106
DFRPG / Re: Assorted questions
« on: June 05, 2019, 03:10:39 AM »
The nutcracker was a transformed prince of some kind, wasn't he?
Royalty might be an appropriate Catch.
Royalty might be an appropriate Catch.
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107
DFRPG / Re: Is this stunt balanced?
« on: June 01, 2019, 08:57:34 AM »
Looks fine to me.
You know, with the number of quick questions you have, it would make sense to create a central thread for all of them. (Not a moderator instruction, just some guy's opinion.)
You know, with the number of quick questions you have, it would make sense to create a central thread for all of them. (Not a moderator instruction, just some guy's opinion.)
108
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 31, 2019, 05:40:33 AM »Because there's no precedent for it. Every other stunt or ability that grants extra consequences exclusively adds Mild consequences.
That seems like a fully general argument against ever doing anything new.
Dresden's treatment of injury is more realistic than other systems, and it's one of the things that keeps it grounded and interesting -- a sucking wound to the chest or having your guts torn out should be the limit on how much punishment you can take and keep fighting.
This is a Power; it's allowed to be magical.
And hey, there's always Compels. I hear they solve everything. Can always Compel someone to suffer consequences for their consequences.
In a long enough campaign, it's going to come up more and more especially as the heroes gain notoriety and the villains start to figure out what works and what doesn't.
True. But it'll never stop being a fantastic deal for 1 Refresh.
Plus, the more and more often part can earn you FP, sometimes. Depends on the situation and your GM.
109
DFRPG / Re: Motorcycle that turns into a horse?
« on: May 31, 2019, 04:58:23 AM »So is it reasonable for a character to have a motorcycle that's enchanted to be able to turn into a horse?
Sure, why not?
And if so, should they be able to use their survival skill to ride it while it's in motorcycle form?
If they've spent Refresh on that ability, sure.
110
DFRPG / Re: Bargaining with demons
« on: May 31, 2019, 04:57:32 AM »
There's a lot of evil vs evil in the Dresdenverse; a demon might ask for your help against a greater, or lesser, evil.
111
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 30, 2019, 04:36:00 AM »I'm talking purely mechanically here. Point is, someone with the regular set of consequences, once they have all their stress boxes and regular consequences filled up, the smallest attack will finish them. Someone with this, can take three substantial hits before going down. It just doesn't feel right to me.
Why not?
That's the whole point of spending Refresh on durability.
That last one kind of removes a lot of the point of the recovery power, I feel. And they all feel like patches more than anything; as mentioned before, I tend to be of the opinion that the more patches something needs, the less wise it is to allow it.
It's a patch, and needing a patch isn't ideal, but it's small and you only need the one.
And if it's a +3 catch, it's going to end up not applying a lot. I mean, look at Black Court Vampires -- they're an extreme example, but they can barely walk a dozen feet without running into something that counts as their Catch.
That's a +4 Catch, and a remarkably bad one.
Most +3 Catches require real effort from an opponent who has it in for you personally. Either they need to do a bit of research to discover that you're vulnerable to something they can easily find, or they need to put some work into finding someone with the thing you're vulnerable to. And either way, they may need to attack in a way that doesn't suit their skills in order to take advantage.
It'll get pierced from time to time, but so what? It's just 1 Refresh worth of stuff.
112
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 29, 2019, 10:51:52 AM »I disagree; Inhuman Toughness is a 2-refresh power, and if all your stress boxes are taken up, it does not let you absorb an extra 4-shift and an extra 6-shift hit and keep fighting. This power does.
If it could let them keep fighting through additional minor hits -- as nadia just said is the intention -- that would be one thing, but as is, this stunt would let a character already loaded up with the normal consequences take a grenade to the face and keep going.
As you said yourself, being hit mechanically doesn't always correspond to being hit storywise. If you're using this to survive grenades, the grenades are not landing clean. They're falling far enough away from you that you're merely badly injured.
Basically, this power lets you keep fighting with a sucking chest wound and a shattered leg, rather than just one or the other.
As for the Toughness comparison, having run the numbers I'd almost always choose to buy Toughness over this.
Well, it says Recovery and Toughness powers replace Wizard's Constitution, which I took to mean that its effects are included in those powers anyway.
Sensible for Recovery, but real weird for Toughness.
Seems kind of arbitrary, though, doesn't it? Why should the supernatural healing ability make the bullet wound in one's leg heal up in a week or so, while the one in their arm that came from the same gun, during the same fight, take months?
One option would be to over-describe the extra consequences, and say the arm wound is far more serious.
Another option, and probably a better one, would be to say that the consequence Aspect changes rather than disappearing. HEALED BULLET WOUND can fill a consequence slot as effectively as BULLET WOUND.
