Making effective PCs that aren't wizards?

[Lavecki121]

Im not sure who I agree with or disagree with but here is my interpretation. The compel should only come into effect when a decision is to be made. Not having the gun could be a compel but more importantly not firing the gun in a crowded room could be a compel, not shooting at someone because there are civilians could be a compel. But those would be compels on the HC or other aspect of the character. I dont think that being at a turkey dinner and being surprised is worth anything unless they are being compelled to not do something because of the turkey dinner like Death put out.

However I would be more likely to treat that situation with bad guys do assessments on the group and get to know the aspect "too drunk to stand" which they can then invoke for effect. It does matter the difference between and invoke and compel too. Most of the situations that are being given seem like invokes rather than compels.

Take the "Disarmed" situation that Taran put out. The character gets the aspect "off balance" and then the enemy can invoke that for effect to say that they fell and dropped their gun. Normally the character could just pick the gun back up but their might be more enemies who are attacking and maybe they took the new aspect "gun on the ground" and now one of the enemies has the gun. None of these things offers the player a fate point. and they still dont have their gun

[Sanctaphrax]

Sorry, Mr. Death, I'm gonna have to do the quote-splitting thing again. Otherwise this would be too confusing.

It's a trivial endeavor--if you're supernatural. For normal mortals, it requires access to military hardware, explosives, or hitting someone with a car.

Nope. Berserk + a big sword. Or any other +stress stunt paired with a good weapon.

I've got a request, and I'm not sure how to make it politely, so sorry if this is rude.

But please, read the rules before you talk about what they are. Because you keep on doing this. You keep on saying things that aren't true. Not because you lie, but because you don't check.

What weapon you have is dependent on what the player decides to bring. If losing the weapon isn't a compel, then what, exactly, is stopping them from bringing it somewhere?

The actions of other characters.

Would you let a stunt-less character carry a rocket launcher everywhere without consequences? Would you consider it a Compel whenever a non-rocket-launcher appropriate situation came up? I would not. Same goes for a broadsword, or a pistol, or a knife. And the same goes for characters with stunts.

Weapon stunts don't include an extra benefit which makes the weapon a part of your character. They don't force the GM to use a Compel to separate your favourite weapon from you. If they did they would be unfair.

Don't make them unfair.

Nothing says so in the rules, but consider this: No two of the listed canon stunts have the same condition.

Nope. Archer and Way Of The Bow. On the same character (Lord Talos).

Can you please check to make sure these things are true before you say them?

A better gauge for how pure mortals kill things with Guns is Murphy...

Everyone sensible kills things like that. Not just mortals.

I expect Kincaid has pretty big numbers on his attacks, but that doesn't mean he has to fight stupidly. Eb is obviously a heavy hitter, but he's not going to fight you directly unless no better option is available. And so on.

For the ghouls, that's the thing--the ghoul has also spent refresh on fighting. More refresh than a pure mortal at the lowest level has, as I recall.

What I was saying is that the mortal with spent Refresh should be better than the mortal without it at the thing the Refresh was spent on.

As for the ghoul...you recall semi-correctly. Don't want to argue that bit of trivia.

And ghouls are good at fighting. All of their spent Refresh is useful in combat, though little of it is pure combat stuff.

But they're handicapped by the fact that they fight naked. So they're likely to lose against heavily-armed foes.

By "spending fate points" I mean doing things like making declarations, boosting an individual roll, and invoking scene aspects. To my reading, stunts aren't supposed to replicate powers in form or function--there's not supposed to be a "family" of stunts with requirements and stacking bonuses, so much as a stunt is supposed to be a particular situation in which the character has a slight edge.

Powers are supposed to replicate stunts, actually. Says so in YS, on page 158.

+2 is not a slight edge. You said so yourself, in reply #50. +2 isn't enough to put characters in different weight classes, but it's meaningful.

And you just referred to stunts as spending Fate Points in reply #135. I don't think you can complain about me doing the same.

"disarming" a PC is the aspect.  It would be a maneuver that the NPC would place on the PC.  He would then invoke that maneuver aspect to have the PC lose his weapon.  This would be a compel that that the PC could refuse or accept.

Not necessarily. An invoke-for-effect may or may not be a Compel depending on whether the GM thinks it should be.

[Mr. Death]

Sorry, Mr. Death, I'm gonna have to do the quote-splitting thing again. Otherwise this would be too confusing.

Nope. Berserk + a big sword. Or any other +stress stunt paired with a good weapon.

And Berserker comes with a penalty to defense--a tangible drawback. That's what makes it not-trivial to me. Most of the stunts that do boost stress either have a tangible drawback or limitation (Lethal Blows only works against the unarmored, so just about anything supernatural isn't going to feel it), or don't give the full +2 stress bonus.

