 2 blows for 2 and 3 stress each while the strong guy managed to land one blow for 3 stress and a moderate consequence. After 20 exchanges, the battle ended effectively in a draw.


Do note that both fights happened without Fate points used. You can go back and apply FPs in the rolls (both guys start with 3 of them) in which case both fights end up exactly the same (since both guys can use fate points at the same rolls)

Here are the rolls. First test was a failure due to bad code.
http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=101832

[Deadmanwalking]

That second one still ignores possibilities like the Strong Guy using Intimidate to put Aspects on the Fast Guy, or other non-Weapons or Athletics Maneuvers, but it does look pretty good.

[Belial666]

On the other hand, there's the possibility to use Athletics to apply "tripped" or "overextended" aspects, in which case the Athletics guy wins.


And I haven't done tests with uncaged combat yet; when the speedster has enough room to move in a zone, attack and move off the zone (taking 2 zones of free move every exchange), he imposes another -1 penalty on the attacker's actions cause the attacker has to follow... and he does get penalties for moving while the speedster does not.

[Deadmanwalking]

On the other hand, there's the possibility to use Athletics to apply "tripped" or "overextended" aspects, in which case the Athletics guy wins.

Not necessarily, if the Strength guy can keep up using some other skill he's equally better at (possibly including Might) he can still keep up fairly readily.

And I haven't done tests with uncaged combat yet; when the speedster has enough room to move in a zone, attack and move off the zone (taking 2 zones of free move every exchange), he imposes another -1 penalty on the attacker's actions cause the attacker has to follow... and he does get penalties for moving while the speedster does not.

That's legitimate. Though not always an available option. Someone with Mythic Strength can really alter the terrain on a battlefield to keep it from being available, too. Plus there are thrown weapons, which wouldn't take the penalty at only one zone's distance...but then we get into the speedster using ranged attacks which gets potentially really bad for the Strength guy.

And all that leaves out the possibility of Grapples, which the Strength guy listed has a base of 7 in, after all (and I can make a strength guy with a base of 9).

Really, no single theoretical exercise is ever going to account for all the possibilities inherent in the system.

Also, for actually comparing usefulness, other tests other than one-on-one fights are needed. For example, your two characters could each go up against a selection of mook-style minions (maybe Ghouls). I suspect the Strength guy will finish them up pretty quick, but get hurt doing so, while the Speed guy will be untouched but take a long while to get them all. Stuff like that.

[ahunting]

My games average only a single combat, but it's usually a big one lasting significantly more than three rounds. I don't think I'm alone in this either. I'm guessing most of your fights are either against mooks or a single bad guy you can team up on, right? And PCs certainly aren't going to be going down very often in fights that short. I really think that your fights are the ones departing from what the system was designed for.

We have had both mixed fights, longer fights, short fights, Mooks, Big Bad(s), PC vs PC, a single pc vs small groups divided party fight (Really 6 simultaneous different fights)  and a few Social Ones. Even a couple fights where all we did was run away, (We ran into a baby dragon in one game, and 3 loup garou in another). But the average is 2 Combats and 3 rounds. In the two different games I'm in, both my characters have run out of consequences (baring extremes), filled two stress tracks (mental and Physical), expended all Item uses and have been taken out, ether by concession or defeat.  I don't pretend to know what the gold standard of any systems combat is, personally I think it lives with the GM.

But I have been playing RPGs for a long time, and I'm not really impressed with the idea of getting stuck in a combat that lasts most of a session. I can always go back to playing 4th Edition for that. Narrative system strength is always the story. If your story is to fight one fight most of your session more power to ya. Fights that last long then 3 rounds usually means a PC is going to die for keeps in our game. I don't know how deadly the stuff you fight is, but clearly it doesn't hit as well, so I could see how you could last longer.

Sure, but with prep-time you can stack up a few, and when fighting something significantly worse than you, you make the time.

Oh for more prep time. Sometimes you have no choice it is true, but sometimes you just get taken out as well.

Yeah, but -1 to hit does not equal hitting 1/4 as often.

but -2 is.

I might in theory allow that, if you're strong enough to use whatever it is as a weapon anyway.

I'm just saying it should be possible. Exerting force in combat is logical.

Mechanically? No, not really.

lol ok different stroke different folks i guess.

Invoking your own Aspects doesn't give the enemy Fate Points, and most combat characters have at least an Aspect or two they can use on attacks. Also, weren't you the one arguing that FP were better?

Our interpretation of combat fate expenditure include who ever is on the receiving end gets the fate point(s), it makes more dramatic combats. (We played a lot of exalted) You should try it. But yes fate points are better.

Yes it really is. Barring Evocation of your own or Mythic Speed, it's really hard to not get hit by someone with a base of 6 who fights at all intelligently. Really damn hard.

Fortunately Evocation is very common, and you don't actually need mythic, 7 and some team work can manage, depending on how long it lasts, and what else you pack along.

