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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Save_vs_DM on June 07, 2012, 09:24:27 AM
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After some extensive playing and GMing I've come to the conclusion that the True Faith powers have a few balance issues when compared to other powers available to players. I have some ideas myself, but I really want to get some more feedback here and try to discuss the problems as I see them and see if I can get some feedback. My sample size is pretty small and I'd appreciate a few more eyes on the issue.
First of all, a short analysis of the powers after running for 3 Believers/Champions of God and playing a CoG myself.
Bless This House
Quite frankly I think this power is nothing more than a speed bump along the way to the interesting powers. I appreciate the fact that Thresholds are powerful things, but quite frankly I can count the number of times this power has been used on one hand. The biggest problem I've run into over multiple groups is that PCs, by nature, often bring the fight to their enemies. You will rarely be on the defensive, and even when you are on the defensive the chances of having an existing threshold to work with is very low.
Basically this power puts most of the onus of usefulness on the GM. At some point you're going to have to send enemies at your players when they're at home to even make this power useful. Which I think isn't very fun and severely limiting.
Guide My Hand
This power is great and functions just as intended. Needing a Fate Point to use it hurts, but the ability is more than useful. Of all the powers, this one gets the most use.
Righteousness
The real gem of the powers, provided the player has the sense to use it early in the adventure. Again it takes a fate point to activate, but the benefits are great. Desperate Hour tends to lose usefulness the higher the refresh climbs, but those are the breaks.
Holy Touch
This is another power that's highly situational and relies on the GM to really make it useful. It's great if you happen to be a Fists guy, but otherwise the only real use comes when you want to talk someone down instead of fighting them. But even then it really only seems to work on Vampires and little else. It just really seems overpriced.
Solutions
Now that I've highlighted my problems, I have a few solutions I want to discuss.
Bless This House
Honestly, I think this should be a -0 refresh power in most games. I think the number of times it's going to come into play approach the "once in a blue moon or when the GM is feeling generous" situations. It's a great flavor power, but that's really all it is - flavor. In ever game I've played in this has been the power that's received the most complaints.
Holy Touch
Honestly, I think allowing this power to extend to weapons you wield would make it a lot more useful. I'm not sure if that would make it too powerful, though.
Finally, I have two new powers I'd like some feedback on.
Armor of Faith [-1]
Description: Your faith is a tangible and potent shield against the attacks of the supernatural, enabling you to blunt or even negate the attacks of your foes.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness (below) in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Armor of Faith. Your faith is a tangible force that protects you from harm. You can use Conviction to defend against physical attacks (page 200) and to perform Blocks (page 210) in physical combat.
Saintly Bearing [-2]
Description: Your faith is so strong that you can work minor miracles in the name of your Deity.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness (below) in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Blessing of Faith. Your are imbued with the power of faith and can be used to hearten your companions. You can use Conviction to perform maneuvers that grant minor blessings (as temporary aspects) upon your allies. All aspects granted with this power must be tied to your faith and may never be invoked to aid actions that are anathema to your faith.
Faith Healing. Your very touch can ease the wounds of your companions. You may use your Conviction skill to declare justification for your own or another character’s recovery from moderate or severe consequences of any type, even without access to proper facilities, given time to pray and (for another character) lay hands upon the character in question. In addition, you may spend a Fate Point to allow another character to heal from a Consequence as though it were one level lower in severity. So, the subject would recover from moderate consequences as though they were mild, etc. Consequences reduced below mild are always removed by the beginning of a subsequent scene.
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Your solution to Bless this house seems fine to me as a houserule. Some people will get their refresh's worth with the original cost, but I can see that it could be less than useful for others. I have no idea what kind of an impact changing holy touch like that will have.
Armor of Faith [-1]
Description: Your faith is a tangible and potent shield against the attacks of the supernatural, enabling you to blunt or even negate the attacks of your foes.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness (below) in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Armor of Faith. Your faith is a tangible force that protects you from harm. You can use Conviction to defend against physical attacks (page 200) and to perform Blocks (page 210) in physical combat.
This is a bit weird to me. It doesn't seem quite powerful enough to be called a power but it's definitely more powerful than your everyday stunt. I don't really see any problems with it though.
Blessing of Faith. Your are imbued with the power of faith and can be used to hearten your companions. You can use Conviction to perform maneuvers that grant minor blessings (as temporary aspects) upon your allies. All aspects granted with this power must be tied to your faith and may never be invoked to aid actions that are anathema to your faith.
This needs some refinement. You don't discuss the time this may take, duration of aspects, or potential number of blessings. As such I could see this being easily abused. "We have a few hours till the fight? Ok, I can mumble a few words in a few seconds, I'll just bless the whole party a couple hundred times..." Not what I figure the most common use of it will be, but when you're vague like this it leaves the door open.
Faith Healing. Your very touch can ease the wounds of your companions. You may use your Conviction skill to declare justification for your own or another character’s recovery from moderate or severe consequences of any type, even without access to proper facilities, given time to pray and (for another character) lay hands upon the character in question. In addition, you may spend a Fate Point to allow another character to heal from a Consequence as though it were one level lower in severity. So, the subject would recover from moderate consequences as though they were mild, etc. Consequences reduced below mild are always removed by the beginning of a subsequent scene.
I'm split on this. It's pretty much paying refresh to be able to grant another person temporary inhuman recovery at a reduced fate point cost (normally it'd be 2 fate points). There's a part of me that wants to dislike that, but I can't really see any actual problems with it.
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There are 2 components to the faith powers I see as pretty important:
1) most of them require a fate point to activate
2) they are mostly there to even out the battlefield, not grant you tremendous power.
With that in mind, I did a power similar to your
Armor of Faith [-1]
The Lord is my shepherd [-1]
Description: As a fighter for the good cause, you are protected by your faith when facing dangers greater than yourself.
Musts: Holy Touch
I shall not waver: You may spend a fate point to grant you armor:2 for a scene. This armor can only reduce damage from supernatural sources (eliminating claws and strength powers for the most part, you know: the nasty stuff).
He restores my soul: If you need to take a mental consequence, you may take 1 more shift off the attack than the consequence is usually worth (for example a mild consequence would be worth 3 shifts).
This means, that if you have activated the armor and are attacked by a mortal goon, the armor does not apply. If you are attacked by a vampire with claws, the armor cancels out the claws. If you are attacked by a vampire with claws and inhuman strength, the armor would cancel one of them out and the attack would be weapon:2 instead of weapon:4. It is the counterpart to "all creatures are equal", instead of stripping away toughness, it strips away the effects of +stress powers.