I've got a request, and I'm not sure how to make it politely, so sorry if this is rude.

But please, read the rules before you talk about what they are. Because you keep on doing this. You keep on saying things that aren't true. Not because you lie, but because you don't check.

A lot of the time, I'm writing these from someplace that I just don't have the books, so I generalize based on what I remember.

The actions of other characters.

Would you let a stunt-less character carry a rocket launcher everywhere without consequences? Would you consider it a Compel whenever a non-rocket-launcher appropriate situation came up? I would not.

Well, no, because that's ridiculous. Few characters are going to build their whole fighting style around a rocket launcher.

Same goes for a broadsword, or a pistol, or a knife. And the same goes for characters with stunts.

Not really, because they're completely different classes of weapons--one set you can reasonably have access too and therefore build a character around; one set you can't. I don't know about you, but if I'm being pushed into battle at a major disadvantage (like having to use a different, lower skill and no weapon rating), I'd want a fate point for it--because as was pointed out, it's limiting the character's choices, something that compels are explicitly for.

Weapon stunts don't include an extra benefit which makes the weapon a part of your character. They don't force the GM to use a Compel to separate your favourite weapon from you. If they did they would be unfair.

Don't make them unfair.

And I think they're unfair if you're allowing just the weapon you're holding to give flat bonuses to every attack and defense with that weapon--and I've already explained my reasoning for compelling people to not take their weapons.

That said, there's plenty of ways to hide or conceal Weapon:3 weapons--they tend to be semi-conspicuous like carrying around a duffel bag (like Michael and Gard), but it's enough to carry them around most places that aren't going to be physically checking you for weapons--and a place that strict about weapons would have an aspect to compel.

Nope. Archer and Way Of The Bow. On the same character (Lord Talos).

Can you please check to make sure these things are true before you say them?

Not the same condition--Archer is specific to Faerie-crafted bows.

And it's a OW-only stunt, so I have to ask for clarification here: Is it that OW is wrong about every PC and NPC, and therefore I cannot use them as evidence of what the game intends the monsters to be capable of? Or is OW right enough to be used as evidence when it supports your point?

Because you seem to be trying to have it both ways. When I point at something from OW, you dismiss it on the grounds that OW is inaccurate. And then you support your own argument with examples from OW.

Everyone sensible kills things like that. Not just mortals.

Yes, but my point is, mortals are consistently portrayed in the fiction and the descriptions in the rulebooks as needing to do all of that to fight supernatural--with these stunts, they don't. They can just wade in and win through sheer, simple, "I'm better than an immortal creature of the night."

Why spend any rounds maneuvering when, through your stunts, you're already getting a cumulative +3 on every attack?

What I was saying is that the mortal with spent Refresh should be better than the mortal without it at the thing the Refresh was spent on.

And ghouls are good at fighting. All of their spent Refresh is useful in combat, though little of it is pure combat stuff.

But they're handicapped by the fact that they fight naked. So they're likely to lose against heavily-armed foes.

Only when facing supernaturals, or with these stunts. Put it this way: They dodge from 5 and attack at 4 with +4 to stress. Without the stunts, by Submerged the pure mortal is swinging an attack and dodge rating of 5--meaning they've just then got good odds at hitting and avoiding hits. With these stunts, though, a Pure Mortal can be dodging from 6 and attacking from 5 with +5 to stress, at the lowest refresh level--meaning they've got a drastically reduced chance of being hit, pretty good odds at hitting, and every hit they make is going to cause a consequence. I just do not think that a Feet In The Water pure mortal should be able to just slug it out with a Ghoul. It's inconsistent with the setting.

And all of that refresh spent that's useful in combat makes the ghoul potentially less effective in combat in an objective sense than a character who, by the rulebook's description, has only just now started getting into the supernatural scene?

That's like a professional sports player being objectively worse than a kid on a freshman high school team.

A Mortal Stunt should make mortal characters better than other mortal characters, yes--but I don't think they should make mortal character better than what's supposed to be a heavy-hitting supernatural creature at the lowest refresh level.

Powers are supposed to replicate stunts, actually. Says so in YS, on page 158.

I'm reading the page, and I don't see that. I see where it says there are similarities, and that supernatural powers are "super-stunts," but nowhere that stunts are supposed to be able to match powers. In fact, it says the whole thing about prerequisites and that powers have multiple refresh is one of the big differences between mortal stunts and power, while the "families" of stunts I've seen are basically multiple-refresh stunts.

