Red Court Vampire Catch

[JCaps]

My character's High Concept revolves around battling Red Court vamps, and as such many aspects of his character are centered on specializing him to fight them. I was wondering how the Reds' "unarmored belly" catch would be used in actual gameplay. Simply stating "I'm attacking their stomach to meet their catch" seems more than a little overpowered, since any successful attack would essentially render them cut off to most of their supernatural powers.

The only thing me and my GM have managed to come up with is, taking into account that these are supposed to be reasonably badass individuals and shouldn't be able to be slaughtered in the dozens, is a stunt that grants the character the option of, after a successful Weapons hit (tailored to his personal weapon preference), spending a fate point to slice the blood-bladder and deprive the vamp of more or less all its Inhuman Toughness, Strength, Speed, etc. The required fate point ensures that it can't be over-employed, making sure each Red Court doesn't become a total pushover.

If anyone else has other ideas on how to work their "unarmored belly" catch into gameplay rules, I'd appreciate the input.

[Tedronai]

Even if the catch were avoidable simply by knowing about it, only the Toughness powers would be voided
Strength and Speed powers don't have catches

Personally, I don't think it would require a stunt to target the weak spot, but simply knowledge of it's presence
ie. change it from a stunt to a Lore declaration (once it's established that you know about it, I wouldn't require rolls in the future)

a related stunt might allow you an extra free tag per scene on aspects related to the knowledge of weak points

[JCaps]

However, if the vampire is now drained of its blood, I see this as an issue with their Feeding Dependency, which in the Our World book (Pg. 86) is said to affect the following powers: Inhuman Strength, Inhuman Speed, Inhuman Recovery, and Inhuman Toughness.

In addition, in Your Story (Pg. 185) under the "Catch" section, it states that "Any Recovery powers you have will not speed up the recovery from an injury sourced from something that bypasses the Catch." Thereby, an attack satisfying the catch would invalidate their Inhuman Recovery as well, at the very least.

[Tedronai]

true
forgot about that part

I'd recommend paying attention to the 'hard enough' clause of their weakness, and say, then, that this (the loss of blood as fuel for their powers) is the product of a consequence of sufficient magnitude (probably at least a moderate consequence)

so:
succeed (or have previously succeeded) on a Lore Declaration that you know about the weakness
spend a Fate point to tag the resultant aspect so that any successful hits the weak spot, bypassing the toughness powers and having the potential to nerf their powers
any resultant consequences get themed appropriately; sufficient consequences nerf the vamp's powers by way of a Compel

[Nyarlathotep5150]

   Thats not how feeding dependency works. It only comes up after an encounter. At the end of the encounter you make a discipline roll versus a difficulty of the total refresh cost of powers tied to your feeding dependency, that you used in the encounter, to see if you can clear your stress track.
   Thats all it means when a power is tied to feeding dependency.

   As far as the bellies, I'd just let people make called shots to the belly, with a penalty for the called shot and an even bigger penalty if the RCV still has its flesh mask on. There are two reasons for this. 1) Its not hard to overcome a vampires catch to begin with. 2) the description of RCVs in the novels made that weakness pretty obvious before it ever even came up.

[JCaps]

True, but I'm wondering if the catch is almost too easy. That, and the feeding dependency rules are alright for a player controlled character, but when it comes to draining an enemy NPC, tallying everything up after a scene just doesn't cut it.

[Tedronai]

  Thats not how feeding dependency works. It only comes up after an encounter. At the end of the encounter you make a discipline roll versus a difficulty of the total refresh cost of powers tied to your feeding dependency, that you used in the encounter, to see if you can clear your stress track.
   Thats all it means when a power is tied to feeding dependency.

The issue comes not from the content of the Feeding Dependency 'power', but from OW's generic-RCV' "weakness" section

  As far as the bellies, I'd just let people make called shots to the belly, with a penalty for the called shot and an even bigger penalty if the RCV still has its flesh mask on. There are two reasons for this. 1) Its not hard to overcome a vampires catch to begin with. 2) the description of RCVs in the novels made that weakness pretty obvious before it ever even came up.

what does that 'called shot' do and how is it accomplished?

