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Messages - Sanctaphrax

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151
DFRPG / Re: Harry's pain-blocking stunt
« on: May 17, 2019, 07:02:20 AM »
I don't think that's a good idea. If you can pump that one Discipline roll into the stratosphere, you become more or less invincible. Not a particularly fun play pattern.

152
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 17, 2019, 05:52:32 AM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 17, 2019, 04:24:45 AM
Ah. Do you think it would be a problem if I re-tooled No Pain No Gain to give you an extra mild, moderate, and severe consequence? You'd be able to absorb slightly more stress than with Inhuman Toughness, but at the cost of taking a bunch of consequences, so it seems like it would still be slightly less powerful than the equivalent refresh in powers. I'm not sure, though. What do you think?

I think that would be significantly too strong. It takes 2-3 extra stress to one-shot someone with Inhuman Toughness, while that pile of consequences can absorb 12 stress.

I don't really see it as a problem that No Pain No Gain is unexciting, but if you want to strengthen it you could have the bonus consequence not come with a tag. Allowing a bonus stress box stunt probably wouldn't break anything either.

153
DFRPG / Re: Why are powers so much stronger than stunts?
« on: May 17, 2019, 04:10:58 AM »
Because they decided to write the game that way. I realize that's not helpful, but it's foundational enough that it can't really be explained in terms of other rules bits.

I'm not sure exactly why they chose to write that way, but I can speculate. Stunts were a well-established part of the rules system before DFRPG even existed, and they do a good job for representing human abilities. But they're not really adequate for representing the strength of a giant or the world-changing power of a wizard. The approach they chose let them keep stunts, while also representing powers well. And it helped shape the incentives of character creation in such a way that supernaturals would often / usually spend down to 1 Refresh while mortals would have a good supply of FP.

It's also worth mentioning that Tough Stuff and No Pain No Gain aren't exactly the best stunts around. Even in an all-mortals game they're not that appealing. As I said back when I wrote that optimization guide, stunts are at their best when they improve a speciality, add a capability, or cover a weakness. And often they can improve you in areas that Powers can't really touch.

154
DFRPG / Re: Request A Character
« on: May 16, 2019, 07:42:45 PM »
I'm not, unfortunately.

155
DFRPG / Re: Hellfire as two powers
« on: May 13, 2019, 07:29:41 PM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 12, 2019, 09:28:38 PM
Yeah, that's an issue. Hellfire is like that anyway in the RAW, though, so I thought that adding a power that allows you not to lose power from fallout would mitigate the downsides, and make it an asset.

Canon Hellfire gives a free power bonus, but it doesn't do anything to stop you from buying control bonuses.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 12, 2019, 09:28:38 PM
Okay. A brief summary of my modified rules...

What do you think?

It's interesting. Hard to say more based on a quick summary.

I'm inclined to suspect that the complexity would be a problem if this was implemented in the game as a whole, but that's probably not an issue for your purposes.

156
DFRPG / Re: Hellfire as two powers
« on: May 12, 2019, 05:57:33 PM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 12, 2019, 04:09:43 AM
What if, for soul-powered hellfire, you can get power bonuses but limited/no control; and for place-of-power hellfire, you don't lose power on your spells due to fallout?

I like the idea of not losing power due to fallout.

Control bonuses being as important as they are, I feel like a power-only Sponsored Magic probably wouldn't be worth taking.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 12, 2019, 04:09:43 AM
Also, I've actually written up the soul-powered hellfire as part of a soulfire/hellfire combo, but it's designed based on a different set of spellcasting rules, which I suspect aren't very balanced (they're designed because I'm using RPG character progression to hopefully stop my fanfiction character from becoming a Mary Sue, and the existing spellcasting rules didn't work with my narrative understanding of magic). It's far more powerful than anything that would work with the spellcasting RAW, both because you have to spend 23 refresh before you can even buy it and because my spellcasting rules allow a lot more stacking of bonuses as a side effect of the way I understand magic narratively. Would people be interested in my posting that (along with an explanation of the rules as they apply to it)?

Sure, I'd be interested.

157
DFRPG / Re: Easy evocations cost?
« on: May 12, 2019, 03:32:37 AM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 11, 2019, 11:31:32 PM
Can you help me by explaining how important the mental stress track is to a caster? On this thread, you've said that it's a huge deal to add extra boxes; but on another thread, you've said that an extra benefit that allowed you to clear your mental stress track (effectively adding extra boxes) was too weak. I'm confused, and I feel like I'm misunderstanding something.

Important. It's hard to draw equivalences to other abilities, but I think a 1-Refresh-per-box rule of thumb works pretty well. And that seems to be what Evil Hat uses as well.

I don't remember saying that; it sounds wrong, but maybe I had a good reason. Or maybe I was just being dumb.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 11, 2019, 11:31:32 PM
So, would the power be more reasonable if you had to double the usual discipline role to cast spells without stress (and your spells still couldn't have more power than your conviction), the way you have to double the normal rolls you need to cast spells without words? And if so, how much would it cost?

Would the Discipline roll also be halved in effect?

