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Messages - Hal

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DFRPG / Re: Playing an obvious non-human
« on: July 07, 2011, 02:57:27 AM »
Echoing what Umbralux said, it really depends on what kind of game the rest of the group wants to play.  Crazy non-human concept could work with other supernatural PCs in a supernatural setting, but if everyone else wants to do something more mundane, your concept is going to clash. 

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DFRPG / Off-Hand Training + Inhuman Strength
« on: July 07, 2011, 02:14:25 AM »
A player asked me about this and I wasn't sure how to answer.  He wants to know whether the stunt (Off-Hand Weapon Training) stacks with the power (Inhuman Strength) when determining attack stress. 

Let's say you're dual-wielding swords (Weapon:2).  With Inhuman Strength, your attack becomes +4 Stress on a hit with a single sword.  With the stunt, you add half of the off-hand weapon's rating to the attack.  Does the off-hand weapon also get the Inhuman Strength bonus?  Does that attack get a +5 Stress bonus or a +7 Stress bonus?

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DFRPG / Re: Is anyone else annoyed by Physical Immunity?
« on: June 14, 2011, 01:47:31 PM »
Quote from: Taer on June 13, 2011, 09:01:54 PM

Note, however, that I'm not asking here whether or not you can beat someone with PI. I'm focusing on whether it's an appropriate ability.

Would you allow for total immunities to other things? How about Social and Mental tracks? How about an immunity to Physical Blocks or Maneuvers(call it "Unstoppable Force" or whatever)? How about an immunity to assessments("Null Presence")? Or Declarations(Reality Warper)?

If any of those would be considered inappropriate, why do Attacks get a pass? What makes them special?

Appropriate?  Sure.  But you have to use your discretion in determining where it's appropriate and where it isn't.  For example, that Ogre with physical immunity to mortal magic?  Appropriate for a mixed group; the wizard might have trouble dealing with the guy, but he can provide support to the guy with the gun and the fae knight in your group.  The BBEG with physical immunity to everything but one thing (ala Nicodemus)?  You have to use that fittingly; unless you have someone who can break through his defenses reliably (like a Knight of the Cross), the point of fighting that guy is to delay him or get away from him.  It's a GM's tool, and like any tool you have to apply it where necessary and put it away when it wouldn't work.

I'd totally allow mental/social immunities, but it would have to be a sensible thing.  A golem or construct, for example, would probably have social immunity.    I'd probably give mental immunity to something that simply has no mind.  A plant, for example.  As for the rest of the things you mention, it just goes back to how you use them.  What's the purpose of shutting down those mechanics?  If it's to create something justifiably dangerous and encourage your players to work towards an unconventional solution, that's one thing.  If it's just to be big and scary and hard to destroy, then that's probably not a good use of the tool.

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DFRPG / Slime Golem
« on: June 13, 2011, 01:46:53 PM »
Here's my take on the creature, hinted at at the start of the "It's my Birthday, too" short story.

Quote
Slime Golem
High Concept: Animated slime “construct”

Skills:   Alertness   Fair (+2)
   Athletics   Good (+3)
   Endurance   Good (+3)
   Fists   Good (+3)
   Might   Good (+3)
   Weapons   Good (+3)

Stunts:   No pain, no gain:  You may take an additional minor physical consequence

Powers:   Breath Weapon [-2] (See below)
   Supernatural Sesnse [-1] (Tremorsense)
   Gaseous Form [-3] (Liquid)
   Inhuman Strength [-2]
   Mythic Recovery [-6]
   Physical Immunity [-8]
   Stacked Catch [+8] The golem is immune to physical damage (unless a relevant maneuver or consequence such as Brittle or Solidified can be tagged or invoked.)  Otherwise, the golem is vulnerable to energy such as fire, electricity, explosions, etc.  Unless destroyed utterly, it will regenerate by drawing moisture and energy from its surroundings. 

Stress:   Mental   
   Social   
   Physical   

Total Refresh Cost:   -15

Notes:   When using the Breath Weapon, the golem releases a torrent of slime on the environment.  The targeted zone gains the aspect Covered in slime, as does anybody hit by the attack.  Anyone struck by the weapon (or a physical blow from the creature) again while Covered in slime enters a grapple with the creature.  Breaking out of the grapple requires meeting the catch or waiting out the duration of the maneuver; when separated from the golem, the slime will quickly dry.

