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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: MadDogMike on October 28, 2010, 05:55:55 PM
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Had a question regarding Gard's stats from OW; she has Supernatural Recovery, but no Catch for it listed. For a valkyrie-style PC/NPC, what makes a good Catch for the power? My only thoughts are A. maybe something tied into fate/wyrd where someone "fated to kill you" can overcome it. Possibly an Aspect the GM can compel to satisfy the Catch at appropriate points? You'd either lose your supernatural resistance (but get Fate points) or spend a lot of Fate avoiding it, both of which are strong limitations on the ability and the Fate point gaining/spending gives a nice sort of accepting/fighting against fate flavor to the whole thing. Shouldn't be done EVERY fight obviously, but is fitting for some sort of specific nemesis-style enemy for the character (for bonus points, said nemesis has a similar Catch the PC/NPC satisfies as well). Or B. a more simple Gard-specific idea, given who she's descended from, venom makes a certain amount of sense given how said ancestor died. Or maybe mistletoe, if you want to channel THAT Norse myth ("No, don't kiss me under THAT!" ;D).
Apologies if this has been addressed in errata or something I missed; I also haven't gotten more than a glance at Side Jobs yet so I don't know if this was addressed in her short story either.
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Look more into the myth if you can. One of my friends played as someone who had been returned to life by the blood of the world serpent so he took hammers as a catch (Because the world serpent is fated to be killed by Thor's hammer).
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I have a player in my group (Dumbledresden) who's playing a scion/descendant of Heimdal. The catch for his toughness powers is the mistletoe witch fits very nicely and is really flexible in terms of possible refund depending on who can find out about it. I suggest you go with that.
That reminds me ... I have yet to attack him with a mistletoe oil coated weapon ... hmmm.
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I totally hate you all for reminding my GM to do that...^^
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one of the players in my game actually wanted to be a male valkyrie I'm somewhat inclinded to allow it but hesitant because A. i dont know if that's even possible I've only ever heard of women Valkyrie B. im worried the end result owuld be way over powered
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One of the chosen warriors? Think of a decent catch and give him a big honking appropriate weapon and go mad
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So long as the character creation rules are followed, I would think that balance should take care of itself. The player valkyrie is going to have fewer powers due to limited refresh (even after adding a Catch and granting a discount), and quite a lot fewer skills, as well. The Catch is likely to only be worth a point or two (anyone ever heard solid stories about Valkyrie's weaknesses?), so the player character version is likely to have to drop Supernatural Recovery to Inhuman and/or lose the Rune Magic. (Note that the Supernatural Senses should probably be a required template item for a Valkyrie, and therefore should not be dropped.)
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Mistletoe, definitely.
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So long as the character creation rules are followed, I would think that balance should take care of itself. The player valkyrie is going to have fewer powers due to limited refresh (even after adding a Catch and granting a discount), and quite a lot fewer skills, as well. The Catch is likely to only be worth a point or two (anyone ever heard solid stories about Valkyrie's weaknesses?), so the player character version is likely to have to drop Supernatural Recovery to Inhuman and/or lose the Rune Magic. (Note that the Supernatural Senses should probably be a required template item for a Valkyrie, and therefore should not be dropped.)
sweet that all sounds amazingly do-able :)
Mistletoe, definitely.
yeah that sounds most reasonable (much better than attacks received from blind siblings ;D) at best the refresh bonus would be +2 it can't be that hard to get your hands on mistletoe oil you could coat a weapon with you could probably find it at an aroma therepy supply store or something similar but as far as I can tell there aren't many people that spend there time looking up Norse mythology haha
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one of the players in my game actually wanted to be a male valkyrie I'm somewhat inclinded to allow it but hesitant because A. i dont know if that's even possible I've only ever heard of women Valkyrie B. im worried the end result owuld be way over powered
I can see male valkyrie. The stories only have female valkyrie based on the cultural norms of the time, but Odin seems to keep up with the times, machine guns, computers, etc.
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I can see male valkyrie. The stories only have female valkyrie based on the cultural norms of the time, but Odin seems to keep up with the times, machine guns, computers, etc.
yeah he's just a hip dude like that
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just make it a valkyrie scion ... no problem ... Gard seems to be a little keen on Hendriks. Can't see why they shouldn't be able to have kids. Can't see why the kids shouldn't be male...
