Custom True Faith powers for review

[JayTee]

Some faith powers I've cooked up. Do note that I do not have the greatest mechanical chops with this system, so consider these powers to be a rough draft. Critique is more than welcome in order to get them in to a place thats balanced in the game and represents the idea that I'm going for.


The goals in mind with these powers were

1: To give True Believers a set of powers that would grow stronger with the character, letting them continue to operate alongside Casters and Shapeshifters (the two most common player types, I've found) and their continuing applications of Refinement of adding on more creature features.

2: Find some way to mechanically emulate the effects we see or hear about in the books, but aren't really possible at the moment with the current powerset (Murphy carving her way through a sea of vampires in Changes, Michael facing down a dragon and winning)

3: Find a way to produce the former two while keeping in mind how faith powers are usually represented in the books: "Coincidence is on my side", as commented on several times by Harry and seen a few times. "Subtle but very powerful", we rarely see very many flashy displays of holy power, but we see a lot of True Faith people doing a lot of crazy awesome stuff. "works best against the supernatural", it's been a general theme that faith powers are really meant as a force multiplier against non-mortal forces, and his largely important against people with free will.



Providence tries to invoke the feelings of "Coincidence is on my side" and "subtle put powerful".  It's also meant to work alongside the Righteousness and Holy Touch powers, letting you spend Fate Points on things that you really want to spend them on, rather than things you have to spend them on in order to get the most out of your powers.

Providence -X
Description:
Your choices and beliefs have a profound impact, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Righteousness and Holy Touch.
Skills affected: Varies
Effects:
The world abides the believer
Belief has a powerful effect on the world. For every 2 points of refresh spent on this power, you may gain 1 free expenditure of a Fate Point per scene.
Walking my chosen path -1
Focusing on your goal, you find it a much easier road to walk. Whenever you make a roll that is affected by Righteousness, you may make an additional roll to place a Conviction aspect on the scene that is somehow related to what you are doing to be used on your next turn.





Grace Against the Dark likewise tries to invoke the feeling of "subtle but powerful" but with a much greater focus on "works best against the supernatural". It's intentionally very powerful, but completely useless against regular mortals.

Grace Against the Dark [-5]
Description:
Mortals who leave the safety of their homes may find themselves buoyed by the knowledge that a strong spirit can make all the difference when facing the unknown terrors of the world.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness and Holy Touch.
Skills affected: Varies
Effects:
The Darkness Yields
Though the workings of the wicked may conspire against you, your faith will see you through. When faced with supernatural forces opposing your path chosen by Righteousness, you may add half your Conviction (round down) to your dice rolls.

[Haru]

Providence tries to invoke the feelings of "Coincidence is on my side" and "subtle put powerful".  It's also meant to work alongside the Righteousness and Holy Touch powers, letting you spend Fate Points on things that you really want to spend them on, rather than things you have to spend them on in order to get the most out of your powers.

Providence -X
Description:
Your choices and beliefs have a profound impact, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Righteousness and Holy Touch.
Skills affected: Varies
Effects:
The world abides the believer
Belief has a powerful effect on the world. For every 2 points of refresh spent on this power, you may gain 1 free expenditure of a Fate Point per scene.

This feels like it would become a simple mathematical exercise in order to find the sweet spot for the power to get the maximum usage out of it. I don't like powers like that very much, and it doesn't feel like it would accomplish what you've set out to do.

The "coincidence is on my side" thing seems to be part of "guide my hand" rather than righteousness or holy touch. Especially when it comes to "faith manages". In that regard, it feels like you are looking for the faith powers version of refinement.
So I think I would do something like this:

Providence [-1]
Description:
Your choices and beliefs have a profound impact, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Guide my Hand and Holy Touch
Skills affected: Conviction
Effects:
Faith moves Mountains: Your faith is strong. When taking this power, you either get 2 free uses of "Faith Manages" or you may increase your Conviction by 1 when rolling for "Faith Manages". You may take this power multiple times, but the bonus to your Conviction may not exceed your original rating.

You could extend the free uses to "Guide my Hand" as a whole, so you could use the fortuitous arrival part more often as well. I would say the uses should replenish similar to enchanted items.

Walking my chosen path -1
Focusing on your goal, you find it a much easier road to walk. Whenever you make a roll that is affected by Righteousness, you may make an additional roll to place a Conviction aspect on the scene that is somehow related to what you are doing to be used on your next turn.