Spellcasting has longevity issues, which you likely haven't run into due to the ridiculous shortness of your combats, but yeah, it's king of the hill for the first three or four rounds...which doesn't make it unstoppable. Maneuvers and fate Points together can get through even an 8 or 10 shift Defense and then the poor Wizard is gonna die vs. just about anything supernatural. I can show you how this works in practice f you like.

Its true about the longevity issue, but i would add if you can't win a fight in 3 rounds with magic your using it wrong. I guess you could be fighting something that is superlative, but that tends to be obvious by the end of the first round.   

Your testing clearly didn't take several important game concepts into account. I'm quite serious, if Maneuvers and other Aspects granting Tags aren't included in your outline you're going to wind up with an extremely skewed view of how the game works. Ditto all combats taking four rounds or less. Or all being against a single opponent.

I agree that it would be very skewed. But tags and fate are situational advantages, in the same way that terrain and starting conditions are situational. They can manufactured, and strategized around, but the argument i will beat you with my pile of conditional advantages can only really be take so far in discussion of effective builds, and testing has worked well so far, the resulting character function at the level was aiming for without getting to crazy.

Yeah, that works well as a 'perfect storm' type effect to kill a single opponent. Do your players never fight groups of about equal skill to their own, or large numbers of mooks?

The more memorable recent fights in our games (Sorry to my GMs for brutally shortening). In one game two weeks ago we beat 12 agents using Poisoned Dart Firing SMGs who jumped us from helicopters by surprise. (Yeah most of us Epicly failed that alertness roll).  In another recent game we had 2 party members run into a Nazi Ice Giant, some Nazi Skin Heads, and Kincaid. (They lived, and achieved their objective, and didn't get killed by Kincaid, i call it a win.) In the other game we had 4 players vs 3 advanced hexen wolves in (They had names), that was tough with two player missing. Most recently we fought some kind of mutant super ghouls (one of them was regularly hitting 11 during that combat), then my White court invaded an ancient church fortress in Paris and got beat by 3 hunters, a bunch boobie traps, and some kind superlative Faith magic (it turned him mortal). This saturday I think we have an epic throw down with a Loup Garou that is enslaved by the winter court, while finishing up with the 4 other knight candidates and their crews, which will hopeful finish up the current plot line of deciding which wyld fae lord becomes the Lord of the Spring for this year.

It's compleely unnecessary, clearly not the way the game is intended to work (see my previous post on every stat-block in the books), and makes Inhuman Strength distinctly overpowered. Yes, really.

I guess I will just have to agree to disagree there.  I find the systematic challenge as enjoyable as the role playing challenge personally. If your think its balanced to allow magic to rule the system i guess it is based upon a book about a wizard, but it seems sadly against the spirit of the books to allow it to be that way.

[KOFFEYKID]

Ive seen this argument a few times, and Im still going to say that wizards aren't the biggest power in the verse, why? Cuz in the books they arent either.

One thing that everybody seems to forget is there are ***allot*** more nasties out there than there are wizards. Sure, a wizard might be able to decimate a few reds, but there are WAY more reds than there are wizards.

My RCV can probably trounce a wizard without too much fuss.

[Belial666]

Magic is strong. But it costs ALOT. Immunity to magic is just 3-4 pts cost. So the first time you fight an Orge... whoops!

Also, stunts and minor powers are your friend;
The strong guy can have "Unstoppable", a stunt that allows using Might as defense.
The fast guy can have "acrobatic attack" that allows a certain attack with athletics instead of, say, fists.


That means both can have equal attack and defense with one point of expenditure more.

[luminos]

I agree with you about not wanting magic to be the strongest thing in the game, but I disagree about your conclusions in that regard.  You shouldn't try to make your favorite set of powers stronger so that they can compete with magic, because by doing so, you just exacerbate the problem.  Seek balance from the baseline, which is the pure mortal, and not the apex, which is the magic caster.  Inhuman Strength is already a much better than average power, and there is no reason why the system should be "balanced" by making it competitive with the apex powers.

[ahunting]

Seek balance from the baseline, which is the pure mortal, and not the apex, which is the magic caster. 

What do you mean by that? If your trying to balance Caster, and you agree it is the apex how does changing mortal achieve that objective?

[KOFFEYKID]

What he is saying is dont raise everything to the power of a wizard, if you are trying for balance, lower wizard to the power of everything else.

[Deadmanwalking]

We have had both mixed fights, longer fights, short fights, Mooks, Big Bad(s), PC vs PC, a single pc vs small groups divided party fight (Really 6 simultaneous different fights)  and a few Social Ones. Even a couple fights where all we did was run away, (We ran into a baby dragon in one game, and 3 loup garou in another). But the average is 2 Combats and 3 rounds. In the two different games I'm in, both my characters have run out of consequences (baring extremes), filled two stress tracks (mental and Physical), expended all Item uses and have been taken out, ether by concession or defeat.  I don't pretend to know what the gold standard of any systems combat is, personally I think it lives with the GM.

