Question about using Catches?

[Chao]

Hey guys!

Question came up recently with my group that I can't quite figure out how to perform mechanically. As the plot goes, the one character (an evoker with several Faith related powers - some kind of hit-woman for the church) has a stunt/power that allows her to "bless" her evocations. Thus, she wants to perform a zone-wide splash of holy water on a warehouse of Red Court Vampires and their hapless hostages.

The questions is thus two fold: How does one emulate an attack that is designed to harm only certain targets? and also, how do you guys model the stress/consequences some catches inflict (i.e. cold iron is stated to be a poison to the fairies, holy stuff burns the vamps by mere contact, etc).

Thanks guys!

[Silverblaze]

I've done stuff like that with my character at present, so I can tell you how we handled it.

Take an evocation attack, as your basis.  Assume you need to hit no matter what.  Make sure you account for the number of zones you need to hit.  Use it to apply a scene aspect, not damage.

After the defense rolls of the vampires and people.  (All of which will likely be dodging at +0 [ just getting the result of the fudge dice]). Appkly damage. 

Damage should be 0. Since the evocation should have no shifts of power in it; just accuracy.  With any luck you should have enough shifts of success to decalre a sticky scene aspect - "Covered in Holy Water"

Then tag it or use Fate points to invoke it to claim the vampires are "Catched" for every attack since they are...

Covered in Holy Water

That was what worked for me.

The humans are still covered in holy water...but that shouldn't hurt them much...right? 

Hope this helped as an alternative to just doing damage.

[Sanctaphrax]

Your specific example uses a custom Power. I'd need to see that custom Power to know how it's supposed to work.

As for holy water in general, I handle it through Compels.

"I'm compelling your High Concept to say that he has holy water, which is weapon 3 against you. If you reject the Compel, he won't have it or it won't work or I'll make it ineffective some other way."

[Centarion]

Then there is the combination of the above examples, which would be something like making the opposed maneuver Silverblaze mentioned to cover everyone in the warehouse in holy water (a generally non-harmful thing to do, unless you shoot it like a pressure cannon or try to drown them in it, so it shouldn't hurt the captives) and then saying that any vampire hit takes X stress (maybe the ~weapon 3 Sanct mentioned, though if the power mentions some sort of rule for how this works use that instead). You could even say that it is a maneuver against people to apply the Soaked aspect and a zone attack against vampires because you are making a harmless action against mortals but a harmful one to vampires.

All these methods have different strengths and weaknesses. Silverblaze's may be the most powerful, since every subsequent attack from everyone now ignores all their toughness and recovery (in one round of combat, this is likely to be at least 5+ stress and making it easier to inflict consequences), but it doesn't do damage up front. A strait attack may or may not be worse than just 3ish stress.

It is really up to the GM to determine how powerful he wants this type of effect to be. If you are worried that the wizard will overshadow the other characters by doing this, or will make the fight you spent an hour setting up into a cake walk (and thus boring) opt for a less powerful option. If everyone at the table thinks this maneuver is soooo cool (especially if all the other PC's helped the wizard set it up) then let it be strong. Just don't let the wizard solve every conflict in 1 round with this sort of effect, it is the type of thing that only works every so often (maybe next time the RCV's wore raincoats )

[YPU]

I would say the stunt in this case allows the character to apply a trapping that normally is not available to her. Holly stuff is pretty much the most powerful trapping I can think of, but in a way that's all it would be.

Now as the books say, first think what you want to do, then decide how to work it in system.
One could simply ask the player how she envisions it, does she want this to be something that
 s going to help the other characters out for the rest of the fight or does she want it to be a straight up attack? The first option is going to be a lot cheaper then the second.
Now here is a way to get creative with aspects. If its used as a maneuver and it targets the entire zone then the hostages are going to be drenched in holly water as well. Giving you an aspect which you might even use against a vampire trying to hurt a hostage. You could compel the vampire saying that right now he doesn't want to bite person. Or perhaps the vampire takes an action to shake the water of but he is still holding a hostage which has it, a creative player could use that against him.