Saintly Bearing [-2]
This I don't really like. The first part kind of mixes sorcery with faith powers, which does not really fit. And you can do all kinds of conviction maneuvers without this power, they will just not be "water to wine" maneuvers. The second one is the use of guide my hand to replace a scholarship first aid roll with conviction. Which can also be used for the "water to wine" effects above, if you like.
Holy Touch
Do not underestimate Holy Touch. It does not only have an aggressive component, but in the example for it in the book, there is a very powerful defensive way to use it. I would let someone do what you want with an upgrade power.
Holy Reach [-1]
Description: A fighter for everything that is good, it is not only your touch that is lethal to the creatures of the night, but by extension things you touch, especially your weapons.
Musts: Holy Touch
Holy weapon: When attacking with a non-ranged weapon, all benefits from holy touch may apply through that weapon.
Bless This House
Yes, this is probably the weakest of the pack and very situational. But you don't have to be subject to the GM's generosity. If you are creative, you can probably find a way to employ this.
As a whole, I think the faith powers are pretty good the way they are. Here and there they can use a little bit of polishing, but I like the general feel, and I think it is important to preserve that if you add or change powers.
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I agree completely with your assessment of Faith Powers. Righteousness is awesome, Guide My Hand is awesome, Bless This House is useless, and Holy Touch is situational.
I like your proposed change to Holy Touch.
I'd suggest removing Bless This House entirely. It works well as an Aspect.
Not a fan of Armour Of Faith. It's too stunt-like, and I don't think it really fits with my image of True Faith.
Saintly Bearing is not bad, but it runs into the problem of how to handle healing in DFRPG. I've wrestled with this before, and I couldn't get it quite right.
If you want to talk about healing in general and how healing powers should work, I'm all ears.
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Wasn't there another thread about this a couple months ago?
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There have (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,27634.0.html) been (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,31630.0.html) a few (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,29975.0.html).
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Saintly Bearing is not bad, but it runs into the problem of how to handle healing in DFRPG. I've wrestled with this before, and I couldn't get it quite right.
If you want to talk about healing in general and how healing powers should work, I'm all ears.
I'm actually digging this way. It's essentially gaining a discount on the temporary powers rules. Inhuman Recovery serves a couple of purposes outside of conflict. It allows the character to ignore the requirement of justification for healing consequences and it allows the character to heal consequences as if they were one step lower (also allow the character to ignore lack of sleep, but meh). Normally if one wanted supernatural healing one could spend 2 fate points to temporarily buy Recovery. This allows someone to buy it for 1 fate point.
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I personally would make a true faith power that's something like
Holy Symbol: A symbol of your faith is a powerful weapon against the forces of darkness. When presented against such a creature you can roll your conviction vs discipline as a block against such creatures. This prevents them from coming near to you or attacking you or anyone near you. In addition as a conviction maneuver at plus 2 you can pray, and create a scene aspect representing the power of your faith against such creates, such as GLOWING PENTACLE.
Potent Faith: The light of your faith burns even stronger allowing you to make a mental attack at conviction against all creatures of darkness in your zone. They may again defend with discipline.
Searing Faith: Your potent faith now has weapon 2 when attacking.
This is based off incite emotion (thank Save vs GM for that idea). Although to fit the flavor of Dresden holding up the glowing pentacle 1) no ranged version 2) Its not directed at specific creatures. Instead of a holy laser, its more of a holy grenade.
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This is a bit weird to me. It doesn't seem quite powerful enough to be called a power but it's definitely more powerful than your everyday stunt. I don't really see any problems with it though.
I agree that it's probably just better to use Blessed Words and be done for it, but I thought that also allowing it as a physical defense was just good enough to push it toward a power.
This needs some refinement. You don't discuss the time this may take, duration of aspects, or potential number of blessings. As such I could see this being easily abused. "We have a few hours till the fight? Ok, I can mumble a few words in a few seconds, I'll just bless the whole party a couple hundred times..." Not what I figure the most common use of it will be, but when you're vague like this it leaves the door open.
Okay, all very, very good points. It does need more refinement to avoid massive abuse. And once you have to start defining a power too much it might be a sign that it's not a well written or useful power.
I'm split on this. It's pretty much paying refresh to be able to grant another person temporary inhuman recovery at a reduced fate point cost (normally it'd be 2 fate points). There's a part of me that wants to dislike that, but I can't really see any actual problems with it.
I agree that it's pretty good and to be honest I'm not sure if it's balanced or even supported in the game setting. I might have even been overracting to perceived balanced issues here.
There are 2 components to the faith powers I see as pretty important:
1) most of them require a fate point to activate
2) they are mostly there to even out the battlefield, not grant you tremendous power.
Both of those are really excellent points. I may have lost sight of those goals when I designed the new powers. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.
With that in mind, I did a power similar to your
The Lord is my shepherd [-1]
Description: As a fighter for the good cause, you are protected by your faith when facing dangers greater than yourself.
Musts: Holy Touch
I shall not waver: You may spend a fate point to grant you armor:2 for a scene. This armor can only reduce damage from supernatural sources (eliminating claws and strength powers for the most part, you know: the nasty stuff).
He restores my soul: If you need to take a mental consequence, you may take 1 more shift off the attack than the consequence is usually worth (for example a mild consequence would be worth 3 shifts).
This is pretty good, and honestly I feel like "I Shall Not Waver" should have been part of something like Bless This House.
This I don't really like. The first part kind of mixes sorcery with faith powers, which does not really fit. And you can do all kinds of conviction maneuvers without this power, they will just not be "water to wine" maneuvers. The second one is the use of guide my hand to replace a scholarship first aid roll with conviction. Which can also be used for the "water to wine" effects above, if you like.
Do not underestimate Holy Touch. It does not only have an aggressive component, but in the example for it in the book, there is a very powerful defensive way to use it. I would let someone do what you want with an upgrade power.
It's not that I'm underestimating Holy Touch (I mean it can be massively useful), it's more that it's really only effective against certain opponents at certain times. To me it feels like it's useful about as often (or perhaps more so) than something like Aquatic, which begins relying on GM intervention to make it actually useful.