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just make it a valkyrie scion ... no problem ... Gard seems to be a little keen on Hendriks. Can't see why they shouldn't be able to have kids. Can't see why the kids shouldn't be male...
Unless they eat the male children... :p
Off hand, I'd put Mistletoe at +1. Knowledge-wise, I'd think it was very specialized. And Mistletoe doesn't grow on trees ... er ... I mean it's not something you can pop down to the local Walmart and pick up (unless it's the Holidays, of course, and even then who knows if it's proper weapons-grade Mistletoe!)
By the way, what is the Mistletoe suggestion based on?
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Well, you get it pretty easily if you ask me. Especially during Christmas its everywhere..i really really mean EVERYWHERE.
Its based on the Ragnarok Cycle of the Nordic mythology, especially the story of Baldur.
Wiki
Baldr is known primarily for the story of his death. His death is seen as the first in the chain of events which will ultimately lead to the destruction of the gods at Ragnarök. Baldr will be reborn in the new world, according to Völuspá.
He had a dream of his own death and his mother had the same dreams. Since dreams were usually prophetic, this depressed him, so his mother Frigg made every object on earth vow never to hurt Baldr. All objects made this vow except mistletoe. Frigg had thought it too unimportant and nonthreatening to bother asking it to make the vow (alternatively, it seemed too young to swear).
When Loki, the mischief-maker, heard of this, he made a magical spear from this plant (in some later versions, an arrow). He hurried to the place where the gods were indulging in their new pastime of hurling objects at Baldr, which would bounce off without harming him. Loki gave the spear to Baldr's brother, the blind god Höðr, who then inadvertently killed his brother with it (other versions suggest that Loki guided the arrow himself).
Its actually not a very fitting catch if you don't play a scion of Baldur, but after all the little mistletoe led to the events that caused the downfall of the Nordic Gods, thereby I deemed it a worthy catch for their off-springs.
And to be honest, when I created my Scion and his catch i was pretty new to the DF Game and thereby had some difficulties to come up with better catches, that weren't that worn and boring.
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How easy is it to weaponize? Because if it's just a matter of not getting to use toughness to soak that massive hit from the tossed bundle of Mistletoe, well, I dunno...
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We said that you can coat a weapon with mistletoe-oil, thereby satisfying the catch.
Due to the tale of Ragnarok its even possible to make arrows from mistletoes, and it would also satisfy the catch if you simply bond some of them to a sword, spear, or whatever weapon you use and letting the mistletoes touch wounds that were created by those blades.
If you want to, you could do it Hellboy-Style, filling up some bullets with the oil..
You could also try to poison someone, by putting it into his food.
I would say its not that hard to weaponize and satisfying the catch.
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You could also try to poison someone, by putting it into his food.
or you could fry them up some french fries with it haha
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Or grind it into powder, throw it over them, and then fill then full of bullets.
On rarity, it's something everyone can get, for +2. A +1 for rarity is form something only some people can get. Just like having a catch of, say, gold. Sure it expensive, but everyone can conceivably get some gold to satisfy your catch.
Examples of +1 rarity catches are things like "Inherited Silver", "Necromatic Magic", "Items of (true) faith", etc
Things that plenty of people have but getting your hands on some may be very difficult.
And +0 rarity catches are things that are very hard to get your hands on, like "The bones of the little finger of my left hand, in my safe deposit box in a bank in Jakarta (which you don't know about)."
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And +0 rarity catches are things that are very hard to get your hands on, like "The bones of the little finger of my left hand, in my safe deposit box in a bank in Jakarta (which you don't know about)."
well now we all do... ;D
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If the mistletoe doesn't do it for you, maybe something like the White Court weakness. Look at what they're doing and then go after things that are the opposite of that. For a valkyrie, a chooser of the slain, that would seem to be lifesaving devices, particularly modern ones. Shoot her up with adrenaline or saline solution, zap her with a crash cart... You could widen it to surgical steel if you wanted. It'd be pretty hard to take advantage of without some prep in most cases although if you can get her to stick around you have the benefit that any 911 call will almost certainly lead to weapons of valkyrie destruction racing your way.
On a side note... Male valkyries = unavoidable consequence of fem lib?