+2 is not a slight edge. You said so yourself, in reply #50. +2 isn't enough to put characters in different weight classes, but it's meaningful.

It's a cumulative thing. A +2 for one roll out of 10 is a slight edge. A +2 on ten rolls out of ten is a distinct advantage.

And you just referred to stunts as spending Fate Points in reply #135. I don't think you can complain about me doing the same.

Apologies. Sometimes I get Fate Points and Refresh conflated, and I'll try to keep them straighter from now on.

[Sanctaphrax]

A lot of the time, I'm writing these from someplace that I just don't have the books, so I generalize based on what I remember.

If you aren't sure it's true, please don't say it.

I don't respond to these arguments when I don't have my books on hand, for that exact reason. It's a pain in the neck when somebody uses non-facts.

Well, no, because that's ridiculous. Few characters are going to build their whole fighting style around a rocket launcher.

I would totally make a character whose fighting style was rocket launcher based. That should not give me the right to take a rocket launcher everywhere.

...That's what makes it not-trivial to me. Most of the stunts that do boost stress either have a tangible drawback or limitation (Lethal Blows only works against the unarmored, so just about anything supernatural isn't going to feel it), or don't give the full +2 stress bonus.

...

I don't know about you, but if I'm being pushed into battle at a major disadvantage (like having to use a different, lower skill and no weapon rating), I'd want a fate point for it--because as was pointed out, it's limiting the character's choices, something that compels are explicitly for.

And I think they're unfair if you're allowing just the weapon you're holding to give flat bonuses to every attack and defense with that weapon--and I've already explained my reasoning for compelling people to not take their weapons.

Okay, this is half of the issue in a nutshell.

Stunts have limitations. "Only works with weapon type X" is a limitation.

Sometimes you can't bring your bazooka onto the plane, sometimes your sword is useless because your foe is flying, and so on. This will sometimes, but not always, be a Compel.

But for whatever reason, you've changed that. You've made it essentially impossible to deprive people of their chosen weapons. This breaks the stunts founded upon that limitation.

You should recognize that this issue is caused by your approach and not by some foundational truth of the system.

(The other half of the issue is that you want OW characters to be challenging foes for serious combatants, which they generally are not. And you don't want to change things to make them so.)

Not the same condition--Archer is specific to Faerie-crafted bows.

One condition is a strict subset of the other. Don't nitpick like this, okay? The stacking that you were trying to claim does not occur, occurs.

Honestly, though, I don't much care about the example. For me the whole argument is settled by

Nothing says so in the rules

I just brought it up because you said something demonstrably untrue.

And it's a OW-only stunt, so I have to ask for clarification here: Is it that OW is wrong about every PC and NPC, and therefore I cannot use them as evidence of what the game intends the monsters to be capable of? Or is OW right enough to be used as evidence when it supports your point?

Because you seem to be trying to have it both ways. When I point at something from OW, you dismiss it on the grounds that OW is inaccurate. And then you support your own argument with examples from OW.

OW is full of problems. But it is canon.

So it's not good to use it as evidence for how things should be. I try to avoid doing that.

But it is nonetheless a fact that it exists. So when you ask if X exists or say Y doesn't exist, I'll tell you if X and Y are in OW.

Does that make sense?

Why spend any rounds maneuvering when, through your stunts, you're already getting a cumulative +3 on every attack?

Because that is often not enough.

I just do not think that a Feet In The Water pure mortal should be able to just slug it out with a Ghoul. It's inconsistent with the setting.

Okay.

Regardless of how things should be, a Feet In The Water pure mortal can just slug it out with a Ghoul.

The rules are what they are. When I don't like them I change them; I suggest you do the same.

Changing the stunt rules won't be enough, though. I would start by de-emphasizing weapons and armour.

And all of that refresh spent that's useful in combat makes the ghoul potentially less effective in combat in an objective sense than a character who, by the rulebook's description, has only just now started getting into the supernatural scene?

That's like a professional sports player being objectively worse than a kid on a freshman high school team.

A professional sprinter is likely to lose a fight with a freshman fencer who has a sword.

Kinda the same situation here. The mortal is incredibly specialized in straight-up fighting with a single weapon. The ghoul isn't, so in a straight-up fight where you can choose your weapons it will probably lose.

But since it has superior initiative and is a really fast runner, it can basically just leave the fight whenever it cares to. And it will heal from its injuries unreasonably fast. So even if the mortal is better in a straight fight, the ghoul is likely to come out ahead unless it's dumb.