As a whole, I think the faith powers are pretty good the way they are. Here and there they can use a little bit of polishing, but I like the general feel, and I think it is important to preserve that if you add or change powers.
I really do love the general feel of the powers, or I wouldn't play characters based around them. The problem, in my opinion, is that they're not quite good enough to justify the cost. At least some of them.
I agree completely with your assessment of Faith Powers. Righteousness is awesome, Guide My Hand is awesome, Bless This House is useless, and Holy Touch is situational.
I like your proposed change to Holy Touch.
I'd suggest removing Bless This House entirely. It works well as an Aspect.
Not a fan of Armour Of Faith. It's too stunt-like, and I don't think it really fits with my image of True Faith.
Saintly Bearing is not bad, but it runs into the problem of how to handle healing in DFRPG. I've wrestled with this before, and I couldn't get it quite right.
If you want to talk about healing in general and how healing powers should work, I'm all ears.
I really don't want to completely remove Bless This House, as honestly I absolutely love the flavor and mechanics of it. All I want to do is make it just good enough to where a player doesn't feel punished for taking a power 90% of the time. I've honestly actually seen Aquatic get more use than Bless This House.
I think I honestly should cut Armor of Faith out and probably remove Saintly Bearing as well. As has been pointed out, I think they might be getting too far away from the core of the True Faith powers.
As for healing in the Dresden Files, I've never found it to be all that badly modeled. I like that it takes a while to recover, but in practice I've run into a few hitches. Namely in parties with mixed healing powers the recovery times begin to seriously punish some players more than others. If you're playing a true mortal in a party with a character that has Supernatural Recovery, chances are you might be spending entire sessions in the hospital while everyone else is out having fun. Which you can alleviate by spacing your adventures farther apart, but if that's the case then aren't you devaluing the Recovery powers?
Wasn't there another thread about this a couple months ago?
There have (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,27634.0.html) been (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,31630.0.html) a few (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,29975.0.html).
Yes, I realize there have been multiple threads on this issue. I myself started another one of them. Rather then practicing thread necromancy on month's old threads I decided to start a new one. Mostly because I felt like this thread had a slightly different purpose.
And I did start a thread specifically about Bless This House earlier. I've felt that this power needs work for over a year now and tried to get help the first time. And a lot of people jumped in with some really helpful advice and I did what I could to follow their advice before changing the power. Quite frankly I've found that despite their suggestions the power still doesn't feel like something that's fun and useful.
I've come here asking for help because in our groups, with our play styles, these powers aren't pulling the weight that they should. I, as GM, have tried to make them useful as much as possible (and Holy Touch actually has pulled enough weight to make it mostly useful) but I found that I was changing my stories and ideas to make powers useful, not because they were the best for the story. And that's something that I'd like to avoid, so I came asking for help and answers in making these powers work best for us.
I'm actually digging this way. It's essentially gaining a discount on the temporary powers rules. Inhuman Recovery serves a couple of purposes outside of conflict. It allows the character to ignore the requirement of justification for healing consequences and it allows the character to heal consequences as if they were one step lower (also allow the character to ignore lack of sleep, but meh). Normally if one wanted supernatural healing one could spend 2 fate points to temporarily buy Recovery. This allows someone to buy it for 1 fate point.
Well, it's one fate point on a one for one use basis. And it specifically doesn't work for the person who actually has the powers. It's strictly for use on other people. All the same, I'm still not sure it really fits the theme.
I personally would make a true faith power that's something like
Holy Symbol: A symbol of your faith is a powerful weapon against the forces of darkness. When presented against such a creature you can roll your conviction vs discipline as a block against such creatures. This prevents them from coming near to you or attacking you or anyone near you. In addition as a conviction maneuver at plus 2 you can pray, and create a scene aspect representing the power of your faith against such creates, such as GLOWING PENTACLE.
Potent Faith: The light of your faith burns even stronger allowing you to make a mental attack at conviction against all creatures of darkness in your zone. They may again defend with discipline.
Searing Faith: Your potent faith now has weapon 2 when attacking.
This is based off incite emotion (thank Save vs GM for that idea). Although to fit the flavor of Dresden holding up the glowing pentacle 1) no ranged version 2) Its not directed at specific creatures. Instead of a holy laser, its more of a holy grenade.
That's an interesting take on the power, but the way the rules and books are written I'm kind of thinking that some monsters might just have this as a catch instead of it being a power.
I still need to do more thinking, but wanted to address the answers so far. I'll try to post more of my thoughts below.
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First of all, I think I'm probably going to remove Saintly Bearing and Armor of Faith as new powers. While they might work all right, I think I'd rather focus on making sure that the two powers I have problems with are modified first. Once I have the four default powers working like I want them to, I might then consider making new powers.
First of all, I think Bless This House is in need of the most help. It just hasn't been useful in our games and I'd like to beef it up a little bit. I'm considering adding the following effect to the power:
Bless This Soul. You can focus your faith inward, warding yourself from the attacks of the unholy. For a fate point, you can grant yourself Armor:2 against the attacks of any creature offensive to your faith. This protection lasts for a scene.
I think that this is in keeping with the flavor of the True Faith powers and it's more or less the same effect you'd get from a threshold. The only difference is that by spending a fate point you can protect just yourself in an area without any threshold at all. Comments or thoughts?
Secondly, I have minor problems with Holy Touch. I've come to grips with the limited nature of the power, but I strongly dislike that it only extends to fists attacks. It limits the concepts you can play, especially if you're in a group that is playing cannon and isn't willing to hand out any of the Swords of the Cross. I'm thinking about adding the follow effect to the power.
Imbue Weapon. If you act in keeping with your calling, keeping a pure heart and selfless purpose, your touch can imbue and item with holy power. For a fate point, you may transfer the effects of Holy Touch to a single weapon you are currently wielding. If the weapon already deals stress on a hit, increase its weapon rating by 1 when dealing damage to creatures that would be offensive to your faith. If you are already wielding a holy weapon this effect provides no benefit, as you cannot make an item even holier.
I realize that the above should very likely be an extra to the power, but I'm honestly not too bothered by that. I think the only time the above effect is going to be used is by weapon users who don't already have an item of power that does the same thing. I think that charging an actual point of fresh is much too punishing, especially considering that for that same refresh you could take an item of power that provides the above benefit and a few others beside.
Do these strike people as a bit better? Or are they still too good?
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One question (posed as a series):
Does the armor: 2 from bless this soul stack?
