Telekinetic PC

[Nominal]

Hello all,

I'm working on creating a PC for a Dresden Files RPG game tomorrow, and I want to build a telekinetic (only) character, or at least that's what the character believes in.  I'm new to the FATE system, and I have a few questions about the system in general and how to best apply Supernatural powers to fit my concept.

So far I'm planning on taking Evocation and not Channeling b/c I think it sucks that you can only boost your power/control via items w/ Channeling.  One issue I'm having is deciding what 5 elements are appropriate for a straight up telekinetic character.  So far I plan on Force (obviously), Air, and Earth.  Does anyone have any suggestions for the other 2?

I'm also trying to decide whether to take Thaumaturgy or Ritual (Kinetomancy).  I'd prefer to just take the Ritual Supernatural ability to save on Refresh and I know the book states on pg 287 that Kinetomancy is usually and expression of focused Evocation, but I feel like I can justify it by just using it for telekinetic-like effects only.  A few examples include telekinetically ripping a whole in the fabric of reality to enter another world (Nevernever), creating wards w/ telekinetic effects (holds, blasts of pure force), or creating focus items/enchanted items/potions, again w/ Force-like effects.  Does that seem to everyone like a legitimate way of using Ritual?

I was also thinking of trying to create a new ability for the character, the ultimate expression of his power, a kinetic absorption field.  I'd like for it to act like a shield and attach a few Supernatural powers to it that can only activate when the shield is struck by Kinetic energy.  Initially I'd like to take Supernatural Speed, one level of Refinement (basically allocating the benefit when the shield is hit) and maybe Inhuman Recovery if I have enough Refresh.  I'd like for the field to surround the whole character, maybe a few inches from his skin instead of the hemispherical type shields common in the books.

My problem is I'm not sure how to create this ability.  I'd like it to be able to function as either a block or armor, like other shields.  My initial thoughts are that b/c I don't have constant access to the attached powers I should get +1 Refresh.  I'm thinking that I don't immediately gain access to all 3 abilities, basically each time the shield is struck I can pick one, but maybe that's too weak or I should get another point of Refresh for that limitation.   I'm not sure what kind duration the attached abilities should have, maybe a scene (I'm not even sure how long a scene is)?  I think it would be cool if the power functioned more like the Blood Dependency ability, so the PC keeps track of the powers via some sort of stress track, but again I have no idea of how to implement this.

The first game session (character creation) is tomorrow night and I was hoping to have a few awesome suggestions so the GM and I can work out the specifics. 

Oh, this is kinda off topic, but what is the duration of a block if used as armor?  The books states that it lasts until the spell ends, but is that just one exchange?  If so, to me that seems kind of crappy b/c you only get an armor rating equal to have of the shifts invested. 

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!!

[Taran]

There's a Telekinesis custom power:

TELEKINESIS [-2]
Description: You can exert physical force with the power of your mind alone.
Skills Affected: Conviction, Discipline
Effects:
Mind Over Matter. Whenever you would use your Might skill, you may use your Conviction skill instead. If you have a Strength Power you may apply its lifting, breaking, and grappling bonuses to your Conviction skill.
Telekinetic Reach. If an action would normally require you to touch something, you can do it from a zone away. If you use this effect to do something which requires good fine motor control, your Discipline restricts whatever skill you use.
Telekinetic Attacks. You may use your Discipline skill to hit people either unarmed or with objects. Attacks made with this effect include stress bonuses from Strength Powers and are treated as ranged attacks for the purpose of selecting defence skills.
Enhanced Telekinesis [-1]. Your Telekinetic Reach extends to everything within your line of sight. In addition, unarmed attacks that you make with this Power are now weapon 2 and may be enhanced with any Natural Weaponry upgrade except for Summoned, Explosive, and Ranged.
Defensive Telekinesis [-1]. You are protected by a shell of telekinetic power. You may use your Discipline skill to defend against physical attacks or to create physical barriers.
Self-Propelling Telekinesis [-1]. (Requires Defensive Telekinesis) Your telekinesis is strong enough to let you carry yourself. This allows you to fly as though you had the Wings power, using Discipline instead of Athletics to move around in the air.