I'm reading the page, and I don't see that. I see where it says there are similarities, and that supernatural powers are "super-stunts," but nowhere that stunts are supposed to be able to match powers. In fact, it says the whole thing about prerequisites and that powers have multiple refresh is one of the big differences between mortal stunts and power, while the "families" of stunts I've seen are basically multiple-refresh stunts.

I didn't say anything about being equal in power. I was just pointing out that the form and function of Powers is directly based on that of stunts.

And three similar stunts that provide similar bonuses are not a multi-Refresh stunt. Taking Doctor twice isn't a multi-Refresh stunt either. Each stunt is still distinct from the other ones.

Apologies. Sometimes I get Fate Points and Refresh conflated, and I'll try to keep them straighter from now on.

I was trying to say, I agree with your conflation. Don't feel obligated to avoid it.

[Mojosilver]

This has been buging and I do not got it. Why is weapon rating being use as base damage or stress. On page 202 weapons and armor. A weapon can inflict additional stress on a target when you succeed on an attack and, likewise, armor can mitigate stress. The key word being ADDITIONAL stress. On the same page in the example. The demon takes a swing at Evan, rolling a total of Fantastic (+6) with his Fists skill. Evan didn’t have the opportunity to bring up a shield, so he tries to dodge, rolling his Fair (+2) Athletics and only getting a Good (+3). This means that the demon inflicts 3 points of physical stress on Evan. That example uses skills. So if the demon weapons skill with sword weapon rating 2. Same rolls. The sword's weapon rating would add 2 to 3 stress already done. Making it a total of five stress. As for making effective PCs that aren't wizards. Wizards do not seem all that better to me. On Thomas' Character sheet in OW he has weapon skill 4 and Thomas tends to favor swords. (Weapon:2, 4 with his Strength) So with out a roll his attack is 4 and weapon rating is 4. On Harry's Character sheet Conviction 5 and Discipline 3. So for 1 mental stress he has with out rolling his attack is 3 and weapon rating is 3. If you add Harry's blasting rod and\or staff and who would not. he can do 4 attack and 4 weapon rating. That is the same as Thomas but with out the mental stress or at least that is how I read it.

[Mr. Death]

I would totally make a character whose fighting style was rocket launcher based. That should not give me the right to take a rocket launcher everywhere.

Okay, this is half of the issue in a nutshell.

Stunts have limitations. "Only works with weapon type X" is a limitation.

An insufficient one. That is the issue here.

Sometimes you can't bring your bazooka onto the plane, sometimes your sword is useless because your foe is flying, and so on. This will sometimes, but not always, be a Compel.

But for whatever reason, you've changed that. You've made it essentially impossible to deprive people of their chosen weapons. This breaks the stunts founded upon that limitation.

I haven't changed anything. The rulebook says that a compel happens when an aspect--be it a character's aspect or the scene's aspect--makes it so that a character's choices are limited or their life is complicated in some way.

An aspect can also allow you to gain more fate
points by bringing complications and troubling
circumstances into your character’s life.
...
When she
compels one of your aspects, she’s indicating that
your character is in a position where the aspect
could create a problem or a difficult choice.
...
There are a few ways an aspect can complicate
a character’s life via compels: it limits the
responses available to a character in a certain
situation, it introduces unintended complications
into a scene, or it provides the inspiration
for a plot development or a scene hook for that
character.

Not being able to use your apex skill is a problem for that character. A master swordsman who's thrust into a fight without a sword is facing some pretty troubling circumstances. John McLane facing 12 terrorists without a gun is a John McLane with much more limited options and a more difficult fight ahead of him than a John McLane with his gun.

Those things are exactly what compels are for.

You should recognize that this issue is caused by your approach and not by some foundational truth of the system.

I'm using Compels for exactly the sort of thing that the book explicitly says Compels are for. It's not "my approach" that's the problem.

(The other half of the issue is that you want OW characters to be challenging foes for serious combatants, which they generally are not. And you don't want to change things to make them so.)

This whole thing stems from homebrewed stunts. Not something that already exists in the books, but stunts you and others have come up with. OW characters are supposed to be challenging foes--it's these stunts that make it such that they're not even challenging to completely unpowered mortals at the lowest refresh level.

One condition is a strict subset of the other. Don't nitpick like this, okay? The stacking that you were trying to claim does not occur, occurs.

It's still not the same condition. There's some overlap, but it's not the same condition.

Honestly, though, I don't much care about the example. For me the whole argument is settled by
I just brought it up because you said something demonstrably untrue.

No, not really. There's also nothing in the rules saying that you can have multiple stunts with the same condition. And the rules against stacking imply there shouldn't be, or at the very least that they should have reduced bonuses.

OW is full of problems. But it is canon.

