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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Judanas on October 23, 2011, 02:35:16 AM
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This may be a stupid question but I have not spotted an answer anywhere. Does mental or social armour exist outside of a few stunts?
A few friends and I were looking over emotion control and I saw that you can get weapon 4 with it. This struck me as odd, as I've never seen mental armour outside of one stunt. Would something like a holy symbol be mental armour as it gives you confidence and surety?
Otherwise, I'm sorta seeing any mental battle as a very one sided 'Whoever can smash the other guy down first' battle, as no one can honestly defend against it to any real extent. Doubly so with people who can't actually do mental attacks back. Gard herself only has 3 dots of mental stress, meaning even she would be taken down exceptionally fast by a single changeling with potent emotion.
By the same token, does mental or social versions of inhuman/supernatural/mythic toughness exist for mental and social effects?
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It can; you just have to draft rules to incorporate it into your game. The idea is mentioned in passing in the margin notes on YS250--Harry asks if you can gain mental armor via stunt, spell, or item to protect against the mental stress caused by casting evocations, and Billy says no, armor won't protect you against stress you deal to yourself. You could quite easily infer the conclusion that yes, you may generate mental armor via stunt, spell, or item to protect against mental stress caused by other people. Frequent contact with hostile WCVs would be a very, very good reason to want to develop such defenses.
If the holy symbol were an IoP or an enchanted item, I could see it granting you mental armor. If it isn't, you could still use it as part of a Discipline maneuver to grant yourself "My Faith Is My Shield," and then use the free tag to provide a +2 to your next defense roll, for instance.
Mental conflict is incredibly brutal. Re-read the description of mental conflicts on YS217-219. Mental consequences aren't "Embarrassed;" they are "Suicidal Thoughts."
Mental or Social Toughness isn't statted out in the books, but there's no reason to think they couldn't exist. I'd be inclined to handle a "Social Toughness" equivalent with a collection of stunts, since it seems plausible to me that Pure Mortals could have these types of defenses. You could handle "Mental Toughness" the same way, or just reskin the Toughness powers directly.
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Mental conflict is incredibly brutal. Re-read the description of mental conflicts on YS217-219. Mental consequences aren't "Embarrassed;" they are "Suicidal Thoughts."
That's kinda my point. Potent emotion would blow almost anyone out of the water incredibly fast. The example of Ms Gard is 'One hit from potent emotion and she's at at least a minor consequence, let alone if they actually win by a decent amount'
It seems more than a little unfair that it is so one sided, with people being able to perform mental attacks slaughtering those who can't. Against a physical attack, you can get some chainmail or a bullet proof vest to help you weather the damage. Against mental damage? Mages MIGHT have a spell up to do it...everyone else is going to hang.
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Well, physical armor is rarely going to go above Armor 1 or 2 unless you go into supernatural powers anyway. Chainmail would probably be armor 1, bulleproof vest would be armor 1 or 2 depending on how reinforced it is. It's not that huge of a difference.
As for getting armor against mental or social stress, yes, you could most definitely get it with a stunt. The guidelines for stunts indicate that one stunt could get you a permanent armor : 1 against one of those.
As for supernatural effects, I would be very, very, VERY careful about letting someone shield himself from social stress with those. This just shouldn't happen, even with the supernatural heavyweights - unless of course, the creature is completely mindless and can't be reached with words. Mental stress though ? Go nuts. A spirit spell or enchanted item could probably do it, and - while it is homebrew - I'd probably allow mental toughness powers as well.
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Chainmail would probably be armor 1
Well, 2 going by Charity's stats but that's got some Kevlar too.
I do agree about social but there are no real supernatural powers that hit social.
Mental on the other hand...ouch. It is a lot easier to get a mental weapon than a mental armour, the latter being nigh impossible to find. It's just kinda sad to look at Micheal Carpenter or Ms Gard or even Marcone and realize 'An Up To the Waist character could have them bowing at his feet in under a minute'.
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Mental on the other hand...ouch. It is a lot easier to get a mental weapon than a mental armour, the latter being nigh impossible to find. It's just kinda sad to look at Micheal Carpenter or Ms Gard or even Marcone and realize 'An Up To the Waist character could have them bowing at his feet in under a minute'.
Such is life. Of course Gard or Marcone would likely have blown an 'Up To The Waist' character into bloody chunks inside a minute too.
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You do have to remember that Potent Emotion is a 3-point power (4 if you want to be able to do it at range). By comparison, a character with 3 or 4 points spent on Channeling/Evocation and maybe some Refinement can easily put up a physical attack of Weapon: 5 or higher, and can easily describe that attack in a way that avoids any non-supernatural armor (e.g. "Oh, you're wearing platemail? I roast you with a fire evocation that heats you inside your metal shell").