For your convenience, here's natural weaponry

NATURAL WEAPONRY [-1]
Description: Your body contains or can produce some kind of weapon or attack.
Note: You have to define what your natural weapons are when you take this power. Some of the upgrades for this Power, like Potent, Venomous, and Area Weaponry, may be appropriate as stand-alone Powers that are attached to an Item of Power.
Skills Affected: Fists, Weapons, Guns, Discipline
Effects:
Natural Weaponry. Your body contains a weapon with a rating of 2. This weapon has a no range, is not capable of spray attacks, benefits from Strength powers, and is wielded with the Fists skill.
Potent Weaponry [-1]. Your natural weapon has a rating of 4.
Summoned Weaponry [-0]. You must take a supplemental action to create or draw your natural weapon before you can use it. In addition, you may wield your natural weapon with the Weapons skill.
Ranged Weaponry [-1]. Your natural weapon has a range of three zones and is capable of spray attacks. It may be wielded with the Fists, Weapons, Guns, or Discipline skill. It cannot be used with the defence trapping of Weapons unless you possess the Summoned Weaponry upgrade.
Area Weaponry [-1]. Your natural weapon may be used to make zonewide attacks.
Selective Weaponry [-1]. (Requires Area Weaponry) You do not harm yourself when making a zonewide attack against your own zone with your natural weapon.
Explosive Weaponry [+1]. (Requires Area Weaponry) Your natural weapon may not be used to make attacks that are not zone-wide.
Imprecise Weaponry [+1]. (Requires Selective Weaponry) You suffer a -2 penalty to the accuracy of any zonewide attack that you make with your natural weapon.
Venomous Weaponry [-2]. You may use your natural weapon to perform special maneuvers. These maneuvers may only inflict one specific Aspect; usually it's POISONED, but it can also be something like ON FIRE or ACCELERATED AGEING if that fits your character better. You may not tag that Aspect, but during your turn in each exchange after the one you performed the special maneuver in each character with that Aspect suffers a weapon 0 physical attack against Endurance with an accuracy equal to the roll you created the Aspect with. This effect ends if the Aspect is removed. You may perform these special maneuvers against every character in a zone, possibly including yourself, if you possess the Area Weaponry upgrade. Outside of a conflict, the effects of these maneuvers are adjudicated by the GM. But as a general rule, they're quickly fatal unless countered by another maneuver.

[Taran]

I was also thinking of trying to create a new ability for the character, the ultimate expression of his power, a kinetic absorption field.  I'd like for it to act like a shield and attach a few Supernatural powers to it that can only activate when the shield is struck by Kinetic energy.  Initially I'd like to take Supernatural Speed, one level of Refinement (basically allocating the benefit when the shield is hit) and maybe Inhuman Recovery if I have enough Refresh.  I'd like for the field to surround the whole character, maybe a few inches from his skin instead of the hemispherical type shields common in the books.

My problem is I'm not sure how to create this ability.  I'd like it to be able to function as either a block or armor, like other shields.  My initial thoughts are that b/c I don't have constant access to the attached powers I should get +1 Refresh.  I'm thinking that I don't immediately gain access to all 3 abilities, basically each time the shield is struck I can pick one, but maybe that's too weak or I should get another point of Refresh for that limitation.   I'm not sure what kind duration the attached abilities should have, maybe a scene (I'm not even sure how long a scene is)?  I think it would be cool if the power functioned more like the Blood Dependency ability, so the PC keeps track of the powers via some sort of stress track, but again I have no idea of how to implement this.

The first game session (character creation) is tomorrow night and I was hoping to have a few awesome suggestions so the GM and I can work out the specifics. 

I would say, that if you had an IoP, you could get a pretty good bonus.

If it's small +1 IoP
Then, I'd say you could get a +2 bonus for any powers attached to it.  Basically, you are taking Human Form with a +2 bonus because you can't control when you use the powers.

Any time, you are hit, you gain access to the powers for the duration of the scene.  (a scene duration lasts until the scene ends, so it could be a few moments, if it's a physical combat, or an hour if it's social combat.)

So it might look like this:
-1 Ring of telekinetic absorbtion: 
+1 Item of Power:  It is a ring - easily concealable
+2 Involuntary Human Form (only works when hit with a enough kinetic force to cause damage)
-2 Inhuman Speed
-2 Inhuman strength

You could also make this ring one of your enchanted items so it could absorb damage as a block.