(Does it stack with mundane armor? Does it stack with other supernatural armor? Does it simply add one if armor already exists? Does it do nothing at all if the armor rating of the PC is already better than : 2?)
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I really don't want to completely remove Bless This House, as honestly I absolutely love the flavor and mechanics of it. All I want to do is make it just good enough to where a player doesn't feel punished for taking a power 90% of the time.
Fair enough.
Might I suggest changing the Threshold rules, then? As written, you can add to your home's threshold for free. So Bless This House has little point unless you're visiting other people.
If you don't want to do that, at least remove the Conviction-based limit on Bless This House.
As for healing in the Dresden Files, I've never found it to be all that badly modeled.
I really like the way that healing is modelled in this game.
But the canonical rules contain very little support for magical abilities that let you heal others. Which means that if you want such abilities, you need to make things up for yourself. And unfortunately, that's pretty hard.
Bless This Soul. You can focus your faith inward, warding yourself from the attacks of the unholy. For a fate point, you can grant yourself Armor:2 against the attacks of any creature offensive to your faith. This protection lasts for a scene.
I like this.
I worry, though, that the "offensive to your faith" clause might reward people for having incredibly intolerant faiths.
I don't think making the armour universal would break anything.
Also, it would be cool to make it possible to use this on other people. Protecting others is very in theme.
As for stacking, I suggest having it stack at half effect. Or maybe just raise it to armour 3 and have it not stack.
Imbue Weapon. If you act in keeping with your calling, keeping a pure heart and selfless purpose, your touch can imbue and item with holy power. For a fate point, you may transfer the effects of Holy Touch to a single weapon you are currently wielding. If the weapon already deals stress on a hit, increase its weapon rating by 1 when dealing damage to creatures that would be offensive to your faith. If you are already wielding a holy weapon this effect provides no benefit, as you cannot make an item even holier.
I like this less.
First of all, it costs a Fate Point. I don't think it should. +1 stress and satisfying Catches will break nothing.
Secondly, it should not be useless with a sacred weapon. True Faith should synergize with sacred weaponry, not work against it.
PS: What do you think of Holy Touch requiring Righteousness?
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One question (posed as a series):
Does the armor: 2 from bless this soul stack?
(Does it stack with mundane armor? Does it stack with other supernatural armor? Does it simply add one if armor already exists? Does it do nothing at all if the armor rating of the PC is already better than : 2?)
I'm torn on this. Part of me wants to say yes, but supposedly these powers are already balanced, so I don't want it to be too good. Maybe it could add +1 to armor if you're already wearing something?
Might I suggest changing the Threshold rules, then? As written, you can add to your home's threshold for free. So Bless This House has little point unless you're visiting other people.
If you don't want to do that, at least remove the Conviction-based limit on Bless This House
I worry, though, that the "offensive to your faith" clause might reward people for having incredibly intolerant faiths.
I don't think making the armour universal would break anything.
Also, it would be cool to make it possible to use this on other people. Protecting others is very in theme.
As for stacking, I suggest having it stack at half effect. Or maybe just raise it to armour 3 and have it not stack.
I like this less.
First of all, it costs a Fate Point. I don't think it should. +1 stress and satisfying Catches will break nothing.
Secondly, it should not be useless with a sacred weapon. True Faith should synergize with sacred weaponry, not work against it.
PS: What do you think of Holy Touch requiring Righteousness?
Trying to hit things in order.
Honestly, I don't want to monkey with too many rules. The Threshold rules seem pretty good most of the time to me. Modifying one power seems easier to me.
As for stacking, see above. I'm thinking that if you're already wearing armor it increases it by one additional point. And instead of going "offensive to faith" I might instead limit to creatures that would be affected by a threshold. That's my intent with the power, basically giving a person a threshold.
As for charging a fate point for the Imbue Weapon, again I don't want to go too far in the other direction. Though it's nice to hear that I'm not going too wild. As for stacking with a holy item, I guess I could ditch that part easily enough.
As for Holy Touch requiring Righteousness, I think it fits. Which is also why I think the power should be a bit better.
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As for stacking, see above. I'm thinking that if you're already wearing armor it increases it by one additional point.
This sounds like a good idea to me.
And instead of going "offensive to faith" I might instead limit to creatures that would be affected by a threshold. That's my intent with the power, basically giving a person a threshold.
I don't think that's a good plan.
You see, there are no actual rules for what Thresholds affect.
And the effect is not so powerful that it needs a restriction.
As for charging a fate point for the Imbue Weapon, again I don't want to go too far in the other direction. Though it's nice to hear that I'm not going too wild.
Please, don't worry about that.
As you've written it, this Power still sucks for anyone who uses a weapon. Making it better for them will almost certainly not be a problem.
If you feel a restriction is necessary for flavour reasons, I suggest requiring characters to consecrate their weapons with a lengthy prayer. It's thematically appropriate and not terribly onerous.
As for stacking with a holy item, I guess I could ditch that part easily enough.
You should.
As written, wielding a holy sword deprives a holy warrior of one of his Powers. That's just backwards.
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All right, here are the power additions as they stand now.
Bless This House
Effects:
Bless This Soul. You can focus your faith inward, warding yourself from the attacks of the unholy. For a fate point, you can grant yourself Armor:2 against the physical attacks for a single scene. If you already posses armor from another source, you may instead increase the value of that armor by one. You may not use Bless This Soul and Bless This House at the same time.
Holy Touch
Effects:
Imbue Weapon. If you act in keeping with your calling, keeping a pure heart and selfless purpose, your touch can imbue a weapon with holy power. This process entails a short ritual appropriate to your faith and imbues a single weapon of your choice with the effects of your Holy Touch. If the weapon already deals stress on a hit, increase its weapon rating by 1 when dealing damage to creatures that would be offensive to your faith. You may only imbue a single weapon at a time with your Holy Touch and its effects stack with the powers of existing Items of Power (such as the Swords of the Cross).
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Your Faith Healing writeup looks similar to one I made a looooong while ago. I approve!
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Your Faith Healing writeup looks similar to one I made a looooong while ago. I approve!
Oh yeah? I think I might have cribbed a lot of language from somewhere else. It might have been yours!
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I finally started working on a new power, but I'm not sure if it's balanced or not. What do you guys think?
