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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Druidgamer on May 10, 2013, 06:03:41 AM
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Ok, straight up weapons are simple enough but how would you stat a tazer, stun gun or shock baton? I'm guessing you could use maneuvers/aspects but they have the potential to do physical harm (stress ??).
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I would treat a tazer as an ordinary weapon. Being taken out with a tazer is less deadly than being taken out with a gun, and tazers justify some unusual maneuvers, but they can still be represented as ordinary weapons.
If that doesn't work for you, look on page 326 of Your Story. The Special-Effect Attacks section mentions tazers specifically.
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Specifically a tazer, after setting a rating based on strength (some are fairly weak, others pack quite a punch) I would probably go one of two routes:
Either
* forego rating for a maneuver placing the aspect "Tazed" or "Electrified" or similar, immediately compelling the target to lose the next action.
or
* forego rating to initiate a grapple between the target and the tazer, effectively using its rating as Might, possibly losing rating over time depending on how the specific tazer works.
I think I'm actually more inclined to go for the latter version, since it would give a system for the tazer to continue dealing stress after the first hit.
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RAW, the person taking someone out gets to decide how the person is taken out. Yes, this allows non-lethal takedowns with a machine gun. As such, the taser being a taser is mostly fluff.
Specifically a tazer, after setting a rating based on strength (some are fairly weak, others pack quite a punch) I would probably go one of two routes:
Either
* forego rating for a maneuver placing the aspect "Tazed" or "Electrified" or similar, immediately compelling the target to lose the next action.
or
* forego rating to initiate a grapple between the target and the tazer, effectively using its rating as Might, possibly losing rating over time depending on how the specific tazer works.
I think I'm actually more inclined to go for the latter version, since it would give a system for the tazer to continue dealing stress after the first hit.
The first one is broken as hell. It's pretty much an automatic win vs anyone with low Refresh. The second one breaks action economy. Grapples are supposed to take two exchanges worth of actions to initiate.
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The first one is broken as hell. It's pretty much an automatic win vs anyone with low Refresh. The second one breaks action economy. Grapples are supposed to take two exchanges worth of actions to initiate.
I admit that both were rather off-the-top-of-my-head ideas, so not exactly balanced properly, however the second option is based on the suggestion for nets etc:
Weapons used to bind or
capture, like nets, can have their ratings sacrificed
to enter the target in a grapple (page 211) in
addition to the inflicted stress.
As a tazer is primarily meant to immobilize a target, treating it similar to a net seems completely legit according to me.
Remember also that this grapple will most likely be a lot weaker than what a person using grapples for fighting will produce. I would for instance be very restrictive in allowing the shooter to invoke any aspects to boost the rating of the tazer, and I doubt the rating would be higher than 3 max, so even a Feet in the Water grappler will be stronger.
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So one should use the weapon rating for the weapon as its quasi-Might for a grapple effect? What should the rating of something like a bola be, assuming these guidelines?
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Tasers are non-lethal in intent, but I think in games they tend to be used as a fast forward button to instantly ending the fight. That's cinematic, it's certainly how they're used in movies and TV but in games it's probably a bit broken (if used by pcs) and infuriating (if used ON pcs).
This problem often comes up when Saps and the like are used in games too.
If the taser has some special advantage of incapacitating the target, that leads to a more immediate Taken Out effect, which in a game like this is the ultimate end of any combat anyway.
Because of all the above, I like the answer of just using the taser as a weapon to inflict stress, maybe with some descriptive fluff to differentiate it from a more lethal weapon, the ability to place maneuvers on the target within reason.
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It is not at all clear how special effect grapples are supposed to work.
Honestly, I'd rather ignore the special effect attack rules completely. They seem kind of pointless to me.
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The first one is broken as hell. It's pretty much an automatic win vs anyone with low Refresh.
How is that more powerful than using a weapons maneuver to hit someone with the flat of the blade and put the "stunned" aspect on them? It works the same way. You tag the aspect to invoke a compel and voila! The compel doesn't always have to be losing an action...it could be whatever is appropriate.
A taser is going to have a weapon value of 3 at most. Dodging a power 3 maneuver isn't that bad. I think, even at low refresh, that isn't overpowered. I'd just allow the weilder to choose the damage or the maneuver on a given attack.
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We actually just had this come up in one of the game's I'm running--I had the Taser act as a Weapon:2, with the taken out result and consequences reflecting the tazing. It worked out fine.
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OK, thanx all. I'll show list of responses to my GM & see which he decides to use. I just feel its not 'in character' for my investigator to be walking around streets of New York with a handgun (she supposedly is one of the good guys) but its getting quite dangerous out there to be unarmed <glares at Keryth>.
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How is that more powerful than using a weapons maneuver to hit someone with the flat of the blade and put the "stunned" aspect on them? It works the same way. You tag the aspect to invoke a compel and voila! The compel doesn't always have to be losing an action...it could be whatever is appropriate.
I believe that using temporary maneuver aspects to compel someone in this manner is broken. Consequences and assesments are fair game, but maneuvers are way too easy to apply in this way, so the compel in question should be comparatively mild.
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Consequences and assesments are fair game, but maneuvers are way too easy to apply in this way, so the compel in question should be comparatively mild.
An aspect is an aspect is an aspect. The nature of what an aspect can accomplished should in no way be determined by how that aspect was created, but rather by what that aspect IS.
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Ted has it right.