Some Rules Questions

[GeneralTacticus]

Hi all, first time poster here, and I'll be running a Dresden Files game in a couple of days (in a rather tweaked version of the World of Darkness setting). There are a couple of rules points I'm currently unsure on; I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify.

1) Devising Thaumaturgic rituals. The first step is to determine the spell's complexity and (if the complexity is more than the caster's Lore) do the preparation needed to reach that level. Does the caster need to do it just once for a given ritual, or every time they want to cast the spell? Neither way seems satisfactory to me. If the preparation is good for multiple castings, then a spell powered by e.g. human sacrifice only requires a single sacrifice, ever, because then the caster has completed the preparation already and doesn't need to repeat it. On the other hand, if the preparation has to be repeated every time, then how do spells like the Blood Rites entropy curse of Victor Sells' One Spoon Stab Exploding Heart Technique work? The writeups for both mention the casters taking hefty consequences on themselves to pay for them, but having done that, they can't take those consequences again. So how do they repeat the spell?

2) Grappling. Grappling is supposed to act as a block on all actions unless the GM rules on common-sense grounds that an action wouldn't be affected. Does this apply to dodging and other defence rolls? Again, I'm not sure which way to go here. On the one hand, allowing a grapple to leave someone defenceless seems overpowered. On the other hand, to have evading bullets be the one physical thing a grappled person can do seems rather odd.

And on a similar note, is it possible to specifically Block defence rolls, or to block Athletics and thereby prevent dodging?

[Papa Gruff]

First of all: welcome to the forums.

Regarding 1) In my opinion everything depends on what kind of ritual you are speaking of. This is far to diverse to answer with a singular ruling. If the ritual is a fairly common one like the tracking divinations Harry usually uses and the wizard knows them very well then you don't have to go through all the preparations (most times the lore skill combined with one or two declarations would suffice here anyways).

If it is a more complex ritual like the entropy curse then yes. The preparations have to be done every time. You have to understand that the preparations are not only of scholastic nature, there are many many other components. Ingredients might get used up or tainted by magical energies during the ritual and have to be replaced before the next one. You might have to get your mind prepared though meditation before doing it again. These are many things that are mostly done as declarations... You don't have to play them out every time. Just make a uber declaration like in the rules and be done with it. When the caster of a ritual isn't in a hurry, then you can skip the casting all together. Given enough time any ritual will go through without a problem...

Regarding 2) Nobody can prevent the defense roll. By the rules if you are attacked, you can try to defend against it. As a GM you are within your right to compel an aspect of a player in the way that he is not able to defend because of an aspect that you as the GM place on him during the grapple, but thats really all you can do. If the player decides not to take your fate point and buys out of the compel, then you have to let him defend it. It comes down to narration at this point. Example: If you have someone in a headlock he still might be able to dodge a swing of a sword somehow or go limp and drag his grappler to the ground evading the gun shot.
Sometimes it makes no sense. I agree with that. It comes down on how the grapple is described and what you as a group deem reasonable... 

[Wyrdrune]

{quote]
Does the caster need to do it just once for a given ritual, or every time they want to cast the spell?
[/quote]

every time.

On the other hand, if the preparation has to be repeated every time, then how do spells like the Blood Rites entropy curse of Victor Sells' One Spoon Stab Exploding Heart Technique work? The writeups for both mention the casters taking hefty consequences on themselves to pay for them, but having done that, they can't take those consequences again. So how do they repeat the spell?

a real nasty ritualist inflicts the consequences on others - blood sacrifice, mental abuse and the like. if they do their sacrifices on a single victim they could get up to 12 (the consequences) + the stress bar out of it. have multiple sacrifices and you can power up a hell of a spell. (have your nasty a coven or sect with several willing subjects, and you can power a spell while the last sacrifice subject recovers.)

don't forget, that a caster can 'skip a scene' to gain shifts for complexity or he invokes aspects and/or and makes declarations.

uhm, papa gruff was faster...

[GeneralTacticus]

First of all: welcome to the forums.

Thanks

Regarding 1) In my opinion everything depends on what kind of ritual you are speaking of. This is far to diverse to answer with a singular ruling. If the ritual is a fairly common one like the tracking divinations Harry usually uses and the wizard knows them very well then you don't have to go through all the preparations (most times the lore skill combined with one or two declarations would suffice here anyways).

If it is a more complex ritual like the entropy curse then yes. The preparations have to be done every time. You have to understand that the preparations are not only of scholastic nature, there are many many other components. Ingredients might get used up or tainted by magical energies during the ritual and have to be replaced before the next one. You might have to get your mind prepared though meditation before doing it again. These are many things that are mostly done as declarations... You don't have to play them out every time. Just make a uber declaration like in the rules and be done with it. When the caster of a ritual isn't in a hurry, then you can skip the casting all together. Given enough time any ritual will go through without a problem...

