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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Astrocreep on July 06, 2010, 06:08:04 PM
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I am working on a changeling character for a friends upcoming Dresden game and have run into a small hitch and wanted some input. How would you handle someone having multiple catches to their toughness powers. In this case he has the normal fae cold iron catch but also due to the folklore surrounding the type of fae he is descended from he also has a weakness to gold. now since they would both have the same rarity more or less i could see lumping them together but knowing that he is also weak to the gold since its not as common a thing how would you handle it if you just lumped them together? or should it be handled in a different way and i am just missing something in the rules? thanks for the help in advance
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Only the Catch with the biggest discount applies its discount. You can have more, but you don't get any mechanical benefit from them i.e. a larger discount.
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What he said, more or less. The Catch for such a character would be listed as:
The Catch is cold iron or gold [+3]
Because it's about as easy to come by as Cold Iron. Check out Red court vampires for another example.
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ok this is what i figured for the most part just wanted to be sure we are all kinda learning as we go so i figured i would turn to those who had a bit more experience with the game. thanks again
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I could see a GM house-ruling to allow another +1 or even +2 if the combined catches really make a difference in your vulnerability (that said, Iron is about as common as it gets, the only thing that might be more common in modern day life is plastic, though wood is up there too). With your guy I don't think there's any reason to do that though.
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If Astrocreep is who I think she is: my good ole friend from Wales.
She pointed out this to me last night as examples:
- Elves (OW pg 42); Bucky The Murder Doll (OW pg 43); has The Catch [+1] is cold iron and the like.
- Hammerhands (OW pg 44), the Reaper (OW pg 44); and Giant Scarecrow (OW pg 45) all have The Catch (Stacked) [+5].
- Goblins (OW pg 45) & Elder Gruff (OW pg 46) is The Catch [+3] is cold iron and the like.
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Just a side note here, it is possible to have multiple catches (YS 187), just they cannot be the same type of catch and must be divided across multiple toughness powers.
Example cited in YS: A demon with physical immunity to fire, and supernatural toughness against anything not cold based.
[-8] Physical Immunity
Catch: Only against fire [+5]
[-4] Supernatural Toughness:
Catch: Cold [+3]
Total cost here: [-4]
I still don't see a way to combine iron and gold, but it is possible to have multiple catches.
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Okay guys, here's how it works:
You get one catch for all Toughness powers except Physical Immunity, it can't reduce their total cost below -1, so if you have Inhuman Toughness only with a Catch of Cold Iron, Cold Iron's only worth +1 (and you could grab two more points of powers, effectively for free). Feel free re-read where this is laid out in detail on YS p. 185.
Physical Immunity gets an entirely separate Catch referred to as the Stacked Catch, which has it's own rules listed on YS p. 187 This is listed under Physical Immunity and is an explicit exception to only having one Catch, that applies only to Physical Immunity.
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You get one catch for all Toughness powers except Physical Immunity, it can't reduce their total cost below -1, so if you have Inhuman Toughness only with a Catch of Cold Iron, Cold Iron's only worth +1 (and you could grab two more points of powers, effectively for free). Feel free re-read where this is laid out in detail on YS p. 185.
Cold Iron covers anything of iron or steel, and is worth +3 (+2 for availability, +1 for research, apparently).
Short of Black Vampires, it makes me wonder what catches are +2 for research.
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Yep! As long as you have 4 or more points of Toughness powers, anyway.
An beyond the Black Court, I think only things immediately obvious (like a creature made of fire being hurt by water), or known to everyone (like a werewolf-looking thing being hurt by silver, or a literal Frankenstein's monster by fire). It's really not very common.
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Cold Iron covers anything of iron or steel, and is worth +3 (+2 for availability, +1 for research, apparently).
I just checked, and you're right, but it seems really strange to me that faeries' vulnerability to iron is only +1 in the research category. It's pretty much common knowledge.
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Ok another quick question with the same character now if i am reading the book right a changeling takes on the court of his fae parent and gains all the appropriate weakness'. In this case the parent is a Winterfae. So wouldn't that mean that i would have cold iron for being fae, gold for the type of fae he is, and because he is descended from an unseelie would he also include summer magic in the catch?
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I just checked, and you're right, but it seems really strange to me that faeries' vulnerability to iron is only +1 in the research category. It's pretty much common knowledge.
