Reworking the True Faith Powers

[HobbitGuy1420]

Your Faith Healing writeup looks similar to one I made a looooong while ago.  I approve!

[Save_vs_DM]

Your Faith Healing writeup looks similar to one I made a looooong while ago.  I approve!

Oh yeah? I think I might have cribbed a lot of language from somewhere else. It might have been yours!

[Save_vs_DM]

I finally started working on a new power, but I'm not sure if it's balanced or not. What do you guys think?

Condemnation [-2]
Description: Your faith is so strong that you can temporarily call down the wrath of your faith, preventing your foe from bringing his full power to a fight.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Condemn the Wicked. When facing an opponent, you may spend a fate point to perform a special Conviction maneuver that may temporarily suppress your opponent's access to a supernatural power. Roll your Conviction with a Difficulty (page 17) equal to the refresh cost of the power you wish to suppress. If the effort is equal to or greater than the modified refresh of the power, the target loses access to the power for one exchange, plus one additional exchange for each additional shift beyond the difficulty. If the effort is less than the refresh of the power, you instead take mental stress equal to the number of shifts needed to meet the difficulty of the roll.

For example, suppose your character is facing off against a Red Court Vampire. You wish to suppress the vampire's Inhuman Strength and roll your Conviction, obtaining an effort of +6. The difficulty of the roll was 2 (Inhuman Strength costs 2 refresh), so the vampire loses access to Inhuman Strength for 5 exchanges (1 + 4 shifts over the difficulty).

Later on, your character is up against an Outsider and he wishes to suppress the Outsider's Physical Immunity. The Catch for the Outsider's Physical Immunity is True Magic and it provides a +2 discount to the power cost, making the modified refresh cost of the power 6. Unfortunately, your character rolls poorly and only gets an effort of 4, meaning your character does not suppress the power and instead takes a 2 stress hit to his mental health track.

[ways and means]

Wow that seems a little bit unfair as powers go, I spend a fate point to stop Merlin from using evocation for 5 rounds (8 shifts no problem).

[UmbraLux]

I finally started working on a new power, but I'm not sure if it's balanced or not. What do you guys think?

I'd suggest rewriting it as a block.  As is it has the potential to be overpowering and worse (IMO) requires everyone to start tracking "modified refresh" (which isn't really defined).  Additional things to track just slows the game down.  Beyond that, how do you figure the 'modified refresh' of a wizard with a bunch of refinements? 

[Sanctaphrax]

Bless This House
Effects:
Bless This Soul. You can focus your faith inward, warding yourself from the attacks of the unholy. For a fate point, you can grant yourself Armor:2 against the physical attacks for a single scene. If you already posses armor from another source, you may instead increase the value of that armor by one. You may not use Bless This Soul and Bless This House at the same time.

Definitely better, but I don't see any reason to prohibit using this with Bless This House.

And I still think you should be able to protect others with this.

Holy Touch
Effects:
Imbue Weapon. If you act in keeping with your calling, keeping a pure heart and selfless purpose, your touch can imbue a weapon with holy power. This process entails a short ritual appropriate to your faith and imbues a single weapon of your choice with the effects of your Holy Touch. If the weapon already deals stress on a hit, increase its weapon rating by 1 when dealing damage to creatures that would be offensive to your faith. You may only imbue a single weapon at a time with your Holy Touch and its effects stack with the powers of existing Items of Power (such as the Swords of the Cross).

Looks good. Mind if I reword these and add them to the master list?

Condemnation [-2]
Description: Your faith is so strong that you can temporarily call down the wrath of your faith, preventing your foe from bringing his full power to a fight.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Condemn the Wicked. When facing an opponent, you may spend a fate point to perform a special Conviction maneuver that may temporarily suppress your opponent's access to a supernatural power. Roll your Conviction with a Difficulty (page 17) equal to the refresh cost of the power you wish to suppress. If the effort is equal to or greater than the modified refresh of the power, the target loses access to the power for one exchange, plus one additional exchange for each additional shift beyond the difficulty. If the effort is less than the refresh of the power, you instead take mental stress equal to the number of shifts needed to meet the difficulty of the roll.

I agree with UmbraLux here.

[Save_vs_DM]

Wow that seems a little bit unfair as powers go, I spend a fate point to stop Merlin from using evocation for 5 rounds (8 shifts no problem).

I'd suggest rewriting it as a block.  As is it has the potential to be overpowering and worse (IMO) requires everyone to start tracking "modified refresh" (which isn't really defined).  Additional things to track just slows the game down.  Beyond that, how do you figure the 'modified refresh' of a wizard with a bunch of refinements?

All right, consensus is that this is much too good and poorly designed. This is good to know. Still, I like the concept of the power and would like to continue tinkering with it a bit.

The idea of using a block is a good one. Is this more balanced and workable?

