DFRPG Demo- PC's

[kertain]

Howdy!

I am running my first Dresden "demo" game and created three PCs for my group.
The setting is during WWII and the players are sent in to take care of an evil Nazi sorcerer...super original I know... 

I wanted to show the group what could be done with the system and not limit myself to just 3x wizards. This will be a combat heavy session so I geared all my guys towards that..not super balanced in a "real" game I know.

Anyone mind looking them over and make sure I didn't jack something up?
I am thinking specifically on the Focus Items for the wizard, Item of Power for the Emissary, and Were Form powers/ were skills separation.

Up to your waist: 7 refresh, 25 skill points, skill cap Great
------------------------
High Concept: Wizardling (wizard in training..not fully ripe)
Trouble: I pissed off something nasty...

Skills:
Great: Conviction, Endurance
Good: Discipline, Guns
Fair: Lore, Fists, Alertness
Average: Intimidation, Might, Athletics, Rapport, Stealth

Stunt/Powers:
-3 Evocation
-2 Ritual
-0 Wizards Constitution
-1 Sight
-0 Soulgaze
Total Refresh Adjustment: -6

Specialization
Evocation: (Fire, Water, Sprit)
Control: Fire +1

Focus Items:
Jade necklace: +1 Defence (Spirit)
Ritual Bone (wand): +1 power to fire and wair
2 open enchanted item slots

Stress:
Physical: 0000XXXX
Mental: 0000XXXX
Social: 00XXXXXX

Adjusted Refresh: 1


------------------------

High Concept: Emissary of Thor
Trouble:The gods themselves have pity on me

Skills:
Great: Weapon, Fists
Good: Might, Endurance
Fair: Guns, Intimidation, Athletics
Average: Alertness, Driving, Discipline, Presence, Lore

Stunts/Powers:
+2 Thor's Hammer
    -2 Inhuman Strenght
    -2 Inhuman Toughness
    +1 Catch: Weakness to spirit attacks
-2 Inhuman Recovery
-1 Wall of Death
-1 Ripioste
Total Refresh Adjustment: -5

Stress:
Physical: 000000XX
Mental: 00XXXXXX
Social: 00XXXXXX

Adjusted Refresh: 2

------------------------

High Concept: Were Panther
Trouble:Soul of a Predator

Skills:
Great: Guns, Alertness
Good: Endurance, Investigation
Fair: Driving, Scholarship, Fists
Average: Lore, Survival, Intimidation, Stealth, Burglary

Skills as a Panther:
Great: Fists, Alertness
Good: Endurance, Stealth
Fair: Might, Survival, Athletics
Average: x, x, x, x, x


Stunts/Powers:
-1 Beast Change
-1 Echoes of the Beast
+1 Human form
-2 Inhuman Speed
-2 Inhuman Strength
-1 Claws
Total Refresh Adjustment: -6

Stress:
Physical: 0000XXXX
Mental: 00XXXXXX
Social: 00XXXXXX

Adjusted Refresh: 1

[Sanctaphrax]

I see no actual mistakes. But there are some typos, some odd choices, and some things missing.

Typos:

+1 power to fire and wair
Great: Weapon, Fists
Inhuman Strenght
Ripioste

Odd choices:

The wizard's specialization and focus bonuses
Inhuman Recovery not being part of the Emissary's IoP

Missing stuff:

Average skills for panther form
Thaumaturgical field for wizard

[crusher_bob]

High Concept: Wizardling (wizard in training..not fully ripe)

Note that foci should be split into defensive and offense, and then into power and control
So, for example, the jade necklace should probably be defensive spirit control, giving your wizard defensive spirit power of 4 and a defensive spirit control of 4.
But still not a very good split.
-------
After specialization: Base fire power 4, base control 4
He could then take a foci that was +1 defensive fire power and control.
And an then another foci for +1 offensive fire control.
So he'd have control 5, power 5 on the defense, and control 5, power 4 on the offense.
At lore 2, enchanted items aren't going to be worth much.
------
What ritual?  Or would the player get to pick from a list?
------
The wizard doesn't have athletics for defense so he has to rely on evocation.  But he does have a very high guns skill for some reason.  But he's usually better off using evocation for offense.  But then, he really needs to hold back his mental stress for defense, since his other defensive options are so crappy.

I also sort of recommend against this build because the wizard doesn't seem to be able to contribute much when there's not a fight to be had.  He doesn't know anyone, he can't talk that well, what he going to do?  Shift skills around so that he as something to contribute outside of combat.

High Concept: Emissary of Thor

The catch should be under the character himself, not the hammer.
Also, this character also has a very poor athletics for defense.
He's also not very good at anything not involving combat.

High Concept: Were Panther

Once again, very poor defenses, and not a whole lot of attention paid to non-combat abilities.

There should be other stuff they have to do, other that blast things.  Sneak past guards?  Deal with French resistance forces?  Force some papers?  Steal something?  Why are these guys sent instead of a team of pure mortal gunmen, who would also have some reasonable chance against a sorcerer?  Sending the best wizard you can get o short notice makes sense, but why the two other guys?  What, other than the ability to kill people do they bring to the mission?