[JCaps]

Simply allowing an attack to get through their toughness and perhaps nullify their recovery is all well and good, but I was looking for something that would emulate the effect that gutting the RCV's had in the case files, focusing more on the description given in their Weakness section of the OW book (85) of "Additionally, their bellies are a vulnerable point; strike them correctly and hard enough, and all the blood they’ve consumed spills out, often leaving them too weak to fight." Bypassing a catch doesn't really seem to pack the power that "leaving them too weak to fight" implies.

[Tedronai]

simple solution:
'hard enough' = 'inflicting a sufficient consequence'

[Nyarlathotep5150]

"Additionally, their bellies are a vulnerable point; strike them correctly and hard enough, and all the blood they’ve consumed spills out, often leaving them too weak to fight." Bypassing a catch doesn't really seem to pack the power that "leaving them too weak to fight" implies.

   Often leaving them too weak to fight means that it doesn't always leave them too weak to fight. This means that most RCVs will concede if a gut shot inflicts a consequence (all other effects of a gut shot can be handled as said consequence).

That, and the feeding dependency rules are alright for a player controlled character, but when it comes to draining an enemy NPC, tallying everything up after a scene just doesn't cut it.

   Absolutely disagree. NPCs run on the same rules as PCs. They aren't special. This isn't D&D, where every opponent exists to be mowed down in the fight and never seen again. And if we are talking about nameless mooks then who cares how easy they are to kill? They exist solely to be cut down enmass.

what does that 'called shot' do and how is it accomplished?

   My bad. What I meant was more along the lines of, Red Court Vamps already have an implied Aspect of "Weak belly"(Its part of their high concept). Any player can make a Lore based assessment (or just be told) to get a tag on that aspect. You invoke the aspect for effect (the effect being to satisfy the catch). From then on, anyone whos seen it can invoke the aspect by spending fate. For some reason I couched that in terminology from other games.
   The red court belly is effectively no different than staking a Black court vamp.

[toturi]

   Absolutely disagree. NPCs run on the same rules as PCs. They aren't special. This isn't D&D, where every opponent exists to be mowed down in the fight and never seen again. And if we are talking about nameless mooks then who cares how easy they are to kill? They exist solely to be cut down enmass.

Not really, I would like to think that NPCs are run on the same rules as PCs, but some NPCs get to cheat.

[Howl]

My group had a few encounters with RCV. We used the Aim and Called Shot rules for targeting their bellies. That bypasses their toughness and recovery powers, and if the RCV take consequences you can invoke for effect to say that their blood supply is drained and that they are taken out.

[EldritchFire]

My group had a few encounters with RCV. We used the Aim and Called Shot rules for targeting their bellies. That bypasses their toughness and recovery powers, and if the RCV take consequences you can invoke for effect to say that their blood supply is drained and that they are taken out.

I'm familiar with the aim rules (manoeuvre to place an "In My Sights" aspect or something similar). But what're the called shots rules? I'm not familiar with them.

-EF

[Drachasor]

I'm familiar with the aim rules (manoeuvre to place an "In My Sights" aspect or something similar). But what're the called shots rules? I'm not familiar with them.

-EF

YS 210.  Though to make an attack bypass toughness powers, I'd say you need to Invoke it For Effect with an attack rather than just Invoking for a +2 bonus (that's just my opinion though).

[JCaps]

The rule that seems to make the most sense to me is treating the "unarmored belly" as an aspect to be tagged or invoked, no argument there. After it becomes clear that the character is facing a RCV, and assuming he has at some point made the Lore check or otherwise become aware of the blood-bladder weakness, he tags or invokes that aspect (I'd say on a successful hit), to threaten the draining of their blood and the loss of most of their inhuman powers. Badass, important vamps would be able to buy out of the compel, peons would be screwed.

Aiming and Called Shots seem like good mechanisms for doing solid damage and bypassing their inhuman toughness, and I'd definitely use it as a way to even the field just a tad without being forced to spend fate points. I still like having heavier-hitting option too, though, for when things get hairy and you need to incapacitate a RCV as quickly as possibly, like Harry, Michael, and Thomas at the vampire ball. Fate point cost still limits its repetitive use without making it a total silver bullet against Bigger Bads.