Otherwise, fair initiative, Weapon:2 fist attacks and strength, and it can “see” you through the ground.  It can turn liquid to pass through tight spaces or slip away under cover, and is guaranteed to return in top condition.  Blast it hard enough and it can’t recover.     

I wasn't really sure how to handle the "breath weapon."  This seemed like the best way, but perhaps there are were better ways, too.  The creature doesn't represent much of a threat initially, but it's major threat is the ability to escape easily, regenerate, and come back ready to fight, which is pretty much what I imagined the problem would be with such a creature. 

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DFRPG / Forcible zone changes
« on: June 10, 2011, 01:42:20 AM »
Perhaps I missed this in the rules . . . help me out here.

How do you handle forcible zone changes?  Let's say a strong character (BCV, for example) bull rushes you, attempting to send you flying.  Or perhaps you use a powerful force spell to try to push someone through a flimsy wall or out a display window.  How have you handled this?

So far, I've handled this by putting extra shifts on an attack that would go towards damage and instead putting them towards overcoming zone borders.  But that seems a little too easy.  Thoughts?

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DFRPG / Re: True Shapeshifter skill
« on: June 07, 2011, 01:43:42 PM »
I started a somewhat similar thread a while back.  You might find some of the information there helpful:

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,24646.0.html

Although it seemed to get derailed by discussions on were-houses. 

I'd do Deceit modified by an appropriate skill.  Deceit + Craftsmanship if you're trying to be furniture, or Deceit + Survival if you're trying to be an inanimate object.

As for the lamp question, I'd make it a Craftsmanship roll to determine if you have shapeshifted into the actual item or just something resembling that item.  On a failed roll, probably give him a point of physical stress for electrical damage and then compel a relevant aspect to have him return to normal form.


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DFRPG / Re: Does Sleep Magic Break Any Laws of Magic?
« on: May 19, 2011, 01:14:03 AM »
From a more "mechanical" perspective:

I had a player who wanted to do the same thing.  Except, as he envisioned it, a sleep spell would cause mental stress, with "taken out" being falling asleep.  As far as I was concerned, a spell that deals mental stress (to its target) violates the laws of magic.  The examples in the book show sleep spells as applied to a willing target, with the point of creating dreamless sleep.  While intent is generally not important when it comes to breaking the laws, I think the actual effect in this case is different enough to make it different circumstances.

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DFRPG / Re: Mortal Stunt - Right tools for the job?
« on: May 13, 2011, 03:42:57 AM »
So far, I've generally had him either roll for a declaration or spend a fate point to have something special on hand (steel shot, bean bags, etc.)  He doesn't like either; he'd rather save the fate points for something else and doesn't trust that he'll make any given roll.

Plus, it also means I have to decide on a difficulty for a roll to declare that he just happened to bring incendiary or armor piercing rounds.  There's no "modified by lore" in his case; it's a big ol' zero. 

We could make it a resources sort of thing; he gets his resources in free declarations.  The upshot would be that he could be carrying something very expensive (some sort of explosive) or several times just "have" something cheap (like the steel shot).  The downside, of course, is that his character has a lousy resource skill (which gets played to amusing effect at the table.)

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DFRPG / Mortal Stunt - Right tools for the job?
« on: May 13, 2011, 02:09:19 AM »
One of my players inquired about a mortal stunt that would allow him to always have the "right" kind of ammo on hand; When nasty fae suddenly show up, he has steel slugs in his pockets.  Something to that effect.  Normally, declaring you have something useful on hand costs a fate point.  He doesn't want to have to spend a fate point every time some new horror shows up that isn't quite susceptible to standard ammo. 

Thoughts on how to do it best?  Since he just wants it to be about ammo, I'm not sure what to say.  Just ammo might not be game-breaking, but it means he'll always have a way of simply declaring his way past a catch (assuming it isn't physical immunity).  What would you do with this? 