Alternatively, those same 4 points spent on Supernatural Strength gets you a Weapon: 4 attack, potentially Weapon: 6 or 7 if you wield a large club with that strength.
Potent Emotion IS quite strong, but it is not really any "better" than the equivalent refresh value worth of other offensive options.
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Potent Emotion IS quite strong, but it is not really any "better" than the equivalent refresh value worth of other offensive options.
I guess not...I think I might be just getting bent out of shape due to mind control being a pet peeve of mine. I'd rather see a character dead than 'Go sit in the corner, I'm going to play with my new Renfield. Your ass is mine.'
Sorry for the trouble.
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In general, mental stress aimed at the PCs should be fairly uncommon, unless your game has vampires or Neuromantic warlocks as significant antagonists (possibly Fae/Changelings, as well, if they are built into the Incite Emotion combo). If those antagonists aren't common, then your PCs don't have to worry much about this issue. If they are common, Mental Armor stunts, spells, or enchanted items should probably be made accessible to the PCs. Since the PCs would now have unusual defenses, they might be inclined to step up their involvement with threats of that nature.
From the player side of things, you could signal your interest in mindbending antagonists by choosing a relevant aspect, like "House Malvora Is After Me!" Alternatively, you could tell the GM that mental whammies aren't what you're looking for, and give him plot hooks for other antagonist types.
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for my games we actually have been considering the idea of limiting the total value of all types of armor (and weapons possibly even) to resources. physical armor is bought 1 to 1 and mental/social is value+1.
so you want social armor 1, physical armor 1 and you have a resources of 3? go for it, you have this fantastic looking leather jacket, so people can't make you look bad as easily while you wear it plus it'll make it that much harder for someone with a knife to stick you.
you want mental armor 2 since you hobnob with the white court and have a resources 3? alright, you've got your grandfather's old medal of bravery from WW2 that reminds you of all the times that your grandfather would tell you inspiring stories.
all of this is stuff that can easily be taken away depending on the circumstance (and thus is not worth a stunt) but in general can act as armor in a balanced way. in general i'd require some tie in to an aspect, maybe some sort of "biker" type aspect for the first example or "raised on heroic stories" for the second. but so far i've found that even without its pretty balanced.
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Incite Emotion is an excellent weapon, but I don't think it lets you enslave people after taking them out. That's what Domination is for.
Incite Emotion can only do that if you use it repeatedly over a long period of time, I think.
PS: @alisbin: That sounds horrifically unbalanced. Does that mean that the guy with Superb Resources and a stunt can get physical armour 7 or mental/social armour 6? Because physical armour 7 is roughly comparable to Mythic Toughness.
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PS: @alisbin: That sounds horrifically unbalanced. Does that mean that the guy with Superb Resources and a stunt can get physical armour 7 or mental/social armour 6? Because physical armour 7 is roughly comparable to Mythic Toughness.
Roughly superior, depending on the Catch.
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Incite Emotion is an excellent weapon, but I don't think it lets you enslave people after taking them out. That's what Domination is for.
Incite Emotion can only do that if you use it repeatedly over a long period of time, I think.
PS: @alisbin: That sounds horrifically unbalanced. Does that mean that the guy with Superb Resources and a stunt can get physical armour 7 or mental/social armour 6? Because physical armour 7 is roughly comparable to Mythic Toughness.
While I agree that going that high would be out of bounds, remember that physical armor is a lot more limited than Toughness. For one, presumable the armor has to be worn to be effective, if it's physical and was allowed at rating 7 you're talking Iron Man, two avoiding physical armor is easier, for most armors characters would wear a simple maneuver of "Boom, headshot" or the like would be enough to avoid it, and three, in the case of 'mental armor' items like the proposed medal of valor it can be easily removed from the character in the course of combat.
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Mental Armour 1 = Tinfoil Hat
Mental Armour 4 = Magneto's Helmet
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Physical armour is not necessarily easy to ignore, actually. Maneuver+tag only works if the GM says it does. Mundane armour generally works by GM fiat.
And while mental armour might be easily removed by a guy using Domination, the guy using Incite Emotion is a gunfight will have a harder time. Especially if the item is actually a full set of clothes.
Regardless, mundane items should not outperform Items of Power.
Magneto's helmet should be an IoP.
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Magnneto's helmet should be an IoP.
Possibly simply an 'enchanted item'.
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Possibly simply an 'enchanted item'.
The fact they overlap so little is a little irksome. On the topic of mental armour, would it be acceptable to have an IoP give refinement, the refinement being the item itself? Likely trading 'Not swappable' with 'Works on something besides lore' for the enchanted item effect? Otherwise, IoPs can't really give mental armour, while Enchanted Can.