So it's not good to use it as evidence for how things should be. I try to avoid doing that.

But it is nonetheless a fact that it exists. So when you ask if X exists or say Y doesn't exist, I'll tell you if X and Y are in OW.

Does that make sense?

That's where we disagree. OW didn't list all the creatures for shits and giggles, it's listed because that's how the monsters are supposed to be portrayed.

Because that is often not enough.

And with these stunts, it's enough more often than it should be.

Okay.

Regardless of how things should be, a Feet In The Water pure mortal can just slug it out with a Ghoul.

Because of these stunts.

Without the stunts, they have to actively spend fate points--a finite resource that may or may not pay off. With these stunts, they can just keep swinging, getting the full benefit each and every time, until the ghoul goes down.

The rules are what they are. When I don't like them I change them; I suggest you do the same.

And I'm saying you're interpreting the rules wrong, and allowing stunts that abuse the rules in order to give more of an advantage than they should. I'm not talking about changing any rules. I'm talking about following the ones in the book. Where we disagree is that you think the type of weapon is enough of a limitation for the full power of a stunt, and I do not.

A professional sprinter is likely to lose a fight with a freshman fencer who has a sword.

Kinda the same situation here. The mortal is incredibly specialized in straight-up fighting with a single weapon. The ghoul isn't, so in a straight-up fight where you can choose your weapons it will probably lose.

Well, no. Not at all. Because a ghoul isn't only a good runner. It's, in this analogy, a professional sprinter who's also a boxing champion.

But since it has superior initiative and is a really fast runner, it can basically just leave the fight whenever it cares to. And it will heal from its injuries unreasonably fast. So even if the mortal is better in a straight fight, the ghoul is likely to come out ahead unless it's dumb.

Ghouls, in the fiction and the write-up, are supposed to excel at physical fighting. Being big, tough killers who are hard to hit and harder to survive a fight with is their whole deal. They're meant to be a threat to mortals even at high levels, and with these stunts, even a novice in the world of the supernatural can deal with them just through trading blows, and that is inconsistent with the setting.

I didn't say anything about being equal in power. I was just pointing out that the form and function of Powers is directly based on that of stunts.

Based on, but still fundamentally different. Powers are meant to build on each other. Stunts are explicitly not supposed to stack with the full benefit. In the homebrew thread, there are several stunts that require another stunt, or which build directly off another stunt--that, to me, is having your cake and eating it too.

I was trying to say, I agree with your conflation. Don't feel obligated to avoid it.

But what I'm trying to say is that spending a fate point for an invoke in a fight is different from having spent refresh on a stunt. A single fate point for a bonus is a +2 to one roll. A single refresh spent on one of these stunts is a bonus to every roll.

[blackstaff67]

The critter/people from OW aren't a threat?  I'll keep that in mind when out group of in-between chest-deep and fully submerged characters run into our first Denarian.  If you want to aim smaller, a Rukh can probably take us out--two Wizards, a Righteous Woman, a WCV (Despair) and another Wizard that thinks guns are cooler than magic, so his Guns is higher than both Conviction and Discipline both.  Well, maybe the WCV might survive...

Pretty sure Sigrun Gard can give any TWO of us a run for our money.  I could go on...perhaps power levels are racially different in your campaign.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm not saying that not being able to use your favoured weapon can't be a Compel.

I'm saying it doesn't have to be.

It's a common Compel and a good one. But there are non-Compel situations where you have to go without a (specific) weapon. And having a bunch of stunts that make those situations worse for you does not make them into Compels.

This whole thing stems from homebrewed stunts. Not something that already exists in the books, but stunts you and others have come up with. OW characters are supposed to be challenging foes--it's these stunts that make it such that they're not even challenging to completely unpowered mortals at the lowest refresh level.

As I keep saying, completely unpowered mortals can run over most of OW using canon stunts or no stunts at all.

If you want, I can demonstrate.

It's still not the same condition. There's some overlap, but it's not the same condition.

100% of the time he uses Archer, Way Of The Bow will apply. 95% of the time he uses Way Of The Bow, Archer will apply.

The stacking you were worried about, where 1 stunt boosts stress and the other boosts accuracy, happens.

No, not really. There's also nothing in the rules saying that you can have multiple stunts with the same condition. And the rules against stacking imply there shouldn't be, or at the very least that they should have reduced bonuses.

There's nothing in the rules saying you can name your character Steve, either. But I'm pretty sure you can.

And the rules against stacking apply only if the benefits are stacking. Which they aren't.

That's where we disagree. OW didn't list all the creatures for shits and giggles, it's listed because that's how the monsters are supposed to be portrayed.

