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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Leatherneck on February 11, 2011, 09:30:55 PM
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I have a player that wants to create a Wizard that uses telekinesis to throw weapons. His idea is to carry knives, ball bearings and such to hurl at people using a telekinesis spell. Reading different posts in the forums, I have few possibilities.
1. The throw things spell causes damage based solely on strength of the spell.
2. Use a spell to create a maneuver “Enchanted Throwing weapon” and tag if for free on the next exchange using the Weapon skill to throw.
3. Use magic item slots to create enchanted throwing weapons. This would probably require the Weapon skill to use.
4. Get the supernatural stunt, Breath Weapon. Consider it a spell casting effect that doesn’t require stress to use.
Is there any other way it can be handled?
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I think you covered them succinctly and completely! I can't think of another rules-ready way to do it. Though I did just think of using flying daggers as an Evocation Block to pin someone's clothing to a nearby wall.
Sorry - I should add that I advocate option 1. You can justify a lot.
If the material of the thrown weapon is important (say, for Catch purposes), then make it a Declaration.
Or, perhaps it's an Evocation Maneuver to (for example) cover a floor in ball bearings.
And if the issue is leaving evidence around: either the player religiously cleans his ammunition, and doesn't want any plot complications from his particular flavor of evocation, or he can take an Aspect "I Throw Things I Find" which can be compelled to lead trouble his way when his prints are discovered on a knife after a particularly involved exchange with enemies, or invoked whenever desired.
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My question is, why does he want to throw weapons?
Evocation, by itself, can cause horrendous damage to targets (and the general area...). Adding a weapon is like gilding a lily.
If he's trying to avoid becoming a Law Breaker, then traditional throwing weapons, without the use of magic, should work just fine.
If he's trying to cover his tracks forensically...."Well, the M.E. has concluded that the assailant was armed with a magnetic rail-gun firing utensils."
If he's just wanting the colour-effect, I'd go with #1. I would avoid #4...
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My question is, why does he want to throw weapons?
Evocation, by itself, can cause horrendous damage to targets (and the general area...). Adding a weapon is like gilding a lily.
If he's trying to avoid becoming a Law Breaker, then traditional throwing weapons, without the use of magic, should work just fine.
If he's trying to cover his tracks forensically...."Well, the M.E. has concluded that the assailant was armed with a magnetic rail-gun firing utensils."
If he's just wanting the colour-effect, I'd go with #1. I would avoid #4...
I'm guessing it's for flavor. Not everyone wants to be a cookie cutter Harry Dresden.
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I'm guessing it's for flavor. Not everyone wants to be a cookie cutter Harry Dresden.
I dunno - he cuts a mean cookie. I tend to call my non-union Dresden knockoffs "Barry Preston."
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I dunno - he cuts a mean cookie. I tend to call my non-union Dresden knockoffs "Barry Preston."
Lolz. Do they have problems with women too?
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Lolz. Do they have problems with women too?
Heh - no, not especially so.
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Heh - no, not especially so.
Poor Harry. It's sad that a guy who has the power of a walking tank can be so clueless.
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I have a player that wants to create a Wizard that uses telekinesis to throw weapons. His idea is to carry knives, ball bearings and such to hurl at people using a telekinesis spell. Reading different posts in the forums, I have few possibilities.
1. The throw things spell causes damage based solely on strength of the spell.
2. Use a spell to create a maneuver “Enchanted Throwing weapon” and tag if for free on the next exchange using the Weapon skill to throw.
3. Use magic item slots to create enchanted throwing weapons. This would probably require the Weapon skill to use.
4. Get the supernatural stunt, Breath Weapon. Consider it a spell casting effect that doesn’t require stress to use.
Is there any other way it can be handled?
There's another way to do it. The number of shifts of power is your telekinetic Lift (use the lift chart). Discipline is still control and then aiming the weapon, but it does a base damage not on number of shifts of power, but instead on the weapon rating of what is thrown. A Claymore (sword) would be a Weapon 3, a gladius a weapon 2, a car probably a weapon 5. Extra shifts adjust how far you can throw it (adjusting the damage is probably too much, since that makes lifting big things never worth it). This isn't great for doing a ton of damage, but the Fallout would generally be less and you can get be immunities to magic if they are still vulnerable to cars. Also, it gives you a small benefit if you don't have a lot of conviction. A shift or two of power is enough to toss a weapon 2 or even 3 item potentially, so you can get a small stress benefit there (at the cost of requiring the item to toss).
