Huh, really?
Seems like people in general don't rate this Power nearly as highly as I do.
Also, what do you not like about Living Weapon? Do you think it should be changed because it's bad, or is it just not to your taste?
It means that if you don't have a Wizard on side there's very little way to stop this guy. The way you defeat a master swordsman is to take away his sword; if you can't do that you're effectively forced to cripple or kill him in order to win. It limits the options available to a character to be forced into that level of violence, especially if you want to take him alive. It also means that if another Mythic-level swordsman comes along they're both unable to disarm each other, which is probably realistic, but not quite in the spirit of the way the FATE system works, which is more like a pulp fiction novel than real life.
More than that though, the infinite bonus for modifying is fine for Weapons but doesn't make sense for other skills. Why should a swordsman get a bonus to, say, Might when using it to modify? He doesn't grow any stronger, and any bonuses Might would give to Weapons is already included in there implicitly since it goes into being able to wield a sword in the first place. Doesn't make sense to me.
Lastly, you effectively make Weapons into Fists+ with the ability to use it unarmed. Maybe if you had Natural Weaponry or a Shapeshifting ability, but even then I think this would be better off as a stunt than part of this power.
That could work, but it's simpler and more elegant to have each tier give +1. I'll think about it.
What would you think of just removing the weapon rating bonus? People could pick up stunts or Strength for that. Maybe also get rid of the multi-zone attack option on Mythic Skill, since that seems to scare people. Then we could expand the Weapons bonus to maneuvers and blocks. It'd still be too strong compared to stunts, but it might balance well against other Powers.
That could work. This power is trying to do too much and is overlapping in other skills' areas. So yeah, let's get rid of the weapon rating bonus.
Thinking about it, this skill with the multi-zone attack would be a great way to model Black Kaze's power in Worm.
Anyway, let's compare the bonuses to the other skill powers, assuming an optimised build at Submerged for each power.
Mythic strength acts at +8 Might with 4 stress inflicted as a supplemental in a grapple. Muscular force attacks get +6 stress.
Mythic Speed gives an effective Athletics of +8. Sprinting increases that to +11.
Mythic Toughness gives +6 physical stress boxes and natural Armour:3. That means 10 stress minimum to inflict a consequence in one hit.
Mythic Recovery gives instant recovery after a scene has ended and the ability to clear away three physical consequences. (As a side note, does that mean you can clear three consequences at once or one consequence three times? The wording favours the latter, but I'd like to be sure.) That's an effective minimum of +6 stress per scene, with a maximum of +24 stress per scene.
I'd say we want this power to be a bit weaker than Mythic Strength and Speed, since this power would cover both offence and defence plus manoeuvres and blocks. Since Strength has stress bonuses already, we should shelve that. We don't want to completely replace Athletics as the defensive power, so perhaps getting rid of the ability to parry anything... Limit it to being able to block single target attacks that are targeting him? We have to drop the multi-zone attack because Wizards have to pay -2 power for every zone they want to attack. This guy could do it at full power with exactly zero cost. The choice of target for zone wide attacks is enough, I think.
MYTHIC SKILL [-6]
Description:
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
God Of War - Your Weapons skill is at +3 for the purposes of attacking, defending, blocking and manoeuvring.
Perfect Defence - You may use your Weapons skill to defend against any attack that can be dodged with Athletics and can be reasonably assumed to be blocked by a melee weapon.
Strike Like The Sunlight - You may make spray attacks and zone-wide attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action. You may choose which characters to affect when attacking a zone.
Living Weapon - Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills. You weapon can never break as a result of your own actions.
Thinking about it some more, I think the flat bonus to Weapons could easily apply to knowledge as well, since part of being an expert swordsman is knowing what you're up against as well as using various forms with various advantages/disadvantages (or that's what my fantasy reading tells me). If it doesn't, Limitation would be able to cover that more effectively.
Anyway, this way we're looking at +8 Weapons/+3 stress, but able to target every enemy in a zone (without hurting allies) for 11 stress before rolls/armour. Defensively we've got +8 defence against everything from Fists to lasers, but not area of effect weaponry or some spells.
I'd say we have to drop the flat bonus. Maybe drop it from Inhuman Skill entirely and make Sup/Mythic Skill into a +1/+2 bonus. So we'd be looking at +7/+3 at 10 stress total before rolls/armour and +7 as a defensive skill. That means it's not quite doing the same job as Mythic Speed but it synergises well with the lower levels of it, with the same going for the Strength powers but moreso because of the stress bonus.
It also means a Submerged character would need to take a pretty hefty Limitation to get anything above Inhuman Power to go with Mythic Skill, which I think fits.
And do you think the stacking limitation is actually necessary? I'm starting to think that people wouldn't buy stunts or True Aim anyway, since another level of Skill is probably better.
Well, that's kinda true about Athletics and Fists with the Speed and Strength powers. I mean, another level of Strength is objectively better than the Killer Blow stunt and Fleet of Foot is part of Inhuman Athletics. Not to mention Tireless, No Pain, No Gain and Tough Stuff compared to Supernatural Toughness (plus Catch/Limitation). I think what we're seeing here is a difference in how stunts are viewed. I view stunts as a way to make a character unique, which is why most of the stunts I use are made up from scratch. Once I've got the basic character concept down (powers) I'll go for stunts to make him my own.
Sounds interesting. Can I get a link?
Sure!
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=25726We're in the City Creation stage at the moment and I'm trying to wrangle the players into making actual characters rather than powersets at the same time. Also, if you're in to fanfic we've got a decent amount of Dresden Files stuff. Mostly of very high quality.
