My take on Soulfire

[Ryan_Singer]

I'm sure this has come up before. I'm not satisfied with how the RPG stats soulfire. Here's how I'd do it.

Soulfire
-5 Refresh

Soulfire is sponsored magic. Without Evocation or Thaumaturgy, Soulfire provides Channeling (Holy Fire) and Ritual (Blessings). Like other sponsored magic packages, Soulfire provides a 1 refresh discount each for Evocation and Thaumaturgy.

Any spell cast with Soulfire can have the *Holy* aspect, which satisfies some monster's catch. In addition, the caster can spend a Fate Point to satisfy the catch on anything, as per the SotC ability.

Instead of the standard fate point economy of Sponsored Magic, Soulfire uses the Hunger Track, using Conviction to set it's length and defend against attacks. Every fate point borrowed from Soulfire represents 2 points of hunger stress. At the end of a scene, add up your hunger stress, and defend against an attack at that level using conviction. Shifts of damage generate by this attack either generate mental and physical consequences based on fatigue, or restrict access to spellcasting powers.

Any thoughts?

[babel2uk]

How do you clear the hunger stress?

[Kaldra]

i would guess things like forgiving enemies, charity ect...

[Belial666]

1) What are the effects of Soulfire when the caster does have evocation and thaumaturgy? From what we've seen in the books, the effects aren't holy or automatically satisfy catches with FP expenditure (in that case Dresden would have killed the Naagloshi outright with a big enough blast as it would not have been any tougher than a human against it). Instead, they seem to extend evocation and allow the caster to create spell-constructs in the blink of an eye.

2) In the books, we have seen that the caster's expended life energy (soul) grows back on its own - if more slowly than normal mental stress. In addition, there is nothing holy about doing sex in order to fill it up faster. At least, not in the way most people think. 

[babel2uk]

In addition, there is nothing holy about doing sex in order to fill it up faster. At least, not in the way most people think.  

huh? not sure where you pulled that from - unless you misread charity as chastity.

Other than that I'd agree that the books don't seem to support the catch aspect. And I can't remember off-hand Harry doing anything with it except adding more oomph to a spell by fuelling it with a piece of his soul, but I'm quite possibly just not remembering the specific instances where he did. I also can't remember any instances of Soulfire being used by someone without magic - that wouldn't already be covered by the Faith powers - I'd argue that if any mortal should be in possession of Soul-Fire without casting ability it would be a Knight of the Cross, and they don't get anything extra to the standard Faith powers other than the sword. Again, I may just not remember the appropriate instance when this has been brought up.

I'd also say that charitable acts and forgiveness etc seems a little wishy washy to clear a hunger track for Soul Fire. I think it needs to be something stronger and more difficult.

[Buscadera]

In addition, there is nothing holy about doing sex in order to fill it up faster. At least, not in the way most people think. 

huh? not sure where you pulled that from - unless you misread charity as chastity.

I believe he's referring to the story where Harry mentions

(click to show/hide)

sleeping with Luccio

and Bob says something about it being "good for the soul" and restoring the bits of soul he spent with Soulfire.

[babel2uk]

huh? not sure where you pulled that from - unless you misread charity as chastity.

I believe he's referring to the story where Harry mentions

(click to show/hide)

sleeping with Luccio

and Bob says something about it being "good for the soul" and restoring the bits of soul he spent with Soulfire.

That would explain it. I just assumed it was a response to something in the post above, and couldn't see anything other than a misreading of Charity that would explain....

In any case, my feeling about Soul-Fire (having re-read the section on it) is that it's quite potent enough as written, without allowing non mages to throw out blasts of holy flame (obviously Jim Butcher may throw someone into a future book who can do that, in which case fair enough I'll revise my opinion).

[Ryan_Singer]

The only way to clear the track is to take the attack. Unlike a vampires feeding dependency, you can't kill to automatically clear it.

You can start recovery from consequences from the hunger attack by doing something life-affirming and "good for the soul". Likewise, to restore powerloss, you skip scenes, and are assumed to be resting and doing "good for the soul"-type things in the background.

[ralexs1991]

You can start recovery from consequences from the hunger attack by doing something life-affirming and "good for the soul". Likewise, to restore powerloss, you skip scenes, and are assumed to be resting and doing "good for the soul"-type things in the background.

cue montage of PC donating time a soup kitchen tutoring orphans and other generic cliche things LOL!

[sinker]

Of note the Naagloshi doesn't necessarily have the "Holy" catch, so there's no reason to believe that harry should have killed it outright. The way soulfire is currently described in the RPG books is that it satisfies the "Holy" catch and slightly downgrades any other toughness power

(click to show/hide)

(I'm going to guess that the Naagloshi had ridiculous toughness if it survived a nuke).