True enough, but you're arguing that the game is inherently unbalanced and not worth it if you don't get an accuracy booster from Inhuman Strength. If your game's House Rules are a large part of the reason for that (as seems clear after this post, IMO) then your argument is significantly less valid.

But I have been playing RPGs for a long time, and I'm not really impressed with the idea of getting stuck in a combat that lasts most of a session. I can always go back to playing 4th Edition for that. Narrative system strength is always the story. If your story is to fight one fight most of your session more power to ya. Fights that last long then 3 rounds usually means a PC is going to die for keeps in our game. I don't know how deadly the stuff you fight is, but clearly it doesn't hit as well, so I could see how you could last longer.

Oh, they don't last that long time-wise OOC (maybe a third of the session, average)...just quite a few rounds.

Oh for more prep time. Sometimes you have no choice it is true, but sometimes you just get taken out as well.

Sometimes, yeah.
 

but -2 is.

Well, sure, but if we're talking Supernatural stats at +4 Stress you ARE doing something like 4 times the damage, effectively.

I'm just saying it should be possible. Exerting force in combat is logical.

Potentially, yeah, but not all the damn time.

lol ok different stroke different folks i guess.

Indeed.

Our interpretation of combat fate expenditure include who ever is on the receiving end gets the fate point(s), it makes more dramatic combats. (We played a lot of exalted) You should try it. But yes fate points are better.

Uh...this is a giant House Rule that vastly changes the entire operating paramenters of the game. It means, inherently, that while all your arguments may be entirely valid for your own game, they are not necessarily equally valid in a non-House Ruled game. This rule makes having a superior Defense WAY more of an insurmountable advantage than it is in standard DFRPG, and explains a lot of your attitude on that subject.

Fortunately Evocation is very common, and you don't actually need mythic, 7 and some team work can manage, depending on how long it lasts, and what else you pack along.

Well, sure. Teamwork can always keep a particular guy from getting hit...though in that case you better hope he doesn't focus on an easier target. And Evocation isn't that common.

Its true about the longevity issue, but i would add if you can't win a fight in 3 rounds with magic your using it wrong. I guess you could be fighting something that is superlative, but that tends to be obvious by the end of the first round.   

Um...not really. There's that whole 'needing to have something going defensively', that potentially makes that a bit hard, and things with Inhuman and higher Toughness can often take a few attacks from a full-on Evocation specialist. Particularly if there are several of them mixed in with the party.

I agree that it would be very skewed. But tags and fate are situational advantages, in the same way that terrain and starting conditions are situational. They can manufactured, and strategized around, but the argument i will beat you with my pile of conditional advantages can only really be take so far in discussion of effective builds, and testing has worked well so far, the resulting character function at the level was aiming for without getting to crazy.

I'm glad it worked out for you, then. But my point does still stand, at least somewhat.

The more memorable recent fights in our games (Sorry to my GMs for brutally shortening). In one game two weeks ago we beat 12 agents using Poisoned Dart Firing SMGs who jumped us from helicopters by surprise. (Yeah most of us Epicly failed that alertness roll).  In another recent game we had 2 party members run into a Nazi Ice Giant, some Nazi Skin Heads, and Kincaid. (They lived, and achieved their objective, and didn't get killed by Kincaid, i call it a win.) In the other game we had 4 players vs 3 advanced hexen wolves in (They had names), that was tough with two player missing. Most recently we fought some kind of mutant super ghouls (one of them was regularly hitting 11 during that combat), then my White court invaded an ancient church fortress in Paris and got beat by 3 hunters, a bunch boobie traps, and some kind superlative Faith magic (it turned him mortal). This saturday I think we have an epic throw down with a Loup Garou that is enslaved by the winter court, while finishing up with the 4 other knight candidates and their crews, which will hopeful finish up the current plot line of deciding which wyld fae lord becomes the Lord of the Spring for this year.

Wow. That actually sounds really awesome. I'm going to give you some advice: Don't change your game's rules because of this thread. It sounds like the combination of House Rules you've got going makes for some fun, dynamic, and cool combats for your group, and changing them to anything everyone is less familiar with can only hurt that.

But also remember that they ARE House Rules, and thus lessons learned playing under them don't necessarily apply to non-House Ruled games (which can, BTW, be just as fun).

I guess I will just have to agree to disagree there.  I find the systematic challenge as enjoyable as the role playing challenge personally. If your think its balanced to allow magic to rule the system i guess it is based upon a book about a wizard, but it seems sadly against the spirit of the books to allow it to be that way.

Your House Rules make magic significantly more effective than it would be otherwise (if nothing else by reducing the number of rounds combat takes, though the Fate Point thing helps them out quite a bit, too). My magic users are nasty...but they regularly run out of juice sometime around round 5, and are hardly unstoppable even before then. the most effective PC in a direct fight is the guy with Superb Athletics and Fists, as well as Claws and Inhuman physical stuff, not any of the three magic users.