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The fact they overlap so little is a little irksome.
Why? I've never had a problem with it...
On the topic of mental armour, would it be acceptable to have an IoP give refinement, the refinement being the item itself?
Maybe. It opens the door to some rather munchkinny stuff, but it can work.
Likely trading 'Not swappable' with 'Works on something besides lore' for the enchanted item effect?
I'm sorry, I don't understand this.
Otherwise, IoPs can't really give mental armour, while Enchanted Can.
IoPs can give mental armour if you allow mental Toughness powers. Enchanted Items can give mental armour if you allow mental armour spells. Not so different, really. (Are mental armour spells canon? I'm not sure.)
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Enchanted Items can do anything Thaumaturgy can, as Thaumaturgy can cause mental stress through psychomancy it makes sense it can also defend against such intrusions (you could look at dreamless sleep as a mental block) so I assume mental blocks are canon and with magic any block can also be Armour.
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Enchanted Items can do anything Thaumaturgy can, as Thaumaturgy can cause mental stress through psychomancy it makes sense it can also defend against such intrusions (you could look at dreamless sleep as a mental block) so I assume mental blocks are canon and with magic any block can also be Armour.
I'd say they're less canon than "a reasonable extrapolation of the rules".
Really, you can't use Thaumaturgy properly if you just look at what's "canon".
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I don't see any terrible imbalance in cut-n-pasting the Toughness powers, changing 'physical' to 'mental' wherever it appears, then calling the result 'Mental Toughness'. On the whole, it would be weaker than physical Toughness (because mental attacks are less common than physical ones), but when you needed it, it would be nice to have. Note that I would rule that neither the armor nor the extra stress boxes granted could be used to aid in spellcasting, as doing so would be imbalancing (YMMV, but note the sidebar on YS250).
As an alternative to this you could just have a stunt/power that granted +X to Discipline when used to resist a mental attack, which is a bit better than having the same amount of armor.
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Incite Emotion is an excellent weapon, but I don't think it lets you enslave people after taking them out. That's what Domination is for.
Incite Emotion can only do that if you use it repeatedly over a long period of time, I think.
PS: @alisbin: That sounds horrifically unbalanced. Does that mean that the guy with Superb Resources and a stunt can get physical armour 7 or mental/social armour 6? Because physical armour 7 is roughly comparable to Mythic Toughness.
Id say that with proper application of consequences you can indeed enslave somebody, at least to an extent, though Addictive Saliva is better at it.
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I would Imagine that if you had something on the lines of incite obedience or loyalty then free mook would be a reasonable taken out consequence and you could certainly use the consequences to compel the target to do what you want.
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Mental Toughness would probably be greatly underpowered, I think. Mental attacks are rare things. So I see no reason not to allow it.
As for Incite Emotion: you can't actually control what consequences your target takes. If their player decides to have them go crazy due to psychic strain instead of taking the consequences you want them to, you're out of luck.
The question is what you can do with a taken out result. In my view, a take-out with Incite Emotion is mostly a short-term thing. In order to make it into long-term enslavement, you need to use it over and over again.
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Well unless we are dealing with non consequence mooks to take someone out you must already of caused permanent harm on par with a dismemberment (extreme) this means permanent mental trauma or conditioning. When looking at taken out result considering death is a reasonable taken out result in physical combat, the death of personality or becoming a drone seems like appropriate taken out results of mental conflict.
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What?
No.
Being taken out does not necessarily require you to inflict an extreme consequence first. If it did, every single fistfight would involve the loser getting maimed.
Sometimes people allow themselves to be taken out because it's not worth taking consequences.
What's appropriate in a take-out result depends on how the take-out is inflicted. You can't decapitate a guy barehanded unless you have a Strength power. Same principle here.
If Incite Emotion can enslave, then what's the point of Domination?
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And keep in mind, the one book example of someone "using incite emotion to enslave a target" is papa Raith - who is certainly old and powerful enough to have purchased the Domination power as an upgrade to his incite emotion.
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If Incite Emotion can enslave, then what's the point of Domination?
To create Renfields who have different from normal thralls, Lord Raith according to Our World dosen't have domination neither do any of Fae in the books and yet they all make there own thralls.
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OW isn't a good reference for that sort of fine detail. It's great to get an idea of "how might I stat X", but it's certainly not canon; consider, for example, the number of NPCs that are missing lawbreaker powers that they ought to have. Or the widely-accepted understanding that the senior council members are understatted. Etc.
However, see also OW83, the section on Fine Thralls. Which quite nicely supports Sanctaphrax's position, here.
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Ah your right, which only goes to prove how awesome psychomancy is.