@Mr. Death: Fate Points are made out of BS and handwavium. That's how they work. No point protesting it now if you've accepted it until now.
I'm not protesting anything about how Fate Points work. My point was that the powers shouldn't be solely about mechanical benefit and mechanical cost--there should be a reason that a power works the way it does, and I don't see how a mortal agency could produce something that functions, in the fiction, because God literally said so.
If Fate Points are just "BS and handwavium," why do we even have to use them with aspects? Why not just make a fate point worth a straight +2 to any roll? They're tied into aspects for a reason--they're there to reinforce the narrative when the dice say that your acrobatic speedster trips over his own feet going down the stairs.
And making the bullets occasionally fail kinda defeats the purpose of the power. It satisfies all non-0-value Catches. That's what the player is spending his Refresh on. If you don't like it, buy a different power.
And yet having to spend a fate point is exactly what's going to make the bullets occasionally fail, because sometimes you won't have fate points to spend. It means there has to be some explanation for why the same bullets from the same gun that just put down a Loup Garou are now bouncing off a Red Court Vampire.
Again, a power should have some justification in the story for working the way it does, and not just boil down to cost of points for effect. That's the whole purpose of the templates, and requiring an aspect for some powers.
If this gun was empowered by a god, or a powerful fey, or some other entity that could reasonably be believed to just ignore the toughness powers of just about any supernatural creature, that would be one thing, but as far as I can tell that isn't the case here.
Oh, and even if you can satisfy its Catch a Loup-Garou is reasonably tough. It's not like the fight suddenly turns into a non-event because you have the Catch.
Perhaps not, but having the catch for damn near anything at your instant disposal without having to even find out what the catch might be takes the bite out of a lot of creatures in the series. It turns any fight into, "Just shoot it a bunch of times."
To borrow a phrase, if there was an unrestricted power that could bypass all catches with a power costing only 3 refresh and a fate point each use, why wouldn't everyone take it? It turns a Feet In The Water character into an opponent capable of taking on things that should be well, well out of his weight class.
The Sword of the Cross's ability doesn't just cost 3 refresh. You're typically not a Knight of the Cross unless you're also working from the Champion of God template, which has a -5 refresh cost before you even get the sword. And the sword comes with restrictions, responsibilities, and duties in and of itself.
Aspects and the narrative matter. It's not just about raw refresh cost vs. effect.
PS: Needing to put effort and thought into things isn't always fun and engaging. Sometimes it's just a pain. Suppose I wanted you to find the second derivatives of a multivariant function to work out the results of an attack roll. Wouldn't that be irritating? Whether it's good to need strategy depends on the situation.
Well, yes, if you pick the most extreme end of the 'fun/not fun' spectrum, then it's going to be a pain. Neither would it be a fair argument if I said, "Suppose I had the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue* giving you a massage while you researched the badguy's weaknesses. Wouldn't that be awesome?"
*Replace with Chippendale dancer, Playboy Bunny, body builder, or the stereotypical fetish object of your choice.