how much is this Catch?

[Michael Sandy]

Character has a non-Fallen angelic form that he can only change into when fighting supernatural beings, and he has to have personal knowledge that they are evil.

So, rare or involuntary shapeshift is +2

Powers from shapeshift:
Wings -1
Inhuman toughness, superhuman recovery  Catch, doesn't apply versus Pure Mortals.

The catch has to do with Free Will, and how even an angel has to respect it.  If an angel interferes in mortal affairs, they are vulnerable.

Pure mortals are widely available, and the catch would be researchable.  So would it be +3 or +4?


Also, would incite spiritual experience
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997741

work as an Incite Emotion power?  Basicly, trigger the receptors in the brain that cause that "sense of the divine" sensation.

[Tsunami]

The Catch seems a bit like wringing points out of the build.

It's a bit like

1. This set of powers is cheaper, because i can only ever use it against evil supernatural creatures (i.e. evil non mortals)
2. Oh, and it gets even more cheap because it doesn't work against mortals.

Yes, you could argue that mortals can be fighting on the side of evil supernatural creatures, but it still seems a lot like getting a refund for something that's already covered.

Back to the original question:
On it's own, a Catch against Pure Mortals, that can be researched would be worth +3.
+4 would mean that everyone who knows anything about the supernatural would know automatically.

[crusher_bob]

My two worries about this catch are:

1
The exact break point for having free will is a sort of strange one.  For example, does a warlock have free will?  DO they always do so?  Or is it more a case by case basis.  What about White Court vampires?  It would be strange, for example, if Tomas can break the catch, but Lara or Papa Raith couldn't.
I guess this one becomes less strange if your game is more interested in exploring that boundary than the standard one, but in the standard setting there are some strange effects here.

2
How many degrees of separation does your power protect you from?   For example, a regular Joe plants a land mine, and you come along later and step on it.  Are you protected because the land mine isn't the direct attack of someone with free will, or are you not protected because it was by an act of will/choice that Joe left that land mine there?  What about the more direct version: Joe is shooting at you.  What about faries in service to Joe, since they are, in theory, acting as extensions of his will?

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Incite spiritual experience can probably be modeled as incite emotion, yes.  Depends on what game effect you want incite spiritual experience to have.

[Becq]

I don't think that "I can only shapechange when standard Dresdenverse enemies are present" really qualifies as "rare" in the Dresdenverse setting.  If it were "I can only shapechange when demons (and perhaps outsiders) are present" then it would be more reasonable, because it wouldn't work against a number of likely foes.  You get points for having a weakness.  Alternatively, it *would* be reasonable to leave out the rare shapechange, then note to the GM that your High Concept (which probably mentions being an Angel) covers your inability to use your powers to interfere with purely mortal situations.  By doing this, you will get a Fate point on those occasions where you are fighting only pure mortals, but you'll be able to use them against any supernatural creature.

I also agree with Tsunami on the double-refund, and will throw in my own twist: I take a 1-x look at Catch values.  You choose your Catch values based on how rare (or not rare) that material/situation/whatever is.  The 1-x way of looking at that is to think of that commonality as an indication of how often you expect the Catch to come into play.  By choosing a high Catch value, you are telling your GM that you *want* to suffer from your Catch fairly often.

So in your case, the more points you value your Catch at, the more often the supernatural bad guys you fight will have a small horde of pure mortal mooks with AK-47s ready to take you down.  If this is what you want, then go for it!

[paul_Harkonen]

I don't think that "I can only shapechange when standard Dresdenverse enemies are present" really qualifies as "rare" in the Dresdenverse setting.  If it were "I can only shapechange when demons (and perhaps outsiders) are present" then it would be more reasonable, because it wouldn't work against a number of likely foes. 

Uh... Most of the creatures in the Dresdenverse aren't evil in the typical sense of the word, just alien.  Faeries, not evil.  White Court, not necessarily evil.  Ghouls, probably evil, but you can't know that until they actually try to rip your head off.  Other Wizards and Spellcasters, probably not evil, and even if they are, trying to rip your head off is not proof they are evil, just proof they disagree with you.  I think it certainly qualifies as rare so long as you consider the proper things "evil".  Not everything that disagrees with the PCs, tries to kill them, or meddles with people is "evil" they may just have a different goal that you don't know about, more information that you don't know about, or simply not have morals in the traditional sense.  Heck, one could even argue that most vampires aren't necessarily evil since they have to feed to survive (this one is by far the biggest stretch though).

As everyone else has said on the subject of the catch, it could be either a +3 or +4 depending on how often you, as the GM, want to beat the player up with it.  At +3 you are probably saying that it has to be the actions and choices of a character with free will (or a pure mortal) that cause the damage.  +4 means you as the GM should probably have a small group of dudes with guns sitting next to every big bad and in every fight the character ever has (not quite this much, but you get the idea).  This would also be the applicable level if pure mortals being controlled by someone else applies as well.

Finally, I think Incite Emotion: Sense of the Divine makes sense, and primarily depends on how the character intends to use it.  You probably could use it to attach aspects or related elements "Fear of the Divine" "Divine Inspiration" things of that nature but other than that I don't see much affect mechanically.