While the rules don't go over using evocation for this, I think it fits with the brute force style of evocations. (Essentially, this is like a thaumaturgy to replicate a lift check for throwing purposes).
I personally like this since it gives a reason to do it for anyone (gets by magic resistance), but it also explains why no one in the book really does it (not cost-efficient the vast majority of the time). Of course, it doesn't necessarily work that well for a magic user that is going to solely focus on this, unless you want to either make it just do damage equal to the shifts like any evocation, but then the guy seems to have a huge advantage against creatures resistant to magic.
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My question is, why does he want to throw weapons?
Why, because he is trying to Min/Max the system. He wanted to do the spell damage, plus the daggers weapon damage of 1.
I gave him all the options and he settled on the smart choice. Number one. As a fashion designer and tailor to the white council, he uses sewing needles to satisfy the fae’s catch.
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Wait, I think I've heard of this guy...
(http://backseatcuddler.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/gambit.jpg)
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Wait, I think I've heard of this guy...
*snip*
mmm... Stealing this...
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Wait, I think I've heard of this guy...
That works more than you know. The city is New Orleans.
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Why, because he is trying to Min/Max the system. He wanted to do the spell damage, plus the daggers weapon damage of 1.
I gave him all the options and he settled on the smart choice. Number one. As a fashion designer and tailor to the white council, he uses sewing needles to satisfy the fae’s catch.
If he's going to do this, I have a suggestion for a rote, an old classic: he throws a bunch of pointy things at the target and pins him to the wall via his clothing; it'd be an evocation grapple named "Arrow Outline"... :)
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Why, because he is trying to Min/Max the system. He wanted to do the spell damage, plus the daggers weapon damage of 1.
I gave him all the options and he settled on the smart choice. Number one. As a fashion designer and tailor to the white council, he uses sewing needles to satisfy the fae’s catch.
Seems like he has min-maxed then. He can theoretically carry a collection of various catches on his person and use them against enemies. Obviously Fae are the easiest, but gather up the right wedding rings and you have the catch of white courts satisfied. Get little slivers of inherited silver and you are ready for a loup garou. Etc, etc.
Normally someone would have to make a maneuver and invoke for effect for this sort of thing, I think. I believe that's how you'd break down Harry's final attack on the Loup Garou.
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Seems like he has min-maxed then. He can theoretically carry a collection of various catches on his person and use them against enemies. Obviously Fae are the easiest, but gather up the right wedding rings and you have the catch of white courts satisfied. Get little slivers of inherited silver and you are ready for a loup garou. Etc, etc.
It makes a lot of sense to carry around potential enemies catches my Aeromancer allways carried with him a bag of ball bearings, an inherited silver star of david (with his belief in God this counts as 2 or 3 catches in itself) and various other metal scrapings, there was never an enemy whose catch he could not bypass once at least, that is not min-maxing that is a style choice if you are willing to plan ahead you should be rewarded.
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It makes a lot of sense to carry around potential enemies catches my Aeromancer allways carried with him a bag of ball bearings, an inherited silver star of david (with his belief in God this counts as 2 or 3 catches in itself) and various other metal scrapings, there was never an enemy whose catch he could not bypass once at least, that is not min-maxing that is a style choice if you are willing to plan ahead you should be rewarded.
But this player doesn't have to invoke (for effect) an aspect to get a spell that bypasses a catch. That's what I meant.
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I do not think Harry using Silver to defeat the Loup Garou was a manoeuvre at most it is a declaration that the silver pentacle is made out of silver and then invoking that, as it is an obvious declaration (declaring something is what it is) it would require no roll and I would count it as a free action (easy to work out) which he could invoke for effect. The same thing goes for iron filings and things that are obviously a catch you could freely declare they are what they are and then use the aspect to attack.
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I do not think Harry using Silver to defeat the Loup Garou was a manoeuvre at most it is a declaration that the silver pentacle is made out of silver and then invoking that, as it is an obvious declaration (declaring something is what it is) it would require no roll and I would count it as a free action (easy to work out) which he could invoke for effect. The same thing goes for iron filings and things that are obviously a catch you could freely declare they are what they are and then use the aspect to attack.
Mmm, probably so. Now, if they had a bag of needles would you let each one be a separate declaration?
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Mmm, probably so. Now, if they had a bag of needles would you let each one be a separate declaration?
I really don't see the point of that...
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I really don't see the point of that...
Well, would the Invoke for Effect be "all my attacks with these pins will count as iron" or "THIS attack will count as iron"? You can tag for an invoke only once per declaration, so it matters which one you allow and how often you allow the declarations (otherwise you'll have to pay with fate points).
