Author Topic: Homebrew Stunts  (Read 61893 times)

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #135 on: March 15, 2011, 05:36:23 AM »
I think I should spring for Kemmlerian Threadomancy sometime, but I don't have enough refresh. Maybe I should drop some stunts...

It's the usual deal. I'll add them to the master list unless someone objects.

Alertness:

Traffic Watcher: You really know how to use those rear-view mirrors. Add two to your Alertness skill as long as you are in a car.

Athletics:

Excellent Mount: You are very good at carrying other people. Add two to your Athletics skill while being ridden.
Highly Mobile: You move abnormally easily, and you find it easy to do other things while moving. Your actions do not suffer penalties due to supplemental actions made to move a zone.

Contacts:

Network of Informants: You know people who know things about the things that you want to know things about. Pick a subject. Add two to your Contacts skill when using it to Gather Information or Get The Tip Off about that subject.

Conviction:

Closer To God: For whatever reason, God guides you just a little more carefully than is normal. Add two to your Conviction skill when using it with your Guide My Hand power.

Deceit:

"Honest" Lawyer: Okay, maybe they don’t exist. But most people would say that you are one, anyway. Add two to your Deceit skill when you are in a legal context.
Master Manipulator: You can treat other people like chess pieces and make it work. When you have a pre-set plan in which other people have specific roles to play, you may use Deceit for social attacks intended to make those other people carry out their roles.

Discipline:

Landscape Command: You control your domain even more closely than most. Increase your Discipline skill by two when using it to make maneuvers in conjunction with your Demesne power.

Driving:

Signature Ride: You’ve used a certain type of vehicle so much that its operation is instinctive to you. Pick a type of vehicle. Add two to your Driving skill when using that sort of vehicle.

Fists:

Bull Charge: You know how to use your momentum in a fight. If you move at least one zone as a supplemental action before making an attack with Fists, that attack inflicts two additional stress.

Intimidation:

Imposing Attitude: For some reason, people seem reluctant to disagree with you. Maybe it’s your cologne. You may use your Intimidation skill for social defence.
Threats Of Violence: Fear and pain: they’re like best buddies. You always try to keep them together. Add two to your Intimidation skill when targeting someone who you have physically harmed recently.

Investigation:

Reading Suspects: Part of being a good detective is knowing whodunit long before anything can be proved. You may use your Investigation skill instead of your Empathy skill when dealing with a suspected criminal.
Investigative Reporter: Your writing style depends more upon good research than anything else. You may use your Investigation skill instead of your Performance skill for journalism.
Excellent Journalist: It’s not complicated: you’re just a good journalist. Add two to your Investigation skill when using it to replace your Performance skill.
Specialized Detective: You might not be the most versatile investigator, but you’re good at what you do. Pick a topic. Add two to your Investigation skill when investigating that topic.

Lore:

Improved Supernatural Senses: Your occult senses are sharp. That’s all there is to it. Add two to your Lore skill when using it with your Supernatural Sense power.
A Loremaster Must Have A Library: You didn’t become the walking library that you are today without owning a real one. Base the quality of your occult library on your Lore skill rather than your Resources skill.

Performance:

Target Audience: You know your audience. Pick a type of being. When playing to beings of that type, add two to your Performance skill.
Method Actor: A good actor can slip into his role so completely that his original self is consumed. Pick a type of being. You may use your Performance skill instead of your Deceit skill to impersonate that type of being. When disguising yourself as that type of being, your disguise can stand up to more than casual scrutiny.
Acting Scary: (Requires Method Actor) Even a totally harmless person can pretend to be something terrifying. While using Method Actor to disguise yourself, you may substitute your Performance skill for your Intimidation skill.
Favourite Subject Matter: You know one subject and you know it really well. Pick a topic. When producing art that pertains to that topic, add two to your Performance skill.
Cult Following: (Requires Target Audience) You’ve got the kind of fans that most artists would kill for, and that some are killed by. When dealing with beings within your target audience, you may substitute your Performance skill for your Contacts skill.
Building Upon The Mood: You know how to use the local ambience to maximum effect.  Any non-attack roll that you make in which an aspect that you created with your Performance skill is tagged or invoked gets a +2 bonus.

Presence:

Welcome To My World: In your domain, you are more confident and people treat you better. Pick a place. Add one to all of your social skills when in that place.
Bolstered Presence: A person with some minions is always more powerful-seeming than someone with none. Add two to your Presence skill as long as you have some subordinates around.

Rapport:

Redirected Conversation: You argue the way a judoka fights. When you successfully defend against a social attack with Rapport, you may sacrifice your next action to place a temporary aspect on the attacker.
Pitiful: Man, I feel sorry for you. Add two to your Rapport skill when making maneuvers to create aspects based off of pity.
Interviewer: You have been trained to ask effective questions. Add two to your Rapport skill when using it to extract information.

