Viability of Vanilla Mortals in a Multiple Wizard Game

[killking72]

For the past 3 years I've been the exclusive heavy hitting wizard in our games. Recently I decided to change it up so I created a van helsing type vanilla mortal for our submerged game. I'm just having a really damn difficult time making the adjustment. I'm curious about what the place of vanilla mortals is in high refresh games. I understand that stunts are really good and in messing around with it I've found some really broken combos with guns, but nothing even relatively close to magic. Is their place in the game to just be a jack of all trades or put all stunts into a skill and make them insanely good at that  one thing thing? It all seems kind of useless when I could've easily done some thaumaturgy or made potions and boom.

How do you make useful vanilla mortals in high refresh games?

[InFerrumVeritas]

How high of refresh are you talking about?  Submerged?  More?

Fate points are, in most cases, the way that vanilla mortals shine.  But they're tougher to play, because most wizards have an answer for it.  Thaumaturgy rules really need to be followed in regards to how long things take to do for it not to overshadow other characters' skills.

[Steed]

My understanding of how things usually go (with limited actual play experience to back it up, so I could be off-base here) is that the biggest advantage a pure mortal has is being a font of Fate Points.  They get the most each time FPs refresh and can afford to spend them a lot more freely.  Think of it like how Batman operates in the big super-fights the JLA has.  By rights, he really shouldn't even be able to survive those things, let alone be useful in them.  And yet he is.  Why?  In the Dresden/FATE system, the answer would be copious quantities, and prolific use, of Fate Points.  Superman gets mind-controlled and Batman just happens to have some kryptonite in his utility belt?  Fate Point.  Traps Bizarro in a previously unnoticed environmental hazard that takes him out of the fight?  A Fate Point put that hazard there.  Crazy action sequence that looks like it was pulled right out of the Expendables?  Make it rain Fate Points.  You mention Van Helsing, and while it's been awhile since I've watched that movie, if I'm remembering right half the stuff he pulls are good examples of things you can do with Fate Points.  You just have to get used to throwing them around like candy, because if you don't you probably will end up outdone pretty quick.

[Taran]

Wizards usually have skills in Conviction, discipline and Lore.  After that, it's probably a mixed bag...maybe some social, maybe some investigation.

As a Pure Mortal, you can pick your specialty with a few stunts you can have a lot of trappings based on one or two skills and then you save the rest for FP's.

I had a player who only took glamours in a submerged game - and nothing else.  In combat, she was mediocre - but you could never hit her.  In social conflicts and stealth, you couldn't touch her.  Despite never having the 'optimal' skill for the job, she could always boost rolls, re-roll etc..and get the job done.

And just when I think I'd get on the ropes, it would be time for a refresh and she'd have another 7 FP's to spend.

On the other hand, I'm playing a Pure Mortal who used up all his refresh on stunts.  I chose to take a niche that no-one else had(social) and boost it as best I could.  He can defend himself relatively well in combat, but really he just leaves combat to the other characters because he's got a glass jaw and can't deal any damage.

So, with that said, if you're going to use up all your refresh, pick a niche that no-one has and be really, really, really good at it.

Or go with lots of FP's and be good at one thing but overall competent at everything else.

Anyways, that's just my observation.

[Haru]

Wizards can do anything, yes, but that anything often comes at a price. Often, that price is time they have to invest for things that a mortal could do in a matter of moments. Other times the price is higher.

Look at Fool Moon. Harry summons a demon AND trades part of his name to get something that Murphy could have gotten in 5 minutes on wikipedia with no cost at all.

Add to that the capability of specializing on something and a mortal can be crazy powerful. Not as powerful as a prepared wizard, but he doesn't need a millennium to adapt to a new situation. When you play up the downsides of magic, having a pure mortal around can be a real benefit. Keep in mind that one of the downsides of magic can also be that you are going to try to solve every problem with magic, when it isn't always necessary.

