Newbies ask the darnest things

[McNulty]

We finally have some sessions of DFRPG under our belt (I'm GMing), there's already a bunch of situations that could use some expert POV. So I was wondering instead of having X number of threads for each of these, I'll put them all under the same topic. Other newbies can participate as well of course and maybe this can be the "sticky" thread for this sort of simple/single issues/questions at some point.

[McNulty]

One of my players has a geomancer (earth magic) focused practitioner and a situation warrants him to break into a safe, preferably without the owner being any the wiser. The logical course of action is to prepare an earth elemental ritual to access the safe in a way that it will look unaccessed afterwards (details of how this happens don't really matter here I think).

What I would like to hear is some guidance how to determine the complexity of such ritual.

[narphoenix]

That one is simple: how high would the Burglary roll have to be if they were breaking in mundanely, in theory, to keep from having tracks? Set the complexity of the ritual equal to that difficulty.

[Mr. Death]

Well, personally, I'd up the complexity by +2 for the "make it look unaccessed afterward" part.

[blackstaff67]

and maybe another +2 if you want to pace the Aspect "Psychic finger prints were wiped clean" in case there are any spellcasters in the OpForce.

[Haru]

(details of how this happens don't really matter here I think).

But that's the juiciest part. (wall of text incoming)

No, seriously. Having a description of what is going on can actually help you determine the difficulty. Different approaches to the same problem can have different difficulties entirely.
You could, for example, say the caster is manipulating the lock magnetically, sending out a pulse to know exactly where each piece is and feeling his way through the combination to know how he has to turn the dial. Would be very easy to open a lock that way, and it would leave virtually no trace.
On the other hand, you could rely on pure force to rip the safe apart at the seams. Doable, especially with magic, but extremely taxing nonetheless. And don't even talk about the difficulty of putting it back together without anybody noticing what happened. I'd probably go with 3-5 for opening, if he had some sort of symbolic link (like the glasses of the owner, because they've seen him open it so many times). 10+ for smashing open at least and even more for closing it again. And even with all that, there might be some traces it has been opened regardless of how good he tries to hide it.

Or you could get really creative. I'm assuming he wants to get at some document inside the safe, to see what is written inside and then leave things as they were. In that case, he could sort of make a photocopy spell, if the ink the document is written in has some sort of magnetic or similar in it. Graphite in a pencil would work best, but we'll take what we got. Then he could paper and the same kind of ink (maybe if he gets hold of the printer or the pen it was written with), press his left hand on the safe and let the magic scan for the letters on the document, while his right hand is moved by the magic he pours into it and sort of copies the entire document without the need to actually open the safe.

This last one, I would probably not even let him roll on. If he has the necessary ingredients (ink, pen, paper, all preferably at linked somehow to the ones in the safe), of course. It's just a pretty cool idea to get what he wants, and the difficulty lies in the planning, not the execution. If you don't want someone to fail, don't roll. Let them fail where it matters, when he is trying to get the ingredients for the spell. And don't necessarily make them final. If he can't get to the pen one way, he might be able to come up with a different plan.

[Quantus]

All of which assumes that the safe is purely mechanical and not prone to accidental Hexing; many these days have electronic components.  If say he attempts to manipulate the door bolts and internal mechanisms of the latch portions of the safe, you can always force him to do so while maintaining energy levels low enough to not short out the electronic portions of the lock.  In any electronic safe there will be a functional divide between the code circuitry and an electromagnetic actuator that actually moves the physical pieces, usually some form of magnetic solenoid.  In that instance it would be very easy to energize the magnetic coil directly with magic, thus bypassing the electronic "lock" entirely, but if the PC isnt careful it would still work, but would short out the circuits and thus leave evidence. 

Such tiered success situations appeal to me, personally.  But not everyone agrees.

[dplanken]

If I can ask my newbie questions here, that would be great! I hate to clutter the boards with my topics.