Like, if you wanted to cast a 5-power attack spell and you got a 9, presumably you'd have to take a shift of backlash or fallout. But would the to-hit roll be a 4, a 5, or a 9?

If the roll is halved in effect as well, I think you could get away with it as a 1-Refresh Power. Halving is a pretty huge penalty.

Of course, as long as you're halving things, it might make sense just to halve the power as well instead of capping it at Conviction.

158
DFRPG / Re: Easy evocations cost?
« on: May 10, 2019, 05:23:11 PM »
For a spellcaster, the stress boxes are far far more important than the armour. I don't think removing the armour should affect the Power's Refresh cost at all.

I don't have DFA open in front of me, and I'm not gonna try and tell you how its stunts work. But creating a whole new stress track seems like a bad way to implement such an effect into DFRPG. It's messy. Does help with the balance issues, but it introduces problems of its own.

159
DFRPG / Re: Easy evocations cost?
« on: May 10, 2019, 01:30:26 AM »
Thing is, Inhuman Mental Toughness costs twice as much as a stunt.

Two mild consequences can absorb two 2-stress hits or a single 4-stress hit. Two additional stress boxes added to a track four boxes long can absorb a 5-stress hit and a 6-stress hit.

160
DFRPG / Re: Request A Character
« on: April 24, 2019, 02:30:05 PM »
Sure.

Had an idea for the chimp wizard too, riffing off of Mr. Death's suggestion.

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

161
DFRPG / Re: Request A Character
« on: April 20, 2019, 10:42:54 AM »
Don't think canon would allow a chimp wizard. I guess that doesn't matter here, but I'm not even sure how I'd go about making one. Chimpanzees being as dumb as they are, I have a hard time imagining one being capable of wizardry.

I guess I could just slap Inhuman Strength and some weird Aspects onto a Wizard, but that feels unsatisfying.

162
DFRPG / Re: Publicity?
« on: April 16, 2019, 04:19:27 AM »
No clue.

Griffyn612 is probably the guy to talk to about that.

163
DFRPG / Re: Hellfire as two powers
« on: April 13, 2019, 05:33:37 AM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 11, 2019, 11:37:04 PM
Yes, but I'm having trouble thinking of things that would work here, so I'm looking for ideas. That's why I posted this. If I just wanted to come up with something on my own, I wouldn't have bothered.

Oh, I thought you were asking what the existing lore suggested.

...I don't really have any good ideas off-hand, unfortunately.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 11, 2019, 11:37:04 PM
Yeah, that's why I want the two powers to work together. If they have a multiplicative effect, it should be more efficient.

I'm not sure that's feasible. This game doesn't really have multiplicative effects, and I think adding them could get screwy.

If the two variants overlap, it's probably fair to make one of them cost only 1 Refresh if you have the other. Sort of like how normal Sponsored Magic gets cheaper if you've got Evocation and Thaumaturgy. Then you're basically just buying the Extra Benefit as a stunt. Easier to justify, optimization-wise.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 11, 2019, 11:37:04 PM
Refresh may not exist in-universe, but free will does. I have no trouble imagining that a wizard is going to have an easier time saying "I'm not going to endanger my free will to gain the ability to turn into a demon-bear! That wouldn't even be all that helpful," than saying "I'm not going to endanger my free will to gain awesome magical abilities which will help me protect myself and those I care about, defeat my enemies, and generally be extremely useful."

The demon bear thing is actually pretty great, though. It just costs, like, fifteen Refresh. And I don't think the numerical value there corresponds to anything in-setting.

For the magic-ier Denarians, I'd be inclined to say that Denarians can just give their hosts Refinements and other classic spellcasting bonuses.

164
DFRPG / Re: Easy evocations cost?
« on: April 13, 2019, 05:26:50 AM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 13, 2019, 04:43:39 AM
Is is power bonuses? I've never been sure if it was that or if it was control bonuses.

Book says power. Makes sense, given that you're using Conviction.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 13, 2019, 04:43:39 AM
What do you think about importing the combat wizard stunt from Dresden Files Accelerated, which gives you two extra stress boxes for the purposes of spellcasting?

Not a fan. I remember someone homebrewing a power giving +1 box per refresh spent, which seems like a fairer deal to me.

A stunt giving two stress boxes seems a fair bit better than Inhuman Mental Toughness or the two mild consequences that YS says a stunt can give you for a specific purpose.

165
DFRPG / Re: Easy evocations cost?
« on: April 13, 2019, 03:35:33 AM »
Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 12, 2019, 05:49:39 PM
How much refresh do people think it should cost to buy a power that allows you to use the Nevernever's "easy evocations" ability on Earth?

2 Refresh, maybe?

I's a real nice trick, but easy evocations lack the punch of real evocations. The only real differences between using easy evocations and using Fists are range and that you get to use one of your best skills plus your power bonuses.

Quote from: nadia.skylark on April 12, 2019, 05:49:39 PM
Should there be an upgrade available to let you use normal-strength spellcasting without stress as well (this should probably be limited to evocations that are weaker than your conviction+refinement)?

I don't think so. The ceiling on spellcaster power is already very high, and the risk of running out of juice is part of what gives evocation its personality.

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