Resources:

Glitterati: Money can, in fact, buy friends. You may substitute your Resources skill for your Contacts skill in high society.

Scholarship:

Pre-Prepared Counterpoint: You’ve heard that argument before, and you know how to defeat it. You may use your Scholarship skill for social defence.
Non-Academic Studies: Not all subjects are taught in university. You may add an additional field of knowledge to those covered by your Scholarship skill.

Survival:

Superior Tracking: You could track a bacterium across ten parsecs of glass in a rainstorm with your eyes closed. Add two to your Survival skill when using it to track.
Caveman Lifestyle: You know how to live naked in the wilderness. Ignore two shifts worth of increased Survival difficulty from lack of tools.

Weapons:

War Leader: Your subordinates bring out the best in you. Pick a group of people. Add one to your Weapons skill when commanding those people in combat.

Offline UmbraLux

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #136 on: March 15, 2011, 01:02:26 PM »
No time to go through all of them now, but...
Alertness:

Traffic Watcher: You really know how to use those rear-view mirrors. Add two to your Alertness skill as long as you are in a car.
This seems too narrow.  I'd suggest changing it to "Situational Awareness" and give the bonus to spotting tails in any situation.
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Offline UmbraLux

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #137 on: March 16, 2011, 02:19:40 AM »
Highly Mobile: You move abnormally easily, and you find it easy to do other things while moving. Your actions do not suffer penalties due to supplemental actions made to move a zone.
Probably need to explicitly state "one zone" - else it's a better speed bonus than Inhuman Speed provides.  I'm somewhat tempted to suggest rewriting as a bonus to crossing zone barriers.  That would avoid treading on the Speed powers.

Quote
Master Manipulator: You can treat other people like chess pieces and make it work. When you have a pre-set plan in which other people have specific roles to play, you may use Deceit for social attacks intended to make those other people carry out their roles.
I'm not entirely certain what is intended here.  Can you clarify it some?

Quote
Reading Suspects: Part of being a good detective is knowing whodunit long before anything can be proved. You may use your Investigation skill instead of your Empathy skill when dealing with a suspected criminal.
This may be a bit broad.  Everyone is a suspect until you rule them out.  :)  I'd suggest modifying it to "...when dealing with a suspect whom you have at least one piece of evidence against."  Even that potentially allows use with manufactured evidence - which I'm not sure should apply.

Quote
Excellent Journalist: It’s not complicated: you’re just a good journalist. Add two to your Investigation skill when using it to replace your Performance skill.
This, combined with "Investigative Reporter" seems to allow an extreme amount of skill optimization.  Whether that's bad or not probably depends on how central investigation and journalism are to the campaign.  For comparison, I think using a Fists version of this with Footwork is a bad idea.  So, if journalism comes up as often as combat, this is a bit much.
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“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.”  - Albert Einstein

"Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength."  - Eric Hoffer

Offline Tedronai

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #138 on: March 16, 2011, 02:26:59 AM »
This may be a bit broad.  Everyone is a suspect until you rule them out.  :)  I'd suggest modifying it to "...when dealing with a suspect whom you have at least one piece of evidence against."  Even that potentially allows use with manufactured evidence - which I'm not sure should apply.

I'd recommend limiting it, instead, to formal (or at least blatant) interrogation settings.  That seems to be more flavourful to me, and less prone to balance issues.
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #139 on: March 16, 2011, 02:33:11 AM »
About Traffic Watcher: It's not just for spotting tails. It also improves your initiative if you get into a fight while driving, and so on.

About Highly Mobile: I can certainly clarify. But treading on the Speed powers is sorta the point here. Inhuman Speed is basically 5 or 6 stunts stuck together and discounted. Each individual part should be purchasable as a stunt.

About Master Manipulator: This one was a pain in the neck. I'll try to rewrite it so that it's more clear. The basic idea was to represent the sort of shenanigans that Death Note and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold were all about.

About Reading Suspects: Gotcha. I'll amend it. I'm not worried about manufactured evidence, because that still narrows this down to less then half the people you'd ordinarily interact with. Maybe I'll limit it to interrogation, maybe to those indicated by evidence. Haven't decided yet.

Excellent Journalist: You still only get your apex skill +2 for journalism. If you had put Performance in that slot, you could get the same with one stunt and no questions of legality. But of course, stunts like this do get to be overpowered if you're journalizing all the time. I feel as though that situation is rare enough to be ignored, though.

Thanks for the critique.

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #140 on: March 18, 2011, 01:04:57 AM »
These have been here long enough, methinks. They're going onto the master list now.