[Belial666]

I agree with the previous assessments on these guys' abilities in general. Here are my suggestions for improving the builds as well as making them more well-rounded.

High Concept: Wizardling (wizard in training..not fully ripe)
a) A good wizard tries to focus his abilities. Pick Spirit (it's good for both offense and defense) and get +1 spirit control (from evocation bonus), +2 spirit offense power and control foci. That gives you an offense power and control of 6, which is 2 shifts better than using grenades or bazookas - you need someone in the group to take on tanks and bunkers, after all. Defense-wise, you are at power 4 control 4, which is as much as a top defense skill so you are no better than having athletics at 4 (more on that later), except for one thing; Spirit is good at veils. Veils block not the attackers' attack roll but their perception roll, which is usually going to be much less. Even better, against big opponents, you can use offensive veils to blind them - which will use your offensive power, not your defensive power - and also make them unaware to your allies' attacks in addition to blocking their attacks.
b) As noted before, enchanted items are all but usueless with a Lore of 2. In addition, in order to actually craft enchanted items with Ritual (but not foci), you got to get Ritual Crafting - so they also cost you other uses of Ritual. So, no enchanted items. For ritual choice, I suggest a thematic choice of Photomancy. Photomancy has very high diversity for a single thematic choice; veils and illusions, offensive spells from flashbangs to searing light and ray attacks, and sensory magics from infravision and telescopic vision spells to bending light to see around obstacles and faraway locations. Of course, with a Lore of 2 the base complexity is going to be small but you can boost them with skill-applied aspects and mild consequences.
c) Skill-wise, consider replacing Endurance with Athletics. Endurance of 4 is not better stress-wise than Endurance of 3 and athletics of 4 is really going to help for a combat guy. Guns now are going to be a significant problem. For a modern wizard, most guns are old, reliable technology. For a WWII wizard, all automatic guns and machineguns are going to be for them as cutting-edge as computers are to us. That means that those wizards would have hexing problems like Dresden has with today's computers. Even their revolvers are going to be less reliable because, for them, the tech is going to be about half as old as it is for the modern world. So you could drop guns to a lower skill and use the slot for Endurance.

High Concept: Emissary of Thor

a) The guy has fairly low athletics and he's a tank character. The vast majority of attacks he's going to face, from guns to grenades, to zombies trying to claw off his face to enemy wizards blasting at him call for a dodge defense. To fix this without changing his skills, remove "inhuman toughness" from his hammer (more on this later) and add True Strike while at the same time give him the "Footwork" stunt for weapons. He now attacks and defends at +5, which is better than attacking at +4 and defending at +2.
b) The "spirit attacks" catch is +1 because only a small group of people can get it and another +1 for being researchable as there have probably been other emmissaries before him sharing the same catch. (do note that the "trappings of winter" catch is significantly rarer; the majority of spellcasters in the world can get spirit attacks. Only fae and emissaries with Unseelie Magic could get trappings of winter). As for his toughness/recovery, him having them on himself rather than his hammer makes the IoP simpler and reflects them being a direct blessing from Thor like Emmissaries of Faerie have sponsored magic.
c) While Wall of Death is good for a melee character, Riposte is a rather sub-par choice. "Swing and Move" (the equivalent to "shoot and move" from Kincaid's writeup) would allow him far greater mobility; he could move up to 2 zones without penalty to his melee attacks, allowing him to close to the enemy in many situations without wasting a whole exchange sprinting or attacking and then moving beyond a melee enemy's reach. Do note that this is a very good thing to have with grenades - and remember that grenades use weapons skill.

High Concept: Were Panther

The only thing that needs much fixing here is skills. Despite Beast Change, 3 of his higher-end skills remain the same. I'd suggest having Athletics as an apex skill in his panther form to go along with Inhuman Speed. Otherwise, enemy soldiers are going to shoot him to death; in panther form, he'll have to close in melee range without being able to wear armor, without having any toughness powers and with a low defense as is his current skillset.

[kertain]

Thanks guys!
Yah I had forgotten Athletics was the primary "dodge" skill..I bumped that up significantly.

Fixed the control and focus for the wizard and re-worked the panthers skillset and also added some more social skills all around.
They aren't very balanced but this is for a very short focused demo game, group primarily wanted to see how combat went and how the aspect system works.

Thanks again

[sinker]

In addition, in order to actually craft enchanted items with Ritual (but not foci), you got to get Ritual Crafting - so they also cost you other uses of Ritual. So, no enchanted items.

Unless one chooses a thematic specialty (as you suggested). A thematic specialty includes all of the functional specialties that make sense for that theme. In the case of crafting a thematic ritualist can make any enchanted items that fit his or her baliwick.

[WillH]

In addition, in order to actually craft enchanted items with Ritual (but not foci), you got to get Ritual Crafting - so they also cost you other uses of Ritual. So, no enchanted items.

Ritual either restricts you to one aspect of thaumaturgy or to a theme. 

[vonpenguin]

One thing, as I recall Hitler's occult obsession was particularly focused on Norse mythology. So I would consider giveing the Thor champion some sort of bonus to interactions with Nazi officers. Just a thought.