Mechanics of the Mark of Cain

[Wyntonian]

So, I have an idea for a character, but it would involve a pretty unusual and potentially gamebreaking power, so I thought I'd go to the experts.

Specifically, I'd like to play a character inscribed by the biblical Mark of Cain (suitably adjusted, not holding on too tightly to "canon" here.), cursing him to forever wander the earth. It also warned all those that the marked was under god's... not protection, but that he had dibs on making them feel terrible for whatever crime they did, so anyone who hurt the bearer of the mark would be "avenged sevenfold".

So, what I'd like, is a custom power that returns a significant portion of the physical damage done to the character onto their attacker. Obviously 7x is ridiculous, so I'm more than willing to bargain that down. I plan to give this person lots of knowledge and defensive skills (Scholarship/Lore/Endurance/Alertness/Athletics) and very few/no combat skills, stunts or powers.

I see his backstory as being a murderer or other sort of criminal who essentially found god and prayed for forgiveness and got it... with a catch. I can take care of the rest, but this one power seems like the hard part.

[narphoenix]

Does it have to be literal? Why not just have a character who does damage to the character pay off a number of fate points and get a bunch of unpaid compels to pay off the rest, thus signifying getting screwed over in the cosmic sense?

[Deadmanwalking]

Well, you're simply not gonna get 'sevenfold vengeance'. The game simply doesn't have a mechanic for anything like that...it'll almost certainly be their own attack directly, or a flat value of some sort.

Hmmm. Well, Wards actually already do exactly this, so what you seem to be looking for is effectively a character who's Warded. That's...difficult to do.

Personally, I'd be inclined to grab Sponsored Magic (Mark of Cain) which might have other abilities, but the important one is Warding at Evocation Speeds and Methods. You then put all your Item Slots into, well, the Mark, a defensive item that makes a potent Ward with plenty of uses per session (this is best done as an item, since their use is Reflexive). Making the 'item' impossible to remove is at least another -1 Refresh...or might be covered by giving up conventional Channeling entirely.

Any way you make this is going to be very jury-rigged, really. Barring Death Curses, the system is really not built for this kind of reflexive ability to hurt somebody. They're certainly all going to be at least -4 Refresh like this one.

A better solution might be to just grab Marked By Power, grab an appropriate Aspect, and have the 'sevenfold vengeance' thing be a perfectly mundane threat by God as opposed to something mystical, and which he will carry out in his own good time and does nothing to help the marked guy. Like diplomatic immunity in a way, since it's just a bad idea to hurt him, not impossible.

[Sanctaphrax]

A better solution might be to just grab Marked By Power, grab an appropriate Aspect, and have the 'sevenfold vengeance' thing be a perfectly mundane threat by God as opposed to something mystical, and which he will carry out in his own good time and does nothing to help the marked guy. Like diplomatic immunity in a way, since it's just a bad idea to hurt him, not impossible.

I like this.

I don't like the Ward thing though. Preventing harm seems out of theme for what the OP wants, and besides defensive enchanted items that don't reflect damage are already questionably balanced. Letting them bounce attacks back is probably unfair.

So if somebody wanted a Ward item I'd require them to use an action and obey the normal threshold requirement for Wards.

If you want to have some kind of mystical vengeance Power that automatically returns harm then you'll need to go pretty deep into custom Power territory.

One thing that would make that easier is the fact that stress isn't necessarily harm. So the Power would only have to trigger on Consequences.

[UmbraLux]

While Deadmanwalking's solution of using Marked by Power may be best, another option is creating a power which gives your defense rolls a secondary effect.  Something like "If your defense roll is at least Good and you still take one or more shifts of stress, the aspect 'I attacked Cain' is applied to your attacker.  The aspect may be invoked by anyone except Cain who subsequently attacks Cain's persecutor."  Have to work out details, including cost, of course.  It's too late for me to do so tonight. 

[InFerrumVeritas]

Why not treat it more like the opposite of the riposte stunt?

When an attack against you is successful in combat, you may sacrifice your next action to immediately make an attack against the opponent, with a number of shifts equal to the successful attack's.  If the attack against you had a weapon rating, your attack's weapon rating is equal to that.  You may spend fate points or invoke aspects on this action.

So basically, you're incredibly difficult to harm, and doing harm to you makes it likely that the harm with be returned to your attacker.  Charge 1 refresh, and allow it to be upgraded (adding 2 to the Weapon Rating) for an additional refresh.

You can add Marked By Power and other stuff on top of this, but the "Avenging Vengeance" bit could be this.

[Deadmanwalking]

Why not treat it more like the opposite of the riposte stunt?

The Stunt you're looking for to model this is Step Into The Blow, from Fists. Which I considered, actually. I eventually rejected as a basis since it only applies once per turn and costs an action...and neither of those limitations is easily circumvent-able or make any sense at all thematically. If one attack per turn that you actually need to make seems sufficient, I'd still say that the "Your weapon rating is equal to the attack's" should cost at least -1 if not -2 Refresh (it can grant up to Weapon 11, after all), for a total power cost of more like -2 to -3. You could make it based on a normally non-combat skill like Endurance, have it give +1 to hit and have it work at any range fairly readily at no additional cost, though.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Getting an attack/dealing stress that doesn't cost an action would be a non-starter though.