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #141 on: March 18, 2011, 02:22:55 AM »
Update done. The master list is now 21 pages long. That's 8 688 words or 52 474 characters (including spaces). That makes it one of the longest things I've ever written.

I don't think I like having perspective. It makes me feel as though I have no life.

Offline Papa Gruff

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #142 on: March 21, 2011, 02:36:08 PM »
Checked the list but didn't find the following. If it's redundant then please don't mind.

Débrayer (Weapons): Your profound skills with the sword (or one other kind of weapon) allow you to avoid all kinds of attacks for as long as you are carrying said weapon. Effectively transfer of the doge trapping into the weapons skill.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2011, 02:37:45 PM by Papa Gruff »
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Offline HobbitGuy1420

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #143 on: March 21, 2011, 02:38:33 PM »
Weapons can already be used to block Fists or Weapons attacks.  As for blocking Firearms or magical attacks... what's the fluff justification? 

Offline Papa Gruff

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #144 on: March 21, 2011, 02:50:16 PM »
What is the fluffy justification behind the transfer of dodge into the guns skill that is in YW147? Just because you know guns doesn't make you better in dodging their bullets or other physical attacks in the slightest, does it?

You are simply that good and swift at fencing and its movements are so deeply embedded into your muscle memory that you have developed a "sixth sense" of where to be. Is that enough fluff? Uw ... that rimed.

Besides it's not blocking. Its dodging.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2011, 02:52:23 PM by Papa Gruff »
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Offline DFJunkie

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #145 on: March 21, 2011, 04:02:32 PM »
Quote
for as long as you are carrying said weapon

I'd honestly just drop this bit.  Say that your extensive training in acrobatic armed arts allows you to dodge any attack with Weapons.  Unless you're a Jedi there's really no sensible reason that you could avoid bullets while holding a weapon but not while unarmed.
90% of what I say is hyperbole intended for humorous effect.  Don't take me seriously. I don't.

Offline Papa Gruff

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #146 on: March 21, 2011, 04:22:02 PM »
I'd honestly just drop this bit.  Say that your extensive training in acrobatic armed arts allows you to dodge any attack with Weapons.  Unless you're a Jedi there's really no sensible reason that you could avoid bullets while holding a weapon but not while unarmed.

I thought about that too.

The reason for tying it to the clause of carrying/wielding the weapon is that the rules ask for it (at least in my opinion). If you transfer a trapping it has to tie into the skill it is transfered to somehow. Seen from a realistic standpoint dodging ranged attacks with weapons is questionable at best. In order to make the transfer work you have to adapt it to the new skill-set (as in the before mentioned example YW147 where something similar is done to the guns skill).

Basically the reason is my understanding of the rules on the transfer of trappings. Simply taking one unaltered trapping and put it with an other skill is not in the spirit of the rules in my opinion. Yet I have allowed it when I'm GMing because it isn't a huge deal.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2011, 04:25:15 PM by Papa Gruff »
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Offline HobbitGuy1420

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #147 on: March 21, 2011, 04:28:23 PM »
The fluff for "Shot on the run" is that you're using your own gunshots to "discourage" the attacker (which lets you dodge anything so long as you've got a loaded gun) or using your knowledge of sight lines to put up a better defense (which lets you dodge Guns against ranged attacks, but not close combat). 

How does having an in-depth knowledge of how to wield  particular weapon help you defend against a bullet or mystical strike?  I'm not saying "don't do it," I'm just saying "explain how it works."

Offline Papa Gruff

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #148 on: March 21, 2011, 04:38:26 PM »
The fluff for "Shot on the run" is that you're using your own gunshots to "discourage" the attacker (which lets you dodge anything so long as you've got a loaded gun) or using your knowledge of sight lines to put up a better defense (which lets you dodge Guns against ranged attacks, but not close combat).  

How does having an in-depth knowledge of how to wield  particular weapon help you defend against a bullet or mystical strike?  I'm not saying "don't do it," I'm just saying "explain how it works."

Ok. That is a possible interpretation of "Shot on the run" but not a conclusive argument for disputing "Débrayer". When you can "discourage" your attacker by using guns then you can do it while using weapons too. That counts for attacks with guns as well. Knowledge of sight lines doesn't give you squad on dodging bullets in our reality. I really don't see the difference because in both cases is comes down to flavor.

In both cases it comes down to knowledge concerning the fight. They are basically the same stunt for god sake only for different skills.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2011, 04:42:50 PM by Papa Gruff »
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Homebrew Stunts
« Reply #149 on: March 21, 2011, 04:46:09 PM »
From the master list:

Quote
Parry Everything: You can deflect bullets with a sword, or at least use your skill to make yourself harder to hit. You may use your weapons skill to defend against all physical attacks.