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Well, would the Invoke for Effect be "all my attacks with these pins will count as iron" or "THIS attack will count as iron"? You can tag for an invoke only once per declaration, so it matters which one you allow and how often you allow the declarations (otherwise you'll have to pay with fate points).
It depends on the GM, and I'd have to say that the "All of my attacks with these pins will count as iron" would be the way to go. However, a single pin isn't going to kill you unless you target it absurdly well, so think about how quickly you're going to burn through your ammunition supply; that might be why you're having to spend multiple fate points.
And as for my previous post, I see that you either ignored the pun, or it went sailing over your head... ;D
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I really don't see the point of that...
That is some seriously sharp wit there. Needleess to say I think it would look at it as declaring all of the attacks as iron as well.
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That is some seriously sharp wit there. Needleess to say I think it would look at it as declaring all of the attacks as iron as well.
Sew says you, but we might need some more thoughts on this thread of thinking before we can stitch it all together.
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We had a murder / kidnapping case in our game last night where some folks looked like they'd been shot. When we tracked down the mage responsible, turned out he'd used magic to fling stuff at hypersonic velocity. I'm not offering mechanics as such (you'd need to ask the GM that, if she'd ever planned any) - my point is, the White Council took his head when we handed him over. Seems you can't get away with saying "but it was the magically propelled projectile that killed them, not the magic."
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We had a murder / kidnapping case in our game last night where some folks looked like they'd been shot. When we tracked down the mage responsible, turned out he'd used magic to fling stuff at hypersonic velocity. I'm not offering mechanics as such (you'd need to ask the GM that, if she'd ever planned any) - my point is, the White Council took his head when we handed him over. Seems you can't get away with saying "but it was the magically propelled projectile that killed them, not the magic."
Which is why you can't risk fallout with this trick, otherwise if you have are aiming at one enemy and the accuracy is beyond superb +5 then you are very unlikely to hit bystanders and wizards cannot use area of effect magic without that risk of hitting someone unintentional anyway.
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Is it bad that when I first started reading this thread, my mind went to a slightly different area? Sorry for possible thread jacking, btw >.< Hate doing that...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZBAEk_Ugmk
It then made me think, how to stat out Shiro Emiya, and in turn, Archer's ability to materialize weapons, and even greater Artifacts, for lack of a better term, in order to fight his enemy. I thought it was kinda silly, but then realized... The magic system fits perfectly for some of Archer's more powerful attacks.. You just have to be open minded, and see the attack as a summoning of a powerful weapon of lore, which is capable of doing spell equivalent damage.
He would be a Focused Practitioner, with a Channeling of Materialization (Conjuring), and a Ritual of the same thing. Since he is the literal pinnacle of a weapon Conjurer, and would probably have some decent specializations in it as well, I could see him easily being able to summon some of his normal weaponry with a "quick" ritual, while some of his more powerful abilities obviously fall under evocation, or very elaborate uses of his Ritual casting... Btw, if you can come up with a better idea for Channeling, or Ritual that could fit better for his ability to both Conjure, and Reinforce real things, then be my guest... Running on little sleep again >.<
Should have NEVER attempted to piece something like this together, but I just couldn't help myself... Fate/Stay Night is awesome and epic. Cheers
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Is it bad that when I first started reading this thread, my mind went to a slightly different area? Sorry for possible thread jacking, btw >.< Hate doing that...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZBAEk_Ugmk
It then made me think, how to stat out Shiro Emiya, and in turn, Archer's ability to materialize weapons, and even greater Artifacts, for lack of a better term, in order to fight his enemy. I thought it was kinda silly, but then realized... The magic system fits perfectly for some of Archer's more powerful attacks.. You just have to be open minded, and see the attack as a summoning of a powerful weapon of lore, which is capable of doing spell equivalent damage.
He would be a Focused Practitioner, with a Channeling of Materialization (Conjuring), and a Ritual of the same thing. Since he is the literal pinnacle of a weapon Conjurer, and would probably have some decent specializations in it as well, I could see him easily being able to summon some of his normal weaponry with a "quick" ritual, while some of his more powerful abilities obviously fall under evocation, or very elaborate uses of his Ritual casting... Btw, if you can come up with a better idea for Channeling, or Ritual that could fit better for his ability to both Conjure, and Reinforce real things, then be my guest... Running on little sleep again >.<
Should have NEVER attempted to piece something like this together, but I just couldn't help myself... Fate/Stay Night is awesome and epic. Cheers
I would say his power would be sponsored magic reality marble.