Reworking the True Faith Powers

[Radecliffe]

Holy damage should not work at all on your typical flavors of human (wizards, pure mortals, focused practitioners, etc.) whether offensive to your faith or not. 

[Mr. Death]

That and I think it's against the spirit of the setting for the same White God that empowers Michael, Sanya, and Shiro to also empower a narrow-minded, zealous bigot.

Belief counts for a lot in the series, yes--but I think having True Faith power has less to do with whether you have faith in a higher power than if that higher power has faith in you.

[amberpup]

Bless this House at zero expense sounds like a recipe for abuse to me, since you just need to convince anyone in the group with a high conviction to take it and back it up with a aspect. Then any place with a threshold (even the very weakest) could be pumped-up to a real annoyance for any bad guy when the players start stacking.

Of course I know not everyone would do so, but then not everyone I know thinks Bless this House is useless either. Heck, at zero cost I would take it and tie it with the aspect "Home is where my Hat is". Then prehaps I could convice the gm my hotel room now does indeed have a threshold with that aspect and 'boom' we get it up to say 5 with help from the other players.

Not so bad for a zero power I would say...

[Radecliffe]

I would advocate that taken alone Bless this House should be a [-1] power.  Taken with the prerequisite Righteousness then I could see it getting a [+1] rebate.

[Tedronai]

Give it the The Sight treatment, then?

[Radecliffe]

Exactly. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Holy damage should not work at all on your typical flavors of human (wizards, pure mortals, focused practitioners, etc.) whether offensive to your faith or not.

Why not?

That aside, it sounds like people want a Faith Powers to be goody-goody. So let's make a change.

What would people think of making Holy Touch give +2 stress to creatures whose Catch it satisfies?

The Sight method for Bless This House could work, but I don't like it all that much. It's not terribly elegant, and it presents a false choice. Also, I like Divine Protection. Faith should be a good shield.

[Tedronai]

I don't know how to word it elegantly, but I would have it provide a +2 bonus to stress for attacks against those whose Catch it would satisfy if they had one, thus encompassing creatures who may or may not have toughness, but when they do, their Catch including 'Holy Stuff'.

ex. it will provide the bonus against a RCI whether or not they've yet obtained a Toughness or Recovery power

[Radecliffe]

Why not?

Because mortals just can't be evil enough (or good enough if you want to go the other way) to be affected by the touch of your God (however you want to define said supreme being.) 

[ways and means]

Really Christian based faith power should work against practitioner especially evil ones (Maleficus Maleficorum, Do not permit a witch to live etc).

[Radecliffe]

Really Christian based faith power should work against practitioner especially evil ones (Maleficus Maleficorum, Do not permit a witch to live etc).

The Church was quite willing to torture and execute a witch but that is still mortal on mortal action.  In my opinion mortals are just not "solid" enough theologically speaking for the holy (or unholy) strike to connect with. 

[Becq]

For the purposes of the "offensive" damage bonus, I'd advocate specifying that it only applies to those who would be considered "irredeemably" evil by the standards of the mainstream of the religeon.  Note that there are two key aspects to this:  1) It is based on the "mainstream" version, so it prevents the play of the "fringe" card to claim that everything is offensive.  2) In DFRPG, mortals are assumed to have free will, and therefore are incapable of being "irredeemable".

[Sanctaphrax]

I don't know how to word it elegantly, but I would have it provide a +2 bonus to stress for attacks against those whose Catch it would satisfy if they had one, thus encompassing creatures who may or may not have toughness, but when they do, their Catch including 'Holy Stuff'.

ex. it will provide the bonus against a RCI whether or not they've yet obtained a Toughness or Recovery power

Good idea.

How about

"Your attacks inflict two additional stress to characters that are vulnerable to the power of faith. As a general rule, vulnerability to the power of faith involves having a relevant Catch or a Compel-able High Concept."

[Tedronai]

Good idea.

How about

"Your attacks inflict two additional stress to characters that are vulnerable to the power of faith. As a general rule, vulnerability to the power of faith involves having a relevant Catch or a Compel-able High Concept."

I like this.  I would tweak it though to clarify 'holy power' rather than 'the power of faith' as those are two different things, escpecially in the Dresdenverse.  Harry, for example, is able to use his mother's amulet to focus the power of his faith to ward off Bianca et al, but he is not able to call down 'holy power' (or, at the very least, was not able to do so at that time).  I could forsee situations where a creature would be vulnerable to 'holy power' but not be vulnerable to 'the power of faith' in that fashion, and I think that this Power should retain its effects against such creatures.

[Silverblaze]

Really Christian based faith power should work against practitioner especially evil ones (Maleficus Maleficorum, Do not permit a witch to live etc).

That would start a Church vs God's will debate.  Forbidden by the forums.  I will say this.  I think the two are different, at least in Jim's universe.

For the purposes of the "offensive" damage bonus, I'd advocate specifying that it only applies to those who would be considered "irredeemably" evil by the standards of the mainstream of the religeon.  Note that there are two key aspects to this:  1) It is based on the "mainstream" version, so it prevents the play of the "fringe" card to claim that everything is offensive.  2) In DFRPG, mortals are assumed to have free will, and therefore are incapable of being "irredeemable".

Everyone has redemption in them though, if they could garner free will enough to ask forgiveness anyhow.  I also suppose there is a school of though t that some beings didn't ask to be monsters and slaves to their nature.

Irredeemable is a hard thing to quantify.

I like this.  I would tweak it though to clarify 'holy power' rather than 'the power of faith' as those are two different things, escpecially in the Dresdenverse.  Harry, for example, is able to use his mother's amulet to focus the power of his faith to ward off Bianca et al, but he is not able to call down 'holy power' (or, at the very least, was not able to do so at that time).  I could forsee situations where a creature would be vulnerable to 'holy power' but not be vulnerable to 'the power of faith' in that fashion, and I think that this Power should retain its effects against such creatures.

Agreed.