A Compressed Skill List For Your Enjoyment

[crusher_bob]

@crusher_bob: Good breakdown. Curious what you mean by the main problem of the system, though. I haven't found any real problems playing at Harry Dresden level.

Also, why reduce difficulties using this list?

Will try to talk about first question later, not enough energy now.

As for reducing the difficulties, was for lower level play.  If playing at 7 refresh 25 skills points, you can get something like 5x1, 4x1, 3 x3, 2x4, 1x4.  So you have 5 'good' skills and 4 you can gimp by in.

But with only 13 skill points, 4x1, 3x1, 2x2, 1x2.  Without reducing the difficulties, you'd only have 2 'good'  skills and 2 you could gimp by in.  This really flattens out you character at these skill point totals.  Too much chance you becoming: you are the guy with that skill, and if you want something else done, you have to ask another party member.

AS a sample, we'll pull up 'Andy' from night fears, he's a 6/20 character, and his skills look like (after I fill a few out):

4 Athletics
3 Discipline, Endurance
2 Might, Presence, Intimidation
1 Conviction, Fists, Rapport, Empathy

But his skills become:

3 fitness
2 willpower, charisma
1 violence, social, perception

Without reducing the base difficulties, his only good skill is now fitness. He's much more one dimensional.

[MAK]

I think that reducing the skill points you get by the ratio that the number of skills has been reduced by is a mistake. By that method, a Feet In The Water character using this skill list would have a grand total of 8 points. Not even enough for 1 Great skill.

Yes, you are right in that the linear ratio approach does not work for as big a reduction as down to 10 skills. Seems to have worked fine on my homebrew of 18 skills, but I admit it was not tested for all power levels.

[crusher_bob]

OK, we'll see if I have the time and energy to talk more about the second point.

1
I would normally expect 'the Dresden Files RPG' to allow you to play characters like Harry, from say Summer Knight to Turn Coat.  But Harry, at the end to Turn Coat is something like a 20/40 (refresh/skills) character.  At that power level, the gap between a character with high system mastery and low system mastery can be pretty extreme. 

Imagine the following game:
GM: You guys are going to play the wizards described as 'the brute squad', who were based at Arkhangelsk (Archangel).  There will be plenty of combat, plus some diplomacy and investigation, think of the more over the top James Bond movies.

Now, notice that people who've read the novels already have the world knowledge to play in the game.  But not many people seem to have the system mastery required to play in this game.  And that makes me sad, since I'd much rather play in that game than the 'scooby gang' type games that seem to be much more common.

If they pull out all the stops, our high system mastery combat wizard throws something like targeting 12+ / power 10+ attacks, is hiding behind 2 layered power 10 enchanted item defenses, probably has a discipline boosting stunt to bolster his mental defenses, and so on... 
A combat wizard done by someone without system mastery maybe has targeting 8 / power 8 attacks, maybe a power 5 or 6 enchanted item defense, and only has a high discipline/mental defense because it's a priority wizard skill.  Of course, most good players with high system mastery will generally not go to those extremes when playing in a game that doesn't emphasize it as much, but that such a power separation is even possible in the first place is not great.

The next problem with high level play is that stress boxes become almost irrelevant.  As weapon totals get higher and higher, the amount of stress you have stops mattering much.

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So, here was my first idea a trying to solve this problem.

The game is broken down into 4 'tiers' (Human, inhuman, supernatural, mythic)
power level references:
Harry may count as being in the human tier for around the first 3 books or so, but he quickly moves into the inhuman tier.  Around Changes, he becomes a supernatural tier character.

So, what does this mean?

Mainly, it means that, at each tier, you are assumed to have a bunch of stuff on your character sheet that you don't need to write down. 

What sort of stuff (when compared to human tier characters)?
Inhuman tier:
+1 to every skill
'ignore' 1 tier stat mods

supernatural tier:
+3 to every skill
'ignore' 2 tiers of  stat mods

mythic tier:
+5 to every skill
'ignore' 3 tiers of stat mods

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notes on stat mods.  The assumption isn't that you actually 'have' these stat mods, but instead, that you are somehow able to deal with them.  So, for example, JLA Batman might be done up as a mythic tier character.  He regularly fights things, that, on a human scale would have mythic strength, but he can still take a punch from them.

