Questions on White Court NPC

[Thoran]

I'm running a Dresden Files campaign and I'm starting to introduce White Court Vampires as enemies to my PCs.  I'm having some difficulty figuring out how their powers work in combat:

The Emotion Touch power says "If you can touch someone, you can make him feel something." how do you determine if you can touch someone?  Is there an athletics check?

The Feeding Touch power says "When a victim is in the throes of an eligible emotion, you may draw some of his life force out of him to sustain you."  How does this work?  Does this inflict more stress than Emotion Touch alone?

[PirateJack]

As long as you're in the same zone, you attack with Intimidation/Deceit and they defend with Discipline. I'd only allow Athletics on the condition that if they fail, their defence is then at 0, since they've elected to try and avoid the attack rather than preparing any mental defences. The At Range upgrade makes this moot though, so you might want to consider taking it for your vampire NPC.

As for Feeding Touch, it links in to Emotional Vampire [-1]. After you perform a manoeuvre to Incite Emotion on a target, you can then use it to attack the target with Incite Emotion (no +2 bonus though). If you then do enough stress to Take Them Out you get a free scene's worth of recovery (which ties in with Inhuman Recovery to clear your stress track and erase any mild/moderate consequences you have).

[InFerrumVeritas]

I let them defend either with athletics or discipline, but not both.

[UmbraLux]

I'm running a Dresden Files campaign and I'm starting to introduce White Court Vampires as enemies to my PCs.  I'm having some difficulty figuring out how their powers work in combat:

As PirateJack notes, At Range helps a lot.  I even had a greed based WCV set up a block using it.

The Emotion Touch power says "If you can touch someone, you can make him feel something." how do you determine if you can touch someone?  Is there an athletics check?

If you're in the same zone you can touch them, if they're trying to avoid your touch you'll need appropriate checks.  (I default to Athletics as defense if they're actively dodging.  Similar to IFV, I allow players to choose to defend only with Discipline if they want to accept the touch.  It's an iffy choice since the WCV could have something else in mind...like grappling.   )

The Feeding Touch power says "When a victim is in the throes of an eligible emotion, you may draw some of his life force out of him to sustain you."  How does this work?  Does this inflict more stress than Emotion Touch alone?

Incite Emotion doesn't inflict stress at all, just an emotion (it creates an appropriate aspect).  That aspect is then compelled to allow feeding via Emotional Vampire.  I typically default to one stress box a round but allow the vampire to attempt to increase via Deceit/Intimidation vs Discipline rolls if desired.  I don't believe that is specified in the text - I extrapolated from the mild feeding and taste of death mentioned.

[Taran]

Incite Emotion doesn't inflict stress at all, just an emotion (it creates an appropriate aspect).  That aspect is then compelled to allow feeding via Emotional Vampire.  I typically default to one stress box a round but allow the vampire to attempt to increase via Deceit/Intimidation vs Discipline rolls if desired.  I don't believe that is specified in the text - I extrapolated from the mild feeding and taste of death mentioned.

Emotional vampire lets you do a psychic attack

This is done as a psychological
attack with an appropriate skill (usually
Deceit or Intimidation). If you have the
Incite Emotion ability, inciting the emotion
and feeding on it may be done as a single
action, based on a single roll.

Emphasis mine.

So if you don't have Incite emotion, you can't feed.  Unless you create some kind of relevant aspect using rapport, deceit or intimidate (depending on what kind of emotion you feed on).  Once they have the appropriate aspect, you can do mental stress by making a skill roll vs their defense (as long as you're touching and as long as the aspect persists).

If you DO have incite emotion, you can create the emotion(aspect) and feed with the same roll.  (but you still have to touch).  I assume they defend with one roll as well.  Their result determines whether they get the aspect and take any damage.  The maneuver gets a +2 (because that's what incite emotion does) but don't count that bonus when calculating stress since it only applies to the maneuver.

[UmbraLux]

Emotional vampire lets you do a psychic attack

Pretty sure that's what I said - at least part of what I said.  Am I not following your statement?

So if you don't have Incite emotion, you can't feed.  Unless you create some kind of relevant aspect using rapport, deceit or intimidate (depending on what kind of emotion you feed on).  Once they have the appropriate aspect, you can do mental stress by making a skill roll vs their defense (as long as you're touching and as long as the aspect persists).

Not quite...the vampire may still feed on natural emotions, just can't create them with a touch.  Some emotions (i.e. fear) are easier to evoke without Incite Emotion than others.  But the book explicitly says you can feed (minimally) on "an eligible strong emotion" whenever you're nearby. 

[Taran]

Pretty sure that's what I said - at least part of what I said.  Am I not following your statement?

Sorry, I think we agree with each other.  I thought you were saying that Feeding only let's you do 1 stress/exchange.  But I just read your whole sentence 

Not quite...the vampire may still feed on natural emotions, just can't create them with a touch.  Some emotions (i.e. fear) are easier to evoke without Incite Emotion than others.  But the book explicitly says you can feed (minimally) on "an eligible strong emotion" whenever you're nearby.

That's what I was saying as well.  If you don't have incite emotion, you have to try to evoke those emotions the old fashioned way.  By using appropriate skills or just preying on people who are naturally feeling those emotions (like hanging out in a strip club - for lust; or hanging out on the edge of a cliff waiting for people who are afraid of heights    )

[UmbraLux]

Sounds like we agree. 

That's what I was saying as well.

Good to know - your first sentence in that paragraph ("So if you don't have Incite emotion, you can't feed.") threw me.