Look at the writeup of Marcone. He's got no powers but he's got tons of powerful stunts that let him do all kinds of things. He's out of his depth when it comes to purely supernatural encounters, but he's got a lot of ways to prepare for that kind of thing.

Not to mention that, as long as he isn't getting taken out, the pure mortal just keeps on going. The wizard is going to blow his last load sooner rather than later and while the pure mortal might be a bit winded by then, he'll just keep going.

Then there's the whole political angle, if you want to play that up. If a wizard does something, he always represents the white council, if he wants to or not. His actions will, in the worst case, fall back onto the council. That includes having the code of hospitality forced upon yourself or the unseelie accords invoked against you. That doesn't work on a pure mortal. You might not be protected under the accords yourself, but you don't have to oblige by them necessarily either. You break those rules at your own risk, but you are far more able to do this than any of the wizards.

Add to that: thresholds. If you have to act quickly inside of a threshold, the wizards will be fairly useless until they get invited. Or if there are circles in place to diminish their power.

All in all, there are lots of ways to engage a pure mortal and have him be useful.

When it comes to high powered games, pure mortals lose out a bit, as their +2 refresh bonus tends to pale in comparison. I think I remember there being a thread about this that proposed an adaptive bonus rather than a static one. I think we agreed on something like +1 refresh bonus for every 4 refresh for a pure mortal was the number that was suggested as a good solution. I'll see if I can dig up the old thread.

Then again, you could also go "pure mortal in name only" and take up some refinement for some enchanted items. You can easily justify this by the wizards you know, they are building the stuff, you are just paying for it with your refresh, since you're the one who uses it. We did a custom power like that as well, which basically gives you enchanted item slots to fill with various items per the enchanted items rules.

[WadeL]

I've found Pure Mortals can often dominate in anything where it comes down to a contest of dice. If they're at all combat oriented, they're going to be the ones taking down the big bads half the time.

Wizards tend to dominate more in the investigation/preparation phase, since they can do things mortals can't even attempt.

A wizard with Superb discipline and Great Conviction can easily toss out like 5-10 stress against someone with, say, a Great defense roll.

I've seen a vanilla human with Superb Fists or Weapons toss out the same or significantly higher during big confrontations with a baddie. Often the baddie has an Aspect or two that can be invoked by midway through a fight, a combat oriented-mortal has a few Aspects they can probably invoke, the environment might have one, etc. And he's got the fate points to do that a couple of times sometimes.

Think of it this way - depending on your build for a wizard, he might have a bonus of like 4-10 on top of his attack roll (his Conviction in Power, plus his Power bonus and control bonus), that lasts for as long as his stress does. The pure mortal has like a 0-3 (weapon bonus), but if he's got, say 10 Fate points (it seems that mortals are reluctant to spend as much on stunts as the book says they should), that's +20 worth of bonuses he can spend as a one time boost - usually not more than +10 at a time, but it isn't hard at all in big fights to come up with 5 Aspects to invoke.

Pure Mortals will never make up for the lack of powers with stunts. Stunts help a bit, but what really evens the playing field is all the refresh they didn't spend on Powers, with that extra +2 bonus on top. Having a fat stack of fate chips means that if you pick your moments right, you'll really shine because you really can't fail at something if you've got Aspects you can relate to it. You aren't going to be consistently awesome all the time, but it does mean you'll be able to pick when you're amazingly awesome.

[Sanctaphrax]

When it comes to Contacts, Resources, knowledge, and social skills Powers don't do a whole lot. So in those areas, mortals can compete even without FP. Barring homebrew, of course.

In combat they can be impressive, but of course FP are a limited resource so that limits their staying power. Wizards are limited per scene, mortals per session, other characters hardly at all.

With lots of free Refresh and no skill slots committed to making Powers work, mortals can usually afford to pick up whatever areas of competence they want. They can specialize in multiple things, no problem.

We did a custom power like that as well, which basically gives you enchanted item slots to fill with various items per the enchanted items rules.

Link.