Not a fan of additional rolls. And another thing that I think is an important part of the true believer: choice. You even got that in the name of this power. My suggestion:

Walking my chosen path -1
When your Righteousness would allow your conviction to complement a roll, you may forgo the bonus. If your roll still succeeds, you may place a fragile aspect on yourself, reflecting the power of your faith.

This would mean that you have to make the choice to not take a bonus now and risk failure, but you'd end up doubling your bonus when you succeed.

Grace Against the Dark likewise tries to invoke the feeling of "subtle but powerful" but with a much greater focus on "works best against the supernatural". It's intentionally very powerful, but completely useless against regular mortals.

Grace Against the Dark [-5]
Description:
Mortals who leave the safety of their homes may find themselves buoyed by the knowledge that a strong spirit can make all the difference when facing the unknown terrors of the world.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness and Holy Touch.
Skills affected: Varies
Effects:
The Darkness Yields
Though the workings of the wicked may conspire against you, your faith will see you through. When faced with supernatural forces opposing your path chosen by Righteousness, you may add half your Conviction (round down) to your dice rolls.

Hmm...
A faith type character will likely have a conviction of 4-5 in most games, which would translate to a constant +2. +3 in any game that has unlocked the +6 skill level. 5 refresh is pretty expensive, but a constant +2 is enormously powerful as well. I would almost say gamebreakingly so. And it doesn't feel too subtle, to be honest.
And from a GMs perspective, if a player character has a constant +2 to everything he does, I would start to throw out opponents that are simply 2 steps better than what I would usually use, giving us a net result of +-0 for 5 refresh, which doesn't feel like a very good investment.

So I think I would go for more specialized things. For example the possibility to extend "Holy Touch" to the use of melee weapons, and in another step to ranged weapons. Or a reskinned version of toughness against supernaturals, representing how they hesitate to touch you. I think that would work way better.

[Belial666]

As is, the mechanical bonuses of these abilities are unwieldy and imbalanced. Base them off existing powers/stunts for ease of use and mechanical balance. For example;

Providence [-1]
Description: Faith provides, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Guide My Hand.
Skills affected: Varies
Effect: As long as you can justify it through belief, you may employ Conviction to do Declarations as if it were a Knowledge and Perception skill. This doesn't so much reflect actual knowledge or perception as your belief that things will go as they should, and the favorable outcomes Providence arranges.
[-1] Faith Moves Mountains: Your faith is especially strong. You roll Conviction at +2 for faith-based Declarations.
[-1] Hope Springs Eternal: Your faith is especially lasting. You may perform one additional faith-based Declaration per scene than you reasonably could. You can take this ability more than once; the effects stack.


Grace Against the Dark [-1]
Description: Mortals who leave the safety of their homes may find themselves buoyed by the knowledge that a strong spirit can make all the difference when facing the unknown terrors of the world.
Musts: You must have taken Holy Touch.
Skills affected: conviction
Effects: You may directly channel your faith to oppose the forces of darkness such as call holy light, weaken demons, suppress supernatural power and so forth. You can perform Maneuvers and Blocks at your Conviction+2.
[-1] Censure the Dark: You may directly harm supernatural foes with your Faith. You can also use Grace Against the Dark to perform attacks at weapon 2. Damage from such attacks comes from Holy power and is spiritual in nature.
[-1] Smite Adversary: Your opposition to the Dark Powers is especially potent. Faith-based attacks are weapon 4.
[-1] Aura of Faith: Your faith radiates outwards in a palpable aura. Maneuvers, attacks and blocks with Grace Against the Dark are zone-wide.
[-1] Shield of Faith: Who needs armor when defended by faith? You may roll a Grace Against the Dark block instead of your normal defense.





See? The first is an extra Trapping for Conviction, with bonuses to it as upgrades. The second is based on Incite Emotion.

[Taran]

Here's a character I have with -17 refresh except I reskinned the powers as 'luck' powers.  This could easily be used as a True Faith Character.  Some of the skills are weird because it was for the Worm game.  Capes=Lore.

Powers:

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PROBABILITY MANIPULATION [-3]
Description: God's dice are loaded in your favour. Your luck is literally supernatural.
Skills Affected: All
Effects:
Weighting The Dice. Whenever anyone in your presence rerolls dice, you may "lock down" one of those dice. Doing so ensures that the result of that die is the same on the reroll as it was on the original roll.
Palming The Cards. Whenever you are involved in an opposed roll, you may cause your opponent to reroll by invoking an aspect.
Fixing The Wheel. You may take a point of sponsor debt instead of spending a Fate Point when invoking an aspect in order to cause a reroll or when making a Declaration that has to do with random chance. Sponsor debt taken this way represents accumulated bad luck, karmic backlash, or the build-up of paradoxes in the structure of reality.