You could even say that Aspects fade Recovery-fast, but you have to wait the full time before using the slot again.
Even Inhuman Toughness has a required Catch, even if that catch offers no discount at all.
The Catch can be a genuine weakness, and it will be if you choose a +0 catch with a GM who intends to use it. But of course you don't have to do that; Supernatural Toughness with a +3 Catch is about the best thing you can do with 1 Refresh, even if you're not playing cheesy games with the Catch rebate.
113
DFRPG / Re: Fire-related sponsored magics
« on: May 29, 2019, 10:39:21 AM »Oops. It wasn't meant to make the power stronger. This power comes from the Mercy Thomson series, where severing the connection between a volcano god and his tibicena is partially how they defeat the volcano god. Given that the tibicena is explicitly not connected to the volcano god anymore, I hadn't thought it was appropriate to represent this power as drawing upon a sponsor, since that sponsor would have been the volcano god. Does that not matter? What kind of compels should this power generate, given that it's not supposed to be connected to the volcano god?
Presumably stealing from a god has consequences; those consequences seem like fertile ground for Compels.
114
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 28, 2019, 06:07:36 AM »Looked at another way, that's another 12 shifts a character can throw into a Death Curse (or when used as a human sacrifice), which is also a pretty big deal.
...
True -- and this stunt lets a character be hit three more times, and two of those times can be fairly substantial hits.
Sure. That's not at all out of line for 2 Refresh.
And prohibiting it is also a little squirrelly -- are there any powers that explicitly prohibit mixing with other powers (aside from, for instance, Supernatural Recovery being an upgrade to Inhuman recovery)?
There are some special interactions like Sponsored Magic + Evocation. And for some reason you can't take Wizard's Constitution with Toughness. It's hardly common, though.
It's probably better to say that Recovery Powers don't affect the extra slots than to ban taking both together.
It also comes with a higher cost and a required weakness, neither of which is present in this proposed power.
It's way better and also way more expensive, as is appropriate.
The Catch is really more benefit than weakness. It's a big discount.
For that matter, I'm not sure how someone with recovery powers would justify taking this power, since it's meant to represent someone who is so used to being hurt that they've developed the ability to keep functioning with more damage than most people can handle, and someone with recovery powers wouldn't have learned to function with a huge amount of damage--they would have healed it.
On the contrary, it's often the people with Recovery powers who spend the most time in brutally injured states. They can handle it, after all.
This feels wrong narratively--if you're going into a fight already hurt, it ought to make a difference--but I'm not sure how it should be handled mechanically.
Consequence Aspects can be invoked and Compelled.
It can't only be people who just want to get around defenses, because using spirit attacks like this is in the RAW. I feel like they wouldn't stick it into the sourcebook just because someone wanted to cheat the system like that, so it follows that some groups can use it without a problem.
Every imaginable set of rules is fine for some groups. But if you allow mental spirit attacks, anyone who's good at Evocation can one-shot everything. Pretty much nothing is physically tough enough to handle a 7-shift force lance and mentally tough enough to handle a 7-shift sleep beam.
115
DFRPG / Re: Fire-related sponsored magics
« on: May 28, 2019, 05:34:34 AM »Stolen Tibicena Magic [-4]:
You have acquired the magic of a dog belonging to a Hawaiian volcano god--or at least, it used to belong to him. Now it's yours, and he probably isn't very happy about it. As such, instead of taking sponsor debt, you have a "stress track" three boxes long (it's not an actual stress track, because each box is only worth one point). Check off one of these boxes to do something you'd normally do by taking a point of sponsor debt. Clear one of these boxes for each scene you spend exposed to direct sunlight.
Tibicena magic allows you to cast spells that fit its essential nature: fire, earth, and hunting and chasing down prey.
Evothaum: You can use divination magic with the speed and methods of evocation. In addition, you can open portals to and from the Nevernever with the speed and methods of evocation, but only when you are in hot pursuit of someone, for the purpose of following them.
Extra benefits: You can utter a hunting cry, attacking everyone in hearing range with your intimidation. This inflicts mental stress and makes people who hear it want to run away in terror. However, this effects anyone besides you who hears it--you cannot shield allies or innocent bystanders.
I don't think replacing sponsor debt is a good idea. It's a major upgrade to the Power's strength, and it feels unnecessary; having the use of stolen power result in Compels is totally appropriate and should play well.
Mixed feelings on the extra benefit. Not sure it's likely to produce fun scenes; seems like it'll usually be too strong or too weak.
Firebird Sponsored Magic [-4]:
By drawing on the magic of the firebirds, you can cast spells related to luck, concealment, fire, and creativity. This power comes with standard sponsored magic benefits.