So, as an example, John Marcone is an inhuman tier character.  If he gets into a fist fight with Billy the werewolf, billy doesn't get any advantage out of his inhuman abilities, and Marcone gets a 'free' +1 advantage in skill.

2nd example, Lara Raith is an inhuman tier character, since she may be a bit faster that 'regular/ human tier' WCVs, we'll write inhuman speed on her character sheet, but she isn't any stronger than regular WCVs so we'll save points by skipping on the inhuman strength.

This hopefully lets you have a go at writing up senior council members as something like 15/25 characters on the mythic tier.  You get to be powerful, and can get into fights with things like black court vampires without risking being squished right away.  So the system mastery you need to be 'safe' at this level is much lower.

So, here's a sample
Grevane (supernatural tier, 10/20)

Skills:
4: Willpower
3: Intelligence, Charisma
2: Background, Social, Violence
1: Perception, Sneaking, Travel, Fitness

Powers:
Evocation [–3]
Thaumaturgy [–3]
The Sight [–1]
Soulgaze [–0]
Wizard’s Constitution [–0]
Sponsored Magic (Kemmlerian Necromancy) [–2]

Total: -9 Refresh
(Lawbreaking will have to be handled by aspects)

And now, you could potentially give this character sheet to a new GM or new player, and have them be able to use it.

Human tier opponents pretty much go squish, and he has a pretty big advantage against inhuman tier opponents, but most importantly, he's easy to use.

[Sanctaphrax]

About the difficulties:

That's a fair concern. This skill list kinda forces you to broaden your character in a suboptimal way. Maybe halving the skill points given is too harsh.

About high-level play:

I don't see that as a problem. Optimization makes characters more powerful, that's the whole point. And as long as everyone optimizes similarly, the game is not disrupted.

It's my experience that optimization is always important even at Feet In The Water level. Not sure how much higher refresh levels affect that.

My experience with an 18-refresh game suggests that stress boxes are absolutely critical. Higher weapon ratings don't seem to change this at all.

I'm kinda lukewarm on the idea of tiers. I'd rather mess with skill caps and floors. But if you plan to use a tier system, I suggest altering the one you have there.

Firstly, because it kinda screws people who rely on physical powers. Spellcasters and mortals and Emotion Inciters and other such beings lose nothing going up against a Mythic Tier foe, but a guy who tries to be a walking tank gets totally depowered.

Secondly, because it's not really that effective. That Grevane could be taken out in one hit by a Feet In The Water mortal gunman, assuming he hasn't invested heavily in Enchanted Item defences.

[crusher_bob]

The idea is that to someone on the human tier, Grevane looks something like this:

Skills:
7: Willpower
6: Intelligence, Charisma
5: Background, Social, Violence
4: Perception, Sneaking, Travel, Fitness

Powers:
Supernatural strength (or just +4 damage to all his attacks, or something)
supernatural speed (so he gets to act before all human tier characters)
supernatural toughness (or just 2 armor against everything, and some extra human tier stress, or something)

Evocation [–3]
Thaumaturgy [–3]
The Sight [–1]
Soulgaze [–0]
Wizard’s Constitution [–0]
Sponsored Magic (Kemmlerian Necromancy) [–2]

Which is sorta comparable to the 'conventional' writeup I was looking at.

So a human tier mortal gunman is probably not going to get the job done.  Besides, as a supernatural tier character, he doesn't fight human scale characters, they are mostly just scenery.

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But what if I want to have human tier characters fight him as the main villain?  Well, the simplest version is probably that they can spend two fate points to attack him on a equal basis, or defend against his attacks on an equal basis (so it would be very expensive, fate point wise, to fight him for more than a round or so).

Which is also what the changed swords of the cross do, they put you on the same tier as your opponent, so you attack, defend against, and damage them on an equal basis.

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The rough idea is that every tier up would be sorta the same as spending that many fate points on every action.  So a mythic tier character operating on the human scale can be assumed to be spending 3 fate points on every action.

So, if we assume Odin is a mythic tier character.  A regular inhuman tier WCV probably can't do much against him at all, but a supernatural tier WCV mook may have a chance, and another mythic tier character faces him on an equal basis.