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Stacking The Deck [-1]. Whenever anyone in your presence rolls dice, you may cause them to reroll by invoking an aspect.

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CONTROLLED FATE [-1]
Description: You can control probability to a limited extent, making life more or less predictable through magical power.
Skills Affected: All.
Effects:
Fate Control. Whenever you roll, you may choose to roll any number of fudge dice between two and six.

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Aura Of Control [-1]. Whenever someone in your presence rolls, you may choose to have them roll any number of fudge dice between two and six.

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PRECOGNITION [-2]
Description: You can predict the actions of your opponents in combat, making it very difficult to get the drop on you.
Skills Affected: Alertness, sometimes Lore.
Effects:
Always Prepared. Add two to your Alertness skill (or, if you have the Prophecy Power, your Lore skill) when using its Combat Initiative and Avoiding Surprise trappings.
Precognition. Whenever you are attacked, you may attempt to Assess the person attacking you with your Alertness skill. The person attacking you may defend with the skill that they're attacking you with. If you succeed, the GM should reveal either one of the target's Aspects or an Aspect that applies to their attack. Aspects revealed this way should generally be useful in the scene that they are revealed in, and they can often be tagged to increase defence rolls against the attacks that revealed them.
Application Of Prophecy. If you possess the Prophecy Power, you may use your Lore skill for the Precognition trapping of this Power and the Combat Initiative trapping of the Alertness skill.

-1 Guide My Hand
-2 Guided Fortune (re-skinned Righteousness)

(wish list powers:  Guide my hand; toughness or recovery; Incite effect; Incite defensive)

11/17
FP: 6

+6 Conviction; Awareness
+5 Guns; Athletics
+4 Capes; Deceit;
+3 Presence; Endurance;
+2 Contacts; Stealth ; Resources
+1 Scholarship;  Rapport; Drive
[/quote]

[Locnil]

Oh yeah, I remember those powers from the wiki.

Probability Manipulation always seems horribly overcosted to me, though.

[Taran]

Oh yeah, I remember those powers from the wiki.

Probability Manipulation always seems horribly overcosted to me, though.

I suppose, considering this is only a -1 stunt:

Unshakeable: When defending against social
or mental attacks with Discipline, any of your
aspects (such as consequences or other temporary
or permanent aspects) that get tagged
provide only a +1. If the attacker chooses to tag
for a reroll, you may “lock down” one of his dice,
leaving him only the other three to re-roll.

And considering sponsored debt is a [-0] power.

Being able to force people to re-roll is worth a refresh, though.

I spent 4 refresh on Probability manipulation if you include 'stacking the deck'  which is a sub-power.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'll second Haru and Belial. Those Powers look unwieldy and too mathy.

Probability Manipulation always seems horribly overcosted to me, though.

It might be. I wasn't sure how much it should cost, and I figured too expensive was better than too cheap. So I aimed high.

Taran will be helping us find out whether it should be cheaper.

Providence [-1]
Description: Faith provides, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Guide My Hand.
Skills affected: Varies
Effect: As long as you can justify it through belief, you may employ Conviction to do Declarations as if it were a Knowledge and Perception skill. This doesn't so much reflect actual knowledge or perception as your belief that things will go as they should, and the favorable outcomes Providence arranges.
[-1] Faith Moves Mountains: Your faith is especially strong. You roll Conviction at +2 for faith-based Declarations.
[-1] Hope Springs Eternal: Your faith is especially lasting. You may perform one additional faith-based Declaration per scene than you reasonably could. You can take this ability more than once; the effects stack.

I'd allow it. Hope Springs Eternal might be kinda pointless in my games, though, since I don't hard-cap Declaration numbers.