You only get one attack per turn, basically.  Things which change this break up the attack roll (spray attacks) or risk damaging allies and yourself (zone wide).  These always cost an action.

You could perhaps modify the stunt to do a zone wide attack at the lowest successful attack's strength against you.  Or allow a spray attack with a +2 per enemy who successfully hits you and no single attack having more shifts than the highest attack landed on you.

[Taran]

Instead of doing something directly combat oriented, why not have anyone attacking you have to resist a curse?

It might be as simple as invoking your high concept or perhaps it's a power.  I'm not sure exactly how it would work mechanically, but it would be cool.

Just throwing out ideas:

Instead of taking damage equal to their attack, they instead have to resist a curse with a Power equal to their total roll.  You would have to use up an action or pay a FP.  Maybe it's only usable 1/scene.  I don't know.

EDIT:  If you use the rules for prayers/predictions on pg. 324, you can take a power that is similar to cassandra's Tears or Potent prayer.

Potent prayer allows you to spend a FP to "invoke your high concept and define a
Divinely-inspired purpose you’re aiming at."

That divinely inspired purpose would be to punish whoever attacked you.  Basically, you can spend a FP to put an aspect on the World associated with your Mark of Cain to essentially have things happen to someone who attacks you...This would "remain in effect until the events they pertain to have played out."YS 324.

So maybe until the offender seeks forgiveness or has the curse removed or until you forgive them etc...  It would allow for compels on your character as well since the aspect sticks to the world instead of just the combat.

EDIT 2:  On that note, "Desperate Hour" lets you use your conviction to do damage to everything in a zone when an ally suffers a Severe or worse consequence.

This surely can be narrated as a retributive strike against an enemy who has harmed you.

Maybe you should just take Righteousness.

[bjh31]

I agree with Taran. Reworded "Righteousness" & "Marked by Power" + relevant High Concept seem to be the way to go

[Richard_Chilton]

Have you ever read any of the Casca:The Eternal Mercenary novels.  I'm just thinking that you might want to borrow the curse from that series.

It's based on a variation of the Wandering Jew myth.  Casca will remain as he is until the Second Coming when he'll finish a conversation he started during the  crucifixion.  While he has something like the Mark of Cain basically it's regeneration.  The only real protection he has is that animals won't consume his flesh (they'll tear pieces of it off him, but they won't eat it).

Do lethal damage to him and he gets better.  Blow half his head off and it will regrow.  Stake out for the crabs to eat (that happened in one book) he'll scream in pain but regenerate.  Worse, since he is doomed not to change he lacks the ability to go truly mad and find comfort in mindlessness.  He might have a bout of insanity now or then but he gets better.

And, as with Highlander, he watches his friends and lovers age and die.  At various times religious orders follow him around so that when he restarts that conversation they can interrupt him and talk to the Big Guy face to face.  Other times he's been burnt as a witch (which really hurts, but he gets better).

Now that's a curse.

Richard

[Taran]

Have you ever read any of the Casca:The Eternal Mercenary novels.  I'm just thinking that you might want to borrow the curse from that series.

It's based on a variation of the Wandering Jew myth.  Casca will remain as he is until the Second Coming when he'll finish a conversation he started during the  crucifixion.  While he has something like the Mark of Cain basically it's regeneration.  The only real protection he has is that animals won't consume his flesh (they'll tear pieces of it off him, but they won't eat it).

Do lethal damage to him and he gets better.  Blow half his head off and it will regrow.  Stake out for the crabs to eat (that happened in one book) he'll scream in pain but regenerate.  Worse, since he is doomed not to change he lacks the ability to go truly mad and find comfort in mindlessness.  He might have a bout of insanity now or then but he gets better.

And, as with Highlander, he watches his friends and lovers age and die.  At various times religious orders follow him around so that when he restarts that conversation they can interrupt him and talk to the Big Guy face to face.  Other times he's been burnt as a witch (which really hurts, but he gets better).

Now that's a curse.

Richard

So he basically has a recovery power...  I like this too.

[Richard_Chilton]

So he basically has a recovery power...  I like this too.

Recovery, but not recovery at the speed we see in this game.  At most we might be talking inhuman recovery.  Generally it takes him days (or weeks) to recover - but he always recovers.

Richard

[Taran]

Recovery, but not recovery at the speed we see in this game.  At most we might be talking inhuman recovery.  Generally it takes him days (or weeks) to recover - but he always recovers.

Richard

So at least Wizards Constitution and at most inhuman recovery.....With a Catch of "the Second Coming" 

[Deadmanwalking]

Which is +0 in most games.

And I'd say that always coming back makes from the dead makes it Inhuman Recovery, not Wizard's Constitution. Heck, the Ghoul catch even explicitly includes 'dead is dead'/massive trauma which implies that otherwise it might not be. They do have Supernatural Recovery, but still...