Evil Hat makes mistakes, you know.

Though I admit it's possible that they intended for optimized characters to shred everything in OW without effort. I don't know why they'd intend that, but it's not impossible that they would.

Based on, but still fundamentally different. Powers are meant to build on each other. Stunts are explicitly not supposed to stack with the full benefit. In the homebrew thread, there are several stunts that require another stunt, or which build directly off another stunt--that, to me, is having your cake and eating it too.

Some stunts may have prerequisites (other stunts or even aspects).

If the effect of the stunt is really unusual or particularly potent, it may be some-where down the line in a chain of stunts.

But what I'm trying to say is that spending a fate point for an invoke in a fight is different from having spent refresh on a stunt. A single fate point for a bonus is a +2 to one roll. A single refresh spent on one of these stunts is a bonus to every roll.

Yes, that is how stunts work.

[Sanctaphrax]

@Mojosilver: I'm not sure what you're trying to say, there. Could you explain further?

@blackstaff67: I haven't seen your character sheets, but I suppose it's possible that you've handicapped your characters even more than Evil Hat handicapped the stuff in OW. The bit about the gun-wizard makes it sound that way.

I suspect that power levels are indeed racially different in my games.

[blackstaff67]

@Mojosilver: I'm not sure what you're trying to say, there. Could you explain further?

@blackstaff67: I haven't seen your character sheets, but I suppose it's possible that you've handicapped your characters even more than Evil Hat handicapped the stuff in OW. The bit about the gun-wizard makes it sound that way.

I suspect that power levels are indeed racially different in my games.

We started out chest-deep (8 Refresh, 30 skill points) and have played long enough to earn another point of refresh and three skill points.  I think our skill cap is Superb (+5).

[Vairelome]

Though I admit it's possible that they intended for optimized characters to shred everything in OW without effort. I don't know why they'd intend that, but it's not impossible that they would.

In fairness, given the diversity of groups, playstyles, and levels of locally-customary optimization, I could see Evil Hat choosing not to balance their OW NPCs against optimized PCs.  I think it ought to be standard practice for a DM to scale published NPCs up or down to more appropriately match their players' circumstances.  In any case, I certainly would not take the OW version of a ghoul as the only canonical way to stat one out, of course.

[Wordmaker]

I think if home-brewed stunts are causing issues with balance, then the fault lies with the stunts, not the stats in OW. But that's just my opinion. My group's been fairly happy with the core stunts so we've never thought to create our own. Except I do have a houserule that the Martial Artist stunt isn't needed to make declarations with Fists, since there's no such restriction on other skills that I'm aware of. And yeah, I'd figure that most GMs would ramp pre-made stats up or down to suit their own needs.

Here's the thing that I find difficult to rationalise about saying that not being able to bring a weapon into a particular place is a compel: What happens when you buy it off? If you're in a scene with the Aspect "Airport Security" and the GM compels it to stop players bringing weapons through, what happens if they pay the Fate Point instead?

They can't just walk through security with their weapons, because they'll be stopped by security. When you're using a compel, you've got to think about what will happen if your player buys it off. When a compel is bought off, events should unfold as though you'd never done anything. So you've created a situation where the player can offer to pay off the compel, but must proceed under some form of difficulty (the only three things that can happen with the security desk are to leave weapons behind, walk away from the situation entirely, or go through and be confronted by security guards).

The only logical result I can see from this is that every time you present your players with a situation where they simply can't use one ability or another, you're going to compel them, and if they try to buy it off, you have to raise the stakes and give them two Fate Points instead of just one. So your players will all end up getting two Fate Points every time they can't use their full range of abilities.

I'm still curious about whether Mr Death applies this only to combat skills, or you give your players Fate Points every time they're in a situation where their best skills either don't apply or can't be used for some reason. Like a hacker who can't get to a computer to override a building's security, a fighter pilot in a fist fight indoors, someone with Superb Resources being unable to bribe an enemy, or if an expert swordsman is ambushed by a sniper and can't get close enough to fight hand to hand.

I'm not saying that I think you're doing it wrong or anything like that, just that I honestly would view this more as a houserule, based on what seem to be your motivations behind it. That is, your focus appears to be on compensating players for a tactical disadvantage, whereas my understanding of compels is that they are intended to change the story in interesting ways that put the player at a disadvantage. Not being able to use a particular stunt doesn't change the story. The character can still fight the bad guys, just not as well as he could if he could use his stunts. Whereas a character who gets into a fight because his favourite weapon (represented by an appropriate Aspect) has been taken from him? That's a good compel.

Compels, to my mind, affect what happens in the game, not how well those events turn out.