The point is not that optimization gets you a better character, but that
1: in general having more points allows for more optimization
2: the level of system mastery across all players (including the GM) will not be consistent
3: this can lead to very uneven character/villain power levels

[crusher_bob]

Of course, the whole thing only really works when it can be reduced to a page or so of explanation, a page of rules, and maybe a 3-5 page GMs section, since one of the objectives is to let low system mastery people drop in and play at the higher power levels.

So all the 'it's kinda like' parts will have to be hashed out exactly, and an implementation that can be explained in a few paragraphs is needed.

For example, a simpler way of handling part of the tier difference might be this:
For every tier of difference, the higher tier character gets a number of 'free' fate points equal to the difference in the tiers, on every roll they make to interact with the lower tier character.

Example:
Conrad Verner, a human tier character, is trying to kung-fu Kincaid (a supernatural tier character).  Since there is a two tier difference between them, Kincaid effectively gets +4 to all his rolls to attack or defend against Conrad.

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Hmm, now that I think about it, it's even possible to have the same character operate on different tiers i different contexts.

Example:
Shepherd with maxed reputation bars is a mythic tier social character, but only a inhuman tier physical character.

[ways and means]

Mass effect 1 Shepard would be supernatural/mythic level with his possible physical immunity and crazy zero stress casting. Sorry couldn't help it. The tier system seems like it would be very number crunchy like size categories for D&D.

[crusher_bob]

The idea is to reduce the complexity of high tier characters, and since you don't tend to interact much with lower tier characters, exactly how well you can crush them with your mind doesn't really come up.

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Some thoughts about who fits into what tier:

0 / Human Tier
Early Harry (books 1-3 or so)
Early Murphy
The Alphas
Butters?
Paranet members
Death Eater wannabes

1 / Inhuman Tier
Harry (books 4-10, or so)
Later Murphy
John Marcone
Mortimer Lindquist?
Most white and red court vampires

2 / Supernatural tier
Harry (books 11+)
most black court vampires
Kincaid?
Most Denarians
Most 'old' Wardens (Luccio, Morgan, Brute squad, etc)
Summer / Winter Knights?
Summer / Winter Ladies (may be tier 3?)
Cowl (may be t3?)
Grevane
Corpsetaker

3 / Mythic tier
Senior council members
Lord Wraith?
Skinwalker?
Leanansidhe?
Eldest Gruff?
Odin?
Red King?
Erl King?
Darkhallow ritual winner (may be t4?)?
HWWB?

5
Mab
Titania
Kremmler?
Uriel (or may be T6)?

6
Named Dragons?
Mother Summer/Winter?

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The ideal is to have, say, me and Sanctaphrax be able to sit down with a guy who'd bring 'Larry Berlin' to the table as his character, be playing at the 20/40 (senior warden) power level, and have the 'Larry Berlin' guy not be seriously impeded by his lack of system mastery.

[Sanctaphrax]

I like the free fate point-based tiers a lot better than the old ones. They seem more likely to do what you want them to do. And they're simpler; I'm still not sure whether Grevane was actually supposed to have Toughness or just some immunity to Strength.

It does have the downside of making Senior Council members immune to the standard bullet-to-the-brain routine, though that could also be an upside. Personal taste really.

Standard DFRPG rules make it very hard to make a character that's good at everything, even at very high power levels. This tier system throws that out the window, for better or for worse.

So, if I don't have anything to invoke, does that affect my tier bonus? And can I use my tier for rerolls?

[crusher_bob]

The idea is that you largely interact with stuff on the same tier as you, so neither of you gets and bonuses or penalties.  A big villain might be statted up as a tier higher than you, but hat mostly it.

So, for example, you you are playing in T2 / supernatural, you expect to mostly interact with stuff like fae knights, black court vapires, 'old' wizards, and similar stuff that's about your equal.  Things in T1 (white and red vampires, young wizards, etc) are expected to be mooks, and t3 things like eldest gruff are the mid bosses, and maybe t4 things like Mab or Kremmler are your end boss, that you explicitly need some sort of power up to face.