Grace Against the Dark [-1]
Description: Mortals who leave the safety of their homes may find themselves buoyed by the knowledge that a strong spirit can make all the difference when facing the unknown terrors of the world.
Musts: You must have taken Holy Touch.
Skills affected: conviction
Effects: You may directly channel your faith to oppose the forces of darkness such as call holy light, weaken demons, suppress supernatural power and so forth. You can perform Maneuvers and Blocks at your Conviction+2.
[-1] Censure the Dark: You may directly harm supernatural foes with your Faith. You can also use Grace Against the Dark to perform attacks at weapon 2. Damage from such attacks comes from Holy power and is spiritual in nature.
[-1] Smite Adversary: Your opposition to the Dark Powers is especially potent. Faith-based attacks are weapon 4.
[-1] Aura of Faith: Your faith radiates outwards in a palpable aura. Maneuvers, attacks and blocks with Grace Against the Dark are zone-wide.
[-1] Shield of Faith: Who needs armor when defended by faith? You may roll a Grace Against the Dark block instead of your normal defense.

Have you seen Incite Effect? It's a generalization of Incite Emotion that was created while you were away.

Providence [-1]
Description:
Your choices and beliefs have a profound impact, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Guide my Hand and Holy Touch
Skills affected: Conviction
Effects:
Faith moves Mountains: Your faith is strong. When taking this power, you either get 2 free uses of "Faith Manages" or you may increase your Conviction by 1 when rolling for "Faith Manages". You may take this power multiple times, but the bonus to your Conviction may not exceed your original rating.

I'd allow it, assuming the free uses of Faith Manages are per-session.

So I think I would go for more specialized things. For example the possibility to extend "Holy Touch" to the use of melee weapons, and in another step to ranged weapons.

There's a custom version of Holy Touch on the wiki which JayTee is welcome to take. It ought to cover this.

[Belial666]

I'd allow it, assuming the free uses of Faith Manages are per-session.

"Faith Manages" replaces another skill, except not for attacks or maneuvers. Say your Conviction is +6 while another skill is +2. The difference is what, 2 declarations? IF you got no limit on Declarations for your game and since they don't take any time, I don't see how it's any different than my version of Providence.

Have you seen Incite Effect? It's a generalization of Incite Emotion that was created while you were away.

Yes, but my motto is "A custom power is a custom power". Same as with stunts, don't give your PCs a list of standardized new powers - have them make them specifically for a character. Chances are they'll turn out better flavor-wise and have less balance problems.

[Sanctaphrax]

I have a limit on Declarations, just not a hard cap. The more Declarations you make, the harder they are.

[JayTee]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I really liked Haru and Belial's suggestions for Providence, so I decided to try and modify/combine both their suggestions in to one. I took the bulk of Belial's suggestion which I really liked, and adding on Haru's version of "Faith moves Mountains" under the "hope springs eternal". I upped the refresh cost by 1, and increased the usage to per scene. I really really liked the original idea I had for Providence, so I don't want to give it up too easily (unless it really is just that bad  )

Providence [-1]
Description: Faith provides, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Guide My Hand.
Skills affected: Varies
Effect:
As long as you can justify it through belief, you may employ Conviction to do Declarations as if it were a Knowledge and Perception skill. This doesn't so much reflect actual knowledge or perception as your belief that things will go as they should, and the favorable outcomes Providence arranges.
[-1] Faith Moves Mountains: Your faith is especially strong. You roll Conviction at +2 for faith-based Declarations.
[-2] Hope Springs Eternal: Your faith is strong. When taking this power, you either get 1 free use of "Faith Manages" per scene or you may increase your Conviction by 1 when rolling for "Faith Manages". You may take this power multiple times for, but the bonus to your Conviction may not exceed your original rating.


@Sanctaphrax/Haru: I'm not a fan of  that custom Holy Touch power. I am of the opinion that if a character has an weapon on them for an extended period of time, then they should just be able to say "My faith has influenced my gun/knife/whatever, it counts as holy". So I'll likely go with Belial's version of Grace Against the Dark 

[Sanctaphrax]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I really liked Haru and Belial's suggestions for Providence, so I decided to try and modify/combine both their suggestions in to one. I took the bulk of Belial's suggestion which I really liked, and adding on Haru's version of "Faith moves Mountains" under the "hope springs eternal". I upped the refresh cost by 1, and increased the usage to per scene. I really really liked the original idea I had for Providence, so I don't want to give it up too easily (unless it really is just that bad  )

Providence [-1]
Description: Faith provides, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Guide My Hand.
Skills affected: Varies
Effect:
As long as you can justify it through belief, you may employ Conviction to do Declarations as if it were a Knowledge and Perception skill. This doesn't so much reflect actual knowledge or perception as your belief that things will go as they should, and the favorable outcomes Providence arranges.
[-1] Faith Moves Mountains: Your faith is especially strong. You roll Conviction at +2 for faith-based Declarations.
[-2] Hope Springs Eternal: Your faith is strong. When taking this power, you either get 1 free use of "Faith Manages" per scene or you may increase your Conviction by 1 when rolling for "Faith Manages". You may take this power multiple times for, but the bonus to your Conviction may not exceed your original rating.