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fem lib?
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What about Dead Man's Blood? It seems to be very fitting to me, at least conceptually. It would likely only be worth a +1 Catch at most (very limited knowledge, only some people can potentially get it - actually, anyone could kill someone and take their blood, so maybe it's +2?)
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What about hawthorn? There's a story where Odin uses a 'sleep thorn' (a norwegian name for hawthorn) to strip Sigrdrífa of her ability to be victorious in battle (and thus condemns her to wed).
Fear could also work - perhaps the catch is that the supernatural toughness and recovery only work if the Valkyrie doesn't know fear.
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What about hawthorn? There's a story where Odin uses a 'sleep thorn' (a norwegian name for hawthorn) to strip Sigrdrífa of her ability to be victorious in battle (and thus condemns her to wed).
Fear could also work - perhaps the catch is that the supernatural toughness and recovery only work if the Valkyrie doesn't know fear.
sounds reasonable but how would that work mechanically
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sounds reasonable but how would that work mechanically
Hawthorn would just require something made of hawthorn wood to be used as a weapon against them (I'll clarify by saying that the hawthorn would have to actually touch them for the effect to happen - no saying "well, my handgun grip is carved hawthorn so it bypasses the valkyrie's catch when I shoot her", but you could bypass the catch by pistol whipping).
Fear - if some one places the aspect of 'afraid' on them via intimidate or the incite emotion power then their toughness powers stop working until they can shake that aspect, and any consequences caused to them during that time are healed as a normal person would have to. This is only a very rough idea, which I don't really intend on fleshing out further as it's completely inapplicable to my own game.
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Hawthorn would just require something made of hawthorn wood to be used as a weapon against them (I'll clarify by saying that the hawthorn would have to actually touch them for the effect to happen - no saying "well, my handgun grip is carved hawthorn so it bypasses the valkyrie's catch when I shoot her", but you could bypass the catch by pistol whipping).
Fear - if some one places the aspect of 'afraid' on them via intimidate or the incite emotion power then their toughness powers stop working until they can shake that aspect, and any consequences caused to them during that time are healed as a normal person would have to. This is only a very rough idea, which I don't really intend on fleshing out further as it's completely inapplicable to my own game.
no offense but idt i'll use the fear thing interesting idea but i think the hawthorn and mistletoe ideas work extreamly well I'd give the Hawthorn a lower bonus than mistletoe because that seems like a super rare piece of mythology which would take a nice bit of research
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I'd give the Hawthorn a lower bonus than mistletoe because that seems like a super rare piece of mythology which would take a nice bit of research
It's in the valkyries entry on wikipedia - it's not that hard to find - anyone with a grounding in nordic myth would probably be able to work it out quite quickly. Of course if you want to make it hawthorn grown in Norway, that would satify a lower bonus.
Mistletoe doesn't really make much sense to me as a catch for a Valkyrie - it's Baldur's catch, nothing particularly to do with the any of the Valkyrie legends.
Of course, maybe Valkyries work like scions normally or in reverse - start off powerful and become more human (for player characters you could play them either on the way up to becoming full valkyrie, or on their way down from being a valkyrie - you'd have sort of a reverse of milestones in this character where you give up powers to regain refresh). It may be that falling in love with a human is the first step towards returning to mortality, and actually marrying removes their powers completely - or at least means that they have to give up the mantle of Valkyrie which would remove a chunk of their power. That'd be an interesting way to go - a supernatural creature striving to achieve free will by shedding the trappings of their sponsor. Not relevant to the catch thing of course, but an interesting plot possibility.
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It's in the valkyries entry on wikipedia - it's not that hard to find - anyone with a grounding in nordic myth would probably be able to work it out quite quickly. Of course if you want to make it hawthorn grown in Norway, that would satify a lower bonus.
Mistletoe doesn't really make much sense to me as a catch for a Valkyrie - it's Baldur's catch, nothing particularly to do with the any of the Valkyrie legends.