Sure, I get all that. The only reason I'm unsure about this is because of the example of Victor Sells' ritual, of which a good 14 shifts worth of complexity came from taking an Extreme and Severe consequence on himself. Obviously, that's not repeatable. So, did Evil Hat just goof on this? Did he do it purely to make the first casting easier and find other sources of power on subsequent castings? Was Sells just a dumbass? (Quite a plausible answer, now that I think about it.)

Regarding 2) Nobody can prevent the defense roll. By the rules if you are attacked, you can try to defend against it. As a GM you are within your right to compel an aspect of a player in the way that he is not able to defend because of an aspect that you as the GM place on him during the grapple, but thats really all you can do. If the player decides not to take your fate point and buys out of the compel, then you have to let him defend it. It comes down to narration at this point. Example: If you have someone in a headlock he still might be able to dodge a swing of a sword somehow or go limp and drag his grappler to the ground evading the gun shot.
Sometimes it makes no sense. I agree with that. It comes down on how the grapple is described and what you as a group deem reasonable... 

Ok, cool. My major concern was actually in the other direction - that is, can a PC wizard use magic to grapple someone for the rest of the group to finish off? But that seems a sensible way to adjudicate it.

{quote]
Does the caster need to do it just once for a given ritual, or every time they want to cast the spell?


every time.


a real nasty ritualist inflicts the consequences on others - blood sacrifice, mental abuse and the like. if they do their sacrifices on a single victim they could get up to 12 (the consequences) + the stress bar out of it. have multiple sacrifices and you can power up a hell of a spell. (have your nasty a coven or sect with several willing subjects, and you can power a spell while the last sacrifice subject recovers.)

don't forget, that a caster can 'skip a scene' to gain shifts for complexity or he invokes aspects and/or and makes declarations.

uhm, papa gruff was faster...

Yes, the abuse and sacrifice of others as a means to power is very straightforward. My confusion is with Victor Sells inflicting consequences on himself to power the spell, given that he can't get rid of them and therefore can't reuse the slots.

[Papa Gruff]

Sure, I get all that. The only reason I'm unsure about this is because of the example of Victor Sells' ritual, of which a good 14 shifts worth of complexity came from taking an Extreme and Severe consequence on himself. Obviously, that's not repeatable. So, did Evil Hat just goof on this? Did he do it purely to make the first casting easier and find other sources of power on subsequent castings? Was Sells just a dumbass? (Quite a plausible answer, now that I think about it.)

Ah hm ... Ok i guess I see what you mean now. He does it two times in SF (not counting the final attempt against Harry, that Harry interrupts). I'm pretty sure it is a goof. In my game I'd probably rule, that the shifts generated by the taking of consequences will be generated in some other way. He might have refined the ritual, adding more aids to it as he gains a better understanding of it. Then he kills people and gains the lawbreaker and it'S benefits...

Honestly I don't know. I think the writeup in the book is only good for the first attempt of the spell and shouldn't be extended to cover the other attempts in SF.

[Belial666]

Actually, a block cannot prevent the defense roll. A grapple can prevent the defense roll, depending on the kind of grapple. I.e. if you are tied down or somebody has pinned you (physical grapple) you have to beat the grapple before you use athletics.


Example:

Harry Dresden is pinned by Ugly Denarian and Living Statue Denarian. The Living Statue has a Might of 4 and supernatural strength, and rolls a +1 in its grapple that round for a total of 7. The Ugly Denarian only has a might of 3 and Inhuman Strength and rolled a +0 for a total of 4. The Ugly Denarian, instead of trying to pin Harry Dresden individually, applies the Aspect "Helped to Grapple" on the Living Statue so the Living Statue can tag for a collective effort. Their total grapple is +9.

Pollonius Lartessa has a guns of +3 and rolls a +1 for a total of 4, using Harry Dresden's own gun to finish Harry off. Harry has an athletics of +4 and rolls a +3 that would normally beat Tessa's roll handily. Unfortunately, he is pinned by a grapple that is 2 point higher than his total roll of +7 and his defense fails.

Tessa gets to add the entirety of her roll to Harry's weapon 2 revolver, resulting in 6 stress. Harry's armor is depleted and he's already taken consequences, meaning he would be taken out and killed by a shot to the head. Luckily, the Archive interferes, creating a magical block of +5 that stops the shot.

[Papa Gruff]

Actually, a block cannot prevent the defense roll. A grapple can prevent the defense roll, depending on the kind of grapple. I.e. if you are tied down or somebody has pinned you (physical grapple) you have to beat the grapple before you use athletics.


Example:

Harry Dresden is pinned by Ugly Denarian and Living Statue Denarian. The Living Statue has a Might of 4 and supernatural strength, and rolls a +1 in its grapple that round for a total of 7. The Ugly Denarian only has a might of 3 and Inhuman Strength and rolled a +0 for a total of 4. The Ugly Denarian, instead of trying to pin Harry Dresden individually, applies the Aspect "Helped to Grapple" on the Living Statue so the Living Statue can tag for a collective effort. Their total grapple is +9.