I don't think you should merge them. They've got little to do with one another.

Also, spending 2 Refresh for +1 to Faith Manges seems weak.

@Sanctaphrax/Haru: I'm not a fan of  that custom Holy Touch power.

I am of the opinion that if a character has an weapon on them for an extended period of time, then they should just be able to say "My faith has influenced my gun/knife/whatever, it counts as holy".

These statements seem slightly contradictory.

[JayTee]

I don't think you should merge them. They've got little to do with one another.

I'm not sure how that's the case, they've both got a general feel of "unseen forces provide benefits through faith/conviction"

Also, spending 2 Refresh for +1 to Faith Manges seems weak.

+1 per scene?

These statements seem slightly contradictory.

If I remember the custom holy touch power correctly, it effectively lets you add the holy tag to your weapon. I am of the opinion that you shouldn't need to spend refresh to gain that effect if you already have the default Holy Touch. It's something you can just do with a declaration or just have it be an automatic effect.

[Haru]

I'd allow it, assuming the free uses of Faith Manages are per-session.

That was the idea, yes.

adding on Haru's version of "Faith moves Mountains" under the "hope springs eternal". I upped the refresh cost by 1, and increased the usage to per scene. I really really liked the original idea I had for Providence, so I don't want to give it up too easily (unless it really is just that bad  )

It might work, but I'd be cautious. You'd essentially multiply the use of a Fate point by the number of scenes in a session, which might be a bit much. What's more, this way it becomes an "I have to spend this in this scene or it was wasted" sort of resource, which can lead to an overblown use of the power. With uses per session, you can spend them when you need them, without as much of a need to do so.

[-2] Hope Springs Eternal: Your faith is strong. When taking this power, you either get 1 free use of "Faith Manages" per scene or you may increase your Conviction by 1 when rolling for "Faith Manages". You may take this power multiple times for, but the bonus to your Conviction may not exceed your original rating.

I think you should determine when you take the power if this is going to be a +use or a +skill thing, like when you take refinement as either focus item slots or specializations. You can switch at a milestone, of course, but switching whenever you want to seems to much. Just wanted to clarify.

And -2 refresh for +1 is kind of expensive as well.

I don't think you'll need the -1 prerequisite. Using Convictions for Declarations like that is pretty much exactly what Guide my Hand is supposed to do, so you'll kind of remove the need for spending Fate points altogether, except for very few cases. Seems weird. I would just make "Faith moves Mountains" and "Hope springs Eternal" separate powers.

[JayTee]

It might work, but I'd be cautious. You'd essentially multiply the use of a Fate point by the number of scenes in a session, which might be a bit much. What's more, this way it becomes an "I have to spend this in this scene or it was wasted" sort of resource, which can lead to an overblown use of the power. With uses per session, you can spend them when you need them, without as much of a need to do so.

I'm... not certain how this is an issue? Call me dumb, but if the number of uses gets restored every scene, it effectively becomes similar to a caster using Evocations?

I think you should determine when you take the power if this is going to be a +use or a +skill thing, like when you take refinement as either focus item slots or specializations. You can switch at a milestone, of course, but switching whenever you want to seems to much. Just wanted to clarify.

Seems fair to me.

And -2 refresh for +1 is kind of expensive as well.

Seriously? You too? Man, I must suck at gaging cost effectiveness for powers.

I don't think you'll need the -1 prerequisite. Using Convictions for Declarations like that is pretty much exactly what Guide my Hand is supposed to do, so you'll kind of remove the need for spending Fate points altogether, except for very few cases. Seems weird. I would just make "Faith moves Mountains" and "Hope springs Eternal" separate powers.

I don't mind making them separate powers. The refresh cost seems the same either way, so there's no mandate for them to be all together.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm not sure how that's the case, they've both got a general feel of "unseen forces provide benefits through faith/conviction"

The effects have little or nothing to do with each other.

+1 per scene?

Still weak. The normal exchange rate is 1 Refresh for +2. 2 Refresh for +1 is pretty bad.

If I remember the custom holy touch power correctly...

Pretty sure you don't. It does everything you've been saying you want.