Of course, maybe Valkyries work like scions normally or in reverse - start off powerful and become more human (for player characters you could play them either on the way up to becoming full valkyrie, or on their way down from being a valkyrie - you'd have sort of a reverse of milestones in this character where you give up powers to regain refresh). It may be that falling in love with a human is the first step towards returning to mortality, and actually marrying removes their powers completely - or at least means that they have to give up the mantle of Valkyrie which would remove a chunk of their power. That'd be an interesting way to go - a supernatural creature striving to achieve free will by shedding the trappings of their sponsor. Not relevant to the catch thing of course, but an interesting plot possibility.
haha well apparently I suck at researching :P but yeah that would work better than mistletoe for a catch
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Of course you do have to know you're up against a valkyrie to do the relevant checking to find the catch, and it's not something that the Valkyrie themsleves go out of their way to proclaim.
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Of course you do have to know you're up against a valkyrie to do the relevant checking to find the catch, and it's not something that the Valkyrie themsleves go out of their way to proclaim.
yeah very true and its not you could know they were Valkyrie just by looking at them either so that'd be a lore check just to realise what they were then they'd have to do the nessary research to see if there's anything they're week against now I can't imagine Hawthorn being very hard to get one's hands on so I's say +2 maybe +3
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You could use the sight, that'd pretty much tell you exactly what they were. But I'm not picturing a great life expectancy for someone who uses the sight to view a valkyrie in their full glory as they charge at them with an axe. Though I would expect them to need clean underwear if they did survive. ;)
Lore roll would clue you in to them being more than human, and probably only extensive assessment would reveal their actual nature - it takes Harry a little while to work out what he thinks she is (other than some sort of nordic spell-caster).
If you wanted to tone down the catch rebate you could require it to be wood grown in Norway - or in the vicinity of a viking settlement - which does give you the possibility of a small amount US grown hawthorn - or at the site of a great battle. In any case it's not difficult to get hold of, just time consuming, which may have the same effect. And if you wanted to make the catch more difficult to achieve still you could require it to be from a particular grove of trees - or that it be an actual weapon rather than just an object made from hawthorn wood.
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You could use the sight, that'd pretty much tell you exactly what they were. But I'm not picturing a great life expectancy for someone who uses the sight to view a valkyrie in their full glory as they charge at them with an axe. Though I would expect them to need clean underwear if they did survive. ;)
Lore roll would clue you in to them being more than human, and probably only extensive assessment would reveal their actual nature - it takes Harry a little while to work out what he thinks she is (other than some sort of nordic spell-caster).
If you wanted to tone down the catch rebate you could require it to be wood grown in Norway - or in the vicinity of a viking settlement - which does give you the possibility of a small amount US grown hawthorn - or at the site of a great battle. In any case it's not difficult to get hold of, just time consuming, which may have the same effect. And if you wanted to make the catch more difficult to achieve still you could require it to be from a particular grove of trees - or that it be an actual weapon rather than just an object made from hawthorn wood.
that underwear bit would make for an interesting compel also I think +2 or +3 is fine it gives more room for spending on other ablities
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Seeing how Miss Gard is concerned with Destiny, one option for Catch could be: "only when she is following her destiny" (Compels and Social Conflicts could lead her astray from her path and make her mortal being for a time).
Or it could be "attacks and weapons forged by nemesis of Norse Gods: Giants of Musspelheim and Offspring of Loki".
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Of course you do have to know you're up against a valkyrie to do the relevant checking to find the catch, and it's not something that the Valkyrie themsleves go out of their way to proclaim.
True... But if you have a PC valkyrie who gets a bit too used to nobody knowing anything you have some interesting options. For example, you could always have a scion of Loki show up and hum Wagner tunes anytime the PC does something dramatic. And given the examples in mythology, a scion of that guy could end up being... unusual. Loki'll sleep with anything and apparently has a pretty wicked stew of recessive genes.
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True... But if you have a PC valkyrie who gets a bit too used to nobody knowing anything you have some interesting options. For example, you could always have a scion of Loki show up and hum Wagner tunes anytime the PC does something dramatic. And given the examples in mythology, a scion of that guy could end up being... unusual. Loki'll sleep with anything and apparently has a pretty wicked stew of recessive genes.
also he's apparently not limited from bearing children by a pesky little thing like gender :D
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fem lib?
I don't recall where I've heard the term before but basically it's shorthand for women's rights movements, feminism, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism
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I don't recall where I've heard the term before but basically it's shorthand for women's rights movements, feminism, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism
i think it's like female liberation or something along those lines