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So, I can make a quick t2 mooks that looks like:

Black court vampire:
3 violence
2 fitness, sneaky
1 charisma, social, perception

(maybe -3 to -5 refresh in powers)
so something like
claws
living dead
gaseous form

And throw a lot of them at the party, and not really worry about the low system mastery guys getting mauled.

And if I need them to interact with t0 tier stuff, like blowing a hole in the wall, then I realize that any t2 can manage to blow a hole in the wall, and it's just a matter to how they do it, not whether they can do it, or not.

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[edit]

We'll take as an example Batgod and superman.  Both are mythic tier characters.  Batgod is a mythic tier character because he has the writer on his side, so he's always able to come up with something super clever to do.  But, in a game, we can't really count on the guy playing Batgod to be able to do that, so we have to give him a mechanical ability to 'do clever things' that lets him keep up with superman.

So, when they have to knock down a t1 wall, t3 superman may just punch it, while t3 Batgod does something clever instead.  But for either of them, their ability to easily get past the wall was never in any sort of doubt.

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Next, t3 superman may not have mythic strength.  How's that again?  because, as a t3 character, he's already able to do mythic stuff.  Sure he probably has some strength powers, this means, that when compared to other t3 characters, he's remarkably strong.  So, for example, t3 martian manhunter may not really have any strength/speed/toughness powers.  Because, even though he's stupidly strong, fast, and tough on the human scale, he's not really any stronger, faster, or tougher than any other t3 character.

[Sanctaphrax]

That would probably work. Though I do rather like the canon way of making Batman and Superman competitive (oodles of Fate Points).

I think the most important difference between this and canon is that by canon I'd have a good shot at beating the Merlin in a boxing match. By this, he'd stomp me.

[crusher_bob]

I would prefer that any character build choice that turns out to be 'hard mode' be highlighted quite clearly as 'hard mode'.  If you are just coming into DnD 3.X, the book presents the cleric, the wizard, and the fighter as all valid choices.  But with any sort of system mastery, you discover that the cleric and wizard can be as gods, while the fighter is just a guy who can hit things with swords.

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Your character sheet is not an exact simulation of your character, but instead a definition of your strengths and weaknesses as you interact with the game/story.

For example, if we made mythic Batgod, we likely would not have high resources on his character sheet.  Why? because Batgod doesn't solve his problems with money.  So the fact that he has access to near infinite money is just a character quirk/aspect, not something that significant build resources are allocated to.

We'll never see a scenario like this:

Starro the Casserole: 'Mwahaha! now I claim Earth as my own and will feast on the delicious humans!"

Batgod: (Makes mythic level resources roll)
"Starro, if you read the fine print of the lease you signed with Wayne enterprises, allowing you to reside in the plane of existence, most specifically, the clauses about timely payment of rents, you'll see that the late payment provisions allow me to seize any assets you happen to hold in this plane of existence.  Namely, the 'Earth' that you have so recently claimed as your own.  So hand it over.  Any actions taken by you to reduce the value of my 'Earth', such as 'feasting on tasty humans' will be seen as destruction of my property and met with appropriate sanctions.  Also, pay your rent on time, you filthy hippie.

Starro the casserole: "Curse you, Batgod!"

Because that's how a Batgod with a lot of resources could solve his problems, and it's not he we want to roll. 

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And you'd seriously have part of the story of 'mythic level Merlin' be him losing boxing matches to people?  In between things like, "Merlin, death is broken! please fix it!" and "Merlin, horrors from beyond creation are breaking into realty and trying to force their view of socialized medicine on us! help!" you'd have boxing matches? really?

[Sanctaphrax]

I always saw Batman's gadgetry/vehicle collection as a use of Resources.

And I wouldn't have the Merlin get into boxing matches if I were GMing him. But I'd probably have an ordinary mortal knife him at some point. Because the combination of enormous power and human fragility is part of what I like about wizards.

I chose the boxing match as an example because it's less messy than a knife fight.

[crusher_bob]

Heh.

Prefer my human frailties to be of the emotional or existential type.  And the fact that you are just a bag of barely potable water only really comes up as a narrative device to show how awesome your will is at overcoming this inconvenient fact.

[Sanctaphrax]

Like I said, it comes down to personal taste.