[Sanctaphrax]

I think if home-brewed stunts are causing issues with balance, then the fault lies with the stunts, not the stats in OW.

The issues with OW exist without the stunts, actually. Just spending your highest skill slots on combat stuff is enough to solo most of OW.

If you compare the stunts in question to other combat stunts and Powers, they're more or less balanced.

(Though I admit that restricting defense stunts to +1 would likely be good for balance.)

[Mojosilver]

I am sorry that my example was not understandable. Sorry all I will try again.

One thing is that when you attack and hit your target. Ever attack point above your target's defend is damage. Then you add your weapon rating to the damage you have already done. Where as in something like D&D you have a attack rating to decide if you hit. Then a Damage rating to decide how much damage you do. What I am trying to say is if Murphy attacks someone with a pistol weapon rating 2. Her guns skill in Our World is Great:4. Now she roll and only gets 4. She gets no plus or minus to her skill from that roll. The defender rolls 1. Because Murphy's attack is 3 over the defender's defense she does 3 stress plus her pistol's weapon rating of 2 for a total of 5 stress. So a pistol can do more damage then say a M60 in the hands the of a of a skilled user or more to the point. A bullet to the head from a pistol kills and a bullet from a M60 to the foot hurts but may not kill you.

The other thing is in Your Story page 251. In the "what you can do with it " for evocation example. Harry attacks a red vampire. His player—Jim—decides he doesn’t want to mess around with this thing too much, so he chooses to summon up 8 shifts of power for the spell. Harry has a power specialization in fire magic, so his Conviction is treated as Fantastic (+6) for the purposes of the spell. That means that casting this spell will give him a 3-stress mental hit—one stress for everything up to 6, and then two more to get to 8.The difficulty to cast the spell is Legendary (+8). That’s high, but fortunately Harry’s blasting rod gives him a +1 to control, so Jim starts by rolling his Discipline at Great (+4). He gets a +2, for a total of Fantastic (+6), and invokes Harry’s Wizard Private Eye aspect to give him +2 more. This controls all the power necessary for the spell, and aims the spell at his target at +8. Harry yells “Fuego!” as he points his blasting rod, sending a column of flame at the vampire, an attack at Legendary rated at Weapon:8. The vampire rolls to defend against Harry’s roll of Legendary and gets a Great (+4), which means the blast strikes home and inflicts a 12-stress hit on him (4 for the attack, 8 for the weapon value). The vampire’s Inhuman Toughness reduces this to 11 stress, and the vampire takes a severe consequence of Extra Crispy and a 5-stress physical hit.

 In above example. Harry's spell is an attack at 8 and Weapon is rated at 8. So the vampire rolls to defend against Harry’s attack of 8 and gets a Great (+4), which means the blast strikes home and inflicts a 12-stress hit on him (4 for the attack, 8 for the weapon value). The thing is to do that damage Harry took 3 mental stress to do it and spent a Fate point. Yes he may have taken down the red vampire one hit, one round (maybe) and yes stoping a attacker before they hit you is a good thing. But who is to say someone like Thomas could not do the same damage. Yes it would take a round or two longer but he would not need the fate point like Harry did and maybe even with out the 3 stress Harry took. Not saying Thomas may not spend a fate or take stress. Only saying you he may not. So a wizard the may win in first, second, or even the third round of combat. But can anyone say a super like Thomas or even a mortal like Murphy can not do the same if only taking a round or to more to do it and with out the mental stress wizard takes to cast evocation spells. True Thomas or Murphy could get hit for stress but Harry took or maybe even more and maybe not. You never know how it will be. But to me wizards are not better or worse.

At least that is what I get from the rules.
Hope that was more understandable Sanctaphrax.

[Mr. Death]

I'm not saying that not being able to use your favoured weapon can't be a Compel.

I'm saying it doesn't have to be.

It's a common Compel and a good one. But there are non-Compel situations where you have to go without a (specific) weapon. And having a bunch of stunts that make those situations worse for you does not make them into Compels.

This whole time you've been acting as if me saying that preventing someone from using a weapon through a compel is some gross breaking of the rules through which I'm totally wrecking the balance of the game.

And it's not. A compel happens when someone's choices are limited, their situation is complicated, or they're otherwise put at a significant disadvantage because of an aspect to the scene or themselves. Someone losing access to the weapon that has so many bonuses attached to it is exactly all three of those. I can't think of a situation where it wouldn't warrant a fate point to throw someone into a fight after taking away their main way of fighting.

As I keep saying, completely unpowered mortals can run over most of OW using canon stunts or no stunts at all.

If you want, I can demonstrate.

