Quick Question concerning Iron and Fae.

[Clotho19]

Just a quick question to the forum. In my game Fae are far more susceptible to Iron than presented in the books. Not only does it harm them, but their magic cannot effect Iron in any way. Likewise its very touch weakens them and makes it more difficult to maintain a Veil or Glamour.  I am trying to figure out a way to express this within the game. I am thinking of adding it into the Catch, but am unsure how to price it. Any help would be greatly appreciated 

[UmbraLux]

I'd call it a compel of their high concept - that's how I'm using it in my game.  The changeling's player did take the compel though...and chose not to use the gun. 

[TheMouse]

Yup. High Concept Compel. It covers everything from wizards blowing up technology to faeries being affected by the touch of iron to swamp monsters needing to moisturize their skin constantly. Basically, any little thing that you might want to add a minor sub-system to the game to handle, you instead manage by using a Compel.

[Becq]

What they said.  So, as an example, if your Fae was trying to sneak around a factory veiled, you might hold out a fate point and say "My, there's a lot of iron around here.  You can almost feel the power being sucked out of your veil..."  Then the player can accept the fate point, leading perhaps to being spotted by a guard, or can buy off the compel, focusing on shoring up the faltering veil.

In combat, of course, iron weaponry ignores any toughness powers the Fae might have, and recovery powers can't be used on consequences inflicted by them.  Furthermore, attackers with such weapons can invoke the Fae's high concept for +2 to such attacks should they choose.

(And so on.)

[Clotho19]

I was going to do that, but wanted to expand it to a Power, something that could be used for multiple things not just Fae and Iron. This is the rough version i am using. Bear in mind, my setting Fae are quite different, took inspiration from half a dozen different sources and created a new version of them. Finially finished with the PDF of it, almost 70 pages. The power is something i am still working on, and will add when i have it perfected.


Frailties [+1]
Description: Frailties are limitations on one’s power, similar to a catch. Like a catch, Frailties run the gamut from something like Iron to silver to rose petals to holy ground. Frailties are in essence a limitation one one’s power, your powers may not work as well when touching such things, may be weakened by them, might not be able to work at all or your character could even be harmed by your frailty.
Must: Must select one or more powers that are affected by your frailty when you purchase this power. Any power from the following groups may be affected, Faerie Magic, Minor Talents, Psychic Abilities, Shapeshifting, Spellcraft and Vampirism.
Skills Affected: Varies
Effects:
Weakened by Touch: When you are touching your Frailty, all your powers affected by it are harder to use and maintain, resulting in a -2 on all rolls to use or sustain your powers.
Immunity to Power [+1]: You cannot affect your Frailty in any way with your powers, any attempts too always fail. In addition when in the presence of high quantities of your Frailty or your target is carrying a large amount of your Frailty, your powers are weakened in the same way as if you were touching it.
Physically Weakened [+1]: Not only does your Frailty weaken your powers, but it also weakens you physically. For every scene you are touching your Frailty, one of your mental stress boxes fill, or if you have hunger stress, one of those boxes fill instead. If you possess any Toughness or Recovery Powers, you must take your Frailty as a Catch.

[Tedronai]

Physically weakened is...virtually meaningless for anyone without a Hunger track.  It's free refresh.
In even the most penalizing reading, where the stress is added after the end of the scene (effectively added in the following scene), you're gaining 1 refresh in exchange for sometimes reducing a single stress track by 1.

[Clotho19]

In my setting all Fae have a feeding dependency. To be honest i picked the end of a scene as a place-holder. May i ask what you would believe is better? I am really open to suggestions :-)

[Tedronai]

Having the stress be inflicted upon first instance of exposure would make it more relevant within the scene, but I'm far from convinced that it would be worth a refresh.

The problem with inflicting it at the end of the scene is that that is when all stress (save Hunger stress, which has special rules with their own problems) is cleared.  So, if the stress is inflicted immediately prior to 'scene end', unless the character in question has all of their relevant stress boxes already filled, that stress will have exactly 0 impact.
If it's inflicted immediately after scene end, it might, sometimes, have a very minor effect, but certainly nowhere near enough to justify a refresh return.

[Clotho19]

I can see your point, i will change it to no cost for refresh and try and come up with some new way it affects them physically rather than at the end of a scene I am just trying to show prolonged contact causes more and more harm to them. May i ask what you thought of the rest of it?

[Tedronai]

Weakened by Touch could use a slight tweak to account for abilities that only modify other actions rather than being actions in their own right.  I'm undecided as to what the end result of that tweak should look like, though (some such powers give a bonus smaller than the penalty applied by Frailty).

The effect (and thus value) of Immunity to Power differs immensely depending on what powers it is applied to.

[Clotho19]

Immunity to Power really should only be taken for powers that can actually effect other things, and not just yourself. In my setting its mostly to reflect the fact that Iron cannot be affected by any Faerie Magic, be it seelie/unseelie magic or Glamours. But it also affects some other powers. For example Incite Emotion used by a Raith WCV who take this frailty would be able to affect people who are truly in love with much less affect, a -2 to the rolls to be exact. To be honest the fact that physical immunity includes a -2 to all rolls when using or maintaining the powers effected by your Frailty when used against those carrying the Frailty is in my opinion worth another refresh point.

[Tedronai]

If the limitation is important to the balance of the power, then it needs to be included in the power.

[Becq]

Here are a couple of ways to avoid the automatic recover issue:

"Stress boxes filled in this way do not recover normally at the end of the scene; instead one such stress box is cleared at the end of any scene during which you remain seperated from your Frailty."

"Any time you are in close, continuous proximity to your Frailty, you must subtract one from the length of your relevant stress track.  Fill in the box; for all purposes this box is treated as not being on your character sheet.  If any stress was already recorded in that box, roll that stress up (ie, you are taken out unless you accept a consequence).  Your stress track remains shortened until the end of a scene in which you have remained clear of your Frailty."

By the way, I would consider using words like 'close and continuing proximity' rather than 'touching' for a couple of reasons.  First, merely touching the substance briefly as opposed to holding it seems to me should be a lot like the difference between getting a shock when touching a door knob as opposed to grabbing hold of a live wire; thus 'continuing'.  And second, unless you want your Fae to be able to put on a jumpsuit first in order to don their iron chainmail safely, I prefer 'close proximity' to 'touching'.

I'd probably trigger the effect any time the substance was within, say, arm's reach (literally, not just in the same zone) and remained so after you finish your action(s) during the exchange.  So someone tossing a lump of iron at the feet of a Fae wouldn't trigger this as long as the Fae quickly stepped away from it.  This should probably not require require changing zone, unless the zone in question was very small or movement within the zone highly restricted).  So to be affected, the character would generally need to deliberately choose to remain in proximity (wielding an item made of the substance or even carrying one in a bag) or be forced to remain in proximity (bound to a chair with a lump of the substance at his feet).  Note that more limited contact that this (ie, brief proximity) might still trigger the Fae's high concept, but wouldn't trigger the full effect of the Frailty.

I was also a bit vague regarding which stress track was affected because I was unsure as to why you had 'physically weakened' linked to the mental stress track.  If it causes psycological trauma, then rename the ability.  Or it might even be better to have the effect subtract a box from each track, rather than just one -- after all a single stress box is only a limited one-shift effect.