Oh, this is kinda off topic, but what is the duration of a block if used as armor?  The books states that it lasts until the spell ends, but is that just one exchange?  If so, to me that seems kind of crappy b/c you only get an armor rating equal to have of the shifts invested. 

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!!

Yeah, just one exchange.  On the next exchange, you can add duration to the spell to make it last longer.  It's helpful that, if you have an Odd number of shifts in power, you could add duration, since you have to halve the power to gain armour, the odd shift is wasted.  So, a 5-shift block could be a 2-shift armour, with one extra exchange of duration.

It seems crappy, but keep in mind, that if you get attacked multiple times in the same exchange, the armour stays for every hit.  With a normal block, the block only lasts until it is overcome - which could be the first attack in the exchange.

[Haru]

If you want to go with stock powers, I could see something like this:

Inhuman Toughness [-2]
Human Form (involuntary) [+2]
affecting:
 Inhuman Strength [-2]
 Breath Weapon (Telekinesis) [-2]

Total: -4

Ok, let me explain why I chose those powers.
Inhuman toughness would be the shield around you. It's not a perfect shield, it only allows you to absorb so much before you get hurt, but it's a good start. Human form covers the fact that you don't always have access to the powers, and involuntary change means you can't just switch them on, there's a condition that has to be met. In your case, the condition would be that you have to have been attacked during the current scene and made a defense roll for it. After that, you're good to go, though compels could have you run dry again, of course.
Breath weapon is used to model the telekinesis. You can use it to attack and you can use it to move stuff around (maneuvers). The strength power would not be for your physical strength but for your mental strength, so you could only use it with breath weapon, not for physical stuff. And I would allow you to use discipline instead of weapons for breath weapons, but your GM might charge a stunt for that (I wouldn't).

You can adjust or add to that as you see fit. If you decide to go for supernatural toughness for your shield, I would probably have you take a catch as well. It's not that important for inhuman, that's harmless enough, but anything above, I would definitely want a catch. Fast attacks like bullets should work nicely, and are a natural fit for this kind of power.

[Sanctaphrax]

If you do decide to go with the custom Power, here are a couple of characters with it for reference: 1 2

So far I plan on Force (obviously), Air, and Earth.  Does anyone have any suggestions for the other 2?

I'd just leave them blank. They don't matter unless you take Refinement to open more elements, and presumably you won't.

Does that seem to everyone like a legitimate way of using Ritual?

Sounds good to me.

I was also thinking of trying to create a new ability for the character, the ultimate expression of his power, a kinetic absorption field.  I'd like for it to act like a shield and attach a few Supernatural powers to it that can only activate when the shield is struck by Kinetic energy.  Initially I'd like to take Supernatural Speed, one level of Refinement (basically allocating the benefit when the shield is hit) and maybe Inhuman Recovery if I have enough Refresh.  I'd like for the field to surround the whole character, maybe a few inches from his skin instead of the hemispherical type shields common in the books.

My problem is I'm not sure how to create this ability.

If you want to keep it simple and stick to the book, I'd suggest Supernatural Toughness with a +3 Catch of non-kinetic attacks. That would represent a straightforward shield very nicely.

An enchanted item using the mechanics of Harry's coat would also be simple and effective.

If you want to make it more complicated, you have a lot of options. You could use the custom Limitation power or the Spell upgrade from The Paranet Papers. You could go Haru's suggestion, or with Taran's. Or you could do something else.

Oh, this is kinda off topic, but what is the duration of a block if used as armor?  The books states that it lasts until the spell ends, but is that just one exchange?  If so, to me that seems kind of crappy b/c you only get an armor rating equal to have of the shifts invested.

It's true, it's not usually the best deal. But sometimes it's just what you need.

[Nominal]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! 

I think I want the character to still be casting magic, he just believes that his abilities are more telekinetic in nature so that's how his magic is expressed to the world (if that makes sense).

Taran, out of curiosity did you pull those powers from another FATE supplement or make them up on the fly?  If it's from another book, what's the name of it?       

Thanks again!                                                           

[Haru]

We've got a resource collection with custom made stuff by the community:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/board,45.0.html

The powers can be found on the custom powers master list:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,25794.0.html

[Sanctaphrax]

We also have a wiki, which is linked in my signature.