Condemn the Wicked. You can use Conviction to perform Blocks that prevent a creature for using a single power of your choice. Spend a fate point, name a single power the target possesses, and roll Conviction. This block persists until the target overcomes it with a successful Conviction or Discipline (target's choice) roll, which can be made as a free action once per round.

Looks good. Mind if I reword these and add them to the master list?

Not at all, though I felt that my wording was pretty good. Tried to follow the books as much as possible.

[Sanctaphrax]

Your wording wasn't bad at all, but I have a format to follow.

New version of Condemn The Wicked still needs work.

First off all, it's not clear whether it takes an action. I think it probably does, but I'm not sure.

Also, what exactly does blocking a Power mean? Do you just remove it from the target's sheet until they beat your Conviction? Does that mean you can shrink guys who have Hulking Size?

And I'm suspicious of the power level here. A high Conviction roll means that people with bad mental skills will never get their Power back unless they get lucky and spend FP. Besides, erasing Mythic Strength or octuply-Refinened Evocation so easily seems unfair.

PS: What do you think of my comments on Bless This House?

[UmbraLux]

The idea of using a block is a good one. Is this more balanced and workable?

I try not to change the base mechanics much...so I'd probably write it something like this:

Righteous Condemnation [-1]
Description:  You channel a greater power which allows you to stop supernatural opposition. 
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects: You may use Conviction to set a block against a specified action with a supernatural component. 

It probably needs some more editing after taking a break.  But to me, being able to block just about anything with a single skill is powerful.  It may even be worth two refresh - I'm undecided on that.  I don't think it needs open durations or different block mechanics. 

[Save_vs_DM]

PS: What do you think of my comments on Bless This House?

They're good comments, but I think that the power is already worth a good half refresh as is. I think being able to grant someone else armor just makes it too good for one refresh. Arguably it was probably too good even without that, but the power needed something.

Righteous Condemnation [-1]
Description:  You channel a greater power which allows you to stop supernatural opposition. 
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects: You may use Conviction to set a block against a specified action with a supernatural component. 

It probably needs some more editing after taking a break.  But to me, being able to block just about anything with a single skill is powerful.  It may even be worth two refresh - I'm undecided on that.  I don't think it needs open durations or different block mechanics.

Actually, I think that works better than what I had. I like that it keeps the defensive nature of the powers and I while it's good, it's not as good as Evocation or the like (even considering cost).

[Sanctaphrax]

How is that better than the canon stunt that lets you use Conviction for blocks?

I think something that creates a threshold might be a good bet here. We already have something like that on the master list, but it's not all that well balanced.

They're good comments, but I think that the power is already worth a good half refresh as is. I think being able to grant someone else armor just makes it too good for one refresh. Arguably it was probably too good even without that, but the power needed something.

I consider Bless This House to be almost worthless on its own, but okay.

Even if you're worried about the power level of Bless This House as you've written it, please let me remove the restriction on using both trappings of it at once. It has little effect on the ability's power, and it's inelegant.

What would you think of an upgrade that improves the protection and lets you protect others?

[Lamech]

I try not to change the base mechanics much...so I'd probably write it something like this:

Righteous Condemnation [-1]
Description:  You channel a greater power which allows you to stop supernatural opposition. 
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects: You may use Conviction to set a block against a specified action with a supernatural component. 

It probably needs some more editing after taking a break.  But to me, being able to block just about anything with a single skill is powerful.  It may even be worth two refresh - I'm undecided on that.  I don't think it needs open durations or different block mechanics.

Umm... compare to devout words, or incite emotion.

Hey on the topic of bless this house: How about just changing it to the blessed words stunt? (Maybe with a bit more explicitly supernatural flavor) It becomes more generally useful, and if you want to boost a threshold, just place an aspect on it, and invoke for effect. (It can count as one of the attributes strengthening the threshold.)

[Save_vs_DM]

I consider Bless This House to be almost worthless on its own, but okay.

Even if you're worried about the power level of Bless This House as you've written it, please let me remove the restriction on using both trappings of it at once. It has little effect on the ability's power, and it's inelegant.

What would you think of an upgrade that improves the protection and lets you protect others?

Hell, modify it as you see fit, I don't mind. Though in our home games we finally just decided that Bless This House was worth -0 refresh. Now we're trying to get a few more powers put together.

And upgrade that improves the protection and lets you protect others would totally be useful. Though more and more I'm starting to think that it might be better done as a new power. That way those of us who feel that Bless This House sucks can must make it -0 and add the new power, while those who think it works well can instead keep it at -1 refresh.

[Sanctaphrax]

If you make it free, then why shouldn't every character take it?

I'd rather make it a free extra to another more powerful power.

Anyway, expect to see my versions added to the list later today.

[Silverblaze]

If you make it free, then why shouldn't every character take it?

I'd rather make it a free extra to another more powerful power.

Anyway, expect to see my versions added to the list later today.

Concept.