Author Topic: Advice on Mental Toughness.  (Read 4206 times)

Offline wyvern

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Re: Advice on Mental Toughness.
« Reply #15 on: April 17, 2012, 08:53:35 PM »
My comments on the topic come in two forms: thematic & game-balance.

Thematically, self-inflicted damage (spending a consequence to power a spell, or taking backlash) is a sacrifice.  If you can absorb that with toughness, or instantly heal it with recovery... that's not much of a sacrifice anymore, now was it?

In terms of game balance, spellcasters are already one of the strongest things out there; letting them fuel their powers off of recovery, or use toughness to absorb backlash, just makes them that much scarier - and they really don't need it.*

Also - bumping your elbow?  For someone with toughness, they wouldn't even notice.  To some extent, injuries (read: the names assigned to various consequences) need to be scaled to the target; I still remember my players' first encounter with ghouls.  "Ok; you got a solid hit in; the ghoul will take a minor consequence of 'bullet hole in the leg'"  "That's a minor consequence?!?"  "It is if you're a ghoul."

*Footnote: the exception to this is if other players are just utter cheeseweasels, and the GM decides to let them get away with it.  For example, I've seen a player decide that it's clearly fair play to try to stack literally everything that could give a bonus to melee attack rolls - vampiric powers, plus the sword of the cross' special purpose power ("re-flavored" & purchased on its own, of course, to avoid its original thematic limits), and mortal stunts, and so on and so forth.  Oh, and then paying for all that with, among other things, a meaningless feeding dependency that applies to a small enough subset of powers that its odds of having any game-mechanical effect are less than one in a thousand...
But if you've got people doing that, one custom power is really the least of your problems.

Offline Tedronai

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Re: Advice on Mental Toughness.
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2012, 09:03:52 PM »
In cases such as those, I would advise you to liberally apply and expand the Stunt Building Guidelines' advice on stacking: IF you allow it, only do so at reduced effect.
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Offline ways and means

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Re: Advice on Mental Toughness.
« Reply #17 on: April 17, 2012, 11:55:36 PM »
I still think the guide lines on stunt stacking should apply to refinement, because the high level of stack ability with refinement is silly with a max skill of 5 you could get +12 (+17 total) to control (this does takes 10 refresh worth of refinement and two lawbreaker stunts), which compares rather well when the most you can get with melee is +3 (true aim variant, stunt, blood drinker) or +7 (12 total) if you really cheese it with sacred guardian.  To get that +3 (8 total) you need to spend 3 refresh which compares badly to a +4 focus item for two refresh.       
« Last Edit: April 17, 2012, 11:59:54 PM by ways and means »
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Offline Tedronai

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Re: Advice on Mental Toughness.
« Reply #18 on: April 18, 2012, 12:16:17 AM »
(this does takes 10 refresh worth of refinement and two lawbreaker stunts)

Whereas in games such as one featuring conventional bruisers alongside Practitioners, and a minimum of 16 base refresh (meaning that the practitioner has only Evocation, lawbreaker, and refinement), that the stacking restrictions be lightened somewhat, perhaps to as little as '-1 to the total effect', or even ignored altogether, allowing stunts to stack unimpeded.
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Advice on Mental Toughness.
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2012, 06:06:18 AM »
You're not counting backlash as a cost here, I take it?

I wasn't, but I should have. Backlash should probably bypass Toughness. Though I'm not 100% certain about that, only about 80%.

Non-spellcasting fighters reach their maximum practical level of investment in fighting earlier than casters do. This may or may not be a problem.