Condemnation [-2]
Description: Your faith is so strong that you can temporarily call down the wrath of your faith, preventing your foe from bringing his full power to a fight.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Condemn the Wicked. When facing an opponent, you may spend a fate point to perform a special Conviction maneuver that may temporarily suppress your opponent's access to a supernatural power. Roll your Conviction with a Difficulty (page 17) equal to the refresh cost of the power you wish to suppress. If the effort is equal to or greater than the modified refresh of the power, the target loses access to the power for one exchange, plus one additional exchange for each additional shift beyond the difficulty. If the effort is less than the refresh of the power, you instead take mental stress equal to the number of shifts needed to meet the difficulty of the roll.
For example, suppose your character is facing off against a Red Court Vampire. You wish to suppress the vampire's Inhuman Strength and roll your Conviction, obtaining an effort of +6. The difficulty of the roll was 2 (Inhuman Strength costs 2 refresh), so the vampire loses access to Inhuman Strength for 5 exchanges (1 + 4 shifts over the difficulty).
Later on, your character is up against an Outsider and he wishes to suppress the Outsider's Physical Immunity. The Catch for the Outsider's Physical Immunity is True Magic and it provides a +2 discount to the power cost, making the modified refresh cost of the power 6. Unfortunately, your character rolls poorly and only gets an effort of 4, meaning your character does not suppress the power and instead takes a 2 stress hit to his mental health track.
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Wow that seems a little bit unfair as powers go, I spend a fate point to stop Merlin from using evocation for 5 rounds (8 shifts no problem).
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I finally started working on a new power, but I'm not sure if it's balanced or not. What do you guys think?
I'd suggest rewriting it as a block. As is it has the potential to be overpowering and worse (IMO) requires everyone to start tracking "modified refresh" (which isn't really defined). Additional things to track just slows the game down. Beyond that, how do you figure the 'modified refresh' of a wizard with a bunch of refinements?
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Bless This House
Effects:
Bless This Soul. You can focus your faith inward, warding yourself from the attacks of the unholy. For a fate point, you can grant yourself Armor:2 against the physical attacks for a single scene. If you already posses armor from another source, you may instead increase the value of that armor by one. You may not use Bless This Soul and Bless This House at the same time.
Definitely better, but I don't see any reason to prohibit using this with Bless This House.
And I still think you should be able to protect others with this.
Holy Touch
Effects:
Imbue Weapon. If you act in keeping with your calling, keeping a pure heart and selfless purpose, your touch can imbue a weapon with holy power. This process entails a short ritual appropriate to your faith and imbues a single weapon of your choice with the effects of your Holy Touch. If the weapon already deals stress on a hit, increase its weapon rating by 1 when dealing damage to creatures that would be offensive to your faith. You may only imbue a single weapon at a time with your Holy Touch and its effects stack with the powers of existing Items of Power (such as the Swords of the Cross).
Looks good. Mind if I reword these and add them to the master list?
Condemnation [-2]
Description: Your faith is so strong that you can temporarily call down the wrath of your faith, preventing your foe from bringing his full power to a fight.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness in order to take this ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction.
Effects:
Condemn the Wicked. When facing an opponent, you may spend a fate point to perform a special Conviction maneuver that may temporarily suppress your opponent's access to a supernatural power. Roll your Conviction with a Difficulty (page 17) equal to the refresh cost of the power you wish to suppress. If the effort is equal to or greater than the modified refresh of the power, the target loses access to the power for one exchange, plus one additional exchange for each additional shift beyond the difficulty. If the effort is less than the refresh of the power, you instead take mental stress equal to the number of shifts needed to meet the difficulty of the roll.
I agree with UmbraLux here.
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Wow that seems a little bit unfair as powers go, I spend a fate point to stop Merlin from using evocation for 5 rounds (8 shifts no problem).
I'd suggest rewriting it as a block. As is it has the potential to be overpowering and worse (IMO) requires everyone to start tracking "modified refresh" (which isn't really defined). Additional things to track just slows the game down. Beyond that, how do you figure the 'modified refresh' of a wizard with a bunch of refinements?
All right, consensus is that this is much too good and poorly designed. This is good to know. Still, I like the concept of the power and would like to continue tinkering with it a bit.
The idea of using a block is a good one. Is this more balanced and workable?
Condemn the Wicked. You can use Conviction to perform Blocks that prevent a creature for using a single power of your choice. Spend a fate point, name a single power the target possesses, and roll Conviction. This block persists until the target overcomes it with a successful Conviction or Discipline (target's choice) roll, which can be made as a free action once per round.
Looks good. Mind if I reword these and add them to the master list?
Not at all, though I felt that my wording was pretty good. Tried to follow the books as much as possible.
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Your wording wasn't bad at all, but I have a format to follow.
New version of Condemn The Wicked still needs work.
First off all, it's not clear whether it takes an action. I think it probably does, but I'm not sure.
Also, what exactly does blocking a Power mean? Do you just remove it from the target's sheet until they beat your Conviction? Does that mean you can shrink guys who have Hulking Size?
And I'm suspicious of the power level here. A high Conviction roll means that people with bad mental skills will never get their Power back unless they get lucky and spend FP. Besides, erasing Mythic Strength or octuply-Refinened Evocation so easily seems unfair.
PS: What do you think of my comments on Bless This House?
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The idea of using a block is a good one. Is this more balanced and workable?
I try not to change the base mechanics much...so I'd probably write it something like this:
Righteous Condemnation [-1]
Description: You channel a greater power which allows you to stop supernatural opposition.
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects: You may use Conviction to set a block against a specified action with a supernatural component.
It probably needs some more editing after taking a break. But to me, being able to block just about anything with a single skill is powerful. It may even be worth two refresh - I'm undecided on that. I don't think it needs open durations or different block mechanics.
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PS: What do you think of my comments on Bless This House?
They're good comments, but I think that the power is already worth a good half refresh as is. I think being able to grant someone else armor just makes it too good for one refresh. Arguably it was probably too good even without that, but the power needed something.
Righteous Condemnation [-1]
Description: You channel a greater power which allows you to stop supernatural opposition.
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects: You may use Conviction to set a block against a specified action with a supernatural component.
It probably needs some more editing after taking a break. But to me, being able to block just about anything with a single skill is powerful. It may even be worth two refresh - I'm undecided on that. I don't think it needs open durations or different block mechanics.
Actually, I think that works better than what I had. I like that it keeps the defensive nature of the powers and I while it's good, it's not as good as Evocation or the like (even considering cost).