There's no reason to believe that that isn't an adequate description of how soulfire works in the novels.
Although I'm merely arguing about the catch bit. If you feel you need a better mechanic for how it's used then by all means.

[Becq]

I don't see a lot of difference between this and what's in the book.  In YS, it already counts as 'holy' and 'fire' for free, and also counts bypasses one level of Toughness all of the time.  In addition, you still have the usual option of spending Fate to further boost it or to accept debt to further boost it.

With regards to the hunger rules ... well, the idea of burning off soul and needing to slowly replenish it does sound a lot like hunger.  Or at least the way hunger ought to work.  The rules in DFRPG seem very quirky to me at best, though, so applying them to Soulfire doesn't appeal to me.  After all, you'd only need to not use Soulfire for one scene to get back that Soul you burned, right?  In any case, as stated it would be pretty trivial for a Wizard with a decent Discipline to make use of 1-2 free Fate worth of Debt per scene with no ill effects -- and even if you got a mild consequence, it would go away in a scene -- whereas with the Debt rules each Fate borrowed gets repaid in kind.

I think that the Debt rules are pretty decent, though it might make sense to tweak back the way repayment of Debt works.  For example, it might make sense that the Debt is not repayed via compels at all ... instead, any new Fate you earn is automatically applied to buy down the debt.  Harry doesn't seem to be forced to do much of anything to 'pay' for his use of Soulfire; he just is weakened for a while (which translates here to taking longer to build up more Fate).

[Ryan_Singer]

I don't see a lot of difference between this and what's in the book.  In YS, it already counts as 'holy' and 'fire' for free, and also counts bypasses one level of Toughness all of the time.  In addition, you still have the usual option of spending Fate to further boost it or to accept debt to further boost it.

With regards to the hunger rules ... well, the idea of burning off soul and needing to slowly replenish it does sound a lot like hunger.  Or at least the way hunger ought to work.  The rules in DFRPG seem very quirky to me at best, though, so applying them to Soulfire doesn't appeal to me.  After all, you'd only need to not use Soulfire for one scene to get back that Soul you burned, right?  In any case, as stated it would be pretty trivial for a Wizard with a decent Discipline to make use of 1-2 free Fate worth of Debt per scene with no ill effects -- and even if you got a mild consequence, it would go away in a scene -- whereas with the Debt rules each Fate borrowed gets repaid in kind.

I think that the Debt rules are pretty decent, though it might make sense to tweak back the way repayment of Debt works.  For example, it might make sense that the Debt is not repayed via compels at all ... instead, any new Fate you earn is automatically applied to buy down the debt.  Harry doesn't seem to be forced to do much of anything to 'pay' for his use of Soulfire; he just is weakened for a while (which translates here to taking longer to build up more Fate).

Hunger rules simply provide a mechanic that substitutes debt for complications and powerloss, and specifies how long it takes to "regrow" the soul. My point was that hunger rules as they currently exist model what happens in the books better than debt.

[ralexs1991]

Of note the Naagloshi doesn't necessarily have the "Holy" catch, so there's no reason to believe that harry should have killed it outright. The way soulfire is currently described in the RPG books is that it satisfies the "Holy" catch and slightly downgrades any other toughness power

(click to show/hide)

(I'm going to guess that the Naagloshi had ridiculous toughness if it survived a nuke).

There's no reason to believe that that isn't an adequate description of how soulfire works in the novels.
Although I'm merely arguing about the catch bit. If you feel you need a better mechanic for how it's used then by all means.

the Naagloshi that Harry and Injun Joe fought and the one Morgan dropped a nuke on were two completely different skinwalkers the one morgan fought he killed

-page reference TC 55-6

[Becq]

Hunger rules simply provide a mechanic that substitutes debt for complications and powerloss, and specifies how long it takes to "regrow" the soul. My point was that hunger rules as they currently exist model what happens in the books better than debt.

In theory, I agree.  The concept of Hunger might apply well to loss of soul.  But the actual mechanics given for Hunger ... well, I'm less than impressed with them, which makes me less eager to reuse them. 

[sinker]

You know, it occurs to me that the game already has a mechanic for losing something when you cast and regaining it over time. You lose stress any time you cast and in theory that would be for simple things that don't require much of your soul. To cast bigger things one can take consequences which would take longer to repair (and maybe require you to do something to regrow that bit of soul).
Just saying the mechanic exists, but I understand if you don't think it's harsh enough.