I was wondering, does every faerie type have a Sidhe? Like for summer ogres and a snow ogres (proven guilty). Is there a Sidhe Ogre of the Summer court and a Sidhe Ogre of the Winter Court? And if it does work like this, are the Sidhe's of the extraordinary ugly faeries also ugly? Or more humanised and pretty. Because I thought I read somewhere that all Sidhe are unearthly beautiful, but not all faeries (they are just extraordinarily... something).

[Dr.FunLove]

My take on this is that there are always Sidhe for each faerie breed. Each breed might even have a progenitor Sidhe (Cait Sith is eluded to possible be THE King of the Malks). Regarding their appearance: beauty if in the eye of the beholder and I'd imagine the sidhe of any given breed represents the best of the elements that make that breed.

[Mr. Death]

Yeah, Sidhe seems to be something of a rank or title. I've seen the Erlking referred to as a Sidhe of the goblins, for instance. It seems the ruler--or ruling class--of a given type of Faerie is Sidhe.

[dplanken]

Alright cool, I had the same idea. I'm glad you guys agree!

[Dr.FunLove]

You're spot on dplanken! If we take that the Fae are a feuadalistic society, the sidhe would comprise the ruling class nobility in a societal later just below the various Monarchs of Faerie. It's a great part of the sandbox!

[polkaneverdies]

A couple of Woj that reference the sidhe.

Toot-Toot
2009 Lexington signing:
Q:  How big will Toot get?
A:  Depends on how much influence he has in the world.  That’s how the sidhe gain their size and power.  Mab wasn’t always as big as she is now.
2010 Bitten by Books Q&A:
#150 Is Toot-toot’s increase in size due to his actions, or the title and followers he has acquired doing Harry’s bidding?”
It’s due to /Harry’s/ actions, mostly. Toot done hitched his star to Harry’s wagon. As a result, he’s taken actions he never would have taken on his own, some of which had major consequences. Toot has effectively become a much more powerful being than he was as an independent dewdrop faerie. The physical growth is a reflection of that fact.
I mean gosh, where do you think the Sidhe came from in the first place?
2009 Kansas City Q&A @41:45
With all the things Toot Toot and the Za Lord's guard have done that made a difference, and with Toot getting bigger, is that going to upset the balance in the Summer court?
The answer is no, because they are not Summer anyway, they are wildfae.  And everybody over in summer is going to blame Harry for everything they do.  They regard them as a tool and Harry is the guy holding it.  Harry would tell you that he's probably the tool but...  Anyway Toot Toot's been growing because that's where the Sidhe came from to begin with.  They weren't always all tall and glamorous, they kind of got that way. 

[ReaderAt2046]

If I can ask my newbie questions here, that would be great! I hate to clutter the boards with my topics.

I was wondering, does every faerie type have a Sidhe? Like for summer ogres and a snow ogres (proven guilty). Is there a Sidhe Ogre of the Summer court and a Sidhe Ogre of the Winter Court? And if it does work like this, are the Sidhe's of the extraordinary ugly faeries also ugly? Or more humanised and pretty. Because I thought I read somewhere that all Sidhe are unearthly beautiful, but not all faeries (they are just extraordinarily... something).

(click to show/hide)

In Changes, Harry accidentally portals into the Erlking's hall, and gets a chance to see the Erlking unmasked. He notes that where goblins just look hideous, on the Erlking that asymmetry and deformation takes on an unusual sort of beauty, like something carved from a twisted root or knotted branch by a master woodcarver. So I would say that Sidhe don't always look conventionally beautiful, but they are always attractive in some way.

[Troy]

What's the practical difference between the Skills Presence and Rapport?

From what I understand, the difference is one between passively having charm or the ability to get attention and actively being charming and getting attention. It's a fine line... and I think that Fate Core was wise in doing away with the distinction. For the Dresden Game the writers may have felt a need for the two different Skills... but I'm having trouble seeing it with my own eyes.

What do you guys think?