Yes, but there's a significant difference between a mortal who has to nudge the dice on key rolls with a fate point, make declarations and maneuvers, and one who can just hit attack-attack-attack and plow over monsters that are supposed to be difficult and deadly, without any real effort on the player's part.

100% of the time he uses Archer, Way Of The Bow will apply. 95% of the time he uses Way Of The Bow, Archer will apply.

I'm curious where you're getting that 95%.

There's nothing in the rules saying you can name your character Steve, either. But I'm pretty sure you can.

You know what I mean.

And the rules against stacking apply only if the benefits are stacking. Which they aren't.

Yeah, they are. One stunt gives a +1 to every swing of the weapon. Another stunt gives a +2 on every successful hit--which is going to be more often with that +1. So on a single hit, the character is getting the full benefit of +3 to stress. Both bonuses applying to the same roll, with the full benefit, no drawback whatsoever.

Evil Hat makes mistakes, you know.

Though I admit it's possible that they intended for optimized characters to shred everything in OW without effort. I don't know why they'd intend that, but it's not impossible that they would.

There's a world of difference between, "They make mistakes," and "Everything in this rulebook can be thrown out because it's all wrong."

And if I had to guess, I'd say they weren't writing the rulebook for optimized characters at all. They were writing it to try and accurately model the monsters in the books, possibly with an eye toward what the average character would be capable of.

Yes, that is how stunts work.

Right. Spending a fate point to nudge a roll is different from spending a refresh to nudge every roll. The price for being able to nudge every roll is that the bonus isn't going to apply the majority of the time. With these stunts, the bonus is going to apply nearly all the time.

@Wordmaker: There's plenty of ways to handle it. Maybe they're able to sneak it in. Or the person doing security is incompetent. Or there's some kind of distraction that lets them slip through. Or things go to hell before they even go through security, so nobody bothers to stop them.

There is always a way around a situation, provided someone is creative enough about thinking one out.

In the more abstract, they're getting a fate point because their lack of weapon will matter significantly, so if they buy out, that means the lack of weapon won't matter--maybe if the gun-wielder buys out, they still give up their gun at the security gate but the moment bullets start flying, he can pick up a gun from someone else immediately.

I'm still curious about whether Mr Death applies this only to combat skills, or you give your players Fate Points every time they're in a situation where their best skills either don't apply or can't be used for some reason. Like a hacker who can't get to a computer to override a building's security, a fighter pilot in a fist fight indoors, someone with Superb Resources being unable to bribe an enemy, or if an expert swordsman is ambushed by a sniper and can't get close enough to fight hand to hand.

It's not so much about being in a situation where the best skill doesn't apply, so much as being in a situation where the best skill would apply but doesn't because of some factor. The fighter pilot in the fist fight wouldn't get a compel because there's really no way for his fighter pilot skills to apply--but he would get a compel if he was forced to fly some huge jalopy of a plane instead of his F16. I'd consider the expert swordsman vs. sniper to be a compel because the sniper's apparently taking deliberate, tangible advantage of the swordsman's limitations--the swordsman is in a situation where his options are more limited than if, say, he'd gone to the shooting range a little more often.

And yes, I'd apply it to non-combat skills, again, it depends on the situation. If the character could and otherwise would use that particular high skill or specialization in a situation, but can't, then that's a compel.

Does an Occultist with a specialization in the cult of Bel-Shamharoth, the Sender of Eight, get a fate point if the party happens to be fighting cultists of Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers? No.

But she'd get one if they're fighting the Sender of Eight's minions and she's suddenly barred access to the Unseen University's library, or her personal notes on the cult are destroyed.

That is, your focus appears to be on compensating players for a tactical disadvantage, whereas my understanding of compels is that they are intended to change the story in interesting ways that put the player at a disadvantage. Not being able to use a particular stunt doesn't change the story.

I consider that a narrow view. And they're really one in the same. A tactical advantage can and does definitely affect the story.

Let's consider a Master Swordsman, without any stunts. He's got Weapons at 5, and a Weapon:3 sword. Because it's melee, he can use his sword and Weapons rating for defense as well. With his sword, he's much more likely to end a fight quickly without getting himself injured.

Now, take the sword away, same character. His Fists rating is probably a step or two lower at the least, and he doesn't have a weapon rating. Against the same characters he was up against with the sword, it's going to take him significantly longer to beat them, giving them more chances to hit him, and his defense is going to be hampered as well. He can still win, but he's going to take his lumps.

Now, don't you think that Unharmed, Armed Swordsman in the first scenario is going to take a different story path than Injured, Disarmed Swordsman?

How well things happen directly affects what things happen.