I agree. Seems like it should be +4 to me as well.
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My rationalization of why the fae catch requires research is that it's not immediately obvious that you are some sort of fae. Is a centaur a fae? How about that think that looks like a movie monster? Or that pile of moving plants? So the difficulty is not knowing to use iron on fae, but knowing the thing you ar facing is fae at all.
If a centaur with a sword jumps out of an alley at you, is your first thought going to be, hmm that's a fae, better use iron? Where as if a walking corpse with big fangs that drinks blood jumps out at you, you really don't need any mental help to make the jump to 'vampire'.
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If for some reason I need to fight some random, weird monster, I'm going for a metal weapon. It's not because I know faeries are burned by it. It's because all of the things I'd use as a weapon are made of iron.
And if I did happen to think that the thing looked vaguely like a faerie, I'd be sure to use something iron just in case. I've read a lot of stories about faeries. The moment I see what I'd describe as a monster, I'm going to grab for any logical thing to slow it down enough to get away. To me, basically every monster that isn't specifically something else looks like a faerie.
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If for some reason I need to fight some random, weird monster, I'm going for a metal weapon. It's not because I know faeries are burned by it. It's because all of the things I'd use as a weapon are made of iron.
And if I did happen to think that the thing looked vaguely like a faerie, I'd be sure to use something iron just in case. I've read a lot of stories about faeries. The moment I see what I'd describe as a monster, I'm going to grab for any logical thing to slow it down enough to get away. To me, basically every monster that isn't specifically something else looks like a faerie.
As a kind of corollary to this, so many weapons are already MADE out of iron that it is an awesomely crappy catch. If you have a sword, axe, or pretty much any other melee weapon, then it satisfies the catch. It's probably worth spending a little extra money to always use steel-jacketted rounds if you deal with the supernatural much.
Frankly, it seems crazy that Dresden doesn't go around at least with a knife or something in case fae show up -- in fact, Dresden hasn't bothered to get good at earth magic either, so he's unusually bad at handling fae (kind of odd given what his life is like).
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You expect a knife to help against something that is supernaturally strong and fast and has been kicking ass with a sword since before you were born? ???
For Dresden, any iron using alternatives to magically setting things on fire are probably not going to work as well.
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You expect a knife to help against something that is supernaturally strong and fast and has been kicking ass with a sword since before you were born? ???
For Dresden, any iron using alternatives to magically setting things on fire are probably not going to work as well.
Magnetism + knives/nails = dead fey.
And let's be honest, Dresden barely survives a lot of scrapes because some fey gets right on him and he can't get them off and has nothing handy to hurt them with. I'm not saying the knife would be the first line of offense, but it would help in a pinch (and iron with more magic helps even more).
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Magnetism + knives/nails = dead fey.
And let's be honest, Dresden barely survives a lot of scrapes because some fey gets right on him and he can't get them off and has nothing handy to hurt them with. I'm not saying the knife would be the first line of offense, but it would help in a pinch (and iron with more magic helps even more).
You should have seen the look on my GMs face when I dropped a couple of loads of Size F birdshot (.22 caliber shot) into an Ogre at point blank range in a session last weekend.
GM: "No big deal, he just shrugs it off and keeps coming."
Me: "Guess both you and the Ogre haven't been keeping up with the times. Modern birdshot isn't lead any more, it's steel."
GM: "Ouch."
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You should have seen the look on my GMs face when I dropped a couple of loads of Size F birdshot (.22 caliber shot) into an Ogre at point blank range in a session last weekend.
GM: "No big deal, he just shrugs it off and keeps coming."
Me: "Guess both you and the Ogre haven't been keeping up with the times. Modern birdshot isn't lead any more, it's steel."
GM: "Ouch."
Hah. Just makes me think some catches should have an availability of "everyone and their mom has it" (+3).
Edit: Seriously, you'd be hard pressed in the modern world to be anywhere populated and not be within 50 feet of something made out of iron (usually a lot closer than that). And it is the principle item melee weapons are made out of. I mean, something like (non-inherited) silver is easy to get, but it isn't nearly that easy.
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Steel works against faeries, however.
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I think people greatly overestimate how widely known the faerie vulnerability to cold iron is these days. Sure, as gamers and mythology fans we all know these things. It can be assumed that the average practitioner in the Dresdenverse knows this or can find out with relative ease. But the typical "man on the street"? I doubt it.