Pollonius Lartessa has a guns of +3 and rolls a +1 for a total of 4, using Harry Dresden's own gun to finish Harry off. Harry has an athletics of +4 and rolls a +3 that would normally beat Tessa's roll handily. Unfortunately, he is pinned by a grapple that is 2 point higher than his total roll of +7 and his defense fails.

Tessa gets to add the entirety of her roll to Harry's weapon 2 revolver, resulting in 6 stress. Harry's armor is depleted and he's already taken consequences, meaning he would be taken out and killed by a shot to the head. Luckily, the Archive interferes, creating a magical block of +5 that stops the shot.

Yes. I'd say this is how it is. Yet i'd rule, if in your example Harry somehow manages to reach Legendary +1 on his athletics roll (maybe invoking some aspects) not only does he manage to dodge the bullet, he also manages to get free of the grapple, as he broke the block against athletics with his defense roll.

[Belial666]

Yep. If the action you are attempting beats the block (in this case, the grapple acts as a block) the block is broken.


For example, if Harry Dresden is grappled by a thug with a grapple of 4 and rolls a Legendary in his control roll for magic, blasting the thug with 4 shifts of Power at +4 attack, the grapple is broken as the thug scrambles to avoid being hit in the face by the fireball.

[Stormraven]

Hm.  My take on the Sells example in the book is that he did that to take out Harry - the prior uses had been on vanilla mortals - not nearly as tough to kill, so he didn't need the same amount of effort.

[GeneralTacticus]

Hm.  My take on the Sells example in the book is that he did that to take out Harry - the prior uses had been on vanilla mortals - not nearly as tough to kill, so he didn't need the same amount of effort.

That's a possible reading, but then we have to consider that the consequences Sells took (Power-Mad and Bargain with a Demon) were things that had been in effect for a while. Admittedly they could have been in effect already and just codified with consequences at that point, but I don't find that a particularly satisfying answer.

One possible solution to this would be to rule that if the ritual's caster personally takes consequences to power a ritual, they receive the benefits for as long as the consequences stay in effect. So Sells would be able to cast his ritual for as long as he remained Power-Mad and bound to his demon; if either of these ceased to be the case, he'd need to retake the consequences, take others, or find other sources of ritual power. Thoughts?

Re: grappling: does this mean a high grapple roll can still nobble someone's defence roll even if they break out? Seems rather crippling to the unfortunate victim. Still, grapples take some setting up, and that grapple roll could equally well have gone into a direct attack.

[babel2uk]

Re: grappling: does this mean a high grapple roll can still nobble someone's defence roll even if they break out? Seems rather crippling to the unfortunate victim. Still, grapples take some setting up, and that grapple roll could equally well have gone into a direct attack.

My reading is that a grapple works as a block on all actions, including defensive ones, until it is broken, once you do break free the block on actions no longer affects you. Remember that blocks don't prevent actions being attempted, they just make them more difficult to accomplish. If you roll high enough to beat the grapple you break the hold - depending on the kind of action you're taking and specifically whether it's logical that it would directly break the grapple. In the case of dodging the physical movement should be enough justification to break a grapple if the roll is successful. The value of the Grapple is not taken off the roll before it's applied to defence, it's just that if you roll higher than the result you need to dodge, but less than the value you'd need to break the grapple, you'd fail to dodge because of the grapple pinning you in place. Conversely, I think if you roll higher than the grapple value, but not enough to dodge, then you successfully break the grapple, but still get hit by whatever you were trying to dodge - I may be wrong on that last but though, I don't have the rulebook to hand.

[GeneralTacticus]

My reading is that a grapple works as a block on all actions, including defensive ones, until it is broken, once you do break free the block on actions no longer affects you. Remember that blocks don't prevent actions being attempted, they just make them more difficult to accomplish. If you roll high enough to beat the grapple you break the hold - depending on the kind of action you're taking and specifically whether it's logical that it would directly break the grapple. In the case of dodging the physical movement should be enough justification to break a grapple if the roll is successful. The value of the Grapple is not taken off the roll before it's applied to defence, it's just that if you roll higher than the result you need to dodge, but less than the value you'd need to break the grapple, you'd fail to dodge because of the grapple pinning you in place. Conversely, I think if you roll higher than the grapple value, but not enough to dodge, then you successfully break the grapple, but still get hit by whatever you were trying to dodge - I may be wrong on that last but though, I don't have the rulebook to hand.

Hmm. On review, I think you're correct - the precedent for regular Block actions appears to be that, if the block strength is higher than the difficulty of performing the action normally, the block strength replaces it (e.g. blocks being able to replace other people's defence rolls). So if the attack roll is better than the grapple, the grapple isn't really relevant to defending against it, but if the grapple roll is higher and the grapple-ee fails to break out, they fail their defence and get hit.

[Becq]

By default, the rules state that Grapple blocks all actions ... except for ones the GM decides wouldn't be prevented by a grapple (YS211).  Some possible examples are given, but it's left up to the GM to determine what if any actions are allowed while grappled.