Evothaum: You can use entropomancy with the speed and methods of evocation.
Extra benefits: Once per scene, you can either substitute your Conviction skill for your Performance skill for a roll, or boost the Performance roll of someone in the area by +2.
Looks good to me.
Phoenix Sponsored Magic [-4]:
By drawing on the magic of phoenixes, you can cast spells related to fire, purification, and healing. This power comes with standard sponsored magic benefits.
Evothaum:
Extra benefits: When you or someone else has a severe physical consequence, you can either give yourself the benefits of Supernatural Recovery for one scene or give someone else the benefits of Inhuman Recovery for one scene. However, to do so, either you become so hot that anything flammable that touches you catches fire, or you can't do anything else that scene (because you are too busy controlling the phoenix energy flowing through you, preventing it from setting things on fire).
Evothaum could be healing magic, maybe. I could see that being useful when you're tight for time.
Extra benefit feels a little off. One-scene Recovery is kind of weird rules-wise, and I'm not totally sure how it's meant to work or what it's meant to do for the severe consequence that lets you use it. And the other moving parts are pretty weird too.
Perhaps you could borrow the supplemental-action consequence-erasure from Inhuman Recovery?
116
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 25, 2019, 03:54:44 AM »And doesn't Inhuman Toughness let you absorb 9-11 stress (depending on your Endurance) that goes away at the end of the scene, plus giving you armor:1 against physical damage?
Yes, but other times it just absorbs 2 stress. Either because 1-stress hits are filling your track box by box, or because you're dealing with a single overwhelming hit.
117
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 25, 2019, 02:52:56 AM »I have to disagree with Sanctaphrax here. Like he said, that's an additional 12 stress they can take; that brings the total stress a character can take in a single go up to 32 just on consequences alone (34 if they have a 5 in Endurance, 36 if they tack on No Pain, No Gain); that's up to 36 (38,40) with stress boxes, 41 (43,45) with an apex dodging skill, and 45 (47,49!) with a high roll.
So for two refresh, you've got someone -- with no other magical defenses -- who can fairly easily survive things like the Heart Exploding spell, which is statted out to explicitly be an inescapable one-hit-kill.
Sure, it's great for surviving one-hit-kills. But how many of those do you actually face?
Usually when a character goes down it's because they've been hit again and again.
Four times out of five, I'd take Inhuman Toughness over this thing. As you said yourself, most fights are "exchanges of 3- and 4-shift hits back and forth, with maybe only one or two consequences taken before one side or the other decides that taking a Moderate or Severe isn't worth it, and either concedes or is taken out". For which this Power would be mostly useless.
Effectively adding 12 stress boxes, far more than the protection you get from a 6-refresh power like Mythic Toughness? And without a catch? No way I'd allow that for a measly 2 refresh, if I allowed that at all.
It's not even close to adding twelve stress boxes. It's adding twelve stress. And not per scene, or even per session. Plus it's taggable, which is a major drawback.
Though as I said, things get squirrelly when you mix it with Recovery.
Mythic Toughness can absorb infinite stress if it comes in three-stress chunks. And against the kind of damage you're actually likely to encounter, it's at least three times as good as another set of consequences. Filling a mythically tough stress track takes an unbelievable amount of punishment.
118
DFRPG / Re: Would entropomancy cover good luck?
« on: May 25, 2019, 02:44:53 AM »
I think entropomancy should cover good luck. It's in no danger of becoming too broad.
119
DFRPG / Re: Evocation for focused practitioners question
« on: May 24, 2019, 07:15:56 AM »
Evocation isn't limited in power so much as in complexity. You can't get too fancy with it.
As long as you keep that in mind, you could certainly use something like biomancy as an evocation element. Turning your fingers into lances momentarily isn't really so different from launching a lance of pressurized water.
A better way to represent what, exactly?
The more esoteric associations of water magic? Because I think those are represented reasonably well by the element itself.
As long as you keep that in mind, you could certainly use something like biomancy as an evocation element. Turning your fingers into lances momentarily isn't really so different from launching a lance of pressurized water.
And if this isn't a good way to represent this, does anyone have suggestions for a better way? (Besides sponsored magic.)
A better way to represent what, exactly?
The more esoteric associations of water magic? Because I think those are represented reasonably well by the element itself.
120
DFRPG / Re: Earth magic responsible for weapons skill?
« on: May 23, 2019, 04:48:42 AM »Do you think I should just have this as a 1-refresh upgrade to the easy evocations power that says "you can incorporate weapons into your earth evocations done with this power and get their weapons value"?
I guess that would at least be worth testing out.
I still don't think any of this really addresses the issue of Warden optimality though.