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How is that better than the canon stunt that lets you use Conviction for blocks?
I think something that creates a threshold might be a good bet here. We already have something like that on the master list, but it's not all that well balanced.
They're good comments, but I think that the power is already worth a good half refresh as is. I think being able to grant someone else armor just makes it too good for one refresh. Arguably it was probably too good even without that, but the power needed something.
I consider Bless This House to be almost worthless on its own, but okay.
Even if you're worried about the power level of Bless This House as you've written it, please let me remove the restriction on using both trappings of it at once. It has little effect on the ability's power, and it's inelegant.
What would you think of an upgrade that improves the protection and lets you protect others?
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I try not to change the base mechanics much...so I'd probably write it something like this:
Righteous Condemnation [-1]
Description: You channel a greater power which allows you to stop supernatural opposition.
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects: You may use Conviction to set a block against a specified action with a supernatural component.
It probably needs some more editing after taking a break. But to me, being able to block just about anything with a single skill is powerful. It may even be worth two refresh - I'm undecided on that. I don't think it needs open durations or different block mechanics.
Umm... compare to devout words, or incite emotion.
Hey on the topic of bless this house: How about just changing it to the blessed words stunt? (Maybe with a bit more explicitly supernatural flavor) It becomes more generally useful, and if you want to boost a threshold, just place an aspect on it, and invoke for effect. (It can count as one of the attributes strengthening the threshold.)
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I consider Bless This House to be almost worthless on its own, but okay.
Even if you're worried about the power level of Bless This House as you've written it, please let me remove the restriction on using both trappings of it at once. It has little effect on the ability's power, and it's inelegant.
What would you think of an upgrade that improves the protection and lets you protect others?
Hell, modify it as you see fit, I don't mind. Though in our home games we finally just decided that Bless This House was worth -0 refresh. Now we're trying to get a few more powers put together.
And upgrade that improves the protection and lets you protect others would totally be useful. Though more and more I'm starting to think that it might be better done as a new power. That way those of us who feel that Bless This House sucks can must make it -0 and add the new power, while those who think it works well can instead keep it at -1 refresh.
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If you make it free, then why shouldn't every character take it?
I'd rather make it a free extra to another more powerful power.
Anyway, expect to see my versions added to the list later today.
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If you make it free, then why shouldn't every character take it?
I'd rather make it a free extra to another more powerful power.
Anyway, expect to see my versions added to the list later today.
Concept.
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If you make it free, then why shouldn't every character take it?
I'd rather make it a free extra to another more powerful power.
Anyway, expect to see my versions added to the list later today.
As Silverblaze mentioned, concept is one reason. Though I suppose you could go with something like this.
Application of Righteousness [+1]. If you have Righteousness, you may take Bless This House for free if you so choose. It’s not mandatory.
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Um, yeah.
That's the problem.
If any concept which can't include Bless This House is denied free power, then the game is telling you not to play a character who can't justify Bless This House.
Which is obvious nonsense.
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Do it like Soulgaze. It is a [-1] Power if taken alone but a [-0] Power if taken with Righteousness.
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My take:
DIVINE PROTECTION [-1]
Description: God, or some similar force, protects you and yours.
Skills Affected: None.
Effects:
Bless This House. Whenever you are inside a threshold, add 2 to the strength of that threshold.
Bless This Soul. You may spend a Fate Point to give yourself or another character in your presence armour 3 against all physical stress for the rest of the scene. In order to do this in combat, you must take an action. One action is enough, regardless of the number of people you want to protect.
HOLY TOUCH [-1]
Description: You radiate holiness.
Musts: You must have the Righteousness Power in order to take this one.
Skills Affected: Conviction, attack skills.
Effects:
Holy Touch. Your presence is like holy water, which can hurt or drive away many monsters. This can be used as a justification for Compels and Conviction maneuvers. All of your attacks satisfy Catches that have to do with Holy Stuff, and any attack you make against a character offensive to your faith inflicts one additional stress. Such characters also take a point of stress whenever they touch you.
Any thoughts?
I'm pretty happy with Divine Protection, but not so much with Holy Touch. I can't decide whether it should be usable against humans.
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I would be cautious regarding the bypassing of any 'True [X]' Catches in what seems to be a (relatively) stock power.
It seems narratively appropriate, here, and I don't think I could justify charging extra for it as a separate upgrade, but it makes me nervous.
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Why would "Holy Stuff" be any harder to bypass than "Cold Iron" or "True Magic"?
Way I see it, this Power is a big part of the reason that a Catch of "Holy Stuff" earns you Refresh.
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It's not bypassing Catches of 'Holy Stuff' that makes me nervous.
It's bypassing Catches of 'True [X]', where [X], here, is 'Faith'.
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What's the difference?
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'True Faith' evokes the same sort of rarity as 'True Love', or 'True Hope', etc.. It is not synonymous with holiness. Holy objects and symbols seem to far, far more common than the Ideal Truths (yes, I just made that term up, but I like it for encapsulating what I've so far been referring to as the 'True [X]'s).
Holy water is available relatively easily, from what we've seen in the fiction, if you just know the right places to get it.
Ideal Truths, on the other hand, have no established mechanism to even confirm whether a suspected symbol of one will function short of using it on something that's known to be vulnerable (and remember that even the WCVs, the only significant example from the fiction, did not have their weakness known to the White Council, a substantial rival that stands or falls substantially on the basis of its intelligence gathering ability; mechanically, it was a +0 Catch with respect to the availability of the knowledge).
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Sounds like a wording issue. I'll edit it.
Does it look any better now?
(I also made it clearly usable against humans while I was at it.)
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That gets back into the issues of 'offensive to your faith', again, but even more so since it states 'character' and not 'creature'.
The first thing that pops into my mind there is some homophobic 'holy-book-thumper' using this power to go on a murder-hobo rampage. I don't think that is the intent... or at least, I don't think that should be the intent... but it's supported by the new text.
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It's the intent.
I figured that +1 stress wouldn't break anything.
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I don't like it, then.
I feel that it incentivises the wrong sorts of activity, and that while it's still not likely to 'break the game', those sorts of incentives are still a Bad Thing (TM).
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Holy touch used to satisfy all catches. At least that was my reading. The creature didn't have to be offensive to your faith. I read and reread it. I was a little tired but I'm prettu sure it normally makes fist attacks bypass catches.
I thought the weapon : 1 - was vs those offensive to your faith.