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DFRPG / Re: Wyld Magic and more - My take on Magic Sponsored by the Erlking
« on: May 06, 2011, 06:10:28 PM »
A further thought on The Catch for Erlking-sponsored Toughness powers . . . what if it depended on the seasons?  A hunter changes tactics when he's hunting in the dead of winter or the peak of summer.  So, in the winter, the Wyld Magic could overcome Seelie Toughness but Wyld Toughness could be overcome by Seelie Magic; change those to Unseelie in the Winter.  This would also make for interesting occurrences during the changing of the seasons and the exchange of The Table. 

I dunno, just a thought.

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DFRPG / Re: Trouble Aspects that might screw people over?
« on: April 07, 2011, 02:51:56 PM »
From a broader perspective, bear in mind that the Trouble Aspect is there to help drive conflict (necessary for an interesting story).  If things are slowing down at the table or you're struggling to find a direction for the story, grab one of the troubles and apply some pressure. 

As a caveat, though, I'm going to emphasize what others have said about collaborative character building.  If you have a Knight of the Cross and a Denarian in the same party, then something went wrong during character creation.

But also remember that the trouble aspect can also be an easy source of fate points for the player.  For example, in my game I have a pair of twin changelings in my campaign who took the trouble, "Two sides of the same coin."  In practice, I've used this to basically make them share consequences.  "Oh, your brother has a broken ankle?  Well, you're feeling his pain.  How does a fate point sound for no mobility this round?"

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DFRPG / Making Social Encounters Work
« on: March 22, 2011, 11:54:53 AM »
My group has only had two sessions so far, so perhaps this is just an consequence of inexperience, but I found running a social encounter to be somewhat difficult. 

The problem seems to be two-fold:  First, most of my players took moderate-to-low scores in social stats.  Understandable (you can't do it all), but it means that most of their social "attacks" go nowhere.  From a mechanical standpoint, they'd have trouble convincing their own mothers to open the door for them.

The other part of the problem is more in execution.  We stayed in-character for the social encounter, but it was difficult to both think of it as an encounter, where you would want to make viable attacks, and approach it like an actual social situation.  Coherent conversation started becoming difficult when certain "attacks" either failed or backfired.

Not taking full advantage of the system probably played at least some part to this.  Nobody tried to pull any social maneuvers, for example, to earn some tags to make things easier.  But it still felt awkward and contrived at times.  Has anyone else had this difficulty?  And how did you resolve it?

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DFRPG / Re: The world according to a credenza
« on: March 07, 2011, 08:24:20 PM »
Quote from: Ren on March 07, 2011, 07:36:55 PM
I am of the thought that true Shapeshifting should really have Modular Abilities built-in; i.e. you can add more points to it to allow custom alterations of form. The base cost would be kind of Prohibitive as stacked they would be a total of [-6]! But with automatic Skill Shuffle and tack on a few other abilities (HUman Form and/or Item of Power?) you might be able to squeeze a few other points into it.

Now for fun you could have a version that limits you to one category; Chairs only, Lamps only etc...add on "Human Form; Uncontrollable" so the character turns into different types of Chairs when Scared...8)

My understanding of True Shapeshifting was that the base ability got you form, not function; to get the abilities, you had to put a minimum of three points into Modular Abilities, 2 + whatever ability you want to use.  So, at 3 points of modular abilities, you could change forms to take advantage of 1 refresh abilities like Claws or Supernatural Senses.

In any case, one of my players took True Shapeshifting, and I'm just trying to figure out how to deal with it.  Let's say he wants to spy on someone and he turns into a chair . . . is he aware of the person, or is it more like a turtle hiding in its shell?  Will getting smacked cause him to take stress?  Revert to his default form?  Will someone wonder why the chair started bleeding?

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DFRPG / The world according to a credenza
« on: March 07, 2011, 03:04:18 PM »
I couldn't find this in the books, and I couldn't find this addressed on the forums after a basic search . . . a little help?

True Shapeshifting says you can transform into inanimate objects.  I can't find anything about sensory abilities when transformed as such, though.  Since chairs have neither eyes nor ears, do we say that you're unaware of your surroundings while transformed thusly?  Or do we handwave it as supernatural and thus you get your normal senses as a decorative plant?

Something in between?  Or did I just miss a sentence explaining it in the rules?

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