Echoes Of The Beast

[Sanctaphrax]

As some of you may have noticed, I've been making a lot of characters lately that have the Echoes Of The Beast power. The effects of said power are variable, and I don't know what they should be in most cases. So I turn to you, people of the forum, for suggestions concerning the effects of Echoes from the following types of thing:

Viper
Python
Wolf
Housecat
Spider
Outsider
Shark
Turtle
Crab
Bat
Bear
Horse
Elephant
Falcon

[wyvern]

The sensory bonus and talk-to-animal-types are generally relatively straightforward, so here's my take on the normally-impossible-thing / limited skill bonus.

Viper: Ability to "see" heat signatures; in terms of game mechanics this is mostly being able to see in the dark, though a creative player might use this as an excuse to tag their high concept on a wider variety of things - for example, an empathy check for reading someone's emotions...  (Note: this may also depend on the kind of viper; not all viper species have this particular sense.)

Python: +1 might when initiating or maintaining a grapple; simple, straightforward, and to the point.

Wolf: Not sure here; something to do with teamwork, maybe?

Housecat: Add an escape artist trapping to athletics - mostly useful for squeezing into/through narrow places where people would swear you couldn't fit...

Spider: Depends heavily on the type of spider.  Could vary from a craftsmanship trapping to allow creation of webbing traps, to +1 athletics when jumping, to +1 stealth when not moving...

Outsider: Add an unreality trapping to conviction - you can make maneuvers that establish aspects that emphasize the breakdown of reality in your presence.  Things like "Lurking Shadows" or "Are those mice chanting?" or "Strobing Octarine Light"...

Shark: Depends on the type of shark; the common option would be a truly extraordinary sense of smell - when you're in the water.  But I think the most fun option would be the electrical senses of, for an example, the hammerhead shark.  You'd be able to sense the presence / absence of living things, even around corners, tell the difference between a normal person and a lobotomized renfield, etc.

Turtle: Depends on kind of turtle.  For a relatively ordinary, say, box turtle, you might get +1 to defense against physical damage from edged attacks (but not hammers, bullets, etc).  For a desert tortoise, +1 on endurance when dealing with heat / lack of water.  For a sea turtle, +1 athletics when swimming.  Etc.

Crab: Really no clue.  I am sadly not particularly up to date on the special abilities of crabs.

Bat: Depends on type of bat.  Echolocation is the obvious thing for the types of bats that can do that.  However, there are a number of species (for example, fruitbats) that rely on sight and smell rather than echolocation; for those... hm.  Nothing immediately springs to mind, sorry.

Bear: +1 intimidation when you're bigger than your target, maybe?  Or you could go with some kind of athletics bonus; bears are surprisingly fast and agile for their size.

Horse: +1 athletics when sprinting.

Elephant: I'm tempted to say "extra minor physical consequence slot", but that's probably too strong.  Maybe something representing the elephant's ability to be really really loud?

Falcon: Ability to see stuff in perfect detail at extreme distances.  Or possibly just a +1 athletics when sprinting.

[Sanctaphrax]

Great stuff, wyvern. I especially like the outsider one.

What do you think about a tracking bonus for wolves?

The only entry there that I object to is the python. I feel that it's probably too strong, despite being in accordance with the guidelines in the book.

[wyvern]

Hm.  Tracking bonus for wolves would work pretty well; +1 to survival for tracking, or use alertness to track, or something like that.
Another option might be a bonus when endurance is being used to complement another skill; I seem to recall wolves being fairly well known for running down prey by just simply keeping on going past the limits of their target's endurance...  Not sure the best way to stat that, though; +1 to anything when it's being complemented by endurance is probably too strong - maybe +2 or +3 to endurance when it's being used to complement some other skill?  (That way the final roll still only gets a +1 at most, but you can have endurance lower than your apex skill and still get a bonus from it...)

For pythons... If the grapple bonus is too strong, how about +1 to might when using it to make a maneuver?  That keeps the same feel of being better at grappling, but puts the "better" on the setup rather than the grapple itself.  [edit] Alternatively, you could limit it to +1 only when initiating a grapple; that way it will never stack with the strength power bonus to maintaining a grapple... (Assuming I'm remembering the strength powers right; don't have the book here to look it up.) [/edit]

[Sanctaphrax]

Yeah, I heard something similar about wolves. Then again, I also heard that about humans.

I like the +1 to initiate grapples idea for the python. Strength powers benefit all grapples, but the Wrestler stunt only benefits attempts to maintain one.

[UmbraLux]

Another option for pythons - grapple without needing to tag an aspect.

For wolves, you could model the extra endurance by giving them an additional mild consequence.  Or, for the teamwork route, the ability to tag/invoke aspects to add to an ally's roll.

[wyvern]

Grapple without needing to tag an aspect is almost certainly overpowered.  So is an extra mild consequence.  Your teamwork suggestion, by comparison, is - at least in my opinion - already perfectly legal to do without any powers or stunts at all.

On the other hand, a sort of a "flanking" type bonus could work well for wolves - +1 to fists skill vs. targets that are currently being engaged by someone else who also has a wolf-based Echoes of the Beast power?  It's kinda broader than a lot of the other options, but at the same time narrower since it won't work without a pack.  Not sure.  (Note that real world wolf packs are essentially just families, usually a single mated pair plus offspring; the complex pack dominance structure that's gotten rooted in popular culture only applies when the wolves can't disperse, such as, oh, groups living in a zoo...)

[UmbraLux]

Grapple without needing to tag an aspect is almost certainly overpowered.  So is an extra mild consequence. 

  Best not to look too closely at the Endurance stunts then...

Really doesn't matter much to me, but grappling w/o tagging an aspect is less powerful than most of the stunts granting +2 to situational rolls.  As for the extra mild consequence, well it's a duplicate of another stunt. 

That said, I like your flanking idea also.  To make it even more wolf-like, modify it to grant a +2 to Fist based maneuvers in close combat.  Make it easier to model the hamstringing and harrying attacks of a wolf pack.

[wyvern]

That actually raises a question - what _should_ the power level of this portion of Echoes of the Beast be?  Some of the examples are more powerful than a stunt - for example, echolocation, which literally can't be replicated by any number of mortal stunts.  Some are equal - adding a trapping to a skill.  And some are weaker; +1 to stealth when barefoot (one of the examples from the book) is worth about half a stunt.

Either flanking method is good; heck, you could mix them up; nothing says every werewolf has to have exactly the same bonus from Echoes...

(And the thing with grappling is action economy - a successful grapple lets you take an opponent out of the fight without actually achieving a Takeout result; by normal rules, starting a grapple requires at least two actions; removing the need to tag drops that to one action.  Still, that's my interpretation, and it'd certainly be possible to run a game where that was a valid option.)