Knowing about Catches

[Revlid]

So, you get a +2 to your refresh is your Catch is something that anyone with an awareness of the supernatural would know about, and only +1 if it's something you could uncover with research. Except (and I'm looking at the pdf-version here, since my hard copy has yet to arrive, so things might have changed) the example for a Catch given under Physical Immunity states that a fire demon would get a +3 Catch on its Toughness, with a vulnerability to Cold. +2 because Cold is easy to come by, and +1 because research should uncover it.

Setting aside the fact that I'm having trouble thinking of how to easily assault someone with cold, shouldn't the fact that a fire demon is vulnerable to cold be blindingly obvious? Or at least, obvious to anyone who's ever played a game with elemental vulnerabilities (such people likely outnumber those who've read Bram Stoker at this point)? Does the Catch discount take common sense into account, or is that covered by assessments/declarations?

Same question for, say, a chlorofiend. Giant plant monster; the first reaction of any human being when considering weaknesses would be "fire"... so would it get that +2 for a widely-known weakness, or would I need to "research" it? Basically, is "this creature has a widely-known weakness" the same thing as "this creature's weakness is really obvious"?

[sinker]

I usually get a little meta-game here and ask instead "How often will this weakness be exploited?" Sometimes looking at it like that can clear things up a bit. (it isn't RAW per se, but it works for me)

[wyvern]

Cold is pretty easy to come by, actually.  Liquid nitrogen is one relatively cheap example.

And maybe on the "blindingly obvious" bit.  I mean, perhaps it's vulnerable to cold.  Perhaps it's vulnerable to water.  Perhaps it's vulnerable to fire extinguisher foam.  Perhaps it burns hot enough that it's effectively immune to cold, and what you really need is holy water.

So common sense is a perfectly good justification for moving a catch up to +2 researchability - but it's not a necessary justification.

[Sanctaphrax]

Hold on, wait a minute. Are you the same Revlid who used to post on the White Wolf Exalted Forums?

In any case, welcome to the board.

I tend to agree with sinker here. The Catch rules are a little wonky and a little easy to exploit, so it's best not to be too legalistic with them.

Besides, even the core books aren't consistent with Catch values.

The cold vulnerability of a fire demon might not be obvious if the fire demon wasn't obviously a fire demon. Maybe an average person would think that the fire demon was actually a vampire or something after looking at it.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Cold is pretty easy to come by, actually.  Liquid nitrogen is one relatively cheap example.

And maybe on the "blindingly obvious" bit.  I mean, perhaps it's vulnerable to cold.  Perhaps it's vulnerable to water.  Perhaps it's vulnerable to fire extinguisher foam.  Perhaps it burns hot enough that it's effectively immune to cold, and what you really need is holy water.

So common sense is a perfectly good justification for moving a catch up to +2 researchability - but it's not a necessary justification.

Common sense isn't very common.  It's always good to remember that ~49% of the population are of below average intelligence.  If you're smarter than average that makes it even less likely the things you find blindingly obvious really are.

[Rubycon]

Yes, some catches are a bit obvious. I try to solve this with a PPF (Perfect Poker-Face  ) when my players start a discussion about the weaknesses of an enemy. YOu would be surprised how often this leads to skipping the right idea...
Apart from that, I let the characters roll for Lore or encourage them to try out their ideas. DFRPG is not that deadly, so a wrong idea leads to great and entertaining scenes ffar more often than character death.