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@Tedronai: I dunno, I figured encouraging zealotry was appropriate.
@Silverblaze: I don't think that reading is correct. It just says that the holy power could qualify your touch to satisfy some Catches. It doesn't look like ACaEBG.
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Holy damage should not work at all on your typical flavors of human (wizards, pure mortals, focused practitioners, etc.) whether offensive to your faith or not.
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That and I think it's against the spirit of the setting for the same White God that empowers Michael, Sanya, and Shiro to also empower a narrow-minded, zealous bigot.
Belief counts for a lot in the series, yes--but I think having True Faith power has less to do with whether you have faith in a higher power than if that higher power has faith in you.
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Bless this House at zero expense sounds like a recipe for abuse to me, since you just need to convince anyone in the group with a high conviction to take it and back it up with a aspect. Then any place with a threshold (even the very weakest) could be pumped-up to a real annoyance for any bad guy when the players start stacking.
Of course I know not everyone would do so, but then not everyone I know thinks Bless this House is useless either. Heck, at zero cost I would take it and tie it with the aspect "Home is where my Hat is". Then prehaps I could convice the gm my hotel room now does indeed have a threshold with that aspect and 'boom' we get it up to say 5 with help from the other players.
Not so bad for a zero power I would say...
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I would advocate that taken alone Bless this House should be a [-1] power. Taken with the prerequisite Righteousness then I could see it getting a [+1] rebate.
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Give it the The Sight treatment, then?
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Exactly.
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Holy damage should not work at all on your typical flavors of human (wizards, pure mortals, focused practitioners, etc.) whether offensive to your faith or not.
Why not?
That aside, it sounds like people want a Faith Powers to be goody-goody. So let's make a change.
What would people think of making Holy Touch give +2 stress to creatures whose Catch it satisfies?
The Sight method for Bless This House could work, but I don't like it all that much. It's not terribly elegant, and it presents a false choice. Also, I like Divine Protection. Faith should be a good shield.
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I don't know how to word it elegantly, but I would have it provide a +2 bonus to stress for attacks against those whose Catch it would satisfy if they had one, thus encompassing creatures who may or may not have toughness, but when they do, their Catch including 'Holy Stuff'.
ex. it will provide the bonus against a RCI whether or not they've yet obtained a Toughness or Recovery power
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Why not?
Because mortals just can't be evil enough (or good enough if you want to go the other way) to be affected by the touch of your God (however you want to define said supreme being.)
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Really Christian based faith power should work against practitioner especially evil ones (Maleficus Maleficorum, Do not permit a witch to live etc).
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Really Christian based faith power should work against practitioner especially evil ones (Maleficus Maleficorum, Do not permit a witch to live etc).
The Church was quite willing to torture and execute a witch but that is still mortal on mortal action. In my opinion mortals are just not "solid" enough theologically speaking for the holy (or unholy) strike to connect with.
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For the purposes of the "offensive" damage bonus, I'd advocate specifying that it only applies to those who would be considered "irredeemably" evil by the standards of the mainstream of the religeon. Note that there are two key aspects to this: 1) It is based on the "mainstream" version, so it prevents the play of the "fringe" card to claim that everything is offensive. 2) In DFRPG, mortals are assumed to have free will, and therefore are incapable of being "irredeemable".
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I don't know how to word it elegantly, but I would have it provide a +2 bonus to stress for attacks against those whose Catch it would satisfy if they had one, thus encompassing creatures who may or may not have toughness, but when they do, their Catch including 'Holy Stuff'.
ex. it will provide the bonus against a RCI whether or not they've yet obtained a Toughness or Recovery power
Good idea.
How about
"Your attacks inflict two additional stress to characters that are vulnerable to the power of faith. As a general rule, vulnerability to the power of faith involves having a relevant Catch or a Compel-able High Concept."
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Good idea.
How about
"Your attacks inflict two additional stress to characters that are vulnerable to the power of faith. As a general rule, vulnerability to the power of faith involves having a relevant Catch or a Compel-able High Concept."
I like this. I would tweak it though to clarify 'holy power' rather than 'the power of faith' as those are two different things, escpecially in the Dresdenverse. Harry, for example, is able to use his mother's amulet to focus the power of his faith to ward off Bianca et al, but he is not able to call down 'holy power' (or, at the very least, was not able to do so at that time). I could forsee situations where a creature would be vulnerable to 'holy power' but not be vulnerable to 'the power of faith' in that fashion, and I think that this Power should retain its effects against such creatures.
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Really Christian based faith power should work against practitioner especially evil ones (Maleficus Maleficorum, Do not permit a witch to live etc).
That would start a Church vs God's will debate. Forbidden by the forums. I will say this. I think the two are different, at least in Jim's universe.
For the purposes of the "offensive" damage bonus, I'd advocate specifying that it only applies to those who would be considered "irredeemably" evil by the standards of the mainstream of the religeon. Note that there are two key aspects to this: 1) It is based on the "mainstream" version, so it prevents the play of the "fringe" card to claim that everything is offensive. 2) In DFRPG, mortals are assumed to have free will, and therefore are incapable of being "irredeemable".
Everyone has redemption in them though, if they could garner free will enough to ask forgiveness anyhow. I also suppose there is a school of though t that some beings didn't ask to be monsters and slaves to their nature.
Irredeemable is a hard thing to quantify.
I like this. I would tweak it though to clarify 'holy power' rather than 'the power of faith' as those are two different things, escpecially in the Dresdenverse. Harry, for example, is able to use his mother's amulet to focus the power of his faith to ward off Bianca et al, but he is not able to call down 'holy power' (or, at the very least, was not able to do so at that time). I could forsee situations where a creature would be vulnerable to 'holy power' but not be vulnerable to 'the power of faith' in that fashion, and I think that this Power should retain its effects against such creatures.
Agreed.
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Aight, we have a plan.
Revised True Faith powers, hopefully final versions:
DIVINE PROTECTION [-1]
Description: God, or some similar force, protects you and yours.
Skills Affected: None.
Effects:
Bless This House. Whenever you are inside a threshold, add 2 to the strength of that threshold.
Bless This Soul. You may spend a Fate Point to give yourself or another character in your presence armour 3 against all physical stress for the rest of the scene. In order to do this in combat, you must take an action. One action is enough, regardless of the number of people you want to protect.
HOLY TOUCH [-1]
Description: You radiate holiness.