If you were to go up to a random person in an office building, or on the subway, and ask them, "How do you kill a vampire?", after deciding whether you are crazy enough to warrant running or calling for help they would probably answer "a stake through the heart", or something similar. This information is common knowledge, thanks to the efforts of the White Council, Bram Stoker, and decades of vampire-related films and books. But where is this foundation of knowledge about the faerie folk?
I'd be willing to wager the same person would think of Tinkerbell when asked about faeries, and has no idea of the effects of cold iron on one. There just isn't the popular culture around the true nature of Faerie, much less how to injure or kill one. Maybe they were required to read "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" in a college literature course or something, but unless they majored in it I doubt they even remember the poem. It's just not part of our mundane world any more.
It wouldn't surprise me if Disney and similar companies weren't influenced by the Courts in order to disseminate false information, in a reversal of the Black Court Plan. Think of all the classic fairy tales that have been modified over the years to be made more tame and palatable to children. Does anyone these days remember that Cinderella's sisters had their eyes pecked out by birds after cutting off bits of their feet to make the slipper fit? Or that there was a version of Sleeping Beauty where it was not true love's kiss that awakened her, but the birth of her child (think about the implications of that for a moment, and see if you find the Prince so charming now)? While the White Council is working to combat this with the efforts of Sondheim and Bill Willingham, I'd be willing to wager the average person knows almost nothing of true faeries, let alone what to do and not do if they encounter one.
Finally, remember that the realm of Faerie is just one of many locations in the Nevernever. Just because it is likely that the monster rampaging in your general direction is vulnerable to cold iron does not guarantee it. All the more reason to do the research and confirm what you are dealing with before charging into the fray.
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But on the other hand, what is the first thing you have ready in case of a serious fight? For me it is probably my keyring and there is cold iron for you. For an average thug it will either be a baseball or a knife/switchblade (Does aliminium count as cold iron btw?).
Hell if you got one of the cheap ass Chinese SKM rifles, all you have is steel jacketed crap ammo that comes with it (something like 20 bucks for 300 non-reloadable rounds). Modern Birdshot/Buckshot are also steel btw :D
Even if you don't know it, there is a big chance you will have the right tool.
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I think people greatly overestimate how widely known the faerie vulnerability to cold iron is these days. Sure, as gamers and mythology fans we all know these things. It can be assumed that the average practitioner in the Dresdenverse knows this or can find out with relative ease. But the typical "man on the street"? I doubt it.
Even if your average person doesn't know about faeries and iron -- and I'm betting that a fair number actually would -- there are lots of stories in many formats that feature it. There are probably more than a hundred books on the shelves of any major book store that feature faeries being weak against iron.
It isn't as commonly known as werewolves and silver, but it's not exactly obscure either.
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. Modern Birdshot/Buckshot are also steel btw :D
Birdshot, yes, buckshot, no; it's due to a concern about bottom feeding waterfowl ingesting the shot in wetlands. The largest birdshot, made larger than any lead birdshot was in the past, to give the pellets more range due to the lower density of steel; is just under #4 buckshot in size but at typical close quarters ranges, that would inflict serious damage on just about anything. Not too many critters can shrug off 20+ simultaneous .22 caliber pistol hits and having steel rounds available is just a bonus in a world populated by fae critters and on the chance that the cops do get involved, you don't have to worry about explaining why you're using hollow slugs filled with some goo you cooked up in your kitchen to "kill monsters". ;D
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(Does aliminium count as cold iron btw?).
No. Aluminum is a completely different element.
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I also think that cold iron should be a +4 Catch, due to the widespread default use of iron/steel in most weapons and it being almost common knowledge. Sure, a mortal in China or Egypt wouldn't necessarily know about the fae and iron, but many folks in the West and almost everyone in Great Britain would know this. More to the point, it can be considered common knowledge for any player character, regardless of cultural origin.
Furthermore, learning more about fairy weaknesses is just a Google search or two away, not hidden in some dusty occult bookstore somewhere.
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For cold iron, the research is more about, is this thing considered a fairy or not. I mean, centaurs and trolls and all kinds of weird stuff certainly aren't part of fairy lore, so you wouldn't always expect them to have fairy catches. For things like pixies and such, cold iron is probably worth +4.