[Haru]

I don't think the toughness power needs any more refund at this point. If he is fighting evil, he goes all angel and got his powers, if he isn't, he is Joe Normal and can be hurt like anyone else. All his powers already have the +2 refund from the involuntary change, anything more would be, like Tsunami said, wringing some more points out of it.

This way, as long as he is in his angel state, he is protected against a lot of harm, even if it comes from a mundane human source. If he would, for example, slay someone who already surrendered, he would loose all his abilities until he would be able to redeem himself in some way. This would make him pretty similar to the swords of the cross, enormous power as long as they are wielded for the right purpose, fragile, if they are betraying this purpose. And in my opinion, a being like this should probably work like this.

[Tsunami]

I don't think the toughness power needs any more refund at this point. If he is fighting evil, he goes all angel and got his powers, if he isn't, he is Joe Normal and can be hurt like anyone else. All his powers already have the +2 refund from the involuntary change, anything more would be, like Tsunami said, wringing some more points out of it.

Oh, i'm not saying he can't have a refund for his catch. I just think that "Pure Mortals" is not worth much as a catch in this particular situation.
Some other catch could easily give +3 or  +4 points of refund.

Uh... Most of the creatures in the Dresdenverse aren't evil in the typical sense of the word, just alien.  Faeries, not evil.  White Court, not necessarily evil.  Ghouls, probably evil, but you can't know that until they actually try to rip your head off.  Other Wizards and Spellcasters, probably not evil, and even if they are, trying to rip your head off is not proof they are evil, just proof they disagree with you.  I think it certainly qualifies as rare so long as you consider the proper things "evil".  Not everything that disagrees with the PCs, tries to kill them, or meddles with people is "evil" they may just have a different goal that you don't know about, more information that you don't know about, or simply not have morals in the traditional sense.  Heck, one could even argue that most vampires aren't necessarily evil since they have to feed to survive (this one is by far the biggest stretch though).

Which brings up another question: What is "evil" for the purpose of this discussion?

[paul_Harkonen]

I don't think the toughness power needs any more refund at this point. If he is fighting evil, he goes all angel and got his powers, if he isn't, he is Joe Normal and can be hurt like anyone else. All his powers already have the +2 refund from the involuntary change, anything more would be, like Tsunami said, wringing some more points out of it.

This way, as long as he is in his angel state, he is protected against a lot of harm, even if it comes from a mundane human source. If he would, for example, slay someone who already surrendered, he would loose all his abilities until he would be able to redeem himself in some way. This would make him pretty similar to the swords of the cross, enormous power as long as they are wielded for the right purpose, fragile, if they are betraying this purpose. And in my opinion, a being like this should probably work like this.

Again, what if the evil in question was a mortal?  The idea is to have an angel that protects against the supernatural and fights evil, but is bound by the will of the mortals.  Your version doesn't deal with this concern very well.

[Haru]

Again, what if the evil in question was a mortal?  The idea is to have an angel that protects against the supernatural and fights evil, but is bound by the will of the mortals.  Your version doesn't deal with this concern very well.

He wouldn't be able to do him any harm, until the mortal has proven himself irredeemable evil. He would be pretty limited in what he does until then, he could only block any attacks against himself and others, and he would have to plead again and again for the mortal to stop his actions and redeem himself. Only after all this fails, he would be in his rights to use force against him and maybe even kill him.

Look at the Knights or the cross, especially at the scene from DM, when Harry is attacked by Ursiel in the ally. Shiro does not kill him right away. Only after it is absolutely clear, that Rasmussen is too far gone to even be able to give up the coin, they strike him down.

Like I said, this is how I would see a character like that, YMMV. If you want him to be vulnurable against mortals, he would be pretty useless. See Nicodemus, he is always surrounded by some minions. One of them would be enough to stop him from getting to ol' Nick himself and he would sit there, powerless. I don't think that would be very interesting.

[Michael Sandy]

I hadn't thought about land mine type damage.  Hmmm.

Suppose there is a button that triggers an explosion in a room.  Does the Angel take a different amount of damage if a Pure Mortal vs a Minor Talent pushes it?

Sort of like the Witch King of Angmar.  "Not by the hand of man will he fall".  So you could have the exact same weapon, same swing, but the harm that is done is linked to who is swinging it.

I do agree that there should be a maximum combined benefit from The Catch and the shapechange

[mostlyawake]

Given that the "rare or involuntary shapechange" isn't, in fact, rare (as others pointed out, finding evil supernatural beings is really, really common in this game), the +2 catch could be given for it being involuntary instead of rare.

You're at the club, grinding on some girl, when a dude walks by and you just KNOW he's a BCV.  You'd really like to ignore it and get your game on with this hottie, but BAM your wings are out and people are running everywhere, screaming...

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On a different note, I had a player try exactly this (rare or involuntary shape change plus a +3 point catch for not using his powers vs pure mortals).   I allowed the catch at +3 but denied the rare or involuntary shape changing on the basis that his divine power would never limit the character's free will by limiting the times the power could be used. (The character worshiped the God that Dresden mentions, scripted in game primarily as a free-will enforcer).

[Becq]

You're at the club, grinding on some girl, when a dude walks by and you just KNOW he's a BCV.  You'd really like to ignore it and get your game on with this hottie, but BAM your wings are out and people are running everywhere, screaming...

This.  And, of course, you owe it to yourself to make sure you have an appropriate aspect so that you can get Fate when this happens.