Musts: You must have the Righteousness Power in order to take this one.
Skills Affected: Conviction, attack skills.
Effects:
Holy Touch. Your presence is like holy water, which can hurt or drive away many monsters. This can be used as a justification for Compels and Conviction maneuvers. All of your attacks satisfy Catches that have to do with Holy Stuff, and any attack you make against a character that is vulnerable to holy power inflicts two additional stress. As a general rule, vulnerability to holy power involves having a relevant Catch or a Compel-able High Concept.
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'final versions', that's cute.
'Bless this soul' needs a language cleanup and/or serious clarification.
The first clause indicates that you can grant the bonus to a single individual, whether that be yourself or someone else. The second clause indicates that the former clause, granting the bonus to a single individual, takes one action. The third clause screws everything up by saying that not only can you grant the bonus to multiple individuals (contradicting a strict reading of the first clause), but that you can do so for the cost of one action. It could even be read to allow you to grant the bonus to additional individuals some time after the first activation for no additional action.
'Holy Touch' could also use a language cleanup, though of lesser urgency.
Replace 'Compel-able High Concept' with some variation of 'High Concept Compel-able on such grounds'. All High Concepts are 'Compel-able', what matters is that the presence of the Holy Stuff is a potential cause/trigger/what-have-you of a Compel on that Aspect.
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That would start a Church vs God's will debate. Forbidden by the forums. I will say this. I think the two are different, at least in Jim's universe.
God's will has nothing to do with it, the power comes from faith from what people believe so if they believe 'witches are abominations unto Satan et al' then their faith in that belief would power the power (aka a true believers power).
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God's will has nothing to do with it, the power comes from faith from what people believe so if they believe 'witches are abominations unto Satan et al' then their faith in that belief would power the power (aka a true believers power).
Obviously not everyone interprets these powers in the same way that you do.
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Bless This Soul. You may spend a Fate Point to give yourself or another character in your presence armour 3 against all physical stress for the rest of the scene. In order to do this in combat, you must take an action. One action is enough, regardless of the number of people you want to protect.
I'd probably rename this to something more physical...soul doesn't say physical armor to me. Also agree with Tedronai on the confusion between who / how many you can boost with a single actions.
Holy Touch. Your presence is like holy water, which can hurt or drive away many monsters. This can be used as a justification for Compels and Conviction maneuvers. All of your attacks satisfy Catches that have to do with Holy Stuff, and any attack you make against a character that is vulnerable to holy power inflicts two additional stress. As a general rule, vulnerability to holy power involves having a relevant Catch or a Compel-able High Concept.
Have you considered having this allow Conviction based maneuvers or declarations in place of the "justification for Compels and Conviction maneuvers" language? Or is that already the intent? The way it's phrased seems odd to me - as if it allows compels without creating an aspect first.
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While I realize that the requirement to spend a Fate point limits its use somewhat, isn't armor:3 to all physical a bit much for a -1 refresh power (and especially one that grants other benefits, however weak), let alone the ability to grant armor:3 to others? It seems to me that it should grant a more ... ablative benefit worth more than the usual two shifts a Fate point grants, or a lasting benefit that is less. Perhaps a (temporary) moderate consequence slot, or a persistant armor:1, or a persistant aspect (complete with a free tag), or possibly even both of the last two options? Alternatively, if the armor was limited to, for example, only protect against attacks from "offensive" creatures (using the same definition used by other faith powers), the armor could be a bit higher (though probably armor:2, not 3).
I'd probably rename this to something more physical...soul doesn't say physical armor to me.
How about Blessings Be Upon Thee.
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How about Blessings Be Upon Thee.
That'd work. Or something like Armor of Faith. Just thinking something more evocative of the power's effects might be better.
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I'd probably rename this to something more physical...soul doesn't say physical armor to me. Also agree with Tedronai on the confusion between who / how many you can boost with a single actions.
Sure, I can change the name.
I can also clear up the language. Intended effect:
Take an action. Spend X FP. X people are now shielded.
Have you considered having this allow Conviction based maneuvers or declarations in place of the "justification for Compels and Conviction maneuvers" language? Or is that already the intent? The way it's phrased seems odd to me - as if it allows compels without creating an aspect first.
No, you still need an aspect to Compel. This bit I took from YS.
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DIVINE PROTECTION [-1]
Description: God, or some similar force, protects you and yours.
Skills Affected: None.
Effects:
Bless This House. Whenever you are inside a threshold, add 2 to the strength of that threshold.
Armour Of Faith. You may take an action in a conflict or a few seconds outside of one to call upon the protective power of god. This lets you give armour 3 against all physical stress to any number of characters for the rest of the scene, at the cost of 1 Fate Point per character.
HOLY TOUCH [-1]
Description: You radiate holiness.
Musts: You must have the Righteousness Power in order to take this one.
Skills Affected: Conviction, attack skills.
Effects:
Holy Touch. Your presence is like holy water, which can hurt or drive away many monsters. This allows you to use your Conviction skill for maneuvers and Declarations based around the use of holy power, and may expand the range of Compels that you can inflict. All of your attacks satisfy Catches that have to do with Holy Stuff, and any attack you make against a character that is vulnerable to holy power inflicts two additional stress. As a general rule, vulnerability to holy power involves having a relevant Catch or High Concept.
PS: While I realize that the requirement to spend a Fate point limits its use somewhat, isn't armor:3 to all physical a bit much for a -1 refresh power (and especially one that grants other benefits, however weak), let alone the ability to grant armor:3 to others?
No.
As a general rule, people can be expected to have armour ratings from actual armour. This doesn't stack with those. Unless you have no Toughness and no protective gear, it's a pretty marginal benefit.
And it takes an action.
If you gave my character this Power for free, I'd rarely use it.
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I like these versions better. I do think mentioning compels is unnecessary - if you have an aspect you can attempt to invoke for effect/compel, results are always negotiable. It's less confusing as written now though. :)
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God's will has nothing to do with it, the power comes from faith from what people believe so if they believe 'witches are abominations unto Satan et al' then their faith in that belief would power the power (aka a true believers power).
Not going to argue this. I'll get to close to skirting forum rules and likely get rude. Suffice it to say I very much disagree and likely won't be changing my mind.
I like the new versions of the powers. I think they might be a little too good, but these powers seem to be in a boat where they are too crappy or too good.
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Glad you like them, guys. Time will tell whether I made them too good.